The two page boys stared at Wei Yuan in his cult master guise with utter astonishment. "Well now! Since when could the junk inside a world fragment speak?"
"Looks like whoever built this place had quite a few ideas—even giving the junk some lines."
"What ideas? They're just trapped in this little realm, unable to go up or come down, bored out of their minds, that's all."
"True enough."
Trading banter back and forth, the two page boys paid no heed whatsoever to Wei Yuan, a great cult master of the mortal realm.
Wei Yuan beckoned to Ji Liuli. "Come behind me. This cult master shall see you safely through."
Ji Liuli grew only more vigilant, retreating even further from him.
At his words, the two page boys burst into uproarious laughter, rolling on the ground as if they had just heard the funniest joke in the world. "See her safely through? She is someone the Heavenly Venerable wants taken! In all the three realms and six paths, who dares claim they can keep her safe?"
"If we tell the elders this when we get back, they'll laugh until their Dao bodies are injured!"
"It's been quite a while since I heard an ant brag like that."
Wei Yuan waited quietly until the two boys had laughed their fill before cupping his hands. "You two esteemed cultivators seem to possess extraordinary origins. While this cult master considers himself well-traveled, I cannot discern your background. Might you enlighten me, so that I may know what manner of divine being this Heavenly Venerable is?"
One boy snapped furiously, "Silence! Who are you to speak of the Heavenly Venerable?"
"Why waste your breath on this piece of junk? You must be truly bored. The hour grows late—hurry up, capture this wretched beast, and let us return to report our mission!"
"Very well."
Paying no more attention to Wei Yuan, the two boys produced a brocade bag and hurled it toward Ji Liuli. The brocade bag swelled as it caught the wind, its mouth exuding boundless suction that swallowed Ji Liuli in an instant.
Just as the brocade bag began flying back, a long tentacle abruptly shot out midway, instantly coiling around the bag and pulling it back until it landed in Wei Yuan's hand.
*This cult master's divine ability is surprisingly handy,* Wei Yuan thought. *Looks like I'll have to study it properly once I return.*
At the moment, the brocade bag was only two chi in size, and a body could be seen writhing and thrashing incessantly within. Wei Yuan gave it a casual squeeze, causing the body inside to writhe even more violently, as though pricked by a needle.
Yet the bag was clearly a supreme treasure. Forget Ji Liuli—even a Scenery Command great demon stuffed inside would never break free.
"Insolence! A mere piece of junk dares meddle in our Ling..."
"Shut up!" the other boy barked, hastily cutting him off.
The first boy came to his senses and gritted his teeth. "You almost made me commit a terrible blunder. You cannot be allowed to live! Die, all of you!"
A jade vial appeared in his hand. With a tilt toward Wei Yuan, a vast wave of flowing fire surged forth, instantly turning into a sea of flames that engulfed him!
Everything in the surroundings melted rapidly beneath the amber fire. Wei Yuan also felt his dao power begin to decline steadily, immediately realizing how formidable the flames were; an ordinary dharma idol cultivator likely would not last ten breaths.
Without holding back any longer, Wei Yuan condensed wisps of bone-chilling cold in his hands, transforming them into massive icicles that hurtled toward the two boys.
However, rays of gold and red light lit up across the two boys respectively, forcibly withstanding dozens of icicles before the radiance finally dispersed.
Wei Yuan's heart sank slightly. Striking with all his might, each icicle was equivalent to the full-strength blow of a dharma idol cultivator, yet they had merely drained the power of a single treasure?
Wei Yuan pointed directly at the boy on the left, his fingertip abruptly bursting with dazzling radiance! The light possessed little destructive force, but was tailored specifically against divine sense. The boy's vision instantly clouded with blank confusion, blinding him completely.
In that split second, the Civil and Military Dragon Guards and Longying appeared around him. The three dharma idols, each wielding a dharma sword, struck simultaneously in a vicious slash against the boy!
The boy let out a pained cry as the light of yet another treasure flared upon him, only to be shattered immediately. But as the dharma swords sliced into his robe, it was like cutting through rotten wadding, only barely cutting open to leave shallow traces of blood on his flesh. Longying cut somewhat deeper, though still no more than two fingers' depth.
Never expecting he could actually be injured, the boy was both shocked and enraged, pointing at Wei Yuan without being able to utter a word.
Right at that moment, a shadow dragon the size of a python emerged silently, sinking its fangs viciously into the boy's heel!
The bite was astonishingly powerful, tearing away an entire chunk of flesh from the boy's left ankle!
With a sudden spring, the shadow dragon vanished, leaving the boy behind to unleash an earth-shattering shriek of agony!
Enraged and alarmed, the other boy drew a foot-long jade sword and charged straight toward Wei Yuan.
