Chapter 401: No Time for a Proper Farewell

The Xianze man-beast roared wildly as its fist slammed into a brilliant spear gleam.

"Crack!"

The Xianze man-beast's fist crumbled into shards, and Ding Huan seized the chance to blast out a Yellow Flower Kill.

The remaining spear gleams exploded, and as if they had eyes of their own, they pinned and killed the man-beasts charging forward one after another.

This man-beast paid no heed to its fist being blasted into a bloody mist by Ding Huan's brilliant spear gleam, and still raised its other great hand to slap at Wen Zhixi's head.

"Move, now." Ding Huan's hoarse voice jolted Wen Zhixi awake. Wen Zhixi was likewise burning her essence blood, wanting to detonate the Soul-Lock Burst Needle.

Even though this Xianze man-beast had already been wounded by Ding Huan's Star-Filled-Sky, Wen Zhixi still could not detonate the Soul-Lock Burst Needle.

If not for Ding Huan's spear strike just now, the Soul-Lock Burst Needle would have already been forced out of her body by the Xianze man-beast.

She kept burning her essence blood. If she could not detonate the Soul-Lock Burst Needle, then both she and Ding Huan were doomed today.

The Xianze man-beast's great hand was about to slap Wen Zhixi's head when his consciousness sea suddenly trembled, and his divine-spirit domain was blasted into by a swirl of killing force.

At this moment, how could it not understand that Ding Huan had taken advantage of that spear gleam blasting apart its fist to launch a sneak attack on its divine-spirit domain with his divine sense technique?

Mere ants dare play such tricks before it...

The Xianze man-beast raged. A jet-black wooden axe had just been summoned when it felt the aura of death rampaging inside its body, on the verge of exploding.

Not good...

Only at this moment did the Xianze man-beast recall that the reason it had not summoned a magic treasure to kill these two ants earlier was precisely because it had been ambushed and was fighting that terrifying forbidden device inside its body.

Ding Huan's sneak attack with the divine-sense technique Yellow Flower Send-Off had driven it into a frenzy.

There was no time left to wrap around that forbidden device. The Xianze man-beast swept its hand, and the two Spirit-Gathering Trees before the gate transformed into two wooden arrows that blasted toward Ding Huan.

Clearly it was Wen Zhixi burning her essence blood trying to detonate the Soul-Lock Burst Needle, yet it was madly attacking Ding Huan.

In its eyes, Wen Zhixi was no threat; the main danger was this tiny Golden Immortal ant, whose threat to it was too great, making it feel uneasy at every moment.

Kill Ding Huan, and even if it was severely injured, it could still finish off Wen Zhixi.

The moment it finished this action, the Soul-Lock Burst Needle completely exploded inside its body.

Streaks of jet-black blood and gore burst out; the Xianze man-beast's body fell apart. Not only that, it even felt its own divine soul beginning to tear.

This was a forbidden device that bursts the divine soul!

Flee at once. Whether divine sense or immortal essence, both plummeted in a cliff-like fall, and even the consciousness sea began to collapse.

No matter how stupid the Xianze man-beast was, it knew that if it did not leave, even Wen Zhixi could kill it.

Ding Huan clearly saw those two Spirit-Gathering Trees turn into wooden arrows blasting toward his body, yet he could not dodge them.

Ding Huan desperately tried to summon his iron pot to block these two wooden arrows, but his divine sense simply could not stir it.

This magic treasure that had not been fully refined was truly troublesome to use.

The instant this thought crossed Ding Huan's mind—"Puff! Puff!"—the two wooden arrows, one after the other, both pinned into Ding Huan's body, and he opened his mouth and once again sprayed out several jets of blood.

Before he could rush to Wen Zhixi's side, the swampy ground beneath his feet suddenly split open, and he could only watch helplessly as he fell down, his vitality rapidly dissipating.

Wen Zhixi stared blankly as the Xianze man-beast, its half-body blown apart by her Soul-Lock Burst Needle, vanished, and then saw two Spirit-Gathering Trees transformed into wooden arrows pinning into Ding Huan.

