Chapter 197 - 197: Another Traitor
The Iron Eater Bone Artifact was one that was developing spirituality and was already bonded to Lin Fan, so it had the ability to return to his hand whenever it was thrown away from him.
It had been unsummoned once it created that crater in the ground, entering a void state that allowed it to return to Lin Fan before it was summoned once again.
Lord Yin looked at the weapon in Lin Fan's hand with a bit of fear, especially after how casual Lin Fan had looked when he released it.
After this fact set in, Lord Yin suddenly realized that he had been a fool for thinking that he could match Lin Fan if Lin Fan didn't have his weapon. The fact that he had sent out an attack on that scale so easily, it was clear that Lin Fan was still holding back.
If he wasn't careful, he might not be able to escape with his life today.
Or to put it in other words, if he didn't have the rare laws of shadow, there wouldn't be a chance for him to escape.
Yin Zi was shocked when she saw that Lord Yin was injured.
From her understanding of Lord Yin, she had always regarded him as a supreme expert. But now he was being beaten by this kid who was much younger than her. This was something that completely subverted her world views.
Yin Zi quickly overcame her shock since the fear of death quickly came over her. As someone who was trained in a family of assassins, she had always lived on the edge of death and had learned to prioritize her own life above all else.
Now that the situation was bad, she could only do what she could to survive.
Yin Zi came to Lord Yin's side and supported him by the arm as she asked, "Lord Yin, are you alright?"
Lord Yin turned to the side and spat out a mouthful of blood. He was about to swat her away, but then he thought better of it as he put his arm around her, picking her up.
Yin Zi was surprised and said, "Lord Yin, what are you doing?"
Lord Yin just said, "Be quiet, we're leaving."
Then the black pool that had appeared when he arrived appeared again.
The darkness of the black pool came up and surrounded Lord Yin and Yin Zi.
This was another one of the special powers of the laws of shadow. They were entering the shadow realm again, but they were using it to quickly move a large distance instead of dodging an attack.
Angela raised her hand and gathered her wind when she saw this, but Lin Fan raised his hand to stop her.
Lord Yin saw this and he gave a laugh before saying, "I can tell that you are a smart person, you know when to hold back. You should already be able to tell what kind of trump card we have, so I can give you another chance. As long as you wish to cooperate with us, we can forget about everything that has happened and we can still work together. I hope that you can seriously consider this."
Once he was finished with his speech, the darkness from the black hole completely swallowed Lord Yin and Yin Zi, bringing them into the ground and disappearing from in front of everyone else.
The other geniuses naturally hadn't done a thing because they knew that they couldn't have done a thing. The other side was an expert that was in the peak Platinum Realm and they were all only in the Gold Realm.
Just like the gap between the Platinum Realm and the Legendary Realm, those in the peak Platinum Realm mastered their laws to an extent that those in the Gold Realm couldn't even face them.
Lin Fan on the other hand had other plans, which was why he had let Lord Yin and Yin Zi escape.
He could have easily killed them or captured them, but there was an easier way for him to get information.
Right before Yin Zi had left, Lin Fan had been certain to leave a seed in her.
This wasn't the same tracking seed as before, this was a true parasite seed that was fully grown. Brainy had the ability to take over that seed whenever it wanted…
Compared to just torturing them for information, it was much easier to get information this way.
Not to mention that there was still one more thing to take care of before searching for the Beast Clan.
A few minutes after Lord Yin left with Yin Zi, the young geniuses let out a sigh of relief. They all knew that he was someone that they couldn't face and if Lin Fan wasn't here, they would have definitely died.
The most important thing was that Lord Yin was a Beast Clan member that had taken human form.
Normally for a beast to take human form, they had to reach the King Beast Realm first. There were also some beasts that couldn't take human form after reaching the King Beast Realm, but those were beasts with monstrous amounts of power that couldn't be condensed into human form, they were not things that people like them could even dream of meeting.
But they immediately threw this thought away for the sake of their own mental states.
If his Lord Yin had been a King Beast that had transformed into human form, that meant that Lin Fan was someone in the Legendary Realm if he was able to chase this Lord Yin away.
Just that thought terrified them and was something they could never accept. This man who was even younger than them, if he really was a Legendary Realm Expert, that would just completely destroy their confidence. That was why they would never accept that fact.
They immediately put Lord Yin in the category of special beasts that could take human form before reaching the King Beast Realm, which was correct.
Lord Yin was a special beast that had the ability to shapeshift, allowing him to take his current form.
After they finally came back to their senses, the others gathered around Lin Fan since they now completely viewed him as their leader.
For them, this was supposed to be just a training expedition, but now there was one person dead, one person missing, and one person who was seriously injured. Not only that, they were also now caught up in a plot by the Beast Clan.
If they didn't have someone as powerful as Lin Fan backing them, they might not be able to leave this planar crack alive.
Yue Jin once again led them since they all knew now that he was the second strongest person other than Lin Fan, so he had more rights to speak.
Yue Jin came over and said, "Brother Lin, should we leave the planar crack and report this? There's nothing to gain if we were to stay here, so we should go back and bring more reinforcements. This is a matter that will affect the future of the Blue Star Planet, so we can't be careless about this."
Lin Fan looked at him and said with a faint smile, "You're free to leave if you want to, or rather if you're able to. I still have things to do here."
Yue Jin knit his brows when he heard this and he asked, "Brother Lin, what do you mean by that?"
Lin Fan had the same relaxed look as he said, "Do you really think that they would let you leave that easily? It's clear that they've been watching us the whole time with how they kidnapped that girl, so why would they let us leave to expose their plan?"
Once he said this, there was a chill that ran down their backs as they realized that Lin Fan was completely right.
They had been operating under the assumption that they could retreat at any time, but thinking about it now, these people were stronger than them and they were operating in secret, so why would they let them escape and expose them? It was clear that they would trap them in here to kill them off or bring them to their side, like in the case with Lin Fan.
Once that thought was on their mind, they immediately tried to move closer to Lin Fan, but he raised his hand to stop them.
Lin Fan said, "Before all of you start thinking that you can rely on me, I can tell you now that there's still a traitor among us. Like I said before, I will give that person until tomorrow morning to come forward about themselves and I will show them mercy. If they still don't come forward after that, they shouldn't blame me for being ruthless."
After saying that, he turned around and headed back into the camp, leaving them standing there looking stunned.
But after a while, they came back to their senses and looked around at each other with cautious gazes.
Lin Fan had been right about everything previously, then he must be right about this as well. If there was still a traitor among them after all of this, just who could they trust?
Eventually, they all gave up and went their separate ways back to camp.
During the night, nothing else had happened, but no one was able to get a good night's sleep, especially the traitor.
They had seen what Lin Fan had done to the other traitor, they had also seen what Lin Fan had done to Lord Yin. If they didn't expose themselves, they might not be able to escape from here alive.
So the next morning, another surprise came.