To the crackle and rustle of the specially made fire oil burning, Xu Yuan slept peacefully. The leaping flames cast the shadows of the three long against the dark inner walls of the passageway.
The night passed without incident.
In the karst cave and underground tunnels, there was neither day nor night; waking was daybreak.
Silently pushing himself up, Xu Yuan went about washing up on his own.
With no water, he used expensive spiritual liquid directly.
Washing his face, rinsing his mouth, straightening his disheveled clothes.
Life required a sense of ritual.
Once everything was done, Xu Yuan glanced at the two women still sitting beside the campfire.
Bai Muxi kept her back ramrod straight, kneeling obediently beside the fire, but her pretty eyes were glued to the spiritual liquid he was using to freshen up, seemingly pained by his reckless waste of heavenly gifts.
Meanwhile, clad in her crimson robes, Li Qingyan sat coldly wiping down her crimson blade beside the fire. Noticing his gaze, she asked, "Fussy. Ready to move?"
Xu Yuan stretched and glanced back toward the deep, pitch-black passageway they had come from. "Naturally."
With that, Xu Yuan turned to Bai Muxi and asked, "By the way, have you taken care of what I instructed you to do last night?"
Bai Muxi's eyes curved into crescents as she replied with a placid smile, "Muxi wouldn't dare neglect Young Master's orders."
"Very good."
At that, Xu Yuan casually tossed the Sumeru ring containing the formation-inscribed ballista to Bai Muxi. "The ballista is inside this Sumeru ring. Don't forget what I instructed you before going to sleep."
Bai Muxi hurriedly reached out to catch it. Looking down at the treasure in her palm—something never before seen in the underground palace—a hint of pleasant surprise flashed across her eyes. "Young Master, this Sumeru ring..."
"It's on loan. What are you getting excited about?"
Patting down his brocade robe, Xu Yuan looked at her with a faint smirk. "Once we're out, this Sumeru ring has to be returned to me."
Bai Muxi blinked her pretty eyes and lowered her gaze, looking somewhat disappointed. "Oh... alright."
"Heh..."
Xu Yuan let out an ambiguous chuckle and paid no further mind to this cute-on-the-outside, dark-on-the-inside little white rabbit.
He believed Bai Muxi would offer her loyalty for the sake of the underground city, but having wealth didn't mean he was an idiot.
Sumeru rings were strategic materiel that couldn't be bought on the open market at all; even the big ice block hadn't possessed one at the start.
Even when bestowing rewards on subordinates, one had to progress step-by-step.
If he gave away something so precious right off the bat, what would be left to reward her with down the line?
Casually dousing the campfire, without another word, they turned into afterimages and sped through the pitch-black, spacious passageway.
Soon, the three arrived at the corpse of the cat demon aberrant ghost.
After several shichen, the pool of flesh and blood on the ground had undergone a massive transformation.
The blackened mash of flesh that had been scorched by Li Qingyan's Dao Charm was already sprouting anew, disgusting fleshy tendrils crawling through the crimson gore, squirming across the ground in an attempt to reassemble.
Upon closer inspection, one would find that this near-dissipated gore was not rootless duckweed.
The black death creep spreading across the entire passageway was continuously feeding flesh-and-blood matter into the hairless cat demon, accompanied by faint gurgling and squelching sounds.
Staring unblinkingly at the scene before him, Xu Yuan rubbed his chin in thought and smiled. "The immortality of aberrant ghosts truly lives up to its reputation. Still, it seems even this immortality has to follow the conservation of energy."
"Conservation of energy?"
Li Qingyan voiced slight doubt, but reacting swiftly, she smiled. "An interesting term."
Xu Yuan glanced at her in slight surprise. "You know what it means?"
"Do you take this princess for a three-year-old child?"
Li Qingyan's phoenix eyes held a trace of exasperation as she said clearly, "Mortals must ingest food to move; after cultivating to Body Integration, one no longer needs food, yet still must take in and breathe out Source Qi. All things in this world are equivalent exchanges. Why wouldn't I understand?"
