The man inside her fell silent, barely suppressing his anger. He had been trapped here for too long. The puppet body couldn’t move freely, limiting many of his abilities.
“Take out the World Passing Incense,” he finally said. “Light it.”
He needed to report upward. World Passing Incense allowed communication across realms.
Soon, a message descended from above. The crack was widening.
He was ordered to proceed to Sky-Covering Valley immediately and reinforce the seal.
Time was running out.
After the World-Passing Incense burned down to ash, the man’s voice turned glacial.
“Now do you see? The crack in Sky-Covering Valley is widening. We’re running out of time.”
Indiana’s brows knit together. “And who exactly do you expect me to handle? My master alone is a Mahayana cultivator. If you count the other one, that makes two.”
“Two who escaped,” the man replied calmly. “We can ignore them for now.”
“And if they ascend?”
He gave a low, dismissive laugh. “Ascension isn’t that simple. Besides, we’re not afraid of anyone ascending. Those who make it through the Heavenly Gate are human cultivators. Anyone with half a brain will choose to stand with us once they see the bigger picture. They’ll become our partners.”
His tone sharpened.
“What we need to fear is the divine dragon breaking its seal.”
Indiana’s fingers tightened in her sleeves. “You said that once someone ascends, the Heavenly Gate opens wide. Immortal energy will pour down. If enough of it leaks into Sky-Covering Valley, the dragon will recover. And once it regains its strength, it’ll shatter the seal.”
The man only smiled.
He had already obtained a newly refined sealing formation from the Formation Sect—one designed specifically to isolate the dragon. It would allow only a trickle of immortal energy to pass through. A trickle wasn’t enough.
Even if one or two variables slipped through the cracks, it wouldn’t matter.
“This isn’t your concern,” he said at last. “Focus on how you’re going to get out of here.”
Indiana bit her lip hard enough to taste blood.
Get out? As if it were that easy.
Desolate Valley was a dead zone. No disciples came here. No elders. The barrier was tied directly to the sect’s grand defensive formation. It wasn’t something she could simply chip away at in secret. Even if she tried something clever, who would see it? Who would report it?
Her master had just left. He wouldn’t return anytime soon.
“My senior brother wrote to me,” she said quietly. “He said he’d come after he advances. He listens to me. He’ll persuade Master to release me.”
The man’s patience was thinning. Waiting for Timothy’s breakthrough could take months.
He had already considered forcing the barrier open himself.
But this damned puppet had been personally imprisoned by the sect leader. If she broke out, even for the sake of appearances, the sect would send people after her. That would interfere with his real objective—reinforcing the seal in Sky-Covering Valley.
One wrong move, and everything would collapse.
After long consideration, he suppressed his anger.
Fine. They would wait.
For now, aside from relying on her senior brother, there was no better option.
.......
Months later, Lauren finally reached the threshold of breakthrough.
Her Nascent Soul had grown stronger, now clad in faint, radiant armor—a sign of solid foundation and hardened spirit. Even if her physical body were destroyed, the Nascent Soul could survive longer than before. Her odds of seizing a new body had increased.
Lauren was still savoring the moment when her surroundings shifted without warning.
The Evercrest estate.
Ruins. Smoke. Corpses.
The exact same scene from the first time she had faced her inner demons.
Oppression crushed down on her chest, suffocating. Grief clawed at her. Rage burned in her veins.
“Why won’t you let them go? Why—”
She stopped.
No. This time, her mind cleared almost instantly. The Evercrests had already been rescued. They were safe.
She frowned. “This shit again?”
When she thought about it, though, this was the only inner demon she had left.
Lauren raised the Gintama Sword and slashed downward without hesitation, cleaving the illusion in two.
The world shattered like glass. In the next breath, she was standing in an unfamiliar wasteland.
Dark clouds churned overhead. Lightning split the sky. Thunder roared like an enraged beast. The ground was riddled with cracks, molten lava bubbling through them in glowing red veins.
She recognized this place.
It was where she had ended up after breaking free from her inner demons at the Gate of the Heart.
Logically, overcoming inner demons should lead directly to lightning tribulation.
So why was she here again? Last time, Edmund had helped her.
This time…
Lauren looked up. The clouds parted. An eye slowly emerged from the storm.
That eye.
She was no longer the trembling girl who had once been struck by lightning and forced into hiding in Sky-Covering Valley.
She was a Spirit Severing cultivator now.
Powerful. Sharp. Unyielding.
The eye seemed… startled. How was she still alive?
A savage light flickered in Lauren’s gaze. She drove the Gintama Sword into the earth.
The moment the blade struck, an icy aura exploded outward, freezing the lava solid in an instant.
She formed hand seals rapidly. Talismans burst from her sleeves and shot into the sky. Dozens of Gold Silk Talismans wrapped around the eye, binding it in place.
She wasn’t here to repel it. She was here to rip it out. The eye sensed danger and began thrashing violently.
Lauren let out a cold laugh.
“I told you,” she said, pulling the sword free and launching into the air, “one day I’d gouge you out.”
She charged straight through lightning and thunder, slicing through the clouds at terrifying speed. In the next heartbeat, she plunged her blade directly into the blood-red pupil.
The eye flared crimson, convulsing.
Golden threads snapped one after another. Talismans ignited and crumbled into ash. More Gold Silk Talismans poured from Lauren’s body, filling every gap left behind.
Her grip tightened. She twisted the sword. And kept carving.
......
At Starfell Summit, Drake stood with his hands clasped behind his back, staring grimly at the twisted celestial signs overhead.
Edmund still hadn’t returned. And whatever his apprentice was going through now… he couldn’t see a damn thing.
His gaze shifted toward Ice Cave. With a flicker of spatial movement, he crossed the distance in a few steps and appeared outside the entrance. After a slow breath, he walked in.
The cave was empty. Only the ice bed remained, quietly exhaling its endless chill. She wasn’t here.
In that strange, sealed realm, Lauren was fighting like hell against the eye in the sky.
She had already gouged out half of it. The torn mass dangled grotesquely from the clouds, swaying as lightning lashed around it.
She wasn’t in much better shape.
Bolt after bolt hammered her body, hurling her through the air. Pieces of her armor had shattered. Her robes were burned to tatters. Her hair whipped wildly around her smoke-blackened face.
The lightning fell like a relentless storm.
This wasn’t normal tribulation lightning. It didn’t temper the flesh. It didn’t refine bone or marrow. It was meant to kill.
Lauren endured it anyway.
With a savage twist of her blade, she carved deeper into the eye, severing its connection to the heavens.
Naturally, that pissed it off.
While dodging arcs of lightning, she manipulated her talismans, blasting apart the spiritual threads that still tethered it.
“Serves you right for staring at me,” she spat. “Serves you right for striking me—”
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