Chapter 1003: Unknown Observer

Given that he would be able to fully recover what little qi he had by simply walking around normally for a few minutes, Bai Ning decided to take a look around the place where they had ended up after leaving the underground tunnel, while the rest of the people in the caravan were focused on recovering from the trip through the tunnel.

"A village?" Spotting a small village, no more than a few minutes away from where they were staying, Bai Ning decided to go over and take a look before the two hours were up. Feeling quite curious about how different the territory of the now gone Azure Sky Kingdom would be from the first time he visited.

Back then, the Azure Sky Kingdom had been overrun with demonic cultivators who were wreaking havoc everywhere and he had also been there together with a group of elders from the sect and other disciples to hunt for these demonic cultivators.

However, after entering the small village and exploring it for himself, Bai Ning realized just how different the place was compared to the demon infested mess it had been back then.

At the same time, it also made him realize just how quickly the place had managed to recover from the almost completely destroyed state most of the villages and cities of the Azure Sky Kingdom had been left in after the arrival of the demonic cultivators.

Although the Star Shattering Sect did have a hand in this quick recovery, Bai Ning did hear that the Ascendant Frost Hall, who had decided to become a sect under the Star shattering Sect, was the main reason that the territory had managed to recover so quickly.

Even if he didn't know too much about the Ascendant Frost Hall who was now essential in control of the territory of the now gone Azure Sky Kingdom, he still felt a sense of respect for them after witnessing firsthand how fast the place had recovered from the demonic cultivator invasion only a few years earlier.

Part of him also wanted to visit the sect, as it had been around for a long time and was bound to have gathered some unique blacksmithing blueprints!

"Oh? Looks like it's about time to return back to the caravan." Having been lost in his own thoughts while wandering around the village, Bai Ning suddenly realized that the two-hour break was about to end-

Swish~

So, without wasting a single second, he left the village and returned to the caravan with a few minutes to spare.

...

Having watched the entire scene of Bai Ning entering the small village and staying there for a little over an hour, Xuan Hao could not help narrowing both of his eyes as he turned his attention back towards the caravan.

Someone is observing the caravan from far away through some kind of technique...

Narrowing both of his eyes even further as he looked towards an empty point in the sky above the caravan that was getting ready to leave again, Xuan Hao managed to spot a small eyeball hidden by dozens of different concealment formations and other means to hide it from any prying eyes.

The power contained inside some of the concealment formations placed around the eyeball were strong enough to hide from the divine sense of someone at the Peak of the Domain Lord Realm and required at least someone in the Domain Lord Realm to construct it!

If not for the fact that he had reached the Dao Domain Lord Realm, he doubted that he would have been able to find it back when he had been in the Domain Lord Realm. Meaning that whoever was behind this eyeball hovering in the air above the caravan was not someone that his disciple or the rest of the disciples from the sect had any way to deal with.

Even when combining their strength, the most they could do, would be to fight a weaker Nascent Soul Realm Expert. Far from enough to deal with a Formation Master who had reached the Domain Lord Realm...

But... Why would such a person target Bai Ning and the rest like this? Is it perhaps because he has something against the Star Shattering Sect? Maybe even an enemy I ended up making without knowing about it?

Feeling his thoughts starting to wander as his curiosity towards the owner of the eyeball floating in the air above his disciple and the rest of the caravan, Xuan Hao began to slowly probe the eyeball with his divine sense. Trying his best to find the connection between the eyeball and its owner, so he could follow it back and find out where the owner in question was located, while at the same time making sure to not accidentally alert the person behind the eyeball in the process.

However, after close to half an hour of trying to find the connection between the eyeball and the person using it to observe the caravan that was moving deeper into the Azure Sky Kingdom, Xuan Hao could only give up. Unable to find out where the person controlling it was located.

In the end, he could still forcefully locate the owner of the eyeball. The only problem was that this would inevitably alert the other party into escaping... And given that he had no idea how far away the other party was and if he could reach the place in time, there was a very real chance that the other party could escape.

