What Wei Yuan had never expected was that after his treasured gun Kshana was ruined and the Xun Wind Calamity Bullet spent—a cost equivalent to an entire spiritual treasure—all he had managed to destroy was one of her life-substituting spiritual treasures.
This was no ordinary avatar or double, but a genuine life-substituting spiritual treasure capable of taking a lethal calamity in place of its master's true body. Among treasures of the same grade, life-substituting artifacts were unconditionally the most expensive, bar none.
Stowing away Kshana, which had lost all its spirituality, Wei Yuan looked at the silver-haired woman and sighed, "You really are rich!"
The silver-haired woman was also glaring at Wei Yuan, gritting her teeth. "And you really are shameless!"
Wei Yuan let out a cold laugh. "There is no need to speak of righteousness when dealing with heretics and barbarian outsiders like you. Anyone has the right to strike you down."
The silver-haired woman had run out of words to express her contempt. Gritting her teeth, she asked, "The Scourge of the North is still waiting for you. Are you still going?"
Wei Yuan retorted, "Do you think I'd still go?"
The silver-haired woman nodded, turned, and made to leave. Yet the instant she turned, her figure shifted abruptly, gliding sideways by a hundred feet to face Wei Yuan once more. Wei Yuan, meanwhile, already held Kshana in hand, just about to take aim.
The air between them instantly froze.
Wei Yuan smiled faintly and cracked open Kshana's chamber, revealing it was empty. The silver-haired woman offered a faint smile of her own, gave Wei Yuan a little wave, and turned to walk away.
Watching her retreating figure, the smile in Wei Yuan's eyes vanished. Just as he was about to put his gun away, the void suddenly churned, and a torrent of spells came crashing down upon his head!
That parting wave of the silver-haired woman's hand had not been a goodbye—it was a sinister, clandestine casting of Dao arts!
These spells were blisteringly fast and densely packed. Individually, none possessed immense power, but their numbers were overwhelming. Together, the barrage of lesser spells precisely wore down and dispelled Wei Yuan's protective Dao power, and then the final spell came crashing straight down on his head!
A cold sneer played at the corner of Wei Yuan's mouth. Given the strength of his dharma physique, a minor spell incapable of killing even an ordinary Dharma Idol would feel like nothing more than a shoulder rub or a foot massage when landing on him.
Knowing full well that the silver-haired woman couldn't have gone far and was surely watching from the shadows, he stood as upright as a pine, his eyes shining like stars. Adopting a heroic posture as if meeting an apocalypse, he took the final spell head-on without flinching.
And then, Wei Yuan experienced firsthand what it felt like to be attacked by a Peerless Dao Domain.
In that instant, it felt as though a mass of soft, gooey, slimy filth had been forcibly shoved down his throat, extending all the way into his stomach. His entire body boiled with revulsion. In a flash, he darted into a secluded corner and began violently throwing up.
Fortunately, Wei Yuan's Dao power was profound. Drawing upon a sliver of immortal qi, he forcefully dissolved and destroyed the true intent within his body. Only then did he catch his breath, unable to hold back a stream of furious curses.
Right then, the silver-haired woman's voice suddenly echoed beside his ear: "Since you called me a barbarian outsider, how could I not treat you to some of my methods?"
Where was that voice coming from?
Wei Yuan twisted his head at an almost impossible angle, fixing his eyes on his shoulder. There, no larger than the tip of a needle, rested a tiny speck of filth. The voice had come from that very spot.
Wei Yuan's pupils shrank, and he felt thoroughly disgusted!
No matter how small, filth was still filth! True fire erupted from his body in a blazing roar, nearly incinerating his Daoist robes in the process. Naturally, not a single speck of dust or filth could survive the flames.
Yet despite being immaculately clean, Wei Yuan still couldn't resist glancing at his shoulder, as though something were still clinging there.
Wei Yuan forced himself not to dwell on his shoulder and turned his mind to analyzing the silver-haired Liao woman. This counted as their first formal clash, and each had scored a hit: Wei Yuan had dealt a severe blow to her immortal silver reserves, while she had ravaged his Dao heart and flesh. All in all, it was a draw.
The silver-haired Liao woman possessed bizarre techniques, and that final barrage was a masterstroke. The combined power of the multi-stage attack was quite formidable, yet each individual spell had limited potency, precisely bypassing the sect's mountain gate ward without triggering it. As a result, Wei Yuan was denied the ward's protection and had to withstand the strike purely on his own.
The final hit itself carried very little force, but relying on a wisp of filthy true intent, it had forced a violent physical reaction from Wei Yuan. In a life-or-death battle, that could easily prove fatal.
After pondering for a moment, Wei Yuan rose immediately and went to see the Master of Haotian View.
Zhu Yan was currently dissecting a corpse of the Liao Clan. The blade in his hand was ten times thinner than a human hair and a full foot in length. On a nearby rack sat hundreds of blades of various shapes, giving an unmistakably professional impression.
Several sheets of jade paper floated beside Zhu Yan. As his hands worked, intricate structures of peculiar, striking beauty continually formed upon them. A single glance told Wei Yuan that this was what organic flesh tissue looked like magnified hundreds of times.
