Underneath it, she raised her gun and started repairing the monster’s leg joints, but no matter how hard she tried, she made no progress.
This gave her a rough sense of her own soul strength: stronger than the average Ling King, slightly weaker than the crazed pseudo-Ling Emperor.
For someone with only Spirit Master-level cultivation, this was an incredible level of soul power.
Good, you finally came, hurry… The snake woman was clearly the Ling King of Wanhuagu.
She had already grown quite inhuman in the Secret Realm, proof enough that she wasn’t a good person.
When she saw Hua Jian, she took a sharp breath. By the ancestors, what a look! This was exactly the dream appearance for their Wanhuagu!
If only she had a recording stone—she’d document Hua Jian’s appearance, send it back to the sect, and have it enshrined.
Hua Jian was the perfect embodiment of the Flower Valley!
Back in the sect, she had glimpsed Huaxinhu from afar, and that figure left a lasting impression—she thought nothing could be more fitting as the symbol of Wanhuagu than Huaxinhu.
But now, seeing Hua Jian, she realized how ignorant she had been—who was Huaxinhu compared to this junior?
Was there anyone more fitting for Wanhuagu?
Even knowing nothing of Hua Jian’s past or current status, the woman felt that Hua Jian’s future status would definitely reach Saintess or even Sect Leader level.
“Watch out!”
A bolt of lightning flashed past the tip of her nose, knocking aside a black claw that had been reaching for her.
Linglong stood in the sky, watching her in confusion, thinking she must have been hit by some trick of the Chai Family Patriarch to react so slowly.
The woman quickly shook her head—this was still a life-and-death battle, no time for distractions.
Her junior’s identity could wait; now, the priority was to deal with the crazed Chai Family Patriarch.
Among those present, Linglong could only provide support—disrupting the Patriarch’s attacks but unable to deal much damage.
The true main force in the Dreamscape was A Meng. In the Secret Realm, her power was far stronger than outside; each strike posed a real threat to the Chai Family Patriarch.
He focused most of his attention on countering A Meng. As for the other three, he barely considered them.
To a beast in battle, a few mosquitoes buzzing at his ears were negligible.
Linglong, Hua Jian, and the Wanhuagu Ling King woman were like mosquitoes—their attacks were too weak to be considered threats.
“This is just scratching an itch…Linglong, come back for now!” After a while, Hua Jian realized they were just wasting energy. They had to think of another way.
Linglong had just fired off a bolt of lightning and immediately turned back at Hua Jian’s call. “What’s wrong?”
“This isn’t working. We’re barely a threat to him—we’re not helping A Meng at all.”
It was true, but Linglong had no better ideas. A battle of souls was a pure contest of strength, no tricks involved.
“Hey, you two juniors! Since his soul’s so tough, why don’t you go out and destroy his physical body? Without a body, the soul is rootless—it’ll soon fade away!”
The snake woman overheard and called out to them.
Take out the thief, right? Destroy the Chai Family Patriarch’s physical body, and his soul would be rootless and much easier to deal with.
Hua Jian was stunned by the suggestion, realizing that A Meng’s plan had led her astray.
Right—she could deal with the Chai Family Patriarch’s body from the outside. Why fight a soul directly in here?
A Meng had to come in to help—otherwise, Linglong and Chai Xianyun’s souls might have been torn apart by the crazed Patriarch. But Hua Jian herself didn’t need to be here.
She had only come in case something unexpected happened.
Now she just needed to bring the others’ souls out and could then focus on handling the Patriarch’s body.
“She’s right, let’s sneak out and attack his body!” Smacking her palm, Hua Jian grabbed Linglong’s hand, waved at Chai Xianyun, and summoned some vines from thin air to bind her up.
Chai Xianyun didn’t resist, still sporting that ‘do as you like’ look.
Hua Jian wondered if she would even react if someone finished her off right now.
She’s already dead inside.
But whether she was heartbroken or not, those who could be saved still needed saving.
After all, Hua Jian wanted to be the good guy, and she had no deep grudges with the Chai Family—just conflicting interests.
And with Chai Xianyun, she had even less reason for conflict.
“I remember the way out of here is…” Hua Jian took a deep breath and pointed at the air with her Floral Bracelet-clad hand.
The space before her rippled with color.
Grabbing Linglong’s hand, she tossed the bound Chai Xianyun into the rippling space.
Seeing her disappear, she knew she’d succeeded and quickly took Linglong in after her.
Before leaving, she didn’t forget to tell the Wanhuagu woman, “We’ll leave this to you, Elder Sister! We’ll settle the Patriarch’s body as soon as possible!”
“Hey! If I went outside, I could fix it faster…” The woman had barely started to protest before Hua Jian and Linglong vanished.
Wouldn’t it be easier if she, a Ling King, handled things outside? Besides, by now, it seemed her help was unnecessary.
A Meng and the Patriarch’s souls were locked in battle—there was nothing she could do to interfere.
She just didn’t get it, not at all.
……
“That woman can’t be trusted. We’d better handle this ourselves.”
Leaving the woman in the soul space was no oversight—Hua Jian had done it intentionally.
After all, she was the Ling King of Wanhuagu. Without enough bodyguards, Hua Jian had no intention of cooperating with a Magic Path Ling King.
