Chapter 663: The Five Hundred
After sitting, Fu Yun opened a map, took a brush, and circled Sword City. Following that, she wrote ’28’ in small script before looking at the two.
"Five hundred cultivators disappeared in Sword City twenty-eight weeks ago." She started and quickly continued.
"All five hundred died on the same day, but at different places in the city. However, ...."
At this point, Fu Yun swallowed and looked at Yu Nianzhen and Jiang Yue with a confused expression.
"However, some were seen leaving the city after their soul cups broke or their soul lamps went out." She said, and Jiang Yue nodded.
This was expected!
After all, ordinary cultivators wouldn’t be able to distinguish between the original people and the disguised devils.
"What did they do after leaving the city?" Yu Nianzhen asked.
"They separated into small groups." Fu Yun said and began drawing on the map.
An incense stick later, she stopped and pulled back, allowing Yu Nianzhen and Jiang Yue to see what she had drawn.
In addition to the original circle, the map now had fifty arrows starting from Sword City and leading to different cities, towns, and villages.
"As few as five people and as many as twenty have disappeared in these places over the past twenty-seven weeks." Fu Yun said, and Jiang Yue raised an eyebrow.
"Have you excluded unrelated disappearances?" He asked, and Fu Yun nodded.
"I did my best." She said and quickly continued.
"The disappearances I took note of are similar to those in Sword City. Also, some of the missing people were seen leaving the places after they died."
Jiang Yue and Yu Nianzhen nodded when they heard this.
"What else did you find out?" Yu Nianzhen asked, and Fu Yun removed a jade square from her storage ring.
"This is a list of things that the missing people bought in various places." She said, pushing the jade square across the table to the two.
After that, Yu Nianzhen and Jiang Yue read the jade square and couldn’t help but frown.
"They’ve bought a lot of formation materials." Jiang Yue said, and Yu Nianzhen nodded.
Although he wasn’t a formation master, he knew many materials and could instantly tell that the foreign devils were preparing to arrange a formation.
However, the materials were numerous, and he couldn’t think of any one formation that required such variety.
[Xiaoyue, do you know which formation they are planning to arrange?] The swordsman asked, and Jiang Yue shook his head.
[I don’t know.] He said and quickly continued.
[They have bought more than nine hundred types of formation materials. I can’t think of a formation that requires so many different kinds of materials.]
[Could this be a forensic countermeasure? Are they trying to throw us off their scent, or are they preparing to arrange more than one formation?] Yu Nianzhen asked.
[Who knows?!] Jiang Yue shrugged and sighed.
[I will check my formations’ inheritance to see if there is a formation that uses most of the materials that the devils bought.] He said.
In addition to the materials, the foreign devils bought a lot of demonic beast meat, blood, and wine.
However, this was not unexpected. After all, foreign devils were gluttons and couldn’t do without meat and wine.
After checking the list, Yu Nianzhen and Jiang Yue began examining the map.
"They don’t seem to be going in any particular direction." Jiang Yue observed, and Yu Nianzhen nodded.
"They are all over the place." He said and turned to Fu Yun.
"Has anything strange happened in the affected places?" He asked, and Fu Yun furrowed her brows before shaking her head.
"Nothing so far." She said.
"Keep an eye on those places and inform us as soon as something happens." Jiang Yue said with a solemn expression.
"Also, investigate the other territories for similar situations. Message us right away if you discover something." Yu Nianzhen said.
"I will." Fu Yun nodded.
Soon after, Yu Nianzhen and Jiang Yue left the information hall and returned to their island.
"Where should we begin?" Jiang Yue asked, looking at Yu Nianzhen.
"Yunlan City." The swordsman said, his eyes narrowed into slits.
On one hand, countless people had disappeared from there in the past several years, and on the other, some of the devils from Sword City had gone to Yunlan City.
Since Yunlan City was relatively suspicious and not too far from the Zhenyue Archipelago, Yu Nianzhen wanted to start there and go to other places after figuring out what was going on there.
"Yunlan City, it is." Jiang Yue agreed.
One day later, the two boarded a flying ship and left the Zhenyue archipelago, heading to Yunlan city.
"I hope Li Futian and the others will return soon." Jiang Yue said as the two sat on the ship deck.
"They won’t be much longer." Yu Nianzhen assured, understanding Jiang Yue’s unease.
Although they didn’t lack subordinates, all their people were mortals and could not handle powerful foreign devils. Because of this, Jiang Yue and Yu Nianzhen only let their people monitor but not engage the foreign devils.
"It would be good if I knew what formations the foreign devils are planning to arrange. That way, I would be able to predict their movement, and we could find a way to ambush them." Jiang Yue said and sighed.
"Li Futian is a celestial master. He may have a way to predict their end goal." Yu Nianzhen said, and Jiang Yue nodded.
Five days passed in the blink of an eye.
On this day, a level three ship landed on the outskirts of Yunlan city, and two qi transformation realm cultivators jumped out, shrunk the ship, and put it away.
"Let’s go." One of the cultivators said, held the other’s hand, and began walking towards the city gate.
The city wall was ten metres high and was separated by a ten-metre-wide gate.
After reaching the city gate, the two cultivators queued and waited patiently for their turn to enter.
However, before they could, a shout echoed, accompanied by a loud thud.
