High above the technique transmission hall, a woman in black robes dark as ink sat quietly cross-legged on a floating platform of ice. She was cold, aloof, and stunningly beautiful, her gaze fixed faintly on the space below.
A sea of illusory cherry blossoms drifted up and down, petal by petal. Compared with the mad woman’s earlier Dao field, it was no smaller. If anything, it was larger. The entire technique transmission hall lay within its shroud, cutting off all attempts to probe inside from the outside world.
After watching for a long while, Ran Qingmo slowly withdrew her gaze.
After cutting down the Beguiling Divine Sakura’s true body, she had wanted to hurry here to support Xu Yuan. But the moment she activated the teleportation array, she discovered that the technique transmission hall had already been engulfed by this sea of flowers.
She had not dared risk using the teleportation array. Instead, she had spent half an hour rushing here on the Ice Cloud Steps, only to find that the sea of flowers below was saturated with the aura of the Beguiling Divine Sakura.
That beguiling aura rising from beneath made her avoid acting rashly. She simply sat quietly in the sky, cultivating as she waited.
And that wait lasted two full weeks.
Today, however, the sea of cherry blossoms below had finally begun to change.
Ran Qingmo’s dark eyes flickered slightly. She sensed that the aura of this flower sea seemed to be weakening.
After a moment of hesitation, Ran Qingmo took her black sword from her Sumeru Ring. Specks of cold blue light gradually surfaced along the blade.
Time passed, second by second, and Ran Qingmo’s senses had not been mistaken.
Before long, the dazzling cluster of cherry blossoms began to fade.
ᯓ➤
When Xu Yuan woke, the first thing that entered his eyes was a brilliant sea of cherry blossoms. He stared blankly at the flowers as they slowly scattered and vanished, his pitch-black pupils unfocused.
It felt as though he had just had a dream. A very, very long dream. It had not been one month, nor one year. Perhaps it had been ten years. Perhaps even longer.
In any case, the dream had truly been long.
Some fragmented details from the dream had already grown blurry, but he still remembered that he had become a disciple of the Splendorbloom Sect from ten thousand years ago, a disciple named Jing He.
For certain reasons, he ran away from Splendorbloom Sect. He fled together with Tian Yan, that washboard Saintess.
Beyond the Splendorbloom Realm was not emptiness, but a flourishing world. Life on the run was not easy. Many times, they barely knew whether they would live to see the next day.
Xu Yuan suggested that they hide deep in the mountains and forests. The two found a valley with mountains at their back and water before them, then lived there for a month. After that, Tian Yan told him they had to leave.
The Heavenwatch Pavilion could divine their location.
And facts proved that Tian Yan was right.
Because of the Beguiling Divine Sakura, the three forces of the Heavenwatch, Splendorbloom, and Grand Purity Dao Palace never once stopped hunting them. Of the three, the most troublesome was especially the Heavenwatch Pavilion and its annoying ability to divine the future.
Fortunately, Tian Yan was the Heavenwatch Pavilion’s inside mole, and she knew how to deal with it.
Tian Yan’s familiarity with the Heaven Deriving Art allowed the two of them to scrape through one deadly pursuit after another by the skin of their teeth.
Snowy mountains, grasslands, deserts, hidden valleys, islands.
Those days of being hunted seemed to have no end.
Along the way, they met many people and saw many things. They came to understand just how prosperous the sect-ruled world had once been during the surge of source qi.
But an illusion was still an illusion. Some places were as bustling and vivid as reality, while others were nothing but blank emptiness, impossible to enter.
It was just like... the invisible walls he used to run into in games in his previous life.
Like waking from a great dream with his brain turned to mush, Xu Yuan stared through the huge hole in the Dome Palace at the blue sky outside. His thoughts moved sluggishly, as though they had rusted over. It felt like an instant. It felt like eternity.