"......"
Xu Yuan gave an awkward smile.
Well, everyone here was smart. A single phrase wasn't going to shock the entire room.
Li Qingyan crouched down, examining the puddle of the cat demon aberrant ghost she had burned to ash. Sensing it slightly, she suddenly spoke: "Changtian, have you heard the saying, 'Reach the Origin Realm: enter through martial arts, and a single drop of blood grants an indestructible physical body; enter through qi, and the intent-soul condenses enough to leave the body and seize souls'?"
"Hm?"
Xu Yuan walked over to her side. "Of course. The two most famous paths for cultivators. Aside from those, there seem to be minor paths like the soul path or military arrays."
"Right." Li Qingyan nodded slightly, then looked up into his eyes. "Don't you think aberrant ghosts could be considered one of them?"
Xu Yuan frowned slightly. "What?"
Li Qingyan rose from the ground. "After reaching the Origin Realm, no matter which path a cultivator walks, they will more or less attain some degree of 'immortality.' This is even more so for the path chosen by the Dachao of the Great Desert; when a high-ranking cultivator's physical body is blown apart, it takes mere moments to reform."
Remembering the Dachao prince he had slain in the Imperial Capital, Xu Yuan pondered briefly and asked, "Are you saying the way of the aberrant ghost is also one of these paths—a path that pushes immortality to the absolute extreme?"
Li Qingyan exhaled, her slender index finger pointing toward the cat demon aberrant ghost on the ground. "Yes. An Origin Realm cultivator entering through martial arts still needs to preserve their origin to achieve rebirth from a drop of blood. But this aberrant ghost doesn't need to. I cannot sense even a sliver of its aura right now, yet it is undeniably still alive."
Xu Yuan roughly understood what Li Qingyan meant, chuckling, "My dear Princess, seniors from ten thousand years ago already researched all of this, and there are even many aberrant ghost cultivation manuals passed down."
Li Qingyan shook her head, a dark gleam flashing in her scarlet phoenix eyes. "No, what I mean is: if we follow the plan you laid out last night, could I retain a certain degree of its immortality during the aberrant ghost transformation process?"
As she spoke, a trace of excitement flashed in her eyes. "If possible, perhaps a military array endowed with immortal traits could be formed—"
"I don't agree."
Xu Yuan hastily cut her off. "It's too dangerous."
Madwoman.
He found that this chest-bound princess was truly insane at times, beyond all reason.
Did she not understand what playing with fire meant?
Even the Overseeing Heaven Pavilion said the world's great calamity was upon them.
If in the end the great calamity turned out to be cooked up by Great Yan's own upper echelons, it would be a direct reenactment of the movie classics from his previous life.
Xu Yuan's resolute words silenced Li Qingyan for a brief moment, but she immediately broke into a charming smile. "I was only joking. Are we ready to begin?"
"......"
Xu Yuan gave her a deep look, but said nothing more. Glancing at Bai Muxi, he said, "She and I will go to the other end of the passageway to prepare. In fifteen minutes, Qingyan, start absorbing the nearby black death creep directly. Once you absorb a certain amount, that Black Serpent will sense it."
With that, Xu Yuan gestured to Bai Muxi and turned to dash into the distance.
He had witnessed battles between Origin Realm and Transcendent Realm before.
The scene of the washboard Saintess dueling Yuchu in the Imperial City was still vivid in his mind.
Now, without Old Man Luo to protect him, a 'mighty' Soul Condensation cultivator like him had better keep his distance and just spectate from the sidelines.
"Rumble—"
Fifteen minutes later.
Accompanied by tremors that shook the earth and mountains, a ferocious, twin-winged Black Serpent arrived as anticipated.
The battle between Li Qingyan and the Black Serpent erupted instantly.
