The sound of the wind gradually increased.

At first, it sounded like a whisper in the distance, then it became dense, like spring silkworms chewing on mulberry leaves, rubbing the ears.

Later, it became louder and louder, like thousands of ghosts and monsters howling together, which was very frightening.

The wind in the desert was howling, but the people under the sand dunes were completely shrouded in heavy silence. They could only hear the trembling and violent breathing of a few sand bandits.

After a long while, someone trembled and said, "The one on the right, is that Lu Chao?"

"No, impossible!"

Qian San tightly grasped the bloody long knife in his hand, gritted his teeth and said, "Lu Chao has been dead for a long time, and everyone in the town has seen his body... What the hell is this thing!"

Lu Chao, should be the name of Lu Wanxing's brother.

"Be careful."

Wen Hemian coughed lightly, "The one on the right has no breath, and is not human."

"As expected of Elder Wen, you have good eyes."

The man on the left with a black veil covered his face and laughed strangely, his throat seemed to be burned by flames, and his voice was hoarse: "It's a pity that the elder is now a useless person, and he actually needs a little disciple to protect him by his side, pitiful."

Wen Hemian's eyes dimmed slightly, and he did not respond.

"Wen, Elder Wen?"

Qian San's voice suddenly rose: "You, you are the elder Wen Hemian from Xuanxu Sword Sect?! I remember that you and Taoist Jueming are close friends--"

Elder.

He Zhizhou's mouth twitched when he heard it.

This man is a burly middle-aged man, while Wen Hemian has a delicate and thin face. Judging from his appearance, he can be called a "young man" at most. But now Qian San is calling him "elder" with fear and trepidation, which is a bit funny no matter how you look at it.

Lu Wanxing has also heard of Wen Hemian's name. He still maintains the posture of holding the compass in his hand and looks up at him with round eyes.

"He is surrounded by demonic energy, and he also has the unique spiritual energy of the immortal sect."

Wen Hemian's dark eyes were gloomy, and he put away his usual gentle smile. Compared with the other party's rough and strange voice, his voice was like the echo of sweet spring water: "I wonder who you are?"

What spiritual energy?

He Zhizhou was confused and focused, but he only felt the demonic breath from that person like huge waves.

The man obviously didn't expect that such a faint breath could be detected by him. He was stunned at first, and then burst into laughter: "Hahaha! As expected of you, it seems that even though you have become a waste, you are still useful."

He paused and his tone became more sarcastic: "After all, you are a genius who enjoys a reputation throughout the cultivation world!"

He Zhizhou felt disgusted and retorted: "Yes, yes, unlike you, who has never made a name for himself in his life, and in the end he enjoys a high position in the Xuanxu Sect. "Fu, you are living poorly outside the Demon Realm, and you can't even show your little face. Speaking of this, I really have to thank the black cloth on your face. If it weren't for it, the appearance of the entire desert would have declined greatly because of you."

Lin Xun was stunned when he heard it, but fortunately his character was much more reliable than He Zhizhou. He turned his head and asked Wen Hemian seriously: "Master, do you mean... he was originally a righteous person, but later he entered the demon way?"

Lu Wanxing may have thought of something, and her expression was stunned.

She was originally the most inconspicuous one among everyone, thin and small, with low cultivation, but now she took a step forward with a pale face and stood in front of everyone.

A gust of wind blew past, and the black mist covered the sunlight.

She looked up at the man on the sand dune and spoke word by word in a trembling voice: "Are you..."

He Zhizhou looked at her back, and somehow his heart began to beat wildly.

He always had a feeling that a secret that had been buried for many years would finally be revealed because of Lu Wanxing's question.

The girl's thin back was trembling. Lu Wanxing clenched her sleeves, took a deep breath, and read out the name that was extremely unfamiliar but had appeared in her mind countless times: "Liu... Xiuyuan?"

"Liu Xiuyuan? You mean the only survivor of the incident that year?"

He Zhizhou was stunned, his eyes full of confusion: "Didn't he die a long time ago?"