Ding Huan's body burst out streaks of blood mist, his vitality vanishing in an instant, and then she saw Ding Huan swallowed by the splitting ground.

The next moment, the black hole vanished, and the ground returned to its original state.

Of the several hundred man-beasts charging toward them, more than half were pinned and killed by Ding Huan's Samsara spear gleams; the other half were inexplicably trapped and killed by a killing formation.

The scene, which had been utterly chaotic moments ago, fell silent in the blink of an eye. Now, only she remained alive.

She wanted to go save Ding Huan, but she knew very well that the Xianze man-beast had not died. As long as that thing lived, it would be a calamity.

The Xianze man-beast, left with only half a body and its divine soul torn, was so furious it nearly wanted to devour Ding Huan and Wen Zhixi alive.

But now it could only rush into the Nine Lun Seal to hide. With such a terrifying injury, even facing Wen Zhixi alone would be dangerous.

It was cautious by habit. Even if it wanted to kill Wen Zhixi and Ding Huan, it would have to wait here until its injuries had mostly recovered before going out.

It had just rushed into the Nine Lun Seal, and just as the Xianze man-beast thought itself safe, an endless wave of killing aura swept over.

Streaks of killing-formation patterns wrapped around every bit of space it occupied, crushing the space it had constructed inside the Nine Lun Seal into shards.

"Wen Saint Luo Xu, you dare to plot against me..."

The Xianze man-beast had only just shouted this line when it realized it was wrong.

Although this Nine Lun Seal belonged to Wen Saint Luo Xu, these killing-formation patterns were absolutely not laid down by Wen Saint Luo Xu. Wen Saint Luo Xu had only a sliver of obsession left—how could he have the ability to act against it?

This familiar killing aura, these familiar strangling-formation patterns...

How could the Xianze man-beast not know that Ding Huan had arrived at the Nine Lun Seal first, and had laid down the strangling-killing formation first, waiting here for it to come in?

Terrifying killing-formation patterns swept over one after another, and the Xianze man-beast was finally afraid.

Not to mention it was now severely injured, with less than one percent of its strength remaining; even at its peak, trapped under these strangling-formation patterns it did not understand at all, it could not escape.

This was absolutely a fourth-grade strangling-killing grand formation.

"Let me go..." Although the Xianze man-beast knew Ding Huan had been sent into the underground abyss by its Void-Poison Wood Arrows, it still could not help hoping Ding Huan was still here, and might even spare it.

"Puff! Puff!" Streaks of strangling-formation patterns sank into the Xianze man-beast's body, grinding its bones inch by inch into powder and twisting its flesh into paste.

The Xianze man-beast could only watch helplessly as its physical body was sliced into a thousand pieces, watching helplessly as its divine soul and bones were slowly pulverized under these strangling-formation patterns.

It could only carry a sliver of unwillingness and sink completely into the strangling-killing formation within the Nine Lun Seal.

"What powerful formation dao. This is a fourth-grade Void Strangling-Killing Formation..." Watching the man-beasts being killed wave after wave by the formation patterns, Wen Zhixi murmured to herself.

Ding Huan was actually a fourth-grade immortal formation grandmaster—such an existence would be rare even in the Fifth Immortal Domain.

Moreover, judging from the process of Ding Huan's confrontation and great battle with the Xianze man-beast just now, Ding Huan's strength was absolutely far superior to hers.

Ding Huan certainly had not reached Mysterious Immortal, nor could he be merely True Immortal—he should be at the Golden Immortal realm.

Although he was only at the Golden Immortal realm, Ding Huan was the main force that severely wounded the Xianze man-beast.

If not for Ding Huan, she would not have had the chance to even make a move, let alone launch a sneak attack.

Even if the ambush succeeded, she still couldn't detonate the Soul-Locking Burst Needle.

The Soul-Locking Burst Needle is indeed a powerful forbidden artifact, but once it can't be detonated, it's no different from a blade of grass.

