“Junior Sister, don’t go any further. Go back and inform Master.”
Chen Yuyang halted his steps, thinking for a moment.
“But… we don’t know exactly what’s happened…”
Ling Xi hesitated slightly, her gaze toward the village filled with concern and curiosity.
Chen Yuyang shook his head.
“First, there’s definitely something wrong with that village. Second, we have no idea what the problem is, nor whether we’re capable of dealing with it. The safest thing to do is for you to go back and inform Master directly.”
“Then why not let you go back to report, and I stay to investigate?”
Ling Sha couldn’t help but ask.
Chen Yuyang shot her a sidelong glance.
“Because you’re weaker than me.”
That one sentence left Ling Xi with nothing to say.
She could only turn back and obediently go to find Bu Lingxuan.
Chen Yuyang looked once more in the direction of the village, silently extending his spiritual sense.
Unfortunately, with the cultivation of only a first-stage Golden Core, even if his soul power was strong, a perception range of three hundred zhang was his limit.
However, this three hundred zhang was enough to prepare for any sudden ambush.
Chen Yuyang continued approaching the village, slowing his pace, already gripping two talisman papers in his palm—one for attack, one for defense.
The village was eerily quiet, so silent not even the bark of a dog could be heard. Only a cold wind, void of all signs of life, brushed his face.
The village was deserted.
The road was empty—no people, not even chickens or dogs.
The livestock pens, too, were all empty.
Had it been abandoned?
Yet all these houses remained in good repair; there were no signs of disuse.
Still, Chen Yuyang sensed no aura of death.
The roads were spotless, with no trace of corpses or bloodstains.
Yet the spiritual energy in the air was indeed a bit chaotic, as if some kind of force had rampaged over the village.
Moreover, even though there was no aura of death, Chen Yuyang couldn’t sense the slightest trace of human presence here.
That so-called human presence was a kind of subtle perception.
Even houses abandoned for many years sometimes retained a lingering sense of human life.
A village of this size—no matter if everyone had moved away, that presence should not have dissipated so completely.
Landing in the center of the village, Chen Yuyang set foot on the Huangmudao, his gaze turning to the nearest house.
The door was ajar, its interior shrouded in darkness.
Extending his spiritual sense inside, Chen Yuyang found it empty.
Still, he stepped in, searching around.
But aside from a few scattered clothes on the floor, there was nothing unusual in the house.
Frowning, Chen Yuyang was suddenly struck by a sense of déjà vu.
As if, long, long ago, he’d seen something just like this.
But… after countless millennia, his memories were blurred; he could only vaguely recall, not remember the details at once.
Just then, within the range of his spiritual sense, Bu Lingxuan and Ling Xi hurried over. Chen Yuyang went out to meet them at once.
“Yuyang! Something’s strange here!”
At first glance, Bu Lingxuan, who had already blanketed the area with her divine sense, spoke up immediately.
Chen Yuyang nodded.
Bu Lingxuan lifted her head, still sensing as she continued, “I have a bad feeling about this.”
“What!”
Hearing this, Ling Xi couldn’t help but be startled.
If even their Master, at the Integration Stage, felt uneasy, then what kind of terrifying thing could be here?
Suddenly, Ling Sha noticed something and pointed to the ground beside them, calling out loudly, “Master, look! The clothes over there—they still keep a human shape! Shoes, socks, and undergarments are all present.”
“It’s like a person wearing them just vanished into thin air.”
Bu Lingxuan’s eyes immediately widened, stepping forward to investigate.
Chen Yuyang, upon hearing this, also felt a sudden flash of inspiration.
That fuzzy recollection from earlier now surfaced clearly.
“Reincarnation Transformation Array!”
Silently, a name appeared in Chen Yuyang’s mind.
The name of a formation.
A formation that was extremely evil, domineering, and terrifying.
Once activated, it could refine everything within the array.
And this formation itself wasn’t especially complex—one only needed to fulfill a single prerequisite: causality.
In this world, nothing is more complex and ever-changing than causality.
This formation possessed the power to sever karma directly.
But precisely because of this, the array’s core had to fulfill a condition: it must be closely related, through karma, to everyone inside the array.
In other words, if a stranger was made the core, others entering the array would remain completely unaffected.
On the other hand, if the core was a direct blood relative or someone with an extremely strong karmic bond, then under the Grand Ascension stage, none could escape.
The stronger the individual, the stronger the karmic connection needed for the Reincarnation Transformation Array to take effect—usually requiring a direct blood relative of one generation.
But for weaker cultivators, the restriction was much looser; even friends might suffice.
At this point, the reason for the villagers’ disappearance became clear.
Someone used a respected elder—one closely connected to many villagers—as the array’s core, activating the array and severing the karma of all within.
But…
What was the purpose of these people?
Was it simply slaughter?
