At that moment, the red figure who had been lazily reclining in the void beside Wu Yan suddenly sat bolt upright.
Her fiery red robes fluttered as her bewitching red eyes locked onto the grayish-white herb, erupting with an unprecedented surge of longing.
“Soul Shaping Grass…”
Wu Yan’s voice echoed in Wu Yan’s mind, no longer carrying its usual teasing and laziness, but instead replaced by a rare gravity and urgency.
“Little Wu Yan, this is truly a treasure. Although it isn’t very old, it is still precious enough.”
Wu Yan paused, her tone turning cold and sharp: “Take it. At any cost.”
Wu Yan’s eyes shifted slightly.
“It seems our luck is quite good.”
Wu Yan spoke calmly, her voice steady, showing no loss of composure despite the great treasure before her. “Miss Bai, it seems the Tianyan Sect’s Deduction Technique is indeed well-deserved. You were actually able to find such a hidden place.”
Bai Zhiqiu lifted her chin proudly and was about to step forward when her relaxed brow suddenly furrowed tight.
The Ink Jade Compass in her hand began to vibrate violently without warning, its needle spinning wildly as if it had gone mad!
“Wait!” Bai Zhiqiu’s face changed drastically, her voice rising instantly. “The hexagram indicates great misfortune! It’s an ambush!”
Before her words could finish, a sudden change occurred.
“Hahahaha! The little brat from the Tianyan Sect really has some skill! Unfortunately, this Soul Shaping Grass is something my Bloodshat Sect has set its sights on. Since you’ve come, all of you can stay here!”
A sinister voice echoed from above the valley, vibrating with spiritual power and causing loose rocks on the mountain walls to rattle and fall.
Immediately after, five black shadows darted out from the shadows of the rock walls like ghosts.
The leader was draped in a large black robe. His hood slipped back to reveal a face as withered as a skeleton. He emitted a nauseating scent of blood and dense Demonic Chi, and he released his pressure without any reservation—Mid Golden Core!
Behind him, four Demonic Cultivators stood in the positions of the four symbols: two at the Early Golden Core and two at the peak of Foundation Establishment.
Their positioning was extremely meticulous, clearly the work of veterans proficient in combined attack arrays, instantly blocking all paths of retreat for the group.
“Bloodshat Sect…” Yu Qingyao bit her lip. Her mind couldn’t help but recall the group of Demonic Cultivators she had encountered with Wu Yan during a mission in the Western Wilderness. A flash of disgust crossed her eyes. “These mad dogs actually followed us all the way here.” “I’ll take the Mid Golden Core one.”
Wu Yan wasted no time with words and showed no trace of fear. Severing Delusion unsheathed, its blade drawing a bright arc of light in the dim valley as her silhouette transformed into a white rainbow to meet the enemy.
“Senior Sister!” Yu Qingyao instinctively wanted to follow, her sword already raised.
“Get back.”
Wu Yan struck Yu Qingyao’s shoulder with a gentle palm wind, pushing her toward the left.
“Go with Junior Brother Gu and deal with those two at the Foundation Establishment Stage. Don’t let them interfere with me. Miss Bai, I’ll leave the two Early Golden Core ones to you to contain. You don’t need to risk your life, just keep them occupied.”
Wu Yan didn’t look back. Her tone was terrifyingly calm, as if this were not a life-and-death struggle but a routine sect drill.
Although Yu Qingyao’s mind was a mess of thoughts, the situation was urgent, so she could only listen to Wu Yan for now.
She suppressed the stray thoughts in her heart and vented all her fury onto her opponents. The talismans in her sleeve flew out, transforming into fire snakes that surged toward the Demonic Cultivator on the left.
Meanwhile, Gu Jian and the other two disciples did not retreat either, charging forward with their swords in hand.
The battlefield was instantly partitioned.
Wu Yan faced the Mid Golden Core leader alone.
“Move three feet to the left. His Blood Fiend Palm starting posture has a half-breath delay.” Wu Yan’s inner voice giggled as she offered guidance by Wu Yan’s side.
Wu Yan’s footwork shifted slightly, her body drifting away like willow catkins, perfectly dodging a palm strike that could have shattered mountains.
“Attack his sea of chi! He just used a Blood Escape Technique to rush here, so his foundation is unstable and his Spirit Chi flow is obstructed.”
Wu Yan’s wrist flicked, and her sword light split apart like the flickering tongue of a spirit snake, stabbing directly toward the opponent’s dantian.
With a single hit, the Mid Golden Core Demonic Cultivator’s movements paused, and the technique he had been charging suddenly dissipated.
“Watch your back! That array master is gathering energy!”
