The Seven Styles of Awakening was their master's famous sword art. Although Chi Yuan only had a late-stage Golden Core cultivation, she had immersed herself in these two styles for decades, practicing them until they were more familiar than the sect's basic sword styles.
Using them now on these half-baked Golden Core evil cultivators was, to put it bluntly, like using an ox cleaver to mince ants.
An evil cultivator to the northwest, determined to launch a flank attack, moved with eerie agility. Using an earth escape technique, he slipped behind Chi Yuan's left, a Tier 3 Fiend-Thunder Bead concealed in his palm.
Once detonated, its blast radius could cover a hundred zhang—a mutual destruction tactic commonly used by suicide squads.
Chi Yuan didn't spare it a second glance.
Seven Styles of Awakening, Third Style: Avalanche.
Frostchill left her hand, transforming into an ice-blue flying sword. Its blade spun rapidly in midair, unleashing layer upon layer of sword energy.
The waves of sword energy stacked together, crashing down like a sudden mountain collapse or an avalanche. The ambushing evil cultivator had barely poked his head out of the ground and raised the Fiend-Thunder Bead when the sword energy crushed down upon him.
He didn't even have time to detonate it. He could only pour all his spiritual energy into his protective barrier to take the blow head-on.
The moment the sword energy fell, he heard the sound of his meridians snapping—not just one, but over a dozen breaking simultaneously.
His protective barrier shattered completely, followed immediately by his collarbones, shoulder blades, and ribs collapsing layer by layer.
The Fiend-Thunder Bead slipped from his loosening fingers. Before it could even hit the ground, it was ground into dust by the trailing sword energy.
Chi Yuan followed up with two more strikes in the same manner. Within a mere fifteen minutes, seven of the eight Golden Core evil cultivators had fallen.
The only one left was the array master.
He hadn't participated in the siege from the very beginning, remaining by the stone platform, his hands rapidly tapping the array runes while muttering incantations under his breath.
Nearly half of the Blood Sacrifice Array was already activated. The runes on the stone platform lit up one by one, a crimson light crawling along the lines, about to reach the group of unconscious "companions" behind the platform.
A sinister grin spread across the array master's face.
What he was about to trigger wasn't the complete Blood Sacrifice Array at all, but a self-destruct mechanism hidden within it.
Even if he died here, he would drag down all his fellow disciples posing as rogue cultivators with him.
If the Blood Sacrifice Array absorbed a round of essence blood before detonating, its power would reach its peak, matching the full-force strike of a mid-stage Nascent Soul cultivator—enough to level the entire hollow valley.
His finger pressed down on the final array rune.
No response!!!
He tapped it a few more times.
Still no response???
The array master was instantly dumbfounded, staring blankly at the stone platform.
The array runes had been modified. Three tiny lightning runes had been added next to the core lines at the positions of the three array eyes.
Embedded in a triangular pattern along the main path of the array runes, they crackled with blue-violet electrical arcs, effectively "short-circuiting" his array.
Shen Qingci was standing at the entrance of the hollow valley at some point. She pinched a torn corner of a talisman between her fingertips, waving it at the array master with an innocent smile. “My apologies, fellow Daoist.”
“I saw everything while you were crouching there carving those runes.”
“I didn't change much, just added three strokes. It won't affect the completeness of your Blood Sacrifice Array, but as for the self-destruct function... there's a high probability it won't trigger.”
【Whew~ Thankfully, Aunt was backing me up remotely, guiding me to modify the array on the spot. Totally solid.】
【It's also a good thing this is a simplified version; otherwise, it would have taken a lot more effort. If I really hadn't been able to retreat in time, got blasted into an afro, and then got fished out by the secret guards, how could I maintain my image in front of Senior Sister in the future?】
The array master's expression shifted from a sinister grin to confusion, and then to pure terror. Just as he opened his mouth to curse, Chi Yuan's sword light swept before him.
Squelch...
Frostchill pierced through his back and emerged from his chest. It was clean and efficient, without wasting a single ounce of extra strength.
