The next day.
When the first ray of morning sunlight spilled over Black Wind Ridge, it did not bring to Black Blood Stockade the tranquility and hope that belonged to dawn.
What was relayed back to the command camp was not an ordinary battle report, but rather one piece of dreadful news after another!
Only in this moment did the upper echelons of Black Blood Stockade discover, to their horror, just what had happened the previous night.
That night, apart from Lin Ze who had already perished en route during a delivery Lin Yan, while out on patrol, had actually stepped with exceeding precision into a killing trap.
He was struck by a violent poison, his right chest pierced clean through. When he was carried back, more breath was going out than coming in; he hovered on the brink of death.
Not only that, but the small squad Lin Xue was in had also, on the way back to camp, suffered a desperate assault by three Rank 2 upper stage death soldiers.
Over half the squad members were killed or wounded.
Lin Xue herself, in order to cover the squad's retreat, had forcibly mobilized her trump card, causing her Primeval Essence to flow in reverse, leaving her gravely wounded and unconscious.
And what made the upper echelons of Black Blood Stockade's scalps go numb even more was one of the frontline resource points.
A clan elder stationed there to hold the position, possessing Rank 3 initial stage cultivation, had actually had his throat silently and soundlessly cut through in his sleep by a top-tier assassin well-versed in the way of assassination!
Bang!
Within the central army camp of Black Blood Stockade.
Patriarch Lin Cang's cold, hard face was at this moment already contorted to the utmost.
With a single palm strike he smashed the thick bluestone command table into powder, and those battle reports stained with black blood instantly danced through the great tent like snowflakes.
Thunderous fury!
"A mole! There is absolutely a mole!"
Lin Cang's eyes were bloodshot, his voice suppressing a heaven-scorching rage.
"If our intelligence system had not been utterly infiltrated, how could that old dog Li Mang possibly have locked onto the location and routines of every single core figure of our clan with such precision?!"
Overnight, a terrifying fracture had appeared in Black Blood Stockade's mid-tier combat strength.
Even the frontline defensive line had begun to teeter on the verge of collapse.
The utterly enraged Lin Cang wished he could draw his blade at once, personally charge into the White Bone Alliance's ranks, and slaughter in all directions.
But he could not.
As Black Blood Stockade's sole Rank 3 , no, its sole Rank 4 powerhouse, he was the sea-stabilizing pillar of this battlefield.
Li Mang had laid out this kind of killing scheme precisely to force him to move!
The instant he left the central army camp, the frontline defensive grand formation, losing the suppression of its core formation eye, would surely collapse swiftly.
And by then would come the moment for the White Bone Alliance to truly launch its full-scale offensive.
"Since the commander cannot move…"
Lin Cang forcibly suppressed the rage surging within his chest, and a trace of chilling madness flashed through those tiger-eyes.
"Then let us send out our sharpest blade!"
He abruptly turned his head and looked toward the Grand Clan Elder standing to one side — his face sunken like water, an astonishing killing aura radiating from his whole body — Lin Zhen.
"Lin Zhen!"
"This foul grievance, our Black Blood Stockade cannot swallow!"
"You will immediately lead the elites of the Punishment Hall and the shadow guards, and drive fiercely, like a nail, straight into the heart of the White Bone Alliance for me!"
"I want them to pay their blood debt with blood!"
Lin Zhen said nothing, only cupped his hands solemnly.
His Rank 3 peak stage cultivation, in this moment, seemed to have all transformed into cold killing intent.
Just as the atmosphere of despair and fury interwoven together enveloped the entire frontline camp of Black Blood Stockade, from beyond the camp's main gate there suddenly came a burst of incredulous clamor, followed by cries of shock ringing out one after another.
"Heavens! That's…"
"Young Master Feng!"
"Young Master Feng is back!"
This news was like a heavy bomb, instantly making all the upper echelons within the camp abruptly rise to their feet.
When Lin Cang and Lin Zhen rushed out of the great tent and arrived at the camp gate, even they — who were long accustomed to mountains of corpses and seas of blood — were rooted in place by the tragic scene before their eyes.
That Lin Feng who had once worn a suit of white, spirited and full of vigor.
At this moment his left arm had taken on a kind of bizarre contortion, evidently utterly broken.
His whole body was drenched in blood, like a soulless walking corpse, numbly carrying the senseless Lin Wan'er on his back, stepping one pace at a time into the camp.
At his side, Lin Wuxie's arms had long since been burnt into charcoal — one could even smell a nauseating scorched stench.
And at the very rear of this ravaged team.
That most inconspicuous one, always reticent and taciturn — Lin Mu — his face smeared all over with mud and blood.
