The girl bit down, then her jaw froze halfway through.
She frowned and lowered her head, looking at the still-beating heart that smelled unbelievably delicious. A deep, neat row of teeth marks showed on its surface, blood seeping out. The heart not only shone with the five-colored radiance of Five Elements spiritual power, it also gleamed with the metallic luster of Da Luo Scarlet Gold.
Regret flashed across her face, then instantly turned to disgust. She tossed the heart back at Bao Gu, obviously嫌弃—disliking—the Da Luo Scarlet Gold fused into Bao Gu’s heart for being too hard on her teeth.
Bao Gu caught her own heart by reflex.
Only then did she snap out of it. She rushed to mobilize the spiritual power in her body, sealing the main blood vessels that connected to her heart, and then started shoving the healing pills the Demon Saint had refined for her into her mouth like they were free.
The hand holding her heart was soaked in blood, yet she had no idea what she was supposed to do with it. The correct procedure would be to stuff it back into her chest while it was still alive and quickly stitch it in place… but right now, where was she supposed to find the time to sew a heart back in?
If she didn’t return it to her chest, the blood in her body wouldn’t be able to circulate. Even with spiritual power barely sustaining her life force, she wouldn’t last an hour.
Her thoughts spun; there was no room to hesitate. She tossed the heart into her oversized storage bag, pulled out a jade box used to store spiritual treasures and rare pills, and sealed the heart inside.
Spiritual treasures and rare medicines were priceless. To keep their medicinal power from dissipating, they were usually sealed in special jade boxes that could maintain vitality as soon as they were picked. Having studied alchemy under Saint Aunt, Bao Gu had handled countless spiritual treasures; if there was one thing she didn’t lack, it was these jade boxes.
In the span of a single breath, Bao Gu had secured her own heart.
But her injuries were far too grave. When her heart had been ripped out, the pressure had forced a huge amount of blood to gush out. Even now, with her main arteries sealed, the severity of the wound left blood still pouring from her chest, foam and blood bubbling desperately at the corners of her lips.
She was covered in life-saving artifacts; even a full-force strike from a Void Tearing stage cultivator might not have been able to harm her. Yet this girl had reached out with a single claw, tore out her heart, and shattered all her defensive artifacts in one go!
The distant cultivators were stunned by what they saw.
First there was the dense, mighty aura rolling off the Five Elements Immortal Stones fixed in the air, forming a grand array. Then there was the Xuantian Sword, pinned at the formation core. And then, the sight of Bao Gu’s heart being ripped out in a single grab…
They didn’t recognize the Five Elements Immortal Stones, but the Xuantian Sword and the Cleaver Commander were names like thunder in their ears.
The Cleaver Commander was known for her mastery of arrays, but her combat power was hardly weak. A full-strength strike from her could instantly kill a Void Tearing stage cultivator—yet now she had not even managed to put up a guard, and her heart had been casually scooped out as if it were nothing.
Several li away, Jing Xiu and her group were even more dumbfounded.
The Cleaver Commander had her heart ripped out right before their eyes. How was that acceptable?!
Jing Xiu flicked out a command arrow toward the sky.
While still in midair, the arrow burst apart in a blast of multicolored light, forming the unique symbol of the Cleaver Gang. Five-colored brilliance spread out, a top-level emergency signal—“ten fires urgent”—that could cover several hundred li in every direction. Anyone who saw it was required to rush to provide aid immediately.
Jing Xiu could tell that naked girl was ferocious beyond reason. With the array shrouding the area, they couldn’t get close. She made a decisive call.
“Get the camp warship over here now! Open a domain gate back to Shadowghost City! Move!”
The girl didn’t spare the surrounding commotion a single thought. She fixed her gaze on Bao Gu.
“Where is she?”
Bao Gu let out a cold laugh.
“You want to know? Fine. First, let go of the woman you captured earlier—the one who’s cultivated Nanming Lihuo.”
The girl frowned again, and without another word, lifted her palm and struck at Bao Gu.
Her speed was terrifying.
This time, Bao Gu’s reaction wasn’t slow either.
A Five Elements Immortal Stone moved in front of her.
At the same time, the Xuantian Sword flew back and landed in Bao Gu’s hand.
The girl’s palm slammed into the Five Elements Immortal Stone that had come crashing toward her.
Not only did the stone fail to block her, it was sent flying back by that single slap, hurtling straight toward Bao Gu.
Bao Gu didn’t dare touch it head-on. She used her Void Shadow Escape art, vanishing in a flash.
She had just slipped into the void when the girl raised her hand and tore the void open, grabbing toward Bao Gu. Her claw descended, about to close around Bao Gu. Her fingers clenched, but Bao Gu’s figure turned illusory and vanished from her grasp, reappearing in the greater world, falling just outside the array.