With the ability to set up this array, killing everyone here would have been even easier.
After all, to precisely locate the village’s several key figures and use them as the array core, ensuring everyone was refined, required uncommon means and abilities.
Chen Yuyang was baffled.
Back then, although he’d known of the Reincarnation Transformation Array, he only knew how to set it up and that its power was immense—he’d never cast it himself.
He had only obtained the formation because a certain cultivator had tried to use it to kill an enemy much stronger than themselves.
Therefore, after the karma of those people was severed, what else could be done on top of that, Chen Yuyang did not know.
Now, it made sense why Bu Lingxuan felt uneasy.
Although this array was no threat to her, Chen Yuyang, and the others, it was after all a forbidden, heretical art involving the karma and reincarnation that lay at the origin of every being.
“Though we don’t know what exactly happened here, I fear it’s the work of the Majiao.”
“Those demonic cultivators love to sacrifice living beings in great numbers, to temper their weapons.”
Though Bu Lingxuan did not understand the details, she knew this kind of method likely came from the Majiao.
“If the Majiao is acting like this, even if we don’t know the purpose, the Seven Great Sects must be warned to remain on guard. We mustn’t be caught off guard,” Chen Yuyang added.
Bu Lingxuan nodded—she had thought the same.
She suspected the Majiao might be preparing for the great war three years from now, the one that might overturn the entire northern cultivation world.
No one knew how many innocent people would suffer at the hands of the demonic cultivators before then.
Thinking of this, Bu Lingxuan shook her head and sighed softly.
“There are no living people here anymore.”
“We should not linger here. Let’s return to the ship and rest.”
“In the morning, once I’ve recovered my spiritual power, we’ll depart immediately.”
Remaining here left Bu Lingxuan with a sense of foreboding.
Her divine sense had confirmed that there were no survivors, and it was meaningless to stay.
Ling Xi clutched Bu Lingxuan’s sleeve, while Chen Yuyang looked back at the village a couple more times.
There were still traces of the array’s spiritual power lingering in the air.
It seemed that signs of the formation’s placement were present throughout the surroundings…
But now that Bu Lingxuan had declared it time to leave, Chen Yuyang saw no reason to protest.
He followed her back to the flying boat.
Bu Lingxuan reminded them not to stray too far, then returned to her room to resume restoring her spiritual power.
Night deepened.
Ling Xi stayed in her room, meaning to cultivate, but couldn’t calm her mind. Lying down, she still felt no urge to sleep.
Turning things over in her mind, the young girl shook her head, then pushed open the door, intending to step onto the deck and look at the moon.
But the moment she stepped onto the deck, she saw a figure rapidly approach.
“Ah!”
Ling Xi reflexively cried out, reaching for her sword.
But that figure came quickly, moving directly toward her and clapping a hand over her mouth.
“Don’t shout. Don’t let Master hear,” Chen Yuyang hissed in a low voice at her ear.
Only then did Ling Xi react, seeing clearly that the one grabbing her shoulder and covering her mouth was the familiar, handsome young man.
She blinked, indicating she understood, and Chen Yuyang finally let go.
“Senior Brother, you…”
Ling Xi stared at him in disbelief.
Had she seen wrong?
Her Senior Brother seemed to be returning from outside.
Could it be he’d ignored Master’s warning and secretly gone back to investigate the village?
Well, Senior Brother, how dare you secretly… Ling Xi was about to question him.
But before she could speak, Chen Yuyang was one step ahead, pulling out a snake he’d hunted along the way from his storage ring and tossing it to her.
Ling Xi caught it almost reflexively, but the icy sensation in her hand made her break out in goosebumps.
And when she saw what it was, she was so startled she let out another scream.
“The-the-the—”
Though as a cultivator, an ordinary snake posed no threat at all, and this one was already dead, it still gave the young girl a fright.
Chen Yuyang immediately covered Ling Xi’s mouth again, quieting the scream she had just uttered.
“Don’t shout. It’s just a dead snake. If you keep yelling, I won’t share the soup with you.”
Ling Xi glared at him, eyes brimming with a bit of complaint, but she obediently fell silent, looking at the dead snake.
“So, Senior Brother, you went to get this?”
“Yes. You said earlier you wanted something to eat. There’s no way we could eat anything from that village; taking food from there would feel taboo. So, I hunted some wild game nearby. It’s just a snake, but it should make for some tasty soup,” Chen Yuyang explained.
Actually, he’d only brought the snake as a pretext; his real purpose had been to continue investigating the village.
With the snake, he had an excuse ready, whether Master or Junior Sister questioned him.
Hearing this, Ling Xi believed him.
And knowing Chen Yuyang had specially gone to hunt a snake for her, the girl’s cheeks were instantly tinged with an almost imperceptible pink.
“Thank you, Senior Brother.”
“Then, let’s get started right away.”