Chapter 162: The Secret of the Withered Old Man

It was a quiet night. Having newly arrived in this extraterritorial realm, Su Fan had not yet truly examined his surroundings, save for the feeling that the sky here was extraordinarily blue and the spiritual energy remarkably pure.

The moonlight here was just as beautiful. Outside the small courtyard, bonfires flickered brightly, and a busy crowd worked diligently on their respective tasks. Today's initial victory meant that the days ahead would only grow more perilous.

Blacksmith Liu was rushing to forge inner armor. The dragon skin obtained recently, combined with the dragon hide preserved by the withered old man in the past, would be enough to craft a set of inner armor for everyone here.

Dragon-skin inner armor was designed to protect the Nascent Soul. Due to its special texture, it could ward off attacks targeting the Nascent Soul with exceptional effectiveness, becoming even more formidable once inscribed with talismans by an artist.

Meanwhile, the apothecary specializing in refining demonic herbs had not rested, venturing deep into remote regions several times in search of medicinal ingredients. Even the carpenter had gone into the mountain valley to select top-grade timber for crafting wooden puppets.

In the entire village, Su Fan was the only idle person. Being idle had its perks, however, as it allowed him to look up at the moon.

The moon was enormous, appearing close enough to touch with a mere wave of the hand. Staring at it blankly for a long time, he suddenly thought of Han Xiaoyue, and a nameless sorrow immediately washed over him once again.

"The blood debt of Peach Blossom Creek must be avenged."

Muttering these words silently, Su Fan turned and walked into the house.

The interior was clean and reasonably spacious, leaving plenty of room for Su Fan after he stepped inside.

Sitting cross-legged, he tapped his storage pouch lightly, and a rusted, broken sword suddenly appeared in his hand. Examining the broken sword seriously for the first time, Su Fan swept his spiritual sense over it with utmost care.

Suddenly, his expression paused slightly as his gaze lingered on the rust stains. There were not many rusty spots on the broken sword, yet upon closer inspection, they exuded a faint aura of bloodshed.

Gently scraping off a trace of powdery rust, he probed into it with his spiritual sense once more. Instantly, an overwhelmingly fierce force surged forth, causing his spiritual sense to snap back as if recoiling out of control.

Within that fine dust actually lurked the aura of a demonic soldier! Su Fan stared at the broken sword in astonishment. When he had first retrieved this sword from the Hidden Sword Pavilion, he never expected its origins to be so inconceivable.

According to what he knew, the extraterritorial realm and the inner realm were isolated from one another. Even mighty cultivators moving at breathtaking speeds could never reach the territories of the Great Song dynasty in their lifetimes; a distinct boundary lay between them, and that boundary would annihilate everything that crossed it—this was known as the "Gate of the Extraterritorial Realm."

Having grown accustomed to hearing about things like the "Gates of the Ghost Realm," Su Fan felt an added layer of dread toward this "Gate of the Extraterritorial Realm." Yet, upon further reflection, he had previously only watched others from outside the gate, and now he had actually stepped within it.

Covering such a vast distance, how could this sword carry the aura of a demonic soldier? Could it be that someone similar to him had accidentally entered this place, slain a few demonic soldiers, and then carried the sword back?

Such a hypothesis felt too absurd, leaving him with no choice but to offer a bitter smile before gently putting the broken sword away.

Next, with a slight movement of his spiritual sense and a quick incantation, a jade pendant flew out from his Dantian. Instantly, the pendant flashed with a dazzling radiance, though no abnormalities could be discerned upon closer inspection.

Su Fan suddenly flew into the jade pendant, and the room instantly returned to peace.

Ever since discovering that he could enter the space within the jade pendant, this was his first time returning. It remained the same blue world, except that the entity of the Nascent Soul appeared increasingly frail.

Su Fan knew this was because Lan Yifeng had been suffering from severe depletion recently. Ever since that occasion when Lan Yifeng expended vast amounts of vital essence to save Su Fan, he had fallen into a deep slumber for years, relying entirely on consuming his own vitality to survive in recent times.