The girl took a step. With a casual lift of her leg, she crossed the distance and appeared beside Bao Gu, hand reaching straight for Bao Gu’s collar.
A shout, sharp and urgent, rang out.
“Protect the Commander!”
Jing Xiu had already drawn her bow. She loosed an arrow straight at the girl. A genuine God Transformation–grade artifact, the arrow flew true and nailed the back of the girl’s hand.
It hit a layer of protective force on the girl’s body and went no farther—not even touching her skin—before it shattered to dust under the backlash.
The girl caught Bao Gu by the collar and hauled her backward.
Bao Gu lunged forward with all her strength. Her already-damaged robes gave a loud rip; a great swath of fabric tore away from her back, exposing the inner garment beneath.
In all her years in the cultivation world, Bao Gu had never been this wretched. On top of that, Yu Mi was in this girl’s hands. A stomach full of fury and humiliation was boiling in her chest.
After being battered again and again, her eyes were practically spitting fire.
She did not run.
She swung the Xuantian Sword up and hacked at the girl.
The sword art she had comprehended from the Xuantian Sword burst forth. Streams of sword light flowed; shadows of blades layered upon one another, falling on the girl in an unending storm like madly blooming flowers and dancing butterflies.
Seeing Bao Gu go all out, Jing Xiu nearly lost her soul in fright.
“Commander, go through the domain gate!”
The warship docked near the camp had already arrived. Cleaver Gang disciples were rushing over from all directions. One look was enough to tell what was happening.
They shouted “Protect the Commander!” as they charged into the fight.
Most of them were between Nascent Soul and God Transformation. Faced with the gap between Bao Gu and the girl, they couldn’t get close at all, forced to harass from long range with spells. But anything that landed on the girl wouldn’t even count as a mosquito bite.
Cultivators who heard the commotion were all hurrying over. The scene before them scared them so badly they reported it up the chain on the spot.
And of course, the first people they reported to were the powerful experts or sect elders who had led them here. The Desolate Ancient Mountain Range, with the Drought Calamity and its status as the former site of the Ascension Land, was too deeply implicated; any change here could affect the rise and fall of an entire power. The ones sent here were all important figures who could make decisions the moment something happened.
Quite a few powers had sent their young sect masters or young clan lords, accompanied by several elders.
Among these people, you could grab anyone at random and find a Void Tearing stage cultivator.
After the war with the allied army and then the Drought Calamity, the cultivation world had basically been reshuffled. All the great powers now had tangled ties with the Cleaver Gang and had taken no small benefits from them—yes, the Cleaver Gang got the lion’s share, but that was because they were the ones who truly controlled the good stuff.
Now that word had come that the Cleaver Commander was in danger, how could they not rush over at once?
If not for friendship with the Cleaver Gang, then for the benefits of saving the Cleaver Commander.
As soon as they received the news, forces from all sides rushed over. Void Tearing cultivators rolled up their sleeves and charged the battlefield.
In their eyes, since no one had yet broken through to Tribulation stage, as Void Tearing cultivators, even if they met a Void Tearing peak expert, they could at least help the Cleaver Commander hold out. And the Commander wasn’t weak herself. With her and a Void Tearing expert joining forces, even a Void Tearing peak cultivator wouldn’t be something to fear.
The girl felt the razor edge of Bao Gu’s sword aura. For once, she didn’t dare to take it head-on, pitting her bare hand against the Xuantian Sword. Her movements were impossibly agile; she strolled through the oncoming storm of sword light like she was taking a leisurely walk in a pavilion, slipping past every strike, while using the openings to lunge for Bao Gu.
She sensed someone pouncing at her. She didn’t even bother to look up. She simply waved her hand as if she were batting a fly.
That slender jade hand swept out casually, but the force it stirred up was like winds rising on a clear day, like waves crashing without any storm. A terrifying, surging power exploded outward, slamming into the Void Tearing cultivator who had rushed her as if mountains were collapsing and seas were overturning.
The man felt himself turned into tofu—in fact, tofu thrown into a raging storm.
As he was hurled backward, it was like he had been swept into a wild, chaotic void turbulence, like he was being dragged through a storm of a thousand blades.
To put it simply, he was flung away, utterly unable to resist, while watching his own flesh explode off his bones. Even his bones were sliced away and scattered. In the end, under his own endless, horrified screams, even his very soul was shredded to nothing.
A Void Tearing early-stage cultivator, under that girl’s casual wave, had been reduced from flesh, bone, and organs down to his nascent soul—and all of it was torn into pieces.
The noise of it stopped the other cultivators who had wanted to charge in to help, their feet locking mid-step. Every face showed stark terror.
The girl’s strength was too monstrously overwhelming.
No one in the cultivation world had this kind of power.
