The enormous red eyes slowly closed.
The darkness in the main hall gradually faded as well.
The red candles reignited on their own, as if nothing had ever happened.
Only Luu Han's pool of blood remained on the stone floor.
But...
His corpse had vanished completely.
Truong Bach Uy slowly brushed the bloodstain from his shoulder.
The wound where the short sword had pierced through was closing on its own at an astonishing speed.
He looked at Luc Minh, his eyes no longer as calm as before.
"The Demon King..."
"...awoke sooner than I expected."
## Retreat
Ha Van Son stepped forward.
He held the sword in one hand while gripping his constantly trembling right arm with the other.
"Go."
"We can't fight here."
Luc Minh understood.
This place was the Huyen Ling Society's territory.
If they continued fighting, death was their only possible outcome.
He threw three golden talismans onto the ground.
"Heavenly Stealth!"
**Boom!**
White smoke erupted.
When it cleared,
all three of them had vanished from the main hall.
Truong Bach Uy did not pursue them.
He merely looked at the half of the map still lying on the stone table and smiled faintly.
"You'll come back."
"Because fate..."
"...won't let you choose."
## The Sword Changes Color
That night,
the three of them took shelter in an abandoned shrine deep in the mountains.
Luc Minh placed the peachwood sword in front of him.
Suddenly,
a drop of fresh red blood slowly trickled down the blade.
To Nhuoc jumped.
"The sword..."
"...is bleeding?"
Luc Minh had never seen anything like it either.
The sword had originally been made from thousand-year-old peachwood.
There was no way it could contain blood.
But just as the first drop fell,
a second drop followed.
Then a third.
The blood flowed faster and faster,
dyeing the entire stone floor red.
## A Voice from the Shrine
Suddenly,
an old voice rang out.
"It's been a long time..."
"...since it last cried."
All three of them turned around at once.
In the corner of the shrine,
an old blind man sat leaning on a cane.
No one knew when he had appeared.
He reached a hand toward the sword.
"This sword..."
"...once killed a god."
Luc Minh was startled.
"You know it?"
The old man nodded faintly.
"No."
"I know..."
"...the person who once wielded it."
## The Secret of the Peachwood Sword
The old man began to tell his story slowly.
More than three hundred years ago,
a Maoshan Patriarch used this sword to seal a **Heavenly Ghost**.
But before it was sealed,
the Heavenly Ghost cursed the sword.
Whenever a great calamity was about to descend,
the sword would bleed.
That wasn't the sword's blood.
It was...
the blood of those who were about to die.
To Nhuoc instinctively took a step back.
"You mean..."
The old man nodded.
"This time..."
"A great many people will die."
## The Abandoned Shrine
The old man led the three of them behind the shrine.
There stood a small shrine hall covered in cobwebs.
At its center
stood a headless statue.
At the statue's feet,
seven bronze nails had been driven into the ground in the shape of the Big Dipper.
Ha Van Son's expression changed.
"Seven-Star Soul-Sealing Formation."
"Who broke this formation?"
The old man bent down
and picked up a piece of black cloth.
An image of a red eye had been embroidered on it.
"The Huyen Ling Society."
"They came here three days ago."
## The Nameless Spirit Tablet
Luc Minh stepped into the shrine hall.
There was only one spirit tablet on the ancestral altar.
It bore no name.
Only four words were carved into it.
> **"The Gatekeeper."**
The moment he touched it,
the entire shrine hall began to shake.
An image appeared.
A young Taoist priest knelt before a colossal stone door.
Behind him
were hundreds of corpses belonging to his fellow disciples.
The man used the peachwood sword itself
to pierce through his own chest.
Blood flowed down onto the door.
The seal was completed immediately.
Before he died,
he said only one thing.
> "To those who come after me..."
> "...please forgive me."
The image vanished.
The sword in Luc Minh's hand began to tremble violently.
## The Grave Robber
At that very moment,
a tremendous explosion rang out behind the mountain.
**BOOM!**
The earth shook.
Dust and smoke billowed into the sky.
A disciple of the Huyen Ling Society came running in panic.
His entire body was covered in blood.
The instant he saw Truong Bach Uy, he collapsed to his knees.
"Society Master!"
"This is bad!"
"Someone..."
"...has dug open an ancient tomb."
Truong Bach Uy immediately stood.
"Which tomb?"
The disciple answered in a trembling voice.
"The tomb..."
"...of the Gatekeeper."
For the first time, Truong Bach Uy's expression changed.
He whispered,
"Impossible..."
"He..."
"...should have remained asleep."
At the edge of the horizon,
a pillar of red light shot straight into the sky.
The peachwood sword in Luc Minh's hand suddenly gave off a long ringing note.
The blood on the sword stopped flowing.
But in its place,
a line of ancient writing slowly appeared along the blade—writing that had never appeared once in the past twenty-two years.
Luc Minh read it aloud.
> **"Find the Gatekeeper..."**
> **"...before he awakens."**
Moc Thanh looked at the pillar of red light.
The girl's normally calm face turned deathly pale.
She murmured softly,
"It isn't the Huyen Ling Society..."
"There's already..."
"...a third player in the game."
**End of Chapter 18.**