To save him, he had to be awakened now. But how to awaken him plunged Su Fan into deep contemplation once again. Setting aside the pendant's peculiar origins, nearly a hundred years had passed, yet Su Fan still remained clueless about it.

He only knew that the jade pendant would transmit wisps of spiritual energy to him, and that it possessed extraordinary healing properties. Beyond that, he knew nothing.

However, when the two young masters of the imperial family in the Great Song capital had fought to seize this pendant, and considering he later learned of the Great Song's search for it while at the Profound Mechanism Sect, he became certain that the pendant was no ordinary object—it might even be a divine artifact.

After bowing respectfully to Lan Yifeng, Su Fan walked toward another crystal-clear soul entity. That was the phantom soul the jade pendant had forcefully absorbed in the Underworld King's tomb years ago, and surprisingly, it was still surviving.

Yet, upon closer inspection, the appearance of that soul had changed somewhat.

"Is this... me?" Su Fan asked, stunned and staring blankly.

The soul entity had completely transformed into an avatar of Su Fan, bearing a striking resemblance to him, down to a similar aura and even Su Fan's own presence.

A wave of profound shock gripped Su Fan's heart. He hurriedly probed it with his spiritual sense, but ultimately found nothing; the soul entity had not yet awakened, so nothing could be observed.

After a thorough inspection, he had no choice but to give up, flashing back out of the jade pendant. He quickly resumed his cross-legged posture and, looking at his empty storage pouch, could not help but think of the one destroyed by the heavenly tribulation.

Leaving aside treasures as formidable as the Phoenix Feather Crossbow, there were spiritual stones, medicinal pills, and the credentials left behind by the Underworld King. Although Su Fan did not truly believe what the Underworld King had said about some Immortal Emperor, that person must have at least been a powerful existence, and clues originating from them should not be missed.

Of course, what pained Su Fan the most was that the storage pouch also contained another entity—the Nascent Soul from within the body of the Great Snow Mountain Immortal Demon, Madman.

Having been able to navigate freely within the body of the Immortal Demon back then, that Madman must have inherited certain memories. It was simply Su Fan's good fortune that he had obtained the legacy.

Moreover, Madman was the senior martial brother of the Wine Scholar and a disciple of the Drunken Immortal. No matter from which perspective, Su Fan had a duty to track down Madman. Of course, Madman would not have been incinerated by the heavenly tribulation.

This was because a strand of Su Fan's spiritual sense remained attached to Madman, and the sense of its existence lingered to this day. When perceiving the heaven and earth, he could detect that the presence was right beside him, within arm's reach, yet intangible when he tried to grasp it.

In the dead of night, Mo Nan sent back word of victory. How could a severely wounded demonic general possibly match the cunning Mo Nan? After toying with him for a while, Mo Nan successfully executed him.

This time, having learned his lesson from the previous encounter with the fox widow, Mo Nan brought the corpse back as well.

Aside from a token, Su Fan distributed all the contents of the storage pouch among the others. Most were medicinal pills; the magic treasures were not even worthy of anyone's notice, and even the curved blade wielded by the demonic general was tossed into Blacksmith Liu's furnace.

The token was a pass for entering the Southern Gate and was not something everyone could possess. This single token could command a division of demonic soldiers stationed at the Southern Gate, bestowing extraordinary authority.

However, this token would become useless after tonight. That was a certainty; the Heavenly Demon City possessed vast influence and would undoubtedly learn of everything that transpired here today very soon, meaning the tokens would be replaced promptly.

Su Fan stared silently at the token. It bore only a single character signifying "Command," with no other markings or even a name. Probing it with his spiritual sense, he ultimately concluded that it was merely an ordinary token.

Suddenly, he shifted his gaze to the demonic general. Its face appeared no different from that of an ordinary human, save for a pair of blood-red horns on its head, which currently looked somewhat dim.

"Where is his Nascent Soul?" Su Fan suddenly asked in confusion.