Shockwaves, fierce gales, and monstrous roars instantly echoed through the cavern!
Because the distance was too great, Xu Yuan couldn't see the battle in the dark passageway clearly, feeling only the turbulent currents sweeping over from that direction stinging against his cheeks.
As the minutes and seconds ticked by, the ceaseless tremors of the passageway made Xu Yuan's heart beat faster. His grip on Qingyu tightened slightly.
He believed in Li Qingyan's strength, and even more in the strength of the Barbarian King as a world boss, but no matter how one looked at it, that Black Serpent was still a Transcendent Realm boss.
The darkness at the end of the passageway seemed like the maw of a man-eating behemoth.
Amidst the boundless darkness, the Source Crystal deeply embedded in the rear groove of the array-inscribed ballista—whose bowstring stretched several zhang when fully drawn—served as the only light.
The firing rate of the array-inscribed ballista was not fast; even without factoring in wear on the formation runes, it took half a minute to fully charge and loose a single bolt.
Fortunately, Bai Muxi's aim was remarkably precise.
Every time a bolt ripped through the air, an agonizing hiss from the Black Serpent echoed from the far end of the passageway.
The formation-inscribed military ballistas used for Beifeng City's defense were anti-army siege engines, military-grade creations of Great Yan array craft capable of puncturing through entire military arrays; they seemed capable of piercing the scales of the Black Serpent aberrant ghost as well.
He just didn't know whether the poison Lou Ji had given him back then would work against an aberrant ghost...
Even as the thought crossed his mind, Bai Muxi's pupils constricted abruptly—she saw the distant Black Serpent charging recklessly toward them!
Without the slightest hesitation, Bai Muxi raised her fair hand toward Xu Yuan.
In the next instant, Xu Yuan felt the Void-Stepping Slash primed within his body get triggered by an external force.
"Boom—!"
A massive roar thundered in his ears, flying rock fragments stinging his cheeks.
By the time Xu Yuan recovered his senses, his figure had already materialized at the edge of the passageway more than ten zhang away.
And the spot where he had just stood was already occupied by a colossal, hideous Black Serpent...
Its speed was so fast the naked eye couldn't track it clearly.
The broad passageway, over twenty zhang in diameter, was a third filled by this Black Serpent. A sharp black horn jutted from its head, and a pair of hideous fleshy wings spread from the sides of its massive skull.
Among demonic beasts, this Black Serpent was not considered exceptionally massive—not even as large as Ji Qingyue's true Seven-Life Python form had been.
The unhealing wounds riddle-marking its pitch-black scales testified to the severity of its injuries, yet even so, the terrifying pressure radiating from the serpent left Xu Yuan breathless.
It was too close.
Xu Yuan realized he hadn't been this close to death in a long time.
Fortunately, the Black Serpent's target was not him, but rather the array-inscribed ballista radiating terrifying power.
Everything seemed frozen in this instant as his gaze swept toward the serpent's head...
Then, he saw her, clad in crimson.
Li Qingyan gripped the hilt with one hand and pressed against the blade with the other, her sturdy blade held directly against the horn on the serpent's head.
Two li...
The hard stone beneath Li Qingyan's feet was shattered, leaving a deep furrow gouged all the way from the distance, and mere paces behind her stood the ballista controlled by Bai Muxi.
In a split second, she had been pushed all the way across two li by the serpent's monstrous force...
Li Qingyan's hand gripping the crimson blade trembled slightly, but in the next instant, she snapped in a low roar, "Bai Muxi, what are you gaping at?!"
Her words fell as her long hair whipped about. Fiery red Source Qi surged across her whole body. Like a blazing fire phoenix, Li Qingyan stomped her lotus boots, instantly shattering the ground, and violently slashed upward!
"Hiss-roar—!!!"
The Black Serpent's massive body was heaved into the air right by the horn on its skull.
"Twang—!"
Bai Muxi triggered the array-inscribed ballista, releasing the final bolt.
