Chapter 86

The next day, at dawn.

Zhan Yujie pried Yan Zhichuan up from the stone bed.

One night of rest had been enough.

“Senior Sister,” Yan Zhichuan said, blinking her bleary eyes at Zhan Yujie.

“Get up and cultivate.” Zhan Yujie replied.

Yan Zhichuan let out an “oh” but didn’t budge. Only when the cold sword sheath pressed against her face did she mumble groggily, “I have no more Dan Sand.”

“No Dan Sand? Then draw Yuan Qi directly from heaven and earth.” Zhan Yujie said flatly. Dan Sand was merely convenient, providing pure Yuan Qi on demand. Did that mean she should stop cultivating without it?

“Junior Sister, I’ve made a cultivation plan for you,” Zhan Yujie added.

Yan Zhichuan rubbed her cheek against the sword sheath. It took her a moment to register what Zhan Yujie had said. Cultivation… plan? She jolted awake in fright.

Ignoring Yan Zhichuan’s reaction, Zhan Yujie hauled her up by dragging and pulling. She knew Yan Zhichuan had consumed many Dragon Blood Pills—likely aiming for the path of physical strength. But simply letting the medicinal power settle in her body wasn’t enough. The sisters on Great Power Peak would use external balms and then activate the effects through specialized body-refining formations. Yingzhou Island lacked those grand arrays, but it didn’t matter. The island’s unique natural forces could be harnessed instead.

The howling sea wind roared fiercely, slamming into them like whips.

Yan Zhichuan straightened her crumpled collar, which Zhan Yujie had tugged into a mess, and yawned at the red sun just rising from the sea.

Zhan Yujie said calmly, “Yan Junior Sister, next you must fully activate the Dragon Blood Pill’s medicinal properties, letting it naturally form a layer of Dragon Blood Essence Fiend aura to protect your entire body.”

Yan Zhichuan: “Huh?” An ominous premonition surged within her. Before she could ask how, Zhan Yujie swept her off her feet and tossed her into the sea.

Yan Zhichuan: “???” Is this personal revenge?

But soon, she had no time for stray thoughts. She bobbed in the seawater, and before she could leap back to shore, a thunderous boom like a lightning strike exploded. The once-calm sea surface churned into a massive vortex under the lash of the Sword of Nine Abyss. Towering waves surged like a stampeding army, threatening to smash her tiny form to smithereens!

Yan Zhichuan let out a shriek, her heart pounding wildly. She flailed through the water toward the shore but couldn’t reach it. Relentless sword qi descended mercilessly, forming an impassable barrier ahead! She had no choice but to face the wind and waves head-on.

Zhan Yujie hovered mid-air with sword in hand, her robes fluttering like an exiled immortal.

The first wave battered Yan Zhichuan until she was dizzy and disoriented. She flipped backward, inwardly cursing the Heavenly Dao System a blue streak.

Little Fat Chirp flapped stubbornly through the wind and waves, looking utterly innocent.

How is this my fault? It thought.

“It’s all your fault—my senior sister fell to demonization, and you didn’t even warn me!” Yan Zhichuan wailed, soaked to the bone. She couldn’t tell if the water on her face was tears or seawater.

Little Fat Chirp: “.”

Yan Zhichuan wanted to beg Zhan Yujie for mercy.

But the wind and waves were ferocious, the tide’s roar like thunder.

Zhan Yujie seemed deaf to it all. While refining her Sword of Nine Abyss amid the vast, churning waters, she used the sword-stirred seas to temper Yan Zhichuan.

Yan Zhichuan tumbled in the sea all day.

By dusk, she crawled ashore like a female ghost shrouded in gloomy yin energy, glaring furiously at the culprit perched on a black rock.

She wanted revenge. She was pissed!

Yan Zhichuan rolled across the beach in a fit of rage.

“I’m a pill cultivator!” she protested, head thrown back toward Zhan Yujie.

