The rain fell just as before, soaking the ground and falling onto the fort. The teleportation portal was in an open-air section of the fortress, so the rain was already washing away the blood that had been spilled.9

Surrounded by crackling electricity and rumbling booms, Wang Chen’s Smokewight doppelgänger quickly made repairs to the teleportation portal. At the same time, he made adjustments to change the destination they would teleport to. Considering that Holytide Black Guard cultivators had been stationed here in an ambush, it was entirely likely that the mission had been compromised. The safest option seemed to be teleporting to a different location.0

As Wang Chen worked, Kong Xianglong looked in the direction of the border of Holytide territory, his expression unreadable.1

“This ambush couldn’t have been set for us specifically. There’s no way they could have known our group would be the ones coming here. And if they were here for us specifically, they wouldn’t have sent so few people.”1

Keeping his voice low, Xu Qing said, “It seems more likely they were here to lock down this teleportation portal in general. This must not be the only fort where something like this is going on.”1

“What if the Holytides are already at our target destination, searching for the agent?” asked Sir Mountain-River.0

“Hold on,” Duskspirit said, looking surprised. “Could it be that we were assigned to extract the actual agent?” She looked around suspiciously. As they had already speculated, whichever group was assigned to actually extract the...4