C129 Yin Acolyte!

The glow emanating from the White Paper Fan took Yu Yuan by surprise. On its surface, the four prominent black ancient characters spelling 'To Know All is to Suffer All' seemed like a deep, dark pool capable of ensnaring one's soul.

Beside him, Zhan Tianxiang caught sight of the fan's radiance and peered at it with curiosity. But after just one look, he recoiled, closing his eyes in alarm and exclaimed, "Yu Yuan, what's the deal with that fan of yours?"

His eyes throbbed with pain, as if pierced by needles.

Yu Yuan, however, gazed at the White Paper Fan and its inscribed ancient words without any harm befalling him. He pondered in amazement, "Could it be that after repeatedly using it to practice Soul Forging through Enlightenment, it now only resonates with my soul? Does it cause discomfort to anyone else who merely looks at it?"

"Yu Yuan!" At that moment, another observed the fan's wonder.

Lee Yu, clutching the Soul Orb, approached Yu Yuan from the rubble-strewn ruins. His eyes sparkled with an extraordinary brilliance. "Your fan is emitting a strange soul vibration," he observed.

He gestured towards the four ancient black words on the fan and added with astonishment, "Are these characters absorbing something?"

"Indeed," came a cool response from Lee Yuchan, who was at a distance.

Her words resonated solely within Yu Yuan's Heart Lake, unheard by anyone else.

Lee Yu, with the Soul Orb in hand, and Yuchan, who had recently advanced to the Lunar Spirit stage, possessed a heightened sensitivity to the essence of souls, far surpassing anyone else present.

"How peculiar..." Yu Yuan, clutching the White Paper Fan, mused silently. As its owner, he could not detect any anomalies from the ancient characters.

"Let me take a closer look for you," offered Lee Yu, tossing the Soul Orb into the air.

Suspended above their heads, the orb emitted a vast glow, with mystic runes twinkling and casting a soft luminescence over the palace ruins. Suddenly, from an aged, dark yellow wall adorned with convoluted, ghostly symbols, a series of bizarre lines began to writhe as if alive. In an instant, they shot out with a swift "Whoosh!" and embedded themselves into the White Paper Fan, right among the four stark, ancient characters.

Ancient stone pillars, their grayish-white surfaces etched with the images of unknown demons and alien souls, seemed to spring to life. They broke free from their stone confines and surged toward Yu Yuan with a howl.

In a flash, they were absorbed into the four black ancient characters that read "To Know All is to Suffer All."

The spell patterns carved into the icy stone floor transformed into tiny, jubilant figures, eagerly leaping into those same four black characters.

Lee Yu had deliberately presented this spectacle to Yu Yuan using the Soul Orb.

Yu Yuan watched, utterly astounded.

What secrets lay within the White Paper Fan he had acquired from the Zhao family's Vault of Wonders?

Why, in the heart of the forbidden area, within the ruins of this palace, did it draw unseen, peculiar entities to willingly pour into it?

"It's beyond belief," Lee Yu exhaled deeply, the Soul Orb settling into his palm. He gazed curiously at the White Paper Fan and the four ancient black characters. "What flowed into those words wasn't a soul spirit, but rather..."

With a furrowed brow, Lee Yu carefully chose his words, "It was a thought, a lingering memory, an emotion that refuses to fade away."

Zhan Tianxiang, standing nearby, witnessed the wonder but failed to grasp the significance of Lee Yu's words.

Yu Yuan, however, grasped the concept immediately.

The entities entering the ancient black characters were like memory sparkles, imprinted on the earthly soul, possibly a form of textual knowledge inheritance or the poignant emotions emanating from the fan.

They possessed no aggression, no self-awareness, and lacked any concentration of Soul Power.

"Pfft!"

A trial-taker from the Yan family suddenly erupted in a gush of blood from his neck.

"Yan Tong!"

Yan Lu bellowed, summoning the Soul Splitting Staff and charging to the rescue.

Unbeknownst to all, a ghostly small figure had emerged behind the trial-taker named Yan Tong.

It blended into Yan Tong's shadow and wasn't discovered until after Yan Tong's death.

Neither Lee Yu with the Soul Orb nor Lee Yuchan, both attuned to the Lunar Spirit Realm, had detected its presence.

Not even Yu Yuan, who had earned the sword spirit's approval, had sensed the slightest trace.

"Whoosh!"

The Soul Splitting Staff, aglow with intertwining gold and silver light, streaked toward the diminutive figure like a flash of lightning.

Yan Tong's body shifted ever so slightly.

In an instant, the Soul Splitting Staff pierced through his chest, exiting from his back.

Only then did Yan Tong's body collapse to the ground.

A diminutive figure stood atop Yan Tong's lifeless form, amidst a pool of blood.

It was the Yin Acolyte.

His features were vague, giving him an ethereal, almost unreal appearance.

Strands of black remnant soul emerged from Yan Tong's body, mingling with his blood, and shot straight out, forming another Yan Tong before the Yin Acolyte.

This new Yan Tong then abruptly merged with the Yin Acolyte.

The once indistinct figure of the Yin Acolyte writhed and rapidly shifted, taking on the likeness of Yan Tong in mere moments.

He now resembled a younger Yan Tong, as if he were but a child again.

Yet everyone was aware that this was not truly Yan Tong.

With a resonant "clang," the Yin Acolyte tapped the Soul Splitting Staff, which had inexplicably come to a halt.

The golden and silver designs on the staff burst into brilliance.

A complex new array of patterns seemed to rearrange themselves before our eyes.

The Yin Acolyte cradled the Soul Splitting Staff in his palm, and it appeared to rejoice, as if greeting its former master.

Yan Lu's complexion turned ashen, as if he had seen a specter in broad daylight, he stared at the Yin Acolyte. "Was it, was it ever yours?"

With a contented smile, the Yin Acolyte nodded slowly, as if to commend his astuteness.

"Yu Yuan!"

At that moment, many eyes turned in unison.

The Yin Acolyte, who had materialized from nowhere and slain Yan Tong, was clearly no benign entity. Yu Yuan, the enforcer who had dispatched countless goasts and anomalies within the forbidden area, had not struck. Why?

As the crowd called out, the Yin Acolyte turned, wearing a taunting smile, and looked at Yu Yuan.

"Lee Yuchan, he belongs to you," Yu Yuan declared abruptly.

"Why?" Lee Yuchan asked, bewildered.

"He, along with the sword spirit he's merged with, bears no ill will towards this realm," Yu Yuan explained, himself puzzled by the absence of the burning sensation in his arm that would allow him to commune with the sword spirit and command the world's restrictions to obliterate the Yin Acolyte, who had appeared so suddenly, his true flesh and soul indistinguishable.

The Yin Acolyte tightened his grip on the Soul Splitting Staff.

A multitude of ghostly lights burst forth from his grasp, as if the formations and constraints etched into it by the Yan family were being forcibly expelled by his purifying onslaught.

Yan Lu had been tirelessly infusing Vitality into his body, day and night.

He watched Yan Lu with a grin.

At the corners of Yan Lu's eyes, two streaks of blood trailed down his cheeks like tiny serpents.

These serpentine trails of blood, sharp as blades, tore through Yan Lu's skin wherever they went.

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