Chapter 353: Chapter 70 The Reinforcements from Shushan Arrived!
The massive poisonous serpent collapsed thunderously, its venomous blood dyeing the surrounding pond a murky yellow-green.
Standing atop the water, the mad Sword Immortal sheathed his sword with arrogant ease, and spoke dismissively,
“That was nothing! If my junior brother’s Seven Kills swordsmanship can kill, why can’t my Ziyuan swordsmanship?”
He surveyed his surroundings with a haughty gaze, only to realize there was not a single onlooker. He soon sank into a brief spell of dejection, before slipping into a hazy, foolish stupor and muttered to himself,
“No, it’s impossible… My Ziyuan swordsmanship cannot be weaker than any other…”
With just a few steps, the mad Sword Immortal disappeared into the distance of the swamp.
Time passed, though for how long no one could tell, before Ling Yunpo and An Zhisu suddenly burst forth from the surface of the water.
The two of them quickly scanned their surroundings, and apart from the serpent’s corpse, they saw no other living creature.
“As expected,” Ling Yunpo said with a smile. “Knowing that its lair was directly below and having nowhere to escape, the serpent had no choice but to fight a battle to the death with our elder… We’re lucky this time, having picked such an excellent spot.”
“Indeed,” An Zhisu also said with a beaming smile.
“Let’s make a run for it now before our elder comes back,” Ling Yunpo proposed escaping without a change in his expression.
“Alright,” An Zhisu naturally had no objections.
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Just as they were about to take flight with their swords, the mad Sword Immortal appeared out of nowhere in the distance, rushing towards them at great speed, cackling madly,
“Did you think I would foolishly leave? Wrong! I’ve been loitering around here, just waiting for you two to fall right into my trap!”
Ling Yunpo and An Zhisu exchanged a glance, then simultaneously flickered, vanishing on the spot and instantly reappearing far away.
The mad Sword Immortal: ???
By the time he came to his senses, so furious that he was nearly beside himself, he let out a furious roar and hurriedly pursued them with his swift steps.
At the edge of the swamp, Ah Ling suddenly exclaimed,
“Oh no, they’re heading our way!”
“Then let’s also run!” Jiang Liyan immediately said.
“Right.” Ah Ling quickly ceased her spell and, with a reverse grip, grabbed Jiang Liyan’s arm, and the two dashed off together.
Just outside the swamp was a forest of towering trees. As the two girls burrowed into the woods, Ah Ling let out another cry of alarm,
“Someone has entered the secret realm! The puppet I placed there has been destroyed!”
“Who?” Jiang Liyan asked warily.
“I don’t know!” Ah Ling was almost sweating bullets, “Their cultivation level is immeasurably deep!”
“It’s probably the backup from the Shushan Sword Immortals who got away earlier, brought over from Shushan afterward,” Jiang the Witch complained as she ran alongside her. “I knew it! Listening to you and letting those two go was bound to backfire!”
“I wasn’t being soft-hearted!” Ah Ling countered, “Did you have the confidence to keep those two against their will?”
Jiang the Witch found herself at a loss for words and after a long pause, said,
“If my Lord Wei Dongliu were here, he would have killed them within minutes!”
“If you could have brought Wei Dongliu over, why would we need to rely on the poisonous serpent and the mad Sword Immortal? Wouldn’t it have been better to just directly eliminate those potential seeds on the Shushan Sword Immortal list?” retorted Lady Ah Ling coldly.
Jiang the Witch grumbled under her breath for a moment before saying,
“Forget it, the mature Spirit Grass in this secret realm has already been harvested by our sect anyway. Exposing it to Shushan doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Your Heavenly Demon Path is really generous,” Ah Ling said with a mix of sarcasm and sincerity. “To just hand over such a secret realm to Shushan outright?”
“You saw it yourself. The plan was to ambush a few potential Shushan disciples and extract the last bit of value from the place,” Jiang Liyan said, spreading her hands. “It can’t be helped if we didn’t succeed.”
“Won’t your sect hold you accountable?” inquired Ah Ling.
“Everybody from Shushan has mobilized their powers; what else can we do but flee?” Jiang the Witch argued with righteous indignation.
In the midst of the swamp, Ling Yunpo and An Zhisu were escaping on flying swords.
If the crazed Sword Immortal caught up, Ling Yunpo would use Green Mist Veil Over the Mountains to first trap the Sword Immortal’s vision and Divine Sense; then, the two of them would quickly escape using the Cloud-Parting Eight Trigrams Step.
