"Is personal honor more important than the lives of the common people of the nation?" Fei Mengchen’s white eyebrows twitched.

"Personal honor? This is the honor of a soldier!" Zhao Jianhun let out a desolate laugh. "What's the point of me talking to you about this, anyway? You wouldn't understand. You are a great figure in the imperial court, second only to the Emperor, a man above ten thousand others. You don't need to know what military honor is, you only care about results, right?!"

Fei Mengchen laughed in exasperation, pointing his dry finger toward Tianxiang City. "Did you fail to notice just now? Even if your strength level is lower, you should have perceived it. If such powerful experts truly engaged in the war, the Tianxiang Empire would inevitably unify the entire continent in a very short time! For us, this would undoubtedly be a disaster of annihilation! What is military honor? This State Preceptor naturally knows, but military honor absolutely does not equate to being pedantic! Forget about whether I killed Jun Wuhui; even if I did kill him, for the sake of Yutang, I would have a clear conscience!"

Zhao Jianhun turned his spear-straight back on his horse and said coldly, "A clear conscience? When has a despicable coward who resorts to backstabbing ever had a clear conscience! Time will judge right from wrong!"

Fei Mengchen was struck speechless with anger. What kind of person was this?! He truly had never met anyone so stubbornly single-minded. Every time this issue came up, it became a confrontation. He had explained it for ten long years, yet the other still didn't believe him—

In the direction of the Heaven Punishment Forest, a troop of soldiers, looking like wild men, marched out of the forest with steady, firm steps!

Every man in this group was ragged; at best, they merely had strips of tattered cloth barely clinging to their bodies. Some were even covered only by a piece of animal hide wrapped around their loins. Every single one was crisscrossed with countless scars, numbering in the dozens, to the extent that the original color of their skin was almost unrecognizable. Those scars alone indicated that each of them had teetered on the edge of life and death many times!

Several others clearly had leg injuries, limping as they walked, yet every step they took was still solid. They refused assistance from their comrades, dragging their bodies forward, yet they lagged behind not a bit, not even needing crutches.

Though their bodies were exhausted, their spirits were high! Their eyes held nothing but sharp, wild intensity, their muscles corded. Despite walking as such a tattered company of hundreds, they naturally exuded a fierce, sharp killing aura!

Dare to look!

Each man carried a large pack on his back, and this was true even for those severely injured. Whenever their hands touched these packs, a flicker of pride would cross their faces. Clearly, what each man carried on his back was the spoil of war they had personally hunted down with their own hands!

They walked steadfastly toward Tianxiang City. Though slow, they were stable. Though their eyes burned with urgency, their steps remained measured, their fixed rhythm of walking utterly unbroken.

These men were the three hundred guards of the Jun family who had been exiled by Jun Moxie into the Heaven Punishment Forest for death training! After these short few months, if they were ore before, they were now refined steel! If they were steel billets before, they had now transformed into sharp, gleaming instruments of slaughter!

Right behind them, deep within the Heaven Punishment Forest, two black shadows suddenly sliced through the air with piercing whistles, rocketing toward Tianxiang City. Nobody managed to clearly see whether the things flying past were men or something else—just two dark blurs that vanished in an instant.

Jun Moxie felt a sudden surge in his meridians the moment the spiritual energy permeated him, instantly filling them. The current flowing within his meridians suddenly exploded with fullness, but then, like an bottomless pit, it all vanished, instantly sucked away by the Grandmist Pagoda. After a moment of emptiness, it immediately rushed back in a frenzy. The Grandmist Pagoda temporarily ceased outputting spiritual energy.

The flow of qi within his meridians had significantly strengthened in that brief moment, and it had also condensed considerably. His meridians now felt full! At this moment, Jun Moxie had reached the bottleneck of the first level of the Genesis Creation Art, requiring only one catalyst to break through to the second level!

For a cultivation technique like the Genesis Creation Art, achieving such progress was a miracle that would leave even the gods and buddhas overhead disbelieving! Measuring Jun Moxie's true current strength by the Xuanqi standards of the Profound Profound Continent, he had already broken through the Ninth Rank barrier, soaring straight to the Silver Tier Middle Stage! However, considering the function and applicability of his cultivation method, even a Supreme Divine Profound expert could not compare!

It was equivalent to a massive, instantaneous leap forward—a truly huge step!

In that brief instant, every last drop of spiritual energy gathered between heaven and earth by the Grandmist Pagoda had been absorbed into it! Such a massive quantity of spiritual energy was swallowed whole by the Grandmist Pagoda in one gulp! Furthermore, it was like adding a single drop of water to a vast ocean—it failed to create even the slightest ripple, although that drop was quite large, it was still minuscule compared to the boundless sea!

The Grandmist Pagoda, actively spurred by Jun Moxie for the first time, had erupted with such terrifying power! This force alone was enough to make the entire world tremble!

In truth, this did not mean that Jun Moxie now possessed some invincible strength. While the effect and starting point were incredibly high, Jun Moxie's strength, though increased considerably, was only increased relative to his previous self.

