Xie Zhaolin's voice was icy as she flipped her wrist with a sharp, practiced motion. Several black red metal spheres covered in cruel, sharp spikes appeared in her palm. Runes flowed across their cold surfaces in pulsing ribbons of light, radiating a violent energy pulse that made the surrounding air vibrate.
"Explosive Earthfire Thunder. The power is average, but the spectacle is big enough. It's perfect for… pissing off those already restless beasts."
Before her words had even finished, her fingers flicked rapidly. Several Explosive Earthfire Thunder shot out with pinpoint accuracy, cutting through the thick mist. They landed among the dense beast packs that were currently slamming against the outer edge of the Hehuan Sect's defensive formation.
Boom—! Boom—! Boom—!
A chain of deafening explosions erupted in quick succession.
Scorching flames and violent shockwaves tore through the beast swarm, sending dirt and rock flying. The damage to the thick-skinned, low-rank beasts was limited, but the sudden, loud attack completely enraged the creatures that were already frenzied by the Demonic Lure Incense.
"Roar—!"
The collective beast roars jumped to a whole new level of ferocity.
What had been probing attacks from the perimeter instantly turned insane. The beasts slammed themselves into the light barrier like madmen, their claws scraping against the spiritual energy. All kinds of primitive attacks crashed down, and the barrier shook violently as its surface projections flickered unstably under the weight of the assault.
"Damn it! Someone is deliberately enraging the beasts!" Inside the barrier, Hua Wuying's face turned ashen in the flickering light. She could clearly feel the pressure on the formation skyrocketing. Every collision added to the burden on her meridians, and the spiritual energy cost to maintain the formation was climbing fast.
"Hold steady! Don't panic!" she shouted again to her disciples, but her voice carried a hoarseness and an agitation that she didn't even notice herself.
Poison mist was stoking heart fire within them, while relentless beast assaults and an enemy hiding in the dark used these despicable harassment tactics. All of it fed the nameless fire in her chest until it burned hotter and hotter with every passing second.
She had always been hot-tempered and simply couldn't stand this suffocating, passive beating from an unseen foe.
"Bastards! Who is it? Get out here!" she cursed toward the depths of the swirling mist, her eyes searching for a target. "Hiding like rats, what kind of skill is that? If you have got guts, come out and fight me head-on!"
"Senior Sister Hua! The formation flag at the southeast corner is almost out of power!" a disciple shouted anxiously, her voice cracking. "There are too many beasts on the northeast side!"
"Replenish spirit stones first! Hold on a bit longer!" Hua Wuying roared irritably. Her eyes were already bloodshot from the strain and the poison.
Xie Zhaolin watched all of this coldly from her hiding spot.
She saw it clearly. Hua Wuying was still forcing herself to maintain the formation, but the woman's emotions were on the brink of collapse. Her spiritual energy output was turning unstable. In her growing impatience, several of her commands already carried tiny, dangerous deviations.
"Almost there…" she murmured to herself.
Sure enough, as time dragged on, the beast attacks grew more frenzied, and the influence of the poison mist sank deeper into their minds.
Two early Golden Core disciples with weaker cultivation turned pale under the continuous impacts and the poison erosion. Dark blood spilled from their lips, clear signs of internal injury.
"Now," she thought. The final straw was ready to be dropped.
She flipped her wrist again. The shattered jade hairpin stained with dark blood, the one she had obtained from Granny Hua earlier, appeared in her hand. The hairpin's design was ancient, its tail carefully carved into a phoenix head. Even though it was broken, its former delicacy was obvious. It had been one of Granny Hua's most used and most cherished artifacts.
"Hua Wuying… you had better accept this gift properly."
"Go."
She injected a strand of pure baleful qi into the jade fragments and flicked her finger. The shard, radiating an ominous energy, shot up with a shrill tearing sound as it cut the air. It traced a high arc through the mist and then landed with perfect precision on the ground directly in front of the flickering barrier.
Clink.
The crisp sound of stone hitting stone cut through the chaotic beast roars and the echoes of explosions. It entered the ears of every Hehuan Sect disciple who was currently focused on maintaining the formation.
"What is that?" someone instinctively glanced over toward the sound.
When they saw the familiar jade hairpin soaked in dark red blood, time seemed to freeze for the group.
"That… that's…" a female disciple cried out, her eyes widening in horror.
