At the summit of Mount Hua, separated by an endless sea of ​​gloomy clouds, the situation on the mountain is slightly better than at the foot of the mountain. However, upon closer inspection, although the trees here show some green and have not withered, they have little vitality left.

Perhaps in a month, perhaps in half a year, the trees here will look just like those down the mountain.

Lin Feng climbed the treacherous stone steps alone, looking up at the higher peaks. His legs trembled several times, but he finally suppressed his fear and continued climbing. The height here was comparable to a bottomless abyss; even a fall would take him a minute.

Grabbing a half-withered pine tree, Lin Feng raised his head and shouted, "Is there anyone from the Huashan Sect still alive?"

His loud voice spread rapidly among the mountain peaks. The withered tobacco trees growing on the cliffs trembled as if in response to his question. Only after the voice completely dissipated did he bend down and find a place to sit down comfortably by the trees.

Ten minutes, twenty minutes, thirty minutes, an hour...

Lin Feng sat there waiting until a cold glint appeared between his brows.

"Participants?"

The aged voice carried a questioning tone, concealing a murderous intent.

Lin Feng did not answer. His eyes swept over the sword in front of him, and the flesh between his eyebrows twitched a few times. He cautiously raised his head.

The person before me had white hair and a youthful face. He wore a Taoist robe covered in pudding, had a dirty gourd hanging from his waist, and carried a broken sword stained with rust. Despite his disheveled appearance, his aura was very powerful.

"Yes."

Lin Feng answered, and the old man unconsciously tightened his grip on the sword in his hand, pushing it forward slightly.

Uh... Lin Feng tilted his head back to avoid the sharp edge, a bead of cold sweat silently sliding down his cheek. If the old man's eyes hadn't been filled with fear rather than killing intent, he would have really suffered a loss.

"Huang Zhen, the leader of the Huashan Sect"

The name of the person before him lingered in Lin Feng's mind. He tried hard to recall and seemed to remember the other's identity. Huang Zhen, the disciple of Mu Renqing, the number one martial arts master in the world during the time of the Sword Stained with Royal Blood, and the senior brother of the protagonist Yuan Chengzhi.

Finally, it matches up. Looks like he's a normal person. That's really something.

Lin Feng breathed a sigh of relief, not dwelling on what had just happened, and feigned curiosity, asking, "The Huashan Sect?"

Huang Zhen awoke from some memories, his grip on the sword faltering. He shouted in a panic, "What are you trying to do now!"

"I don't want to do anything..." Almost instantly, the worst possibility flashed through Lin Feng's mind. Although he wanted to say that he didn't know the situation here either, as a participant, he couldn't clear his name with just a few words.

"Don't want to do anything?"

Huang Zhen was enraged, and all the memories of the participants flooded his mind. The person who had stood before him back then had trampled all living beings under his feet, sighing with disdain in his eyes, and turned the land they depended on for survival into an endless hell.

'Even if heaven and earth were to die, what would it matter to me?'

Huang Zhen's broken sword trembled, and his eyes, filled with utter despair, burst forth with an unprecedented killing intent, which he poured into Lin Feng.

Clang!

As the swords clashed, an illusory blade appeared out of thin air and stopped Huang Zhen.

The two forces clashed, and Huang Zhen's broken sword swirled, its tip swiftly unleashing a sword aura that hurtled towards Lin Feng's face.

"Shield!" Without Lin Feng needing to explain, an arc-shaped shield unfolded in front of him, relentlessly blocking Huang Zhen's sword energy.

"Huang Zhen!" Lin Feng shouted.

The faint appearance of the red spirit, with its chilling aura distinct from those evil arts, brought Huang Zhen to his senses somewhat, but the killing intent in his eyes suddenly became intense. The mockery of that participant, or rather, the participant he had once taken as his disciple, resurfaced in his ears.

Even if heaven and earth were to die, what would it matter to me?!

