Beast Siege; Gu Changyuan Arrives

Ye Qingxue, Yue Lingxi, and Luo Qingchen's faces completely darkened.

The opposing side had clearly schemed deliberately and prepared thoroughly!

Not only did they have the advantage in numbers and strong cultivation, but they had also set up a bizarre array beforehand specifically to counter Yue Lingxi's divine soul attacks. They even had means to defile and negate Luo Qingchen's holy healing light.

Evidently, they had been waiting here for them for a long time, just to catch them all in one fell swoop.

To be honest, in terms of sheer power, even if the other side had dozens of Half-Immortals, a group of ten might not necessarily be a match for the three of them.

However, the enemy had seized the initiative completely and possessed an extremely rare array to suppress Yue Lingxi, instantly reversing the situation.

"You didn't expect this, did you! Ye Qingxue!"

The middle-aged man in the yellow robe stopped laughing, his face full of venomous resentment and twisted satisfaction.

"To think you would see this day! Are you surprised?

I'm afraid that even if you racked your brains, you wouldn't remember the 'Zichen Sect' that your Heaven and Earth Holy Land casually crushed back then. To think that a fish that slipped through the net like me could survive and cultivate to such a level of strength.

And set up this fatal trap for you here! Haha, to you lofty Holy Land ancestors, when you crush an ant, why would you ever remember its name?"

He deliberately flared his cultivation, clearly intending to completely suppress the three women with his imposing aura.

Ye Qingxue raised her eyes, her icy gaze piercing toward the middle-aged man like a sharp sword. Her voice was cold and calm, yet every word was distinct:

"The Zichen Sect. Located in the Southern Region of the Central State, affiliated with a second-rate family. From top to bottom, the sect indulged seventeen elders and disciples who, over the course of a century, relied on their power to plunder and brutally murder over a hundred members of minor families, as well as kill three dispatched deacon disciples of my Holy Land.

Afterwards, not only did you refuse to hand over the culprits, but you also attempted to silence witnesses to cover it up.

According to the iron laws of the Holy Land, your entire sect was sentenced to extermination as a warning to others."

Ye Qingxue's cold voice stated the reason for the Zichen Sect's annihilation. Or rather, she remembered the names of all the factions she had destroyed, as well as the reasons for their destruction.

Their Master had once taught them: When cultivating immortality and seeking the Dao, one should hold kind thoughts, but it must never be a pedantic kindness. When encountering injustice, one must clearly distinguish right from wrong; when facing evil, one must know its root cause, sever its karma, and pull it up by the roots.

She had always kept this in mind. Every time she struck, she would first investigate the cause and confirm the evidence of guilt.

Hearing Ye Qingxue recount the crimes of the Zichen Sect so calmly and clearly, the smugness on the yellow-robed middle-aged man's face instantly froze, turning into extreme distortion and fury!

"Shut up! Those were nothing but lowly female cultivators and useless rogue cultivators, like ants! So what if they were killed?! The weak are prey to the strong, it is the law of nature!"

The middle-aged man roared, his eyes bloodshot.

"Oh?"

A cold curve formed at the corner of Ye Qingxue's mouth, her eyes devoid of any warmth.

"Then according to your words, your Zichen Sect lacked strength back then and was destroyed by me, with all disciples and elders executed. Is that not also the law of nature?"

"You...!"

The middle-aged man choked on his words, his blood surging as he nearly went berserk.

Just at the moment he was about to recklessly order an attack—

A sudden change occurred!

"Roar!!!" "Screech!!!"

Two deafening, terrifying roars filled with tyranny and greed suddenly erupted from beneath the ground behind Ye Qingxue and the other two women!

"Boom! Boom!"

The earth violently trembled and burst open!

Two massive dark silhouettes broke through the soil, carrying a foul wind and a destructive aura, instantly completing a pincer attack on Ye Qingxue and her companions from front and back.

These were two hideous alien beasts from the Outer Realm.

One of them was incredibly massive, resembling a hellish worm magnified thousands of times, and surprisingly possessed the cultivation of an Eighth Stage Half-Immortal!

Its head, however, was a terrifying giant maw over ten zhang in diameter, filled with several rings of spiraling sharp teeth.

Its entire body was covered in thick, dark-red scales. At this moment, dangerous dark-red light was glowing between the crevices of its scales, clearly accumulating some kind of terrible power.

As soon as it appeared, that terrifying giant maw bit straight toward the strongest, Ye Qingxue, with an imposing manner that seemed capable of swallowing heaven and earth.

The space itself was slightly distorted by the suction force generated by the giant maw.

The other alien beast was slightly smaller, but also had the cultivation of a Fifth Stage Half-Immortal. It resembled a combination of a giant multi-legged centipede and a scorpion.

Its carapace was a shiny pitch-black, and a barbed stinger flashing with a blue-purple poisonous glow at its tail was heart-palpitating.

It let out a sharp screech and turned into a streak of black lightning, its countless sharp legs scuttling as it pounced straight toward Luo Qingchen, who was struggling to maintain and heal her companions.

"Heaven is helping me!"

The middle-aged man was taken aback for a moment, followed by wild joy!

