Chapter 1455: Mu Guyue's Situation (Part One)
“Oh, you mean that black-armored woman? She’s not Great Master Lan’s disciple, she’s an Evil Spirit Cultivator. If it were anyone else, I might not know. But many people pay attention to Great Master Lan’s attendants. This woman is also one of Great Master Lan’s soul slaves, and should be at the Late-stage Nascent Soul cultivation. About forty or fifty years ago, she was captured and brought back by the palace’s cultivators. She seems to have the bloodline of some Demon Clan. This race is born with a powerful bloodline, so their Soul Power is naturally not weak. Originally, someone as beautiful as her would definitely have been taken as a cultivation cauldron. But unexpectedly, Great Master Lan took a fancy to her and directly asked for her. After that, she has been by Great Master Lan’s side ever since. This woman’s luck is good; she’s been alive for decades now. But seeing her attire today, is Great Master Lan planning to have her fight? Apart from the palace’s guard army, some ‘Evil Spirit Cultivators’ who fight here will also dress like this to increase their defense. After all, the duel between them is not about Soul Power penetration, but more about physical defense confrontation. And such armor is also refined by our sect and is a decent defensive treasure. Sometimes it is also bestowed upon soul slaves. Hehehe… I heard that many people have been eyeing this woman. Among them are other Void Refining cultivators. What, has Fellow Daoist Li also taken a fancy to this woman? This woman is truly top-quality, but I’ve never heard of Great Master Lan giving away a soul slave she fancies. And even if she agreed to give her away, it’s not something a minor cultivator like us can even think about. There would definitely be many elders scrambling for her!”
Tang Feng looked at Li Yan and said with some meaning.
With just one question from the other party, he knew what this Li Yan was thinking. But how could a minor Nascent Soul dare to covet Great Master Lan’s people? And he was a cultivator from the “Strange Sparrow Hall” who had just joined the sect not long ago, not even from the same hall.
“Fellow Daoist Tang is joking. This junior has heard of Great Master Lan’s great name as loud as thunder. As a cultivator who has just entered the sect not long ago, I naturally just want to recognize the people around her. To avoid accidentally offending someone close to the Great Master in the future, that would be a loss that outweighs the gain. So she’s just a soul slave. Does Great Master Lan have disciples? Why did she only bring this one soul slave over?”
With a few words, Li Yan changed the subject.
“Of course Great Master Lan has disciples. Those few are not only Nascent Soul cultivators like us, but there are also Spirit Transformation experts. They are also relatively famous figures in the Star Subduing Hall. Each of them has their own things to do. Unless Great Master Lan summons them, they won’t follow her around all day…”
After hearing Li Yan’s words, Tang Feng nodded.
But he would not fully believe Li Yan’s words. That female Demonic General was a top-quality woman. Which man wouldn’t be moved after seeing her? So for Li Yan to say he wasn’t moved was definitely a lie. He just needed to listen.
However, the reason Li Yan gave was also correct. It was very necessary to clarify the relationships of some important figures in the sect. Especially for disciples without backing, they had to be careful in their daily lives, for fear of accidentally getting into trouble. If others just lifted a finger, their own fate could be tragic.
Listening to Tang Feng’s simple explanation, although Li Yan maintained a smile on his face, he finally felt a sense of relief in his heart, and then began to think.
‘So she’s just a soul slave. Then there’s no need to worry too much. I almost thought I would have to flee this sect again…’
Under such circumstances, even if this female Demonic General saw him, Li Yan was not afraid. He now knew the situation in the “True Earth Domain” and knew how much the soul cultivators here hated “Evil Spirit Cultivators.”
Even if this female Demonic General loudly told everyone that he was also a foreign cultivator, few people would believe her. He had passed through many assessments to join the sect. Wouldn’t that be saying that the Soul Suppression Palace was blind? He only needed to say a few angry words like “this ‘Evil Spirit Cultivator’ has sinister intentions and truly deserves to die,” and she might be killed.
Taking a ten-thousand-step back, even if someone suspected that he was a foreign cultivator, they could only think that he was a foreign soul cultivator. After all, his soul cultivation was laid bare for all to see. In short, the trust that the people here had in “Evil Spirit Cultivators” was almost non-existent.
As Li Yan’s heart relaxed, while listening to Tang Feng’s words, he once again looked diagonally opposite at the tall, slender woman in armor. At this moment, she was standing behind the seated Great Master Lan.
For some reason, after learning about this female Demonic General’s true situation, after his initial worry, Li Yan actually felt a very uncomfortable feeling in his heart. This was not because of a repulsive emotion upon seeing the female Demonic General, but because she had actually been enslaved by someone. This made Li Yan immediately feel a dislike for Great Master Lan from the bottom of his heart.
