Imperial God Emperor

Ye Qingyu became more impetuous than before.

Repressing his anger and impatience and holding back his heart, he walked around the scorched low ground and carefully searched for clues, hoping to find something about the assailants.

He knew that remaining calm was even more necessary during such moments.

However, aside from the Left Minister's broken arm, he did not find any body parts of Yu Xiaoxing and the other key members of the mission. Most importantly, he did not find a single trace of the assailants. Quite clearly, they had plotted this for a long time and made sound preparations so as to not leave anything behind.

This had been a successful surprise attack.

However, the bodies of several key members were missing, and judging from the auras on the scene, these people did not die.

"It seems that Xing'er and the rest might have escaped, or possibly... been captured... but at least they are still alive..." Having formulated a general judgment, Ye Qingyu finally heaved a sigh of relief.

This was a great fortune among the misfortunes.

The duo then proceeded to other parts of the battlefield to take a second look. Ye Qingyu once again confirmed that the surprise attack was conducted using methods which were not only extremely cruel but also highly ingenious, such that no apparent residual power, auras, or traceable clues had been left behind.

It was as if all of the energy waves and evidence had been deliberately erased or covered up by some highly skilled experts.

Approximately ten minutes later.

Ye Qingyu and Shuang Wuyan returned to the entrance of the formation.

The latter conversed for a bit with the Alliance of Domains' guards outside the formation, and only then found out that an inspection squad from the Alliance had arrived earlier and performed a search, but the results were not promising, and they did not obtain any useful clues.

How is this possible?

Surprise attack... killing... Such rampant movements on a large battlefield like this, but not a single clue?

Ye Qingyu could not take this for a fact.

Even if their movements had been more careful, there were bound to be flaws. Perfect plans did not exist in this world, just as perfect beings did not.

Without hesitation, Ye Qingyu darted once more toward the recesses of the battlefield, where he made all kinds of checks over and over, while perpetually releasing his consciousness power to inspect the auras in the Void above and the ground below.

However, he still found nothing.

By his eighth round of search, his face was gloomy and gushing with anger. He was on the verge of going ballistic.

"Impossible, impossible... there must be something left behind."

He was like a possessed man already.

Shuang Wuyan, who stood at the entrance of the formation in deep thought all this time, finally took action. The frosty power of a cold light suddenly served as a horizontal barrier in front of the careering Ye Qingyu, blocking the advance of his near-ballistic figure.

"You..."

Ye Qingyu looked bewilderedly at Shuang Wuyan.

"Trouble arises from haste. No need to be anxious." The latter's expression was cool, albeit his eyes remained somewhat grave. "This surprise attack came at full force but left not a trace, indicating that it had been plotted for long. The enemy's objective shouldn't simply be to destroy the Heaven Wasteland envoy mission, for that would be utterly meaningless. If I'm not wrong, there will be further developments down the road."

As if suddenly awakened, Ye Qingyu instantly calmed down.

Plotted for long...

A small envoy mission traveling on the road of chaos would never be eyed by a large force, and all the more would not be attacked using such cruel methods. In other words, the enemy's objective for the surprise attack was probably not just to destroy the envoy mission from a nameless domain.

There were certainly more important reasons beneath the surface.

What will they do next?

If they've captured the other mission members, they might even come for me next.

Ye Qingyu's train of thought gradually became clearer after the reminder from Shuang Wuyan.

He remained silent, forcing himself to calm down.

If he acted impetuously at this time, he would be susceptible to being led away by the nose subsequently.

Inhaling a deep breath, he turned his body to take another look at the scorched surface and corpses on the hillside. Then, letting out a long sigh, he felt an irrepressible grief in his heart, and decided that he would first bury the fallen Heaven Wasteland warriors with his own hands.

The first person was the logistics head, Liu Dong.

After gathering Liu Dong's broken body parts, Ye Qingyu used yuan qi to reconnect them and personally buried the body in a grave.

With a solemn and respectful expression on his face, he followed the route he walked along when he first entered the battlefield, gathering the bodies and personally burying every one of them.

After thirty minutes.

In front of the ruins of a tent.

He had properly buried every one of the corpses that had been piled into a hillock, leaving only the semi-nude women who were discarded in the blood lake. Their eyes were wide open in rage, indicating that they had fought until the very end. Unfortunately, they were unable to slay the enemies and suffered a tragic fate, and were even humiliated before their deaths...

Peering at the blood lake, Ye Qingyu felt terribly remorseful and guilty.

As a man from Heaven Wasteland Domain, it was unquestionably his fault for not protecting these women who left home for the sake of the Heaven Wasteland Dynasty.

