196 Broken Corpse
In the Great Yong Dynasty, seven miles away from the border.
A small space was opened up on the tree. Lin Ran sat in a corner with his eyes closed to rest. Suddenly, he heard a sigh. When he opened his eyes, he saw that the empress had already taken off the hairpin.
Seeing the empress’s sad expression, Lin Ran frowned slightly. “It didn’t work?”
The empress nodded silently.
Lin Ran sighed and tried his best to say in a relaxed tone, “Maybe she’s busy. Let’s try again later.”
The empress didn’t say anything. She looked at Lin Ran and asked softly, “What do we do next?”
Lin Ran raised his hand and pushed aside a few branches. When he saw that the sky outside had already begun to darken, he said, “Let’s wait a little longer. After it’s dark, we’ll return to the forest and let Yuan Yangguo and the others go back first. Then, I’ll take you to the central region of the Great Yong Dynasty.”
The empress nodded and lay down on the bed made of thin branches with her back facing Lin Ran. It was as if she was very tired from using the hairpin just now. Her shoulders were trembling slightly.
Lin Ran sighed and didn’t say anything to comfort her. He knew that what the empress needed now was not comfort.
At the same time, Lin Ran also didn’t say that he wanted to bring the empress back to the palace before going to the forest. With his cultivation, if he sped up at full speed, they would be able to return in a few hours.
However, seeing how down the empress was, Lin Ran gave up on this idea.
“She just hasn’t shown up in the palace for two days. Nothing should happen, right?”
Lin Ran thought to himself, but for some reason, as soon as this thought appeared, he had an ominous feeling.
Soon, the sky turned completely dark.
The cold moonlight shone through the gaps between the leaves, illuminating this small space with silver light.
Lin Ran was about to ask the empress to set off when the empress sat up on her own.
“Are we leaving?”
The empress asked softly. The tears at the corners of her eyes had yet to dry, but her expression had already returned to normal.
Lin Ran nodded and listened carefully for a moment. After confirming that there was no one around, he raised his hand and summoned the Yin-Yang Sword. He brought the empress back to the forest.
Lin Ran quickly arrived at an empty space in the forest. Yuan Yangguo and the others had been waiting here for a long time.
“Your Majesty! Sword God!”
Seeing Lin Ran and the empress, everyone hurriedly stood up to greet them.
The empress waved her hand to indicate that there was no need for formalities. Lin Ran sized up the empty space with interest.
This empty space was surrounded by three almost connected stone pillars. The only way in and out was through the gap above. If not for Lin Ran’s divine sense detecting that there was someone here, even he wouldn’t have discovered such a hidden place.
The only drawback was that it was too small. With more than ten people squeezed in here, there was almost no space to move.
Lin Ran waved his sword and slashed out a sword energy barrier, sealing the only entrance and exit. Then, Lin Ran looked at Yuan Yangguo. “How is it? Do you feel better?”
Yuan Yangguo knew that Lin Ran was talking about him fainting earlier today. He immediately looked a little embarrassed. “Thank you for your concern, Sword God. I’m already much better.”
Lin Ran nodded and glanced at the others. Suddenly, he frowned. “Why do I feel like there are a few people missing?”
“Five are missing.”
Yuan Yangguo quickly replied, “We found this place on our way back. The others don’t know, but Xiang Tiancong has already gone to look for them. He’ll probably be back soon.”
As soon as he finished speaking, Lin Ran looked up as if he had sensed something.
Seeing this, the others also looked up and saw that five figures were lying on the sword energy barrier, looking down at them.
“They’re back.”
As Lin Ran spoke, he raised his hand and dispelled the sword energy barrier, but the people above did not come down. One of them even waved at them.
“Sword God, can you come up for a moment?”
Xiang Tiancong’s voice came from above. The volume was very low, but there was an obvious seriousness in his tone.
Lin Ran narrowed his eyes and gestured for Yuan Yangguo to take good care of the empress before flying up to the top on his sword.
“What happened?”
Lin Ran rode his sword to the top and asked. From here, he could already see clearly that the five figures were Xiang Tiancong and the four members of the Sin Camp that he didn’t see just now.
“When I went to look for them just now, I found something.”
Xiang Tiancong whispered with a strange expression. The other four did not say anything, but their expressions were not good, as if they were frightened by something.
Seeing this, Lin Ran couldn’t help but find it strange. These five people were all at the ninth level of the Senior Martial Master Realm and had just participated in a real war. What could scare them?
“Take me there!”
Lin Ran instructed Xiang Tiancong to take the lead and asked the other four to wait at the bottom.
The two of them passed through the dense forest one after another. In just a moment, they arrived beside a stone pillar at the edge of the forest.
“It’s up there.”
Xiang Tiancong pointed at the top of the stone pillar. “I found it when I went up to look for them just now.”
Lin Ran looked up at the top of the stone pillar. “What is it? A corpse?”
“I don’t know.”
Xiang Tiancong shook his head and added, “I don’t know if that counts as a corpse.”
Lin Ran was puzzled. He jumped up and tapped the stone pillar with his foot a few more times before easily arriving at the top.
This stone pillar was about ten feet in diameter. Even at the top, it did not shrink much.
As soon as Lin Ran came up, he saw something that was not stone scattered here.
At first, Lin Ran didn’t feel anything special, but when he looked closer, his expression instantly turned ugly. It was a chopped corpse.
The torso of the corpse was placed in the middle of the platform. His arms and legs were cut into a few pieces and scattered everywhere. Many parts had small wounds that looked like they had been pecked by birds.
“Sword God.”
Xiang Tiancong also followed up. Even though he had been here once, when he saw this scene, his face still turned pale. His throat moved as if he was trying his best to suppress something.
After taking a deep breath, Xiang Tiancong pointed at the edge of the platform. “You should go over there and take a look.”
Lin Ran nodded and walked forward while dodging the limbs on the ground. When he got close, he realized that someone had built a small stone platform with stones. On the stone platform was a human head—the head of the Dao Seeking Sect’s sect master, Zou Hao.
Zou Hao’s eyes were wide open, as if he did not want to die.
Lin Ran’s expression instantly darkened. At this moment, a strange thing happened.
“Lord Lin? Why are you here?”
Zou Hao’s head said.
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