A mere thirty minutes later, four furious figures descended upon the ruined village. Sword qi radiated from their bodies like a raging mist, and their gazes were so sharp they seemed able to cut the air itself.
Without a moment's hesitation, they cast their spirit senses across the devastation, scouring every shattered stone and scorched beam. Their search was persistent, lingering longest over the twenty-meter-deep pit, yet it yielded nothing even after minutes. They didn't find a shred of evidence, nor even the faintest trail to follow.
This absence of traces was no surprise. From Yun Li and the survivors, they knew the attackers were two experienced demonic cultivators: Mei Xu, a master of deceit and illusion who would never leave behind crude traces.
As for Wudi, he feared pursuit above all else. He had been cautious from the first breath of the battle. He relied on a single spell for a reason: the more techniques one unleashed, the more qi signatures remained.
Such residues could linger for weeks and it was more than enough time for a skilled tracker to hunt him down.
After a final examination of the three elders' bodies, they laid them respectfully at the pit's edge for others from the sect to retrieve.
Then, with nothing more to glean from the ruins, they dispersed. Like arrows loosed from a bow, they shot outward in different directions, each choosing a separate path to continue the hunt.
At the same time, deep within the forest near the sect's perimeter—scarcely three miles from the outer gate—Mei Xu drifted downward. She hovered before the mouth of a small cavern, its jagged entrance masked by a heavy curtain of greenery, while Wuji and his coffin dangled effortlessly from her grasp
The coffin struck the earth first. Wuji released his hold, and it landed with a heavy, hollow thud. Only then did Mei Xu release her grip on his robes. He hit the ground and stumbled, his legs buckling beside the wooden box. He staggered, then steadied himself, his gaze darting instinctively in all directions like a cornered rat.
Immediately, Wuji sensed predatory eyes peering from the forest. Several wild beasts lurked in the thicket, held at bay only by the suffocating weight of Mei Xu's aura.
Yet, one remained restless, it was a black, scaly leopard prowling through the gnarled roots. It paced with a rhythmic, predatory grace, weighing the risk of the woman's power against the gnawing emptiness in its gut. Finally, hunger overwhelmed fear.
The beast erupted from the undergrowth in a streak of black scales and raw hunger. It lunged, jaws unhinging to reveal rows of serrated teeth, its foul saliva spraying Wuji's face.
Wuji barely had time to pivot before the darkness of that maw filled his vision. Cold and paralyzing panic seized his heart as he recoiled instinctively, his heels stumbling on the uneven earth.
He slammed hard against the coffin, the impact sending a jarring vibration through his spine.
Whoosh! shing!
A cold flash of steel cut through the air and with a single, fluid stroke, the leopard's head was severed from its shoulders. Its massive body collapsed mid-lunge, the momentum sending the headless carcass crashing into the dirt, while the head spun away, wet and heavy, until it came to a rest at Wudi's feet.
A spray of hot blood painted Wuji,s face. His white robe, already ruined by dirt, was now also splattered with the fresh, blooming hot blood.
Staring at the severed head, he finally released the breath he had been holding. He pushed himself upright, his nerves still screaming, his vision swimming with disorientation.
He tried to wipe the blood mixed with the saliva from his face with his sleeves, but it was too thick and sticky; the more he rubbed, the more he smeared the crimson mess across his wrinkled skin. Giving up, he stood up, his heart hammering against his ribs.
As the panic subsided, his newfound vision took over. Through the dense foliage, he could see dozens of faint, flickering lifespan numbers suspended inthe bushes.
Hidden in the depths of the forest were these beasts, waiting for a single opening. The display of Mei Xu's power hadn't registered in their primal minds; for them, hunger was the only truth.
"What is wrong with this woman?" he thought grimly. "Why bring me this deep into the forest when the sect gate is so close? Does she truly fear nothing?"
He turned to confront her, but the words died in his throat. Mei Xu was already preoccupied, her fingers dancing over an array plate with absolute focus. She adjusted the delicate inscriptions, her expression as calm as a still lake.
To her, the life-threatening terror he had just endured was nothing more than a passing inconvenience, a minor interruption in her work, as trivial as swatting a fly.
Moments later, she released the array plate. It drifted into the air, hovering momentarily at the cave's mouth before it seemed to ripple, phasing into the folds of space until it vanished entirely.
She then turned her attention to the two-meter-long carcass beside Wuji. With a dismissive flick of her wrist, she hoisted the heavy beast and its severed head with an invisible tide of qi. She hurled the remains deep into the dark forest.
The effect was instantaneous. The "lifespan numbers" Wuji saw in the brush suddenly converged. The hidden beasts broke cover, racing after the bloody prize like starving hounds chasing a thrown bone.
She turned back to the space where the array had vanished. Her fingers blurred through a series of swift hand seals, and the world before Wuji rippled like the surface of a disturbed pond and began to transform.
First, the dark blood soaking into the earth simply ceased to be. Then, the heavy stench of the slaughter vanished from the air, replaced by the natural scent of damp earth and moss.
In mere heartbeats, the clearing was restored into an immaculate and undisturbed area, as if the leopard had never existed.
The only evidence left behind was her sword, which lay on the far side of the coffin.
She turned to him. "Bring the coffin and the sword inside," she said, already stepping into the cave.
