Two Realms Shuttle Gate: Don't Call Me a Demon!

Chapter 74: Chapter 72: Exposure

In the afternoon, as the sky gradually darkened, accompanied by flashes of lightning and peals of thunder, a torrential downpour suddenly arrived, the fierce wind whipping huge raindrops that drenched the forests and mountains.

Thump, thump, thump!

Seven or eight large horses with high heads sped through the downpour, their hooves striking the ground and splashing huge amounts of muddy water, turning the ground into a quagmire.

Whoa!

Atop a mountain peak, Su Jie suddenly pulled on the reins to stop his horse.

“Brother Su, what’s wrong?”

Gu Weonian and a few other disciples looked perplexed—they were still a long way from returning to their original group.

“What if I said that my stomach feels a bit off, possibly from something I ate back in Shaoshan Town, would you believe me?”

Su Jie deliberately rubbed his stomach, and upon hearing this, everyone was speechless.

Due to their cultivation of the Hundred Poison Refining Gu Scripture, disciples of the Ghost Ridge Palace were mostly immune to many poisons.

It was quite rare for someone to get an upset stomach, let alone be affected by poison in their food.

“Haha, just kidding with you. I left something in Shaoshan Town and need to go back and retrieve it. You don’t need to follow me,” Su Jie said with a laugh, and this reason seemed convincing enough.

“Then you’d better hurry up and catch up with us.”

The group didn’t think too much about it and quickly moved on.

After all, Shaoshan Town wasn’t the kind of place where one would encounter danger.

Su Jie turned his horse around, heading back the way they had come.

“To drive out one wolf only to be devoured by a tiger, who exactly is the wolf and who is the tiger is yet to be determined.”

Su Jie, looking up at the light rain falling from the sky, tied his Horned Scale Horse to a tree and casually broke off several branches.

Swoosh, swoosh!

With a flick of his fingers, the branches shot through the curtain of rain, pinning several small bees to the tree trunk.

Then Su Jie chuckled and walked alone through the muddy mountain terrain.

…

Elsewhere.

Tracking the caravan’s tracks, Zhang Changxin and his group of five moved through the forest as swiftly as monkeys, the raindrops shattering into pieces as they struck their iron clothes.

Displeased with Lu Feng’s slow pace, Qu Lingxuan simply picked him up and sped along with him in tow.

“I can feel it, we’re about to catch up with that demon cultivator.”

At a spot where the muddy hoofprints remained slightly intact, Lu Feng spoke out.

“Prepare for battle.”

Zhang Changxin issued a command, and the other three nodded, their palms resting on the hilts of their swords and blades.

“We’ll proceed from here, they can’t be more than five miles away from us, as long as we…”

Lu Feng pointed in a direction, but in the midst of his sentence, his voice suddenly halted, and he instinctively rubbed his eyes.

“As long as what…”

As Zhang Changxin turned his head to speak, unaware that two Low Grade Junior Fire Gathering Talismans had been buried by someone and were now suddenly detonated, huge flames shot up into the sky.

Caught off guard, among the five, including Lu Feng, only Hou Yongqing and Chu Pu were far enough away to avoid the blast.

Zhang Changxin, Qu Lingxuan, and Lu Feng were all simultaneously scorched by the flames.

“`

Fortunately, with their considerable cultivation, Zhang Changxin and Qu Lingxuan turned their iron hats, which deflected most of the fierce flames. The few that weren’t deflected were blocked by their iron clothes.

But it was different for Lu Feng.

“Hey, how are you doing?”

Zhang Changxin immediately looked toward Lu Feng, worried that their guide had been burned to death.

However, what happened next made his eyes widen in shock.

In the midst of the fire, Lu Feng’s body underwent a drastic transformation, his bones cracking loudly as his skin melted like wax, revealing a man with an indifferent gaze. It was Pei Haibing, an inner disciple of Ghost Ridge Palace.

Pei Haibing’s cold eyes flickered, and his right hand shot out like lightning, snaking toward Qu Lingxuan, who was closest to him.