"Aren't there many cases of people faking their deaths in the world of cultivation? It is said that he died of serious injuries at home, but how many people have seen his body?"

Lu Wanxing spoke hurriedly, and at the end, she could no longer suppress her tears. She raised her hand and pointed at the man on the sand dune who looked exactly like her brother.

"Did you see that thing? Since they can make such a dummy now, why can't they make one during the battle between immortals and demons?!"

The moment he heard this, a force hit his chest hard.

Not only He Zhizhou, but also Lin Xun's face changed: "You mean-"

That's right.

No matter what the puppet-like dummy on the sand dune is, since it is made to look like Lu Wanxing's brother, does it mean that...

when her brother was still alive, the demons had already made such a thing?

...No way.

If that's the case, then isn't it——

"You, you look!"

Lu Wanxing showed unprecedented excitement, trembling all over as she handed over the compass she had been holding, her voice shaking so much that it was almost inaudible: "This is my brother's and my compass. Before we left, each of us took one. The direction the needle points to is where the other compass is."

The compass needle shook violently with her arm.

He Zhizhou clearly saw that the needle pointed to a deeper place in the desert.

A more dangerous and more distant place.

"Another compass... is in the desert."

A tear slid down her cheek, Lu Wanxing gritted her teeth and said hoarsely: "The person who escaped from the desert that night did not have a compass on him. Can you understand? When I faced him... the needle was always pointing in the opposite direction."

"So you," Lin Xun looked at her blankly, with thousands of thoughts piling up in his mind, exploding at this moment, "so you have been walking into the depths of the desert without caring about your safety for so many years?"

So that's it.

He has always wondered, since Lu Wanxing could see that their cultivation was not low, why did he rob the money bag so openly, and did not hide after that, as if he deliberately let them find it.

What if she did it on purpose?

Her cultivation was low, and she could not go deep into the desert by herself, so she could only travel with powerful monks.

Lu Wanxing thought they were thieves who came to look for treasures, so she used this clumsy method as an opportunity to offer to lead the way for them as a guide, but was rejected and her efforts were in vain.

So she had so many priceless treasures in her storage bag, but she insisted on taking risks and entering the desert again and again.

From the beginning, Lu Wanxing's purpose was not to steal.

She secretly hid an idea in her heart. An idea that was so

wild that if she said it out loud, she would only be laughed at and teased by others.

For this, Lu Wanxing persisted for more than ten years.

"During the chaos of the war, I heard that Liu Xiuyuan was seriously injured and claimed that he wanted to see his hometown before he died."

Wen Hemian's usually calm demeanor was unusually chaotic, and his voice became deeper and deeper: "Not long after, news of his death came from his hometown."

The implication was that almost no one had seen his body.

That period was the final battle, and countless monks sacrificed their lives. The death of a mere Liu Xiuyuan seemed to have become a wave drowned in the sea, nothing surprising.

The man standing on the sand dune laughed loudly, and his strange voice sounded like he was sawing stones with a knife.

He seemed to be more proud than before, and after a slight pause, he raised his hand and pulled off the black cloth covering his face.

"Do you know how painful it is when you successfully deceive everyone, but the excitement and ecstasy are only known to you, and you can't tell anyone?"

Under the black cloth was an extremely strange face.

Half of the face was a fair-skinned young man, and the other half was covered with marks from a fire. The scars looked like crawling insects, which looked particularly terrifying.

Anger finally welled up in Wen Hemian's eyes, and he read out his name in a deep voice: "Liu Xiuyuan."

"It's been so many years, I really want to see with my own eyes what kind of expressions you will show when you find out that I have played you around."

He chuckled as he spoke: "Yes, yes, that's the expression I want! Be angrier! I am the murderer who killed your friend! Jueming's expression when he learned that he was betrayed was so wonderful, and so were the townspeople who led the way. They were all buried in the desert, but they had to bear the eternal curse. It was so miserable and pitiful!"

He Zhizhou heard the crackling sound of his bones when he clenched his fists.

