Chapter 918: Instinctual Pleasure

At the edge of the Boundary Wall, a gale swirling sand and gravel tears countless fissures through heaven and earth; the twelve surviving disciples of the Golden Palace Sect huddle in a groove of the Broken Dragon Rock. Lin Qingli's Ice Silk forms a semi‑transparent barrier, but the gale scrapes spider‑web cracks into it. Yan Buji crouches on the rock's summit, twirling a compass, a faint smile tugging at his mouth—its needle points to a dead end deliberately bypassed three hours ago.

The Boundary Wall is the borderland of the Nine Heavens and Five Domains. Here perpetual natural calamities disrupt Qi, making it inhospitable to living beings; thus it is essentially a dead zone.

But since most cultivators travel the world seeking opportunities, venturing to other great realms is quite normal.

Because the Heavenly Spirit Realm exists, most cultivators can use it as a transit to other regions, but for Yan Buji and the like, that route is naturally unavailable.

"There's a Qi vortex thirty li to the northwest," Yan Buji suddenly flipped and leapt down, his boot crushing a disciple's trailing toe that hadn't been withdrawn, "If we can hold out until we get there…"

The disciple's scream is swallowed by the sandstorm!

Lin Qingli catches sight of blood droplets seeping from the disciple's severed finger; just as she is about to speak, the entire Broken Dragon Rock trembles, and countless semi‑transparent sand wraiths burst from the fissures.

These monsters, spawned by chaotic Qi currents, look like peeled infants, their claws emitting a broken‑spell violet light.

"Form the array!" Lin Qingli's Ice Silk shreds three sand wraiths, but she sees Yan Buji retreat to the array's focal point.

The guardian spirit seal that should have guarded the focal point hovers half a foot above his head, just as two sand wraiths swoop toward the weakest alchemical disciple.

After a fierce clash, the first wave of attack ends amid the scent of blood.

As seven corpses are dragged into the fissures by sand wraiths, Yan Buji is using the Swallow Desire Pot to collect the scattered resentful Qi.

Lin Qingli notices that this so‑called "accumulated Daoist" vaguely hints at practicing demonic arts, but his overwhelming strength makes her uneasy.

Half a month later.

At three quarters past the Rat hour, the Boundary Wall shimmers with a faint blue phosphorescence.

The five surviving disciples gasp back‑to‑back; the formation‑cultivating girl's silk skirt is soaked with blood between her legs, and when they just crossed the bone‑eroding mist, Yan Buji "accidentally" pushed her into the densest part of the fog.

Yan Buji pretends to rescue her in time, and Lin Qingli has little to say.

But it also gives him a view of the danger ahead.

"Ahead lies a White Worm nest," Yan Buji smiles, noting the guide's remnants, "Immortal Lin, please clear a path."

Lin Qingli's knuckles turn white as she grips her sword.

Three hours ago she saw with her own eyes that this man used a special secret technique, claiming to avoid a great danger, yet now he has entered the worm's lair.

But Lin Qingli dares not delay; as soon as her Ice Silk lays a three‑zhang frost path, a hundred half‑real, half‑illusory giant White Worms emerge from the ground.

These worms coil around spatial rifts, and wherever they pass, even sand and gravel are ground into dust.

"Watch the left!" the formation‑cultivating girl suddenly pushes Lin Qingli aside.

The moment a worm pierces her chest, Yan Buji's Sea‑Kun hammer strikes the worm's head. The splattered worm blood corrodes half of the girl's face, yet makes the hammerhead's ripples more crystal clear; he had already calculated the angle.

Lin Qingli's Ice Soul Sword stops half an inch behind Yan Buji's back.

When Yan Buji turns, she sees the calculation swirling in his pupils, colder than the worm's fangs: "Immortal, are you stunned by fear?"

Lin Qingli's face darkens as she helplessly says, "Senior, I didn't mean to."

"You'd better say it was an accident."

Before dawn on the third day, the last three disciples kneel by the Quicksand River.

