The three men looked at the corpse of their companion on the ground, wrapped in that eerie bouquet, and fear inevitably filled their eyes.
However, facing Bai Qianqian, who possessed only a trace of weak spiritual power, all three of them harbored the thought of silencing her forever.
“Little sister, we didn’t mean to offend you, but it’s not right for you to kill two of our fellow disciples…”
The cultivator standing at the front looked at Bai Qianqian with cold eyes.
She was clearly just a despicable commoner who happened to obtain a sliver of spiritual power.
He estimated she was likely nothing more than a servant to that Nascent Soul expert.
“Kill her. That Nascent Soul expert certainly won’t oppose our sect for the sake of a mere servant…”
Upon hearing their leader’s command, the other two rushed forward with their longswords raised.
Bai Qianqian retreated without hesitation.
Although she had studied three cultivation techniques, her current strength was not enough to withstand a direct attack.
‘I can’t die here…’
There was only one thought in Bai Qianqian’s mind.
The moment she turned to run, she threw the dagger in her hand over her shoulder.
One of the men easily blocked it with his longsword, but the moment the dagger made contact, it shattered into numerous fragments that exploded in the air.
“What?!”
The opponent hadn’t expected this move and could only use his spiritual energy to defend.
However, the fragments flew so fast that he couldn’t react in time, allowing the shards to graze him and leave small cuts of varying sizes.
“Curse you! Die!”
To be wounded by a mere commoner was a great humiliation.
He raised his sword high, and crimson flames instantly coiled around the blade.
He was truly enraged.
[SWORD ART: BLAZING FLAME SWORD]
As the flames wrapped around the longsword, a pillar of fire over 10 meters tall shot into the sky and slashed toward Bai Qianqian.
Feeling the scorching heat behind her, Bai Qianqian knew without even looking that she would die if she took this hit.
“Die, you bitch! Let me show you the price of resisting a cultivator!”
He roared while slashing toward her.
But just as she was about to be split in two and burned to ash, Bai Qianqian moved like a nimble squirrel in the forest.
She stabbed her dagger into a tree trunk, tapped her toes against it, and used the momentum to leap back into the Grotto-heaven.
“What?”
The majestic flaming sword struck the square-inch Grotto-heaven.
The cultivator’s heart leaped into his throat.
If he damaged the magical treasure, would the Nascent Soul expert sacrifice him to appease the artifact?
Fortunately, his worries were unnecessary.
The ancient Grotto-heaven contained the laws of space, easily blocking the Blazing Flame Sword of a mere Foundation Establishment cultivator.
Seeing the treasure was unharmed, he finally breathed a sigh of relief.
“Hey, be careful! If you break that thing, both our lives won’t be enough to compensate for it!”
“Exactly! We’re counting on this treasure to exchange for resources from Elder Bai!”
One of the men angrily rebuked his impulsive companion.
However, the other man’s expression immediately shifted to one of terror as he pointed toward the injured man’s feet.
“By your feet! Look at your feet!”
The injured cultivator looked down, and his legs went weak with fear.
Countless vivid flowers were blooming along the trail of his dripping blood.
Even where the blood had merely stained his clothes, flowers began to sprout incessantly.
“No, no, no! You two bastards, what are you just standing there for? Save me! Save me!!”
Watching the flowers crawl up his body from below — even growing out of his wounds — the cultivator reached out in terror to pull them off.
Beneath the beautiful petals, hair-like, writhing roots were buried deep within his flesh.
“No! Don’t! Stop it, I don’t want to die!!”
He stood there, swallowed alive by the blooming flowers.
Until his final moment, his eyes were fixed on the Grotto-heaven hanging from the tree branch.
Bai Qianqian stood at the entrance of the Grotto-heaven, watching the scene outside with cold indifference.
‘Two left…’
Seeing how eerie the field of flowers was, the remaining two no longer thought of silencing her.
They only wanted to flee.
But as they turned to fly away on their swords, the sharp dagger was thrown from the Grotto-heaven once again.
“Damn it, is there no end to this?!”
One of them, irritated by the persistent attacks, raised his sword to strike.
The other tried to stop him in terror, but the blade had already swung.
Just like before, the dagger shattered into countless fragments, enveloping both men.
Despite blocking the vital areas, both were covered in wounds of varying sizes.
“You idiot! You’re going to get me killed! Didn’t you see what happened to that guy just now?!”
“I… I was just anxious…!”
They didn’t get a chance to regret it.
The moment their blood hit the ground, the flowers at their feet crawled up their clothes like a swarm of locusts.
Whether they used fire or poison, flowers continued to grow directly from their wounds.
“I don’t want this… I don’t want to die! Please, let us go! I… I definitely won’t…!”
The lives of the last two cultivators were swallowed by the sea of flowers before they collapsed limply.
Only when everything outside grew silent did Bai Qianqian cautiously step out of the Grotto-heaven.
‘I survived…’
Though her face remained as calm as ever, her back was soaked with sweat.
If the opponents had been focused solely on killing her from the start, she never would have survived.
She looked down at the flower field, knowing without a doubt that this was Lin Xinyi’s handiwork.
‘Master cares for me so much that she even laid down a formation to protect me before leaving…’
At that thought, a blush colored Bai Qianqian’s cheeks.
She almost wished she could knock Lin Xinyi out on a bed right now just to tell her how moved she was.
“Die!”
While Bai Qianqian was lost in her fantasies, one of the cultivators who had been covered in flowers suddenly raised his hand and thrust his sword toward her.
Although submerged in flowers, he wasn’t completely dead yet.
Bai Qianqian reacted and tried to dodge, but the sword still pierced her left shoulder.
The sharp pain made her furrow her brows.
“If we’re dying, you’re coming with us!”
After saying those words, the cultivator could no longer resist the drainage from the flowers.
He turned into a withered skeleton and collapsed into the field.
“It hurts…”
Gritting her teeth, she watched blood pour from the wound on her left shoulder.
She looked down to see the flowers at her feet surging toward her.
With a sharp breath, she pulled the sword out.
‘Master…’
Bai Qianqian looked at the withered skeletons around her and sat down weakly against the tree trunk.
She watched as flowers began to bloom from her own wound, a sense of exhaustion washing over her.
‘Is this considered dying by Master’s hand…?’