n

n

nTranslator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios

nYu Hong took a deep breath. She appeared as delighted as the other girls were as she carefully followed behind the man leading them. They went through several streets but somehow, the more they walked, the more crowded their surroundings became. The man did not bring them to some secluded area, but instead brought them to the town’s more prosperous region before finally stopping before a magnificent residence.

nHer heart sank and she immediately woke up from the joy of nearing success. She directly summoned forth a spirit sword to attack the man in front of them. “You lied to us!”

nShocked, the man retreated hundreds of feet back and managed to barely avoid the sword.

n“Let’s go!” Yu Hong could not be bothered with chasing after the man. She instead turned to shout at everyone to leave, but it was already too late.

nThe doors to the magnificent residence suddenly opened up as a figure came flying out. With a banging sound, a spirit sword pierced into the ground of the road behind the girls, blocking some of their escape routes.

n“Hong, you are indeed my favorite disciple, spotting the problem so quickly.” The man in the air floated down slowly. He looked gentlemanly, dressed in blue and having a proper face with a long beard, and he was emitting the suppressive aura of Nascent Soul cultivator.

nHowever, Yu Hong’s body became ice cold as if a cold aura seeped out of her bone fissures, and even all the other girls present took a couple of steps back like they could not endure the atmosphere, shivering.

n“Zhen Xiang, you old crook!” Yu Hong gritted her teeth and glared at the man across from her. She had thought that since they managed to evade his pursuit in the day, he would have ordered people to search in other areas. But she had never imagined that he already knew they would return and even colluded with that middleman to trick them over here.

n“Perfected One, I have brought them here so I… can leave now, right?” The man who had led the way for the girls bowed towards Zhen Xiang.

n“Thank you, Fellow Daoist, in helping me capture these traitors.” Zhen Xiang laughed, wearing an amiable look.

n“You’re welcome, Perfected One.” The man smiled and glanced around at everyone else. If he had known that they were people from the Yu Family, he would not have taken up this business deal. Thank goodness he did not really bring them to the Lower Realm. He immediately rode his sword and left the premises, not wanting to be involved with this Upper World aristocratic family’s business.

n“Hong, there’s no need for this.” Seeing that the man has gone far away, Perfected One Zhen Xiang began laughing more and more amiably. “Originally, you guys used the identity of human cauldrons to infiltrate Sky Severance Cliff, and even severely injured Yu Meng the creep which was a huge merit and would definitely have been rewarded by the Master. Why do you want to destroy your own futures and head to the Lower Realm? Since you guys injured that fiend and did not return to the Yu Family, he will let none of you off.”

n“Hmph. Isn’t that nice to hear, old crook! If we do not run away, will you let us return to the Yu Family alive?” Yu Hong sneered with bursting hatred she said, “As a Perfected One of Yu Family’s branch lineage, you had dealings with a fiendish cultivator of Sky Severance Cliff. If Master had found out about that, he would not have let you off!”

n“Shallow woman!” Zhen Xiang glanced at her, saying, “All I did was to annihilate fiends and protect the Dao to paralyze that bunch of fiendish cultivators!”

n“Bull**!” Yu Hong grew angrier. “What do you mean, annihilate fiends and protect the Dao. When have you done anything for justice? Have you ever lifted a finger to kill a fiendish cultivator before? All you did was to conveniently use us, useless human cauldrons, and then threw us over to Sky Severance Cliff to die.” She looked directly over at him, her gaze consumed by hatred. “The laughable thing is, not only did we useless human cauldrons not die somehow, we even managed to do what you couldn’t, to harm that fiendish cultivator. Aren’t you trying to kill us because you want to let others think that you were the one who did it and not us, to be highly regarded by the Master?”

n“Shut up!” Zhen Xiang’s expression grew twisted for a moment. “You’re full of crap. It was obvious that you guys betrayed the sect and even intended to go to the Lower Realm to partner up with fiendish cultivators. I am only preventing you guys from making a huge mistake today.”

n“Who exactly is the one partnering up with fiendish cultivators?” Yu Hong tore off her sleeve and revealed her right arm. It was covered in large and small scars which seemingly looked to be old injuries, yet every wound was hair-raising and horrifying. “We are only your disciples in name but in reality, we are worse than human cauldrons! Our wounded bodies, our destroyed meridians, our broken spirit bones. They were all your doings!”

