Volume 1, Chapter 106 – Holy Maiden and Holy Maiden

Inside the Laws Secret Realm.

The instant they passed through the gate of light, the sensation of space shifting swept over them.

By the time their surroundings stabilized, all one hundred and three disciples of Yaochi Immortal Palace had been scattered across different parts of the secret realm.

The sky was eternally dark red, with no sun, moon, or stars. Only strange clouds surrounded by dim halos drifted overhead.

The land was fractured and scorched black, crisscrossed by ravines and littered with crumbling walls and ruins.

The air was filled with thin yet violent spiritual energy, mingled with traces of shattered Dao laws. The oppressive atmosphere also seemed to hold unique opportunities.

Ye Ling’er landed in a forest of charred black stone.

Dense clusters of grotesquely shaped black pillars surrounded her.

The spiritual energy in the air was so violent that it was nearly impossible to absorb.

She tightened her grip on the twin Nether Moon blades. Spiritual power circulated instinctively through her body as she surveyed her surroundings.

“This place is too strange… I need to regroup with my fellow disciples first…”

She took out her identity jade token and infused it with spiritual power.

The jade token glowed faintly, indicating the approximate direction of the nearest fellow disciple: southeast.

Without further hesitation, she got her bearings and set off toward the southeast!

However, just as she passed several stone pillars, something unexpected happened!

“Hissss!”

A black shadow shot out from the darkness to one side, lunging straight at her face!

It was a small snake roughly as thick as an arm, covered in dark red scales from head to tail, with a single horn growing from its head!

It moved with astonishing speed. Stranger still, its trajectory was erratic, as though it could briefly merge with the violent currents of spiritual energy around it, making it difficult to track.

“A Venom-Horned Python! A second-tier demonic beast!”

Information from the Demonic Beast Compendium in the Immortal Palace’s Scripture Repository flashed through Ye Ling’er’s mind.

This python was born where fire poison and Yin baleful energy converged. Highly venomous, incredibly fast, and exceptionally troublesome, it was a dangerous opponent.

As the Venom-Horned Python launched its surprise attack, a sharp glint flashed in Ye Ling’er’s eyes.

She neither retreated nor raised her weapons to block. Instead, her footwork abruptly changed.

She instantly executed the “Profound Moon Steps” recorded in the Lunar Canon.

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Her figure became a fleeting shadow beneath the moonlight, leaving an afterimage where she had stood while her true body appeared beside the Venom-Horned Python.

Its attack had missed, its momentum spent before it could gather its strength again!

The twin Nether Moon blades flashed in Ye Ling’er’s hands, crossing as they slashed through the python’s vital point seven inches below its head!

“Shhk!”

With a soft sound, the dark red scales parted like paper before the yellow-rank supreme-grade artifact.

The Venom-Horned Python stiffened, and the bloodthirsty gleam in its eyes rapidly faded.

No blood sprayed from the wound. Instead, a thin layer of ice crystals formed and swiftly spread across its body.

In the blink of an eye, the demonic beast at the peak of the second tier had been frozen into an ice sculpture.

Ye Ling’er flicked her wrists. The ice sculpture shattered, scattering fragments across the ground, and a demonic core the size of a chicken egg fell with a clink.

She raised a hand and drew the demonic core into her palm, sensing the energy contained within it.

“A second-tier demonic core. The quality is decent. If I bring it back, Senior Sister Zhao might be able to use it for alchemy.”

She slipped the demonic core into her Storage Pouch with practiced efficiency.

Despite instantly killing a demonic beast of the same tier in her first real battle, Ye Ling’er felt little excitement.

She had already been through too many battles alongside her fellow disciples inside the Myriad-Phenomena Tower.

The Venom-Horned Python might have been strange, but compared to her two immensely powerful senior sisters, it was hardly worth mentioning.

She took out her identity jade token again and infused it with spiritual power. Points of light flickered across its surface.

It showed three fellow disciples several li to the southeast, moving slowly and apparently converging on one another.

“I’ll regroup with the nearest fellow disciples first.”

Ye Ling’er activated her movement technique. Like a phantom in the night, she swiftly wove through the forest of stone.

While Ye Ling’er searched for her fellow disciples, the other disciples of Yaochi Immortal Palace were encountering situations of their own elsewhere in the secret realm.

Wang Teng and Li Haoran were fortunate. Their arrival points were not far apart, and they quickly joined up.

They now stood back-to-back, facing a pack of Shadowfiend Panthers. The creatures were jet-black and shaped like leopards, but each had a single eye in the center of its forehead!

There were seven or eight of the demonic beasts, all second-tier. They were extraordinarily fast and adept at fighting as a pack.

“Senior Brother Wang, leave the three on the left to me!”

The yellow-rank supreme-grade longsword in Li Haoran’s hand traced an arc of light. His sword qi condensed into solid form, precisely intercepting the Shadowfiend Panthers lunging from the left.

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“Good! Then I’ll take the ones on the right!”

Wang Teng let out a low roar and swept the heavy Heavenly Gate sword horizontally, unleashing a crushing wave of air.

He followed the path of the strength sword, using overwhelming force to break through technique.

A heavy sword needed no edge, and true mastery appeared artless. Combined with his solid foundation, every attack carried astonishing might.

Sword light intertwined with the panthers’ shadows as the clang of metal and the roars of demonic beasts rang out without pause.

The two worked together seamlessly, balancing offense and defense. Despite being heavily outnumbered, they showed no sign of losing ground. Instead, they gradually forced the pack back.

Elsewhere, Zhao Ling’er and Wang Zhaojun had landed in a hollow filled with strange, charred plants.

