Spectating the Angsty Romance of the Master and Disciple from the Sect Next Door Chapter 155

Li Jin’an was the kind of person who, knowing there was a tiger in the mountain, would still head straight for it. Chixin Sword Lord was the same; as long as the two master and disciple had swords in hand, they dared to brave mountains of blades and seas of fire without an ounce of fear. But Xie Huaixue and Jingting Dao Lord were not like that.
The cunning ones knew without thinking that Wu Zhaoxing and the Heavenly Demon Clan behind her were up to no good.
Wu Zhaoxing was a chess piece. For Li Jin’an to “capture” this discarded pawn, she had to enter the game herself, falling into the Heavenly Demon Clan’s trap.
Even if Wu Zhaoxing no longer posed any threat to Li Jin’an and Xie Huaixue, they wouldn’t let her live. The vile protagonists had to be eradicated, lest they ‘burn an endless fire, and rise with the spring breeze’ some day.
But who said that when one falls into a trap, they cannot transform from a mantis into an oriole?
The Heavenly Demon Clan wanted to kill Li Jin’an, this variable, to set things right. But Li Jin’an wanted to slaughter the entire Heavenly Demon Clan.
To some extent, their goals were consistent and resolute, a kind of mutual pursuit.
The Heavenly Tome and the vile protagonists deserved to die, but the Heavenly Demon Clan, stirring up trouble from behind the scenes, deserved death even more.
Li Jin’an’s current endeavor was inherently aimed at a grand massacre.
Breaking through to the Mahayana stage certainly called for a celebration with blood, only then could Jijin Sword Sovereign’s monstrous arrogance be fully displayed.
As for what situations Li Jin’an might encounter after arriving at Three Realms Mountain, Xie Huaixue had already meticulously instructed her back when they first played chess.
However, at that time, she was busy altering the rules of the game, letting advice go in one ear and out the other, giving perfunctory ‘uh-huhs.’ Then she lost so badly her scalp tingled, losing no matter how she changed the rules. Finally, she settled down and could listen attentively.
In truth, the strategy Xie Huaixue devised for Li Jin’an was very simple: just kill her way through violently. The rest would be handled by them; she didn’t need to worry about anything that required thinking.
As for the Heavenly Demon Clan’s intention to surround and kill Li Jin’an, they would certainly take her to a completely isolated space. At such a time, external objects like formation plates or sword tassels that could pinpoint her location would definitely not work. But it didn’t matter, for there was one thing between Li Jin’an and Xie Huaixue that no isolated space could sever: the spiritual connection between dao companions.
The third eye was so influenced by the Heavenly Tome that it couldn’t even remember Li Jin’an’s given name. Could it possibly remember that Li Jin’an and Xie Huaixue were dao companions?
If the Heavenly Demon Clan wanted to sever the spiritual connection between Li Jin’an and Xie Huaixue, they would have to produce a spatial-temporal isolation on the same level as a temporal distortion.
But this was clearly impossible. If the Heavenly Demon Clan truly possessed such ability, they wouldn’t have hidden so deeply, fearing Li Jin’an and the others catching them by their tails and wiping them out.
If they truly had such immense ability, wouldn’t it be better to just jump out, punch the Heavenly Dao, kick Jingting Dao Lord, and unify the Lancang Continent to reign as kings? Why would Jingting Dao Lord get to be the tyrant of the cultivation world?
All said and done, it was nothing but impotent rage.
Li Jin’an had told her before that if it really came to that, she would accept her misfortune without a word.
If that were truly the case, she would actually think highly of the Heavenly Demon Clan and would definitely send them to the afterlife with the highest respect a sword cultivator could show an enemy.
Unfortunately, the Heavenly Demon Clan did not give Jijin Sword Sovereign the chance to respect them, though her respect for enemies would only make them die faster.
…
The moment she was swallowed by the third eye’s slit, in Li Jin’an’s perception, the sky immediately turned dark. She felt as if she had been exiled beyond the Lancang Continent; everywhere was pitch black, with no light or direction to be found.
