Drawing near to within fifty meters of the Soul-Severing White Mi Tree, Yin Fengcong slowly reached his hand toward its perimeter, intending to crawl through.
Swish!
Unfortunately for him, the moment his fingertips crossed the boundary, blood vines suddenly surged forth across the sky, unfurling countless barbed tendrils aimed straight at him.
Yin Fengcong’s aged pupils trembled violently, drowning in sheer terror and boundless hatred.
“Aaaargh!”
“Wen Li, you tricked this old man again!”
“May you die a wretched death! Aaaargh!”
Instinctively, he tried to leap up and flee. Alas, having personally destroyed his own spiritual root, he had not a shred of cultivation left. He could only watch helplessly as the blood vines bound, enveloped, and strangled him.
“Aaaargh!”
A bloodcurdling scream echoed through heaven and earth. Dispersing his spiritual root had failed entirely to grant him safe passage as it had for Yao Dai.
Thud!
All that remained was a shriveled husk of a corpse, its abdomen hollowed of its spiritual root. It wasn’t seized to be embedded into the Soul-Severing White Mi Tree’s trunk, either, but was merely left lying abandoned on the ground.
In the next second, two figures descended from the sky in the distance outside the barrier.
“Master, he’s dead,” the four-year-old child said, standing with a pallid, weak expression.
“Not necessarily,” Wen Li replied. “For a rogue cultivator to reach the Nascent Soul realm, he must have been extraordinarily cautious. He might have left some trace or contingency outside the trial realm. Once we leave, we will both have to disguise our appearances and change our names.”
The moment Wen Li landed, she dropped to one knee, bracing herself with one hand. The blood covering her body had already dried. The taut string in her heart finally eased, and the trembling in her fingertips subsided. In a direct clash, she was no match for a Nascent Soul cultivator. Had Yin Fengcong’s greed for the Soul-Severing White Mi Fruit not made him ripe for her scheming, she truly might not have found a way to entrap and kill him.
Yin Fengcong had assumed that shattering his spiritual root and becoming a mortal would suffice, unaware that the drop of essence blood Wen Li gave Yao Dai during her first spiritual root extraction was what had truly made the difference. Without her essence blood, the blood vines would slaughter anyone.
“Master, will Yao Dai manage on her own?” Xie Tinglan asked.
He looked at Yao Dai inside the barrier, still waiting for the Soul-Severing White Mi Fruit to drop. Both he and Wen Li were grievously wounded. Earlier, they had only managed to take healing pills and stave off unconsciousness by relying on Wen Li’s secret technique to conceal their presence. Now, faced with a barrier cast by a Nascent Soul cultivator, they had no way to breach it.
Since Wen Li had dared to lay such a perilous trap, she had naturally anticipated that Yin Fengcong would erect a barrier. Her bloodless expression softened slightly.
“She can.”
She had already explained everything that needed explaining, practically spoon-feeding her the answers. If Yao Dai still couldn’t pull it off, there would be no point in letting such a foolish disciple grow unsupervised—sooner or later, other cultivators would scheme her to death anyway. In that case, it would be safer to break her legs and keep her tightly controlled by her side.
For now, the two could only sit cross-legged to nurse their wounds. After erecting a new barrier, they entered closed-door seclusion.
Inside, Yao Dai had witnessed Yin Fengcong’s death, as well as the reappearance of Wen Li and Xie Tinglan. Seeing their severe injuries and frail state, her eyes grew hot and red.
“Master...” It was happening again. Once more, Master had thrown herself into mortal peril for her sake.
Clenching her fists until her nails dug into her palms, Yao Dai turned to gaze at the Soul-Severing White Mi Fruit, whose crimson radiance was growing increasingly brilliant. The trunk was shuddering with violent intensity; she had to clutch it with all her might just to avoid being shaken off.
Soon, the tens of thousands of thread-like spiritual roots connected around the Soul-Severing White Mi Fruit began snapping one by one.
Pop!
Pop!
Yao Dai watched unblinkingly. The instant the final thread snapped—now!
She immediately reached out to seize it.
