Given his age and advanced cultivation level, Mo Zhiyuan was a very proud person. He did not like to converse with someone beneath his niveau. And this insolent young disciple who dared to talk to him was simply courting death.

But when he heard him speak about Shen Ruizhe in the same sentence with the word "mausoleum", Mo Zhiyuan could not help but fall into a daze for a moment.

Impossible, he thought.

Shen Ruizhe, dead? Since when?

Mo Zhiyuan dispersed the thought as soon as it took form.

Shen Ruizhe could not be dead, he decided. This young disciple must be uttering some complete nonsense to prevent him from killing Zhang Xukai. With a sneer on his face, Mo Zhiyuan turned his head to Zhang Xukai, about to ask why Zhang Xukai, this filial disciple of Shen Ruizhe, tolerated the young disciple for cursing at Shen Ruizhe.

But then Zhang Xukai impulsively snapped at the young disciple, causing the latter to flinch in fright, "You fool!"

"..."

His reaction defied Mo Zhiyuan's expectations and stirred unease in his heart.

Without losing a word, Mo Zhiyuan released Zhang Xukai from his grip, and Zhang Xukai plummeted to the ground like a heap of garbage.

Despite his heavy injuries, Zhang Xukai still managed to push his upper body off the ground. He craned his head and shouted at Mo Zhiyuan's back, "Mo Zhiyuan, come back here! Take it up with someone of your level!"

Mo Zhiyuan scoffed in his heart and rolled his eyes in disdain as he made the leap between Zhang Xukai and the disciple. The disciple in question fell on the ground when Mo Zhiyuan stood before him, looming like a demon king.

Trembling from head to toe, his limbs flailed in fright. It seemed that he wanted to crawl backward to escape Mo Zhiyuan, but he was too shaken to do so. Not that there was much room to escape.

Mo Zhiyuan clicked with his tongue in disapproval. He put both arms behind his back and gazed at the weak opponent before him in a haughty manner.

"Do you know the punishment of cursing a peak master at Seven Sky Pillars Sect?" he casually asked.

The disciple shook his head fervently.

"B-B-But I.... I am not lying! Grandmaster Shen... Grandmaster Shen is really..."

Mo Zhiyuan scrutinized the helpless disciple with his pair of bright purple eyes. A tiny voice in his head kept pushing to the surface, challenging him with a lot of what-ifs.

What if the disciple spoke the truth?

What if Shen Ruizhe really passed away?

What if that was the reason Shen Ruizhe never again showed his face in the past ninety years?

The questions came one by one, one more disruptive than the last.

Mo Zhiyuan clenched his jaw in annoyance.

There was only one way to find out.

With a snap of his finger, he conjured strings of metallic chains. As soon as they manifested out of thin air, they shot toward Zhang Xukai and the screeching disciple. Before long, the two cultivators were bound tightly by the chains. The unbound end of the chains connected to Mo Zhiyuan's shadow dragon.

The master of said spiritual beast kicked off the ground and landed right behind his shadow dragon's neck with ease. As the gigantic creature lifted off the ground, its chains scraped across the ground, pulling its captives along.

The shadow dragon's mind was connected to Mo Zhiyuan telepathically. Without needing a word of command from its master, it headed toward the Tianhe Mountain, the seat of the Seven Sky Pillars Sect.

As the wind whipped past Mo Zhiyuan's long hair, he could not help but reminisce about the countless times he took this route to go back home. At that time, he was still one of the sect's disciples, serving the sect under Shen Ruizhe's guidance.

But that peaceful time ended a long time ago. The Seven Sky Pillars Sect had not been his home for many, many decades.

But the seven peaks shooting toward the sky were still the same, silent witnesses to his rise to prominence and his subsequent downfall. Everything else had already changed.

Mo Zhiyuan did not recognize the sea of terrified faces looking up to him as he breached the barrier and swept toward the sect's mausoleum. The dome structure, raging above the surface, was the only part visible to outsiders, but the bodies of the past peak masters were actually entombed underground.

Mo Zhiyuan grabbed the end of the metallic chains and dragged Zhang Xukai and the young disciple with him into the mausoleum. At this point, Zhang Xukai was unable to stand on both feet, but Mo Zhiyuan couldn't care less. It was the disciple who took the initiative to support Zhang Xukai as they slowly descended the stone staircase, heading toward the last resting place of Shen Ruizhe.