Chapter 22: A Sword’s Startling Appearance p1
“Come, let me show you my sword intent.”
A thick tribulation cloud pressed down on the mountains, and spiritual energy stirred up purple lightning. Under such heavenly might, even the wind and snow became insignificant.
Qingtong was so anxious that she bared her teeth, sticking needles into the person under her hand until they looked like a hedgehog, and then ran to complain to Yin Buran.
“What is she trying to do? She’s going to fight a monster while undergoing a lightning tribulation. Isn’t she a little too confident!”
This was why she hated sword cultivators. Self-righteous fools who couldn’t even distinguish between primary and secondary matters. Didn’t she see that her Little Senior Sister…
Was very sad?
Qingtong didn’t know how to comfort her.
Snowflakes fell, landing on Yin Buran’s thin shoulders and in her hair, as if wanting to become one with her.
The guqin was silent. She held the hairpin, a snowflake clinging to her eyelashes. With another blink, it melted into a tiny water droplet.
Since you left so decisively, why did you still remember to compensate her for the lost hairpin?
Another clap of thunder boomed, and the people who had been suppressed showed signs of breaking free.
Yin Buran lowered her eyes and tied up her scattered white hair with the hairpin.
As if talking to herself, she asked softly, “What are you waiting for?”
The ethereal sound of a bell was out of place here.
Qingtong was startled. The bamboo umbrella, painted with a phoenix perching on a parasol tree, opened, shielding Yan Lingge underneath. There was still an injured person lying in the room. She felt that she was spread too thin and regretted not working harder on ordinary days.
A lone lamp flickered in the wind and snow, but it brought no sense of security. Instead, it made Qingtong’s heart skip a beat.
Xu Chuo appeared, holding a lantern, a gentle smile still on her face.
“The venerable one has saved countless people. I wonder how much strength you have left for yourself?”
Yin Buran did not answer, her eyes calm and unwavering.
Her fluttering sleeves were pulled by the wind, like a thin, brittle piece of paper that could be easily torn.
The spiritual light suppressing the crowd gradually dimmed, and the crowd grew restless, struggling more and more fiercely.
Their target was clear. Their crimson eyes were fixed on Yin Buran, like a wild beast coveting its delicious food.
Being ignored by Yin Buran again and again, Xu Chuo’s face instantly turned cold, her cheeks twitching slightly, making her look even more ferocious.
She said hatefully, “Wouldn’t it have been better to leave earlier? To stay until now for this bunch of trash, do you really think I don’t dare to make a move!”
As her voice fell, all the trapped cultivators broke free from their restraints and swarmed towards the three in the courtyard.
The guqin chimed lightly again, stirring up countless wind and snow, trying its best to block the attacks.
All sorts of spiritual lights exploded in the air. Yin Buran flicked her sleeve, sending a Brightlight Pavilion cultivator who was trying to attack her flying.
She looked up at Xu Chuo, who was standing on the roof, and asked unhurriedly, “You want to be an enemy of Azurefall Creek?”
Xu Chuo didn’t care at all, and even her smile was so wide it was distorted.
“If I can absorb the entire Brightlight Pavilion, including the venerable one’s cultivation, it doesn’t matter if I’m hunted by Azurefall Creek.”
“You’ll choke to death!”
Qingtong used her umbrella as a club, knocking one person unconscious with each swing, not forgetting to curse while panting.
Just as she finished cursing, she heard the sound of a sharp wind behind her.
There was no time to dodge. Qingtong subconsciously closed her eyes.
A long sword blocked the attacker’s blade, making a piercing sound.
The stabbing pain she imagined did not come, and the one who saved her was not Yin Buran.
It was the pale-faced Tang Jin, only the rims of her eyes were red. She had received Qingtong’s treatment, so she was not controlled by the Fei Zhi.
Tang Jin struggled to knock the other’s blade away.
Dozens of still-conscious Brightlight Pavilion cultivators rushed up behind her.
Some used spells to restrain, others used force to knock them out, all trying their best to control the situation without taking a life.
But they were clearly close fellow sect members, yet now they could only face each other with blades. How could it not be heart-wrenching?
The two sides fought in a chaotic battle. The plum blossoms in the small courtyard were crushed to pieces and ground into the bloody mud.
Xu Chuo tilted her head and shook the bell in her hand.
The life-threatening bell sound exploded by everyone’s ears. Qingtong ground her teeth and saw the originally chaotic puppets suddenly pause.
The next second, they all pounced towards Yin Buran in unison.
“Little Senior Sister!” Qingtong was anxious.
She was not good at fighting. Azurefall Creek had protected her well, so much so that she had never been in a proper fight since she was a child. How could she handle such a scene?
These puppets were fighting with complete disregard for their own safety, but if they wanted to stop them, they had to be mindful of the other’s life.
