Chapter 909: Midsky War

"Now I can speak." Yan Buji put away the Buddha Lotus, his gaze sweeping over her clenched crossbow bolt: "Why are the cultivators of Daxiong City hunting the girl??"

Lin Qingli coughed violently, and the frothy blood she spat out contained fragments of internal organs.

She trembled as she retrieved the Memory Pearl, and the image of spiritual energy activation made Yan Buji's pupils contract slightly.

In the gloomy cavern, tens of thousands of craftsmen were assembling spiritual fire guns.

The barrels that should have been forged from mysterious iron were actually mixed with some writhing flesh; even more horrifying, at the end of the assembly line, the muzzle of the completed spiritual cannon was inlaid with a demon beast's inner core, and the workshop supervisor... was clearly Zhou Huayin, who abruptly stopped.

Yan Buji suddenly seized her waist and thrust back a hundred zhang, and nine bone dragons erupted from the ground where they had stood.

Amid the sky‑filled sand storm, four auras, each several times stronger than before, materialized, and the leader was none other than Si Tu Lie, the Deputy City Lord who should have been stationed in Daxiong City!

"Fellow cultivator, why meddle in idle matters?" Si Tu Lie stood on a bone‑dragon skull, twirling two Memory Pearls in his hand: "Hand this woman and her memories to me, and Daxiong City will offer......"

He suddenly let out a muffled hum and thrust back, and the Heart‑protecting Mirror on his chest shattered into fragments.

Yan Buji, at an unknown moment, appeared behind him, his silvery dust thread piercing his dantian, his fingertips clutching those two Memory Pearls.

"Blood sacrifice to birth souls, colluding with the demon race." Yan Buji's warm voice was now as cold as ice: "You claim Daxiong City is a pure land under the Buddhist sect, yet you have turned demonic methods into a new trick."

Si Tu Lie cackled wildly, and his shattered body suddenly swelled: "Then go to your death!"

When the self‑exploding spiritual light engulfed heaven and earth, Lin Qingli felt herself pulled into a warm embrace.

The final scene she saw was Yan Buji's Daoist robe billowing, woven needles flying from his sleeve, following his spatial shift to evade the blast! The demon race, their bodies entwined with demonic aura!

"Two years ago, a new type of spiritual machinery appeared on the Zhong Tian Realm battlefield." Lin Qingli's voice was hoarse: "Upon examination, those spiritual spears siphon the user's essence blood, and the spiritual cannon does not fire spiritual energy projectiles at all, but compressed demon toxin."

She raised that crossbow bolt, "I, as a junior, infiltrated Daxiong Armaments and discovered they were using live humans for testing......"

Not long after.

The nameless oasis eight thousand li southeast of Daxiong City, its poplar forest eroded by the Black Sand Storm, left only charred branches twisted toward the sky.

Beside a murky crescent‑shaped spring, a bonfire burned quietly within a formation barrier, filtering the howling wind‑sand outside into a low moan. Lin Qingli leaned against a half‑dead tree trunk, watching Yan Buji on the opposite side skewer sand lizard meat with a peachwood sword—the sacred sword that had slain a refining‑void cultivator just two hours earlier, now sizzling with oil.

"Senior, why did you save me?" she finally broke the silence, her fingers unconsciously rubbing the Memory Pearl in her sleeve.

The reflected firelight on the spring danced across the Daoist's face, hiding the blood‑tinged glint in his eyes within shadow.

Yan Buji turned the roast, oil droplets hitting the fire and sparking: "Girl, do you know the habits of this sand lizard?" Without waiting for an answer, he continued on his own:

"Whenever a Black Sand Storm arrives, they swallow their young into their bellies to hide, then spit them out after the disaster passes; it seems cruel, but it is a means of survival."

Lin Qingli frowned, about to speak, but the roast handed to her interrupted.

The charred aroma mixed with a certain herbal scent pierced her nostrils, and she realized the lingering bone‑eroding toxin inside her was dissipating.

"Eat it, it's mixed with antidote," the Daoist said, wiping his peachwood sword: "After you finish, tell me about the Zhong Tian Realm."

As Lin Qingli bit into the roast, Yan Buji's fingertip lightly brushed the Mingmen on her wrist.

This seemingly casual move made her body tense; the moment her Mingmen was restrained, she could not even trigger a self‑exploding primordial spirit!

"Three months ago, at the Zhong Tian Zhi Yu Demon‑Subduing Pass," she swallowed the herb‑scented meat, her voice hoarse: "I was on duty at the patrol camp, and that day was just an ordinary guard rotation day......"

The bonfire suddenly twisted into a light screen, projecting the scene from her memory:

Outside the misty dawn of the stronghold, three hundred new‑type spiritual cannons were test‑firing.

