Du An turned his head. His gaze skipped past Priest Jun and landed on Li Ban, who was unleashing fire with wild abandon below.
The corners of his mouth slowly curved upward.
"So, you really were the one who took the Blazing Flame Art element back then?"
"Priest An?" Most of Priest Jun's attention remained focused beneath his feet.
He didn't look at Du An, but when met with sustained silence, he prompted him again.
"To so skillfully extract an element that even the Myriad Ancient Pagoda struggles to remove... you aren't some amnesiac researcher at all, are you?" Du An's eyes were utterly devoid of emotion as he stared down at Li Ban. "Perhaps you are the special soul—the one holding all of Gu Yi's memories?"
"Priest An? What are you staring blankly at? As a member of the Myriad Ancient Pagoda—"
Seeing Du An dawdle, Priest Jun grew highly dissatisfied.
Li Ban had just advanced to Cloud-Hidden and hadn't even fully acclimated to the fragment's power, yet he had followed them down to fight the slime bugs without a moment's hesitation.
Frowning, Priest Jun turned around—only to see Du An reaching a hand straight toward him.
A Star Glow Priest naturally wouldn't be easily caught by a mere Cloud-Hidden Priest.
But just as Pei Jun tried to evade, his body suddenly stiffened.
An overwhelmingly majestic spiritual rhinoceros force pinned him down, paralyzing him completely.
All of Priest Jun's evasion and resistance were crushed under this power. His eyes widened in horror as he could only watch helplessly while Du An's fingers plunged right between his brows!
At that moment, another powerful surge of energy erupted from below.
Priest Qian Que had noticed the anomaly and immediately stepped in.
Rather than trying to save Priest Jun, he attacked Du An directly.
Priest Qian Que saw exactly what Du An was trying to do. Even though he couldn't fathom why Du An had suddenly turned traitor, he wasn't the type to ask questions anyway.
Since the man wanted to be an enemy, he just had to be beaten to death.
Not only did he strike, but he did so without an ounce of mercy.
He had already noticed Priest Jun trapped by an invisible force. Whether that power came from Du An or some other mysterious figure, he could no longer treat Du An as a simple Cloud-Hidden Priest.
However, the unexpected happened once more.
A figure abruptly materialized between Priest Qian Que and Du An. Though it clearly took effort, the newcomer completely blocked Qian Que's killing blow.
As their eyes met, Priest Qian Que narrowed his gaze.
"Xiao Suo."
Things had just taken a massive turn for the worse.
Du An's accomplice was unexpectedly formidable.
Priest Qian Que's gaze shifted toward Du An, who had already buried two fingers deep between Priest Jun's brows.
"Why?"
Du An didn't look at Priest Qian Que, but he knew the question was aimed at him.
"Different paths," Du An replied, leaving it at that.
Although the Myriad Ancient Pagoda had given him the chance to become a priest, it had also hidden far too much from him.
Furthermore, regarding Li Ban and the Director, the Myriad Ancient Pagoda clearly had no intention of helping him.
Du An understood that if he wanted to uncover the truth, he couldn't keep wandering within the boundaries drawn by others.
Priest Qian Que charged forward.
But Xiao Suo blocked his path without hesitation.
Two identical instant-death spells collided, filling the space with an ear-piercing screech that sounded like grinding metal.
Du An paid absolutely no attention to their battle. He quickly located Priest Jun's Wizard Embryo Fragment.
In terms of sheer size, the other man's Wizard Embryo Fragment wasn't much larger than his own.
Du An lightly shifted his fingers.
Pei Jun unleashed an agonizing scream.
His scream finally drew the attention of the three priests below.
Li Ban didn't stop casting his Blazing Flame Art, but he raised his eyes to look up.
The sight before him made his heart skip a beat.
Du An's hand was buried between Priest Jun's brows. Li Ban still had lingering trauma regarding that very motion—it was clearly an attempt to snatch a Wizard Embryo Fragment!
