“Huh? Pure spiritual power? Didn’t I already notify the Demon Lord? Why is a righteous sect disciple here? Strange, I clearly sensed the power of a demonic cultivator’s disciple.
Did they actually lose to a little kid in the Qi Refining stage? No, no, no, maybe it’s just a coincidence…”
“Although there’s been a bit of an accident… oh well, this kid’s got great talent.
After I seize her body, I’ll just convert her to the demonic path.
Won’t take much effort.
But why is it a girl?”
A hazy gray shadow circled a few times below, hesitating about the gender of the person who’d fallen from the sky.
But he was sure that if he missed this chance, there wouldn’t be another.
Who knew when he’d run into someone again? Even if the gender wasn’t right, he’d just have to make do.
Once he figured this out, the gray shadow didn’t hesitate anymore and shot straight into Wen Jiayin’s head.
No one expected it, not even those demonic cultivators sent in as cannon fodder.
In the place where the secret treasure was hidden, someone had already set a trap.
Even if someone was lucky enough to get the treasure, in the end, they’d just be making wedding clothes for someone else.
And their Demon Lord knew all about it.
As Wen Jiayin was falling, she suddenly felt a sharp pain in her sea of consciousness, so intense she could barely control her body.
“Ah!!!” Wen Jiayin suddenly heard a miserable scream.
It wasn’t her own—she hadn’t even had time to cry out.
The voice was a man’s.
Wen Jiayin thought she was hallucinating from the pain.
How could there be a man’s voice out of nowhere?
“Thud!” Without warning, Wen Jiayin crashed hard onto the ground.
She thought she’d be in bad shape, but she didn’t feel any pain at all.
“That’s weird?” Wen Jiayin got up from the ground, confused, and touched her head.
It didn’t hurt anymore, as if the pain just now had been an illusion.
Something was off.
Wen Jiayin stomped her foot, feeling the solid ground beneath her.
It was real, but why didn’t it hurt when she fell? She was sure she hadn’t slowed her fall at all—she should’ve at least broken a bone from that height.
She released her spiritual sense again but didn’t detect anyone else.
Still, she was confident she hadn’t misjudged the demonic energy she’d sensed earlier.
Why had it disappeared? And what was with that scream just now? Was someone messing with her? This place was seriously weird.
What she didn’t know was that, if there were still a chance, a certain soul that had been torn to shreds would be dying to curse her out.
If he knew what Wen Jiayin was thinking, he’d definitely want to defend himself: He absolutely wasn’t joking! Damn it, how could this little girl have a soul even stronger than his? The moment they met, he was ripped to pieces, not even a chance to run!
Since she couldn’t sense any danger, Wen Jiayin could only split off part of her spiritual sense to explore this unfamiliar place.
The area she’d fallen into was shrouded in thick fog, even denser than above.
Her visibility had dropped from ten meters to about five, so she seriously doubted her ability to sense demonic energy was the problem.
More likely, the enemy was using the environment to hide, maybe waiting in the dark for her to let her guard down and ambush her!
Alone in a strange and dangerous place, it was easy to let her imagination run wild.
Wen Jiayin tended to invent imaginary enemies lurking in the shadows when she got nervous—probably a psychological shadow left by the Demon Subduing Hall.
In this kind of environment, she couldn’t help but be on guard against anything she couldn’t see.
Wen Jiayin used her spiritual sense to keep a 360-degree watch around herself.
That way, even if someone tried a sneak attack, she could react instantly.
Even if she couldn’t dodge completely in just five meters, at least she could avoid a fatal hit.
Staying on high alert, Wen Jiayin kept her spiritual sense running, but she was only a Qi Refining cultivator.
Maintaining her sense like this was exhausting, and even after she was tired out, no enemy appeared.
Wen Jiayin figured maybe the enemy in the dark was waiting for her to let her guard down.
She couldn’t relax.
With no sense of direction, she just wandered aimlessly.
The fog ahead got thicker and thicker, and the range her spiritual sense could penetrate shrank from five meters to even less.
Wen Jiayin felt she was probably getting close to the center of this foggy area—maybe the location of the secret treasure, and the goal of those demonic cultivators outside.
If she got it, she’d probably become everyone’s target, and the Demon Lord behind those demonic cultivators would definitely see her as a thorn in his side.
If he was petty, he might even send someone to kill her directly.
So would Wen Jiayin still take it? Of course she would! She had to! Not leaving a single bit behind! If the Demon Lord was willing to send people across borders at great risk for this treasure, it definitely wasn’t ordinary.
