Jared looked at the earnestness in her eyes, and the stubbornness underneath it. He stayed silent for a moment. He could see what was driving her.
She wanted to repay what she owed him this way. And just as much, she wanted to use that effort to give herself somewhere to stand again, some direction to keep walking toward.
After a long while, he gave a slow nod. His tone stayed flat, but there was a little more approval in it now. “Okay…”
One word. Simple. Solid. It answered Vivian’s request, and it carried his trust with it too. Just then, Luther, who had been standing behind Jared the whole time without saying a word, suddenly changed color.
His dark face turned deathly pale in an instant, and the ghostly energy around him grew wild and unstable, like he had run straight into something he should never have seen.
He jerked his head up. His eyes went wide as he stared into the distance. A shock so sharp it almost cut, a heavy seriousness, and even a trace of dread flashed across his face.
Luther had come from the path of ghost cultivation. His senses toward the Ghost Clan’s aura were innately sharp. Even the faintest thread of ghostly energy couldn’t slip past him.
“Mr. Chance!” He couldn’t hold it in anymore. “I sensed it… a powerful Ghost Clan aura! It’s incredibly dense, and incredibly evil. This is definitely not some ordinary Ghost Clan cultivator. At the very least, it’s a Sacred Paragon-level existence or higher!”
“For something like that to suddenly appear in the Fourteenth Firmament… Could this be another trick from the Celestial Palace?”
Jared’s brow lifted slightly. His eyes snapped to Luther, and a deeper weight entered his gaze.
He knew what Luther could do. He also knew just how sharp Luther’s senses were when it came to the Ghost Clan. If Luther said he had sensed a Ghost Clan aura, and with this much gravity, then it wasn’t wrong.
“What direction?” Jared’s voice stayed even, but there was a pressure in it that couldn’t be challenged. Whatever danger was coming, he sounded like someone who could still face it without the slightest rush.
Luther closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. He forced down the turbulence inside him, crushed down that rising dread, and focused all his attention on the aura he had sensed.
Ghostly energy slowly spilled out around Luther and linked up with that faint trace of Ghost Clan aura in the air. He followed it with care, locking onto the direction it was coming from.
A moment later, he snapped his eyes open and pointed hard to the northeast. “That way! About 8 thousand miles out. The aura is extremely dense, and it’s still getting stronger!”
Jared’s gaze sharpened, and he looked in the direction Luther was pointing.
8 thousand miles away lay the edge of the Celestial Palace’s territory. That place was empty of people, a stretch of wild mountain country with ridge after ridge, ancient trees reaching high, and clouds and fog hanging over it all year long. Almost nobody ever went there.
How could Ghost Clan aura be showing up in a place like that?
A thought flashed through Jared’s mind at once, and the weight of it pulled everything down a notch. Sacred Mountain, when he had first arrived in the Fourteenth Firmament, he had torn through the Celestial Palace’s Sacred Mountain.’
He had destroyed the altar they were using to revive a Ghost Clan powerhouse and shattered their scheme. But he knew exactly how big the Celestial Palace’s power was. It spread through the entire Fourteenth Firmament.
There was no way they had only one Sacred Mountain, and no way they had only one altar.
Could it be…
Had the Celestial Palace built Sacred Mountains in other places across the Fourteenth Firmament too, secretly reviving Ghost Clan powerhouses there and refining ghoul husks?
If that was true, then this had just become a real problem…
The Ghost Clan had always been savage and bloodthirsty. If the Celestial Palace managed to revive large numbers of Ghost Clan powerhouses and turn them into ghoul husks that obeyed their orders then the whole Fourteenth Firmament would misery, and be thrown into countless cultivators and ordinary people would be reduced to food for those things.
“Mr. Chance, could it be that Sacred Mountain got repaired?” Luther asked carefully, uncertainty still in his voice. “Back then, only a few altars on that Sacred Mountain were destroyed. The Celestial Palace has all kinds of unbelievable methods. Maybe they’ve got fast way to restore it fast… If that’s the case, we’re in trouble. I’ve seen Lord Mournwright’s strength with my own eyes.”
Jared slowly shook his head. “It’s not that Sacred Mountain. I only destroyed three altars. Even if the Celestial Palace has sky-reaching methods, there’s no way they could restore it in such a short time.”
He paused. A cold glint cut through his eyes, and the aura around him turned sharp, like it could seal every trace of evil between heaven and earth.
“The Celestial Palace definitely has more than one Sacred Mountain, and they definitely haven’t given up They must have Sacred Mountains in other places too, using the formation to revive Ghost Clan powerhouses and turn them i ghoul husks, building up their strength while they plot something bigger.”
Hearing this, Luther’s face changed again, and the worry in his eyes deepened. “Then what do we do now? If we let them go on reviving Ghost Clan powerhouses, the consequences will be unthinkable!”
Jared slowly turned and let his eyes settle on Vivian. “Miss Chance, the plan’s changed.”
Vivian paused for a beat, then nodded right away. There wasn’t a trace of hesitation in her as she said, “Tell me what you need me to do. Whatever it is, I’ll do everything I can. I won’t hold you back.”