“She appeared in the Soul Suppression Palace forty to fifty years ago. This means the time she was pulled into the ‘True Earth Domain’ is basically the same as mine. Could it be that she also ascended to the Immortal Spirit Realm not long ago… But didn’t they say that the appearance time of the entrance here is at least several decades apart? Is the information I gathered still wrong?”
Li Yan thought silently in his heart.
Mu Guyue stood behind Great Master Lan, silent from beginning to end, but her heart was filled with bitterness.
After she had successfully ascended, in order to cultivate and pay off the Spirit Stones she had borrowed for the “Immortalization Liquid,” she had to desperately earn Spirit Stones everywhere. Under various pressures, she had long since forgotten her past glory. At that time, she was still a powerful expert held high in the mortal realm, a person whom few in her clan dared to provoke, already standing at the peak.
After arriving in the Immortal Spirit Realm, she only thought about paying off the Spirit Stones and then peacefully cultivating to increase her strength, while also looking for her clansmen.
So, she joined a demon hunting team and frequently appeared in the outer regions of the “Heavenly Demon Prairie,” constantly hunting various demonic beasts below the fifth rank.
In this long process, she had also nearly died in the prairie more than ten times. However, in the end, with her superior cultivation and the powerful recovery ability of her physical body, although she was covered in scars and her life was in danger each time, she managed to escape.
In the eyes of others, their team changed members one after another, but she survived. And the Spirit Stones she owed, because of her desperate efforts, became less and less, which also began to improve her mood.
But just as she was full of hope, thinking that this desperate life was about to end, and was already planning for the future, that once she had paid off the last of the Spirit Stones, she would quit the demon hunting team and start to work hard to improve her cultivation.
But more than one hundred and twenty years ago, when their team entered the “Heavenly Demon Prairie” again and planned to set up an ambush in a patch of grass, a large patch of white mist rose up inexplicably from that patch of grass.
By the time they saw the scene before them clearly, the entire team had already been pulled in here.
After arriving here, their team of ten, still ignorant of the dangers of this place, after experiencing the initial panic of losing their Divine Sense, also guessed that they might have mistakenly entered a secret realm.
So, after a brief discussion among the ten of them, they began to search for an exit everywhere, trying to leave this space that had turned them into “blind men.” However, Gong Chenying and the others also became extra careful after losing their Divine Sense. The ten of them acted together and did not separate.
Not long after, in the process of searching for an exit, they saw two cultivators from a distance. But before they could approach to inquire for news, the two also discovered them at the same time. The two immediately turned and fled, disappearing without a trace after just a few flashes.
Here, without their Divine Sense, they could only watch helplessly as the two of them, with just a few shakes, turned past a few mountain peaks. Even though their captain and vice-captain were both Spirit Transformation cultivators, they could no longer sweep their Divine Sense over a vast area as before, leaving the other party with nowhere to hide.
Seeing the two run away, they failed to catch up in time, but they only raised their guard and had not yet realized the impending doom. They thought that the two’s reaction was the most basic one after seeing ten of them approaching. As a cultivator, when faced with a group of strangers several times their number approaching, even they would run as far as they could.
However, the series of events that followed was like a nightmare, bringing them almost instantaneous annihilation!
Just a short half a quarter of an hour later, as the ten of them were flying, thirty to forty cultivators suddenly appeared around them. Mu Guyue and the others had not even been able to sense the cultivation realm of these people.
And these people, without saying a word, attacked the ten of them as soon as they appeared.
The battle that followed was completely one-sided. The ten of them were simply not used to fighting without their Divine Sense. And what horrified Mu Guyue and the others even more was that they didn’t see these people perform any complex hand seals or cast any spells. In just one exchange, six of the ten of them fell straight from the sky to the ground below.
Some of them could still hold their heads in their hands and let out painful screams that didn’t sound human. The unlucky ones were instantly knocked unconscious, falling like meteorites, crashing to the ground with a cloud of dust and cracking the earth, their life or death unknown.
Mu Guyue’s head was also splitting with pain, but the powerful bloodline of the Demon Clan finally played its role. A powerful life force often also meant that they possessed a more vigorous Soul Power than others. Although a heart-piercing pain suddenly came from her soul, which almost made Mu Guyue faint in her surprise, she still endured the severe pain and managed to maintain some clarity.
So, she grabbed another female cultivator who had a life-saving talisman and instantly charged in one direction.
The powerful physical strength of the Black Demon Clan, combined with Mu Guyue’s cultivation which had already reached the peak of the Late-stage Nascent Soul, made her combat power actually no less than that of an Initial-stage Spirit Transformation.
The cultivators who were besieging them also did not expect this female cultivator to be so formidable, being able to withstand the combined attack of several people and break out. And her speed was like a flash of lightning. They had just launched one attack, and she had already dragged another person and charged straight through the void.
This also made the five cultivators in that direction only just react when Mu Guyue arrived in front of them, ramming through three of them with a barbaric posture.
The fate of those three was tragic. As their figures flew up into the air, their bodies turned into pieces of bloody flesh, like a rain of arrows, shooting in all directions with a “swish, swish, swish…” sound.
