Lin Fan had been surprised by Jiang Hei's sudden actions, but that didn't mean that he would be caught off guard for that long.

After being surprised, he immediately came back to his senses and bolted out of the room, chasing after Jiang Hei.

​​

Jiang Hei didn't stop for a single second as he continued dashing down the hall, shouting out, "Someone, stop him! I'll give you any amount of money you want if you stop him!"

But it was too bad that there was no one there to answer him.

All along the floors were various corpses just lying there in pools of blood. The one common thing between them all was that they were all wearing the guard uniform of the Jiang Family.

When Lin Fan had gone into that room to assassinate Jiang Hei, he had left Jiang Zhi Shu and the rest of his subordinates outside. The weaker ones were sent out to help the slaves in secret, killing the guards while following the slaves to keep them safe.

As for the stronger ones like Jiang Zhi Shu, they had followed Jiang Hei's followers, waiting for the right chance to strike.

Right now, in this slave trade base, other than Jiang Hei, there was no one else from the Jiang Family that was still left alive.

Jiang Hei continued to run and surprisingly, he was able to maintain his lead over Lin Fan.

Jiang Hei was feeling confident as he saw that Lin Fan was always unable to catch up to him, but what he didn't know was that this was all Lin Fan's plan. He was purposefully falling behind Jiang Hei to see what kind of moves Jiang Hei still had left up his sleeve.

As they continued through the base, Lin Fan slowly began recognizing the way they were going.

If they continued along this path, they would reach the room with the strange fountain and crystal.

Since the path was completely clear and Jiang Hei was running as quickly as possible, it didn't take them long to reach that room.

Jiang Hei burst right through the door and without caring about anything else, he immediately hid behind the crystal as he shouted, "Dark Master, please save me!"

Lin Fan had arrived at the door just in time to hear this and he immediately knit his brows since he suddenly felt something strange coming from the crystal.

It was like the crystal had been in a dormant state and it had suddenly woken up as a burst of dark energy suddenly came from the crystal. It filled the entire room and it was so strong that it had even pushed Lin Fan a step back.

Lin Fan knit his brows since he had felt this kind of aura before, this aura was the aura of a beast and it was quite a powerful one. It might even be on par with the level Jin was at in the planar crack, or even above that.

But Lin Fan was also stronger compared to before, so he wasn't that worried.

He was just wondering what this all meant.

Did it mean that the Jiang Family had betrayed humanity and was working with the Beast Race?

After the wave of dark energy was released from the crystal, there was a deep voice that filled the room, "Why have you awakened me! Bring me more sacrifices as we agreed!"

Jiang Hei bowed down to the crystal and said, "Dark Master, please help me kill this intruder and I'll get you a thousand sacrifices!"

It was only then that the consciousness inside the crystal noticed Lin Fan.

When the consciousness had turned its attention to Lin Fan, he felt a powerful spiritual sense come over him, but he immediately released a layer of spatial energy around him to cut that spiritual sense off.

When that happened, the voice of the crystal sounded again, "Interesting, interesting. You're this young and you've already mastered spatial laws. You would serve me much better than these idiots."

Jiang Hei quickly said, "But Dark Master, we've…"

He didn't get to say anything else as he was immediately crushed under the dark energy as the voice of the crystal said in a cold voice, "Silence, bug!"

Then the consciousness in the crystal returned its focus back to Lin Fan as it said, "Well, what do you say?"

Lin Fan paused for a second with a thoughtful look on his face before he said, "What can you offer me then?"

The voice of the crystal suddenly gave a resounding laugh that shook the room before it said, "What do you want?"

Lin Fan casually gave a shrug before saying, "I don't even know what you are yet, so why don't you tell me what you have to offer?"

The voice of the crystal was silent for a bit before saying, "You're smart. Smart people aren't always good, you and I both know that."

Lin Fan revealed a faint smile as he said, "What do you think I am then?"

The voice of the crystal took another pause before saying, "You're also dangerous, which means that it's better to befriend you than to make you my enemy. So tell me, why are you attacking my servants?"

Lin Fan didn't say a thing as he just stood there with a smile.

The voice of the crystal saw that Lin Fan wasn't going to explain, so it said, "Alright, to each their own. I can only tell you now that I am a very powerful person and if you follow me, you'll go far beyond just this simple lower realm. I'll bring you all the way past the upper realms and into the Stellar Kingdoms. All you have to do is follow me."

Lin Fan still stood there without saying a thing.

The voice of the crystal had a somewhat helpless tone in its voice as it said, "I can tell that you won't be moved unless you see some real benefits, so this is for you."

There was a bit of dark energy that came out of the dark crystal and floated towards Lin Fan. It went all the way in front of him and just remained floating there.

Seeing that Lin Fan had no intention of doing anything, the voice of the crystal said, "Crush it in your hand and you'll see what I mean."

Lin Fan looked over the ball of dark energy for a bit and after getting the all clear signal from Brainy in his sleeve, his right hand finally came up to meet it. He wrapped his hand around the ball of dark energy and after pausing for a second, he crushed it.

There was a burst of information that suddenly entered his mind the moment he crushed that ball of dark energy. It took him a few seconds to go through that information and then it cleared up to reveal a part of a cultivation technique.

This was a cultivation technique that was based on spatial laws and would be very useful to Lin Fan if he didn't already have a much better cultivation technique. But the main thing was that the latter half, the more important part was missing.

Lin Fan looked back up at the crystal, but he still didn't say a word.

The voice in the crystal gave another laugh before it said, "How about it? I'll give you the rest of this as long as you come to work for me."

It was only at this moment that Lin Fan finally said something, "Are you the Shadow Lord?"

The voice in the crystal immediately replied with another question, "Shadow Lord? What is that?"

Based on the confusion in its voice, it was clear that it didn't know what the name Shadow Lord meant.

That only left a single possibility.

Lin Fan didn't answer this question as he asked, "Then are you the Beast Race King who fell down to this lower realm?"

The wave of energy that came from the crystal immediately became much denser as it said in a deep voice, "How much do you know?"

Lin Fan once again didn't answer as he asked, "What were you looking for in the lower realm that you disappeared from the Beast Race?"

The voice of the crystal finally stopped talking to Lin Fan, rather this time it turned its attention back to Jiang Hei, "I'll kill him, you better keep your promise of the sacrifice."

Jiang Hei had been listening to the conversation between them with a depressed look since it didn't seem like it was going the way he wanted, but when he heard these words, his face immediately lit up. Jiang Hei kept nodding as he said, "Of course, of course, Dark Master!"

The energy that the crystal had released suddenly began to flow in reverse.

The dark energy gathered around the crystal in a vortex before slowly gathering together to take form.

At first it was just a thin layer of dark energy around the crystal, but soon it expanded outwards. The expansion continued and continued, growing larger and larger until it took a form that was similar to a human.

Of course, this form was completely made of dark energy, so there wasn't a single feature that a normal human would have on this. The only feature that it had was a single eye that covered the entire area where a normal person's face should be.

That eye was narrowed as it looked at Lin Fan and a voice came out from an unknown orifice, "I know I'll have to sacrifice this crystal to kill you, but at least it's just one of many. But for you, this is the only life that you have."

Lin Fan already expected this, so he said with a smile, "Many people have said that before, but I'm still here."