nAs she spoke, all of them pulled up their long grey robes. Without the Dharma clothing to cover them up, all eight of them revealed their original looks. Their bodies were crawling with all kinds of scary-looking scars, some on the hands, some on the feet, and some even on their faces. And that was only ones that were visible on their skin—there had to be much more hidden under their clothes.

n“You adopted us since we were young yet you never taught us proper sorcery, only teaching Dharma spells that human cauldrons would learn. You treat us like objects, forcing us to help you try out cultivations and poisons, and if we died you would turn us into elixirs.” The more Yu Hong spoke, the more hatred she felt, and her eyes grew red as she continued, “You threw us into Sky Severance Cliff only because our foundations had been damaged by your cultivation techniques and you cannot harvest from us, because we are not even worth being concocted into elixirs.”

nShe took a step forward.

n“You really think we don’t know that killing us is just to cover up your cultivation of fiendish techniques?”

nZhen Xiang’s face turned as black as the bottom of a pot. No longer did he have the look of a gentleman about him that he had just now as he looked at Yu Hong with all the intention to kill. His voice had turned much colder as he raised his hand to summon forth his weapon and said, “Since all of you already know about this so clearly, there is no way I am letting you off today!”

nAs he said this, he flipped his hand and a Dharma artifact enveloped in a dense murderous aura flew towards Yu Hong.

nYu Hong could only feel an immense suppressive aura overwhelming her as she gritted her teeth and immediately activated the Golden Core inside of her—even if she were to blow up, she wanted to fight for more time to allow the rest to escape.

nSuddenly, her shoulder was pushed down and the Spirit Qi she had triggered dissipated at that moment as the girl beside her took a step forward.

n“Wait a moment.”

nShen Ying suddenly stretched out her hand in a grab and the next moment, that fearsome-looking Dharma artifact was caught in her hand. It was actually a bronze bell.

nZhen Xiang was stunned and as if just realizing there was someone else in the group. His Dharma artifact had been so easily caught by the other party.

n“You…” Yu Hong was even more surprised than he was. She… wasn’t she restricted? How can she move?

nNot paying mind to anything else, Shen Ying looked directly at Zhen Xiang and asked, “That guy, you and that… that guy named Gan and another named… Ding? What’s your relationship with them?”

n“Gan?” He faltered for a while, and then his eyes grew wide. “You mean Gan Zirui and Yu Ding?”

n“Oh, so you know them.” Shen Ying narrowed her eyes. “Then there’s no mistake.”

nIn the blink of an eye, she had moved next to Zhen Xiang.

n“Sorry, but I hate scums!”

nZhen Xiang suddenly felt his collar tightening as a tremendous force pulled him in and directly hurled him to the ground, and then came a punch pounding down on him.

nAll that was heard was a loud crash and Zhen Xiang’s entire person was directly beaten into the ground in such a manner that it would not be possible to even dig him out again.

nWhat followed after that was a loud clashing noise as the earth trembled and the nearby mountains swayed. As if an earth-dragon had passed by the place Zhen Xiang was buried at, the entirety of the surrounding earth began to crack, the roads were flipped and the houses became crooked as dust flew everywhere. Within a moment, the entire Upper Azure Town was broken and torn apart by the large cracks on the ground.

nThe crowd: “…”

nThere was total silence.

nThe eyes of the nine girls bulged out of their sockets for a long while before recovering.

nThis was… their sect master?!

nThis isn’t a dream, is it? Where’s the lack of cultivation? One punch to destroy the entire town—that cultivation is off the charts!

nΣ(°△°|||)

nA while later…

n“Let’s go!” Shen Ying patted down her sleeves and turned away calmly.

nThe group of girls had yet to recover from shock as they opened their mouths mechanically to ask, “Go?”

nGo where? What had just happened? Who were they? Where were they?

n“Go to that… that Something Cliff?”

n“Sky… Severance Cliff?”

n“Yes. Don’t we have another old fogey to deal with? Since it’s convenient, I’ll give you guys a buy one get one free service.”

nOld fogey? She couldn’t be referring to that fiendish cultivator, Yu Meng, right?

n“Come on, let’s go.” She jumped out from between the cracks in the ground as she said this. “Let’s hurry up so that we can still make it in time for breakfast!”

nThe crowd: “…”

nThat’s a fiend den we’re going to. Don’t talk as if we’re going to the streets to buy cabbage!

nO__O”…

n