Then, with a few more leaps, Mu Guyue led the other person and escaped without a trace.
And in their team, the last two who could still stand in the air were the two captains at the Spirit Transformation Realm. Although they had also defended against the attacks of these cultivators, they were passively defending on the spot and failed to break out in the first instance. In the years that followed, Mu Guyue never saw the two captains again…
After Mu Guyue escaped with the other female cultivator, feeling the heart-piercing pain in her soul, she had already reacted, her heart filled with inexplicable horror.
They had actually encountered dozens of soul cultivators at once. This type of insidious cultivator was rarely seen in the outside world. How could it be that they had poked a hornet’s nest here, with so many soul cultivators appearing at once?
Although they had been careful and on guard before, they had never expected to encounter such a danger. Without the assistance of their Divine Sense, how could they be the opponents of those people?
In their team, the weakest were just two Mid-stage Nascent Soul cultivators. Now, in just one exchange, they were almost completely annihilated, and even the two Spirit Transformation Realm captains were surrounded.
Mu Guyue and the female cultivator she had rescued, named Ting Lan, fled until they were tens of thousands of li away before choosing to hide quietly in a dense forest.
The female cultivator named Ting Lan was one of the two weakest Mid-stage Nascent Soul cultivators. However, earlier, in the instant she was attacked by the soul cultivators’ formless attack, a jade pendant on her neck had burst out with a circle of yellow light, protecting the stunned Ting Lan within it. She was, on the contrary, the only one among the ten who was completely unharmed.
It was just that her reaction was a bit slow, and she didn’t escape in the first instance. The light of the jade pendant then burst out with a dazzling light again, and then quickly dimmed. Obviously, after the people who attacked them found that something was wrong, other soul cultivators had joined in the attack on her.
Fortunately, when Mu Guyue left, she had grabbed her, who was next to her, and brought her out together. Otherwise, Ting Lan’s fate would have been the same as the others.
Ting Lan had joined this demon hunting team later on and was also a rogue cultivator. She was quite pretty. Although not as devastatingly beautiful as Mu Guyue, she was still a first-class beauty. In the entire team, she was the only cultivator who could talk with Mu Guyue and get along with her the most. Otherwise, with Mu Guyue’s arrogant and cold personality, it was hard to say whether she would have taken her with her when she fled in a critical moment.
The two of them, having escaped with their lives, were also terrified for a while after hiding in the dense forest. It was not until they were sure that no one had caught up with them that they slowly calmed down. In the end, the two of them immediately began to discuss.
With so many soul cultivators appearing at once here, with their combined strength, it was already very difficult to save their own lives. It was better to find their teammates as much as possible.
After some discussion, the two of them felt that they should still sneak back quietly to see the final result of the battle there.
Although they couldn’t sense the cultivation realm of the soul cultivators who had attacked their group of ten, after all, the captain and vice-captain of their team were both Spirit Transformation Realm experts. Maybe they had other means to save their lives and escape, or even defeat their opponents?
So, after the two of them carefully confirmed that there was nothing unusual in the surroundings, they slowly sneaked back. But before they had gone back dozens of li, they saw a large number of cultivators, as if searching for something everywhere.
With such a formation appearing, the two of them were not stupid. They immediately knew that the other party had still caught up with them. This was to—of their two.
Counting the number of people on the other side, to be able to spare so many people to search everywhere, under such circumstances, there was almost no need to hold out any hope. The other eight were basically all dead.
Mu Guyue and Ting Lan could only flee for their lives again. In the rest of the escape, the two of them were constantly discovered, and several times they were also close to death.
Even Mu Guyue, after being hit in her divine soul by the soul cultivators several times in a row, fainted from the pain on the spot. When she woke up again, she found that it was Ting Lan who had saved her in return.
Relying on the last bit of power from that jade pendant, the other party had desperately carried the unconscious Mu Guyue and launched a brazen attack to break out.
Once a soul cultivator’s attack failed, they were most afraid of being approached. Unexpectedly finding that their attack had no effect on the other party, Ting Lan had already quickly approached while the enemy was stunned.
The few soul cultivators were so scared that they quickly made way, and Ting Lan finally managed to bring Mu Guyue out.
In this way, the two of them fled all the way, finally escaping to a deserted place. After arriving there, they also slowly shook off the pursuit of the soul cultivators behind them.
So, in the days that followed, after the injuries on their bodies slowly recovered, they also began to quietly inquire for news. The two of them had only one goal: to leave this damn place as soon as possible. But they didn’t dare to leave that deserted place too far, but instead tried to explore outward bit by bit.
Finally, they discovered the existence of some mortals. With the two women being careful, a situation similar to what Li Yan had encountered did not occur. They knew that this secret realm was strange and directly used techniques on the mortals. After getting some news, they finally had some idea about this strange place they had entered.