She signed the contract first, leaving her aura behind, and after her seven fellow disciples had also signed, she handed the contract to Gu Ningyun.
Her fair, slender fingers made the yellowed paper of the contract look somewhat more elegant.
Gu Ningyun was already very familiar with this type of contract.
Similar to the heart demon oaths found in novels on Blue Star, this paper contract was actually a medium for cultivators to make a promise and communicate with heaven and earth.
If either party violated it, they would suffer the punishment agreed upon in the contract under the constraints of the laws of heaven and earth.
The most common punishment was the shattering of one's Dao heart, the total loss of cultivation, and being plagued by inner demons.
Gu Ningyun took the contract and unfolded it. The first thing she saw was the name the black-clothed female cultivator had signed using water and earth spirit energy along with her own aura: Huo Chaoyu.
"The green fields are washed clean by morning rain; the forest reds are half-scorched by evening clouds."
It turned out that this woman, who held absolute authority among the eight, had such a beautiful name.
The elder who named her must have loved her very much.
A wisp of green spirit light lit up at Gu Ningyun's fingertip as she signed her own name on the line below: Gu Ningyun.
As she finished the last stroke, her finger couldn't help but pause.
Who was it that gave her this name?
Did the surname Gu come from her mother or her father? And why were the characters Ningyun chosen?
She had the same name both before and after transmigrating into the book. Could there really be such a coincidence in this world?
Gu Ningyun's fingertips trembled slightly, and she couldn't help but curl them inward.
Wen Xuan suddenly grabbed her hand and squeezed it firmly. "Ningyun, what's wrong?"
Warmth flowed from the back of her hand into her heart, dispersing her drifting and complex thoughts.
Gu Ningyun's heart steadied and grew firm again, as if she were once more filled with strength.
"I'm fine."
She squeezed Wen Xuan's hand back and handed her the contract.
This small, inconspicuous interlude passed quickly. Once the contract was signed, everyone sat cross-legged to recover their spirit energy.
An hour later, Huo Chaoyu was the first to leap up. Carrying an aura that could sweep across a thousand armies, she cast a spell to condense a massive water palm and struck toward the sea spiders in the water.
These sea spiders already harbored a deep hatred for the cultivators because of their previous offense and were constantly ready to tear a piece of flesh from them as soon as they entered the sea.
Huo Chaoyu's grand display now made them even more wary.
The moment the water palm condensed from water-attribute spells appeared, before it could even harm a single small spider, a rank two sea spider leapt from the sea.
It hooked its six long legs and caught the water palm directly, falling back into the sea with the impact.
The force of the palm strike had been mostly neutralized by it.
The sea spider used the claws at the ends of its remaining two legs to repeatedly stab the palm. Soon, the water palm dissipated, turning into harmless droplets of clear water that fell back into the ocean.
A water-attribute strike that seemed as though it could overturn mountains and seas failed to cause even a ripple against the hard shell of the rank two sea spider.
After taking the hit, the rank two sea spider paused for a moment before becoming agitated.
What these sea spiders didn't know was that this move was actually just a feint.
During the previous hour, after everyone had finished recovering their spirit energy, Gu Ningyun had approached Huo Chaoyu again and proposed the "All's Fair in War" strategy.
Huo Chaoyu had thought about it for a moment before understanding the key points. She couldn't help but raise an eyebrow. "An excellent plan."
At this moment, the water palm Huo Chaoyu had unleashed had just dissipated.
The rank two sea spider that had blocked the attack sucked in a mouthful of seawater and spat a stream of water at them.
The stream only flew half a meter, making it a move with little offensive power but extreme insult.
The other two rank two sea spiders also waved their eight long legs at them, their movements filled with contempt.
The 《Almanac of Heavenly Wonders》 provided a relatively complete overview of these demon beasts' habits, and Gu Ningyun could tell that the spiders were making these gestures to show disdain and intimidation toward their weak prey.
In short, they had become overconfident.
Gu Ningyun wanted exactly that—for them to lower their guard.
The moment the three rank two sea spiders relaxed their vigilance, the seven Foundation Establishment cultivators unleashed the ultimate moves they had been preparing. The attacks rained down on the three rank two sea spiders, catching them completely off guard.
Gu Ningyun's first form of the Taiqing Astral Wind Art followed immediately. Her eight-meter-long wind blade was surprisingly no slower than the attacks of the Foundation Establishment cultivators, and in the blink of an eye, it shredded a patch of sea spiders on the surface.
Wen Xuan activated her movement technique, leaping across the surface of the water as she swung her mace in a perfect circle. In less than five breaths, she had run a hundred meters back and forth across the sea, spinning her mace over thirty times. A trail of severed sea spider limbs was left floating in her wake.
The reputation of her mace was even greater than it had been years ago.
Jiang Yao leapt over the water, twisting his waist and swinging his arms in a move called Wind Sweeps the Clouds. His spear created a series of explosive wind sounds, and his sharp gold spirit energy completely cleared out the small spiders within a twenty-meter radius around him.
One move followed the next. Jiang Yao lunged into a bow stance and thrust his long spear diagonally downward. The two-meter spear shaft emitted the unique metallic hum of its spirit materials, with the faint sound of thunder crackling.
Jiang Yao's movement technique kicked in as he stepped on the water's surface for leverage. He stabbed left and slashed right, followed by another thrust to the right, a spinning kick, and one final thrust. He had actually performed a move called Dragon King's Turn on the surface of the sea.
With the domineering spear technique combined with gold spirit energy containing the aura of sharp metal, dozens or even hundreds of small spiders on the sea's surface died instantly.
These small spiders were all at rank one.
Meanwhile, Mu Chenze's folding fan and Jun Luo's sword qi had also finished ravaging the surface, leaving behind only crimson seawater, floating limbs, and the bone-chilling cold unique to ice-attribute sword qi.
The moment Huo Chaoyu had used the seemingly powerful but actually weak water palm to deceive the sea spiders and make them lower their guard...
The remaining seven Foundation Establishment cultivators and Gu Ningyun's group of five had all unleashed their strongest strikes against the three rank two sea spiders and the countless rank one small spiders.
This strike was their only chance to attack while on the surface of the water.
The blow caught the sea spiders completely off guard, resulting in heavy casualties.
Through the blood-churning seawater, Gu Ningyun could see two severed legs from a rank two sea spider floating among the corpses of the small spiders.
One of the rank two sea spiders was injured.
The struggle between life and death was always cruel.
Sea beasts ate humans, and humans killed sea beasts.
One side wanted to eat cultivators to grow their power, while the other side wanted to take the sea beasts' body parts to refine artifacts.
No matter who struck first, the side that lost always suffered a more tragic fate.
Gu Ningyun's strategy was simply to make the struggle shorter and reduce the casualties on the human side—or even avoid them entirely.
The sea spiders couldn't reach the cultivators on the island, and they couldn't afford to be sitting ducks on the surface.
As expected, right after the dense wave of attacks fell, the rank two sea spiders commanded the small spiders to retreat toward the seabed.
Huo Chaoyu raised her right hand, and the seven Yuebai Sect disciples stopped their attacks and held their positions.
This was Gu Ningyun's second strategy: Do not pursue a desperate foe.
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