Wei Yuan had been constructing a teleportation gate beside himself as if trying to summon something, but he had dragged his feet without completing it. Seeing the boy rush over, he let out a cry of panic, turned, and fled. The teleportation gate collapsed on the spot, leaving behind only a patch of shadow.
The boy now saw nothing but the short, stout, and hideous Wei Yuan. Gritting his teeth, he thrust the jade sword viciously toward the center of Wei Yuan's back!
The shadow left by the collapsed gate suddenly coalesced into a three-eyed bird head, pecking down upon the boy from behind!
Several rays of different lights flared around the boy before bursting like bubbles, and a large portion of his body was torn away by the beak and swallowed whole.
With a wretched scream, a layer of glazed radiance shone from between his brows, shielding his mangled remnant. The other boy did the same, and the two shot away like meteors into the distance, their voices echoing from afar: "Just you wait, you piece of junk! The Heavenly Venerable will never let you off!"
One look at that glazed radiance dissuaded Wei Yuan from pursuing. The two beams of light were almost solid and carried an unmistakable aura of primal chaos—clearly an immortal's technique, not something he could currently break.
Those were two single-use Immortal Tier life-saving treasures. Wei Yuan figured that even with the wealth of the Palace of Grand Beginning, they probably had few to spare nowadays. To have squandered two supreme treasures like that, the two boys were bound to hate him to death.
As for this Heavenly Venerable, Wei Yuan was not particularly afraid. Glancing at the gradually fading shadow, he thought to himself, *I've got a backer too.*
Though not afraid, Wei Yuan still felt some tension deep down. Those two boys lacked combat experience, their methods were crude, and their resolve was frail—they relied entirely on having an abundance of magical treasures.
While stalling with his idle chatter, Wei Yuan had been secretly laying preparations, quietly ambushing with the three dragon guards while activating his hidden trick through the shadow in the moon.
Even so, the sheer number of treasures the boys possessed deeply shocked him; defensive treasures alone numbered five or six, and that jade sword was visibly a formidable weapon of slaughter.
It was only a pity that the cost of Yin-Yang taking action was too steep, and the remote strike via the shadow in the moon was markedly limited in power; otherwise, he would certainly have turned those two little brats into treasure-delivery boys.
Having suffered a severe loss this time, whoever came next would surely be experts skilled in combat. Ji Liuli in the dream was merely a minor Dao Foundation cultivator; sending two boys capable of withstanding Scenery Command was already using a butcher's cleaver to kill a chicken. They simply had not anticipated running into Wei Yuan.
The three-eyed bird head was evidently quite pleased with that bite, actually spitting out a crystalline pillar of otherworldly fortune for Wei Yuan. He was both surprised and delighted; this strand of fortune would allow Maiden Yin-Yang to strike with full force once, rather than the heavily diminished strikes from before!
It was just a pity it had arrived a bit late; otherwise, he could have kept at least one of the boys behind.
At that moment, Dream Eater quietly appeared. Her clothes were tattered, looking as though she had just survived a fierce battle, exposing vast swathes of skin that ought to have been covered. She asked timidly, "Is the fight over? I just ran into outside enemies on my end, and it took everything I had to drive them back."
Wei Yuan scrutinized her expressionlessly. Suddenly, the three-eyed bird head manifested from the void and pecked down!
Dream Eater's true form emerged right beneath the beak of the three-eyed bird head, a large piece torn straight off. It shrieked piteously, yet could not escape into the shadow void no matter how hard it tried.
However, the three-eyed bird head spat the torn piece back out, seemingly disgusted by the taste. It then faded away, leaving Wei Yuan with only a single thought: *Tastes awful. Karmic luck deducted.*
Rage instantly flared in Wei Yuan's eyes. He glared at Dream Eater without a word, offering only a cold sneer.
Her face went deathly pale with terror. "Master, why... why don't you have some fun with Senior Sister first? I won't disturb you."
Wei Yuan's heart tightened. He quickly squeezed the brocade bag in his sleeve, relaxing only when he felt the body inside thrashing and struggling desperately. The bag had not vanished along with the two page boys.
With his mind at ease, Wei Yuan let out a cold sneer. "Lord Dream Eater, explain yourself."
"...It's like this. I don't know who they are either, but they clearly crossed over from your Senior Sister's dream. They went around smashing and thrashing everywhere, leaving my dream world heavily damaged. It will take ages to repair."
Dream Eater's voice even carried a sob. Yet Wei Yuan remained unmoved; great demons did not cry—they possessed no such faculty.
"You don't know their origins?"
"I've never even heard of them."
"When I summoned you just now, why didn't you come?"
Dream Eater shrank back. "I... I didn't dare. They carry an aura that terrifies me. I... I didn't want to get close."
Wei Yuan's heart stirred. A speck of primal chaos qi appeared at his fingertip, and Dream Eater immediately let out a screech, vanishing into the darkness in an instant.
Chapter 656