Wuji moved at once. He approached the sword first, crouched to grasp its hilt, and straightened, briefly glancing at its slender, unadorned blade.
Then he turned to the coffin, seized it by the tapered head, and dragged it into the darkness, it's heavy end carved a gouging path across the ground.
Inside, despite it still being daytime, the cave was further illuminated by one of Mei Xu's treasures, casting a sharp, artificial light that made every crevice of the damp walls clearly visible. Sunlight alone would have sufficed, but who was he to question her?
He looked around. The space was smaller than he had expected, barely ten square meters. He dragged the coffin to the rear wall and carefully set it down. When he turned, he saw Mei Xu already seated cross-legged on the damp stone by the eastern wall, facing west.
Her eyes snapped open, sensing his gaze like a physical touch. Without a word, she flicked her hand toward him. Wuji tried to recoil, but the surge of qi was a blur to his mortal, untrained eyes, it struck his chest with the force of a hammer.
The heart gu poison coiled around his heart, dormant until now, constricted with vicious intensity. His body crumpled. A raw scream tore from his throat, shattering the silence and echoing off the damp stone walls.
"Why? What did I do?" he thought frantically. "Did I look at her for too long? Was that my crime?"
Agony drowned his reason. For long, searing moments, his mind churned through a white-hot fog of pain and confusion, desperately grasping for a logic behind the torment that would not come.
Only after several agonizing minutes did her qi deplete, the pressure finally easing. The agony dulled to a heavy, throbbing ache; barely survivable, but enough to let him move.
He staggered to his feet, his breath coming in ragged gasps, his face a mask of silent, burning questions.
"That was for being too dazed," Mei Xu said, her voice like cracking ice. "As my slave, you must remain alert and clear-minded at all times. Do not force me to save you again. If you die, too many of my plans will be ruined."
"What? Just because of that?" Wuji's blood boiled beneath the remnants of the pain. "This stupid little—"
Before the thought could even form, she flicked her wrist. Pain exploded anew as a fresh wave of qi hammered into his chest. He was hoisted off his feet and hurled backward, rolling across the uneven cave floor until he slammed into the jagged stone wall.
"What now?" he thought desperately, his jaw locked tight against a sob. "Did she read my mind? Is that even possible?"
He lay trembling on the cold, damp rock, his breath coming in shallow, ragged hitches. His fingers had shredded the fabric of his robe where he had clawed at his chest, in a futile attempt to stop the heart-wrenching agony.
"As my slave, this discipline is necessary," she said, her voice devoid of warmth. Then, she struck him again, a third surge of qi washing over him like a wave of liquid fire.
She watched him roll and writhe, her face unreadable, even as her mind churned with cold calculations.
She knew that the moment she stepped inside that coffin, the balance of power might shift. He was a mere mortal, but this strange artifact was an unknown variable, one he might try to turn against her.
She examined the coffin once more. Even the little she had discovered of its true nature was enough to drive the most righteous cultivator to betrayal, or to forge the most ruthless monster in existence.
Having survived the cutthroat world of immortal cultivation for so long, she had no intention of entering that abyss unprepared.
She could sense it in the way he moved, the way he breathed, that the mortal was hiding something.
Before she committed herself to the coffin, she needed to strip him of every secret. The torture was no longer mere discipline; it was a whetstone. It would break his spirit until his mind was so shattered that the very concept of lying to her became inconceivable.
For the next hour, she tightened the poison around his heart again and again, watching him writhe and claw at the cavern floor.
By the end, Wuji's eyes were hollow voids, his thoughts splintered to the very brink of collapse. He lay in the dirt, saliva trailing from the corner of his mouth like a madman's, his body twitching in the aftermath of the rhythmic agony.
Seeing he was at the threshold—close, but not yet broken—she finally withdrew the pressure. She took out a low-tier Grade one Blood-Qi Nourishing Pill from her spatial pouch and forced it between his trembling lips.
The pill was forged for Foundation Establishment cultivators; for a mortal like him, its potency was too much.
And as expected the medicinal energy roared through his veins, stitching his frayed nerves back together with agonizing speed.
It served its cruel purpose by dragging his clarity back from the edge of insanity and sharpened his senses once more, ensuring he would feel every word of the interrogation to come.
Slowly, Wuji's bleary eyes drifted across the gloom, his expression that of hopelessness, and as the pill's forced lucidity took hold, he found Mei Xu standing over him like a monolith of cold jade.
He remained sprawled on the uneven stone, his back a flayed mess of raw, bleeding flesh from the hour spent rolling against the jagged floor.
"Sit up," she commanded.
He obeyed with the sluggish, trembling movements of a dying man. Mei Xu's brow furrowed in a slight, dissatisfied twitch. "Too slow." The spirit is bruised, but the core has not yet fractured.
She flicked her wrist and her qi struck him with the precision of a needle.
His body convulsed violently as the agony returned, sharper, deeper, and more absolute than before. He collapsed back onto the jagged rock, raw, unrestrained wails tearing from his throat. It was a hollow sound, the cry of an old man stripped of his last shred of dignity.
For another hour, the cavern held only the rhythm of his screams. Behind the shimmering veil of the illusion array, the world outside remained natural as no sound escaped the cave; no savior was coming.
In that ten-square-meter tomb, Mei Xu was the only god, and she was not a merciful one.