Volume 1, Chapter 226 – Spatial Passage

“Shi Lan?”

When she saw Shi Lan come in, Wu Lingkong looked a little excited. She struggled to sit up, but the moment she propped herself halfway up, her arm gave out, and she fell back down again.

“How did you end up this badly hurt?”

Shi Lan crossed to the bedside in a single step, caught Wu Lingkong by the wrist, helped her into a reclined sitting position, and sent a strand of true qi into her body to examine her injuries.

As her true qi circulated, Shi Lan’s brow furrowed even more deeply. Wu Lingkong’s injuries were too severe. Her true qi was exhausted, and her blood and qi were nearly spent.

“It’s already a blessing that I didn’t die.”

Wu Lingkong shook her head, drew back her wrist, turned sideways, and wrapped her arms around Shi Lan. She rubbed her cheek against Shi Lan’s neck and sighed.

“I knew it. You’re blessed by fate. You were definitely going to come back safe.”

Shi Lan said nothing. In her memory, Wu Lingkong had always been overflowing with energy. She had never seen her this fragile before.

“Let me see the wound.”

Shi Lan noticed the bandages wrapped beneath Wu Lingkong’s collar. She helped her lie back at an angle, undid her upper garment, and carefully unwound the layers of cloth.

A horrifying wound nearly an inch deep ran from below Wu Lingkong’s neck, across her chest, all the way to her lower abdomen, almost splitting open her dantian qi sea.

The bleeding had already stopped, but it was still unimaginably far from healing.

“I got this while we were hunting down an Azure-Scaled Python in the Heavenly Astral Realm.”

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Cold sweat had begun to bead on Wu Lingkong’s forehead, and she spoke with some difficulty.

“When that Azure-Scaled Python made its final counterattack, it used an innate divine ability. The scales all over its body ripped upward in reverse and wounded a lot of the sisters. I only managed to keep my life by relying on the talisman you gave me.”

“Why didn’t you take any pills?”

“There’s a severe shortage of spirit medicine in the camp right now, and too many wounded. Everyone just endures if they can. The healing medicine has to be saved for those who can’t hold on. As long as it keeps them alive, that’s enough.”

Shi Lan nodded, then with a flip of her hand took out a deep-blue ganoderma from her Qiankun Bracelet. Closing her fingers around it, she squeezed several drops of crystalline spiritual liquid from within.

Among the materials she carried now, very few were below the fourth grade. Most of what Cangyue had sent together with the Yueji Skirt had been treasure medicines.

This Water Spirit Treasure Ganoderma was among them.

The medicinal force of a fourth-grade treasure medicine was astonishing. The moment a few drops of spiritual liquid fell into the wound, the flesh immediately began to wriggle. In almost an instant, tender pink new flesh sprouted and the wound began to close.

Shi Lan set the Water Spirit Treasure Ganoderma aside, rewrapped the bandages, then helped Wu Lingkong sit up. Resting both hands on her shoulders, she set her blood and qi boiling and poured pure blood and qi into Wu Lingkong’s body in an endless stream.

“Shi Lan, you…”

Wu Lingkong’s expression changed slightly. Blood and qi were of enormous importance to martial artists. For Shi Lan to use her own source blood and qi to heal someone like this was far too draining. If it became too severe, it could even shake the foundations of her cultivation.

“It’s fine.”

Shi Lan shook her head. This amount of blood and qi was negligible to her. Killing a couple of demon beasts would replenish it in the blink of an eye.

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A flush of color rose to Wu Lingkong’s pale cheeks. Her breathing gradually steadied, and some vitality returned to her eyes.

Seeing that it was about enough, Shi Lan withdrew her hands, helped Wu Lingkong lie back down, and said, “Rest and recover. The important thing now is to heal as quickly as possible.”

“The situation is bad?”

Wu Lingkong sensed something and frowned.

“A great battle is close at hand. It will arrive within days.”

Shi Lan nodded slightly. She had a feeling that everything along the way had merely been the calm before the storm.