In the Heaven Wasteland Domain, they were daughters, wives, and the kin of countless people who thought about them day and night.

At present, however, they had been subjected to the most brutal of humiliations and slaughters.

"Brothers and sisters, rest in peace... While you're in the embrace of the stars, just you watch. I, Ye Qingyu, vow on my soul that I'll definitely... avenge all of you!" Ye Qingyu clenched his teeth and vowed indignantly.

He took out some clothes from the [Cloud Top Cauldron] and wrapped them around the corpses of those women.

It's best to bury them with a bit more respectability.

After a while.

His countenance abruptly changed.

At that moment, he felt an indistinct and extremely strange aura emanating from the interior of one of the female corpses.

"This is evil qi..."

Kneading his brows, he disregarded gender decorum temporarily, releasing his divine sense to feel the aura carefully.

This kind of power again?!

Rage grew in his eyes as he clenched his teeth, making a crunching noise and nearly breaking his mouthful of steely teeth.

This was because he finally discerned that this trace of strange aura concealed a dark and evil power which was extremely similar to the aura on the bodies of those black skeletons in the 18th district of the Black Demon Pool - or rather, it was completely similar.

He had detected this kind of aura on the bodies of two people in the 18th district.

One of them was the perished Lu Li.

The other one was Yang Wanqu, who narrowly escaped.

"I should've thought of this earlier... Aside from that scumbag Yang Wanqu, who else could have done such a filthy thing!" This trace of aura revealed the identity of the culprit to Ye Qingyu, whose eyes contained two streaks of bright yellow flames that nearly became substance.

It must have been Yang Wanqu who did this.

While in the 18th district, Yang Wanqu had already become a lackey of the Four Stars holy girl, doing her bidding unquestioningly and receiving immense dark power thanks to her. After escaping alive from the 18th district, he most likely concealed his inner power and successfully left the Fierce Beast Peak. It did seem a little odd that, during the battle at the mountain manor, he did not appear despite being the holy girl's henchman. But now, it turned out that he was engaged in another task, and that was to attack the Heaven Wasteland envoy mission.

All of this made logical sense.

I can now confirm that Yang Wanqu did this... Ye Qingyu squinted his eyes. He's from the Black Moon Divine Palace, which is a good place to start finding him. And as long as I can find him, I'll certainly be able to acquire more information.

Having formulated a plan, Ye Qingyu slowly calmed down.

Fifteen minutes later.

Ye Qingyu had finally buried all of the corpses appropriately.

He returned to the entrance of the formation and discussed briefly with Shuang Wuyan. Without hiding anything, he told the elder about his acquired information and judgment. The latter did not doubt him at all and quickly formed a consensus with him. The duo then zipped their way into the Inferno City.

Every giant chaotic city would have a distribution of the stations of a few large forces.

As one of the large forces in the myriad domains, the Black Moon Divine Palace naturally had a station in the Inferno City. Having not found any clues in the ruins of the battlefield, Ye Qingyu decided to go to the Black Moon Divine Palace's station to see what he can find.

...

Approximately ten minutes later.

Beside the main street of the eastern area of Inferno City.

The Black Moon Divine Palace's station.

The black, round-moon high gate was firmly shut, and the rock walls that surrounded it was made out of a kind of black rock which contained formational power.

Ye Qingyu stood in front of the round-moon high gate.

Finding it hard to repress his inner anger, the power of thunder and lightning surged throughout his body as he prepared to force his way in. However, there remained a nagging scruple in his heart. The Black Moon Divine Palace was a large force after all, and moreover, there were laws in place in the Alliance of Domains and the Inferno City. If he really forced his way in, it would inevitably become something that could be used against him in the future by people with malintent toward him. This would certainly be most disadvantageous.

Just as he was caught in contemplation.

Beside him, Elder Shuang Wuyan suddenly burst forth a strange chilly power.

Boom!

The Black Moon Gate ahead was suddenly shattered into pieces by Shuang Wuyan's power of ice. At the same time, Shuang Wuyan's figure whizzed like lightning into the station.

A hint of amazement flashed across Ye Qingyu's eyes.

This emaciated elder usually looks apathetic no matter what happens. Moreover, as an elder of the Alliance of Domains, he should think a lot harder than me before doing something like this. Why does he suddenly seem like a totally different person, and even more anxious than me?  

After a brief daze, he transformed into lightning and lost no time charging his way in. Following beside Shuang Wuyan, he broke into the station vigorously, with no intention of hiding. This was not going to be a quiet and sneaky investigation, for there was no time for that. And with rage burning ferociously in his heart, he more so wanted to exhibit his powerful side.