"What do you want to do?" Huang Zhen suppressed his emotions, pressed down on the broken sword, and said, word by word.

Lin Feng stood up, and Hong Linggui put away her shield. However, illusory ghostly figures seemed to hover around him, protecting him from all possible attacks: "I just want to know why this world has become like this?"

"Heh...heh..." Huang Zhen sneered, a hint of regret appearing in his crazed eyes. The cold wind raged on the edge of the cliff, blowing up his sleeves and revealing the many stitching marks left by the knife on his robe.

"Thirty years ago, a child knelt before the gates of Mount Hua, carrying ten thousand taels of gold and a thousand acres of land..."

"He joined the sect three days ago and already mastered the Jade-Breaking Fist and the Stone-Splitting Fist. Seeing his exceptional talent, I deliberately showed him the Hunyuan Palm Technique. I never expected that after just one viewing, he would deduce the flaws in the first three moves of the Hunyuan Palm..."

"I secretly took him as my disciple and taught him the Hunyuan Gong, the internal energy technique of the Huashan Sect's leader..."

As Huang Zhen spoke, his body swayed involuntarily a few times at the edge of the cliff, making Lin Feng feel like he wanted to go up and pull him back.

"I promised him that if he could master the Hunyuan Gong within ten days, he would be the next leader of the Huashan Sect... He stayed at the Huashan Sect for a total of fifteen days. In those fifteen days, he not only mastered the technique but also made modifications to it..."

"The primordial unity of the Five Elements, both tangible and intangible, the mechanism of Yin and Yang, the opening and closing of all things..."

Huang Zhen repeated it several times until a breath of stale air caught in his throat, and he roared like a madman: "Evil energy has no form, no yin, no yang, creation opens and closes, all things are born and die..."

"Hun Yuan Gong... Hun Yuan Gong!!!"

Huang Zhen bent down strangely, and an eerie aura rose from his body: "Evil Yuan Technique!"

Hunyuan refers to the undifferentiated primordial energy, a state of chaos and unity, the beginning of primordial energy! This is the Hunyuan recorded in Taoist thought. However, the 'evil primordial energy' before us overturns this theory. It is a 'evil primordial thought' born in a world with completely different rules and evolution. It has derived bizarre martial arts by using the principles of internal energy cultivation in this world.

Even if Huang Zhenxin did not approve of this strange thing, he could not refute such heretical ideas, because the Evil Yuan Technique had truly shown the 'Way of Evil Yuan' to him, which was clearer than the Dao he had learned in his life.

This was the enlightenment he had longed for.

"master..."

Huang Zhen, exuding an evil aura, knelt down. From an angle where Lin Feng couldn't see, Huang Zhen's eyes had turned into a pair of bright yellow evil pupils, staring intently at the distant mountains.

"My disciple has disappointed you... My disciple shouldn't have harbored greed..."

Suddenly, Huang Zhen turned around, and a sinister eye appeared on his rugged, horned face, locking onto Lin Feng's figure.

"My good disciple left behind the Evil Yuan Technique, went north to the capital, slaughtered tens of thousands of people overnight, kidnapped the emperor to print the Forty-Two Chapters Sutra, and held a heroes' assembly to distribute the evil technique... Heh, the Five Sacred Mountains, the prestigious and righteous sects, but in the end, none of them could bear to part with this evil technique."

"In just thirty years, evil spirits have sprung up all over the land of China, and in the end, only I am left in my Huashan Sect."

As he spoke, Huang Zhen's eyes revealed endless regret and self-blame. His rugged, angular face lost its ferocity and gradually regained its previous rosy color. The evil eye also disappeared.

Lin Feng swallowed hard, and only after seeing Huang Zhen return to normal did he gently exhale the breath he had been holding.

"He said that other participants would appear in this world..."

"Hehehe... Hahahaha, participant, tell me, is there any hope for this world?"

"Task Seven: Huang Zhen's Request"

Um?

A strange light shone in Lin Feng's eyes.