Chapter 524 - 317: Blood Sea, Bombshell (Part 2)

Chapter 524: Chapter 317: Blood Sea, Bombshell (Part 2)

But who knew? This stubborn man believed Sima Hong had been framed. That, coupled with the old man’s dying manipulation, saddled Yan Sea with the god-awful task of finding a successor.

So, Yan Sea left Su Yue behind and fled to a remote county, holing up there for a full decade. His Frenzied Blood Spirit was about to drive him mad when he finally met someone with cheat-like abilities like Yu Fei.

Su Yue was just as stubborn, watching Yan Sea from a distance for ten years. If not for Yu Fei, those two would have undoubtedly come to a tragic end.

Unfortunately, just as their careers and love lives were rekindling and everything seemed to be heading in the best possible direction, they were once again played by that old schemer, Ye Shuping.

Yan Sea must have been undergoing extreme mental torment. Now, he’s completely shut down.

He couldn’t let go of his debt to Sima Hong, and as a result, he dragged Su Yue into a near-death crisis. The Cultivation Technique backlash, the self-doubt, the internal turmoil... his heart has turned to dead ashes.

"Sigh..."

Yan Sea’s face was haggard, his eyes lifeless.

All the misery he was suffering today had little to do with Yan Sea himself.

Because he was honest and diligent, strong-willed and unwilling to admit defeat—in other words, stubborn yet sensitive—he was easily manipulated first by Sima Hong, and then by Ye Shuping.

’Old Master, if something really happens to Yan Sea, how are you going to explain it to me?’

Yu Fei’s gaze was deep and dark. He couldn’t understand Ye Shuping’s motives. Everything had been moving in a positive direction, so why do this?

He asked himself: ’Has the Old Master been good to me?’

He’d been treated better than he could have ever hoped. And yet, in his heart, Yu Fei always felt a little uneasy about the old man. He couldn’t say why. It was just a gut feeling.

Take now, for instance. Why target Yan Sea out of the blue? Mr. Yan had lived such a difficult life, only to be struck down overnight and left half-dead, all because of some casual whim of Ye Shuping’s.

After a moment of thought, he tried to connect with Yan Sea’s consciousness through their mental network, but he failed.

But this wasn’t a case of the other party refusing to communicate. The best analogy was that the signal was simply too weak to establish a connection.

After a moment’s thought, he decided to try a different approach.

A crimson-gold light then ignited in his eyes as he activated the Void Clearing Mirror. His voice, though deep, carried a peculiar resonance as he spoke to Yan Sea, enunciating every single word.

The Pupil Technique of Soul Capturing inherently possessed the power of spiritual invasion. The Sound Wave Martial Skill, Thunder Tiger Celestial Sound, could rattle a target’s very soul. And the Void Clearing Mirror was the foundation for establishing a mental network.

Yu Fei planned to combine these abilities—all of which operated on different principles but had similar effects—to force his way into Yan Sea’s spiritual world.

In the path of martial arts, the cultivation style becomes far more metaphysical starting from the breakthrough from Gang Qi Perfection to the Grandmaster realm.

With his state of mind having collapsed, even if Yu Fei cured Su Yue this very moment and got them both out of here, Yan Sea would remain in this half-dead, desolate state. He was trapped in a spiritual prison of his own making.

Internal turmoil and self-doubt, which had spiraled into a complete rejection of his own life, were the cause of his gradual descent into this catatonic state. To pull him out, a channel of communication had to be established first.

Yu Fei used his Sword Intent as a probe, retaining its keen perceptiveness while stripping away its sharp edge. Suddenly, he entered Yan Sea’s spiritual world.

The sight that met his eyes made him shudder.

Yan Sea’s spiritual form was being engulfed by a sea of blood. Within that sea, a vicious blood dragon had coiled around him, constricting him. It opened its cavernous, bloody maw, fangs bared, ready to devour him. And yet, this blood dragon originated from Yan Sea’s own heart—their fates were intertwined.

The fruits of Yan Sea’s Buddhist cultivation had manifested as a lotus platform beneath his feet, but it was riddled with cracks, its glow faint and dim.

Yu Fei instantly understood: the moment that lotus platform shattered would be the moment Yan Sea died.

"Teacher!"

As Yu Fei’s voice rang out, Yan Sea’s form trembled slightly, but he remained as deathly still as a statue.

’This is trouble!’

In a situation like this, Yu Fei knew that simple persuasion would be useless. After a moment of contemplation, he decided to resort to drastic measures.

And so, he began to speak, as if to himself.

"Teacher, I found out the truth about Sima Hong’s death two years ago!"

Sima Hong was a figure who weighed heavily on Yan Sea’s heart. He had been a mentor who taught him everything he knew, and their bond was like that of a father and son. For someone like Yan Sea, who had grown up starved of affection, this trust was absolute. But it was also the beginning of his tragedy.

As Yu Fei dropped this bombshell, a flicker of emotion disturbed the stillness in Yan Sea’s eyes—a look of confusion and disbelief.

Yu Fei continued, "The one behind Sima Hong’s death was Ye Shuping—the Headmaster of Shenhan University, a Martial Saint who ascended two hundred years ago!"

"And he is also my current teacher!"

