In the east of the Central Plains, legend says it is the place where immortals dwell. There, layered mountain ranges rise and fall, stretching for tens of thousands of miles.
At the center of the mountains, one mountain range towered into the clouds. Like the moon among stars, it held sway over the surrounding area, possessing all the advantages of the land.
This mountain was called Longxuan Mountain.
That night, the moon was bright and the stars were sparse.
A sudden sound broke the tranquility above the foot of the mountain.
“Resurrection!”
Following the source of the sound, one saw a woman sitting up from within a dirt pit.
She covered her ears, her brows furrowed tightly, as if the sudden sound had given her a headache.
The woman wore a white robe, but because she was in the dirt pit, it was stained with mud, making her appear somewhat grey and dusty. Her originally dark and glossy long hair had also lost its luster at this moment, spread out messily behind her.
Even that jade-like smooth face was not spared. A streak of mud ran from top to bottom across the woman’s straight nose bridge. Under the moonlight, that mark appeared particularly clear, looking quite comical.
Yet, none of this could conceal the cold and murderous aura emanating from the woman. She sat there, and though she was still coughing violently, her back was already ramrod straight, as vigilant as a leopard during a hunt.
The woman coughed for a while. The feeling of a foreign object burrowing into her nose had finally mostly disappeared, and the buzzing sound in her head also gradually began to fade.
She raised her head, and the hand seal she was forming in her hand suddenly relaxed for a moment.
The situation before her eyes made Mu Qiuhan feel a bit bewildered. Above her head was the bright moon, and she… seemed to be sitting in a large open-air dirt pit.
Mu Qiuhan quickly looked around in all directions. She did not find the figures she had anticipated, but on her right side, she saw a young girl wearing a light green gauze dress.
That girl seemed quite young. At this moment, she was kneeling by the edge of the dirt pit, still holding a handful of earth in her cupped palms.
The girl stared at her intently, motionless, as if a body-fixing spell had been cast on her.
Could this be the faint spiritual energy signature she had sensed just now?
Although she had long since sensed that something was wrong all over her body, Mu Qiuhan did not attack immediately, because the cultivation level of the person before her was simply too weak.
If she hadn’t sensed wrongly, this girl should not have reached Core Formation yet. Such a person was not enough to pose a threat to her life.
However…
Mu Qiuhan vigilantly released her spiritual sense, trying hard to sense the surrounding presences. Just now when she woke up, there seemed to have been rustling sounds all around, as if someone had quickly left and hid among the surrounding trees.
There should be other people nearby.
As Mu Qiuhan’s spiritual sense gradually spread out, her heart suddenly grew cold.
In her current state, she actually had no way to detect the exact locations and cultivation levels of those people nearby!
She tightened the hand seal in her hand even more.
Mu Qiuhan’s memory was still stuck at the moment she was surrounded by a group of immortals and had no choice but to self-detonate her spiritual core.
What is the situation now? Could it be that Perfected Xuande ultimately managed to act first and stopped her self-destructive act? If that were the case, then what’s going on with this feeling of spiritual energy emptiness within her spiritual core at this moment, and this pain all over her body as if her meridians were broken? Could it be that she was captured by those people and had her cultivation crippled?!
Startled, Mu Qiuhan began trying to mobilize the spiritual energy throughout her body, but found that although spiritual energy still remained within her body, it was completely uncontrollable.
Instantly, a wave of coldness ran up her spine.
By her ear, a timid voice suddenly rang out, interrupting her thoughts.
“Senior… Senior Sister, is that you?”
Mu Qiuhan came back to her senses and placed her attention on the girl before her who looked harmless.
Senior Sister? What tricks are the people from the Immortal Sect playing?
Mu Qiuhan couldn’t figure out the other party’s intention, so she could only follow along with the girl’s words and reply, “Mm, what time is it now?”
Unexpectedly, when the girl heard her words, she suddenly burst into tears with a “wah.”
“Senior Sister, woo woo…”
“I just knew you wouldn’t die, woo woo…”
Mu Qiuhan was stunned. She suddenly recalled that sentence “Resurrection!” she had just heard, and then considering the handful of earth in the girl’s hand… So, she had ultimately still successfully self-detonated her spiritual core, and then had her body collected and buried by someone? However, under that degree of spiritual energy fluctuation, would the physical body really not be damaged?
In a daze, Mu Qiuhan slightly lowered her eyes. This action, however, made her suddenly notice the dirt pit she was in. The pit below her was about half a person’s height. In the ten-meter square pit, there were unexpectedly also seven or eight people lying around!
She was first startled, but when she discovered that these people beside her had no life force whatsoever and were already a pile of cold corpses, she finally let out a large sigh of relief. Just now, waking up suddenly, she only felt that something was very wrong with her body. Considering her situation, she was only focused on first investigating the spiritual energy signatures of the cultivators nearby, but completely failed to notice that there was also such a pile of dead people beside her.