"It's Elder Hua's… hairpin!" another disciple said, her voice trembling.
"How could it be there? And… and all that blood…"
"What?!" At the formation core, Hua Wuying whipped her head around. When her divine sense locked onto the bloody hairpin, her mind buzzed as if something had exploded inside her skull.
Granny Hua.
That was the artifact that never left Granny Hua's side.
Staring at the shocking bloodstains and the baleful qi clinging to it, a terrifying thought surged uncontrollably into everyone's mind. Elder Hua… could she already be dead? And was her relic actually being so cruelly defiled by the enemy?
What did this mean for them? Had Granny Hua already fallen in battle?
Then what about the Young Sect Master? What had happened to her?
Could it be… could it be that she was gone as well?
"Granny Hua—!"
Hua Wuying let out a heart-rending scream that echoed through the canyon.
"Who was it?! Who the hell was it?!" Rage and a grief that could burn away all reason instantly crushed all her calm and restraint. The spiritual energy maintaining the formation wavered with the violent shock to her mind, creating a tiny but fatal disturbance in the flow.
"Now!"
Xie Zhaolin and Ling Chuan exploded into motion at the same time.
"Break!" she shouted sharply. The Jingxiao Ribbon, wrapped in dense black baleful qi, stabbed viciously toward the dimmest, weakest point on the barrier.
"Frostscar, split!" Ling Chuan struck almost simultaneously with her. The tip of the Frostscar Sword condensed a single point of icy cold and followed her strike toward the exact same spot.
"Stop them!" Hua Wuying tried to recover her position, but her spiritual energy circulation lagged half a beat behind her will. The other disciples also reacted a moment too slow under the overwhelming shock of seeing the hairpin.
Pop.
The soft sound of the barrier failing was nearly drowned out by the beast roars. The tough barrier, assaulted from both the inside and out and weakened by its own internal flaw, was finally pierced with a hole.
Jagged cracks spread wildly from that point across the entire surface.
"Pfft!"
Several disciples sustaining the formation spat blood at the same time as the backlash hit them.
Xie Zhaolin's eyes didn't flicker at all as she moved. Her figure passed through the shattered fragments of the barrier like a ghost. She raised her hand and swung it down in a blur. The nearest female cultivator let out a short scream. Blood sprayed from the woman's mouth as she slammed into the jagged rocks behind her and went silent on the spot.
"Ah Yao!" another disciple beside her cried out in grief.
Xie Zhaolin and Ling Chuan ignored the others. Their speed never slowed as they lunged straight for the formation core and Hua Wuying. Catch the leader first. Once they took her, Yu Xiaotang's whereabouts would come out one way or another.
Yet just as the two were about to reach Hua Wuying, a figure suddenly blocked the way. It was Liu Shaoyu, the one who had been sarcastic and lazy all along.
Clang—!
With a thunderous impact, Liu Shaoyu spat blood from the force, but she actually blocked their combined strike head-on.
"What?!" Before Xie Zhaolin could react to the defense, Liu Shaoyu gritted her teeth and crushed a glowing jade slip in her palm.
Every Hehuan Sect disciple's feet lit up at the same time, including Hua Wuying who stood directly behind her. A complex sigil flared to life on the ground, rapidly linking into a circular formation that enveloped them all. A terrifying repulsive force burst out from the center.
"Damn it!"
A vicious glint flashed in Xie Zhaolin's eyes. Xuanyin baleful qi surged through her body to resist the push. At the instant the repulsive force exploded, the Jingxiao Ribbon wrapped tightly around the waist of a disciple at the far edge. She yanked hard on the silk.
"Ah—!"
The disciple was caught completely off-guard by the sudden pull. Dragged by the terrifying force from the Jingxiao Ribbon, she was ripped off the glowing sigil beneath her feet and forcibly pulled out of the nearly closed formation.
Buzz.
The moment that disciple left the formation's range, a blinding light flashed and vanished. Along with the light, Hua Wuying, Liu Shaoyu, and all the other Hehuan Sect disciples disappeared without a trace.
===
Okay, that's all for this time's exception gift. I will head back to AO3 now and return to my primary roadmap. I still have drafts ready, probably enough for a few days to a week of chapters for this novel.
See you on the other side. Don't worry, I will come back here once everything there is settled.
28 Jan
Reiya
Ciao~