My Journey to Immortality Begins with Hunting-Chapter 691 – A Hundred Battles Later, Still the Man I First Met - Part 2

Chapter 691 – A Hundred Battles Later, Still the Man I First Met - Part 2

Back in the bedchamber, Li Yuan hadn’t left yet.

He hadn’t forgotten about the painter, Master Rong.

One glance at the canvas was enough to make him frown. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

“These drawings,” he said, voice low. “Are there more?”

Master Rong had been frozen in shock ever since the moment the intruder arrived. He was certain he was going to die. But now, seeing this mysterious killer pause to ask about the erotic paintings of Lady Yu, the most powerful and untouchable woman in the world, he thought he saw a sliver of hope.

Maybe...maybe the killer was obsessed. Maybe he’d let him live.

After all, who wouldn’t be excited to glimpse something like that?

Master Rong nodded like a madman, his voice shaking with eagerness.

“Yes! Yes, I have more! I’ll give them all to you! Everything! Just please, let me live!”

Li Yuan gave a deliberately appreciative nod. “Not bad. If you can give me all of these, I’ll let you live.”

Master Rong exhaled shakily, relief flooding his face. As expected, no man could resist erotic paintings of Lady Yu. Doing his best to suppress the terror still rattling in his bones, he plastered on a flattering smile.

“I-I can draw more for you too...any position you want.”

A little while later, Li Yuan had collected a total of eight spring paintings featuring Lady Yu.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out Sovereign Ye had been up to something. Clearly, he wasn’t just indulging in carnal pleasures. He’d had plans. But what kind of scheme it was, Li Yuan couldn’t tell. Whatever it had been, the man was dead before it could even begin. Whatever chaos was meant to follow would probably die with him.

Still...was Sovereign Ye acting alone?

To be sure, Li Yuan turned back to Master Rong and asked with a warm, almost brotherly tone. But the man knew nothing or claimed he didn’t.

So Li Yuan destroyed the paintings on the spot, every last one of them.

Then he casually killed Master Rong.

With one swift motion, he pressed his own blood-slick mask onto the dead man’s face and used Master Rong’s robes to wipe the blood from his hands.

With that done, he made his way back toward the Divine Sovereign’s bedchamber.

The whole reason he’d sent Princess Yi running and screaming about an assassin was to stir up the palace’s elite forces. If there were any other transcendents hiding in the imperial court, they'd reveal themselves now.

That meant he needed to return and stake out the body.

Old habits died hard.

The Divine Sovereign’s compound was soon surrounded. Thousands of armored guards stormed in from all sides, their armor clanking in rhythm like some ancient war drum pounding in the darkness before dawn.

Torches flickered against the cold mist rolling in from the lakeside, casting spectral light across rows of tense faces. The atmosphere was grim, electric. Every soldier’s mind echoed with the same stunned thought.

The Divine Sovereign is dead. The Divine Sovereign is dead.

Li Yuan couldn’t enter the inner compound, so he found a tall tree outside the walls and climbed up for a better view.

He watched through the night.

Not a single transcendent came.

So that’s it then? No one else?

The thought slipped into his mind uninvited.

But then he frowned.

Something wasn’t adding up.

Sovereign Ye had returned in secret. He hadn’t announced it, nor did he parade in with fanfare. He’d snuck back into the palace like a thief.

What kind of mission required a man like him, the Divine Sovereign, a transcendent being, to be so discreet?

Li Yuan closed his eyes. Bits and pieces of the night clicked into place. The erotic scrolls of Lady Yu. The inherent hostility between transcendents, their inevitable struggle for dominance. Sovereign Ye’s secretive return.

So far, the entire divine family had only shown one transcendent, Sovereign Ye himself.

Yang Jiang clearly hadn’t been one, or he wouldn’t have died so easily.

But Sovereign Ye had only just ascended the throne and was already wielding transcendent powers. That meant he had likely gone through a bestowal ritual and then cultivated his strength in secret.

Li Yuan’s expression shifted subtly as thoughts spun in his mind.

That raises the question... Was someone teaching him?

That would explain why Yang Jiang never attained transcendence, yet Ye Jiang did almost immediately after taking the throne.

The idea expanded, snowballing in his mind.

What if...the reason he was out tonight was to meet that teacher?

After all, the spring paintings of Lady Yu were already complete. If Sovereign Ye had been preparing to provoke a war for supremacy, that meant things were already in motion.

And right before launching such a campaign, what would be more natural than checking in with your mentor?

It was perfectly natural and possibly very dangerous.

That teacher of his...must be one of the real powers behind the scenes in this era, right?

Li Yuan straightened up, mind churning again.

So, those spring paintings of Lady Yu...they were meant to provoke the Tang Sect? Push them into attacking the Divine Dominion? A classic misdirection. Pull the tiger away from the mountain.

He nodded to himself.

There must be accomplices. But are they hidden within the Tang Sect? Or just operating nearby?

