After being reborn, the villain comes with a spoiler tag.

Huo Yu knew that after him, no one else would emerge from the secret realm, a fact further confirmed by the sect leader's serious yet weary and worried expression.

Huo Yu was not surprised. Most of those people had already become sacrifices for Huang Xiao to recover his cultivation, and no one would come out again when the secret realm closed.

At that time, the sect leader will not only face the huge losses of the sect, but also the pressure from the other two factions. The last two people to emerge from the secret realm belong to the Qiongshan Sect, and the other two sects will never let go of this opportunity to join forces to exert pressure in order to make up for their own losses.

As Huo Yu had predicted, things turned out exactly as he had expected.

On the seventh day, Elder He came to Huo Yu's room again, looking worried, and took him to the sect meeting.

On the other hand, Long Yucheng had already woken up from his coma two days before Huo Yu woke up.

His injuries looked horrifying; in the mortal world, he would have been buried long ago.

However, for cultivators, physical injuries are the simplest; what is truly serious is the damage to their spiritual consciousness and spiritual roots and veins.

After Elder He used some kind of miraculous medicine, Long Yucheng quickly recovered from being unable to breathe to being missing an arm and a leg. It was estimated that he would be able to jump around again in another day or two.

However, the sect leader clearly did not have the patience to wait for him to fully recover.

As soon as Long Yucheng regained consciousness, he was interrogated like a prisoner for a full hour.

He told everything he could, from the moment he was teleported into that eerie ruin to his eventual escape, except subconsciously concealing the truth about his chase with Yun Liushui and how Senior Brother Yu helped him escape.

After witnessing Huo Yu's epic battle against the demon, Long Yucheng increasingly felt that his senior brother Yu might be the "traitor within the demonic path" mentioned in the side quest, and that his cultivation level was most likely not late Foundation Establishment stage, but rather a Golden Core old monster hiding his true cultivation level.

Therefore, Long Yucheng completely ignored the strange supernatural abilities of Senior Brother Yu and attributed all the credit for escaping to Zhu Yanjian.

Senior Brother Yu was his benefactor and savior. Compared to the Qiongshan Sect, which had always treated him like a laborer since he entered the sect, Long Yucheng was a complete fool if he didn't understand which was more important.

Speaking of the Crimson Flame Sword, from the moment Long Yucheng took it from the center of the formation, he seemed to have established a strange connection with this sword.

When he met the sect leader, he could clearly sense that the Crimson Flame Sword was on the sect leader's body. Therefore, during the interrogation, Long Yucheng repeatedly emphasized "his" Crimson Flame Sword.

The system had already given him the mission reward, "Heavenly Wind Sword Manual," when he woke up.

Long Yucheng guessed that, just as the Primordial Thunder Dragon inheritance corresponds to the Soaring Dragon Spear, the Heavenly Wind Sword Technique and the Crimson Flame Sword are most likely a matching pair.

Even if it wasn't a matching set, the demon's fear of the Crimson Flame Sword alone was enough to show that this sword was no ordinary item, and he had to get it back no matter what.

However, the sect leader ignored the explicit and implicit meanings in his words. After the interrogation, he coldly ordered someone to send him back to his room, which made Long Yucheng extremely depressed.

Zhu Yan Sword was not retrieved, and the two side quests disappeared after Long Yucheng woke up, with no points gained at all.

Long Yucheng quickly realized that Yun Liushui was probably not dead, and who knows how she would retaliate against him after she came out of the secret realm.

Even if Yun Liushui's cultivation level is low, he is still an inner disciple, while he is an outer disciple whose cultivation level is even lower than Yun Liushui's. In the end, he will be powerless against Yun Liushui, which will give Long Yucheng a lot of trouble.

Fortunately, he was kept in his room for the next few days. Although he lost his freedom, no one could get close to him—two senior disciples from the inner sect guarded the door.

However, perhaps because of the presence of these two senior brothers, Long Yucheng always felt that he was being watched and felt very uncomfortable.

Bored out of his mind, Long Yucheng wanted to take this opportunity to study the newly acquired "Heavenly Wind Sword Manual" to distract himself, but upon closer inspection, he discovered that it was actually a sword manual for the Foundation Establishment stage, which greatly disappointed him.

In the end, he simply continued to heal his injuries while simultaneously practicing the Fire Control Technique, making the most of every second to improve his cultivation.

After struggling on the brink of life and death several times in the secret realm, Long Yucheng has come to realize that without sufficient strength, even the protagonist's halo is of no use.

Faced with an enemy hundreds of times stronger than him, no amount of protagonist's aura could stop the other party from crushing him like an ant.

In the following days, apart from the sect leader interrogating him a few more times and Elder He occasionally giving him some strangely-tasting pills, no one else disturbed him.

As Long Yucheng endured the dull pain of his flesh healing, he gritted his teeth and persevered in his cultivation, and time passed incredibly slowly.

On the fourth day after he woke up, a white-robed inner disciple carried the nearly recovered Long Yucheng and flew straight to a majestic and solemn building with the words "Council Hall" clearly written on it.

The inner disciple stopped in front of the council hall and gestured for Long Yucheng to go inside.

Long Yucheng walked into the council hall in a daze, only to find that a lot of people had already gathered inside, and Huo Yu was among them.

Long Yucheng's eyes lit up the moment he saw Huo Yu.

If the atmosphere around him hadn't been so heavy, he would have rushed up to ask about the other person's injuries, how the demon was doing, whether the sect leader had interrogated him, and whether his testimony matched.

With the sect leader and two elders present, Long Yucheng could only suppress the myriad thoughts in his mind.

The sect leader, seated at the head of the table, had an unusually serious expression:

"The Nine Star Secret Realm has been closed. After the two of you, no one else has left the secret realm."

Long Yucheng was stunned for a moment before he realized what those words meant, and his expression changed drastically.

Before he could speak, the sect leader continued:

"The Divine Sword Sect suffered the most severe losses on this trip, with almost all of its thirty Foundation Establishment stage disciples perishing within the secret realm. The Beast Taming Valley suffered the second most, with most of its disciples also failing to return."

"Our Qiongshan Sect suffered relatively small losses because most of our disciples were waiting for the best opportunity. However, the Divine Sword Sect and the Beast Taming Valley insist that this was a conspiracy orchestrated by our Qiongshan Sect and demand an explanation from us."

"An explanation? What explanation do we have!"

Elder He said indignantly,

"They clearly want to take this opportunity to steal a piece of my Qiongshan Sect!"

The sect leader raised his hand to stop Elder He's grumbling and continued:

"How could I not know their true intentions? It's just that my Qiongshan Sect is no longer as powerful as it once was. Even if we know that they intend to use this as an excuse, we are powerless to fight back."

Elder He was still somewhat indignant after hearing this, and seemed to want to say something more, but was stopped by Chen Liyun beside him.

Chen Liyun had just returned from the secret valley and rushed to the council hall. She was travel-worn, and her usually indifferent face betrayed her exhaustion. She said weakly:

"At this moment, the most important thing is to help the sect overcome this crisis. That spirit sword alone is probably no longer enough to satisfy their appetite."

The sect leader sighed upon hearing this:

“The Spirit Sword is only one aspect; they still insist on holding someone responsible for this matter today. And the only two of you who witnessed everything that day and still managed to leave the secret realm alive are you. If you are not handed over, my Qiongshan Sect may find it difficult to escape this calamity.”