“Who are you?”

Qu Lingxuan’s heart pounded furiously, sensing a fatal threat. She quickly retreated, while her double swords hissed out of their sheaths and flew from her waist, turning into two silver crescents that crossed and spun, slashing toward Pei Haibing.

“Trifling tricks.”

Pei Haibing’s outstretched fingers sprouted bones that pierced through the skin, growing wildly and expanding into a huge bony hand that spanned two zhang in diameter, firmly capturing the high-speed spinning crescent swords. Accompanied by a grating cutting sound and a flurry of bone fragments, he ultimately managed to grab them by brute force, crushing them into deformed scrap metal.

“White Bone Transformation Skill, you are an inner disciple of Ghost Ridge Palace.”

Seeing this, Zhang Changxin’s voice suddenly changed.

As a disciple of the Punishment Hall with an in-depth understanding of demon cultivators, he was naturally familiar with the infamous Ghost Ridge Palace within Jia Shao Prefecture.

Famous cultivation techniques from Ghost Ridge Palace were also well-documented, and Pei Haibing’s use of the White Bone Transformation Skill matched with the records. n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

“Hmph, not bad eyesight, but it’s a pity. Seems there was a slip in the plan, that kid noticed it, didn’t he?”

Pei Haibing licked his lips; his reconnaissance insects had suddenly died all at once just before, and immediately afterward, he was attacked. The weak fire of the White Bone Transformation Skill, the detonation of the Fire Gathering Talisman, perfectly exposed his disguise.

Otherwise, according to Pei Haibing’s plan, he should have been the one leading Zhang Changxin and the others to catch up with Su Jie, letting Su Jie be killed by the disciples of the Purple Mist Sect, then he would emerge to clean up all traces and let one or two survivors escape to bring the news back, pinning the incident for certain.

In this way, he could hide his involvement and attribute Su Jie’s death to the Purple Mist Sect, for Su Jie’s reckless actions had exposed his whereabouts, leading to a deadly disaster.

That way, Taoist Qiu would also have an explanation, and the incident wouldn’t trace back to him.

“What’s going on, what exactly is happening?”

Chu Pu’s eyes were filled with fear. The sudden turn of events had completely taken him by surprise.

“Idiot, don’t you get it yet? It’s likely this man staged the whole thing himself, and if things are as I suspect, your Chu Family people were killed by him.”

Hou Yongqing slapped Chu Pu, causing him to stagger. His gaze was severe as he stared at Pei Haibing, sensing a profound threat from this man.

The Ghost Ridge Palace, a demon sect, was much stronger in both ranking and power compared to their Purple Mist Sect.

Every inner disciple from Ghost Ridge Palace was extremely difficult to deal with. One wrong move could mean total annihilation.

“Was it you who massacred my Chu Family?”

Chu Pu’s pupils dilated as the realization finally hit him that this man was the mastermind behind everything.

“Don’t rush, soon I’ll send you to reunite with your family.”

Pei Haibing glanced coldly at Chu Pu, paying little attention to this minor character, and instead looked toward the mountains shrouded by the rain, calling out loudly, “Su Jie, I underestimated you. Heh, I know you’re secretly watching. You think you can use these wastes to wear me down. You thought wrong; if I want to kill you, nobody can stop me.”

As he spoke, Pei Haibing also made his move.

His skin writhed unnaturally, and white bones burrowed out, growing and spreading rapidly into forks, and in the blink of an eye, a White Bone Coral Giant Tree tens of meters tall silently rose up.

Chu Pu didn’t have time to feel anger before he was frightened pale by this eerie and terrifying scene, instinctively looking for Zhang Changxin’s protection.

Too bad Zhang Changxin and the other two disciples from the Punishment Hall were just as terrified. Pei Haibing’s power was far beyond their expectations.

“Attack together.”

Zhang Changxin shouted fiercely, taking up a triangular position with Qu Lingxuan and Hou Yongqing, coordinating with each other to charge toward Pei Haibing’s true form.

“`