He shook his head. That kind of speculation was useless. You couldn’t go around killing your own allies over some vague suspicion. That kind of paranoia would only make a fool out of you.

So...with Sovereign Ye dead, chaos will erupt in the capital. What will this teacher do?

Appoint a new puppet sovereign? Groom another transcendent? But that takes time. Unless...unless Sovereign Ye wasn’t the only one. If others have already been trained in secret, then losing him doesn’t derail the whole plan.

In that case, will the teacher leave the city? With the capital descending into panic, the gates will soon be sealed. If they don’t leave now, they’ll have to fight their way out later, and that could delay everything.

Assuming my guess is right...which direction would they go? North, south, east, west? Doesn’t matter. Every direction is still within the Great Zhou. Then, I choose the north...

He made the call based on a hunch and a name that had surfaced in his memory, the Phantoms of the Northern Wasteland.

The Divine Dominion sat between Great Zhou and the Tang Sect. North of that? The Golden Tent Nomads, and far beyond that, the northern wasteland, distant lands, unrelated realms...

There was no connection on the surface. And that was exactly why Li Yuan found it suspiciously perfect.

He liked chasing long shots. Loved the absurd, the improbable. If someone wanted to vanish, if a puppet master needed to escape the web of politics, what better place to flee than somewhere no one would think to look?

And so, he decided. He’d head north. But he didn’t leave right away. He stayed another full day, keeping watch, making absolutely sure no other transcendent appeared in the capital.

Only then, trusting his instincts, did he begin the long journey north.

Just a quick stakeout, he told himself. He wanted to see if his luck would hold a little longer.

Then he suddenly remembered, he had a date.

He hesitated, a little inner struggle.

In the end, he still chose to go north first. If he hurried, he could make it back in time. That was because if this hidden threat wasn’t cut off at the root...the consequences later would be far worse.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

New Year’s Eve.

“Whether in the heavens above or in the cycles of rebirth, Across these distant, formless worlds, I await your return.”

That was all the letter said. A single line of verse. But every word trembled in the heart of the woman holding it.

Dressed in red, the heroine stood still, eyes locked on the delicate brushwork. She hadn’t seen who left the message. It had simply appeared on her desk, dropped off by someone silent and skilled enough to come and go like a shadow.

But...how could Liu Long...no, how could Xie Yu not know?

How could she not know that the leader of the Tang Sect had already arrived in Southriver?

In recent years, many had fled south from the Western Capital. They had fled from the cruelty, from the madness, and from the dominion’s spiral into chaos under Sovereign Ye’s reign.

Among the refugees were elders of the Skygale Sect, once a branch of Skyscale Mountain.

Xie Yu had been waiting for them.

She kept watch over their movements, staying hidden, careful not to reveal who she was. But when she saw traces of their sword forms, old memories long buried, she couldn’t help but approach.

And she asked them.

“Who placed the tombstone beside the founder on Skyscale Mountain?”

She asked more than once, but no one knew.

Still, one man remembered something, a name.

Back then, during those strange days on Skyscale Mountain, there had been a young man unlike any other. His name was Lord Yu.

It had been decades, and most people only knew fragments, hand-me-down stories passed along by their elders. But for Xie Yu, that was more than enough.

She remembered that little boy and the day she left. She remembered the look in his eyes, so inexplicably sad. Finally she remembered that strange reluctance to let her go, clinging to her with no reason at all.

Everyone else had thought Lady Yu was being dramatic, reading too much into it. But she knew. She knew there was something in that child’s gaze. That he might really be Lord Yu, reborn and returned through the wheel of reincarnation.

She remembered that day vividly.

“Whether in the heavens above or in the cycles of rebirth, Across these distant, formless worlds, I await your return,” she whispered the line again, voice soft and low.

Each word landed heavy with the weight of time, like echoes from a past life rippling through her soul.

Memories surged like tides, sweeping her back into moments long buried, fragments of a life before this one.

Her face was calm. A faint smile played on her lips.

“You fool,” she murmured. “You gave up your life for me, and I...”

Suddenly, her smile faltered. Her brow creased.

If Lord Yu had appeared decades ago...was he already Li Yuan back then? And if so, how had he survived the Great Upheaval of Heaven and Earth? And if he hadn’t survived...then how did he manage to reincarnate twice?

She couldn’t figure it out. None of it made sense. But even so, she had made up her mind.

She would go to him.

“Long’er, Long’er!” A middle-aged woman’s voice called out from outside the door.

Xie Yu rose and opened it. Standing there in the cold wind was a kindly-faced woman with a warm smile.

“Mother,” she greeted softly.

This was Han Qiongnian, the woman who’d given birth to her in this life.

Han Qiongnian wasn’t from a grand or powerful clan, certainly nowhere near the status of the Liu Clan. After marrying in, her standing had never been particularly high. She lived in that delicate balance of just enough, respected enough to avoid open mockery, but never truly influential.