If Wu Lingkong could not recover quickly, she was very likely to die in the coming fighting.

Wu Lingkong drew a quiet breath, said nothing more, closed her eyes, and began refining the medicinal power of the Water Spirit Treasure Ganoderma.

Shi Lan did not remain in the tent for long and soon left.

…

Once outside, Shi Lan found that the mood in the camp had turned somewhat grim. Commanders above the rank of Ten Thousand Commander were moving about everywhere, arranging the soldiers into formations according to specific positions.

Several figures stood suspended high in the air, purple Demon-Suppressing Tokens hanging at their waists. They were all Demon-Suppressing Marshals, faintly led by an eight-chi-tall burly man.

Shi Lan did not recognize many of the Demon-Suppressing Marshals, but the burly man leading them in the air was one she knew of, because his reputation was simply too great.

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His name was Qi Ruiyu, a man of the Imperial Court. He had guarded the frontier for more than two thousand years, and his cultivation had reached the great perfection of the ninth stage of the Heaven-Man Realm. He was a peak expert of enormous renown.

Though Shi Lan had never made a point of asking, after spending so long in the Demon-Suppressing Army, she had learned quite a bit about its inner workings simply through what she heard and saw.

After a million years of development, the Demon-Suppressing Army was already utterly different from what it had been at its founding.

Though the Demon-Suppressing Army was a single whole, it was internally divided into three factions: the Imperial Court, the great clans, and ordinary martial artists.

Of these three factions, the Imperial Court was the strongest, the great clans came next, and ordinary martial artists were the weakest.

But compared with the loose ties among the great clans, the connections among ordinary martial artists were closer. Perhaps because they had all climbed up from the bottom, they understood each other better.

Those from the great clans were mostly arrogant and looked down on most ordinary martial artists. Living and working together day after day, conflict was sometimes unavoidable.

If there had not always been people from the Imperial Court suppressing things from above, those contradictions would long since have escalated.

Though they all belonged to the Demon-Suppressing Army, before the Imperial Court there were still clear distinctions between insiders and outsiders.

Joining the Demon-Suppressing Army did not mean you had joined the Imperial Court.

If that were not the case, Bai Weiyang would not have asked Shi Lan whether she was willing to enter the Bai family the first time they met.

The several Demon-Suppressing Marshals in the air suddenly spread out. Behind them, World Gates opened and linked together, and in an instant they erected an illusory giant gate that seemed to span heaven and earth.

“All troops, heed my command. Move out at once!”

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Qi Ruiyu let out a long shout from the air and began directing the army, with the women’s camp at the front, toward the giant gate.

Having inherited memory fragments from the Guiyun Sword Sovereign, Shi Lan’s vision now surpassed even that of ordinary great powers.

The giant gate formed from the World Gates of these Demon-Suppressing Marshals did not lead to their own small worlds. Rather, it used the power of those small worlds to forcibly establish a spatial passage through the void.

If nothing unexpected happened, the other side of that passage should be Xianwu City.

To support a spatial passage capable of carrying more than a million people across, the energy required would be enough to fill the Heavenly Abyss. Such a grand undertaking made Shi Lan draw in a sharp breath.

Light flickered across the illusory giant gate, and it seemed somewhat unstable.

Qi Ruiyu frowned slightly but did not step forward. His gaze swept around almost imperceptibly, and with a flick of his sleeve, countless spirit crystals fell like rain, landing near the giant gate and exploding one after another.

Vast surges of spiritual qi roared forth, but before they could spread in all directions, they were absorbed by the giant gate. The illusory gate gradually stabilized, its radiance steadying as it slowly became more solid.

The wounded in the women’s camp entered the giant gate first and were teleported away in an instant.

Just as the women’s camp was about to complete its withdrawal, the sky suddenly darkened. The blazing sun vanished without a trace, replaced by a pitch-black disk, its dazzling black radiance shining across the Nine Heavens.

A peerless blood-colored edge split heaven and earth apart, carrying a brutal killing intent as it slashed toward the giant gate!