Even so, it made her break out in a cold sweat.
Her spiritual sense was severely damaged, and her spiritual energy was completely unusable. It seemed the situation was even worse than she imagined.
The girl was still crying “woo woo.” Mu Qiuhan saw that her grief did not seem to be faked, and instantly formed a plan in her mind.
“I… I have no strength in my feet. Can you come over and pull me up?”
The girl was startled upon hearing her words but also did not doubt. Mu Qiuhan saw her jump straight down beside her, so she reached out and took hold of her waist. While she wasn’t paying attention, that hand had already subtly gripped her vital point.
The girl did not notice. Instead, she bent down and helped Mu Qiuhan up from the ground.
“Senior Sister, let’s go, let’s go back…” While speaking, she also sniffled.
Mu Qiuhan, holding the girl, exited the dirt pit and walked a few steps forward. Suddenly, her expression grew cold.
Someone is coming in this direction!
The hand holding the girl applied slight force, and the two people’s positions subtly shifted. With the girl blocking several vital points around her body, Mu Qiuhan began to calmly size up the several additional cultivators around her.
A trace of doubt gradually surfaced in her mind.
These few people whose cultivation levels she couldn’t clearly detect just now… they actually haven’t even reached Core Formation yet?! How could the Immortal Sect send such people to deal with her? Could it be there’s some hidden backup plan?
Yet, there were clearly no other people around. Mu Qiuhan was silently calculating in her mind how she could escape with the smallest cost if these few people before her were to attack together.
But then heard one person speak, “Rou’er, how could you… how could you… If this were… Oof…” Their words were unclear; there was clearly some apprehension in them.
Another person was much more direct than him, “Rou’er, you are so reckless! If Senior Sister was truly body-snatched by someone, you likely would have lost your life long ago!”
After that person finished speaking, they seemed to feel it was inappropriate. They looked timidly at Mu Qiuhan and, seeing she had no reaction, finally let out a sigh of relief.
The girl who was called Rou’er had already stopped crying at this moment. She spoke, “All of you, don’t you all wish Senior Sister was really dead? That way, you would have a chance to compete for a spot as an Inner Disciple, wouldn’t you?”
The few people around her were momentarily choked by her words but quickly began explaining all at once.
“Senior Sister, please don’t listen to this girl’s nonsense! With the talent of just us few, how could we be qualified to think about a spot as an Inner Disciple?”
“Exactly! Senior Sister, don’t listen to Rou’er!”
Mu Qiuhan saw them arguing like this, like they were fooling around. Could it be she was truly being too suspicious? This really isn’t some scheme? Could it be she truly accidentally body-snatched an Immortal Sect disciple’s body?
The thought of doubt had just arisen when Mu Qiuhan suddenly felt a wave of intense pain in her chest, and this pain quickly became uncontrollable. As if something had burrowed into her chest, tearing and twisting inside. Amidst this intense pain, Mu Qiuhan felt that the spiritual energy throughout her body had been drained, and the hand resting on the girl’s waist also began to tremble.
Being utterly cautious, yet she still fell for a trap! And she actually didn’t even know how she had been tripped up!
She originally intended to use her last shred of strength to pierce that girl’s spiritual core, but in the end, still released her hand.
Let it be. It’s just one less person to take down with her. On the path to the Yellow Springs, she doesn’t necessarily need someone to accompany her. At least this girl once cried for her. Even if that was her method to lure her in, she could only blame herself for not discerning people clearly.
Mu Qiuhan released the girl. Instead, she tightly gripped her own palm, trying hard to keep her mind clear.
To think of her, the dignified Demon Lord, a lifetime of fame… She didn’t lose to Perfected Xuande and other big shots of the Immortal Path, but was ruined by these few unknown juniors. Perhaps, this was her fate.
The pain in her chest became increasingly severe. Mu Qiuhan could no longer bear it and spurted out a mouthful of fresh blood.
Such a reaction frightened the few people still chattering around her.
“What’s wrong with Senior Sister…?”
“Is it that the effects of that Marrow Cleansing Pill have started acting up again?”
“How is that possible? It’s not like you haven’t seen the symptoms of taking a Marrow Cleansing Pill.”
“Rou’er, what are you frozen there for? Do you have a Heart Calming Pill that Master just bestowed two days ago? Quickly take it out!”
“Heart Calming Pill? That’s a detoxifying pill. Can it be effective?”
“It’s better than nothing…”
Chaotic sounds drilled into Mu Qiuhan’s ears from all directions. Mu Qiuhan only felt a pair of hands support her and forcefully stuff something into her mouth. The next second, she completely lost consciousness.
Good chapter 😌