After breaking free from their pursuer’s range, they would immediately switch to flying on their swords.
However, no matter how far they fled, the freed crazed Sword Immortal would quickly catch up.
Seeing that Senior Sister An was about to succumb to poison again, Ling Yunpo hardened his heart and decided to abruptly stop and turn around, planning to surprise their pursuer with a powerful strike.
Suddenly, a furious shout came from afar:
“Miscreant!”
Before the shout had faded, sword light arrived first, pinning the crazed Sword Immortal to the ground instantaneously.
Ling Yunpo looked on in astonishment only to see a multitude of magnificent sword lights cutting through the poisonous mist as easily as a knife slicing through silk, reaching him from the horizon in an instant.
More than a dozen high-rank Shushan elders had arrived; at the forefront were two individuals, one was the Jade Capital Sect Leader and the other was the Long Eyebrow Immortal.
The sword light that had subdued the crazed Sword Immortal belonged to the Dual Polarity Dust Sword of the Long Eyebrow Immortal.
The Jade Capital Sect Leader landed first, his sword light touching down, and cast a warning glance at Ling Yunpo and An Zhisu, signaling them to quickly move to the back.
The Long Eyebrow Immortal, however, did not even glance at the two, but quickly approached the crazed Sword Immortal and said in a deep voice:
“Dao Ye, what has happened to you?”
The crazed Sword Immortal looked up at his master blankly and suddenly began to weep bitterly. Regardless of his body being pierced by the Dual Polarity Dust Sword, he desperately kowtowed, sobbing:
“Master! Your disciple has let you down. I was defeated by Junior Brother Su Jian in swordsmanship, failing to live up to your expectations and trust…”
He had only knocked his head a few times before Long Eyebrow Immortal immobilized his body; however, his forehead was already a bloody and mangled mess.
Long Eyebrow Immortal had already detected that something was not right with him. He raised two fingers, aiming for the crazed Sword Immortal’s brow.
After a moment, his expression suddenly turned dark as he said:
“Lost in spirit, succumbed to deviation; of his three souls and seven spirits, only one soul and one spirit remain, the rest seized by a Heavenly Demon!”
The surrounding Shushan elders turned pale upon hearing this.
If there’s anything high-rank cultivators dread the most, it’s probably the Heavenly Tribulation in first place, but Heart Demons definitely come second.
These Heart Demons aren’t the weak Heavenly Demons summoned by the Demonic Path using sacrifices. They are profound Heavenly Demons from beyond our domain, who have cultivated the Seven Emotions and Six Desires to enlightenment, able to traverse the Heavenly Dome and descend into this world, seeking out cultivators with cracks in their Daoist Hearts to inhabit.
Once a cultivator, for any reason, becomes lost in spirit, the Heart Demon will immediately emerge, devouring the host’s soul, vital energy, and blood, leaving behind only an empty husk—what cultivators dread above all else, known as deviation.
Hearing Long Eyebrow Immortal’s verdict, everyone realized that Dao Ye True Person had suffered cracks in his Daoist Heart due to his first defeat by Qi Sha True Person Su Jian in a sword duel, resulting in his inadvertent fall to a Heart Demon, eventually deviating and losing two souls and six spirits…
The prospect of the erstwhile Shushan talent declining to such a state elicited deep sighs of regret from all present.
Long Eyebrow Immortal’s face was as still as water, and as the Dual Polarity Dust Sword rotated again, it dismembered the delirious Dao Ye True Person.
His remaining solitary soul and spirit emerged from the body, and Long Eyebrow Immortal once more sent forth a blast of immortal energy, solidifying the soul. Dao Ye True Person’s vague visage from his living days appeared, paying a distant bow to the crowd in the air, before quickly spiraling upward and fading away.
Ling Yunpo, hiding in the crowd, watched and realized that Dao Ye True Person’s soul was being sent by Long Eyebrow Immortal to reincarnate.
However, with only one soul and one spirit left, even with Long Eyebrow Immortal’s immortal energy protection, his next life would be that of an intellectually disabled child, requiring at least nine cycles of reincarnation to return to normal.
The path of cultivation is not only full of hardships and dangers, but also lies against immense peril. A single misstep can spell utter spiritual annihilation.
As Ling Yunpo was lost in his reflections, he saw Long Eyebrow Immortal suddenly turn his head and glance over in this direction.
He wasn’t looking at himself, but rather at Senior Sister An beside him.
What made him feel even more uneasy was that there was neither warmth nor kindness in that gaze.