The surging seawater had nearly crushed her to bits. She’d never endured such torment!

If I’d known, I’d have just let Zhan Yujie die!

“I know you can refine pills, Junior Sister.” Zhan Yujie gazed at the pitiful Yan Zhichuan, a flicker of pity stirring in her heart. But she quickly banished that weakness. Yan Zhichuan had to cultivate—whether to suppress that strange primal power or to avoid imprisonment by the orthodox and demonic paths. She couldn’t remain as lazy and muddled as before. “Open the furnace in a quarter-hour.”

After leaving Chongxu Sect, they’d passed several Immortal Cities. Zhan Yujie hadn’t bought Dan Sand, instead spending all their Pill Jades on raw materials—even using the “reputation-brushing credit” trick she’d learned from Yan Zhichuan. No shortage of ingredients.

Yan Zhichuan stared at her in disbelief, wondering if her ears had failed her.

Zhan Yujie had dragged her to this deserted, ruined islet to imprison her… just to force cultivation?

A surge of grief and indignation erupted. After a full day of torment, Yan Zhichuan exploded with power. Like a bolt from the blue, she charged at Zhan Yujie on the rock. Zhan Yujie couldn’t dodge in time and was knocked tumbling onto the beach. She furrowed her brow. “Junior Sister, you—”

Fresh from the sea, Yan Zhichuan hadn’t cast the Dust Cleansing Incantation. Rolling in the sand had made her filthy.

She didn’t voice it, but her eyes said it all.

Something snapped in Yan Zhichuan’s mind. She lunged down and bit viciously into Zhan Yujie’s shoulder.

Bite her to death. Waaah.

She was so miserable.

Exhausted and toothless with fatigue, Yan Zhichuan clung to Zhan Yujie like an octopus, sobbing pitifully in tiny, thin whimpers—like a wretched little beast.

“For you, I gave up sleeping in till noon on Nine Abyss Peak; for you, I offended Chongxu Sect; for you, I braved the Three Ways River; for you, I took on blood debts and even self-harmed, nearly dying!” The more Yan Zhichuan thought, the more aggrieved she felt. Her good intentions treated like a donkey’s liver and lungs. A drop of kindness deserved a spring in return—but Zhan Yujie?

She didn’t repay with a spring—she repaid with an entire sea, the Heavenly Dao System snickered.

Yan Zhichuan choked.

She stopped complaining and wiped her filth all over Zhan Yujie instead.

A vein throbbed on Zhan Yujie’s forehead. It took her a while to catch her breath.

She wondered if she’d been too hasty.

But the orthodox sects would soon learn of her junior sister’s identity. Time was short.

Zhan Yujie steeled herself. Yan Zhichuan had to make progress.

Swallowing a Cave Heaven yet stuck at Golden Core Third Layer? Reasonable?

Casually, she said, “Rest until tomorrow.”

Yan Zhichuan puffed her cheeks in anger. “Should I say thanks?”

“No need,” Zhan Yujie replied, prying Yan Zhichuan off her.

She eyed the smears of grime on her robes and sighed deeply.

After all, she’d upended her junior sister’s life. A tantrum was fair.

Zhan Yujie pinched a hand seal, cleansing the dirt from both of them with a sweep. She pulled Yan Zhichuan back toward the cave.

Yan Zhichuan dragged her feet unwillingly, face crumpling. “I want to go back to Nine Abyss.”

Zhan Yujie’s heart pricked like a thorn. She exhaled heavily. “We can’t.”

“You’re full of shit!” Yan Zhichuan cursed crudely. “Born a Nine Abyss person, dead a Nine Abyss ghost!”

Zhan Yujie: “…” She rubbed her brow, thinking, What Nine Abyss? Pure demon! Stay on Pure Prison Peak as a dead ghost? “Junior Sister, stop fooling around.”

Yan Zhichuan went full screw-it mode. “If you think I’m troublesome, just toss me away.”

