Chapter 62: Seeking the Truth

No matter how furious he was, for the moment, there was nothing he could do about the assassins.

The leader of the assassins, seeing this, shouted in a loud voice, “Keep going, fire at will!”

Lin Hao immediately moved the protective barrier downward toward the ground.

Once again, the arrows came flying at him.

Thunderous crashes resounded.

Raising the strange fire in his hand, Lin Hao collided head-on with their attacks.

For a short while, he managed to suppress them.

Just as they were about to reach the ground, the leader of the assassins suddenly leapt from the airship.

“Prepare to die!” he cried, sword in hand, flying straight at Lin Hao’s protective barrier.

Lin Hao hurriedly maneuvered the barrier.

But if he dodged one side, he couldn’t avoid the other. The assassins’ arrows were simply too many, and Lin Hao also had to protect the elders and the others.

He was stretched too thin.

In a moment of inattention, there was a sharp clang—the protective shield Lin Hao had set up shattered.

There was no time to save the elder and Wu Wen; in an instant, they were severely injured by an explosion and fell to the ground.

Lin Hao cried out, “Senior Brother!”

He directed the Swallowing Cloud Sword to fly toward the place where they fell, but his speed was no match for their rapid descent.

By the time Lin Hao landed, he saw that Wu Wen and the others had already crashed to the ground. Checking their breath, he found not a trace of life in any of them.

Grief and hatred overwhelmed Lin Hao, his eyes brimming with tears, the rims reddening.

Whoever said men do not shed tears had simply never been truly heartbroken.

The tears in Lin Hao’s eyes welled up and finally spilled to the ground!

“Elder, Senior Brother!” Lin Hao wailed in anguish.

All of this had been aimed at him, yet he had dragged the Qingfeng Sect into disaster, causing his fellow disciples and elders to pay with their lives.

While Lin Hao was immersed in grief, the assassins all landed and surrounded him.

Laying down the bodies of the elder and his senior brother, Lin Hao picked up his sword and stood, hatred etched across his face, an aura of the devil radiating from him.

His gaze swept over the black-clad figures as if he were looking at the walking dead.

“You will all die!”

“Blazing Sparks!”

With a sweep of the Swallowing Cloud Sword, the sky instantly turned black.

A dragon’s roar thundered, sending the assassins into a panic as they attacked Lin Hao.

But now, Lin Hao was the sole light amidst the darkness. From the Swallowing Cloud Sword emerged a fire dragon, wrapping itself around both the sword and Lin Hao.

Raising his weapon high, Lin Hao’s eyes flashed with resolve. “Die!”

He swung both hands.

Dragons roared again and again as the fire dragon surged toward the assassins.

In a flash, the screams of the assassins echoed just like those of the Qingfeng Sect moments before.

Everything touched by the fire dragon was reduced to ashes; the assassins left nothing behind, not even a corpse.

The leader of the assassins, singed and battered, fled in all directions.

After about five minutes, the fire dragon gradually dissipated, and light returned to the sky.

Lin Hao stood on the ground, looking at the remaining assassins, his face set with determination.

Yet in his heart, he asked, “System, is there any way I can escape?”

His spiritual energy was nearly exhausted; the Blazing Sparks technique had consumed almost everything he had, and five minutes had been his limit. Yet not all the assassins were dead.

Lin Hao could only turn to the system for help.

“There is a transfer talisman in your inventory, Host. It can instantly transport you to another region,” the system’s voice sounded in his mind.

Though Lin Hao longed to slaughter these assassins, he could not break through their special weapons for now and could not overcome them at the moment. He could only seek to escape first and deal with the rest later.

He committed the faces of these assassins to memory. One day, he would make them pay in blood.

“Alright, system, I’m ready. When I say the word, activate the transfer talisman for me.” Lin Hao spoke to the system.

“Understood, Host,” the system replied.

Lin Hao gathered all the spiritual energy in his hands into the Swallowing Cloud Sword and closed his eyes, sensing the movements of the assassins around him.

Seeing him like this, the assassins hesitated, curiosity restraining them from acting immediately.

But the leader, wary, raised his hand and commanded resolutely, “Kill him.”

As his order fell, Lin Hao’s eyes snapped open. With a tap of his toe, he soared into the air.

“Scarlet Inferno!” he shouted.

A raging inferno swept toward the assassins, setting them ablaze instantly, their screams piercing the sky.

Witnessing this, Lin Hao shouted from above, “Remember, I will come back for you, and you will pay the price!”

In his heart he said to the system, “Activate the transfer talisman.”

With a swoosh, Lin Hao vanished.

In the air, only his echo lingered.

On the ground, the assassins had no time to care about Lin Hao; in an instant, half their number was reduced to ashes by the flames.

