Chapter 589 Utter Despair
After she stopped controlling the guardian, it could only carry out the simplest command. Even though it tried its best to stop and kill the man in black, it was no match for the man’s worn-out axe. In less than one minute, the man struck his axe into the guardian, and it crumbled into dust and disappeared into thin air.
Lauryn left a little of her spiritual sense in the guardian, so she realized it the moment her spiritual sense crumbled. At once, she picked up speed. “Hello? Anyone here?”
The mountain that Lauryn lit up earlier was ablaze with fire. Without bothering to conceal herself, she ran around the edge of the fire and yelled at the top of her lungs.
The man in black has already shown up. The rest will definitely combine forces against him since he is our common enemy. As long as someone is here, he won’t watch me die!
Lauryn knew that well, but she couldn’t help but grow anxious as time ticked by. Almost half an hour had passed since she set fire to the mountain, thus the rest should’ve seen it and run all the way to meet her here.
After she used herself to bait the man in black out, no one came here. A petrifying idea flashed across Lauryn’s mind when she recalled that no one responded to her through the bronze mirror.
Have the others been killed? The person who contacted me earlier wasn’t Jonathan. Instead, it was the man in black who set up a trap for me. Could this be the truth?
As that thought occurred to Lauryn, she couldn’t stop fear from flashing across her gaze. An unknown formation had covered Summerbank Abyss, so it was impossible for her to leave.
If her guess were true, then there was no way she would survive, no matter how hard she escaped. “Lauryn, you can’t escape!”
Behind her, the man in black caught up to her swiftly with his worn-out axe. He spread his spiritual sense in the Grandmaster Realm. Holding her sword, Lauryn adjusted her position in the air and stomped on a tree trunk before her.
Crack! As the tree trunk snapped in half, Lauryn came to a stop and charged toward the man in black. “Force field, converge!” she declared. Following her voice, her sword shot forward as quickly as a shooting star. “Phantom Sword Technique, chasing stars!”
The man in black was running ahead at full speed to catch up with Lauryn and didn’t expect her to suddenly turn around to try to kill him.
When he was thrown off guard, Lauryn closed in on him swiftly. The man in black felt as though his spiritual energy had turned into glue, restraining him from moving.
The sword approached him in a blink of an eye. It was too late to free himself from Lauryn’s force field and hide. The man in black shut his eyes in the face of death. “Shatter!” he barked.
His eyes snapped open as Lauryn let out an agonizing scream in the air. Her body trembled as she brushed past the man and plummeted onto the rock and mountain beneath her.
The mask was destroyed, and the man fell onto a tree ahead. Lauryn’s sword was tossed aside. She flung her hands around her head, contorting and struggling on the rocks in anguish.
She could feel the crippling pain down to her soul. It felt like someone had chopped her head into pieces.
The man held onto the tree trunk and slowly got to his feet.
He turned over his shoulder to reveal his face—it was none other than the mature but young looking Sofus.
Sofus didn’t look any better. Lauryn’s sword didn’t hit its target, but it still managed to slice off half of his face, including his left ear.
It was a gory sight, but if he were any slower, he would’ve been dead by now.
Sofus used his spiritual energy to cover his wound and stop the bleeding.
He was no longer the calm and steadfast leader of Phoebus Sect.
A murderous glint glowed in his gaze.
“D*mn it! Do you know how much Phoebus Sect has sacrificed to maintain this colossal formation? Every three years, we need to offer four Grandmasters to keep the monster trapped here so the world can be at peace. Why won’t you sacrifice yourselves willingly? Every time, we would have to take action and waste our efforts before you guys cave in and do as told. B*tch, how dare you try to kill me? I represent the Heavenly Way!” Sofus roared as he stretched his bloody right hand out and grabbed Lauryn’s hair.
Lauryn bit back the torturous pain in her head. As tears formed in her gaze, she stared at Sofus. “You can’t represent the Heavenly Way. You’re nothing but a lunatic…”
“Lunatic?” Sofus contorted his expression and lifted his head to guffaw out loud. “You have no idea what the Phoebus Sect had done for the past two thousand years! We’re the savior of the world! You should be honored that you were selected to be part of the sacrifice. For the next three years, your blood essence will flow into the formation continuously until it is exhausted. After your death, we’ll get someone else to take over your spot.”
Lauryn had no idea what Sofus was talking about, but she got to know one thing—instead of dying immediately, she would have to offer her blood essence for three years before losing her life.
Various information flooded her mind, and comprehension dawned upon her. Her eyes widened as she stared at the young man standing before her.
Many famous Grandmasters from the ancient sects would often go missing mysteriously.
Despite the frequent occurrence, all the sects didn’t pay much attention to it. Cultivators had to defy the heavens and risk their lives to get money and weapons, so they had plenty of enemies.
Thus, it was natural for the sects to not suspect anything.
Lauryn finally discovered where the missing Grandmasters were—they were trapped in Summerbank Abyss.
The thought of having to sacrifice her blood essence every day for the next three years caused her to form a hand seal with her right hand secretly.
Sofus gripped her wrist and sealed her meridians when she balled up her hand.
“Are you trying to commit suicide?” he sneered. “Why do people like you like to do this? You need to understand that staying alive for the next three years is important. That is the only way you get to contribute to the world.”
Now that her meridians were sealed, Lauryn couldn’t take her own life anymore.
Right then, something slashed through the air.
Sofus’ hand shot backward and grabbed something. He splayed his palm to reveal a pebble around the size of an egg inside.
Lauryn looked in the direction the pebble came from and saw Jonathan squatting on a boulder not far away. His lips curled into a grin as he looked at them.
“Sofus, I knew it. It was all your doing!”