“Aaaargh!”
“Let me out!”
“Ah! Don’t kill me—I’ll kill you!”
The second she touched it, it felt as though thousands upon thousands of vengeful souls were howling at her, as if eager to tear her limb from limb and devour her whole. This was no immortal herb; it was the root of all sin.
“No, it wasn’t me.”
Forewarned by Wen Li, Yao Dai immediately cleared her mind and focused her spirit. Closing her eyes, she faced the spectral throng of slain cultivators surging through her consciousness, her voice ringing clear and devoid of guilt.
“I’m not the one who killed you. It was your own greed. You ought to thank me—I am the one who delivered you! I am the one bringing this heaven-defying, Supreme Grade Rank 1 treasure into the world! Because of me, all of your spiritual roots will finally have value!
“Your deaths are my spoils of war. A bunch of useless trash like you can consider it an honor to serve as nourishment for my new spiritual root. Rest assured, there will be plenty of other cultivators to keep you company!
“Begone! Through your spiritual roots, the entire cultivation world will come to know what kind of genius you helped forge. My future glory will bear your contribution!”
Yao Dai’s unapologetic, utter pride left the vengeful souls with nowhere to strike. In the very next second, the howling ghosts in her mind vanished without a trace.
What materialized in their place were her parents!
“Dai'er, why didn’t you save us?!”
“Why didn’t you die with us that day so we could reunite in the underworld?!”
“You are selfish! You survived only because you feared death, with no desire to avenge us! You already reached the Taixuan Sect, so why did you run away? We are your parents! Your entire clan was slaughtered, yet you had the audacity to run carefree to the Far Cold Lands! You—”
Before the phantom voices could finish, Yao Dai cut in coldly.
“Father, Mother, I never refused to avenge you. When I went to the Taixuan Sect, your daughter already died once. Consider that payment for the debt of raising me. My second life was bought by Master risking life and limb. I owe you nothing more. When the opportunity arises in the future, I will still annihilate the Taixuan Sect to avenge our clan.
“Not only for you, but for myself. But from now on, I owe my life to no one except Master.
“Not even you.
“Master told me: giving birth to me was merely the result of your own desires; only raising me was a kindness. Even if you loved and raised me for years, I am my own person. What I owe you should not be paid with my entire life. I will live for myself.
“Once I have thoroughly obliterated the Taixuan Sect and offered my final rites at your graves, do not visit my dreams again. The paths of mortals and immortals are worlds apart; clinging to earthly attachments will only hinder my cultivation.”
With that, Yao Dai knelt before her parents in the mental illusion and kowtowed three times.
Her mind snapped back into sharp clarity.
Yao Dai opened her eyes.
Looking at the Soul-Severing White Mi Fruit, its heart demon illusion now completely dispelled, a chill ran through her heart. It was just as Master had said: this immortal herb was bizarre and sinister. Without an unshakeable mind, one would be ensnared and led astray even after grabbing it, ultimately dying within the illusion.
Yao Dai climbed onto a sturdy bough and sat down. Instead of ingesting the Soul-Severing White Mi Fruit, she pressed it directly into the hollow wound in her abdomen.
Boom!
A blinding blaze of crimson brilliance flared, enveloping her entire body.
“Urgh... aagh!”
Yao Dai threw her head back and screamed. It felt as though her abdomen was being gouged out all over again, purging all residual impurities and expelling them as a puddle of black blood outside her body. The excruciating agony left her gasping in ragged, shallow breaths, while terrifying blue veins bulged across her temples, neck, and hands, looking on the verge of bursting.
The Soul-Severing White Mi Fruit seemed to resist fusing with her. Yet after a few seconds, upon coming into contact with something inside her body, its repulsion abruptly subsided, and the searing torment coursing through her limbs and bones eased slightly.
Even so, the sheer agony proved too much, and Yao Dai blacked out.
Thud.
With a soft noise, she collapsed into a hollow formed by several encircling branches. Suddenly, a crimson glow spread outward from her abdomen, cocooning her entire body like a colossal egg.
...
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