Chapter 229: Tailing mission gone wrong

As Huang Cixi was discussing her departure with Matriarch Huang Yufeng, Huang Liyue was putting some things in order before her own departure. In the end, she left the residence just as the matriarch was leading Huang Cixi into the Gate of Heaven and Hell. Only Matriarch Huang Yufeng knew the actual location of this prestigious site. Moreover, apart from the matriarchs themselves, no one knew exactly what could happen inside the Gate of Heaven and Hell. With her cultivation, Huang Liyue had no problem seeing their two figures disappear in the distance.

Clearly the matriarch was using her spiritual senses to fly away with the young woman. And she had to know precisely who was watching them. Some had begun to call Matriarch Huang Yufeng a half-step Sage. Indeed, she had gone through the tribulation to become one and had lived. Apart from her, only Emperor Weide and Sect Leader Xuan were 9th-grade Spirit Warriors, but no information on any attempted breakthrough on their part was known. Obviously, they would probably not advertise their failure. But after watching the recent tribulation, if they were to try, unless they could use powerful array formations, they would not be able to hide it easily.

Huang Liyue had some emotion when she saw the current matriarch leave. Either she would never see Huang Cixi ever again or she would replace the current matriarch. For a mere instant, Huang Liyue thought that she wanted Huang Yufeng to stay matriarch. Then, she realized that this would mean Huang Cixi's death and she erased that thought.

Huang Liyue had several powerful stealth techniques. Over the centuries she had served as a bodyguard, she had learned many of them. First it was essentially to detect someone using one of those. But by learning techniques used by assassins of all kinds, she slowly realized that she had acquired all the skills necessary to be one herself. The irony was not lost on her.

In fact, she had even produced her own stealth techniques. After centuries of perfecting it, it had become a 2-star Heaven technique. With a bit more of polish, she was confident enough to push it all the way to the 5-star Heaven rank. That technique was 'Ashen Feather Seal'. Partially, it had been based around the Fenghuang blood seal used by the Huang family to hide their identity. But the Fenghuang blood seal, by definition, could only hide their bloodline.

Moreover, 'Ashen Feather Seal' did use her own bloodline to increase its efficiency, but as it had been refined thanks to many other techniques, anyone could use it. The idea behind the technique was to seal every point in both her body and soul that someone could use to see through her. As a seal, she pictured a cloud of ashes delicately covering her entire being and hiding her from the world. She had become so proficient in it that even middle Spirit Warriors could not easily detect her. She had even learned how to fly without revealing herself. Still, her stealth was diminished if she was to fly. But it remained difficult to unveil.

Using her 'Ashen Feather Seal', Huang Liyue completely disappeared. She was physically present, but no one could either discern or even notice her. For all intents and purposes, she had become invisible.

Thanks to that, she flew away and found herself right in front of the building where Gui Bei was known to live in. Upon arrival, she immediately released her spiritual senses. As a 6th-grade Spirit Warrior, her Soul Embryo was fully awakened and mature. Right now, her cultivation consisted in harmonizing her own soul and her Soul Embryo both to nourish it and prepare it for the next step. As such, her spiritual senses were rather powerful. From her own Upper Dantian, her Soul Embryo expanded into the physical world. In an instant, her Soul Embryo had completely covered the building all the way to the foundations.

What she realized was that Gui Bei was gone. But she noticed something more. He had not just left. Every single human being in the building had been viciously killed, including Gui Bei's own father. From the wounds, Huang Liyue recognized that they had indeed been killed by a meteor hammer. Some had their heads literally crushed. Among the victims, Gui Bei's father had had his spine reduced to dust in his own body. None of the kills had been clean. With her knowledge of assassination, Huang Liyue knew it had been done by someone unstable and emotional, Gui Bei.

There was no trace of Qi however. He had used pure physical strength to slaughter them all. In total, there were thirty-seven victims. And they had been killed around two days ago. It was impossible for the office of Governor Leng to not have noticed this. Most likely, they had but since they wanted to know the origin of Gui Bei's sudden cultivation increase, they had kept it quiet. Until they could finally find out his secret either by tailing him or by interrogating him, they would keep everything under wraps. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing for Huang Liyue either.

No matter how talented Gui Bei was, he was only a 1st-grade Mortal Warrior right now. In two days he could not have gone too far. Moreover the city was under heavy surveillance because of the upcoming stampede. With these pieces of information, Huang Liyue was able to deduce where the young murderer would go. Suddenly she had an idea. She extended her spiritual senses all the way to the young girl he had tried to assault, Long Jia. Thankfully she was fine.

Thus, Huang Liyue left the city in pursuit of the young man.

-

It did not take her more than an hour to find him in the woods over the Nine Peaks mountain. Considering the direction he was following, he was going toward Yinmen City. Well, it was the general direction of his movement, probably not his destination.

What was funny was that Gui Bei seemed to be doing the same thing as she was. Indeed, as soon as she had found him, she made sure that no one was following him anymore. And apparently, Fang Shaolong had taken good care of it. Here and there she felt the presence of some Spirit Warriors but they were all going away. Most likely, they were being mislead in some capacity. Quite frankly, Huang Liyue did not care about those details. She was now entirely focused on not being discovered. To that effect, she even stopped flying around and completely restrained her Soul Embryo within the confines of her Upper Dantian.

She had noticed firsthand that Gui Bei seemed to have a strange ability to notice spiritual senses. Thanks to her occupation as bodyguard, Huang Liyue had trained her physical senses for a very long time even after obtaining her spiritual senses. In terms of spiritual senses, Xiao Xuefeng was the most competent cultivator in the Hongchen Kingdom. But in terms of physical senses, Huang Liyue could rightfully claim first place.