"Let me introduce to you first. The one next to me is a traditional craft of the demon world, called 'human puppet'."

Liu Xiuyuan seemed to have no sense of urgency and explained casually: "It looks exactly like a real person, right? I reached a cooperation with the demons back then. In order to help me clear the suspicion, they used this thing and put all the blame on those townspeople. To be honest, it's very useful and I'm very satisfied with it."

"You fucking dog! Not a human! Fuck you!"

Qian San couldn't listen any longer and picked up the knife in his hand and swung it towards the sand dune. Liu Xiuyuan dodged it by turning sideways and said with a frivolous smile: "Don't be so excited."

"But the demons didn't treat you well, did they?"

Wen Hemian should have been furious that his old friend died here.

But he just looked at Liu Xiuyuan indifferently, his body straight, his white clothes breaking through the dark surroundings.

Only he knew that his right hand hidden under his sleeve had unconsciously clenched hard, his fingertips sank into the flesh, and blood scalded.

"The demonic energy is like poison, and it is no different from torture after entering the body."

Wen Hemian said: "As for your face and voice, you must have been poisoned by some evil poison. With your level, you would not feed yourself poison, right? Let me guess, you thought the demons would give you gold and silver magic weapons as rewards, but you only got a dose of poison, and you had no choice but to become a slave used by them?"

Perhaps because his thoughts were completely exposed, the previous smug look suddenly faded, and Liu Xiuyuan's face changed instantly.

"Your mouth is so annoying."

The man standing on the top of the sand dune laughed, "Wait until I tear it off and take a good look." As

soon as he finished speaking, several figures moved around.

When He Zhizhou looked carefully, he saw dozens of human puppets rushing out from the darkness, including the one on the sand dune before, rushing towards this side with knives in their hands.

The sand bandits raised their knives to fight, while Liu Xiuyuan activated the talisman, attracting the scorching sky fire, and laughed out loud: "I am enough to deal with you. A waste, a coward, a fool, I am already the third level of Yuanying, how can you--"

The rest of the words were swallowed by Cang Huang before he could finish them.

He Zhizhou drew his sword and rushed forward, not giving him even a moment to finish his speech. For a moment, the sword energy and the firelight overlapped, illuminating the dark desert.

Lu Wanxing looked at Lin Xun beside her and murmured, "Are we all going to die here?"

As soon as she finished asking, she saw the hesitation on the latter's face, and she knew the answer in her heart. She

shook the compass in her hand vigorously.

The girl raised her head and glanced at Liu Xiuyuan quickly, then held the compass tightly and ran wildly into the depths of the desert without warning.

Anyway, she was going to die anyway, so she might as well face the deep-rooted obsession in her mind before she died.

Moreover... the needle was shaking more and more violently, and the other compass was not far away.

"Miss Lu!"

At the moment, the fight between He Zhizhou and Liu Xiuyuan was obviously the more important one.

Lin Xun hurriedly called her name, and after weighing the two options, he chose to jump to He Zhizhou's side and draw his sword to help.

Liu Xiuyuan was right, the two of them were not his opponents.

Jindan versus Yuanying was a cross-level confrontation, not to mention that Liu Xiuyuan was blessed with demonic energy by the demon cultivator, and the dark and oppressive aura mixed with flames hit him, which was powerful enough. There were

thunder and lightning all around, and Lin Xun couldn't dodge in time, and was hit hard in the chest, falling to the ground under the pressure.

He Zhizhou was slightly better than him, but his condition was also very bad, and he probably couldn't hold on for too long;

Wen Hemian had recovered some of his skills after many days of treatment, and with the help of the immortal herbs Ning Ning brought back to nourish his consciousness, but it was still a bit difficult for him to deal with the swarm of puppets.

As for Lu Wanxing -

Lin Xun's bones were sore from the pain, and his mouth was full of the taste of blood. The moment this name appeared in his mind, he heard a loud noise like a tidal wave.

What's that sound?

With a hazy consciousness, he turned his head while lying on the ground.

Then the next moment, his pupils suddenly contracted.