The spiritual energy gathered in the air above was now completely absorbed by the Grandmist Pagoda, and Jun Moxie’s small courtyard appeared outwardly unchanged, almost identical to before. The only reason it was said to be 'almost' unchanged was that anyone more observant would notice upon taking the first step into the area: the entire ground had sunk by three full fen lower than before! Also, the jade stone-topped desk that had been in front of Jun Moxie was now gone without a trace, vanishing silently as if ice had melted into water.

A pained expression crossed Jun Moxie's face. He had tried several times to withdraw his spiritual sense from the Grandmist Pagoda, only to find that it remained locked onto it. Jun Moxie didn't fully understand and decided to wait patiently, meeting change with stillness.

Suddenly, a churning occurred inside the Grandmist Pagoda. Jun Moxie felt a violent pain in his mind, and then the Grandmist Pagoda slowly settled back into place. The surrounding radiance instantly vanished. Simultaneously, Jun Moxie suddenly felt as if something had vaguely been added to his consciousness.

"Heaven has Qiankun, Earth is divided into Yin and Yang. Yin and Yang cycle, giving rise to the birth and transformation of all things; the beginning of the human body is nothing but Yin and Yang energies. Created by creation, returned to oblivion by creation, thus one can hide within the Yin and Yang of creation. All things can hide; the human body can also hide. Tracing its origin, it still lies in Yin and Yang..."

The Yin-Yang Evasion Art!

Jun Moxie slowly savored the text of the Yin-Yang Evasion Art, word by word, slowly comprehending it. He realized that this so-called 'Yin-Yang Evasion' was an extremely practical divine technique. Once mastered, it would allow one's body to hide within any surrounding object, anytime, anywhere; upon reaching its peak, one could even hide one's body in the air! It allowed one to submerge into water and travel hundreds of li, or tunnel through earth and scale mountains!

What an astonishing technique this was!

"The Grandmist Pagoda is truly no ordinary item. If there were more things like this, that would be good..." Jun Moxie sighed with a hint of satisfaction. Suddenly, a thought flashed through his mind: If he were invisible, he could go peek at beautiful women bathing—perhaps peeking at his beautiful sister-in-law... As soon as this thought arose, Jun Moxie immediately spat, cursing, "Jun Moxie, if you had to die, fine, but don't leave behind such filthy, lewd thoughts to contaminate me! Truly intolerable."

If the original Jun Moxie, now deceased, had any awareness, he would surely be weeping bitterly in grievance: Big Brother, these were your own thoughts! They were absolutely your own ideas! What does that have to do with me? I’m already scattered into dust, and you’re still pushing the blame onto me... One cannot be this shameless, even as a ghost...

Jun Moxie had never been exposed to true cultivation before; he didn't even know what cultivation meant. Naturally, he did not realize how extraordinarily profound this 'Yin-Yang Evasion Art' residing in his mind actually was! Since the inception of evasion arts, there had only ever been the Five Elements Evasion Arts—Gold, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth—and because the world was inherently incomplete, even the Five Elements were difficult to master completely. Moreover, one had to rely on personal aptitude and talent, specializing in only one branch to have any hope of success.

But this Yin-Yang Evasion Art, related to the number of Yin and Yang, transcended the realm of Heaven and Earth, placing it beyond the scope of the world's incompleteness. With the Genesis Creation Art as its foundation, once mastered, one could freely hide anywhere at any time! It was completely unrestricted by the rules of the so-called Five Elements Evasion Arts. In any ordinary cultivation world, such a technique would cause countless people to fight until their heads broke just for a chance at it.

Yet Jun Moxie had no awareness of how magnificent and rare this technique was. Having obtained it from the Grandmist Pagoda, he took it as a matter of course, even feeling that it was somehow lacking...

If cultivators from other worlds knew of this attitude, they would surely spew a mouthful of blood in furious grief—to be so shameless about one’s fortune was beyond the pale...

Jun Wuyi appeared in the small courtyard with a look of shock, cautiously approaching. He stepped uncertainly on the ground beneath his feet. With the acute senses of a Heavenly Profound expert he had achieved, he could instantly detect that the ground underfoot had dropped by three fen out of thin air! It hadn't vanished; rather, the land beneath his feet felt more solid...

How was this possible? The ground sinking three fen instantly required what level of terrifying power!

That wasn't even the strangest part. Even stranger was that the flowers and plants in this courtyard hadn't even dropped a single leaf!

Such intense turbulence, such a massive disturbance, yet not a single leaf was shaken loose—this was too bizarre!

And the most astonishing point of all was the jade stone table where the eight people had previously sat—that table, made of jade with an extremely rare and sturdy texture, had also evaporated without a sound...

The ground subsided, the table vanished, yet not a leaf was stirred. What was going on? How could one possibly explain such an absurd phenomenon?!

"Moxie... this..." Jun Wuyi looked at his nephew as if in a dream, hoping this treasured nephew of his could offer an explanation for these strange occurrences.

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