His expression was still calm, his stride still steady.
And in his right hand.
He carried a severed head, its eyes refusing to close in death!
"Quick!"
"Seal the camp gate at once!"
Lin Cang's reaction was exceedingly swift. He immediately gave a stern shout, issuing a top-level command.
"Deploy the clan's finest medical Gu Masters!"
"At any cost, keep them alive!"
The return of this small squad undoubtedly injected a long-absent strength into Black Blood Stockade, whose morale had plummeted to rock bottom.
However.
Even pouring out the resources of the entire stockade, faced with Lin Wan'er's bizarre state — already fused as one with the Life-Hanging Gu — those upper stage medical Gu Masters could only shake their heads and sigh one after another.
Lin Wan'er's body had been preserved.
But her consciousness seemed to have plunged into a bottomless abyss, never again able to awaken.
...
On the other side.
Facing the crazed retaliation of Black Blood Stockade's Grand Clan Elder Lin Zhen, who came bearing a heaven-scorching rage, the White Bone Alliance's supreme commander Li Mang once again displayed the coldness and seasoned cunning of a Demonic Path hero.
"Retreat!"
Just before Lin Zhen's butcher's blade could swing down, Li Mang had already decisively issued the order for a full contraction of the formation.
He directly abandoned those outer stockades attached to the alliance, as well as a portion of the rogue cultivator forces, and pulled the true core elites of White Bone Stockade all back into the heavily fortified main headquarters.
Lin Zhen's violent surprise assault, like an autumn wind sweeping away fallen leaves, crushed one outer stronghold after another, slaughtering until blood flowed in rivers.
But in truth.
White Bone Stockade's true backbone forces had not suffered any substantial damage whatsoever.
Deep within the main headquarters.
Inside a dim secret chamber.
Bang!
A muffled, thunderous sound suddenly rang out.
The gauntlet woman, so overweening only the night before, was at this moment prostrated on the cold stone slab like a homeless cur, without a shred of dignity.
Her whole body trembled violently; she did not even dare raise her head.
Those black-iron gauntlets she took such pride in were now covered in cracks, on the verge of shattering.
Directly before her.
Li Mang sat upright upon a throne of white bone.
That aged face, like withered bone, had at this moment already sunk utterly dark with anger.
His eyes, like will-o'-the-wisps, fixed unwaveringly upon the gauntlet woman groveling on the ground, his voice hoarse and cold.
"What?!"
"Lin Feng actually didn't die?!"
Li Mang abruptly rose to his feet, his furious roar reverberating endlessly within the secret chamber.
"The two of you, hailed as the top-tier assassin duo of these Hundred Thousand Great Mountains, nearly invincible at the Rank 2 level!"
"Not only did you fail — you actually got one of you killed as well?!"
Faced with this Rank 3 peak stage powerhouse's heaven-scorching rage, the gauntlet woman was so frightened her liver and gallbladder nearly split.
She frantically knocked her head against the ground, blood soon seeping from her forehead, her voice brimming with terror.
"My lord!"
"My lord, calm your anger!"
"It's truly that we… our intelligence was mistaken!"
"Intelligence mistaken?"
Li Mang laughed in the extremity of his fury.
"In the intelligence I gave you, Lin Feng was nothing but a Rank 2 middle stage!"
"Even if he hid a few trump cards, under the joint strangulation of the two of you, he should have faced certain death with no hope of survival!"
"Where was the mistake?!"
"No… it wasn't Lin Feng!"
The gauntlet woman hurriedly raised her head.
"My lord does not know!"
"At that Lin Feng's side, there was actually an exceedingly terrifying youth in hiding!"
"He was a genuine, solid Rank 2 peak stage!"
"Even… his true combat strength, I fear, was already no weaker than a Rank 3!"
"What?!"
Hearing these words, Li Mang's pupils abruptly contracted.
Upon that gaunt, withered old face, a trace of alarmed suspicion rarely surfaced as well.
"How is this possible?"
"The true details of Black Blood Stockade's younger generation, this old man has long since fathomed as clear as day!"
"Apart from that Lin Feng, there remains only Lin Xingyuan — who was just tested to possess A-grade aptitude and currently has but Rank 1 cultivation!"
"Where did another Rank 2 peak stage spring up from?"
"Just who is this person?!"
The air within the secret chamber, in this instant, seemed to congeal utterly.
The gauntlet woman trembled all over like a sieve.
With difficulty, she swallowed a mouthful of blood-laced saliva, and in a quavering voice spat out that name.
"This subordinate… this subordinate only knows…"
"He is called…"
"Lin Mu."