ancestral war

"Eldest Miss, something is very wrong here. Why don't we leave?"

"If the Family Head finds out you ran over here by yourself, he will definitely be angry."

An uneasy voice came from afar, soon interrupted by a naive, girlish voice.

"What are you afraid of? Since the Endless Forest Rift appeared, no powerful Transcendent Creature has ever emerged from it. Can't you two Fifth-Tier Transcendent guarantee this young lady's safety?"

"According to ancient records, the deity slain by the first Family Head is buried here. I must find the treasure left behind by our ancestor!"

In Lu Chuan's line of sight appeared a round-faced girl wearing a pink cloak.

The little girl's eye corners were rounded, and the outer corners tilted upward; she looked like a simple-minded and willful girl at a glance.

Her skin was fair, her features exquisite, and even her hair was braided into an extremely intricate style. At first glance, one might mistake her for a doll displayed in a shop window—the kind that is the least affordable.

Behind the young girl followed two Transcendents, a man and a woman.

The woman's hairstyle was coiled in a neat, crisp, and no-nonsense manner. Her phoenix eyes were filled with aloofness and indifference, like a sharp sword locked away in an icy lake for years.

The man sported a bowl cut, with thick bangs obscuring his eyes, and his voice was even softer than the woman's.

It was evident that both were guards carefully selected by the girl's elders.

"Found it! The Stone Array from the ancient book that suppresses the deity's remains!"

The young girl's eyes lit up. As her gaze shifted downward, it gradually landed on Lu Chuan and Bai Yimo, and her delicate brows furrowed slightly.

"Who are you? What is your purpose here?"

"The Endless Forest is a Rift open to all Transcendents by the Alliance. The purpose of every Transcendent coming here should be the same, right?"

Lu Chuan's hoarse voice sounded like rusty gears, making one's teeth ache upon hearing it.

"Of course it's different! I came here to find the treasure left behind by my ancestors. Please leave!"

Hearing this, the two guards behind the young girl each showed a look of helplessness:

The Eldest Miss is really too naive, isn't she?

"That's not true!" Bai Yimo retorted with a flushed face, "This is clearly the treasure left by my ancestor. My father wouldn't lie to me!"

Lu Chuan: "..."

His hand, intending to stop Bai Yimo, froze in mid-air.

Lu Chuan kept repeating in his heart:

Don't argue with an illiterate person.

Don't argue with an illiterate person...

"Oh?" The young girl suspiciously sized up the youth, who was pale to the point of being sickly, and lifted her rounded chin. "Are you also surnamed Lu?"

"No, my surname is Bai."

"Then you must have found the wrong ancestor," the young girl said with certainty. "The ancient books of our Lu Family cannot be wrong."

"When the Transcendent Invasion occurred, a six-winged, human-bodied, bird-headed Transcendent Creature devastated the world. It was our ancestor who stepped in to slay it and sealed its last trace of vitality here."

Surnamed Lu...

A possibility instantly emerged in Lu Chuan's mind:

"Could it be the Lu Family of Imperial City?"

Upon hearing this, the two guards instantly tensed up, their gazes fixed vigilantly on the strange man wearing a Mask.

Looks like I guessed right...

"Correct!" The young girl's voice was proud. "My name is Lu Qingyu, a natural-born Transcendent from the Lu Family of Imperial City!"

"No, that's not it! The parchment scroll my father gave me clearly..."

Bai Yimo still wanted to argue, but Lu Chuan pressed down on his shoulder.

"Enough. The Lu Family of Imperial City is one of the most famous Transcendent families. They have their own pride and would not lie about such matters."

"Let's go."

But...

Although Bai Yimo was unwilling.

But when he met Lu Chuan's eyes, which were as calm and still as a bottomless cold pool, he swallowed the words that had reached his lips.

"Consider yourselves sensible!"

Confirming that the two nuisances had truly left, Lu Qingyu gazed at the Stone Array before her with eyes full of excitement.

"It's truly identical to the pattern in the ancient book. Owl Bird, Rain Ink, what do you think is hidden beneath this Stone Array?"

"This..."