“Clang!”
Wu Yan swung her sword behind her back, precisely parrying a flying freezing talisman.
Even though she was facing a Mid Golden Core expert, Wu Yan was not at a disadvantage at all. Instead, she forced the skeleton-faced Demonic Cultivator back step by step.
“Damn it! Who exactly are you?! How can an orthodox cultivator be so familiar with my sect’s techniques?!” The skeleton-faced Demonic Cultivator roared repeatedly. This feeling of being countered at every turn was driving him to the brink of insanity.
On the other side, although Bai Zhiqiu looked delicate, as the Chief Disciple of the Tianyan Sect, her methods were endless.
The compass in her hand could not only perform deductions but also draw upon the local earth energy to create trapping arrays.
Several golden talismans circled around her, leading the two Demonic Cultivators in circles. Although she couldn’t kill them, they couldn’t get anywhere near her either.
“The situation is difficult! Form the array! Kill them!” Seeing that he couldn’t win after a long time, the black-robed leader finally lost his patience and let out a hysterical roar.
Just then, the final Early Golden Core Demonic Cultivator—a short, unremarkable array master who had been hiding in the shadows, seemingly maintaining the array but actually looking for an opening—suddenly moved.
At this moment, Bai Zhiqiu was fully focused on controlling her compass to set up the Minor Zhou Heaven Trapping Array, preparing to trap and kill her opponents in one go.
It was during the moment her hands were forming seals, when her old strength was spent and her new strength had yet to rise, that her protective Spirit Chi briefly weakened.
A flash of ruthlessness crossed the array master’s eyes, and his sleeve suddenly jolted.
An extremely thin, extremely fast, and nearly invisible dark light, carrying a heart-pounding sense of death, shot out silently.
It was a Bone-Piercing Nail coated with Bone-Corroding Demon Poison!
Its target was not the rampaging Wu Yan, but Bai Zhiqiu!
“Watch out!!”
Yu Qingyao was locked in combat with her own opponent, but her peripheral vision caught this scene. Despite her dislike for Bai Zhiqiu, as an orthodox cultivator, Yu Qingyao shouted a warning.
Bai Zhiqiu also sensed the fatal crisis that pierced straight to her marrow.
In that instant, her pupils shrank violently, and her heart felt as if it skipped a beat. But as a genius of the Tianyan Sect, she naturally possessed life-saving trump cards.
The protective spiritual tool hanging around her neck, the Heavenly Secret Mirror, had long been refined into her body. Once it sensed a fatal threat, it would automatically protect its master, and its defensive power was enough to withstand a full-power strike from the Nascent Soul Stage.
Therefore, Bai Zhiqiu’s body did not make any drastic evasive maneuvers. she intended to endure the hit, finish the array, and then slaughter the Demonic Cultivators.
However, someone reacted faster than her dharma treasure.
The moment before that dark light could hit Bai Zhiqiu, a white figure abruptly and unreasonably forced its way into her field of vision.
There was no hesitation.
There was no weighing of pros and cons.
The moment Wu Yan heard the sound of the wind and sensed the killing intent, her body moved.
She poured Spirit Chi into Severing Delusion and slashed at the incoming Bone-Piercing Nail.
“Clang—”
The sound of clashing metal rang out.
The dark light grazed the tips of Bai Zhiqiu’s hair and flew past, embedding itself into the rock behind her and instantly corroding a deep pit.
However, the crisis was not over.
“Hahahaha! Fool! Revealing your own weakness just to save someone? Heaven is on my side!” The skeleton-faced Demonic Cultivator was ecstatic when he saw Wu Yan suddenly retreat to save someone, leaving her back wide open.
Without any hesitation, he channeled all his Spirit Chi, even burning a mouthful of essence blood, and thrust both hands forward.
“Blood Fiend Demon Mountain, crush them!”
Rumble!
A thick, blood-like terrifying Demonic Chi instantly condensed into the phantom of a small mountain. Carrying a suffocating stench and pressure, it smashed down ruthlessly toward Wu Yan and Bai Zhiqiu!
This strike was massive in scale and incredibly fast, leaving Wu Yan no space to dodge again.
In an instant, that crimson Demonic Chi completely swallowed the two figures, one in white and one in yellow.
“Senior Sister—!!!”
Yu Qingyao, who was on the other side of the battlefield, happened to see this exact scene.
In that moment, a terrifying blankness filled her mind.
She watched as the sky-filling blood light swallowed Wu Yan’s figure. All the sounds around her seemed to vanish, leaving only a violent roaring in her ears.
Gone…?
The person who always stood in front of her, the enemy she had sworn to kill with her own hands… died just like that?