After extinguishing the fire on himself, the leader of the assassins glared resentfully in the direction Lin Hao had disappeared.

Then, in a venomous voice, he addressed those still standing, “Everyone, search everywhere! I refuse to believe he’s gone far! Find him and kill him! That is our mission—if we fail, all of us will be punished.”

With his orders, the others straightened and grew serious.

They began to search the area where Lin Hao had vanished, leaving no stone unturned.

The leader also sent word back to Elder Zhou.

At that moment, Elder Zhou was in his study, writing. Upon receiving news from his subordinate, he was furious, crushing his pen in his hand. He had not expected that after all this, Lin Hao was still alive.

“Tell them, if they do not return with Lin Hao’s head, they need not return at all!” he instructed coldly.

At the same time, news of the attack on the Qingfeng Sect’s airship and the destruction of the elders’ and disciples’ soul lamps reached the Qinghe Sect.

Among them, Qingyun’s face was ashen as he saw that Lin Hao’s soul lamp still burned, giving him some small comfort.

But with nearly everyone else sent out having perished, Qingyun was deeply alarmed. Who could have done this?

He immediately reported the matter to his master.

The sect leader promptly summoned all the elders.

In the great hall—

“Qingyun, share the news you just received with the elders,” the sect leader said gravely.

The elders exchanged anxious glances.

“What could have happened?”

“I don’t know, what’s going on?”

Murmurs rippled through the crowd below.

Elder Zhou, seeing this, allowed a smug smile to curl his lips, his eyes gleaming with twisted satisfaction.

Qingyun, observing the elders’ reactions, noted that only Elder Zhou appeared anything but bewildered.

He frowned, eyeing him with suspicion.

Elder Zhou, sensing Qingyun’s sharp gaze, wiped the smile from his face but met Qingyun’s look with open provocation.

“Qingyun!” the sect leader called out, noticing Qingyun’s silent stare at Elder Zhou and his troubled expression.

“Yes, Master.” Qingyun snapped out of it and bowed.

“Everyone, all those we sent to Tianyu Mountain have been killed!” Qingyun announced to the assembly.

“What?!”

The hall erupted in chaos.

Qingyun went on to report all the details he had uncovered, sparking a flurry of speculation.

Some claimed other sects were responsible; others suspected a secret plot.

Rumors flew in all directions.

But in the end, no consensus was reached; they could only send people to investigate.

After the meeting, Elder Zhou approached Qingyun with feigned concern. “Don’t worry, Lin Hao is blessed with great fortune—he probably survived.”

“Is that what a Qingfeng Sect elder should be saying? Lin Hao saved everyone from the Qingfeng Sect who went to Tianyu Mountain—he is one of our greatest contributors. Such a tragedy is something none of us wish to see. Do you find it amusing? Do you think the senseless death of our sect’s disciples is a cause for celebration?” Qingyun’s face darkened, and his voice rose, exposing Elder Zhou’s glee.

Others, hearing this confrontation, immediately fell silent, watching the two intently.

Elder Zhou, embarrassed at being called out so bluntly in front of everyone, flushed red and pale by turns. Pointing at Qingyun, he retorted, “How could you say such things? Even if you are the sect leader’s disciple, you shouldn’t slander an elder like this. I am your senior—do you intend to defy the hierarchy?”

“Hmph, you’d do well to remember you are still an elder of the Qingfeng Sect.” Qingyun walked up to Elder Zhou, speaking with heavy meaning, a glint of menace in his eyes.

Inwardly, he thought: Old man, if you weren’t an elder of the Qingfeng Sect, your head would have rolled long ago. You had better pray this has nothing to do with you.

Lin Hao radiated an air of displeasure that everyone could feel.

Elder Zhou, for his part, looked back at Qingyun with a provocative smugness, as if to say: What are you going to do? If you have proof, bring it forth.

He declared with righteous indignation, “Of course, as an elder, I am deeply grieved by this tragedy. But no one knows how this disaster started. Perhaps Lin Hao offended someone from another sect and brought this upon us. If that’s the case, I hope you won’t shield him, Qingyun.”

Even now, Elder Zhou did not miss a chance to smear Lin Hao, blaming everything on him.

“Naturally. The Qingfeng Sect will not tolerate any traitors! Hmph.” Qingyun snorted coldly, casting Elder Zhou a meaningful look.

He turned and left, unwilling to waste more words.

Back in his own quarters, he immediately sent people to search for Lin Hao.

Meanwhile, Elder Zhou increased his own efforts, both to cover his tracks and to hunt for Lin Hao in secret.

“We must kill him. He absolutely cannot be allowed to return to the Qingfeng Sect alive,” Elder Zhou ordered his men.