This Person Belongs to Another

That was the only relatively flat area left within the ruins of the Wei family estate.

At this moment, only a single figure remained in the clearing.

It was a little girl who appeared to be only seven or eight years old.

She wore a tattered dress, its original color long obscured by blood and dirt. Her small body was curled up, kneeling on the ground, trembling incessantly.

She seemed to want to shrink herself even smaller, to become even more inconspicuous.

Her face was covered in bloodstains and tear tracks. Her eyes were hollow and full of despair, like a terrified, on-the-verge-of-collapse young beast.

She bore several bone-deep wounds, her aura extremely weak, holding on entirely by a sheer instinct to survive.

Surrounding her lay the corpses of several adults; judging by their postures, they had all died fighting to protect her at the very end.

Ten cultivators from the Heavenly Empyrean Sect seemed to have completed their cleanup and were converging toward the center of the clearing from all directions.

The leader, a black-robed elder at the mid-stage of the Mahayana realm, swept his sinister gaze across the entire barrier, confirming that aside from this kneeling, trembling little girl, there was no other aura of a living creature.

A cruel and satisfied smile appeared on his face as he slowly walked toward the little girl.

Spiritual energy began to gather in his hand, clearly intending to deal a fatal blow to this final survivor who had slipped through the net before quickly retreating.

Right at the critical moment when the black-robed elder raised his palm, ready to strike—

In the center of the clearing, the space beside the little girl rippled slightly like the surface of water.

In the next instant, a profound black figure silently appeared there, standing exactly between the little girl and the black-robed elder.

There was no fluctuation of spiritual energy, no trace of spatial tearing, not even a slight breeze.

The black-robed elder's pupils shrank violently, and he abruptly halted his advance!

The hairs on his body stood on end, and an intense sense of crisis instantly gripped his heart!

Who goes there?!

He shouted sternly, his voice carrying a trace of imperceptible alarm and doubt.

The other nine Heavenly Empyrean Sect cultivators also reacted instantly, quickly forming a battle formation to surround Gu Changyuan and the little girl in the center, their gazes vigilant and horrified.

Among the ten of them, not a single one had detected this person's approach beforehand! How did he enter the barrier?!

Gu Changyuan turned a blind eye to the Heavenly Empyrean Sect cultivators who were treating him like a formidable enemy, not even sparing them a backward glance.

He slowly bent his right knee, kneeling on one knee so that his height was level with the curled-up, trembling little girl.

Then, he extended his right hand, palm facing upward, and opened it in front of the little girl.

His movements were very light and slow, carrying a gentleness and calmness that was completely out of place in the surrounding bloody purgatory.

He looked into the little girl's eyes, which were filled with fear and despair and had almost lost their focus. He slowly spoke, his voice not loud, but carrying a strange, peaceful power that could pierce through all noise and fear:

Are you willing to leave with me.

It was not a command, nor charity, but an invitation offering a choice.

The little girl, originally immersed in boundless fear and sorrow, seemed to have a trace of her sanity awakened by this sudden, calm, and gentle voice.

Her hollow eyes shifted slightly, focusing on the clean, slender, open palm before her.

It was as if a drowning person had grasped the last straw, or as if she had seen a glimmer of light in the endless darkness.

The little girl's body no longer trembled violently. Using the last ounce of strength in her body, she placed her small hand, covered in blood and dirt, trembling yet incomparably resolute, into Gu Changyuan's palm.

Then, she raised her head, using those hollow eyes that finally held a faint glimmer of light to look at Gu Changyuan, and squeezed out an extremely weak yet incredibly clear response from the depths of her throat:

Yes.

Before her voice faded, her mind, which had been tense to the limit, finally relaxed. The body she had been forcing to hold on lost its final bit of strength, and she collapsed softly forward like a puppet with cut strings.

Gu Changyuan steadily caught her petite and weightless body, feeling the faint aura of life coming from his embrace.

He carefully held her in the crook of his arm and slowly stood up.

Only then did he turn around, his calm gaze sweeping over the ten Heavenly Empyrean Sect cultivators who surrounded him with alarmed and uncertain expressions.

This person belongs elsewhere, Gu Changyuan's voice was flat and waveless. You may get lost.

Arrogant!

Presumptuous!

Where did this ignorant fool come from! Daring to meddle in the affairs of the Heavenly Empyrean Sect?!

After a brief moment of astonishment, the people of the Heavenly Empyrean Sect flew into a rage! They ran rampant across the Northern Region of the Southern Continent, having committed many acts of exterminating sects and slaughtering clans. When had they ever been so slighted?

Gu Changyuan sighed lightly, a trace of impatience flashing in his eyes. Since that is the case, then, all of you can die.

The instant his voice fell, before the ten cultivators of the Heavenly Empyrean Sect could even react, an invisible force swept across the entire scene.

Pfft— Pfft—

A series of crisp slicing sounds rang out. The bodies of the ten cultivators were actually neatly severed into two halves at the exact same time.

Their upper halves fell heavily to the ground, blood spurting out. As they collapsed, they only felt their life force draining away madly.

The ten Mahayana and Body Integration realm cultivators who had just been aggressively treating human life like worthless grass now stared with wide eyes. Their pupils were filled with endless shock, bewilderment, and the bone-deep fear and regret that they finally realized right before death.

They hadn't even been able to see how the other party attacked! They hadn't felt even a sliver of spiritual energy fluctuation.

Just what kind of terrifying existence was this? Why would he appear here?!

Unfortunately, their questions would never be answered.

Their life force rapidly drained away like a bursting dam. The light in their eyes quickly dimmed and eventually extinguished completely.

Gu Changyuan didn't even look at the ten rapidly cooling corpses. He merely lifted his right foot and tapped it lightly on the ground.

An invisible force swept past.

The ten corpses, along with the blood and severed limbs sprayed everywhere, instantly vanished without a trace.

After doing all this, Gu Changyuan, holding the sleeping little girl in his arms, took a step forward, and his figure disappeared from within the barrier.

Almost at the exact same time he left, Su Yunhao, leading a group of Su family experts, finally arrived outside the barrier.

Their expressions were solemn as they prepared to combine their strength to attack the barrier and forcefully break in to investigate.

Right at this moment, the space nearby rippled slightly, and Gu Changyuan, carrying an unconscious little girl, appeared out of thin air beside them.