Chapter 144: Cleaning Up the Sect

Taking advantage of the moment the two were trading blows, Ruan Xing ran in the other direction while secretly releasing Sword Lai from the wooden box, then let Sword Lai take the Number One little boy from the Storage Bag and hide.

Yet this small movement of hers was still seen by Qingyuan Daojun; he did not know what Ruan Xing had done, and with his cultivation, he did not need to take to heart anything this Golden Core Stage junior did. With a light wave of his hand, three sword lights struck over. The Sect Master flew over sideways to block two of them, but he was no match for Qingyuan Daojun; having just exchanged those few blows, he was already severely wounded, and fresh blood gushed out from the torn wounds all over his body.

As for Ruan Xing's cultivation, when the sword light hit her, with a *pop*, the magic robe Qintai He had given her burst into fragments, and her entire body flew out a long distance, crashing into the barrier set up outside the space-time rift.

Her whole body was covered in wounds, her clothes were in tatters, and she was almost unable to move.

Ruan Xing thought with grim humor, fortunately, she was using Qintai He's body at this time, otherwise, it would be her own body that had been exposed to everyone.

The violent impact caused the barrier to fluctuate, and the two Nascent Soul cultivators inside were also startled. The two looked at each other, hurriedly opened the barrier to come out, and saw this scene.

One person roared in shock and suspicion: "Why is your Xuanbing Sect making such a big scene here?"

"Can you not tell?" Qingyuan Daojun said: "This person violated the Sect's rules, and this Lord is cleaning up the sect; to avoid affecting the feelings between our three sects, the two of you should just watch."

Before his voice had faded, two more streaks of light quickly rushed into the barrier; they were Hall Master Xu and Peak Master Cheng.

When the two were about to approach the space-time rift, they suddenly attacked, casting a large net woven from golden threads, continuously forming seals with their hands, and chanting incantations.

"Not good! They want to seal the space-time rift!" The Hanhai Sect cultivator roared and was about to go over to stop them, but was blocked by Qingyuan Daojun.

He said indifferently: "In this Lord's view, it would be better for the two of you to stay where you are. If you take one more step forward, do not blame this Lord's sword for being blind."

The two dared to be angry but dared not speak; a Spirit Severing Daojun stood before them, and the pressure radiating from his body alone had already left the two drenched in sweat.

If they really wanted to fight him, it would be no different than throwing an egg against a rock; the Nanzhou Sect Master lying on the ground at death's door was a cautionary example.

After a while, the Jinxia Sect cultivator said: "This was originally a covenant between our three sects, yet the Daojun is wantonly destroying it. When we return to our sect and report to our Sect Master, we will definitely make your Xuanbing Sect give an explanation!"

"An explanation? Has it not already been given?" Qingyuan Daojun raised an eyebrow, his finger pointing at the Nanzhou Sect Master's position, "This person violated the sect rules and destroyed the covenant; this Lord came precisely for this."

Seeing Qingyuan Daojun spouting nonsense, the two were left speechless.

They had not heard the conversation between Qingyuan Daojun and the other person before the barrier opened.

But this explanation... the Xuanbing Sect used the life of a Nascent Soul True Monarch as a bargaining chip to trade for a Secret Realm; such a decisive and grand move—if this were business, this deal would have already made a massive profit. Yet their two sects combined did not have this foundation. The Xuanbing Sect had one hundred and eighty peaks, each with a Nascent Soul Stage Peak Master; sacrificing one was of no consequence to them, whereas for their own sects, having thirty or fifty Nascent Soul cultivators would already count as a period of peak prosperity.

If it were not for the fact that this place was within the territory of Nanzhou, located at the intersection of the Jinxia Sect and the Hanhai Sect... according to the rules, this Secret Realm should have been shared by the two sects, but because over a dozen Xuanbing Sect Foundation Establishment cultivators lost their lives passing through here, the Xuanbing Sect intervened as a matter of course, and now they even wanted to monopolize it!

"If the two of you are not satisfied, you can also do it yourselves; this Lord will absolutely not stop you," Qingyuan Daojun said leisurely.

In any case, he had already severely wounded the Nanzhou Sect Master; even if he were still alive now, it was nothing more than a final struggle. He was very willing to watch the other party gasp like an ant.

The two Nascent Soul cultivators were trembling slightly with anger, but neither moved.

Ruan Xing had already painstakingly taken a Healing Pill from her Storage Bag and swallowed it.

Qingyuan Daojun's indifferent eyes looked over, "And you, this little mouse."

He stretched out his hand as if wanting to use some Magic Art, but before he could use it, a heaven-shaking loud noise suddenly erupted! Boom—! This was the moment Ruan Xing had been waiting for; the Number One little boy was activated! But she herself was not immune to the damage of the Number One little boy; at such a close distance, Qingyuan Daojun might not necessarily be blown to death, but she herself would definitely lose her life. So, at the moment the explosion sounded, Ruan Xing felt a cold body cover her, and she unhesitatingly poured the last of the Spiritual Power in her body frantically into the key in her hand.