BOOM!

The sea of blood erupted. A boundless storm raged through Yan Sea’s spiritual world. The blood dragon, already so arrogant and domineering, became even more savage.

But Yan Sea’s own spiritual form remained unmoved; the cracks on the lotus platform merely deepened.

It seemed a man beaten into total withdrawal had given up on everything, no longer caring even for the truth he had once so desperately sought.

Yu Fei fell silent for a moment before voicing his own suspicion.

"I suspect Sima Hong isn’t dead!"

Not dead...

His voice, amplified by the Thunder Tiger Celestial Sound, echoed throughout Yan Sea’s spiritual world.

This news seemed to trigger a chain reaction. The cracks on the lotus platform spread faster, yet at the same time, they began to slowly mend.

Yu Fei had once believed Sima Hong was long dead, but there were two nagging inconsistencies he could never explain.

First, there was the remnant will of Sima Hong that had lingered within the Primordial Qi Sword Lotus Seed during his own advancement.

The Martial Arts Extraordinary World wasn’t like the fantasies depicted in those cultivation novels.

Martial Artists vied with fate itself; when they died, they were simply dead. There was no such thing as a remnant soul left behind. He had come to understand this point only after poring over countless ancient texts and receiving Ye Shuping’s tutelage on the martial classics.

Initially, he had merely suspected that Sima Hong might have been a special case, but after some subtle probing on his part, Ye Shuping had flatly denied the possibility.

The only beings capable of persisting as remnant souls were the likes of those legendary, untouchable Evil Gods.

Second was the matter of the broken Cyan Lotus Sword. Yu Fei had a habit of keeping his old armaments, especially those that had been damaged or destroyed in battle.

The broken Cyan Lotus Sword, the ironwood sword from his early training, the Profound Scale Armor from his Martial Uncle Chen Yu—he kept them all.

He had originally assumed the Cyan Lotus Sword had been broken by Di Yunliang because its material quality had degraded as he consumed the Sword Intent stored within it.

But the longer he cultivated and the higher his realm grew, the more he handled the broken sword. He came to realize that while its quality did indeed diminish as the Sword Intent was consumed, there was no way it could have been destroyed by a worthless scrub like Di Yunliang.

Furthermore, he had already formed a blood bond with the sword by then. If it were to break, he should have received a spiritual warning. Yet the Cyan Lotus Sword had snapped with shocking suddenness. And the break itself was perfectly smooth. If it had been shattered by brute force, the fracture point could never have been so clean. It was illogical.

Who could make a blood-bound weapon break silently at the most critical moment, betraying its master?

Unless... the sword’s true master had appeared.

The Cyan Lotus Sword had contained three traces of Sima Hong’s Sword Intent—and extremely high-quality ones at that. Yu Fei’s so-called ’victory’ over that Sword Intent now seemed highly suspicious.

To put it simply, if he himself were to leave behind just a sliver of the essence of his Returning Ruins Realm Sword, there is no way a complete novice who had just stepped onto the martial path could ever hope to contend with it. Not unless there was some other purpose behind the whole affair.

His own realm was, in essence, still the Gang Qi Realm. Sima Hong, on the other hand, was rumored to be a Grandmaster capable of trading blows with a Martial Saint.

The Yu Fei of today could already handle an ordinary Grandmaster. But if he were to face a Martial Saint, he’d be flattened in an instant.

This just went to show how absurdly powerful Sima Hong was. Even the most talented prodigies among Martial Artists couldn’t accomplish such a feat.

Sima Hong, a Grandmaster said to have risen from commoner origins through bitter cultivation, possessed strength comparable to the Grandmasters of the Seven Combat Divisions. This was exceedingly strange!

Therefore, Yu Fei concluded that Sima Hong was not dead.

But this created another glaring inconsistency regarding the events in Tianning County all those years ago.

Why would Sima Hong break the Cyan Lotus Sword and leave Yu Fei to die? And when Di Yunliang failed to kill him, why didn’t the Grandmaster deliver the finishing blow himself?

A Grandmaster doesn’t have the ability to kill someone from a thousand miles away. That meant when the Illuminati attacked the city, he must have been somewhere nearby!

The deeper he delved, the more convoluted and mysterious the whole affair became.

Originally, he had planned to wait until he was strong enough, then follow the clues left in the Cyan Lotus Sword to find that old monster—who was likely still alive—and demand an explanation.

But given Yan Sea’s current state, Yu Fei had no choice but to drop these bombshells.

Sure enough, at the news that Sima Hong was still alive, Yan Sea’s spirit began to stir faintly.

’Sigh...’ Yu Fei felt so bad for Su Yue. ’At the end of the day, it seems Sima Hong is his one true love!’

’Seriously, what on earth did Madam Su Yue see in Yan Sea? A great prodigy of Chongming, utterly infatuated with a poor country boy, willing to go through hell and back for him.’

’Truth really is stranger than fiction.’

Seeing Yan Sea’s spirit beginning to recover, Yu Fei decided to hit him with one last bombshell.

"I am in the Gang Qi Realm now. I can slay an 8th-rank Yuan Demon. Sima Hong may not be dead!

But... in the future, I will be the one to kill him!"