Ye Ling moved with extreme caution as he reached the edge of Tianqiong City. There, he saw a tower crowned with a golden finch statue.
The tower radiated divine light, but with each violent tremor, that glow grew dimmer.
It was obvious that brutal fighting was raging inside. From time to time, corpses were hurled out of the tower.
Before long, a small hill of bodies had piled up at its base.
Further out, encircling the tower, stood a ring of black-robed figures. Baleful Qi seeped from their bodies, their faces twisted and ferocious as they scanned the surroundings. They were likely Heavenly Demon Sect disciples who had not been drawn into the tower.
They certainly looked intimidating. But when Ye Ling examined their Cultivation Levels—
Qi Refining Stage. Qi Refining Stage. Foundation Establishment Stage. Qi Refining Stage. Qi Refining Stage...
There were several hundred of them, yet not a single Golden Core Stage cultivator among the lot. Ye Ling felt he could flatten them all with one slap.
But…
Was he really going to kill them?
At the critical moment, Ye Ling hesitated.
If they were already locked in combat, he probably wouldn't have had time to think. His instinct to survive would have made the decision for him.
But right now, though these men were vicious and undoubtedly criminals, killing them would raise no moral objections.
Even so, Ye Ling found himself unable to act.
When people are children, drowning ants or snapping dragonfly wings brings no sense of guilt.
But as one grows up and begins to understand the weight of life, those childhood acts come to be seen as cruelty.
In Ye Ling's eyes, these men now felt no different from ants.
Yet the idea of casually crushing them to death left a sour feeling in his stomach.
It was like an executioner carrying out a death sentence. Even knowing the condemned was monstrously evil, the act itself never sat easy.
After all, when the person you're about to kill is neither committing a crime in front of you nor resisting, a trace of compassion will surface, unless you bear a personal grudge.
Ye Ling did not like admitting it, but he was, in fact, a kind person.
If these men were in the middle of committing atrocities, he could have struck them down without hesitation. But asking him to kill them now felt difficult.
Forget it. Let someone else take the credit.
After a moment's thought, Ye Ling casually drew a sleep talisman in the air.
In the next instant, the previously alert Demonic Cultivators all collapsed where they stood, sinking into deep slumber, sleeping more soundly than pigs.
Ye Ling walked past them, summoned a rope, and bound them all together. He then personally crippled their Cultivation Levels.
This way, even if one or two managed to escape, they would be nothing but useless cripples.
What made Ye Ling feel slightly sick, however, was that several Foundation Establishment Stage Demonic Cultivators rapidly aged and died the moment their Cultivation Levels were destroyed.
"I wasn't even planning to kill you, and you still had to make this messy."
Muttering to himself, Ye Ling tossed the bound Demonic Cultivators onto the main road, where they would be impossible to miss.
"Let's go inside and see."
With the Small Formless Sword in hand, Ye Ling pushed open the door at the base of the tower.
…
Qin Rushui was on the verge of going mad.
He was, after all, the Sect Leader of a first-tier Demonic Sect. What storms had he not weathered?
And yet today, he had stumbled badly.
First, the majority of his sect's top combat forces had been schemed against by the Righteous Path Alliance and wiped out in a small city.
After that, he had pulled strings to insert people into the Righteous Path Alliance's reinforcement team, and even personally led the remaining elites of his sect to this place.
And still, he had failed.
Who could have predicted that Gui Ying, that useless waste, wouldn't manage to kill a single expert from the Righteous Path Alliance?
It was almost absurd.
Gui Ying had beaten Tie Chunsheng and the others into the ground, yet he had not actually killed any of them.
Just as he was about to harvest the results, the Avatar of the Nine Heavens Immortal Maiden arrived and intervened.
In the end, after all his fierce moves, Gui Ying's record was zero kills and eleven losses.
Ten Tribulation Transcendence Stage cultivators, plus himself, that unlucky fool.
If the Otherworldly Demons had the habit of descending in their true bodies, there would have been one more head to count.
Because Qin Rushui had concealed his identity, the first batch of reinforcements from the Righteous Path Alliance all had clean, unquestionable backgrounds.
Which meant that Tie Chunsheng and the others recovered.
They had not returned to peak condition, but they were at least sixty to seventy percent restored.
So when Qin Rushui led the sect's main force in a surprise assault, the results were minimal. Not only did they fail to kill a single expert from the Righteous Path Alliance, they even allowed Tie Chunsheng to unleash the Golden Sparrow Tower.
But…
The one who laughs last will be me.
Qin Rushui's eyes were bloodshot with killing intent. At this moment, he and Blood Edge stood facing Tie Chunsheng, Lu Changtian, and Tan Yue.
In terms of overall strength, their side had two Great Ascension Stage cultivators. The other side had one Great Ascension Stage cultivator and two Half-Step Great Ascension Stage cultivators. The advantage was clearly theirs.
And yet, Qin Rushui could tell that Blood Edge was thinking about running.
Not only was the bastard holding back, he was obviously going through the motions, glancing around as if afraid of something and ready to bolt at any moment.
But Blood Edge was now one of the Heavenly Demon Sect's only two Great Ascension Stage cultivators. No matter how much Qin Rushui wanted to kill him, he couldn't bring himself to do it.