Here in the Desolate Ancient Mountain Range, the only being anyone could imagine with such power was that single entity—
The Drought Fiend.
The Drought Calamity had always been here, always present—just turned into a harmless-looking, brain-addled, naked girl that no one had noticed.
As long as the Drought Fiend was here, the cultivation world had a sword hanging over its neck.
The Cleaver Commander had always been regarded by all factions as their hope of dealing with the Drought Fiend. For the Fiend, with its power, to personally come out and deal with the Cleaver Commander said it all.
The experts from every faction took one look at the situation and made their decision.
They ordered their disciples to pull back and report what was happening to the very top.
Then the Void Tearing cultivators charged forward like moths to a flame.
“Commander, go! We’ll cover your retreat—”
If Bao Gu died, who in the cultivation world would still have a way to deal with the Drought Fiend?
Even if Bao Gu herself couldn’t fight it, wasn’t there still that existence from the Demon Domain behind her? Even if that one refused to act openly, once things reached the life-and-death crisis of the whole cultivation world, Bao Gu would surely go to beg for help. At that point, that exalted one might grant them some method, giving them a sliver of hope.
Hadn’t those items the Cleaver Gang brought out earlier to deal with the Drought Calamity all come from that Demon Domain senior?
Everything had happened too fast. Bao Gu hadn’t noticed the movements around her at all.
She only heard that shout—“Commander, go! We’ll cover your retreat—”
Her vision suddenly blurred.
The girl’s jade-white palm tore through her veil of sword shadows and slammed into the hole where her heart used to be.
Bao Gu was blown backward. She even saw her own ribs fly out of her chest cavity, along with smashed bits of viscera.
She couldn’t control her fall at all. She traced an arc through the sky and plummeted downward.
As she fell, she saw wave after wave of cultivators surging toward the girl, only to be swatted into paste like mosquitoes in a palm.
When too many swarmed her, the girl grew angry. She slammed both palms together, and a tide of blood-reeking death aura erupted around her. It was far denser than what they had seen back in Yue Country—viscous and scarlet.
Even Void Tearing cultivators, wrapped in that blood-death aura, became like lard dropped into a boiling pot, melting one after another.
Yes—melting.
“Commander, go!”
Jing Xiu swooped down, scooped up the falling Bao Gu, and crushed a teleportation talisman. They appeared on the warship in a blink, then ran headlong into the domain gate that had just opened.
The Drought Fiend saw someone carrying Bao Gu away. How could she possibly allow that?
She slammed her palm down on the warship.
The massive vessel shattered at once, breaking into pieces like rotten wood.
Bao Gu and Jing Xiu had already passed through the domain gate. The instant they landed on the other side, they felt the gate behind them collapse. The shock of it made heaven and earth on this side tremble, leaving people thinking for a moment that the girl was going to smash through the spatial barrier and follow them.
Bao Gu looked at Jing Xiu, this bright, heroic woman who had, at the critical moment, risked her own life to carry her away. Her thoughts flickered, and suddenly she thought of Yu Mi.
Grief surged up uncontrollably.
She herself hadn’t been able to gain the slightest advantage against the Drought Fiend. Her senior sister’s fate was obvious.
Yu Mi’s cultivation had been crippled. Even after more than two years of recovery, she likely hadn’t reached God Transformation again, at best fighting with a peak Artifact Fusion strength. Bao Gu, who had fused the Xuantian Sword, hadn’t even been able to withstand a single exchange with the Drought Fiend—what chance did Yu Mi, who had only fused a spirit sword, have?
She had already been gravely wounded by the Fiend once.
Now, with Bao Gu’s emotions thrown into chaos, her spiritual power suddenly scattered. She spat out a mouthful of blood with a wet “pu”—half blood, half shredded organ fragments.
Seeing how severe Bao Gu’s injuries were, Jing Xiu didn’t dare pause for even a heartbeat and raced straight for the Left Envoy Manor.
The girl, having failed to stop Bao Gu, flew into a towering rage and vented it entirely on the cultivators who had rushed out to block her path.
The cultivators in the Desolate Ancient Mountain Range who hadn’t had time to escape were subjected to a brutal massacre.
Those who received the news fled in total panic.
News that the Cleaver Commander had encountered the Drought Fiend and fought it in the Desolate Ancient Mountain Range spread across the cultivation world.
Some who heard it scoffed that it must be a ruse—a self-inflicted injury scheme.
Others who heard that sneered back.
“A ruse? Go find someone who can slap away the immortal array treasure that insta-killed a Void Tearing cultivator in the Qingzhou grand array, and then tell them to ‘put on a show’ for you.”
With that level of strength, why bother with any schemes?
They could just roll over the cultivation world in a straight line. Not a single person would be able to withstand even one move, and not a single person would dare make a sound.