But Du An was still wearing white. Did he really intend to transform into a Black Robe right in front of the Myriad Ancient Pagoda's priests?
Having ignored the battle between Qian Que and Xiao Suo entirely, Du An looked back the moment he felt Li Ban's gaze.
Meeting Du An's freezing stare, Li Ban finally realized something.
The disappearance of the Director and Chen Dong, coupled with the truth about his splintered soul, had made Du An completely abandon his moral baseline as a White Robe.
His desire to advance, his desperate need to learn the truth, and his yearning to be free from all restraints had rendered Du An ruthlessly decisive.
'This time... he wants to absorb my soul!'
Although Li Ban knew he wasn't a fragment of Gu Yi's soul, neither Chen Dong nor Du An saw it that way.
Thus, after completely losing track of the Director and Chen Dong, Du An had chosen to break ties with the White Robes rather than give up on absorbing him!
Li Ban immediately looked toward Priest Qian Que.
Priest Jun was a Star Glow Priest, yet he had offered zero resistance against Du An. Someone else had to be helping him.
Only then did Li Ban catch sight of the man fighting Priest Qian Que.
"Xiao Suo?!!!!"
"Wasn't he reduced to ashes by the Wizard Lord's lightning?"
Li Ban couldn't wrap his head around it. Despite the massive display of power from Priest Zhu Yao and Priest Chu Zhan back then, they actually hadn't managed to kill Xiao Suo!
Did the Black Robe Xiao Suo possess some special ability to return from the dead?
"You three, hold the line!"
Before Li Ban could think further, he heard a low shout from the third priest stationed in the rear, who then turned to support Priest Jun.
Right now, the slime bug swarm was at its most intense.
If even one of the three of them left their post, a massive wave of slime bugs would break through.
And the priests stationed above—who were supposed to patch any leaks in their defense—were currently tied up entirely.
He had to admit, Du An had picked an utterly terrifying moment to turn traitor!
However, the priest rushing to provide backup was a step too late.
"Crack!"
The faint sound of something shattering echoed ominously in the air.
Glancing at the tide of slime bugs below, Li Ban shot another look upward.
This time, he saw Du An retract his hand, a hemispherical Wizard Embryo Fragment pinched between his fingertips.
"Haha! Perfectly executed!" Xiao Suo's arrogant laughter rang out over the splashing waters of the Unreturning Place. "You really are perfectly suited to be a Black Robe!"
Priest Jun's Wizard Embryo Fragment had been extracted with terrifying ease.
Du An spared a glance at Priest Jun, who was wilting away from the loss of his fragment. He had no intention of showing any mercy.
Amidst Priest Qian Que's furious roar of "Du An!", he raised his hand and ended Pei Jun's life.
A long whip instantly pierced Pei Jun's skull. With a vicious flick and stir, Priest Jun's head was smashed apart like a struck watermelon!
Seeing this, Li Ban ground his teeth. Anger burst through the valves of his heart like boiling water.
But he knew he couldn't let rage take control and charge recklessly at Du An.
He knew his opponent was a man who acted without any regard for the consequences.
Back when Du An was just an official in the Ministry of Justice, he had dared to join the siege on the First Prince's entourage.
And later, purely to monopolize the fragments, he had destroyed the Ring World.
Even so, Li Ban still couldn't understand why Du An would murder Priest Jun.
As he watched Du An, the fury on his face gradually shifted into grave solemnity.
Du An had already pressed Priest Jun's fragment against his own forehead, completely ignoring the other priest charging at him.
Just as that priest hurled a condensed, razor-sharp vortex of air straight at Du An's chest—
A sudden speck of light flared between Du An's brows. That light rapidly expanded into a halo, washing over Du An's body from head to toe.
As the halo swept down, Du An's long white robe gradually faded into pitch black.
Once Du An fully transitioned into a Black Robe, a speck of starlight ignited at his forehead, quickly cloaking his entire body.
The evolution was extraordinarily swift; only at this exact moment did the white-robed priest's air cone reach Du An's heart.
