Golden light streaked across the ruins.
Holding the Ten Directions Mountain and River Staff, Jiang Yuechu followed the trajectory of Immortal Lord Guanlan's fall.
Behind her came the sounds of Fairy Bihai's shrill roars colliding with the sharp Sword Qi of True Lord Linghan.
Purple Qi and cyan-blue sword radiance churned wildly in the firmament, tearing shocking fissures across half the sky.
However, none of this concerned her anymore.
Since True Lord Linghan had agreed to this matter, he would naturally hold that woman back.
She only needed to do her own part.
The golden light abruptly receded.
Jiang Yuechu landed steadily atop a collapsed hill.
She swept her gaze below.
Not far away, a continuous mountain wall had been smashed into a gully dozens of zhang deep.
Rubble and broken wood were piled within, and fragments of a bright red python robe could be faintly seen hanging from a craggy rock corner, swaying in the wind.
At the end of the gully, the mountain wall was indented with a huge, human-shaped crater.
Immortal Lord Guanlan was embedded at the bottom of the pit.
The bright red python robe had long since shattered into strips of cloth, and the golden scales on both sides of his cheeks had shattered and fallen off in large patches, revealing the bloodied skin beneath.
His chest was mostly collapsed, his ribs protruding, mixed with shattered internal organs and congealed dark red blood clots.
That kick just now had nearly cost him half his life.
Jiang Yuechu leaped down along the gully.
Her black robes brushed silently against the rubble.
Upon landing, the rubble rolled slightly with a soft sound.
It was an extremely faint noise.
Yet, it was this small disturbance that caused the broken body at the bottom of the pit to tremble slightly.
Immortal Lord Guanlan struggled to move his fingers, trying hard to open his eyes.
But his eyes were filled with congealed blood scabs, and he could only manage to pry them open a crack.
Everything he saw was blurry.
There was only a slender silhouette slowly walking toward him.
A glob of blood foam surged from his throat, and a raspy, extremely hoarse voice squeezed out intermittently.
"Wife... is that you?"
In his already chaotic consciousness,
Fairy Bihai was the only person who would come to save him.
She was also the only one... who had never given up on him from beginning to end.
He had been struck down here just now, and after so much time had passed, he had not been dealt a finishing blow.
Clearly, his wife had intervened...
But what answered him was an indifferent voice.
"Sorry... it's your mother."
As the words fell,
A green staff shadow crashed down from above.
Boom—!
Under the crushing force of the staff's end, Immortal Lord Guanlan's skull shattered on the spot.
This Immortal Lord Guanlan, famous throughout the Fifty Thousand Li Great Marsh, had relied on a handsome face and a silver tongue to climb from a lowly carp spirit in the depths of the Great Marsh to the pillow-side companion of the Little Palace Mistress of the Southern Immortal Palace.
He had spent half his life living off a woman.
In the end, he couldn't finish his meal.
[Killed a Chess Player Realm creature, obtained 734,682 years of Dao Cultivation]
Only seven hundred thousand years...
Enough to demonstrate how much effort Fairy Bihai had poured into him.
"No—!!!"
Deep in the purple mist, Fairy Bihai's veil had long since shattered and drifted away during the previous clash,
Revealing a face of extreme beauty.
At this moment, however, that face was filled with disbelief and overwhelming grief.
"Ah!!!!!"
A cyan-blue sword light flashed.
True Lord Linghan's figure landed lightly on the collapsed hill, rubbing his brow with a headache.
"Alright, the matter is resolved, let's leave quickly."
Although that old Palace Mistress of the Southern Immortal Palace had tacitly allowed the Jieqing Sect to eliminate this carp spirit,
If this Little Palace Mistress were truly driven to desperation and caused some trouble,
He really couldn't bring himself to deal a lethal blow.
As his words fell,
There was no response.
True Lord Linghan raised an eyebrow and turned his head to look in astonishment.
He saw Jiang Yuechu leaning on that long green staff with one hand, expressionless, though faint radiance flowed in the depths of her eyes.
Her fingers tapped lightly on the staff.
She seemed to be calculating something.
True Lord Linghan's heart jumped violently.
He asked uncertainly: "You wouldn't... still want to kill her, would you?"
Upon hearing this,
Jiang Yuechu withdrew her gaze in some disappointment and glanced sideways at True Lord Linghan.
"Are you people from the Jieqing Sect not going to act?"
She had originally thought that if these people from the Jieqing Sect were willing to continue attacking and beat this woman half to death, she might be able to take advantage of the situation.
But looking at the behavior of these Jieqing Sect members now, they clearly had no intention of killing the opponent.
They were even somewhat fearful.
If she were to go up alone...
Jiang Yuechu silently calculated in her heart.
The Dao Cultivation seemed massive.
But there were still so many demon remains waiting for her to spend Dao Cultivation to enlighten and condense.
Previously, just enlightening one spirit grade dao chess piece had cost over two million years.
If she wanted to condense more high-grade dao chess pieces in the future...
This bit of Dao Cultivation was actually not enough at all.
Hearing Jiang Yuechu's counter-question,
True Lord Linghan fell into a long silence.
Afterward,
This dignified deacon of the Jieqing Sect, a great cultivator among the Nine Chess Pieces, actually showed a hint of undisguisable bitterness on his face: "It's not a question of whether we want to act... it's a question of whether we can..."
His words had just fallen when a sudden change occurred in the firmament.
The sky, which had originally been torn apart by the cyan-blue Sword Qi, suddenly saw large swathes of purple clouds and mist re-condensing.
As the purple clouds rolled,
A massive strange beast broke through the clouds and stepped into the air.
The strange beast resembled a Qilin, its entire body covered in purple-black scales, breathing out thunder and fire from its nostrils.
On the back of the beast sat a demon clad in heavy black armor.
The black armor was chilling, revealing only a pair of indifferent and ruthless blood-colored eyes.
Behind it,
Dense throngs of demons appeared from the clouds.
Banners covered the sky, and the sound of armor rubbing together was like gold and iron horses.
It was as if celestial soldiers and generals had descended into the mortal world.
"..."
Jiang Yuechu narrowed her eyes slightly, feeling the pressure on its body.
It was actually several times stronger than True Lord Linghan beside her.
The black-armored general looked down from above, gazing indifferently at the scene below.
His gaze swept over True Lord Linghan, nodding slightly to him.
Then he looked casually at Fairy Bihai.
He frowned slightly, raised his armored arm indifferently, and waved it forward gently.
He said in a deep voice to the demons behind him: "Take the Little Palace Mistress back first."
"As you command."
Immediately, several demons with powerful auras stepped out from the crowd and rode the clouds down.
"Get lost... all of you get lost!!!"
Sensing someone approaching, Fairy Bihai turned her head abruptly.
"I want to kill them! I want to kill them!!!!"
She pointed at Jiang Yuechu and True Lord Linghan below, her voice extremely shrill: "Whoever dares to stop me, I will kill!"
"Uh..."
The few demons ordered to step forward looked at each other.
Facing the crazed Little Palace Mistress, they did not dare to forcibly take action for a moment.
Just as they were in a stalemate,
The few demons suddenly shuddered and silently lowered their heads.
They stepped back a few paces, clearing a path.
The black-armored general had already dismounted from his strange beast at some point.
He walked slowly to the front of Fairy Bihai.
His tall body blocked out all the daylight.
"Little Palace Mistress, the Palace Mistress has tolerated your mischief in this Great Marsh until now; it is already the limit."
"Do not make the Palace Mistress come to fetch you personally..."