Fortunately, the Heavenly Demon Clan’s avatar was an eye and not a mouth; otherwise, Li Jin’an truly couldn’t imagine herself standing in a puddle of saliva…
Even so, Li Jin’an couldn’t stay. She truly had no fondness for crawling into someone’s belly.
Li Jin’an erupted with full power, holding the Blazing Radiance Sword, and began performing a set of sword techniques with clanging sounds in the complete darkness.
She hadn’t displayed her absolute combat power on the main battlefield after breaking through to the Mahayana stage, yet here she was, unleashing her full might.
The pitch-black space continuously vibrated.
Li Jin’an steadied herself and continued practicing her sword: thrust, cleave, point, scoop, lift, shatter, block, hack, smear, pare, parry…
The basic sword techniques that every sword cultivator knew now unleashed their maximum destructive power.
Suddenly, Li Jin’an cleaved open the space with a single sword strike. Light poured in, and she was instantly spewed out with a whoosh.
The surroundings were a grayish mist, so dense that she couldn’t see her own hand. Everything around her was completely obscured, her senses compressed, her spiritual sense only able to perceive the area immediately beside her.
Li Jin’an focused her gaze and realized she was still within the territory of Three Realms Mountain, but not near the Fufeng Domain battlefield. It looked more like the Misty Forest, or Faultless Mountain.
—The place where Xie Huaixue’s parents were besieged and perished, and where Yinyue Monarch was gravely injured.
For Li Jin’an, this was tantamount to revisiting a painful place, a site of sorrow. Thus, she was very glad that it was she who had come, and not Xie Huaixue.
Although she herself was an orphan, picked up by Chixin Sword Lord from a mass grave, if possible, she wished Xie Huaixue could have had a happy and complete family.
She disliked imperfections, and even more so disliked such imperfections falling upon Xie Huaixue.
Some things were better never to have existed at all, but to have once possessed them and then completely lost them—that kind of regret would be infinitely magnified. Would Xie Huaixue feel that her parents’ and master’s demise was due to her?
With Qingxiao Immortal Venerable’s firm and stern temperament, she would certainly not allow herself to fall into self-pity. But at some point, had she truly never blamed herself like that?
Just thinking about that possibility made Li Jin’an so angry she wanted to unleash a massacre.
The ones who deserved to die were always others: the vile protagonists, the Heavenly Demon Clan, the Heavenly Tome… it should never have been Yinyue Monarch and Xie Huaixue’s parents.
Li Jin’an narrowed her eyes. Her ear twitched. Suddenly, she backhanded the Blazing Radiance Sword and fiercely slashed to her right.
The Blazing Radiance Sword seemed to have struck an incredibly hard rock. Under the impact, sparks instantly flew everywhere.
The mist dissipated slightly.
Li Jin’an finally saw clearly what had attacked her: it was indeed a pile of stacked stone blocks, carrying no demonic energy, estimated to be over forty feet tall, immensely tall and sturdy, like a small mountain.
Jijin Sword Sovereign truly disliked looking up at others. Nothing should stand above her head.
“Get down here!”
A peak Mahayana stage sword strike, its sharpness brilliant.
The sword emerged like a dragon, its blade like autumn frost, effortless and graceful.
Amidst the earth shaking and mountains trembling, the giant stone’s legs were leveled. Without support, it crashed down with a rumble, stirring up a cloud of dust.
Li Jin’an retreated, raising a hand to wave away the dust in front of her. Her phoenix eyes curled upwards in disdain.
Nothing more than this.
The Heavenly Demon Clan had painstakingly trapped her here. If this was all they could do, then it would be a huge disappointment for her.
She didn’t even need to call Xie Huaixue; she could handle this alone.
“This Sovereign can guess you’re hideous and grotesque, which is why you hide away and dare not show yourselves. But at this point, playing this ‘unknown identity’ game, aren’t you underestimating this Sovereign a bit too much?”
Li Jin’an scoffed. Too lazy to play childish hide-and-seek games with them, she pressed her palms together, and the Blazing Radiance Sword rapidly spun in front of her.
Her red robes fluttered without wind, their corners lifting, her brows slightly twitching.