Raising a Great Ascension Stage cultivator took time, effort, and resources. Those things could always be seized.
What truly mattered was luck.
Before reaching the Tribulation Transcendence Stage, Demonic Cultivators could advance at astonishing speed. But to break through the Tribulation Transcendence Stage and step into the Great Ascension Stage? Out of ten thousand Tribulation Transcendence Stage cultivators, maybe one would succeed.
For Orthodox Dao Cultivators, surviving the Heavenly Tribulation was already perilous. For Demonic Cultivators, burdened with countless karmic sins, it was even harder.
If Blood Edge died, who knew how many years it would take for the Heavenly Demon Sect to produce another Great Ascension Stage cultivator?
When Gui Ying advanced to the Great Ascension Stage, the Heavenly Demon Sect had been on the verge of breaking into the ranks of the super first-tier Demonic Sects. But if Blood Edge fell now, they would struggle just to remain second-tier.
With only Qin Rushui, a Great Ascension Stage Sect Leader who could not openly reveal his identity, what future would the Heavenly Demon Sect even have?
And in another two or three hundred years, he himself would ascend. By then, the Heavenly Demon Sect would likely be swallowed by another Demonic Sect.
So no matter how disgusted he was by Blood Edge's behavior, he had to endure it.
Fortunately, even though it was taking longer than expected, he was close to finishing off Tie Chunsheng and the others.
Once Tie Chunsheng died, the rest would be easy to deal with. He refused to believe anyone else could stir up trouble.
"Heavenly Demon: Myriad Manifestations!"
A black sphere appeared in Qin Rushui's palm and drifted slowly toward Tie Chunsheng. Wherever it passed, the air split open, leaving jagged spatial cracks in its wake.
"Golden Sparrow: Divebomb!"
Tie Chunsheng completed his hand seals, and a flock of golden sparrows burst out from the void, diving straight at the black sphere.
They managed to slow it, but they could not stop it entirely.
It was obvious he was reaching his limit.
That was only natural. He had yet to fully recover, and he was also maintaining the Golden Sparrow Tower. Though he fought back, his strength fell short.
"I'll take it!"
Lu Changtian clenched his teeth and flung out a chessboard from his Storage Ring.
The chessboard rapidly expanded to the size of a person, blocking the black sphere's path and swallowing it whole.
Inside the board, the sphere transformed into a black stone and began wreaking havoc across the grid.
"I'll hold it for now."
Lu Changtian looked at the cracks spreading across his chessboard, pain flashing in his eyes. Still, he picked up a white stone and began surrounding the black piece.
This chessboard had originally been used to trap people. Anyone caught inside had to defeat him in a game of Go to escape. It was a rare and unusual artifact.
But to trap someone, their Cultivation Level had to be close to his. If they were much stronger, they simply couldn't be contained.
Both Qin Rushui and Blood Edge surpassed him in Cultivation Level, which left him in an awkward position.
Otherwise, if he could restrain one of them through a game of Go, their situation would be far more favorable.
"It's ready!"
At the same time, Tan Yue's excited voice rang out.
Alchemists were not just support roles with no combat power. They could smash enemies with their alchemy cauldrons or burn them with specialized alchemy flames. Their strength was not weak.
But their most distinctive method of fighting was still alchemy itself.
Except here, "alchemy" did not mean successfully refining a pill.
It meant failing.
Alchemy was meant to gather rare treasures of Heaven and Earth into a furnace, carefully add them in order, control the heat, and refine a pill.
But for an alchemist, the most familiar outcome was a furnace explosion.
When those rare materials exploded inside the furnace, the resulting power far exceeded the alchemist's own realm. Otherwise, there wouldn't be so many alchemists blown to pieces by their own furnaces.
Now Tan Yue, a Half-Step Great Ascension Stage cultivator, had thrown a chaotic mix of rare treasures into his furnace. The impending explosion was powerful enough that even a Great Ascension Stage cultivator would avoid it if possible.
But inside Tie Chunsheng's Golden Sparrow Tower, Qin Rushui and Blood Edge had nowhere to escape.
"Go!"
With obvious reluctance, Tan Yue sent his long-time companion, the alchemy cauldron, along with the rare herbs he had accumulated over a lifetime, flying toward Qin Rushui and Blood Edge.
The move was powerful.
It was also ruinously expensive.
"Come here!"
Tie Chunsheng's eyes lit up.
As long as the enemy was within the Golden Sparrow Tower, he could force them to appear anywhere inside it.
In the next instant, Tan Yue's alchemy cauldron teleported directly beside Qin Rushui. Blood Edge was forcibly shifted to the same spot by Tie Chunsheng.
"Blood Edge, if you don't use your full strength now, we're both dead!"
Qin Rushui's eyes were bloodshot. He had just unleashed a major technique and was in its recovery phase. He could fend off small attacks, but something like an exploding furnace was beyond him.
Blood Edge had to go all out.
"I know…"
Yet even now, Blood Edge looked jumpy, his gaze darting around as if expecting someone to appear out of nowhere and pin him to the ground.
He had seen it with his own eyes.
The terrifyingly powerful, demonized Gui Ying.
And that woman, who was even more frightening.
Even though he had only watched the battle through a spell from tens of thousands of miles away, Blood Edge was still shaken to the core.