Not something he wanted to see happen, as a powerful Domain Lord Realm Expert secretly targeting the Star Shattering Sect was not something that he wanted to see happen. Especially considering that Feng Chen and Shu Yao were still far too weak to deal with something like this.

Whoosh~

For this reason, Xuan Hao decided to silently retract his divine sense from the floating eyeball before spreading it out into the area around where the caravan was travelling. Deciding to use them in a bid to lure out the potential enemy.

Even if the other party was in the Domain Lord Realm and was skilled in the art of formation, Xuan Hao didn't really feel any sense of threat from the other party. After all, when all was said and done, his strength had already far surpassed the Domain Lord Realm. Making him more than confident in both protecting the disciples from his sect, while also dealing with the unknown person observing them.

...

"Huh!?"

At the same time Xuan Hao retracted his divine sense from the eyeball floating in the air above the caravan, an old man sitting cross legged in front of an artifact that looked like a bigger and far more complicated metal version of the eyeball in the air above the caravan, opened both of his eyes in surprise.

Around him were dozens of other similar artifacts that were each watched over by other people of different ages and cultivation realms. The weakest having reached the Nascent Soul Realm, while the strongest had reached the Fifth Stage of the Domain Lord Realm... And the old man just so happened to be this Fifth Stage Domain Lord Realm Expert.

"What was that...?" Narrowing both of his eyes as he muttered this to himself, the old man began to thoroughly examine the artifact in front of him. However, after finding nothing unusual he could only shake his head and give up.

"Oh? Did something happen?"

Just as he sat back down again and was about to get back to his job of keeping an eye on the caravan that the eyeball was hovering above, a voice echoed out behind him before a middle-aged man walked over.

"This humble servant greets Lord White Soul, I felt something odd about the ethereal eye and decided to investigate it. However, I didn't end up finding anything..."

"Hm? Something odd about the ethereal eye?" Hearing what the old man said, the middle-aged man who had been referred to as Lord White Soul narrowed both of his eyes as he walked up to the artifact before examining it with his own divine sense.

Whoosh-!

As the powerful divine sense spread out, some of the Nascent Soul Realm Experts present fainted on the spot when coming into contact with it, while the rest were left shivering at the terrifying divine sense. Even though the divine sense was far from powerful enough to cause someone in the Domain Lord Realm to faint, they all understood that it wouldn't be that difficult for the owner of said divine sense to kill them.

"""..."""

For this reason, everyone inside the large hall filled with different ethereal eyes, stopped what they were doing and nervously waited for Lord White Soul to finish his inspection.

"Hm... This is odd, I don't find anything off about the artifact and nothing out of the ordinary on the other side. This group of people, where do they come from? Did you perhaps end up targeting some powerful sect?"

"N-No! I didn't, the people in that caravan are all from the Explorer Union or some recently established sect that is supported by three people in the Domain Lord Realm!" Answering the question with a terrified expression on his face, the old man also began going over the information of the people in the caravan inside his head.

He was absolutely certain that the people inside the caravan didn't have any powerful backing. Especially considering that the sect disciples were all from a recently established sect at the border of some weak empire.

Even if the sect had three Domain Lord Realm Experts and could be considered a bit special from the information he could gather, it was far from enough to be considered a powerful backing in the eyes of someone like Lord White Soul!

"I see, keep an eye on the progress of the caravan and inform me if anything out of the ordinary happens."

Not wasting any time after saying this, the middle-aged man turned around and made his way out of the hall. Giving the old man a chance to breath a sigh of relief before he quickly turned his attention back towards the eyeball shaped artifact. Not daring to look away for even a second, as he completely locked on to the scene of the caravan making its way deeper into the former Azure Sky Kingdom, that it displayed.

Rustle~

Noticing that the middle-aged man had left, and his divine sense had similarly disappeared, the rest of the people inside the hall also got back to what they were doing.

From looking at the different eyeball shaped artifacts hovering slightly above the ground in front of all of them, it became obvious that every single one of them were observing different things- or to be more specific, they were observing different groups of people...