Inside the great hall, the hundreds of black-robed figures turned their gazes almost simultaneously toward the edge of the corridor. The steward Chen, who was kneeling on the ground, twisted his neck back with jerky, mechanical movements, as if it had been wound up.
"You, you… why did you follow me?" His lips trembled, and he could barely speak coherently.
He had been extremely cautious, so how—how had this man and woman followed him here so silently? None of the many traps laid throughout this old mansion had even been triggered.
"Sorry," Fang Chang lowered his head slightly with a sympathetic expression. "I'm just a little stronger than you."
Hearing this, Steward Chen couldn't catch his breath and fainted on the spot. He knew all too well: even if this man and woman didn't kill him, the Holy Spirit Cult certainly wouldn't let him off.
"What do you want?" Near the altar, the Supreme Cult Leader of the Holy Spirit Cult, Ye Xishui, pulled back her hood and sighed helplessly. "Since you've found this place, why don't we talk first?"
Ye Xishui, once a formidable figure, did not appear overly flustered despite the grim circumstances. Instead, she attempted to seize the initiative.
She was fully aware that the man before her had nearly single-handedly defeated Silvermoon Douluo and several Titled Douluo-level experts. Although her side wasn't weak either, they likely couldn't match him. Worse still, he now had a mysterious woman at his side whose aura was no weaker than his—fighting them head-on would be suicidal.
"According to you, Leader Ye, what kind of conversation do you propose?" Fang Chang waved his right hand and took out two chairs from his storage-type soul tool. He and Gu Yue each sat down.
"There's never been any real grudge between us. If we've offended you somehow, we're willing to make amends. Or…" Ye Xishui paused mid-sentence.
"Or, if you want to learn something from our Holy Spirit Cult, we'll tell you everything we know."
She was clever—she'd immediately seen through Fang Chang's intentions.
Fang Chang didn't respond immediately. Only after a long silence did he finally speak, his voice icy cold. "No real grudge, huh?"
As he spoke, six red dots on his forehead morphed into six tiny eyes, and from beneath his hands, four slender spider legs tore through his robes and extended outward.
The atmosphere, which had only just begun to ease, turned frigid again. This man… was a spider soul beast!
"You slaughtered so many of my offspring and kin, and you say there's no grudge?" he demanded of Ye Xishui.
Ye Xishui was so startled by this sudden transformation that she couldn't speak for a moment. After taking several deep breaths, she barely managed to calm herself.
"My lord… this wasn't our decision! Without those people's instigation, we wouldn't have dared to hunt your kind even if we had a death wish!" With things at this point, she had no choice but to blame someone else.
"Those people? Who are they?" Fang Chang pressed, his voice somehow sounding as if it were already right in front of Ye Xishui, even though he still sat calmly in his chair.
"They… they're…" Ye Xishui hesitated, torn between fear of reprisal and the immediate threat before her. But the real problem was—she genuinely didn't know how to describe those people. Even she, the Supreme Leader, had never seen them in the flesh.
"Not willing to talk?" Fang Chang released his divine pressure. In an instant, everyone in the hall besides Ye Xishui collapsed under the immense force. Even she struggled to maintain composure.
"Why waste time talking to them?" Gu Yue interjected coldly. "We should just kill them all and get on with it. We still need to catch that woman."
She was straightforward by nature and thought Fang Chang was wasting precious time. If they didn't find the Goddess of Life soon, she might sense something was wrong and escape to another realm. That would make her even harder to find.
Gu Yue's words put tremendous pressure on Ye Xishui. As a woman herself, she could clearly tell that this was no idle threat—the silver-haired woman truly intended to kill them all!
"I'll talk! I'll tell you everything I know!" Ye Xishui quickly spoke, trying to prevent a massacre.
"Those people… strictly speaking, they're probably not even human anymore." She tried to recall the scenes from their previous appearances.
"According to legend, they first contacted the Holy Spirit Cult several years ago."
"At the time, they told the then-Cult Leader that they were deities from the Divine Realm. If he obeyed their orders, they would grant him the chance to become a god."
"With such a tempting offer, the leader back then—along with two other forces—formed the Spider Hunters, who followed the so-called deities' orders to hunt spider-type soul beasts."
So it really was them. A flicker of satisfaction crossed the eyes of Fang Chang and Gu Yue. Only those beings would have said such things.
Ye Xishui stole a glance at the two before continuing, "But even after that Cult Leader died, he never became a god."
"Since then, nearly every generation of Holy Spirit Cult leaders and some high-ranking members have been contacted by them."
"Where are they?" Gu Yue interrupted impatiently, pressing for the critical detail.
"I… I really don't know," Ye Xishui answered hesitantly. "They always appear on their own terms. I've never seen their true forms."
She paused, then added, "Every time they appear, it's in the middle of the night. A shadow is projected onto a wall, and then their voices speak directly into our minds."
Gu Yue frowned and turned to Fang Chang. "Seems like these people are useless. Might as well kill them."
As the Silver Dragon King, she was not used to being led around like this and was thoroughly irritated.
"Wait," Fang Chang calmed her, then turned back to Ye Xishui. "Tell me, where do they usually contact you? Are they always in Sun Moon City?"
Ye Xishui thought carefully, then nodded firmly. "Yes, they always find us here in Sun Moon City."
"To narrow it down further, it's usually around the northern part of the city—between the Holy Spirit Cult's headquarters and the Sun Moon Empire's royal palace."
"Maybe it's because most of our high-level members live in that area, but I've never known them to appear outside it." She was certain of this detail.
Fang Chang and Gu Yue exchanged a secret smile—this was a major breakthrough.
Since those deities had fled, Fang Chang and the others had been closely monitoring the various realms. If they used divine power too recklessly, they would risk being discovered.
So it made sense that they'd operate nearby, minimizing the disturbance caused by their divine energy and lowering the risk of detection.
Based on Ye Xishui's account, their hideout in Sun Moon City was now largely narrowed down.
As for the Holy Spirit Cult, Fang Chang decisively used divine power to forcibly brainwash them, turning them into a hidden card left behind in the Douluo plane.