The Spiritual Land of the Dawn Concealing Sect was a large canyon system with many complicated paths between elevated flat rocky platforms, extremely easy to guard and hard to approach unnoticed since sentries could be placed at various points above.

“Are we just going in like that?”

Gong Liwei asked nervously as she saw one of the entrances to the canyon.

“You do not have to be worried, we should be done in a day, maybe a little more”

Wu Long said as he also looked at the slightly dark entrance and Gong Liwei sighed, giving up trying to process this whole situation logically. The sun was just starting to rise, and the surroundings were shrouded in that particular morning quiet. The wind was lightly fluttering the hems of their clothes and their hair.

“Stop!”

As they entered the canyon, the wind got slightly stronger, moving like a stream along between the rocky walls. And after going deeper into it for some time a voice resounded upstream from the wind, breaking through to them with Spiritual Qi.

“Shi-…!”

A chakram shot out of the group and a startled cry was cut short as it returned, its sharp edges bloody.

Gong Liwei and Gong Cui both looked in shock at usually one of the meeker and kind women around Wu Long, who now had a cold killing aura emanating from her.

“M…miss Shen Min?”

Gong Liwei slightly stuttered as she called out to her and a cold gaze of heterochromatic eyes turned to her as Shen Min nodded.

“Min’er will explain to you later, but for now just know that she really doesn’t like Lust Cultivators”

Wu Long chuckled at the sisters who looked at Shen Min with round eyes.

“Ah… I see…”

Gong Liwei nodded as she was told what Lust Cultivators are during their travel.

Shen Min started moving ahead of them, removing sentries as Wu Long constantly held her figure in focus with his spiritual sense.

As they got closer to the sect the number of sentries increased and talismans started flying out of Wu Long’s sleeves, swirling around him and continuously multiplying as they flew forward, to the sides and above.

It looked as if early autumn arrived as the yellowish paper of the talismans made them look like fallen leaves, caught by the winds and carried through the canyon.

Soon, the positioning of the sentries became complex, several posts being in the view of each other, but even then Shen Min managed to kill them off before any of them could make any report. But it was harder and harder to do and eventually…

*Bam!”

A signal talisman shot up into the sky and went off with a loud sound as it covered the vicinity with a red glow.

*Bam!* *Bam!* *Bam!* …

Several talismans went off successively in the matter of moments until the whole canyon trembled with the echoing signals.

“Sorry, one managed to…”

“It’s alright, Min’er, you did great. We are close enough and the formation is almost complete, it was a matter of time before they noticed anyway, actually, it is good that they noticed us since there is no need to do it so covertly…”

Wu Long placed his hand on Shen Min’s cheek and smiled at her.

The amounts of talismans that were flying off increased dramatically. From a distance above it looked as if a plant was starting to grow out of the cracked earth.

“… and the sentries that were on other routes would now hurry to return to the sect, which saves us the time to hunt them down if they were not included in the area covered by the formation”

He finished and soon an advanced squad of Sect Protectors came running in the distance.

“Huh? J… just 11 people?”

A man in front of the group widened his eyes and then astonishment appeared in them as he realized 10 of them were gorgeous women that could cause a bloody war for their attention.

“We are in lu-…”

He started smiling and then his face became distorted as it involuntarily turned, a large Spiritual Qi fist gradually crushing it as his posture leaning forward to run started to change to the one of flying backward.

“Shit defe-…”

“Argh!”

“Ugh!”

A petite beauty appeared as her figure stepped out of the group a blink of an eye before. And then a barrage of fists descended on the whole squad as they scrambled to defend but Hua Ziyan approached too suddenly for them to react.

“Run-…!”

Even if they wanted to run the barrage of attacks did not leave them an opportunity as it crushed their hastily brought up defences along with turning their bodies into bloody pulps. Earth and dust rose into the air and as it settled a gruesome sight of a whole squad crushed as if caught under a rockslide appeared before the group.

“S… Sister”

Gong Cui’s eyes widened and she became slightly nauseous while clenching the sleeves of her older sister’s robe. She saw Wu Long decimate a large group of cultivators before, but compared to the clear cuts of his sword the sight of the crushed bodies of this group was far more disturbing.

“Uh… you will have to get used to it, Cui’er”

Gong Liwei also felt nausea but she refused to move her eyes away as she knew that this was how the world of cultivation looked like in beneath the classy veneer.

“Mother… I think we need to step up our training…”

Cao Mei, on the other hand said, slightly flabbergasted at the destructive force this usually modest and peaceful young lady held.

“Un”

Cao Xiang nodded to her as they both decided to make more effort in training the saber techniques Wu Long gave them. They took out their sabers, that were slightly lighter than normal but still had a shar edge, readying for the upcoming battle.

“The advance squad failed, will they send another one?”

Ye Ling said as she looked to the depths of the path they were in, where the squad of Sect Protectors came from.

“It depends on how cautious they are, they might have sent the advance squad ahead just to delay before the main force can assemble or as a testing strike to see how tough we are” 𝓲𝓫𝙧𝙖𝙙.𝒄𝓸𝙢

Wu Long pondered as talismans were raising into the sky in an unending stream.

“H-how did you have time to make all of these?”

“Hm? I didn’t make all of them, just some, most of them are just ‘contact’ talismans bought our found in treasuries of the Supreme Master Pavilion and the Wu Family”

Wu Long shrugged his shoulders.

“Contact talismans?”

Cao Mei asked with curiosity, and Wu Long smiled.

“Talismans that do not have a specific purpose, that serve as a connection point between different talismans. They have a basic symbol inscribed on them, so without other talismans they are usually useless”

Wu Long explained as he took out one of them with a “Middle” character drawn on it.

“Though, of course if you get enough of them you can also make complex patterns out of them, and if you on top of that mix in specialized talismans in quite large quantities, which is what I am doing, you will get…”

As he talked up to there they noticed that the current of talismans started to dwindle and as Wu Long let go of the one he held in his hand it went not far and hovered in the air as he made hand seals, Spiritual Qi in the whole Spiritual Land becoming agitated and streaming toward the location of the Dawn Concealing Sect.

“Great Prison of Destitute Formation”

Wu Long spoke and a large barrier dome covered a massive area around the sect. It then started sucking out the Spiritual Qi from within, as the formation of the sect that activated not long after the signals went up started to become bleaker before the eyes of the astonished people inside.