Mo Nan looked startled for a moment before replying coldly, "The Heavenly Demon tribe has no Nascent Soul to begin with. They cultivate fire and primarily modify their own flesh and blood, so their physical bodies themselves are their Nascent Souls."

Remarkably similar to the Immortal Demons in some aspects, Su Fan sighed inwardly and probed further.

His spiritual sense poured madly into the demonic general's Dantian. A raging torrent of fire rushed out, but Su Fan's spiritual sense did not dodge; instead, it met the blaze head-on. In a split second, after struggling for a brief moment, the flames extinguished.

Heavenly Demons were different from humans; there was nothing strange about that.

Yet Su Fan could not help but connect the Heavenly Demons to the Immortal Demons. Although they were worlds apart, separated by an age spanning tens of thousands of years, this thought stubbornly refused to be dismissed.

For now, Su Fan did not mention this to anyone. That physical vessel of his within the Immortal Demon might one day become a trump card of his. Though it might require years of nurturing, the might of the Immortal Demons was beyond doubt.

Once the legacy was complete, it might be powerful enough to overturn the heavens and earth, or at the very least, dominate a region. A task like avenging the villagers of Peach Blossom Creek could then be easily accomplished.

After issuing a few instructions and having the demonic general's corpse burned to ashes, he spotted the withered old man flash down into the courtyard.

Su Fan looked around, a trace of surprise on his face.

The withered old man laughed heartily and teased, "It's only been a few days since we last met, yet you missed me this much? ... With our first battle ending in a resounding victory, the news has already spread throughout the extraterritorial realm. Those factions that previously intended to decline have now agreed to form an alliance."

As he spoke, the withered old man cast a playful glance at Su Fan and smiled, "Fan Ruoyu is responsible for bringing those people over, so they won't arrive until tomorrow."

Hearing that Fan Ruoyu was unharmed, Su Fan finally let out a breath and said calmly, "There is likely to be a major battle tomorrow, so we must make preparations in advance."

The withered old man waved his hand dismissively, "It's of no consequence. We have already planted a secret agent inside Heavenly Demon City. Accurate intelligence indicates they will not dispatch troops tomorrow; they are still waiting for the internal agreement of the Heavenly Demons."

"An internal agreement?" Su Fan turned his head in confusion.

The withered old man's gaze suddenly turned cold as he said in a deep voice, "The internal factions of Heavenly Demon City frequently make terrifying decisions. The decree to annihilate various alliances back then was issued from there."

Nodding slightly, Su Fan signaled for Mo Nan to withdraw.

Only then did he truly look toward the withered old man and softly ask, "How did Senior come to be here?"

The withered old man paused, then answered heavily, "I had a fortuitous encounter."

"Then why does everyone here obey you so implicitly?" Su Fan asked.

The withered old man replied, "You know of the Southern Alliance, don't you? I used to be its leader."

Nodding, Su Fan asked seriously once more, "Then how did you go to the inner realm?"

The withered old man paused for a moment before saying, "As the leader of the Southern Alliance, I naturally possessed that capability."

"Were you searching for me?" Su Fan asked curiously.

The withered old man laughed heartily, "You were never any sort of peerless genius... I went in pursuit of General Lan's orders."

"General Lan?" Su Fan asked, puzzled.

"General Lan Yifeng, guardian of the extraterritorial gate, the foremost expert of the Great Song, and likewise the foremost expert of the inner realm." This series of titles rolled slowly off the withered old man's tongue.

Disregarding the shock of whether this Lan Yifeng was the same Lan Yifeng, and brushing aside his immensely powerful background, Su Fan hurriedly continued asking, "It is said that General Lan was slain by extraterritorial beings in collusion with traitors of the Great Song. How could you possibly seek out General Lan's orders?"

Hearing Su Fan's confusion, the withered old man's expression finally changed. He said heavily, "You obtained that jade pendant?"

"What jade pendant?" Su Fan asked earnestly.

The withered old man's expression turned slightly disappointed as he lowered his head and muttered, "Never mind. A jade pendant of such extraordinary origin—how could such a coincidence exist?"