Tang Jin swung her sword at one of them’s calf, but even with his movements hindered, the latter still crawled towards Yin Buran.
They all wanted to drag this cold and indifferent medical cultivator into the bloody mire.
Yin Buran lowered her eyes. Countless zither strings surged out from the guqin, hiding in the wind and snow, weaving into a white cocoon that protected her within.
A thin mist carrying spiritual energy spread out, pouring into the puppets’ bodies, trying to kill the Fei Zhi’s clones.
But at the same time, her face had lost all color.
Her body swayed slightly, it was unclear if it was from the wind or if she was on the verge of collapse.
Xu Chuo’s goal was very clear: to use these puppets to bet that Yin Buran’s body would collapse first.
Tang Jin knocked out one fellow sect member after another. Even though she was exhausted, she didn’t dare to relax.
But due to her cultivation, she was powerless to do more. The few of them together were not as efficient as Yin Buran alone.
She pulled up the helpless and teary-eyed Yan Lingge and stuffed a sword into her arms as well.
She scolded, “Get up! Since you’ve entered my Sword Division, you should act like a sword cultivator. What’s with all this crying all day long!”
“I… I…”
Before Yan Lingge could stammer out a word, she saw Tang Jin turn around and rush back into the pile of puppets.
It was the first time she had touched a real sword.
Her vision was blurry, but she could see the splashing blood and hear the cries of different people.
She held the sword with trembling hands, feeling that this cold weapon was heavier than a thousand jin, and her hands were too weak to lift it.
Her mind was in chaos. All the sword forms and cultivation mantras were completely forgotten.
But she suddenly thought of a stupid method.
So she struggled to hold the sword horizontally in front of her, closed her eyes with tears streaming down her face, and swung with all her might—
The first sword strike of the young sword cultivator’s life was aimed at herself.
The moment blood spurted from her wrist, all the parasitized puppets froze at the same time.
The scalding red bloomed on the snow, so eye-catching, and so brilliant.
Yan Lingge was actually scared to death.
But however much she had hated this constitution of hers in the past, she was just as glad for it now. After all, the effect was immediate.
The Fei Zhi’s clones had lost control.
No matter how Xu Chuo’s bell rang, they all turned their target and swarmed towards her.
Countless greedy and crazed faces piled up together. Yan Lingge was so scared that her limbs went weak, and she fell to the ground, the sword also dropped somewhere.
This time, no one blamed her.
Qingtong cursed as she rushed over to stop her bleeding, and Tang Jin struggled to block a few attacks.
She inadvertently heard that all Qingtong was muttering was “dull-witted sword cultivator”!
Tang Jin: “…”
What finally sent all the puppets flying was the guqin quietly floating in front of her.
The clear zither notes were faint, as if they would be buried by the wind and snow in the next second. But it never disappeared, very reliable, just like its owner.
Just then, Yin Buran took the opportunity to leap out of the crowd.
A zither string passed through Xu Chuo’s spiritual energy shield, cutting a bloody wound on her arm.
Xu Chuo retreated, shaking her bell several times to block the zither string.
Yin Buran pressed forward, completely without reservation. She casually threw out a few small things. “Want to imitate your master?”
The small things exploded the moment they got close to Xu Chuo.
Most of the black poisonous smoke was absorbed by the spiritual energy shield, but it still made her cough a few times.
Xu Chuo gritted her teeth, the bell sound becoming sharper. “If he can do it, why can’t I?”
Yin Buran seemed completely unaffected, her figure as light as a flying bird.
She threw out a handful of silver needles from her storage bracelet. “It seems the Fei Zhi’s demon core can indeed affect the mind.”
Xu Chuo blocked them all, but after that, there were biting balls, exploding flowers, and even a cluster of colorful little butterflies. All sorts of strange spiritual artifacts were impossible to defend against.
She crushed a butterfly with her hand and watched as her fingers began to turn black, and countless colorful lights appeared before her eyes.
“What makes you think you can win?” Yin Buran appeared behind her like a ghost.
With a forceful twist of the zither string, Xu Chuo’s bell shattered.
After the outer shell of the bell fell off, it actually revealed an inner core that emitted a strange demonic aura.
Yin Buran reached out and took the inner core, her face expressionless. “With this… demon core that you can’t actually control?”
Xu Chuo was stunned for a moment, then collapsed without any warning.
“Impossible! Give it back to me!” She struggled to reach for the demon core, even disregarding the poison that was rapidly spreading in her body.
However, the more she circulated her spiritual energy, the more obvious the burning sensation in her meridians became. She vomited a mouthful of black blood and stared at Yin Buran with a deathly gaze.
She should have realized it earlier. The Fei Zhi had not made a move for a long time. Who was it that had trapped it?
And that sword cultivator named Ning Man?!
Yin Buran brushed past her, leaving only a light sentence.
“To seek a tiger’s skin, only to be devoured by it. How tragic.”
*