Seeing Wei Yuan arrive, Zhu Yan didn't pause his hands, asking, "Have you come regarding the battle just now?"
"Indeed." Wei Yuan was not surprised that Zhu Yan knew. Those who held authority over the mountain gate formation could sense everything that unfolded within it.
"You handled it well. There was nothing amiss in what you did."
Wei Yuan said, "This disciple felt her final blow was rather profound, which is why I came to ask Martial Patriarch for guidance."
"Her strike had plenty of craft, but little practical use. If there is something you wish to know, ask." In Zhu Yan's eyes, such tricks were merely lesser paths. Breaking defenses with hundreds of minor spells was no different from breaking them with one devastating spell, except that prolonging the process introduced unnecessary variables. Haotian View had always favored a certain hit and an instant kill, abhorring dilly-dallying.
To his surprise, Wei Yuan asked, "Is there a true intent that goes a step beyond ordinary filth? Something that forces an involuntary reaction from the enemy?"
Zhu Yan had to ponder for a moment before understanding what Wei Yuan meant, and his expression instantly soured.
Yet after a brief pause, he still said, "Across the myriad realms, after the vast majority of sentient creatures perish, their corpses emit a distinct scent to warn their kin: one of their kind has died here. Perhaps such a true intent could go a step beyond mere filth. Conveniently enough, plenty of the Liao Clan have died lately, so refining it will not be difficult."
True Monarch Zhu Yan casually refined it, passing the refining technique to Wei Yuan as he worked. Wei Yuan wanted to say he didn't actually need it, but seeing True Monarch Zhu Yan's face, he dared not speak up. And so, two of the finest luminaries across two generations of the Palace of Grand Beginning spent the entire afternoon steeped in the stench of rotting corpses.
Taking his leave of True Monarch Zhu Yan, Wei Yuan hurried to the two garrison cities on the left and right flanks. Their walls were also reinforced with concrete and steel rebar. Under the Dao arts of the many template cultivators who had arrived from Qingming, the concrete took only half an hour to cure, after which a new layer could be poured. By now, the perimeter within three li of both garrison cities was also dense with trenches and redoubts.
While inspecting the defensive fortifications, the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World suddenly stirred. A great volume of primal chaos qi welled up slowly, blanketing the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World. At the same time, a surge of azure karmic luck appeared within it—over thirty thousand strands in total.
This influx of karmic luck arrived rather abruptly. Inspecting its source closely, Wei Yuan discovered that it all came from the Zhao soldiers who had voluntarily chosen to remain in Qingming.
These Zhao troops were indeed elites; the vast majority were capable of contributing karmic luck.
Wei Yuan knew there were forty thousand Zhao soldiers who had voluntarily remained in Qingming, but for them to contribute over thirty thousand strands of karmic luck in just a few days was a speed of heartfelt devotion he hadn't anticipated at all.
Wei Yuan quickly reviewed their experiences during their time in Qingming. After analyzing the records, the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World pinpointed the part of their experience with the most common overlap: having been treated by the infirmary's beautiful female disciples, with a small fraction treated by handsome male disciples.
Looking at those glamorous, aloof, iceberg-like faces, Wei Yuan fell into thought. He decided to pay a visit to Sun Yu's infirmary to see for himself.
As luck would have it, Sun Yu was holding a lecture in the infirmary. Dozens of disciples sat in the hall—the men handsome, the women gorgeous, with only a scant few of plain appearance, who were the ones who had truly received the authentic legacy of the Monastery of Creation.
Sun Yu was saying, "...Heart ailments must be cured with heart medicine, and a fine outer appearance is itself an excellent medicine. As long as you are blessed with good looks, put on the uniform of our clinic, and stand right there, even if you know nothing at all, patients will inexplicably trust you three-tenths more out of thin air..."
Just then, a sweet, lovely female disciple asked, "What if someone doesn't buy into this disciple's beauty and insists on making an unreasonable scene? What should we do then?"
Sun Yu replied placidly, "Such patients deserve reincarnation. The Realm Lord's dharma idol is short on beasts of burden anyway."
An innocent-looking female disciple asked, "Beasts of burden? Does that mean everyone who goes to the Realm Lord's dharma idol is reincarnated as livestock?"
A plain-looking senior martial brother beside her explained, "Master Sun means working like beasts of burden, not turning into actual cattle and horses."
"Thank you for guiding me, Senior Brother. I'm so clumsy; if you weren't around, I wouldn't even know what to do," the innocent disciple said in a soft, sweet voice.
"Of course, of course! That's only my duty as your senior brother!" the plain-looking senior brother replied flusteredly in succession.
Beside them, an iceberg beauty scoffed and said coldly, "Do you really think she knows nothing? She knows far more than you do! Honestly, you deserve to get tricked every time!"
The senior brother looked awkward, yet clearly didn't want to believe the iceberg beauty's words.
Meanwhile, having taken in the whole scene through Longying's eyes, Wei Yuan was furious. Martial Uncle Sun's method for harvesting karmic luck was certainly effective, but why did he have to take passive-aggressive jabs at him for no reason?
If he wanted people to work like beasts of burden, did he really need to wait for reincarnation?
Chapter 722