Decaying World Chapter 286

Li Yuanyuan did not dwell on the subject. She pivoted.

"Yun Xiazi and Su Yaping are waiting outside, as you instructed."

Lin Hui nodded. "Send them in."

After a lengthy period of observation, he was certain both were ready to receive the remaining law seals. Until now, he had conferred on them only the three foundational ones: Righteous Body, Righteous Heart, and Righteous Virtue.

Even so, their strength had already grown well beyond its forr ceiling. It was ti to pass down the final seal. Lin Hui had no intention of bestowing the Clear Source Law Body on everyone. Only those of the greatest ability could fully draw on its power—ordinary disciples who obtained it wouldn't last long; overuse would leave them rapidly consud by Disaster Energy.

Li Yuanyuan withdrew, and Su Yaping and Yun Xiazi entered the courtyard.

Old Su was unchanged—composed, carrying the quiet air of a man who expected to stay that way. Since arriving in Black Cloud, life had suited him, and he had filled out noticeably. Yun Xiazi, by contrast, wore her usual white dress trimd in gold, black hair falling to her waist, eyes wide with a guileless innocence that made her look as though she'd never once encountered the darker side of the world. Lately, she had fully committed to her female form, abandoning the male disguise entirely—and it was becoming increasingly clear she had no intention of leaving Lin Hui's side.

The two bowed as they entered.

"Your instructions, Dao Master?" Su Yaping asked quietly.

"If you want to warm your bed, Dao Master—say the word. Anyti, anywhere," Yun Xiazi murmured, her lips curving.

Lin Hui ignored that and turned to face them. "The situation is shifting. Wars are breaking out on every front. Our Clear Wind Dao lacks strength at the mont—so, after considerable deliberation, I have decided to pass down the sect's most dangerous yet most powerful law seal to you both."

Both of them went still. They understood Lin Hui's level of strength. For him to call a law seal dangerous ant its power was beyond anything they had imagined.

"Please bestow the law, Dao Master!" the two said in unison, bowing deeply.

"Once conferred, your strength may surge several tis over—possibly more. But this does not co without a price. When activating this seal..." Lin Hui walked through the drawbacks of the Clear Source Law Body carefully.

When they learned that the seal carried a corroding force of an unknown nature—sothing beyond even Purgatory or Extre Cold—their expressions shifted. But neither flinched; both pressed him to proceed.

Lin Hui's gaze moved briefly to a point just to their right, and he gave a small, knowing smile. "Then step forward, one at a ti. Focus your mind. Hold your breath."

He raised his hand. At the tip of his index finger, a speck of pale blue light ca alive.

…

On the other side of the courtyard wall, Song Feishi stood motionless in a white, cinched-waist dress, her brow furrowed.

Lately, every visit to the Dao Academy—whether to observe Pang Jiu or to watch Lin Hui—left her with a growing unease about the environnt, far more pronounced than before. She was, by now, technically part of the Clear Wind Dao. Like the disciples from Trueblood families, she occupied a place in the sect's outer ranks.

It had begun when she discovered that Pang Jiu's condition was recovering—after picking up the sword and receiving the Righteous Body law seal. From that point, she had focused her attention on the Clear Wind Dao's law seals more intently than anything else. Five years of patient observation had confird everything: Righteous Body carried no side effects; Righteous Virtue genuinely sharpened martial arts comprehension; and while she had lacked a ready subject to test Righteous Heart, she had managed to probe part of its effects on the mind-spirit. In every case, she found nothing amiss. What had stunned her was the discovery that the law seals' amplification bypassed cultivation rank entirely—no ceiling, no constraint.

Her interest in Lin Hui had only deepened.

Now, watching Su Yaping and Yun Xiazi disappear into the courtyard, she felt a flicker of curiosity. In all the years she had spent at this sect, she rarely saw Lin Hui take anyone along with him. Today, he had returned from an outing laden with cargo, and he had now summoned both of his strongest disciples for a closed eting.

Sothing significant was in motion.

Not that it concerned her greatly. Su Yaping and Yun Xiazi were still far too weak—neither was even Mistborn. To her, anyone below that rank was an afterthought. Only Lin Hui, who possessed the power to hold his own against a Mistborn, was worth her full attention.

She made her decision: once the two erged, she would find a way to probe them. A Mistborn against two sub-Mistborn cultivators—whatever Lin Hui had told them would be hers before long.

She found a spot along the wall, leaned against it, and closed her eyes—feigning the quiet contemplation so common among disciples here. The perfected Clear Wind Sword Technique demanded exceptional insight, and Lin Hui had also opened the more demanding Wild Wind Sword Technique for study; it was common to see disciples stop mid-step to draw their swords or fall into sudden stillness. She blended easily.

She had braced herself to wait, but only a few minutes passed before the courtyard gates swung open.

Su Yaping erged first, head down, looking sowhat drained—entirely indifferent to his surroundings.

Song Feishi opened her eyes and trained her senses on him.

Nothing. Did he simply assign them a routine task? She narrowed her eyes and moved to leave.

She stopped.