She didn’t want Zhan Yujie’s sword anymore. Whoever wanted to stick with her could.

Beauty was no temptation!

Pretending not to hear, Zhan Yujie dragged her back to the cave and flung her onto the stone bed.

Cloudy appeared opportunely, cradling Yan Zhichuan’s limp form.

Zhan Yujie sat cross-legged nearby to meditate.

Yan Zhichuan: “?”

Unbelievable!

“Xiao Tian, she’s just… not coaxing me?” Yan Zhichuan asked.

The Heavenly Dao System preened its feathers, baffled. “Why coax you?”

Yan Zhichuan stomped. “She’s bullying me.”

The Heavenly Dao System said earnestly, “It’s for your own good.”

Yan Zhichuan glared venomously. “Then tossing you in the sea is for your own good.”

The Heavenly Dao System shrugged. “Go ahead.” It was just an energy body anyway.

Yan Zhichuan: “…”

The best thing was rest before the next round of torment, but she refused.

She deliberately paced in front of Zhan Yujie, but got ignored. Sulking, she flopped back onto Cloudy.

She couldn’t truly disrupt Zhan Yujie’s cultivation either.

“In the original fate trajectory, my senior sister fell to demonization and razed heaven and earth. How’d she do it? By making brutal cultivation plans for Demon Cultivators, turning their lives into beast-of-burden drudgery—twelve hours a day?”

Why am I the beast first? Yan Zhichuan pursed her lips, on the verge of tears.

“Nah,” the Heavenly Dao System said, scrolling through the plot. “For the disobedient or weak, Zhan Yujie just beheads them with one sword.”

Yan Zhichuan wilted. “And the strong ones?”

“Two swords.”

Yan Zhichuan drooped further. “Just killing some orthodox and demonic cultivators—really heaven-shattering?”

The Heavenly Dao System cut to the chase. “She toppled the orthodox Heaven-Piercing Tower and obliterated the demonic Endless Abyss.”

Yan Zhichuan blanked. “What’re those? Never heard.”

The Heavenly Dao System sighed. Slacker student, no wonder. Gravely, it explained: “The Roots of Heaven and Earth for both paths. One is the orthodox source of Yuan Qi; the other, the Demon Clan’s origin of demonic qi. Destroy them, and every spirit vein, spirit acupoint, and Demonic Cave on Nine Summers Continent collapses. Total apocalypse. Touching the Heaven-Piercing Tower or Endless Abyss is taboo common knowledge—but post-demonization, Zhan Yujie…”

“That’s insane,” Yan Zhichuan said with pity. Poor senior sister.

Whatever. The trajectory was derailed. Now, who pitied her?

No Forget-Sorrow Pills allowed!

In Heavenly Balance Mansion.

Pale-faced Li Tianshu regained her senses and abruptly vomited blood.

Her vital energy drained away, her aura plummeting like a flood unleashed.

She clutched the copper coin pendant at her waist, staring in horrified dread at the emerging divination script.

“Demon Seed, Heaven-Piercing Tower, Endless Abyss.”

Following Heavenly Orbit hadn’t yielded a full event, just keywords.

Together, they chilled Li Tianshu like a snow cave’s depths, filling her with profound terror.

Involving the Roots of Heaven and Earth—this wasn’t a mere demonic tide against the Dao, but a calamity overturning heaven and earth!

The orthodox Root, Heaven-Piercing Tower, stood within Heavenly Balance Mansion, guarded by generations of its cultivators. The Endless Abyss lay beyond the Profound Heaven Immortal Barrier.

What linked Demon Seed and Roots? Did the Demon Seed destroy them? When was it born? Where now?

“Senior Sister, I need to divine Heavenly Orbit again,” Li Tianshu said, wiping blood from her lips.

Yu Lian Zhen said gently, “Not so soon—even for you. First, inform the orthodox allies.”