In the distance, within sight, a small hill was knocked down among the undulating sand dunes, with yellow sand flying everywhere, and the specific shape could not be seen clearly.

He concentrated his mind, and in the gradually clearer vision, he saw the thin back of the little girl.

Lu Wanxing was swinging her fists, again and again, hitting the sand dune with all her strength. Her hands were covered in blood, but she never stopped.

Then the hill began to tremble, and collapsed one by one from the upper layer. When only one-tenth of the height was left, she finally stopped swinging her fists, but stretched out her hands to dig out the yellow sand bit by bit.

Lin Xun coughed up a mouthful of blood, heard the sound of He Zhizhou falling to the ground, and Liu Xiuyuan laughed.

The sand and gravel were like the sea surface falling at low tide, falling slowly in the far distance. He forced his eyes to look, and in the endless yellow sand, he saw a streak of white.

Lin Xun thought it was an illusion.

But Lu Wanxing was also startled, and then he increased his speed and tried his best to dig away the sand.

The first thing that came out was a crawling skeleton.

Then the second, and the third.

What was very strange was that these people who had long been dead, actually gathered together tightly before they died, with their bodies pressed tightly against each other, with almost no gaps.

It was as if... they were trying to protect something.

Lu Wanxing's actions continued.

When the sand and soil were almost completely removed, something seemed to fall from a certain skeleton to the ground.

Lin Xun saw her lower her head, her shoulders shaking uncontrollably.

Behind the skeleton, surrounded by everyone, was another person who had been dead for a long time.

He knelt on the ground, his leg bones were broken, and the bones in front of him were also in a mess, but his back was straight, his hands were clasped in front of his chest, tightly protecting something.

Lin Xun saw it clearly.

It was a sword that was all white and glowed faintly in the dark.

The secrets that had been sealed for many years were finally revealed at this moment.

He saw Jueming and his sword of extermination.

"This is my brother."

Lu Wanxing stared at the skeleton beside Jueming for a long time, then suddenly turned around and looked at them, saying over and over again, not knowing whether she was talking to them or to herself while crying: "Did you see it? This is... my brother."

She had been struggling for so many years with an illusory and unfounded thought.

Whenever she wanted to give up, Lu Wanxing would think of the late night when she parted with her brother.

Because her father died early and her mother was frail and sick, her brother, who had taken on the burden of the family early on, was the greatest hero in Lu Wanxing's heart.

That day she always felt uneasy, and she held her brother's sleeve and didn't move. Lu Chao looked at her for a long time, and suddenly asked softly: "Wanxing, do you remember what Daddy said?"

Her father was a scholar who spoke very sourly, which was incompatible with the tough temperament of the desert. He often spoke some flowery words to the two children, which made people unable to understand.

Lu Wanxing didn't like to listen to it since she was a child. Later, her father died while saving people, and she never heard it again.

She was still young at that time, and she couldn't remember the long and difficult sentences. Her head was confused, and finally she raised her head and answered him in a childish voice: "Dad said, be a good person!"

Her brother seemed to smile at that time.

He looked very beautiful when he smiled, his two eyes were gently curved into a crescent shape, and he leaned over to touch her head.

"Yes. Don't forget it."

Before they parted, Lu Chao said to her, "Wanxing, be a good person."

Then the night soaked the tall shadow of the young man, and she watched the hero in her heart gradually being swallowed by the darkness, and finally disappeared.

It was a long time later that Lu Wanxing suddenly thought that perhaps when he left, he knew that he would probably not come back.

But he still moved forward step by step without wavering, and he did not forget the words he promised her until he died.

——When the Demon God came to the world and Jueming was seriously injured, judging from the posture between the skeletons, he was the first one to drag his dying body forward little by little, using his body to protect the Sword of Extermination.

More and more people moved forward, their fragile flesh and blood formed barriers, allowing the long sword that could kill all demons to remain in the world.

They knew they were doomed to die, so they could only protect the monks' hope of killing the demons in this way.