The array master collapsed onto the stone platform, his hand still frozen in the posture of tapping the array runes, his eyes wide and lifeless.
All eight Golden Core evil cultivators had been completely wiped out.
Shen Qingci pushed herself off the stone wall, took two steps forward, and tilted her head to examine the female cultivator's face.
Standing by the pile of rubble at the valley entrance, the female cultivator still had her right hand resting on her waist, her fingers wrapped tightly around the hilt of her stiletto.
She could neither draw it nor put it away.
The muscles at the corner of her mouth twitched uncontrollably, her entire right cheek trembling from her cheekbone to her jaw.
The weakness and gratitude she had put on earlier were gone, replaced by the sheer terror of someone who had been stripped bare in broad daylight.
“Fellow Daoist,” Shen Qingci said, putting on a concerned look purely to tease her. “Your face looked a bit off just now. What's wrong? Could it be that you were so overwhelmed with emotion seeing your companions about to be rescued that you got facial paralysis?”
The female cultivator's lip twitched violently.
Her fingers clenched and unclenched, unclenched and clenched again, before she finally forced the stiletto back into her waist. Forcing her lips upward, she squeezed out a smile that looked worse than crying. “Y-Yes, I was indeed too excited. You have an excellent eye, fellow Daoist.”
“Oh, facial paralysis,” Shen Qingci nodded, talking nonsense with a perfectly straight face. “If you have facial paralysis, you need to catch a breeze. Blowing some wind on it will cure it.”
“The miasma is heavy here, which blocks the blood circulation in your face. Once we get out, find a windy spot and stand there for two hours. I guarantee you'll be cured.”
The female cultivator's face twitched again.
This time, it wasn't because she was grieving for those Golden Core cultivators; her hands were just itching to slap someone. Yet, she lacked the courage to do so.
In all her years, she had seen sword prodigies who could shatter ten thousand spells with a single strike, cunning old foxes who planned for every contingency, and fellow undercover agents who acted their parts from start to finish. But she had never encountered such an outrageous oddity.
She clearly knew everything from the beginning, yet she insisted on playing along until the climax of the show. Then, she pulled out every single landmine you had buried, defused them one by one right in front of you, and even asked if you were surprised.
The lame male cultivator and the one clutching his abdomen stood behind the female cultivator, their facial expressions failing them just as miserably.
The lame male cultivator threw his head back, his teeth clenched so tightly that the muscles in his jaw bulged.
The one clutching his abdomen simply turned his face away, pretending to look at their rogue cultivator companions in the back, but the veins on his neck bulged prominently.
He wasn't afraid of death.
The Patriarch never kept cowards around.
They just couldn't swallow this insult.
This performance had been meticulously planned from the very start.
Clearing the perimeter, the vine disguises, aging the wounds, assigning their dialogue, pacing their emotions, down to the details of the spirit stones... every single step had been repeatedly refined.
The Patriarch himself had written the script, even adding the part about “offering spirit stones and kowtowing while fleeing” at the last minute, claiming that “children of great families” fell for it every time.
And the result?
These two hadn't believed a single word from the very first glance.
Chi Yuan sheathed her sword, retrieved a jade vial from her storage ring, uncorked it, and walked over to the first corpse. Tilting the vial slightly, she let a few drops of transparent liquid fall onto it.
Bone-Melting Water, a staple of the cultivation world for destroying corpses and erasing traces. Even the remains of a Nascent Soul cultivator could be completely dissolved by it.
Within three breaths, the corpses of the eight Golden Core evil cultivators dissolved into eight puddles of clear water, seeping into the stone cracks as even their bone fragments vanished.
Chi Yuan did not rush to put the vial away. Instead, she performed a hand seal for a sword technique—the Soul-Retrieving Art, a spell specifically used to track remnant souls.
A white light swept over the puddles of water one by one, confirming there were no lingering soul fragments. She then retrieved three Spirit-Purifying Talismans from her storage ring and tossed them into the air.
Rate on N.U.