A faint poisonous miasma permeated the area, but it had little effect on the two of them after they had taken poison-warding pills.

“Zhaojun, look at this Heart-Eroding Vine!”

“The records say it only grows where fire poison and Yin baleful energy converge. I never expected to find it here too!”

“Its sap is one of the main ingredients used to refine a special antidote pill!”

Zhao Ling’er pointed excitedly at a vine that twisted like a snake, its leaves dark purple.

Wang Zhaojun crouched down and carefully dug around it with a specially made jade trowel, her clear eyes intent on her task.

“Senior Sister Ling’er, be careful with its roots. They’re poisonous.”

“The soil it grows in also seems unusual. I need to study it carefully!”

One identified and harvested the plants, while the other studied their environment and companion species. Their teamwork was flawless.

They looked less like adventurers and more like participants in a spiritual plant survey.

Meanwhile, Xiao Ya’s situation was rather more “lively.”

She had landed in a relatively open area where the ground was covered with strange fissures.

Chaotic spiritual energy periodically erupted from the cracks, forming small turbulent currents.

“Interesting…”

“The spatial structure here seems rather unstable. The direction of these fissures appears to trace the channels of some damaged formation…”

Ignoring the danger, Xiao Ya took out the Thousand Mechanisms Disk and a recording jade slip, crouched on the ground, and began taking notes.

A group of first-tier demonic beasts known as Earth-Splitting Lizards, which resembled lizards with bony spines growing from their backs, attempted to attack her.

Several simple illusion and confinement formations she casually set up left them hopelessly disoriented and completely unable to approach her.

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At the same time.

In a valley shrouded in faint gray mist and surrounded by jagged rocks.

Gu Luoli swept a wary gaze over her surroundings.

The valley was unnaturally silent. The gray mist seemed capable of obstructing divine sense, limiting both her vision and perception.

Just as she prepared to search for a way out, the gray mist ahead rippled, and several figures cautiously emerged.

At their head was a delicate-looking young woman dressed in the robes of a core disciple of Qingyun Sacred Land.

She was none other than the current Holy Maiden of Qingyun Sacred Land, Su Wan’er.

Four disciples of Qingyun Sacred Land followed behind her, all at late-stage Foundation Establishment.

Both sides froze upon seeing each other.

Su Wan’er’s gaze instantly locked onto Gu Luoli, particularly her double pupils and the profound-rank supreme-grade longsword cradled in her arms.

A tangle of emotions flashed through her eyes:

Shock, wariness, a barely perceptible trace of jealousy, and… profound anxiety.

Back when Gu Luoli had still been at the sacred land, Su Wan’er had been overshadowed by her in every respect. Although there had been no grudge between them, they had known each other.

“Senior… Senior Sister Gu?”

A hint of apprehension colored Su Wan’er’s voice.

Gu Luoli remained calm and nodded.

“Junior Sister Su. I trust you’ve been well.”

“Senior Sister Gu, you seem even more remarkable than before. It appears your cultivation at Yaochi Immortal Palace has been going smoothly. That is truly cause for celebration.”

Su Wan’er steadied herself and offered the polite pleasantry.

Yet she could not stop herself from glancing at the Dragon Abyss Sword in Gu Luoli’s arms. The faint fluctuations of a profound-rank supreme-grade artifact alarmed her.

“Thank you.”

Gu Luoli remained as sparing with words as ever.

She could see Su Wan’er’s tension and the unease hidden beneath it, and she immediately understood.

Gu Luoli bore no resentment toward this junior sister who had taken her former position. She had never held a grudge over the choice the sacred land had made back then.

Now that she had embarked on a new Dao path, she was even less inclined to dwell on the past.

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Seeing Gu Luoli’s distant attitude only made Su Wan’er more apprehensive.

She bit her lip. In the end, she could not restrain herself. Lowering her voice, she tentatively asked,

“Senior Sister Gu… after this expedition into the secret realm, what do you intend to do?”

“I heard… I heard that the Sacred Lord… has always felt deeply guilty about what happened to you back then…”

She did not finish, but her meaning was obvious:

The Sacred Lord might want you to return. What do you think?

At those words, memories of the past flashed through Gu Luoli’s double pupils, but they vanished just as quickly.

She looked at Su Wan’er and slowly shook her head, her voice clear and unwavering.

“Junior Sister Su, go back and tell the Sacred Lord, or anyone else who still entertains such thoughts.”

“I will not return to Qingyun Sacred Land.”

“The Gu Luoli of the past is already dead. The person standing here now is Gu Luoli, a disciple of Yaochi Immortal Palace.”

“My Dao lies in Yaochi, under my Master’s guidance. Qingyun Sacred Land need not concern itself with me.”

Her words were crisp and decisive, completely extinguishing the last shred of hope behind Su Wan’er’s probing question and drawing an unmistakable line between them.

Su Wan’er trembled slightly. The smile on her face finally crumbled, and a flicker of panic and embarrassment at having her intentions seen through crossed her eyes.

“Senior Sister… Gu…”

Su Wan’er wanted to say more.

Gu Luoli had already turned away, her gaze fixed on the depths of the gray mist.

“This place is strange. Junior Sister Su, you should lead your people away as soon as possible. Farewell.”

With that, she lingered no longer. Her figure flickered before vanishing into the gray mist.

Su Wan’er and the others remained where they stood, their expressions shifting.

“Holy Maiden, she…”

One disciple spoke in a low voice.

Su Wan’er raised a hand, stopping the disciple from continuing.

She stared in the direction where Gu Luoli had vanished, her expression complicated and unreadable. In the end, it settled into profound solemnity and relief.