Her head snapped back.

What is this?

His body—where was his mind-spirit power? Where was his Circulation True Force? Su Yaping was a Luminous Extre martial artist; his True Force was formidable enough to be staggering. She had verified that herself, once, by disguising her identity and launching a probe in the dark. His strength at that point had registered at the level of a mid-tier Blood Ancestor.

Five years. For a cultivator with a lifespan stretching centuries, five years shouldn't have altered his power signature in any aningful way.

And yet—no matter how intently she probed, she could not detect a single trace of energy in Su Yaping's body. Not with all the sensitivity of an Emperor Blood Mistborn. Nothing.

She stepped forward before she'd made the decision to move, just in ti to see the second figure erge from the courtyard: Yun Xiazi.

"I feel like… soone's watching ?" Yun Xiazi's voice carried out from the doorway—low and alluring, still flushed with sothing that hadn't quite settled. She stepped into the dim light, and her eyes, unexpectedly, flickered with a pale blue luminescence in the shadow.

"I felt it too. It doesn't matter—the Dao Master is here." Su Yaping smiled. He reached up and lifted a strand of his own hair. Looked at closely, one could see a faint thread of shimring blue running through it.

"Care for a drink?" he asked.

"I'd be glad to keep you company," she said, and laughed.

Swish.

They vanished—at more than twice the speed of their previous movent.

Song Feishi's vision blurred with the sudden displacent. By the ti she recovered, they were already gone. She swept her mind-spirit outward, trying to catch their trail—

"Since you're so curious, why not co in for a talk?"

The voice ca from less than half a ter behind her.

The sensation that moved through Song Feishi's body was one she hadn't felt in hundreds of years—a cold shudder that began at the base of her spine and broke over the crown of her head. Her instincts and the Evil Weapon within her scread. Her skin went taut, her muscles coiled, and her mind-spirit snapped inward, contracting at full speed, hardening across every surface of her body into the densest barrier she could form.

She turned her head.

Her mind-spirit had detected nothing behind her. And yet there he was—Lin Hui, floating less than a ter away, having arrived without a sound and without a signal.

His white robe drifted. His hair spread loose around him. His expression was easy, unhurried, a small smile on his face. But his hand rested casually on the hilt of the Ruyi sword at his waist, and at that touch, every nerve in Song Feishi's body prickled as though needles had pressed into her skin all at once.

A man who isn't even Mistborn—?!

A wave of humiliation swept through her at her own body's reaction. She forced her instincts and the Evil Weapon back down.

"When did you find out?"

"Just now," Lin Hui said, still smiling. "After all—as you've been thinking—I'm rely an ordinary mortal."

Song Feishi said nothing.

"Co with ," he said, already turning toward the courtyard. "Five years is long enough. You've seen what you needed to see."

She no longer allowed herself to underestimate him. To appear behind her—silently, without a trace that her mind-spirit could catch—required a movent technique beyond any estimate she had ford of him. She steadied herself, fell into step, and followed him through the courtyard gates.

…

Above the Jade Sea, the storm's reach continued to expand.

Swish.

A white shadow materialized in the sky directly before the storm. The figure wore a scholar's robes and held a folding fan, scanning the surroundings with a grave expression.

Third Sister's aura has disappeared entirely…

Whoever had taken her that quickly was beyond what he could handle on his own. He was stronger than Third Sister—but even he couldn't have defeated and abducted her within the span of an hour.

Pfft.

Several dark figures shot up from the sea below. One of them hung in the air just beneath him and pressed his hands together in salute.

"Second City Lord—we found residual traces of the Third City Lord's Mind-Spirit Descent in the water. The erratic behavior of the algae and fish in this area matches her Evil Energy exactly."

"Then this is the place," Zhang Yao said with a nod. Third Sister's Evil Energy was reproduced; its traces could only be detected through the behavior of living things in the surrounding environnt. "Expand the search radius."

"Yes, sir!"

Zhang Yao's mind churned, though the Relic linking the three of them confird that Third Sister was still alive—at least for now, still safe. But whoever had lured Eldest Brother away and taken Third Sister would not stop there. Within the city, both the increasingly suspicious Clear Wind Dao and the nacing Mingxin Society still lood.

It was an anxiety he hadn't felt in a long ti. For this search, he had brought everything: his most powerful Relics, and his personal guard—Blood Ancestors, every one of them. By combining the Relics with the array his guards could form, he could temporarily push his strength close to Eldest Brother's level. He would not end up like Third Sister.

He was still working through which factions might have acted when he turned—drawn by sothing—and looked toward the sky to the right of the distant storm.

A massive warship, carved entirely from pale white crystal, was erging slowly from nothing. And on the bow, waiting in silence, stood a figure he could never forget.

"Ah Yao." A voice—deep and resonant—crossed the kiloters between them and rang directly in Zhang Yao's mind. "A thousand years, and you're still as cautious as ever."

Zhang Yao's expression broke.

Even in midair, he stepped back—involuntarily, helplessly. His entire body locked. His pupils contracted. The color drained completely from his face.

"Royal Father—?!"