From the outside, the Golden Sparrow Tower did not look tall, maybe eight or nine floors at most.
But once Ye Ling stepped inside, he realized it was a world of its own. He had long since lost track of how many flights he had climbed.
Just looking at the crowd trailing behind him made it obvious there were far more than eight or nine levels.
On the way up, he had saved quite a few people.
In the first few floors, he relied on his own strength. After that, he leaned on the Examiner's Judgement Brush.
But to be honest, he was still late. He barely managed to save any of the low-cultivation Righteous Path Alliance cultivators or the Tianqiong City garrison guards.
There was no helping it. The low-level Orthodox cultivators were mostly young rookies. How could they stand up to disciples trained by Demonic Sects?
Only those who had reached the Foundation Establishment Stage or the Golden Core Stage truly understood how to fight Demonic Cultivators head-on.
Still, Ye Ling had arrived in time. If he had been even a second slower, he would have had to deal with Great Ascension Stage cultivators.
At that point, the only sensible choice would have been to flee back to his sect first.
But now, everything was different.
"What kind of evil technique is this?!"
Qin Rushui was shocked. He discovered he could not attack Ye Ling at all. The laws of Heaven and Earth were forcing him to answer questions.
Until he finished the questions, he could not lay a finger on Ye Ling.
A dignified Great Ascension Stage peerless powerhouse, reduced to staring at an exam? What kind of joke was this?
And it was not that the questions were difficult. They were things he should know. The problem was the sheer number of them. Who knew how long he would be trapped answering?
Most infuriating of all, the brat asking the questions still had not shut his mouth.
"How many male cultivators are in the Heavenly Demon Sect? List their names one by one."
"How many female cultivators are in the Heavenly Demon Sect? How big are their busts?"
???
I'm the Sect Leader of the Heavenly Demon Sect, and you're asking me that?
Don't you know women terrify me?
And questions like that were impossible for Qin Rushui to answer in the first place.
"It's that woman's scent!"
At the same moment, Blood Edge beside Qin Rushui shot away like an arrow, slipping out through the massive hole Tan Yue's alchemy furnace had blasted open in the Golden Sparrow Tower.
"Pah! Get back here! Come back! Useless trash!"
Qin Rushui ground his teeth in fury. He was certain Blood Edge had taken one look at the situation and run.
But he could not understand it. Even if Ye Ling had him pinned down, Blood Edge was still a Great Ascension Stage cultivator. Wiping out the bunch of "stinking fish and rotten shrimp" behind Ye Ling should have been effortless.
Yet Blood Edge just fled, turning Qin Rushui's already terrible situation into a disaster.
If you run, what am I supposed to do?
At this point, Qin Rushui stopped caring and directly used the Heavenly Demon Curse.
Even so, all he got in response was a distant scream from Blood Edge, and then nothing.
At the Great Ascension Stage, the Heavenly Demon Curse's power naturally weakened. At most, it could severely wound Blood Edge. It could not kill him outright.
"Go die!"
Qin Rushui spat the curse after him, but it did nothing to improve his situation.
Because the mass of cultivators behind Ye Ling had already rushed to Tie Chunsheng and the others, channeling True Essence into them.
One side rose as the other fell. If Qin Rushui did not think of something fast, he was going to die here.
"You… don't seem very bright," Ye Ling said.
After a long stretch of questioning, Ye Ling finally stopped. When he saw Blood Edge escape, he dropped to the ground and began recovering his True Qi.
The questions he had thrown out were enough to keep Qin Rushui busy for an entire day, if he actually intended to answer them.
In fact, once Ye Ling started using the Examiner's Judgement Brush for real, he noticed several shortcomings.
First, if the enemy was strong enough, they could simply refuse to answer. Hand in a blank sheet and take his attack head-on.
Second, while he could ask all sorts of questions as long as they fell within the opponent's strengths, the closer the question got to something the opponent was not good at, the greater the cost for Ye Ling.
Strictly speaking, that was not a flaw so much as the price of the technique.
The real problem was that he only found out what the opponent was weak at after he asked.
Like just now. The moment he asked Qin Rushui about women's bust sizes, his consumption spiked wildly.
You, the dignified Sect Leader of the Heavenly Demon Sect, actually do not like women? Who would have guessed that?
Are you doing this on purpose just to mess with me?
Luckily, Ye Ling had swallowed the Righteous Path Alliance's Saint-Grade Qi Replenishing Pill before he climbed this far. Otherwise, that one question almost would have made him pass out.
Sect Leader, if you like men, just say it out loud. Stop hiding it!
I won't look down on you!
But keeping it secret just to screw me over like this is too much!
Ye Ling had no idea that if you really traced it back, the one "messing with him" was the Nine Heavens Immortal Maiden. Qin Rushui feared women because of her.
In other words, this was yet another disaster the Nine Heavens Jade Pendant had brought to his doorstep.
And finally, most importantly…
Even though the enemy could not attack Ye Ling, they could still attack other people. Otherwise, Qin Rushui would not have been able to cast the Heavenly Demon Curse just now.
