Xiao Yin Yu looked somewhat curiously at the two jade slips rolling around in Yin Long's palm, she hadn't checked their contents so she didn't actually know what was stored in them. For that matter, she didn't even know what sort of purpose this collection of rooms had, she only knew that it was some sort of underground lair.

"So, what exactly are those two jade slips? Going by your words, they're some sort of incriminating evidence that can be used against one or more elders?"

Yin Yu may not know exactly what purpose this room had or what was written in the jade slips, but she still belonged to a large organization so she had a bit of knowledge about how they usually operated. Having a bit of dirt on each elder was just par for the course, it would keep them in line and make it easier to order them around. But this time, her guess was a little bit off.

"Not quite. This is where the dark side of the clan gathers, its unseen helpers and the like. Each jade slip contains a mission, a target marked for death or a target that needs to be spied on more thoroughly. Some targets we have the evidence on but acting against them openly is hard because of their supporters, other targets we only have a little evidence on and have to find the remaining evidence either on their person or within their abode. As for these two, the evidence against them isn't all that plentiful, but Lan Yun and I spied a fair bit on these particular elders in the past so I've got a good idea about where we can find the remaining evidence."

The two elders in question weren't ranked terribly highly since their cultivation was comparatively low, but they were exceedingly old and had served the clan for long enough to extend their unseen hands. It was a bit tricky to find proper evidence against them thanks to this, they simply kept it far too close to their chest for them to just snatch it away. And since it was hard to snatch it away, it also became hard to actually know if they had done enough to warrant an assassination, they were in a very annoying spot.

"I see, you're going to kill them and dig up the evidence to see how this Tang Fen will act. Maybe check if she's cold-hearted enough to take care of the remnants?"

He didn't state it outright, but the information he provided was more than enough for Yin Yu to figure out that he had worked here in the past. He was the dark blade of the clan, he had hidden behind a facade and cut down his sister's enemies in the dark. And now he had returned, and while he wasn't the same youth that had left, that duty he bore back then still pushed him forward. But once again, Yin Long gave a light shake of his head, Yin Yu's guess a little bit off once more.

"No, not quite. To me, the purpose of a clan's dark blade has never been to eradicate all the enemies that the leader might encounter. It has always been about stabilizing the position of the leader, and quietly killing all their enemies isn't always the best way to go about that."

Everything he did back then was to secure his sister's position, the interrogation where he officiated her marriage to Tang Fen, the Throne Seekers Rite, his own death, everything had been set up to secure her rule and smile. And his move this time would be no different, it would just secure the position of someone else.

"I hope you know how to move about stealthily, otherwise you'll probably have to wait around outside."

Yin Long flipped his hand and put away the jade slips as he spoke, heading towards one of the doors that lined the elevated platform that served as this room's second floor. He didn't say exactly what he was planning, and Yin Yu didn't ask, snorting once as if Yin Long had said something unbelievable.

"If I wasn't even capable of moving around unseen then I would have been assassinated countless times by rival organizations. Life isn't all roses just because you have a high position."

As if to demonstrate her skill, lightning started to crackle out from Yin Yu's skin, diffusing into the surroundings. And then, a strange scene took place, she vanished from Yin Long's sight. He could still sense her with his connection to the surrounding space, but she had completely disappeared from his sight. Her hand tapped his shoulder as she brushed past him, a somewhat victorious smile on her face when she saw the surprise that had emerged in his pupils.

"Living beings may be able to see things thanks to light, but the eyes that take in that light still have to turn that light into electric signals that tell the brain what it's seeing. Once you shut off those electric signals, you can somewhat control what people see. Right now I can only keep it active in a range of about three kilometres around me, but anyone weaker than me won't be able to see me. If I decrease the range then I can also tell their brains that there is nothing where I am, making it so that they can't even see me using their Qi or laws, their brain is telling them that nothing is there after all."

It was a rather ingenious usage of the law of lightning, Yin Long was not shy about telling Yin Yu as much. It was definitely something that not only required extremely minute control but also an exceptional understanding of how parts of the brain and the eyes worked, Yin Yu had definitely studied hard to make this particular technique work.

"I see, it's definitely an extremely difficult technique, but it is equally amazing. I can't even begin to guess how much work it took to master, it is an exceptional showcasing that you haven't reached your current position through sheer talent."