The Army-Breaker bolt streaked toward the Black Serpent's lower jaw with peerless momentum!
"Pfft!"
Without any resistance, the tough scales beneath the Black Serpent's jaw were punctured clean through. The bolt punched into its skull, but that was not the end.
Having pierced inside, the razor-sharp bolt, over half a zhang long, lost none of its force, spinning as it drilled deeper through the tough membranes within its brain...
In an instant, the bolt burst out through the top of its skull alongside the horn, embedding itself deep into the cavern ceiling!
A moment of absolute stillness.
Void-Stepping Slash.
Xu Yuan's figure vanished from where he stood and reappeared behind the two women. Just as he was about to speak, a fragrant breeze brushed past him.
Bai Muxi kicked off the ground violently, sweeping him along as she sprinted backward.
Even with its head impaled, even with the horn atop its skull shattered, the Black Serpent was still not dead!
Silently, the twin-winged Black Serpent's upward-heaved body continued rising, but at the same time, its massive tail coiled on the ground transformed into a whip invisible to the naked eye, lashing toward Li Qingyan as she finished her upward slash!
"Bang!"
With a dull crash, a fiery-red afterimage vanished from the spot like a cannonball, hurtling backward into the distant darkness—so fast that she overtook Bai Muxi, who was pulling Xu Yuan along in retreat.
"Cough, ah..."
A mouthful of bright red blood sprayed from Li Qingyan's lips.
The strength of a Transcendent aberrant ghost was simply too immense. Even though she had blocked with her blade an instant before the serpent's tail struck, it had still sent her Source Qi into violent reverse flow.
Yet in nearly the same breath, Li Qingyan adjusted her posture midair. Source Qi condensed into solid footholds, and kicking off them with her lotus boots, she charged once again toward the heavily wounded Black Serpent...
The darkness flanking the passageway rushed backward.
Feeling the earthshaking tremors behind them, Xu Yuan instinctively held tighter to Little Bai's supple, boneless form, finding one of his few sources of security in the warmth of her body.
Behind them, Li Qingyan collapsed sections of the cavern to stall the Black Serpent's pursuit while dashing swiftly toward the depths.
Plans never kept pace with changes; an accident had happened after all.
The initial plan to hunt the Black Serpent had failed.
Back in the Qionghua secret realm, Tianyan had been able to face a full-health Yuchu head-on while only in the Origin Realm, to say nothing of the fact that Yuchu could even deploy an overwhelmingly suppressive domain skill like a Dao domain back then.
He had thought that even if their chest-bound princess couldn't compare to an insufferable poser like Xu Changge, she was at least on the same level as the washboard Saintess; with the support of an array-inscribed ballista, dealing with a heavily injured aberrant ghost incapable of using a Dao domain should have been more than enough.
Yet reality was always vastly more cruel than ideal assumptions.
People's constitutions simply couldn't be generalized.
Though the chest-bound princess was strong, she wasn't so strong that she could jump realms to do battle like Tianyan.
Thinking this, Xu Yuan sighed and asked via voice transmission, "Muxi, we should be reaching the spot soon, right?"
Hearing this, Bai Muxi hesitated slightly before answering, "Replying to Young Master, Her Highness the Princess should already be preparing to detonate..."
Before her words finished,
"Buzz—!"
A world-shaking hum built up and screamed outward, and an orb of light bright enough to blind human eyes abruptly erupted in the dark passageway!
The sphere of light expanded at a speed visible to the naked eye. Even after swallowing the relentless Black Serpent whole, it continued to swell outward without pause.
Time seemed to stand still in this instant.
Blood-red light flickered in Xu Yuan's eyes. Staring straight back, he clenched his fists.
If an array-inscribed ballista didn't work,
and Li Qingyan didn't work,
could a Source Crystal bomb bought with 1.2 million taels of silver still fail to blow you son of a bitch to kingdom come?
Chapter 291