Suddenly.
Li Jin’an spread her hands and pressed them heavily downwards. The Blazing Radiance Sword followed, slamming violently onto the ground.
Boom—
An earth-shattering roar.
With Li Jin’an at the center, the ground in all directions was violently struck, continuously sinking downwards.
Heaven and earth inverted.
The entire Misty Forest trembled. The thick, ink-like mist, as if encountering a natural predator, scattered in all directions in a panic.
Seeing this, Li Jin’an didn’t relax at all; instead, she secretly heightened her vigilance.
The Heavenly Demon Clan was proficient in temporal and divination arts, their methods cunning and ever-changing. Could they not have foreseen this scene? Just letting her wreak havoc on the Misty Forest? Abandoning their lair?
As if in response to her thoughts, the next second, the mist instantly dispersed, and nine black-robed figures descended from the sky, encircling Li Jin’an.
They looked no different from ordinary people, carrying no demonic energy. There were men, women, old, and young. They didn’t appear as ferocious and evil as Li Jin’an had imagined, nor did they have fangs and horns.
However, unlike ordinary people, every single person in this group was at the Mahayana stage—even the girl who looked barely a teenager was at the Mahayana stage!
Among them, one black-robed man, appearing as a young male, glared at Li Jin’an with the fiercest eyes. If she wasn’t mistaken, he was the third eye that Li Jin’an and Jingting Dao Lord had beaten in succession.
“Are these all there are of your Heavenly Demon Clan?” Li Jin’an, following her intuition, looked at the oldest-looking black-robed figure.
“Defying the heavens and being intolerable to heaven and earth, it is already a great fortune to have survived until now.” The black-robed figure introduced herself willingly, smiling amiably, chatting with Li Jin’an as if an old friend. “This old woman is Gui Li. It is a pleasure to meet Jijin Sword Sovereign. I hope the Sword Sovereign will be understanding; our clan was forced to use this method to invite you as our guest.”
Li Jin’an’s eyes flickered. If she remembered correctly, Xie Huaixue had told her about the Eight Great Ancient Surnames: Ji, Jiang, Yao, Ying, Si, Yun, Gui, Ji.
It was during that same chess game where she couldn’t win no matter how she cheated that Xie Huaixue first spoke of these matters. It was just that Li Jin’an was busy inventing rules at the time, and Xie Huaixue didn’t rush her, simply continuing to talk about precautions against the Heavenly Demon Clan.
Although it went in one ear and out the other, Li Jin’an still heard what she needed to. For example, Xie Huaixue had explicitly said that at the end of ancient times, a great upheaval occurred in heaven and earth. What exactly happened was unknown to later generations, only that all Eight Great Surnames were extinguished, and the Lancang Continent generally formed its current pattern of a tripartite balance between humans, demons, and devils, with over a hundred cultivation domains.
One could only say that Xie Huaixue truly understood her dao companion. She knew that for Li Jin’an, knowledge was best crammed last minute; if too much time passed, she might not even remember it.
“Gui, of the Eight Great Ancient Surnames?”
“Jijin Sword Sovereign is truly knowledgeable,” Gui Li smiled faintly.
The other black-robed figures didn’t have her patience. Especially the third eye and the teenage girl, both looked very arrogant, clearly proud of their origins.
Li Jin’an instantly made a judgment: a false Gui surname, probably a usurping imposter.
If there truly were ancient remnants, they shouldn’t look like this; it would ruin the impression cultivation world children had of ancient legends from bedtime stories—
Li Jin’an’s expression hardened. She suddenly remembered that the ancient stories from her childhood had been told to her by Yinyue Monarch, who sat beneath a pear blossom tree with smiling eyes, holding her close.
For the sake of today’s situation, how much effort had Yinyue Monarch truly expended?
Pear blossoms reflect white poplars, everywhere a place of life and death separation.
Seeing her expression, Gui Li assumed she had been intimidated, and her smile grew even more amiable. “Our clan and the Sword Sovereign are not completely hostile. I believe we will have much to discuss.”
“Oh, really?” Li Jin’an tilted her head, puzzled.