Yin Yu's victorious smile faltered slightly when she heard Yin Long's words. She was the strongest disciple of her organization so she was more than used to praise, she was showered in it on a daily basis. But she didn't think there was ever a time the praise had been this sincere and pure, those who praised her always just wanted to get in her good books or wanted something from her. Only Yin Long praised her for her efforts simply because of how much work she had put in, how much she had honed her technique.

She appeared again in Yin Long's sight as she undid the technique, correcting her expression as she trailed at his side. He brought her up to the door on the elevated terrace, opening it to reveal a small gathering of spatial arrays. He picked out the correct one and activated it using Spirit Stones, the group of three vanishing from the room with a twist of space.

They appeared again in an identical room, Yin Long pushing open the door to reveal that they had arrived in a much smaller version of the hub they had just been in. This hub only contained the miniature transmission station and one other room that could be used to gather before you left on your mission.

The group didn't linger around, Yin Long heading directly for the exit and making his way down the stone hallway. He opened the secret entrance at the end, he and Yin Yu arriving in an empty bedroom, the subdued sound of cheers reaching them. The place they had arrived in was an inn on the other side of the city, one of the many hidden entrances prepared long ago.

They left the room and made their way through the inn, quickly reaching the large dining hall that also served as the entrance. The dining hall was currently filled up with people that were drinking and eating, all of their eyes drawn towards the same thing.

An array had been prepared at the centre of the room, projecting an image onto a large pearl that hovered at the centre of the array. The image showed Lang Huo leaning against a railing, a section of what looked like a stone bench visible behind her. A bit of a stone stage was visible in front of her, but the image cut off before they could see the full stage, they could at best see a few stray attacks.

Yin Long's feet stopped when he saw the image, his gaze drawn towards it. This was the broadcast of the Province Championship, the fact that Lang Huo could get her own was a sign that she had reached one of the higher ranks. She looked just as he remembered her, albeit a bit more haggard and pale, the stress of what he had forced her to do had definitely eaten away at her.

She was leaning against the metal railing, but her gaze was swimming around quite anxiously, her weight constantly shifting from foot to foot as she turned her head. She was anxious, even a blind man would be able to see that. She was looking for someone, someone that should have died long ago. A small and warm smile spread on Yin Long's face, so gentle that it seemed like it contained all the warmth of spring, it was a smile that Yin Yu would not mind if he wore all the time.

"Soon, very soon, I promise."

His words were so soft that only Yin Yu and Jin Wang could hear them, his gaze leaving the image once he uttered the words. His legs started to move again and he left the inn, moving towards a somewhat distant mansion with quick steps.

The group stopped in one of the side alleys close to the wall that surrounded the garden around the mansion, they had moved some of the trash that had gathered in the alley to block the two sides of the alley so that they couldn't be seen. Yin Long crouched down somewhat and placed his hand on the ground, his senses already extending down into the earth.

"Can you include me and goldie in your stealth technique or do I need to use a different path into the mansion?"

Yin Long did have his own method of entering the mansion, he could use his law of space to phase into the earth and move about like that. But it was a technique that drained a lot of Qi, and he couldn't bring along Jin Wang or Yin Yu as he did so, so if he could latch onto her then things would be a bit easier.

"As long as I reduce the range then it'll be fine. For the three of us, I'd have to reduce the range to a little over one kilometre, so if you think that'll be enough then we can do it."

Yin Yu spoke after making a few calculations, it would require more control and more Qi, but it wasn't something impossible. Yin Long went over his mental map of the mansion, checking out the route he had planned out, and once he saw that the range would be more than sufficient, he too nodded his head.

"One kilometre is good enough, there'll only be a single spot where we would have to be careful. But that spot also happens to be where we're going, so it doesn't matter if we're seen when we get there."

Yin Long was the one with the plan here so Yin Yu simply nodded her head and activated her technique, azure lightning diffusing into the surroundings. She signalled that everything was ready so Yin Long stood up from his crouched position, the group climbing over the wall and entering the bamboo forest that spread throughout most of the garden.

With Yin Yu's technique, they were free to move about as they pleased, the hallways of the mansion were far from one kilometre wide or long so there really was no spot where there was ever a chance of anyone being able to see them. They easily made their way past all the maids and guards as they headed deeper into the mansion, their path taking them a few floors down underground.