But under the Examiner's Judgement Brush, Qin Rushui was gripped by the urge to "do the questions." So after he realized he could not attack Ye Ling, he naturally assumed he could not attack anyone else either. He never even considered turning his attacks on others.
That was exactly why Ye Ling said his head was not very sharp.
"You damned brat! The moment I break your evil art, I'll tear you into pieces!"
Qin Rushui was furious, but right now he truly had no way to deal with Ye Ling.
He glanced at the questions. They were all about the Heavenly Demon Sect, his strong suit.
But a lot of them involved Heavenly Demon Sect secrets. Those could not be answered.
Which meant he could never finish the paper.
So there was only one choice.
Leave.
Fortunately, Qin Rushui realized his movements were not restricted. Running was still an option.
But… was he really going to run?
The instant he saw the crowd behind Ye Ling, Qin Rushui understood. The Heavenly Demon Sect was finished.
Now Blood Edge had fled as well. Qin Rushui was alone.
Even if he escaped, the Heavenly Demon Sect was still done for.
Was he really supposed to rot away in that backwater archives office until the day he ascended?
He was not willing.
A thousand years of effort, building the Heavenly Demon Sect from the ground up, and one misstep had turned it all into total defeat. Just thinking about it made him feel like he was about to go insane with rage.
But reality was reality. He had to decide whether to fight or leave.
On the other side, Ye Ling felt something was off. This first-tier Heavenly Demon Sect was… way too weak.
What he did not know was that a first-tier Demonic Sect was not necessarily stronger than a first-rank sect.
The advantage of Demonic Sects lay in hiding. They were slippery and cruel, always ready to use innocent civilians as bait or shields, with no bottom line and methods as vicious as they were dirty.
They also operated in the dark, while Orthodox Dao cultivators stood in the open. With their hands tied, Orthodox cultivators really did struggle against Demonic Cultivators of the same realm.
After all, you can guard against thieves for a day, but you cannot stay on guard forever.
So even though it looked like it took ten first-rank sects to wipe out a single first-tier Demonic Sect, that was because of all the hidden tricks.
In a straight fight, aside from low-level cultivators who lacked experience in life-and-death battles, mid- and high-level Orthodox cultivators were often even stronger than Demonic Cultivators of the same realm.
It came down to the same principle.
A real genius has no need to cultivate through crooked paths like this.
Orthodox Dao cultivators tended to have stronger talent, and their cultivation was simply smoother than the Demonic path.
And here, inside the Golden Sparrow Tower, it was open combat with no hostages in play.
If the Orthodox cultivators in the tower had not all been injured, the Heavenly Demon Sect would not have had much of an advantage at all.
"What are you spacing out for? Hurry up and do your questions!"
Ye Ling saw that after cursing at him, Qin Rushui had started hesitating. Afraid Qin Rushui might piece things together, he quickly spoke up to provoke him and keep him locked into the mindset.
To be honest, on the way up he had already noticed something.
Most Demonic Sect cultivators were not very quick in the head.
Put plainly, they were wooden and dull, lacking a spark.
But were those not exactly the kind of people that… certain "teachings" liked to recruit?
When you really thought about it, the Demonic Sect was basically a fantasy version of that kind of organization. Looked at that way, it made perfect sense.
Ye Ling had originally assumed the Sect Leader would be clever. After all, the people at the top were usually sharp, or they would not be able to rope in so many followers.
Turns out he was wrong. In this fantasy world, the Demonic Sect was even worse.
Of course, if Ye Ling knew that Qin Rushui had been the worst of the bunch back in the old Heavenly Demon Sect, he might feel less surprised.
"Does your Heavenly Demon Sect cultivation method make people stupid? You cannot even answer something this simple."
Since Qin Rushui could not touch him anyway, Ye Ling threw out taunts whenever he could.
"You…!"
Qin Rushui had already been on the verge of losing it. Ye Ling's jab made his anger surge straight to his head.
But the Examiner's Judgement Brush was a divine artifact produced by the System. No matter how furious he was, he could not break free of its restraint.
"Many thanks for the rescue, little brother!"
Right then, an even more unsettling voice rang out for Qin Rushui. Tie Chunsheng was standing again.
"No need to thank me. Just hurry up and finish this bastard off."
Ye Ling finally let out a breath, feeling the outcome was locked in.
Honestly, he was grateful to the one who ran. Otherwise, he did not know what he would have done.
The moment he reached this floor, he saw two of them, and both had terrifying pressure, stronger than anyone he had met below.
It might have looked like he had a lot of people behind him, but most of them were already at the end of their rope. If they actually fought head-on, they probably would not last even a minute.
He had been this close to turning around and running.
"Finish me off?"
Qin Rushui was not stupid. He simply carried the arrogance of a powerhouse. Many things, he did not even test. He just relied on past experience and drew conclusions.
He assumed that if he could not attack Ye Ling, the one casting the technique, then he also could not attack the people around Ye Ling, so he never even tried.
But whatever rules were in play, they should still follow basic fairness. If others could attack him, then he should also be able to attack others.
"Huh, you actually figured it out?"
Ye Ling pointed at his head and shook it. "I thought you would be like your disciples downstairs and say to me right before you die…"
"Why can you attack me? That is not fair!"