The woman known as "Owl Bird" hesitated for a moment before deciding to speak:

"Eldest Miss, that ancient book is incomplete after all. As for whether what lies beneath this Stone Array is a secret treasure or a disaster, there is no way to know."

"Furthermore, this Endless Forest has no entry threshold. Although the path from the entrance to the Stone Array is winding like a maze, it is not dangerous."

"The Endless Forest has been open for so many years; if this Stone Array truly had any mysteries, it would have been discovered long ago."

While shocked that the usually silent Owl Bird would speak so much in one breath, Rain Ink also hurriedly advised:

"Yes, Eldest Miss. We already made the Family Head angry by sneaking out of the Imperial City; if any accident happens..."

"Hmph! Shut up, you crow!"

How could the Eldest Miss, spoiled by her elders, possibly listen to the guards' warnings?

"No one discovered the secret treasure because they don't have the bloodline of the Lu Family!"

"As a direct descendant of the Lu Family, I will surely uncover the mysteries of the Stone Array!"

After saying this, Lu Qingyu took out a small, miniature knife from the spatial device on her wrist and carefully sliced her palm open.

A tiny line of blood instantly appeared on her fair palm, and bright red blood slowly oozed out.

"Eldest Miss!"

Rain Ink nearly lost his voice at the sight.

"Shut up! If you dare to stop me again, I'll have my brother kill you."

The girl's crisp voice carried a cruelty she herself was unaware of.

Children born into Transcendent families seem to have a natural capital for disregarding life.

"All of you, stay away from me!"

All she needed to do was drip the blood onto the eye-shaped patterns of the Stone Array, just as recorded in the ancient book...

Under the influence of dark energy, the crimson blood dripped from her palm, like blood-colored pearls poured from a jade plate.

The moment the blood droplets landed on the Stone Array, the eye patterns seemed to suddenly come alive, and the entire Stone Array trembled slightly.

"Yes! That's it..."

The giant stones on the Stone Array shattered one after another, the stone flakes on the surface peeling off and turning into powder before hitting the ground.

The Stone Array, which had stood firm for hundreds of meters, seemed to have experienced billions of years of time's baptism in this moment, finally returning to dust.

Lu Qingyu excitedly watched everything before her, as if admiring the arrival of a miracle.

Whoosh!

Before the excitement on Lu Qingyu's face and the shock of the two behind her could fade, a beam of white light pierced through the center of Lu Qingyu's brow, exploding into a spray of blood behind her head, which was adorned with exquisite ornaments.

"Eldest Miss!"

The brains and expressions of Owl Bird and Rain Ink went blank for a moment, and in the next instant, with eyes split open in rage, they flew forward.

In Transcendent families, the life of a guard is completely bound to the person they are meant to protect from the moment that person is born.

Lu Qingyu's death also meant their own lives were about to end.

Before the two could even reach Lu Qingyu's corpse, they saw a beam of light envelop them.

In the next instant, both people and the corpse were nowhere to be seen.

Not far away, Bai Yimo, who had witnessed everything, turned deathly pale. "Benefactor, this..."

Lu Chuan looked at the Stone Array in front of him without speaking.

That's right, he and Bai Yimo had never gone far.

Of course, he didn't have the confidence to let himself and Bai Yimo escape the perception of those two Fifth-Tier Transcendent.

Or perhaps, he had never intended to disguise himself, because those two Transcendents didn't care about Lu Chuan's prying eyes at all.

Because in their eyes, Lu Chuan and Bai Yimo were nothing more than flies that could be swatted to death at will.

As long as they didn't land on them, who would care if a fly was ten meters away or a hundred meters away?

As for the ruins Lu Qingyu spoke of, they were likely just children's play in their eyes.

Since it didn't involve family secrets, they naturally wouldn't go out of their way to drive the two of them away.

But even if these two Fifth-Tier Transcendent were beaten to death, they wouldn't have thought that the Eldest Miss would die right before their eyes, would they?

"Yimo, life is just like this. Perhaps everyone's birth is different, but death will arrive equally, without any warning."

Even if the other party is the high and mighty Lu Family.