Gradually, Xu Yuan realized something. He seemed to have come out of the illusion. At that thought, he looked around. Seeing this familiar yet unfamiliar technique transmission hall, he could not help raising a hand to cover his face as he let out a low laugh.
He had finally escaped that damned illusion.
As the cherry blossoms surrounding him completely scattered, his gaze slipped through the gaps between his fingers and was drawn to a graceful figure descending through the great hole in the dome.
In the sunlight pouring down, she fell with sword in hand, like an exiled immortal descending into the mortal world. Her sleeves fluttered as she landed beside him. It was Ran Qingmo.
At the sight of this familiar yet unfamiliar iceberg of a woman, Xu Yuan finally confirmed that he had truly come out.
After all, ten thousand years ago, there had definitely been no such person as this iceberg of a woman.
Gathering his thoughts, Xu Yuan raised his eyes to look at Ran Qingmo. Only to find that she was not looking at him at all. Instead, she was staring fixedly at the front hall of the technique transmission hall.
Following her gaze, Xu Yuan looked over. He saw a barefoot girl in palace robes with her beautiful eyes tightly shut. At that moment, her entire body was wrapped in layer after layer of golden light.
Compared with the Shield mantra from the illusion, the golden patterns flowing across the surface of this light barrier were on a completely different level.
At the sight, Xu Yuan instinctively wanted to laugh. But in the next instant, his smile froze. He realized he had to run.
This place was no longer an illusion.
“Ran Qingmo, how much time has passed outside?”
Ran Qingmo gave a soft sound of doubt, her gaze still warily fixed on the palace-robed girl with closed eyes. She replied quietly, “About two weeks.”
“Only two weeks?” Hearing this, Xu Yuan frowned.
The air fell silent for an instant.
And in that brief silence, the teleportation platform beneath him and Ran Qingmo suddenly began to charge on its own.
In reality, it was the Sage's remnant soul. While consciously controlling the teleportation array, he drifted out from the soul ring.
“Many illusions are like a lifetime in a single dream. A hundred years passing in one dream would be perfectly normal.”
Xu Yuan neither agreed nor disagreed. He had already expected as much.
Glancing at the black sword in Ran Qingmo’s hand, now gathering a cold gleam along its edge, Xu Yuan suddenly said, “Ran Qingmo, disperse the sword art.”
Ran Qingmo turned her eyes toward him, puzzled.
“Why...?”
Xu Yuan shook his head. His answer was simple. “It’s useless. All we can do is run.”
After spending so many years with Tian Yan day and night in the illusion, forget her trump cards, Xu Yuan practically knew what kind of underwear that washboard Saintess wore.
If Ran Qingmo wanted to kill Tian Yan while crossing ranks, it would be about as difficult as crossing ranks to kill Xu Changge.
Hearing this, the Sage's remnant soul beside them suddenly chuckled. “Xu boy, why hasn’t this Tian Yan woken up yet?”
The final season of the illusion surfaced subconsciously in Xu Yuan’s mind. He shook his head and said quietly, “A gift from Wang Yuchu.”
“A gift?” The Sage's remnant soul raised a brow.
Xu Yuan pondered briefly, then summarized it simply. “After her long-cherished wish was fulfilled, in the final moments of the illusion, she replayed the destruction of Splendorbloom Sect from back then for Tian Yan and me. At my request, she also promised to let me wake up first and give me a chance to escape.”
The Sage's remnant soul’s eyes flickered for a moment. “Looks like you gained quite a lot from that illusion.”
“I suppose so.” Xu Yuan smiled faintly.
After a brief pause, the Sage's remnant soul asked again, “But in that case, you still have memories from inside the illusion?”
Xu Yuan nodded. “I do, but they’re very blurry. Like a dream. Is that strange?”
Hearing this, the Sage's remnant soul fell silent for a moment. His tone turned faint and distant. “Strange, and yet not strange. But thinking about it, that tree spirit of the Beguiling Divine Sakura must have wanted to give you an opportunity.”
