Chapter 2360: Chapter 2360 Shocking Moment
At that moment, the patrol squad had already arrived at the inn. They were questioning the Songstress and checking her identity. When Ye Liuyun returned, he explained that he had gone after the martial practitioners, but failed to catch them.
"They were all cloaked in black robes. I couldn’t see their faces, so I have no idea who they were."
Ye Liuyun added, deliberately withholding the truth from the patrol officers.
The patrol didn’t press further. They simply asked a few routine questions and proceeded to collect the corpses from the two adjacent rooms.
Lately, incidents involving assassinations of tournament participants had become increasingly common. They were no longer surprised and could easily guess that some powerful faction was behind it.
To avoid trouble, they chose not to get involved. Without solid evidence or catching someone in the act, they didn’t dare to accuse anyone. So, they were preparing to withdraw under the pretext of finding no suspects.
Just then, intense battle sounds and surges of genuine energy erupted from Hong Kun’s residence.
"Another incident?" The patrol captain sighed helplessly before immediately leading his men toward the scene.
None of them wanted to get involved in battles between martial practitioners, but they had no choice.
The commotion was indeed caused by the assassins sent by Ye Liuyun’s clone.
Initially, everything went smoothly. The assassins silently took out several martial practitioners without raising any alarms. But as they neared Hong Kun’s residence, the Formation surrounding it suddenly activated.
Two assassins were caught inside. If the clone hadn’t been delayed by capturing a martial practitioner and storing him in the Spatial World, he himself might have been trapped within the Formation.
Left with no other option, the clone abandoned the assassination attempt on Hong Kun. He instead led the group in a coordinated strike on the Formation, blasting open a gap and rescuing the two trapped assassins.
By then, the clone had already seen Hong Kun and his son. But concerned that the inner compound might be protected by layered Formations, he didn’t dare get any closer.
He considered using his white light attack to kill them from afar. However, he realized that even if they died, he wouldn’t be able to retrieve their Interspatial Rings. Worse, he’d risk exposing his unique ability. It simply wasn’t worth the trade.
So, he decisively retreated and had the others scatter, temporarily letting Hong Kun off the hook.
Hong Kun and his son had narrowly escaped danger. After the assassins fled, they immediately activated the estate’s outer Formation. The entire manor was soon enveloped in protective barriers.
When the patrol squad arrived, Hong Kun refused to let them inside. Instead, he sent a servant to inform them that the manor had been attacked by men in black, and ordered them to pursue the culprits.
The patrol team could only agree politely and take their leave.
As for actually finding the assassins—those men were long gone. There was no point in chasing shadows.
"Who would dare make a move against me?" Hong Kun knew the patrols would never catch the assassins. At this moment, he began pondering silently to himself.
He mentally reviewed all the powerful factions capable of sending so many skilled warriors, yet he never once thought of Ye Liuyun.
He had already received news of Ye Liuyun’s side failing. It was reported by the martial practitioner who managed to escape.
However, he no longer dared to send more men after Ye Liuyun. If he did, there would be no experts left in the estate to protect him.
Those clone had wiped out more than twenty of his subordinates in a single strike. Including the ones sent after Ye Liuyun, over twenty men had been deployed in total. His losses that day were immense.
"We can’t afford to make another move. Everything rests on you tomorrow." Hong Kun said to Hong Feng.
“Don’t worry, dad. I’m confident I can take care of that little girl." Hong Feng replied with certainty.
"Good," Hong Kun nodded, then added in a low voice, "If you can’t win, use poison."
"I thought the same. I’ve already prepared everything," Hong Feng replied with a confident smirk.
Before the tournament, Hong Kun had specially provided him with a deadly poison powder. He instructed him to use it if he ever encountered a formidable opponent, especially someone too difficult to defeat head-on.
However, Hong Feng’s matches had all gone smoothly so far. His own strength was considerable. Even when he faced powerful opponents, they had already been dealt with by Hong Kun behind the scenes. These opponents would intentionally lose to him, so he had never needed to resort to poison.
Now, the poison was concealed inside a folding fan. With a simple flick, the nearly invisible powder would scatter into the air, silently poisoning anyone nearby. As for himself, he only needed to take the antidote before the match to remain unaffected.
Meanwhile, Ye Liuyun compensated the innkeeper with a generous amount of Spirit Crystals. The man was overjoyed, no longer concerned about the damage done to the inn. He even arranged a better room for Ye Liuyun and his group.
No one came to investigate during the second half of the night. They rested undisturbed until dawn.
When morning came, Ye Liuyun brought the Songstress to the competition venue.
But just as they were about to arrive, Ye Liuyun suddenly sensed a killing intent from within the crowd.
"There’s an assassin nearby."
Ye Liuyun was far too familiar with the aura of a professional killer.
The killing intent of an assassin was completely different from that of an ordinary martial practitioner preparing to strike. It was subtle, nearly imperceptible.
The fact that he could sense it meant the assassin was already very close.
Regret stirred within him. He had been too focused on Hong Kun and had overlooked the lingering threat of Stygian’s assigned hit. This assassin must have come from another branch of Stygian to carry out the mission.
He immediately warned the Songstress and released his Divine Sense. At the same time, his Golden Phantom Eyes scanned the surrounding crowd for any sign of the threat.
During large-scale tournaments like this, the area surrounding the arena was always packed with people. Trying to locate an assassin in such a dense crowd was no easy task.
Before Ye Liuyun could pinpoint the attacker, he suddenly sensed a Divine Soul swiftly invading the Songstress’s Ocean of Consciousness.
"D*mn it!"
His heart sank. Within the Divine Soul realm, time passed at an incredibly accelerated rate. Even though he had noticed it now, he feared he might already be too late to rescue Songstress.
But just as he was about to send his own Divine Soul to intervene, the intruding Divine Soul suddenly retreated on its own.
Without hesitation, Ye Liuyun gave chase, his Divine Soul following it straight into the Ocean of Consciousness of a seemingly ordinary martial practitioner within the crowd.
There, he discovered that the person’s Divine Soul had been severely wounded. It could barely resist. In moments, Ye Liuyun successfully imprinted a Slaving Seal upon it.
Afterward, he immediately withdrew his Divine Soul from the man’s Ocean of Consciousness. The Songstress quickly told him what happened. Just moments earlier, she had used the Soul-Crushing Tactic to strike back, severely injuring the enemy’s Divine Soul.
"Whew..."
Ye Liuyun exhaled in relief, thankful that he had entrusted Songstress with those two techniques beforehand. That ambush had truly startled him.
The surrounding crowd had stirred briefly in confusion. Many martial practitioners could tell something had occurred. But order quickly returned. In the world of martial cultivation, such scenes were far from unusual.
Ye Liuyun then reminded the Songstress to devote more time to cultivating her Divine Soul strength in the future.
Although the Songstress had once been a captured prisoner, Ye Liuyun had long since stopped viewing her that way. Over time, he had come to see her as one of his own. He no longer had any intention of using a Slaving Seal to control her.
The Songstress felt the same. She could clearly sense Ye Liuyun’s care and the affection others in the group showed her. To her, Ye Liuyun and his companions had become like family.
"Relax. I’ve killed no fewer than you have. I won’t go down that easily," the Songstress said with a playful wink, even sending a voice transmission to comfort Ye Liuyun.
"Alright then." Ye Liuyun chuckled helplessly. Come to think of it, although the girl looked harmless now, she had once been a fearsome killer in her own right.
Still, he reminded the witch not to let her guard down. After all, she was still on Stygian’s active target list.