The physically cultivated hulking man's right arm turns to bone, the elder symbol cultivator's life‑seal paper burns to ash, and the formation‑cultivating girl clutches a worm‑eaten cavity, gasping.

Lin Qingli's Ice Silk is reduced to half a length, Yan Buji's Asura armor is drenched in fresh blood, yet his complexion is far better than theirs.

"Cross this river and you'll enter Zhong Tian Zhi Yu." Yan Buji kicks a stone into the water; the stone shatters into dust before touching the surface, and he calls, "Who would like to test the depth?"

The formation‑cultivating girl suddenly leaps up, the broken formation disc hurling toward the man's face: "You knew the route! You're feeding us......"

The Abni Sword's thrust through the throat easily quashes the accusation!

Yan Buji shakes off the blood droplets from his blade and, in one motion, hurls the corpse into the river. Beneath the boiling quicksand, ten thousand wind‑scythe mantises rise; these monsters, condensed from the gale, instantly shred the body into a blood mist.

"Is this a face for you? Now you understand?" he laughs, stepping on the broken‑arm wound of the physically cultivated man, "Excuse me."

Lin Qingli's Ice Soul Sword finally moves.

The sword aura does not slash toward Yan Buji; instead it cleaves a three‑zhang swath across the river's surface. She had already condensed half of her life‑essence at the blade tip, and the icy path is just wide enough for one person. A flash of surprise passes through Yan Buji's eyes, then he bursts into laughter, pulling the symbol cultivator elder to shield himself.

"That should be enough now, senior?!"

"Hmph!"

Yan Buji stands among the few, and continues forward.

"Danger! Wind‑scythe mantises!"

The flapping of the wind‑scythe mantises drowns out the screams.

As Lin Qingli races along the icy path, she sees Yan Buji strolling leisurely through the blood mist.

Whenever a mantis draws near, he always snatches a disciple's mangled corpse at the right moment to block. His Asura armor, saturated with blood Qi, glows with a dark sheen, while the Swallow Desire Pot's newly captured resentful souls wail mournfully.

The Boundary Monument of Zhong Tian Zhi Yu stands at the far end of the mountain of corpses and sea of blood!

When the last wind‑scythe mantis is easily cut down by Yan Buji, the once massive party is reduced to just two.

"Immortal, don't be sad; crossing the Boundary Wall is perilously dangerous, surviving is all that matters," Yan Buji says with a smile.

Lin Qingli holds a Memory Stone in her palm, "From the Golden Palace Sect disciples' first ambush to Brother Wang's dismemberment just now...,"

In the scenes reflected by the Memory Stone, Yan Buji's deft guidance appears before every lethal crisis.

Lin Qingli vomits black blood, eyes wide, "You're still poisoning me?!"

"This is merely the foundation of guaranteeing trust; you have no choice." Yan Buji says calmly, "Otherwise I could have simply killed you and been done with it. If it weren't for those guys in the West Sand River Basin who went too far, would you think I'd bother with this?"

"Sounds nice, but what exactly is your goal?!"

"The Boundary Wall opens once every three years," Yan Buji says nothing more.

"Immortal, you should learn to remember..." As the hammer head shatters the Boundary Monument's seal, he turns back, flashing a grim white grin: "Don't attempt deeds beyond your strength, especially in front of me."

When the erupting teleportation array of the inscription engulfs Yan Buji's figure, the mangled bodies of the last three disciples are simultaneously torn apart by wind‑scythe mantises.

Lin Qingli kneels in the pool of blood, watching the restriction sigil that appears in her palm as Yan Buji enters Zhong Tian Zhi Yu; it turns out that before crossing the Boundary Wall, her spirit had already been implanted with a tracking mark.

Amid the distant cries of newly born sand wraiths, she finally comprehends the smile that has always lingered on the man's lips.

That is not the mask of a hypocrite, but the instinctual pleasure of a demon reveling in blood.