Xu Yuan’s tone carried a hint of helplessness. “It was an opportunity, yes, but it was also a life-and-death calamity. When Wang Yuchu dragged Tian Yan and me inside, she really did intend to kill us.”
“She wanted to kill you?!”
“Soul fusion.” Xu Yuan spat out a term that left the Sage's remnant soul with no small amount of psychological trauma.
The corner of the Sage's remnant soul’s eye twitched. “Soul fusion?”
Xu Yuan explained, “Just as you said, the Splendorbloom Sect really was destroyed by the Beguiling Divine Sakura. But back then, before those Saints of Splendorbloom Sect died, they fused their souls with Wang Yuchu and planted in her the obsession to protect the Splendorbloom Sect. So when she pulled Tian Yan and me into the illusion, she truly did want to kill us. But another, deeper obsession of hers saved us.”
“A deeper obsession?”
“To live on together with Jing He. Tian Yan and I became Jing He and her, and we lived until after she and Jing He were sacrificed in the blood ritual.”
“I see...” The Sage's remnant soul sounded somewhat rueful. Then he asked quietly, “But why wasn’t this old man pulled in?”
“Because she was too weak. Even after self-detonating her own body, that kind of illusion could only draw in two people at most.”
The Sage's remnant soul fell quiet for a moment, then asked with a smile, “You must have seen quite a few useful things in that illusion, didn’t you?”
The scattered memories of the illusion in Xu Yuan’s mind were still hazy. He did not explain further, only urged, “It’s hard to explain all at once, and I can’t remember a lot of it clearly. Let’s leave first. Once Tian Yan wakes up, we might not be able to leave at all.”
The Sage's remnant soul raised an eyebrow. “Before planting an anchor on the variable, the Heavenwatch Pavilion’s Saintess should not kill anyone.”
“I know.” Xu Yuan cut him off, his expression turning a little strange. “Not killing doesn’t mean she can’t beat me up. Also...”
As he spoke, he glanced at the young girl nearby whose beautiful eyes were still closed. “In the illusion, I bullied her a little too much.”
“You were a match for Tian Yan?”
“The kind of bullying that doesn’t require cultivation.”
The Sage's remnant soul froze for a moment. Then a playful smile tugged at his lips, and he glanced sideways at Ran Qingmo.
Ran Qingmo blinked and tilted her head. “What?”
“Heh. Nothing.” The Sage's remnant soul chuckled.
A moment later, the teleportation array activated.
The three of them vanished.
ᯓ➤
After the technique transmission hall returned to silence, time seemed to lose all meaning within this ancient, unchanging palace.
No one knew how long passed.
The girl in pale red palace robes slowly opened her eyes.
The vast, tangled memories from the illusion surged into her mind, leaving her golden pupils slightly dazed.
Unlike Xu Yuan, her Heaven Deriving Soul allowed her to remember most of what had happened in the illusion.
In her daze, scene after scene from their days on the run kept surfacing in her mind.
After several breaths of silence, a violent gale burst outward from around the young girl.
She stood one foot above the ground, her pale red palace dress snapping loudly under the pressure of the wind. Her pure, breathtaking little face was flushed with an unusual blush, but her eyes glittered coldly as she swept her gaze around.
She was looking for someone.
When she realized the hall was already completely empty, the girl waved her sleeve in shame and fury. “That bastard!!!”
BOOM! A huge hole was immediately blasted into the jade-brick wall of the great hall, as if she were venting all her anger on it.
After panting heavily for a long while, Tian Yan slowly landed on the ground, her small fists clenched tight. “You bastard... Don’t... don’t let me catch you!”
After saying that, Tian Yan sat cross-legged on the ground and closed her eyes, beginning to regulate her breathing. The effects of the Beguiling Sakura Flower and Heavenly Desire Dao Field inside her body still had yet to fade.
Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!
Use arrow keys (or A / D) to PREV/NEXT chapter