Yin Long's steps slowed slightly as they moved through another hallway, his hand signalling towards the door ahead of them that this was their target. His senses had already stretched beyond the door so he could see the large hall that spread out beyond it, could see the fighting pits that had been dug into the ground.

This was the illegal gambling den of Elder Shaohe, here slaves, servants, captives, and beasts were pit in combat against each other. The winner got to live and move on to the next fight, they were promised freedom if they won enough, but they were never told how much they had to win for it to be considered enough.

The suspicion they had was that Elder Shaohe had sent several Lang clan members into the pits and faked their deaths, mainly members that were loyal to the elders that he didn't consider his allies. Illegal bloodsports and intentional weakening of the clan, death was a fitting punishment, provided that they could get the proper evidence.

Yin Long stopped in front of the closed door, his senses couldn't cover the entire hall due to how big it was, but there was one pit that was within his senses that had caught his interest. The pit contained a two-metre-long rabbit with bone-like antlers and a young boy, a child that couldn't possibly be more than eight or nine years old.

He was dressed in brown rags and covered in dust and dirt so he was probably an orphan that had been sold as a slave, he was stumbling around awkwardly as he fought against the beast. But even with his awkward and clumsy movements, he managed to avoid each attack with a hair's width. He got some scrapes and small cuts, but nothing serious enough to incapacitate him.

His weapon was also rather peculiar, it looked like a spearhead that had been attached to a rope that looked like it was made from intertwined sinew. His movements with the weapon were also clumsy and unskilled, he clearly had just been handed something and forced to fight with it.

But even so, just like with his dodging, his flailing attacks always seemed to hit their target. He didn't harm himself with the strange weapon and managed to whittle away at the beast, even while his torn pants were soaked with urine. He was afraid and unskilled, but whether it was luck or talent, he managed to dodge and attack successfully.

And then there was his eyes, a pair of bright blue eyes that shone with an intense desire to live, one that even competed with the fear of death that threatened to swallow his young mind. He was afraid to the point that he wet his pants, an understandable action for someone so young, but he was unwilling to die here. He wanted to live for at least another second, another minute, another day, so he fought and struggled so that he could get those additional seconds of life. Yin Long smiled softly, but it was a rueful smile more than anything else.

"Really, children shouldn't be forced to look like that, they should smile and be silly while they still can. Sorry, Yin Yu, but can I ask you to act once I open the door? The strongest person I can see in there has only reached the 5th Immortal Door, but if my earlier experiments have proven anything then it is that fighting while starving is much harder than I expected."

He hadn't even been able to defeat Demonic beasts at the same cultivation realm as his thanks to the intense hunger interfering with his every move. As such, it definitely wouldn't end well if he tried to fight someone with higher cultivation. There also wasn't anything to be gained from doing so, this had to be accomplished quickly, and he had yet to gain the clarity that he felt he needed to infuse his emotions and memories into his blade.

Yin Yu simply nodded her head, her Qi quickly starting to seethe and roil. Yin Long gave her a few quick details on who she should target and focus on and then pushed open the door, a room that was about five or so kilometres wide and long revealing itself to them. A few of the metal-clad guards reacted the moment the door was opened, but Yin Yu's wind was faster than them.

It moved through the room like a quiet breeze, entering their bodies through their orifices. The wind rushed into their lungs and then pushed against the fleshy walls, exploding their lungs from within in a quick and silent manner. Yin Yu was strong, stronger than anyone in the current Lang clan, so it only took a handful of seconds for every guard and gambler to die under her attack. Only the fighters were left, at least the human fighters, the beasts had already gotten a good taste for human flesh so leaving them to their own was dangerous.

"You're all free to leave now, but if you go to your cages and wait there for at most a day then I can guarantee you that someone will come and save you, they will provide for you. Just pretend that we didn't come here, there were never any guards or gamblers here today, understood?"

Yin Long's voice reached all of the captives, both those that had just been fighting and those that were still locked in their cages. They wept in response to his assurance, tears of joy and relief, and of sorrow, streaming down their face. They would be saved, but some of them had been forced to do things they would never forget, things they would never be able to forgive themselves for.