Fortune favors the bold, and besides, when had her Master ever been afraid of a Demon Lord? Any one of them was just cannon fodder! Having read the original story, Wen Jiayin was pretty confident in her Master’s strength.
The title of Sword Dao Supreme didn’t originally belong to Xinyun, but to a Demon Lord who was basically acknowledged as the number one among all Demon Lords.
But in the last great war between immortals and demons, he died at Xinyun’s hands, so the title naturally changed owners, and none of the Demon Lords dared mess with Xinyun after that.
Wen Jiayin fully embraced the idea of “fox borrowing the tiger’s might.” Oh well, it’s not her fault those Demon Lords didn’t have a good Master.
If they had the guts, they could go find her Master~
The more she thought about it, the more smug she got, practically floating as she walked.
But pride comes before a fall—she walked right into a tree with a “thud.”
“Ow!” Wen Jiayin clutched her head.
Only then did she realize visibility was almost zero—she could barely see anything at all.
Otherwise, she wouldn’t have crashed into a tree.
“Who the hell plants a tree right in the middle of the road?” Wen Jiayin grumbled, rubbing her forehead.
Her poor head had really been through a lot today.
But the “danger” wasn’t over yet.
Maybe thanks to her running into the tree, an unknown fruit fell from above.
Even though her sight and spiritual sense were basically useless, her battle-honed instincts kicked in.
When the thing came straight for her head, Wen Jiayin instinctively dodged and caught it in her hand.
“Almost got hit again.
Good thing I’m quick.
This fruit… actually looks pretty nice?”
The fruit in Wen Jiayin’s hand was as clear as glass, with a milky white liquid faintly swirling inside.
Huh? Wen Jiayin blinked.
How could she suddenly see the fruit in her hand so clearly?
She looked up, and the fog around her was dispersing at an incredible speed.
In no time, the thick white mist was completely gone.
All around was endless grassland, with only a single, massive ancient tree standing alone.
But right then, the ancient tree withered rapidly, soon leaving only a dried-up trunk, as if it would crumble to dust at the slightest touch.
Wen Jiayin looked at the empty grassland around her and felt like all her earlier vigilance had just been a battle of wits with thin air…
Good thing no one saw it.
She’d just pretend it never happened~ Wen Jiayin comforted herself and turned her attention back to the fruit in her hand.
She had no idea what this pretty spiritual fruit was, but when she glanced at it, she was shocked to see it had changed color! It had turned into a fiery shade, just like her spiritual root!
“Hey, hey, hey! Why is it melting?!” Wen Jiayin watched helplessly as the fruit melted in her hand, disappearing before she could even get a taste.
…Even Zhu Bajie got to eat the ginseng fruit! How come she didn’t even get a bite before it was gone?
——————
Above, as the fog cleared, Qu Wu’s facial muscles were twitching.
Clearly, this phenomenon meant the treasure had already been taken, so the fog protecting the Enlightenment Fruit naturally vanished.
This was bad! He just hoped that old guy below had some skills, and that he’d gotten the Enlightenment Fruit after seizing the body.
Otherwise, Demon Lord Chidi would go crazy and take it out on them!
“Fellow Daoist, why don’t you put down your sword and let’s talk this out?” Qu Wu touched his neck and, sure enough, his hand came away bloody.
He was heartbroken! Who knew how many Yin-fated virgins’ blood he’d used to cultivate this delicate skin, and now it was ruined with a single sword strike! Yin-fated virgins were hard to find, okay?
Bai Hansu refused to talk and stopped holding back, her sword intent nearly slicing Qu Wu’s neck.
Luckily, Qu Wu wasn’t an ordinary cultivator—he was at least a Body Integration expert—so he managed to dodge.
“So you’re a sword cultivator.
No wonder your zither playing was so off.
You can’t kill me, give it up.
If you don’t want Demon Lord Chidi to put a bounty on your head, you’d better listen to me.”
“I can cover up your presence, but you have to offer that girl who fell down to Demon Lord Jihun.
That way, we can redirect Demon Lord Chidi’s anger onto Demon Lord Jihun, and we’ll all be fine!”
“Clang!” An out-of-control sword strike split the ground with a deep crack.
Qu Wu suddenly shut up, because he realized something was off about the female cultivator in front of him.
“He’s worthy?”
A bloody light flashed in Bai Hansu’s eyes.
It was like she’d finally found one of the culprits from back then.
“You dare?!”