An indescribable panic and rage instantly took control of her body.
Yu Qingyao’s fingers trembled uncontrollably. Without any conscious thought, she instinctively grabbed a talisman glowing with purple-gold light from the depths of her Storage Ring.
That was one of the trump cards she had specifically prepared to deal with Wu Yan before entering the Secret Realm—the Nine Heavens Thunder-Fire Talisman, equivalent to a full-power strike from a cultivator at the Early Nascent Soul.
Without a single word, Yu Qingyao used all her strength to hurl that talisman toward the skeleton-faced Demonic Cultivator.
The skeleton-faced Demonic Cultivator had just finished burning his essence blood to perform his move and was in a state of exhaustion. He was full of joy, thinking he had resolved his strongest opponent, so how could he have expected a little Foundation Establishment girl to produce a killing machine of this level?
“No—!”
Feeling the world-destroying aura of thunder and fire from the talisman, the skeleton-faced Demonic Cultivator’s eyes nearly split from terror as he tried to retreat in a panic.
BOOM!!!
Purple lightning and crimson flames exploded instantly, blasting the skeleton-faced Demonic Cultivator away.
He sprayed blood wildly in mid-air, his chest blown into a bloody mess, as he slammed heavily into the distant rock wall, his fate unknown.
Dust billowed and rocks flew.
Yu Qingyao panted heavily, her eyes bloodshot as she stared fixedly at the area covered by the Blood Fiend Demon Mountain. Her heart felt as if it were being squeezed tight by a giant hand, aching so much she could hardly breathe.
It should have been a good thing if Wu Yan died, but why…
However, when the dense, bloody Demonic Chi slowly dissipated, a brilliant and pure golden light pierced through the dust like the morning sun at dawn.
“Buzz—”
A massive golden light shield, looking like an overturned glass bowl, stood steadily in place.
Complex Heavenly Secret runes flowed across the surface of the shield, emitting a sacred and inviolable aura.
And inside the shield…
Wu Yan maintained her sword-blocking stance, her white clothes as pristine as snow and her hair slightly messy, but she was completely unharmed.
Behind her, the ancient Heavenly Secret Mirror from Bai Zhiqiu’s chest was floating in the air, releasing a soft but indestructible light that held them both securely within.
The Demonic Cultivator’s full-power strike, which could have crushed a Golden Core Stage cultivator, had failed to create even a single crack in the light shield.
Time seemed to freeze at this moment.
Inside the light shield, there was a deathly silence.
Wu Yan slowly lowered her sword stance. After confirming they were safe, she exhaled a soft breath and turned to look at Bai Zhiqiu behind her, her tone still steady: “Thank you for the protection, Miss Bai.”
However, Bai Zhiqiu did not speak.
This genius of the Tianyan Sect, usually a most eloquent divine calculator, was currently staring at Wu Yan in a daze.
She looked at Wu Yan’s upright back and at how the other woman had not hesitated to expose her back to a powerful enemy just to save her.
In the teachings of the Tianyan Sect, every action had to be calculated for profit and loss, and every bit of Spirit Chi had to be used where it mattered most.
She had calculated that the array master would sneak attack, so she had been prepared to endure it. She had calculated that the skeleton-faced Demonic Cultivator would go berserk, so she had activated the Heavenly Secret Mirror in advance.
But the only thing she hadn’t calculated…
Was that in that life-or-death instant, this Piaomiao Sect Chief, whom she hadn’t known for long, would give up her own safety and rush over immediately to shield her.
Why?
If Wu Yan had simply dodged, she could have remained completely uninjured with her movement techniques.
Why risk being severely wounded by a Golden Core cultivator just to save an outsider who already had a protective spiritual tool?
It wasn’t logical. It wasn’t within the hexagrams.
Bai Zhiqiu’s lips moved, her usually clever tongue feeling somewhat dry, unable to say a word for a long time.
She looked into Wu Yan’s clear, calm dark eyes, and a sudden sense of confusion rose in her heart.
“You,” Bai Zhiqiu’s voice was a bit hoarse, “just now, why didn’t you dodge?”
Wu Yan only gave her a faint look and said as if it were a matter of course, “Since you called me Captain, then ensuring your safety is part of my duty.”
There was no claiming of credit, no sentimentality. It was as if she were stating a very ordinary fact.
Not far away, seeing that the two were safe and sound, Yu Qingyao’s body went limp, and the sword in her hand fell to the ground with a clang.
The drop from extreme despair to extreme relief made her entire body tremble slightly.
But in the gaze she directed toward Wu Yan, besides an indescribable complexity and obsession, there was also a hint of relief.