With her expertise, she had gone to the extent of adding a chapter to her own creation 'Ashen Feather Seal', 'Burning the Cinders of the Six Openings'. This chapter had techniques put in a certain order to optimize the development of all the senses, including the spiritual senses. The Six Openings were the eyes, the ears, the nose, the mouth, and finally the skin with all the acupoints of the human body. To them, she had also added the spiritual senses encompassing everything else. This chapter was directed toward improving the senses of the body and the mind, either physical, related to Qi, or spiritual.

Once more, she had a great stealth and a great perception, in other words, she was the perfect assassin.

-

Huang Liyue had to be very patient because Gui Bei was way too careful. It took him one entire month to finally decide that he was not being followed. To be fair, he was right to be paranoid, because he was indeed being followed. Thanks to his spatial rings, he had probably a lot of resources. He had even gone to retrieve the one he had hidden away. Most likely, he could survive in those woods for several years, if not decades. Without using her spiritual senses, Huang Liyue could not determine the volume of the spatial rings just by looking at them.

With the looming threat of the demonic beasts stampede, Gui Bei was also very careful not to encounter a demonic beast with more than four demonic cores. At his current level, he could kill a 4-core demonic beast, but he was not confident against anything higher. After seeing him fight, Huang Liyue realized that he had already progressed a little bit. His cultivation was fully stabilized. If she had no information on him, she could easily believe he had been a 1st-grade Mortal Warrior for a very long time.

Finally, his habits changed. However, Huang Liyue stuck to hers. She didn't want to blow her cover so close to the goal. If he behaved in a different way, it probably meant that he was now feeling safe and was going to reveal some of his secrets, maybe enough for Huang Liyue to consider the mission a success. In that case, she could then kill Gui Bei and be done with him. It would have taken less than two months after all.

-

Gui Bei was now convinced that no expert was following him. Some had tailed him after leaving the city. Fortunately, they had probably been worried about the upcoming stampede. Baziyun City required everyone to be ready. Even that moron of a governor had not noticed the entire household Gui Bei had eradicated. Just to be sure, Gui Bei waited a few days.

Unfortunately, the voice in his head told him to not be arrogant and to wait longer and longer. In the end, he was forced to wait almost a month. For an entire month, he had lived in those woods while no kind of spiritual senses was used to try and detect him. Of course, he had lost his few pursuers. The people of Baziyun City were probably so worried and terrified by the prospect of a demonic beasts stampede that they had not cared about him. And he would make them regret it. Not only would he annihilate the Huang family and defile Huang Cixi, he would also raze the entire Baziyun City to the ground.

Gui Bei could already imagine the scene of chaos and misery. But the voice in his head was wasting his time.

"You see that no one is following me! The more I wait the more risks I'm in. If we encounter a 5-core demonic beasts, remember that you'll also die with me. Whether you agree or not, I'm going!"

"Fine." The voice was emotionless. Otherwise, Gui Bei would have heard disdain in it.

This discussion happened in Gui Bei's mind and Huang Liyue was not privy to it.

After two days of walking, Gui Bei got closer to Baziyun City. In fact, he was now very close to the former residence of the Cao family. Suddenly he stopped in front of some ravine. And he stayed several minutes looking down without doing anything.

"Are you sure? This isn't the same gate... It even feels different."

"Of course it does. The gate you used was just a tiny portion of the actual dimension. The true dimension where you'll find the power you seek is down there. Once you enter the gate, I'll guide you, do not worry. I know this world perfectly. And I can assure you the miserable fraction of power you've obtained is nothing compared to what this world can give you."

"You promised me enough power to annihilate the Huang family, remember!"

"Do not worry. Not only will you be powerful enough to kill them all, you will also be able to dominate the entire Piaolu planet. Trust me."

"I don't trust you at all! But I do want this power."

Gui Bei's eyes were full of a dangerous light, mixing greed and rage. Unexpectedly, he jumped down the ravine before Huang Liyue's eyes. And just as soon, his presence completely disappeared. For the first time, the bodyguard panicked. She had lost him entirely. It was as if he had never existed.

At first, she was hesitant to get too close. But she had no other choice to determine what was going on. In the worst case scenario, if it was some scheme to force her to reveal herself, she could just capture him and try to pry open his very soul. Maybe, like demonic cultivators, he had some seal that would destroy the information she wanted though. If it came down to that, she would simply kill him and be done with the threat he was. Losing information was better than letting a dangerous enemy walk free. Huang Cixi might disagree but Huang Liyue's goal was to protect her family first.

However, when she reached the ravine, she realized that there was nothing, nothing at all. For the first time for a month, Huang Liyue used her Soul Embryo and her spiritual senses tried to pierce through the veil of darkness. Even with her full concentration, and pushing her mind and soul to their limit, she was unable to find anything at all. Her soul seemed to expand into nothingness. After stretching it as far as she could, her Soul Embryo had not been able to detect anything at all.

Since this approach was not working, she tried to feel what was going around this ravine. And she was shocked when she discovered that space itself was somewhat warped. Suddenly this made sense to her. This was the same sensation as a spatial ring, but slightly different and bigger. That black hole was a door to some other dimension. During her long life, she had already crossed such a veil once. And she clearly remembered the sensation. Gui Bei had found his power inside another dimension. That could explain a lot of things.

Still hesitant, Huang Liyue could have gone back into the Huang residence to expose her findings. But she may risk letting Gui Bei run away. She had no idea whether this was the only gateway or not. Maybe he could leave through another door. If she let him escape, he could become an existential threat, especially with knowledge and artifacts from another dimension.

Huang Liyue had to at least find out what this dimension was. Thus, she followed the young murderer down the black hole.