Leaders of every major power who got the news all rushed toward Shadowghost City.
Of course, as the Cleaver Gang’s main headquarters, Shadowghost City wasn’t like an ordinary city you could walk into. To enter, you had to first arrive at a nearby city, register your presence, and wait for permission to proceed.
Wang Ding was busy trying to save his gravely wounded Commander. With the situation unclear, he naturally wasn’t inclined to meet representatives from other powers.
There was, however, one person he did not dare refuse.
The Xuantian Sect master, Zi Tianjun, was someone he absolutely could not slight.
When Zi Tianjun saw Bao Gu, critically injured and hovering on the brink of death, his face turned green.
He had agreed to let Yu Mi go along because with Ling’er and the little monkey—those two great figures—accompanying her, he’d believed she would be safe no matter what.
He hadn’t expected the Drought Fiend to personally act, wrecking everything.
Through the soul lamp, he knew Yu Mi was alive, but trapped in a place piled high with white bones—a place they currently had no way to reach.
Yu Mi did, however, have an Upper Realm treasure from Ancestor Granny, brought back by Duobao Spirit Monkey, protecting her body. For the moment, even the Drought Fiend couldn’t do anything to her, so she was temporarily safe.
He had not expected Bao Gu to walk straight into the trap as well.
Inside, a divine physician was already at work.
Bao Gu was unconscious and couldn’t take out any healing pills herself. Fortunately, over the years, Zi Tianjun had amassed countless spiritual treasures, whether from the Xuantian Mountains or from the various “filial offerings” the Demon Saint—who might be either his son-in-law or daughter-in-law—had given him, plus the things Bao Gu sometimes handed over.
He might not be as wealthy as Bao Gu, but he was still rich enough to rival a nation. He had no shortage of life-saving treasures.
The man who was normally so stingy didn’t hold back in the slightest when it came to saving Bao Gu. He piled every good thing he had into the treatment, with only one order:
“Use whatever you need. Just save her.”
All five of her organs were shattered, her spine cracked, and she didn’t even have a heart anymore.
The divine physician was under crushing pressure.
Shattered viscera could be repaired. Smashed… that could still be handled.
But an entire missing heart?
That was rebuilding a heart from nothing.
He might be called a “divine” physician, but he wasn’t actually a god.
The heart was the engine of life, the vessel of a cultivator’s vast life essence; half their vital blood was concentrated there. For someone with a body at peak Artifact Fusion like the Cleaver Commander, to rebuild her a new heart?
What a joke.
He was at a complete loss. All he could do was use the piles of spiritual treasures Zi Tianjun kept sending over—so many it left him gaping—to barely keep Bao Gu’s life hanging on. But this was nothing more than a temporary measure.
At last he clenched his teeth, drove his needles, and woke Bao Gu up.
“Commander, your injuries are too severe. This old man is powerless to reconstruct your heart. I have heard the Commander possesses a Nirvana Pill. If you take it, it might save your life…”
He had just finished speaking when he suddenly sensed something move beside him.
He looked down and saw that a jade box had appeared next to Bao Gu’s left arm.
His heart gave a jolt.
“Could that be the legendary Nirvana Pill?”
He carefully opened it.
Inside lay a heart, pulsing with vibrant, formidable life force.
But why was there a neat ring of deep bite marks sunk into the flesh?
He stared for a long moment before it finally clicked.
Oh. Wasn’t this the very heart the Drought Fiend had ripped out of the Commander and taken a bite from?
With a heart present—and still alive at that—things became simple.
They just had to sew it back in.
As for the bite marks, that was a trivial problem. It wasn’t like they’d bitten through the aorta. A little spiritual medicine would fix it right up.
Excited, yet still exceedingly careful, the divine physician took the heart out and guided it back into Bao Gu’s chest, then used the treasures Zi Tianjun kept sending over to stimulate the healing of the wound.
The Xuantian Sect might be small, but it was rich enough to rival a nation. The “cheapest” things the sect master had sent were ten-thousand-year spirit herbs—things that were normally impossible to see even one of, now piled up for him to pick and choose from.
To save the Commander, he didn’t dare hold back in the slightest. He used ten-thousand-year herbs like they were free. In the end, he grit his teeth and selected one plant from among the ninth-rank saint medicines and used it on the Commander.
A ninth-rank saint medicine—just thinking about it hurt, even if it didn’t technically belong to him.
Given the Commander’s physique and her injuries, as long as the heart was put back in and bolstered with some ten-thousand-year herbs, she would recover quickly enough.
But this was a body worth ten thousand gold; using a ninth-rank saint herb on her set his mind at ease.
The only thing the divine physician couldn’t understand was this:
The Drought Fiend had already ripped out the Commander’s heart and taken a bite out of it.
So why, in the end, had she given it back?