But the radiant starlight shattered the white-robed priest's spell on contact, dispersing it into a harmless breeze that merely made Du An's black robe flutter.
Xiao Suo's grating voice rang out again. "This is just the beginning—"
Before he could finish, a thunderous boom echoed as a massive shockwave erupted from Priest Qian Que.
Xiao Suo was sent flying by the ferocious attack, plummeting into the deep pools of the Unreturning Place like a black meteorite.
"Priest Qian Que!" the other priest yelled in concern.
Du An also noticed that Priest Qian Que seemed to have shattered some inner shackle. The man's aura abruptly became blinding and searingly hot.
No longer like a gentle moon, he now resembled a blazing sun suspended in the sky.
Yet just as Qian Que turned his sights on Du An, Xiao Suo came rocketing back out of the deep pool.
With a crazed grin plastered across his face, Xiao Suo yelled, "You're advancing? Oh, that's fantastic!"
Seeing Xiao Suo reemerge, Du An refocused his attention onto Li Ban.
He effortlessly deflected an attack from the other white-robed priest, then pivoted downward, diving toward Li Ban like an artillery shell.
Watching Du An instantly shatter the blockade of a Star Glow Priest, a profound sense of dread gripped Priest Qian Que.
However, just as he threw off his shackles, Xiao Suo seemed to unlock some restriction of his own. The spiritual rhinoceros power surging from Xiao Suo skyrocketed to match him, blocking his path once again.
Even if Priest Qian Que managed to smash through Xiao Suo's defenses again, he would be too late to save Li Ban.
"Run!"
The clear, ringing shout echoed in Li Ban's ears.
But Li Ban felt completely locked down by Du An's targeting.
Right beneath his feet lay the deep pools of the Unreturning Place, crawling with swarms of purple slime bugs constantly surging upward.
Meanwhile, Du An was rapidly descending from above, sealing off every single avenue of escape.
Flee? Fleeing was impossible!
He had only just advanced to the Cloud-Hidden rank, and he'd thought that would finally give him the strength to fight Du An on equal footing.
Who could have predicted that the man would flat-out murder Priest Jun and transform into a Black Robe on the spot?
Du An had recklessly rammed his way to the Star Glow Priest rank, taking on all the devastating, unbridled aggression of a black-robed priest.
Under these circumstances, flying up would only mean running straight into a dead end.
'I don't know what Du An did, but he just advanced to Star Glow and he's terrifyingly strong—this is my only choice.'
Li Ban drew his divine sense inward, piercing through the mists at the outer edges of his Sea of Consciousness, reaching straight for the Star River cosmos hidden in its deepest depths.
The Star River churned. From afar, it seemed perfectly still, but a closer look revealed violent, relentless motion.
'All of you—blow up for me!!!!'
Mimicking the sensation of detonating the Nine Heavens Thunder Meteor he had swallowed in the past, Li Ban focused his will entirely on several fiercely burning stars.
The Star River's rotation accelerated wildly. The burning stars under Li Ban's focus detonated outright. Their heat and light instantly swallowed the surrounding planets, triggering a catastrophic chain reaction.
Moments later, the dazzling brilliance of the exploding Star River shattered the boundaries of Li Ban's Sea of Consciousness.
It manifested directly across the surface of his body.
"Alas—"
A heavy sigh echoed through the air.
The blinding radiance that looked ready to blow Li Ban to pieces suddenly retracted, confined within his flesh and blood. The explosion never truly broke free.
At the exact same moment, Du An arrived right in front of Li Ban, the starlight upon his body cascading outward.
A sheet of brilliant silver manifested around him, turning into countless shooting stars that stabbed into Li Ban's body as if trying to rip him limb from limb.
Seizing the opening, Du An pressed two fingers against Li Ban's forehead and shoved hard, but he was violently repelled by a layer of multicolored light.
Frowning, he forcefully pushed down once more, and the two men plummeted together into the deep, abyssal waters.