These war machines bearing the inscription "Daxiong Armaments" are the latest equipment specially approved by the Immortal Alliance for the front lines, assembled by the major forces of Zhong Tian Zhi Yu to oppose the demon race.

The instant the command flag was waved, the crossbow‑cart formation suddenly reversed direction, and poisoned mysterious‑iron crossbow bolts rained like droplets into the camp within the pass!

"That's not ordinary poison," Lin Qingli pinched the tip of her finger into her palm: "The comrades hit by the arrows......"

In the vision, a young cultivator in the Foundation Establishment Stage clutched a shoulder arrow wound, wailing, while countless flesh tumors bulged under his skin.

After only three breaths, the whole body exploded into a blood mist, and from the blood rain rose a half‑man half‑scorpion monster. Outside the pass, an earth‑shaking demon howl rang out, and a hundred thousand demon beasts seized the chance to launch a full assault.

"It's the demon race's bloodline contamination," Yan Buji interjected suddenly, his peachwood sword drawing strange sigils on the ground: "Refining the essence blood of an ancient great demon into demon toxin, combined with soul‑devouring gu......"

"Senior, how do you know......"

"Just guessed." Yan Buji smiled, cutting in, "Continue."

Lin Qingli inhaled deeply, and the light screen shifted to a midnight military aircraft hall.

The Demon‑Subduing Pass commander, his body swathed in bandages, pointed a severed‑arm finger at the blood‑colored arrow on the sand table: "Three months, we lost twelve fortresses! Those spiritual machines are not aid; they are poisonous tumors the demon race sent in!"

She produced a Memory Pearl, infused it with spiritual energy, and the new scene made Ji Shan's pupils contract: In the breached Feiyun City, surviving civilians formed a long queue to receive "anti‑demon pills".

And the Immortal Alliance cultivator handing out the pills had, faintly on his sleeve, the same ghost‑face tattoo as today's pursuer.

"We found this among the corpses," Lin Qingli said, pulling out a half‑piece of bronze waist badge: "The ghost‑faced man who chased me has a complete one on him."

Yan Buji took the badge, his fingertip brushing the broken character "Xun": "The Immortal Alliance's token? Interesting."

He suddenly crushed the badge, and a wisp of black vapor rose from the powder, vaguely forming the silhouette of a nine‑headed demon bird.

"Nine Phoenix!" Lin Qingli sprang up, "The true totem under the Demon Emperor!"

The surface of the Crescent Moon Spring rippled suddenly.

Three copper coins flew from Yan Buji's sleeve, forming a small expansion formation in the air. Only then did Lin Qingli notice that the charred poplar trunks around them were suddenly swarming with blood‑red ants.

"Spirit‑devouring blood ants." Yan Buji snapped his fingers, igniting the talisman paper: "They come drawn by the scent of blood."

The eerie blue flame spread along the formation, turning the ant swarm to ash.

Lin Qingli watched the falling ash and suddenly recalled a battlefield detail: "Those spiritual cannons... when they fire, the barrel seeps a similar blood plasma."

Ji Shan's motion of wiping the peachwood sword paused slightly: "Explain in detail."

"Last month at the Sunset Valley ambush," her voice trembled, "we captured two spiritual cannons, but during disassembly......"

In the memory, the mysterious‑iron forged barrel suddenly convulsed violently.

The accompanying alchemist sliced open the casing, and viscous flesh and blood gushed out, wrapping three Nascent Soul Cultivators into blood cocoons. When the crowd cut open the cocoons, only three dry corpses remained, and the inner wall of the barrel startlingly displayed vein‑like patterns.

"It's like feeding some living thing," Yan Buji suddenly pointed both fingers, slashing his left palm and dripping blood onto the peachwood sword. The veins appearing on the blade were about seventy percent similar to the patterns on the cannon's inner wall!

Cold sweat broke out behind Lin Qingli: "Senior, this is......"

"Just a little trick." Yan Buji flicked away the blood droplet, and the wound healed instantly: "Now continue, how did you locate the West Sand River Basin?"

"It was Brother Wei, using the Great Expansion Technique to extrapolate the heavenly mechanism," she took out a half piece of turtle shell: "The hexagram he carved before his death pointed to the West Sand River Basin, but......"

Yan Buji took the turtle shell, on which a broken Eight Trigrams diagram was carved in blood.

He lightly brushed his fingertip over the water position, and the hidden lines appeared, forming a ferocious dragon head pattern.

"The Prison Ox bears the stele." He whispered, "Now I understand."

Lin Qingli was about to ask when suddenly camel bell sounds came from afar. The two exchanged a glance and simultaneously formed hand seals to conceal their figures.