The Light Gate opened; Ruan Xing no longer had the strength to move, and Sword Lai hugged her and rolled, tumbling into the Light Gate.

Her wooden box had already been shattered by that sword light from Qingyuan Daojun, and her own Flying Sword did not know where it had been lost, but fortunately, the Storage Bag remained on her person and did not disappear along with the burst magic robe. The Healing Pill she had just taken out was still in her mouth, and at this moment, she bit it to pieces and swallowed it.

She could only see if she could survive the fall.

Sword Lai adjusted the angle of the fall, letting himself cushion Ruan Xing.

It is unknown how much time passed; when Ruan Xing woke up again, the sky was already turning dark.

Her whole body ached severely; there was still the aftertaste of the pill in her mouth, and her careful movements could not prevent a hiss of pain when she gasped.

Turning her head slightly, she saw Sword Lai squatting to the side, his small body curled up, his hands placed on his knees to cushion his chin, his one black and one white eye quietly watching her.

Her Illusion Technique had already failed, and she was draped in Sword Lai's snow-white outer robe.

Ruan Xing suddenly felt much more at ease.

"Sword Lai, how long have I been unconscious?"

Sword Lai thought for a moment, counted on his fingers, and counted out three.

Three hours... it had not yet exceeded a day.

She used her Spiritual Power to sort out the injuries in her body, then sat up with difficulty and said: "Now, the first thing is to find a closed house to hide from the Juelin Chong."

Sword Lai nodded, then helped her up, wanting to carry her on his back.

Right, the key.

Ruan Xing hurriedly searched her person and found that key in her bosom; it seemed it was not as fragile as she had imagined, and falling from the sky together had not caused it to shatter into pieces.

Only, unlike before, it was emitting a faint, dim light.

This was a new change.

Why? Ruan Xing pondered for a moment, then saw the bloodstains on the edge of the key...

No way, she was not of the Qintai Family bloodline; was her blood also useful?

A bit incredulous, Ruan Xing picked up the key and wiped the blood from her wounds onto it; the light on the key became brighter, one end a scorching white, the other an icy blue.

She reversed the direction of the key, and miraculously, the two different colored lights also reversed.

"So that is how it is used," Ruan Xing realized.

Only...

Which direction is the right one, damn it!

There was no instruction manual, and the two lights each pointed in different directions; how was she supposed to know which way to go? But fortunately, this key only had two ends, which helped her rule out the other two directions.

She thought about it; she had already been to the direction facing outside, an endless plain that was actually an abyss of traps everywhere; she could not see through the illusions there.

Then she could only head toward the inner direction to take a look.

Perhaps the center of this Juelin Zhidi contained the method to break the situation.

Sword Lai carried Ruan Xing on his back, walking with a limp; Ruan Xing only realized belatedly that Sword Lai's leg bone seemed to have been broken in the fall. It was just that he was a Puppet to begin with, and his soul was kept in the Ink Marrow, so he did not have much sensitivity to pain.

Repairing Sword Lai's body required Yin energy, and there was no Yin energy to be used in this Juelin Zhidi; Ruan Xing hesitated for a moment, but still said nothing.

A rustling sound arose; Sword Lai quickened his pace and finally found a house half-sunk into the ground. The two crawled in through a window, then used the stone bricks nearby to cover the window well.

"Let's rest for a while," Ruan Xing said.

This house half-sunk into the ground was cramped and narrow; the two were pressed tightly together, and leaning against Sword Lai's cold chest, she had not felt sleepy after being unconscious for three hours, but at this moment, she fell asleep without realizing it.

The sounds of Juelin Chong coming and going outside did not disturb her.

By the time she woke up again, she felt her body was much lighter and she could walk on her own.

The daylight was already bright; she pushed open the stone bricks blocking the window, and a thick layer of dust rushed toward her face. Ruan Xing hurriedly covered her mouth and nose with her sleeve.

She crawled out through the window and patted the dust off her body. The outer robe Ruan Xing was wearing was a bit loose, so she used a rope to tie it up slightly.

She took out the key to check the direction, and the two continued to move forward in the guided direction.

This walk lasted for two days and two nights.

The closer they walked, the thicker the dust on the ground became. Ruan Xing could not help but suspect that the central area was the nest where the Juelin Chong originated.

However, the light of the key grew brighter and the destination was almost reached. Ruan Xing could not let the efforts of these two days go to waste, so she could only bite the bullet and continue walking.

Until a heavenly pillar appeared in her line of sight.

The slender heavenly pillar stood vertically like a thread.

Ruan Xing hurriedly ran over; at this moment, she could no longer care about the pain in her body.

Only when she was closer did she see clearly that the heavenly pillar was truly an extremely thin thread. A circle of light spots surrounded it, making it look like a pillar, and at the base of the pillar was a large circle of things resembling an Array Disk, circling outward in rings. On every ring, mysterious Runes that one could not understand were carved.

It was just that this large area of the Array Disk was damaged in many places, losing its original radiance.

Ruan Xing walked over and squatted on the ground to compare it with the key.