The reason he chose to set up an ambush at this most remote and dangerous stronghold for so long was not only because it was deserted and easy to make a move, but also because he had somewhat hoped for an "accident."

If a powerful Outer Realm alien beast were to disrupt the situation, it might increase their chances of success.

After all, even with the current situation, he was not absolutely certain he could take them down.

He didn't expect that luck would actually be on his side.

The appearance of these two alien beasts instantly shattered the originally delicate balance, completely forcing Ye Qingxue and the other two women into a desperate situation.

He no longer hesitated in the slightest. Murderous intent surged in his eyes, and blood-fiend aura shot up into the sky around him. A hideous ghost-headed broadsword the size of a door panel appeared in his hand, its blade wrapped in the wails of wronged souls.

"Attack! Leave no one alive!"

The middle-aged man shouted fiercely, his figure turning into a streak of blood-colored lightning. Man and blade united as one, carrying the might to tear the heavens apart, he slashed straight toward Ye Qingxue, who was currently facing the devouring giant maw of the alien beast.

He wanted to deal a fatal blow to Ye Qingxue during the interval of the alien beast's attack.

At the same time, the nine Half-Immortal cultivators behind him also sprang into action simultaneously. The light of various magical treasures and divine abilities shone brightly, their targets clear.

The injured Yue Lingxi, and Luo Qingchen, who was currently entangled by the centipede-scorpion beast.

"Ling'er! Qingchen!"

Ye Qingxue caught a glimpse of this out of the corner of her eye, and deep within her ice-sealed pupils, an unprecedented shock and fury instantly exploded.

Her heart felt as if it had been fiercely gripped by an invisible hand.

Master had said to take good care of the junior brothers and sisters!

She was right here, right by their side! She absolutely could not let anything happen to them!!

This thought, like blazing magma, instantly washed away all her concerns about her own injuries and her weighing of this desperate situation.

A terrifying sword intent—even sharper and more resolute than before, as if it were going to ignite her very soul—explosively erupted from her body.

"Hum!!!"

A massive, heaven-reaching phantom of the Great Void Sword condensed above her, exuding a sharp edge that made the heavens and the earth tremble.

With the appearance of this sword phantom, within a radius of a thousand miles, all sword weapons, regardless of their grade, who held them, or whether they were inside spatial storage artifacts, all let out violent hums and tremors.

It was the descent of the Sovereign of Swords, the resonance of ten thousand swords paying homage to their lord.

The several men were horrified to discover that the blade and sword magical treasures in their hands were trembling and wailing uncontrollably, and the flying swords within their storage spaces were restless, almost on the verge of breaking through the air and flying out.

Their attacks all experienced a momentary stagnation because of this.

Not enough!

Ye Qingxue's eyes were as grave as eternal ice.

It was not enough to allow her two junior sisters to completely escape danger, and even less enough to reverse this absolutely hopeless situation.

Her gaze swept across Yue Lingxi's pale face, and then over Luo Qingchen's tense profile as she struggled to fend off the alien beasts. The last trace of hesitation in her eyes dissipated, leaving only a cold, burning resolve.

A terrifying aura of destruction began to permeate around her. Her hair moved without any wind, taking on an unnatural grayish-white luster, and faint blood-red flames seeped out from beneath her skin.

It was the activation of a forbidden secret art, burning one's life and blood to perish together with the enemy.

She intended to use this to achieve ultimate sublimation, unleashing a final sword strike that surpassed her own limits to carve out a path of survival for her junior sisters.

Feeling her vitality and cultivation base frantically burning and draining away like a collapsed dam, Ye Qingxue felt no fear in her heart.

She had long been indifferent to death. The only thing that made her heart tremble slightly was the regret of failing to completely protect her junior sisters, as well as...

A faint yet piercing reluctance and unwillingness.

Unwilling... After searching for a thousand years, treading across the Nine Heavens, and delving deep into this absolute domain beyond the realms, she still had not found the slightest definite news about her Master...

Reluctant... to never again see the figure who gave her a new life and taught her everything...

Master, Xue'er... really wants to see you one more time.

Just as the destructive secret art was about to complete its final condensation, Ye Qingxue's own consciousness began to blur due to the rapid loss of her life force.

Sizzle!

A streak of black flowing light, like lightning tearing through the curtain of the universe, crashed into this frozen battlefield without warning and with extreme brutality!

The flowing light came to a sudden brake less than three feet in front of Ye Qingxue in a posture that defied common sense.

It was not a deceleration to a stop, but an instantaneous transition from extreme motion to extreme stillness.

As the flowing light dissipated, a slender black figure was revealed.

His body leaned at an extremely subtle angle, and the way he stopped was even more shocking to the world.

One foot stepped diagonally into the fabric of space itself.

Crack!

Centered on his foothold, the space instantly cracked inch by inch like fragile glazed glass.

Web-like pitch-black fissures spread out, exuding a suffocating aura of destruction.

It was the spatial structure of this world, completely unable to withstand the impact brought by his terrifying speed and the shattering caused by his sudden halt.

The newcomer was none other than Gu Changyuan!