"What do I do?" Yang Qing wondered as his Dao mark drew closer to him. He couldn't risk deploying his palace sense for risk of alerting that party who may likely be on high alert since stepping into the Order's grounds.
Even if the Scarlet Blood Ghost Hands were skilled at blending in, it didn't mean they didn't find it unnerving when they crawled into the belly of certain beasts, especially a beast that has been gradually hunting their members all over the continent for the past 500 years.
"Why did they risk to come here though? Even if it's to keep up appearances, isn't this a little too risky?" thought Yang Qing.
This was the real reason when he detected the Dao mark he completely overlooked the person Feng Xin had clashed with. He couldn't understand why a palace realm who definitely knew about Dao markings would come here of all places, where the person he had just clashed with a week ago, was present.
However, Yang Qing had overlooked a few things in his thought process. For one no sane person would imbue their Dao markings to a talisman for someone else to use, like the way he did for Feng Xin and it was for obvious reasons, one of them being the talisman could be unstable or when the attack art stored within it was released there was a chance it may attack both the user and the attacker at the same time.
Had Feng Xin not triggered a bunch of talismans at the same time creating a chaos storm, his palace realm attacker may have noticed something off with those talismans if he wasn't fighting for dear life at the time. The Chaos turned out to be an advantage along with the absurde notion that had been accepted of Dao markings causing instability to talismans.
Other than that, there were other factors at play on why the supposed Scarlet blood ghost hands member would risk coming here, and one of them was depth of understanding of Dao. While a palace realm expert would know about Dao markings since they too would have their own markings, the ability of one palace realm expert to sense another palace expert's Dao markings depended on the abilities between the two in terms of cultivation base and also their understanding of Dao.
If there was disparity between the two then it would be difficult for the weaker party to detect the Dao markings of the stronger party.
Yang Qing had more than likely made an unconscious judgement that that palace realm expert was on the same level as him if not stronger, seeing how he managed to escape his triggered talismans.
...
In the midst of debating what to do, Yang Qing saw Feng Xin with his silly grin waving over as he pointed at someone in the incoming guests. Yang Qing froze as his mind went blank from shock, thinking stupid Feng Xin had just given up everything with his pointing even before he had a moment to decide on what to do next.
Yang Qing unconsciously readied himself to attack which made the the guest standing next to him tremble in fear because he was close enough to feel abit of Yang Qing's leaking battle intent.
It was only when Yang Qing realized that Feng Xin was pointing toward the King of White Baobab Kingdom, did he calm down but not before sending an angry glare towards Feng Xin.
...
"Judge Yang Qing what is wrong?"
Just as Yang Qing was about to apologize to his guest for startling him, he heard Liang Wen's voice in his mind.
"I sensed battle intent coming from you," added Liang Wen when he sensed Yang Qing's confusion.
Other than welcoming guests who were from rank 2 organizations and above, he had been closely monitoring Yang Qing and it wasn't only him, a few of the senior members of the external affairs department also kept an eye on Yang Qing as they did their duties.
"I sensed someone ahead has my Dao markings on them and I suspect they are a member of the Scarlet blood ghost hands syndicate," said Yang Qing.
"Are you sure?" asked Liang Wen.
"I am."
Yang Qing went on to explain his line of thought on why he felt there were high chances, his guess was right.
Liang Wen went silent for a while, to which Yang Qing didn't know if it was because he was thinking about what they should do next or because he was sharing the information with the other Order members around.
"Senior Blue Universe, senior Veiled Destiny can you help me with something?" asked Yang Qing.
He used the token he was given to assimilate them, as a conduit for a three-way of communication.
"Senior Cocoon, I'd appreciate your help too, if you can?" Yang Qing added after some hesitation.
Yang Qing's eyes lit up when he felt their spirit signatures register in his mental sea.
"What is it?" asked Veiled Destiny
"Can you sense if someone is hiding their real selves either by changing their whole body's constitution or even hiding their karma?" asked Yang Qing.
Members of the scarlet blood ghost hands had all sorts of measures of hiding themselves, one of them being isolating their karma, otherwise with the Order's means they would have long since been tracked.
If the person he suspected had a way to hide his karma even from a Saint-grade artifact such as Veiled Destiny that was skilled in that regard, it would serve to highlight that the person had a powerful background much higher than their supposed rank 3 background.
"Senior Veiled Destiny you can check the karma,
Senior Blue Universe you can check if he is using any other cultivation art to hide himself,
, and Senior Cocoon could you please tell me if you sense something off in the person, if he has a certain aura to him, like the kind you'd find in someone whose slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people."
While he had only interacted with them briefly, he did manage to develop a sense of their capabilities when he met them for the first time in that dome hallway, the synchronization that happened after, further solidified his guesses.
Veiled Destiny was the most obvious since its strong suit was literally in its description which was an intimate familiarity with the workings of Karma, when it came to Blue Universe, the fact he could block the full-blown attack of a soul master and ensure Yang Qing's safety meant he had a profound understanding of the different type of Daos, to the point he could instantly counter them, otherwise, it would be difficult to guarantee unilateral protection against all attacks as long as they were from someone who was at the soul master level and below.
As for Green Cocoon, while she was the one shrouded in the densest fog of mystery, to Yang Qing she was the one he felt intimately familiar with, which he didn't know was because of her dense life aura or was it something else. Of the three saint-grade artifacts, when it came to investigating the suspected Scarlet blood ghost hands member, he felt Green Cocoon would have better-defining results than even Veiled Destiny. The reason for that guess was because of his own experience with his Yin Yang jade bones, which made him extremely sensitive to specific types of qi that were antagonistic to the attributes of his physique. An example of such qi was either dense slaughter qi that was doused in resentment, or corpse qi. He felt Green Cocoon with such a dense vitality aura to her, was more than likely sensitive to such things as well, to an even higher degree than him since she was more powerful.
...
"Fine." the three saint-grade artifacts all agreed to his request.
"Judge Yang Qing, I've discussed with a few members of the external affairs department and the Eagle Guard division on how we should proceed, and we have agreed to its better to seek Assistant Director Feng Lei's opinion on the matter since the Special Inquisitors are better suited for this sort of thing. What do you think?"
"So he is the assistant director?" muttered Yang Qing as he cast a sneaking glance in the direction of the slovenly dressed middle-aged man who had on red robes and was accompanied by an otherworldly charm.
"I don't mind Assistant Head, Liang Wen. I was planning on doing just that, but please inform him with haste because the person with my Dao markings is the third person next in line. His name is Ai Shan, I think, and he is the current sect master of the Flying feather sword sect," said Yang Qing.
Liang Wen turned his gaze to the mentioned person. It was a middle-aged man with a slightly stern expression that had his hair tied into a ponytail that had a few white streaks that added a mature charm to it. His robes were sky blue and had white cloud patterns embroidered on the sleeves and back. At his waist were two swords that were in a blue scabbard and had sword guards that were in the shape of feathers.
From the way he carried himself, one would least likely suspect him to be part of a dark organization like the Scarlet Blood Ghost Hands. He was currently instructing one of his disciples like a dutiful sect master showing him around, unaware that over 10 domain experts had placed him within their sights, three saint-grade experts, and soon, a soul formation expert skilled in hunting organizations like theirs.
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