That was right... the material of this key was exactly the same as the Array Disk. Could it be that Guangyou Xianjun had chipped off a piece of the Array Disk and carved it into a key?

This Array Disk was about the size of a basketball court, with many damaged and missing corners, and there were even some piled-up skeletons placed casually to the side.

Perhaps one of them was Qintai Gu's.

Ruan Xing could not help but feel encouraged. The inheritance of Guangyou Xianjun was close at hand, and she began to inspect the objects beside those skeletons.

However, when she stepped on a certain part of the Array Disk, light suddenly flared up beneath her feet. The key in her hand slipped out, merged with the Array Disk, and the originally abandoned Array Disk began to operate again.

Of course, it only operated in this small area.

This was enough to make Ruan Xing worry, but her feet felt as if they had been welded to the Array Disk, unable to move at all. Seeing this, Sword wanted to step forward, but was stopped by Ruan Xing with a look.

Soon, a phantom appeared in the light of the Array Disk, and a man in purple robes with a jade crown gradually emerged from the phantom.

The two looked at each other, silent for a long time.

Finally, the phantom spoke first. He coughed lightly, "My time is limited. Since you are holding the key, are you a junior of the Qintai Family? How did you let a Golden Core Stage cultivator come in? Do you not know how dangerous it is here?"

Ruan Xing hesitated for a moment, but still did not lie, "I am not a person of the Qintai Family. Disciple Ruan Xing, under the tutelage of Qinghong Zhenjun of the Xuanbing Sect."

The phantom was stunned, his expression showing a bit of nostalgia, "Qinghong... she has actually taken in a disciple."

Ruan Xing had seen the soul forms of the Demon Lord and the Xianzi, but the phantom before her was different from them; it seemed extremely flimsy. If it were not for the fact that there was no wind in the Juelin Zhidi, it would likely dissipate with a single gust.

This was also the reason why she was not very afraid. The phantom should pose no danger to her; it was only the Array Disk under her feet that had trapped her. But time was limited; once the Spiritual Power in the key was exhausted, the Array Disk would become ineffective.

The phantom even needed to borrow the Spiritual Power she input just to activate the Array Disk... how could it possibly have the ability to harm her?

Ruan Xing asked, "Are you my grandmaster?"

"Yes and no," the phantom said, "I am merely a wisp of Divine Soul left behind by Guangyou Xianjun, not Guangyou Xianjun himself. Why have you come?"

Ruan Xing thought for a moment before cautiously replying, "Qintai He, the child of Uncle-Master Qingping, is my senior brother. When we were interacting and playing together, we accidentally activated the key. I fell in, and remembering what my senior brother told me about the origin of the key, I thought that since I was already here, I would try to find it for him."

"So that is how it is," the phantom said slowly, "Then why are you unharmed?"

Ruan Xing was confused for a moment and hurriedly asked for guidance, only then understanding what the phantom meant.

The root cause still lay in the words Elder Wen had told her.

Forgetting that one is a Cultivator, losing the most important thing in life, and not being able to use the key until reaching the Spirit Severing stage were actually the same reason.

This space was very strange. Guangyou Xianjun had accidentally stumbled in once several hundred years ago. At that time, he had left behind a wisp of his Divine Soul here, which was how he managed to escape.

And after Qintai Gu and Qingping Xianzi were schemed against and brought to this place, the most important bond between the two was each other. Thus, in less than two days, they had exhausted themselves to the point of extreme weakness. Even though they later understood that forgetting each other was the only way to keep them alive for the time being, how could such a thing be controlled by oneself? Moreover, the two had no Spiritual Power to use and could only wait for death.

When Guangyou Xianjun found out, he immediately rushed to save his disciples, but both of them were not yet at the Transformation Stage and had never cultivated their Divine Soul, so they could not sever their mental attachments. Guangyou Xianjun had no choice but to harden his heart and kill Qintai Gu.

Once Qintai Gu died, his mental attachment vanished, and Qingping Xianzi survived. Guangyou Xianjun exhausted his own Divine Soul power to open the heavenly pillar and took Qingping Xianzi away.

No wonder Qingping Xianzi died of melancholy only a few years after leaving...

To have her lover die before her eyes, to have the person who killed him be her own master, and for that master to have also returned to the void after leaving...

With such heavy pressure on her shoulders, it was understandable that Qingping Xianzi could not bear it.

"So, you are the Divine Soul left behind by Guangyou Xianjun several hundred years ago?"

The phantom nodded, "Yes, but his obsession was too deep. I have not disappeared even after several hundred years. When he came in a second time, he entrusted me to keep Qintai Gu's remains well-preserved."

"Most Cultivators in the world value their own cultivation above all else, which is why he left behind that saying about forgetting one is a Cultivator. But I still do not understand, do you not have anything important in your heart?"

The phantom asked in confusion.

Thanks to Xiwang Liulang for the monthly ticket~ Thanks to the high school girl Zhou Yingting for the monthly ticket~ Thanks to book friend 20221023004510870 for the monthly ticket~ Thanks to Aizhizhi12345 for the monthly ticket~ Thanks to Gebeiliya for the monthly ticket~(End of this chapter)