Wen Zhixi wiped the cold sweat from her forehead, looked at the man-beasts around her that had been utterly slaughtered, and took a deep breath—she had to rescue Ding Huan.

And that Immortal Marsh man-beast from earlier definitely wasn't dead; it just didn't know where it had hidden itself.

Wen Zhixi's emotions had always been extremely steady, but at this moment she couldn't help feeling panicked. She looked toward the massive boulder that had triggered the waterfall.

That was definitely her father's Nine Lun Seal, carrying her father's Dao resonance aura.

She had to refine the Nine Lun Seal and take it away, but right now, she needed to find Ding Huan first.

Carefully walking to the spot where Ding Huan had vanished—right here, Ding Huan's footing had seemed to suddenly give way, and then a black hole swallowed him.

Wen Zhixi was, after all, a peak Tier-2 immortal array master; she searched the surrounding area for several rounds.

Apart from a small stream and the torn, shattered battlefield from the great fight just now, she saw nothing amiss.

Wen Zhixi sighed. She knew it was because her array Dao level wasn't sufficient, which was why she couldn't find the array entrance Ding Huan had fallen through.

Standing at the spot where Ding Huan had disappeared, Wen Zhixi knew clearly in her heart that Ding Huan's chance of surviving was almost zero.

She had personally witnessed the Immortal Marsh man-beast's deathbed backlash—turning two Spirit-Gathering Trees into wooden arrows and shooting them into Ding Huan's body.

If she wasn't mistaken, those wooden arrows were very likely Void Venom Wood Arrows.

Once this kind of wooden arrow enters the body, it vanishes; the vanished arrow transforms into a terrifying venomous Dao resonance that invades the entire body.

Not to mention Ding Huan—even her father couldn't resist this kind of horrifying venom.

This is a law-level poison; there are only two words for it: incurable.

One could say Ding Huan died in her place.

If Ding Huan hadn't joined in, she wouldn't have been able to slaughter all the man-beasts here or grievously wound the Immortal Marsh man-beast—she would have struggled even to set foot in this place.

The moment she arrived here, she would have been treated as fish and meat. Her pride as an early-stage Mystic Immortal would have been utterly powerless here.

Staring blankly at the lifeless space, after a full incense stick's worth of time, Wen Zhixi slowly bent down and grasped Ding Huan's Reincarnation Spear in her hand.

She recalled the first time she met Ding Huan. She couldn't seem to remember what their first words had been, nor what she herself had said—only that she had traded for a Spirit-Communing Blue-Faced Fruit.

From childhood she had learned that a cultivator must stay calm, must keep her emotions steady.

But at this moment, for the first time, she couldn't stop the stinging at the tip of her nose.

There was no ancient road at dusk here, no farewell pavilion, no sunset filling the sky, no evening boat across the shore—only endless marshland and mottled immortal spiritual energy.

When many familiar people in her life left, she couldn't remember them. Yet when some people she'd only recently met departed, she found it hard to let go.

Perhaps that person she'd only recently met was the more important one in her life. He, just like her father back then, had also hurriedly left right in front of her…

Why did the people important to her always leave before she could properly say goodbye?

Without a proper farewell, how could she let go of the past?

She didn't know how much time had passed before Wen Zhixi finally wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes.

She didn't remember whether she had ever cried before, but when her father left, she hadn't cried. This time, she would never forget.

Leaning on the Reincarnation Spear, Wen Zhixi slowly made her way to the Nine Lun Seal. She stroked her father's former dharma treasure, and once again couldn't stop her eyes from reddening.

When her father left back then, it was the first snowfall. Father stepped into the wind of early winter, walked into the snow, and left her. He said that without mother, every day he lived was torment.

But today, she had seen her father's Nine Lun Seal here. He hadn't been able to save mother, and in the end he had walked together with mother again.

Perhaps for father, that was his best归宿.

(Fellow daoists, good night—please support with monthly votes!)