Unfortunately, fate played a trick on them, and these brave warriors who died generously became despised sinners, and the sword was covered in dust and never appeared on the battlefield again.

"Jueming and Zhuxie Sword, oh no."

Liu Xiuyuan grinned and laughed even more happily: "I was wondering why they disappeared, it turns out they were buried in a place like this - thank you this girl, if I can get the job done with them, my future life will be settled!"

Perhaps seeing Lu Wanxing's red eyes, he sighed, with thunder and fire on his side, and walked towards her step by step.

"I know you are sad. My brother has done so many things, but he is regarded as an unforgivable traitor. I am also sad, but... secrets should be secrets. After today, no one will know, right?"

"Fuck you!"

Qian San's eyes were bloodshot, veins popped on his face, and he raised his fist and punched Liu Xiuyuan: "What kind of secret is this? I'm here!"

Liu Xiuyuan didn't care about such ordinary people. With a sneer, the devilish energy overflowed, and without any extra moves, he knocked Qian San away.

He wanted to continue forward.

However, when Qian San fell to the ground, another figure stepped forward and blocked his way: "I saw it too."

"Me too! You black turtle bastard, why are you pretending? You are so weird and don't speak human language, you are sick!"

"I know it too! What's the point of attacking a little girl? Disgusting!"

"I ○ you ○○○○○!"

Two, three, four.

The bandits holding knives stepped forward one by one, blocking the bone pile and Liu Xiuyuan, blocking the latter's way, like an indestructible wall.

"Just you?"

Liu Xiuyuan sneered: "You are trying to hit a rock with an egg. You are overestimating your own strength. Not only you, but also that group of cultivators are in my pocket - how many of them are there this time? Six or seven? They will all die if they fall into an ambush."

​​As he spoke, his fingertips moved, and the dark white lightning flew forward like a phantom, and was about to hit a person's chest. Suddenly, a white shadow attacked immediately.

The two forces collided and dissipated like smoke.

It was a sword light.

Liu Xiuyuan frowned impatiently and looked at the source of the sword energy.

He thought that the one who launched this attack would be He Zhizhou, who was impatient and had a higher level of cultivation.

However, the one who stood up in the wind with smoke rolling was the young demon cultivator who always looked timid.

He held the bloody sword in his right hand and clenched it tightly with his left hand, with a few strands of white light leaking out from the gaps between his fingers.

It was a round night-shining pearl.

Lin Xun raised his hands and stood up straight, wiping the blood from his lips in the unbearable pain.

Was he afraid?

Of course he was afraid.

He was timid and cowardly, and was secretly laughed at by many people, who said he was the most useless waste in the Dragon Palace.

But even such a person, he still had people and things he wanted to protect.

He witnessed the past buried deep in the desert.

He knew about the sacrifices that were misinterpreted and forgotten.

He wanted to tell them openly that everything was being witnessed.

Those beliefs that were never spoken out would never become a secret.

Even if he died, he... didn't want to escape anymore.

Lin Xun clenched the long sword in his hand, the sword hummed, and the evil-killing sword in the distance glowed.

The sword energy surged up, like a growing vine passing through his body. The dragon boy seemed to hear the sound of his own blood flowing, and almost subconsciously,

he clenched his left hand tightly. Compared with those predecessors who were buried in the sand, he was not surrounded by darkness.

No matter what, he had this light to accompany him.

As for now.

It was his turn to save the person who brought him this light.

Lin Xun held his breath, lowered his eyes, and felt the sword energy surge in his body, filling every inch of his flesh and blood.

He had never drawn his sword as fast as today. The white sword energy made the world seem like day. When the long sword was raised and lowered, the flowing brilliance was slowly outlined.

The white light was drawn bit by bit, and in the dark and endless sky, a shadow suddenly appeared.

It moved as fast as lightning and was as powerful as a strong wind. The scattered pressure caused huge waves to empty -

in a moment, all sounds were silent.

The distant figure gradually became clear.

A bandit opened his eyes wide, and his voice couldn't stop trembling: "This is, it's a dragon——!"