Chapter 46

"Get back!" Dongfangxiu's face changed, and he shouted loudly.

The three of them quickly retreated backward, but what they didn't expect was that the formation pattern under their feet kept expanding.

Until——

It enveloped the entire forest within the formation.

Dongfangxiu scanned his surroundings, but soon the scene before his eyes was replaced by another scene.

It's an illusion!

At the same time, Man Yue and Fu Qianli also fell into the illusion!

Yuan Yao, having expended too much spiritual power casting the formation, grew paler beneath her mask.

She turned her gaze to the dozens of cultivators also trapped in the illusion formation.

Among them, ten cultivators' Awakening Value had already reached 50.

She must strive to quickly have the remaining cultivators complete their awakening.

Otherwise, by the time Dongfangxiu and the others break the illusion formation, it will be too late.

But she hadn't expected that Dongfangxiu and the others would be even stronger than she imagined.

Dongfangxiu took the heavy sword from his back, removed the cloth wrapping to reveal the black-gold heavy sword, and immediately drew it.

He raised the sword and struck!

Boom—

With a blast, the illusion formation shattered like broken glass in an instant, exploding violently.

Yuan Yao instantly suffered a backlash, blood welling from the corner of her mouth.

At the same moment, Dongfangxiu moved and slashed toward Yuan Yao.

Yuan Yao's face changed in alarm; she quickly summoned her Phantom Spirit Sword to block.

Clang—

The two sword qi violently collided, causing the surrounding trees to tremble violently; Yuan Yao could not withstand the attack, was flung backward, and slammed hard against a tree trunk.

The wound on her back tore open again, blood seeping out.

Intense pain struck, making her break out in a cold sweat and her lips instantly lose color.

Her mask, too, cracked from the opponent's sword qi with a clang, shattering and falling to the ground.

Her face was fully exposed to everyone present.

In the crowd, a middle-aged cultivator with a ferocious expression pointed at Yuan Yao and cursed: "It's you! How dare a little girl force us to repent! What right do you have to make us repent?!"

"Make us reflect, huh? Why don't you reflect on yourself?" another cultivator swore.

"Kill her!"

"Kill her!"

The crowd instantly erupted, and those whose Awakening Value had not yet reached 50 saw it drop again, all the way back to zero.

A series of system notifications sounded in Yuan Yao's sea of consciousness.

【Target person Yang Jiang, Awakening Value dropped to 0. Target person certain, Awakening Value dropped to 0……】

The speed of the Awakening Value decline was so rapid that Yuan Yao hadn't anticipated it.

At that moment, several cultivators were already attacking toward Yuan Yao.

Yuan Yao's expression shifted slightly; she forced herself to stand, raising her sword to block their attacks.

But as more cultivators swarmed her, she began to be overwhelmed.

They truly wanted to put her to death!

Yuan Yao's wounds multiplied, blood nearly dyeing her white robes completely red.

Seeing this, Man Yue frowned deeply, unable to bear it, and spoke: "Enough!"

But her words had no effect; this crowd had already gone berserk.

Man Yue could no longer watch; as she tried to go save Yuan Yao, she saw a bright yellow talisman suddenly appear on Yuan Yao's left hand!

"A high-grade talisman!" Fu Qianli's expression changed slightly; he hadn't expected this girl to possess a high-grade talisman.

Yuan Yao lifted her blood-soaked face and, without hesitation, threw the high-grade talisman!

"Dodge quickly!" everyone exclaimed in shock.

Yuan Yao, enduring her pain and weakness, retreated as fast as she could; at the same time, the high-grade talisman exploded rapidly.

Boom!

With a thunderous roar, the cultivators were either killed outright or severely wounded, nine managing to escape unscathed by luck.

Yuan Yao herself was flung to the ground by the blast's shockwave, coughing up a mouthful of blood.

She tried to rise, but could not get to her feet.

At that moment, the nine unharmed cultivators saw the situation, their expressions shifting; they exchanged glances, then fixed a ruthless gaze on Yuan Yao.

They immediately charged toward the fallen Yuan Yao.

Man Yue also hadn't expected things to turn out this way; she was about to intervene—

Suddenly, a terrifying pressure spread across the sky and earth.

Dongfangxiu and Fu Qianli's hearts jolted; they simultaneously lifted their heads, locking their gazes on a point not far ahead.

There, a figure approached like a ghost, its speed almost beyond imagination!

As the dark shadow drew nearer, Dongfangxiu and Fu Qianli saw that his hair bore a rare pinkish-white hue, strikingly conspicuous.

In the Ninth Province, only one person has such hair color!

"Xue Jin!" Fu Qianli immediately recognized him.

Upon hearing Fu Qianli's words, Yuan Yao also turned her head in that direction at once.

The nine people who were just about to attack Yuan Yao were suddenly slashed by an extremely ferocious sword qi.

Boom—

All nine were flung to the ground, and the cultivator with slightly lower cultivation immediately stopped breathing.

The sword's humming stopped.

The youth walked over, his pinkish-white hair half-tied behind his head, a face so beautiful it was hard to tell gender, bearing a gloomy hue, his whole body exuding a cold aura.

He didn't even glance at Man Yue and the two others, directly crouching down, gazing at the wounded Yuan Yao, his eyes growing darker.

"I thought I was mistaken."

Yuan Yao saw the familiar person before her, her lips twitched as if she were desperately suppressing her emotions, but two seconds later she let out a 'waa' and cried out: "Xue Jin, it hurts so much, wuu wuu wuu…"

She still thought everything in the cultivation world was too simple.

She thought that as long as she confined these target individuals and let them reflect, they would awaken, and then she could complete the conquest.

But she still overlooked human nature.

Xue Jin didn't say a word, but took out the highest-grade Healing Wound Pill from his storage space and brought it to her lips.

Yuan Yao was just about to reach out to take it.

"Dirty." Xue Jin said.

Yuan Yao looked at her blood-soaked hands and cried even more sorrowfully.

Just then, Xue Jin directly flicked the pill into her mouth, then turned his back to Yuan Yao and said, "Come up."

Yuan Yao struggled to hold back her tears, then painfully climbed onto his back, the blood on her body staining his white robes red.

Although the youth was only sixteen years old, his stature was already extremely tall; he lifted Yuan Yao onto his back, just as he used to carry her when climbing the heavenly ladder as a child.

Xue Jin looked at the surviving cultivators; his narrow eyes held not a trace of warmth.

Those cultivators obviously recognized him as well, one part wondering who Yuan Yao was, the other part turning and fleeing in fear.

"Was it them who hurt you?" Xue Jin said, while faintly feeling that the girl's breathing was much weaker than before.

After climbing onto Xue Jin's back, Yuan Yao could no longer hold on and fell into a faint.

Xue Jin noticed that she had fainted, and he pressed his lips together.

He lifted his gaze to the cultivators who were fleeing.

The youth's eyes were icy, and he slowly uttered a sentence from his lips.

"Nine-headed Infant, kill them."