When Lin Mu heard the voice, his eyes lit up. He could after all, recognize the voice and knew it well enough. Jing Luo was the same, and tears almost appeared in his eyes.
Both of them felt close to the voice, and yet distant. Lin Mu's spirit sense scanned the area and yet he couldn't tell where exactly it had come from.
~SHUA~
But before he could search any more, he felt another attack coming towards him. This time though, Lin Mu didn't even dodge and took the attack head on.
~BOOM~
"WHAT!?" The woman's voice said in shock.
She had just witnessed the intruder running straight into the attack instead of trying to avoid it. She knew just how powerful that attack was and it could even injure a Dao Treading realm cultivator!
~whoosh~
The cloud of smoke was suddenly cleared, and the body of Lin Mu was visible again. Not one bit of a scratch could be seen on his shimmering golden skin, but his sleeves were torn from the attack.
"Wait! It's me Duan Ke!" Lin Mu called out.
He had taken the attack head on, so that he could trace it back. This allowed him to discover another layer of formation barrier that was hiding Duan Ke behind it.
"HOW DO YOU KNOW MY NAME!? WHO ARE YOU!?" Duan Ke shouted, feeling absolutely stunned.
She couldn't recognize the man with the golden shining skin in front of her at all. He was tall and had a well built body. And along with him was another man who was even larger in build than the first man.
Neither of them were familiar to her. Not to mention, even if they were familiar, them being here in the Ancestral Lands of the Jing clan was ridiculous in itself. As far as she knew, only she and her grandfather were the ones with access to it.
'Did some great formation master break in? There is no other way they would be able to bypass the formation arrays…' Duan Ke thought.
But just as she was thinking this, she heard the voice of the young man again.
"Its me, Lin Mu!" He announced.
But Duan Ke didn't believe him one bit. She had not forgotten about the teenage boy who had brought them many surprises. She would never forget him. After all, they were in debt to him.
'Could it really be?' Despite that, after a few memories resurfaced in her mind, she couldn't help but feel hesitant.
Lin Mu understood Duan Ke's thoughts a bit and quickly took out something that could easily prove his identity.
"It really is me, Lin Mu." He said again. "Look!" The short sword came to float in front of Lin Mu and he showed his right hand too, on which a golden ring with green streaks was present.
Seeing them, Duan Ke's eyes went wide.
"No way… it can't be… how?" Duan Ke said with confusion. "How can you even enter this place?"
"That's because of me." Jing Luo spoke.
Duan Ke's attention was pulled to him, and a strange feeling stirred within her heart. The voice of the other man tugged at her memories again, but she couldn't tell where she had heard them before.
"It's me, Ke'er…" Jing Luo continued.
As soon as he said that, Duan Ke's head spun. Memories came rushing back, memories of her and her cousin who had seemingly died a long time ago. She couldn't believe it when she had lost him in the past, and now that she was hearing it again, she found it hard to believe it too.
"No! That can't be... Jing Luo is dead!" Duan Ke yelled, her voice trembling.
"I know it's hard to believe. But I never died… I escaped and was trapped." Jing Luo explained before showing something to her. "Look, the entrance token to the ancestral lands."
Her eyes went to the token in Jing Luo's hand's carefully scanning it.
~HONG~
She waved her hands as a few runes came to touch upon the entrance token. And when they did, the token resonated in response.
"Do you really think anyone else would be able to make the Entrance token of our ancestral land? Even in our own clan, there were only a handful that can make it." Jing Luo added.
"It really is… you." Duan Ke said, finally coming around.
"Show yourself to us, cousin. I want to see you… it's been too long…" Jing Luo said, his eyes reddening.
~shua~
The barrier hiding Duan Ke dissipated and her body became visible. She was standing some distance away from them, atop a triangular plate. She wore a pale green dress with yellow tassels hanging on the edges of her sleeves and slacks.
Her hair was divided into three sections, with one part being tied up in a bunch on the back of her head, while two sections were left to flow freely behind her back. There was a coiling gold hair ornament holding the hair on her head while another tassel hung from it.
Lin Mu looked at her and found her to be the same as before, though her demeanor had slightly changed to become more domineering. The spirit Qi fluctuations coming from here were also many times stronger than before, being at the Adult Soul stage of the Nascent soul realm.
Such power was a great difference from when Lin Mu left her. Back then, Duan Ke was barely at the Peak stage of the core condensation realm. But with the insights for cultivation that Xukong had passed onto her through Lin Mu, she had progressed at a very fast speed.
Not even ten years had passed since then and she was at the Adult Soul stage of the Nascent soul realm. Such progress was indeed quite fast and Lin Mu would have thought so too, if he didn't know multiple others who had achieved the same.
The two men and one woman stared at each other, memorizing every single inch of their faces. Hoping that this was not a dream and that they truly were here.