So she left the woman to assist A Meng in the Dreamscape, while she and Linglong dealt with the Patriarch’s body outside.
“Linglong, use every Spirit Tool you’ve got! Now’s not the time to be stingy!”
“I know!”
Linglong emptied her arsenal, unlocking seal after seal and throwing Spirit Tools at the Patriarch’s body.
Using Spirit Tools was simple and crude—only a few ways to do it.
Now the Patriarch was just a stationary target; Linglong just needed to unleash everything at him.
But her attacks had little effect. Even with his soul trapped, the Patriarch’s protective energy still functioned instinctively. With his increased power, it was enough to block Linglong’s attacks.
Worse, Hua Jian had overlooked one thing—if Linglong had Spirit Tools, would the Chai Family Patriarch, head of a great clan, not have his own?
When Linglong’s strongest Spirit Tools broke through his protective force, he simply activated his defensive Spirit Tools, and Hua Jian couldn’t help but curse in her heart—what a tycoon.
Linglong had only brought a limited number of Ling King Spiritual Artifacts during this trial.
But the Patriarch wasn’t so careless—he came fully prepared, gambling everything for his breakthrough.
He’d brought almost every powerful Spirit Tool he owned—some offensive ones had been used in the earlier chaos, but the defensive ones hadn’t been triggered until now.
Now Linglong was at a disadvantage—she ran out of Spirit Tools, but the Patriarch was still protected by his ‘turtle shell.’
“We were careless. Didn’t expect he’d be smart enough to bring so many lifesaving Spirit Tools.” Hua Jian looked at the shield around the Patriarch, feeling helpless.
Not every boss is brainless enough to leave their trump cards behind in the final battle.
Against such a well-prepared foe, the two little Spirit Masters were powerless.
While Hua Jian stewed, the Cangbaotu that had been floating by her side finally lost patience. As if it had a temper, it rolled itself up and thumped her on the head.
Only then did Hua Jian remember the existence of the Cangbaotu. With the Patriarch’s madness, its presence had faded.
After all, with all the treasures gone, what use was the treasure map now?
She grabbed the grumpy map and found that after merging into one, the text had changed.
The map had become a flower shape, with tiny script beside it that Hua Jian couldn’t read—likely describing the flower.
But on the back, in characters Hua Jian could understand, was the method to leave the Secret Realm.
“Only after the Seed sprouts will the exit restriction be lifted. Only those alive can leave the Secret Realm, and after leaving, the Secret Realm will self-destruct?” Reading every word, Hua Jian drew a sharp breath.
What kind of slaughterhouse was this?
Without a doubt, this Secret Realm was the masterpiece of some ancient expert.
They had created it for the sole purpose of making the flower Seed sprout.
For this, they’d not hesitated to kill all cultivators who entered, gathering their souls into Spirit Liquid of the Soul to water the Seed.
Even if someone resisted the Magic Mist, the rules would trap them inside forever.
Unless the Seed sprouted, there was no way out.
Even with the merged Cangbaotu in hand, the only hope of escape would be intervention from some great master outside.
Evidently, over countless years, the Secret Realm had devoured countless lives—yet no one even knew it existed, much less how perilous it was.
“This is insane. Who could do something so monstrous?” Linglong’s face showed anger after hearing Hua Jian recite the map’s contents.
She quickly realized the Secret Realm’s true purpose, and shuddered at the thought of how many more would have perished if she and Hua Jian hadn’t accidentally entered.
Without them, no one would know such a man-eating place had ever existed, and even Saints would be unable to trace it after its next disappearance.
“It must have been a Magic Path powerhouse from long ago. He’s probably long dead.” Hua Jian sighed. “I have an idea—since we can’t kill the Patriarch, let the Secret Realm do it for us.”
The Secret Realm was a one-way trap—once the exit opened, it would begin an unstoppable collapse, grinding everything inside to dust.
Only Saints could survive such a disaster; the Chai Family Patriarch, of course, was not at that level.
So there was a solution: open the exit, carry out the living, and let the Patriarch and this wicked Secret Realm perish together.
The good news was that after the recent chaos, few cultivators were left whole—getting them out wouldn’t be much trouble.
The bad news was they were all still in the Dreamscape, and Hua Jian didn’t know how to retrieve their souls.
It was even possible their souls had been destroyed in the Dreamscape, leaving only soulless bodies behind.
But she had no way to tell who could still be saved, so she simply gathered all the breathing ones from the mountain of corpses and blood.
Altogether, there were barely more than ten, including several Ling Kings who had entered with Bai Su.
As for Bai Su himself, he had already died alongside some innocent cultivators during the Patriarch’s rampage.
This vendetta, it seemed, would fall to Hua Jian to avenge.
The Ling Kings were still conscious but badly injured—none could defeat even Hua Jian now.
That’s why they had stayed hidden, watching the battle from the shadows until Hua Jian began counting survivors.
“Take these people and get ready to leave the Secret Realm. When the exit appears, escape as fast as possible, understand?”
After explaining the situation, Hua Jian didn’t care what they thought—surely no one wanted to die here.
And as expected, the wounded Ling Kings all nodded, agreeing to whatever Hua Jian asked, as long as she could get them out.
They’d offer anything—tribute if necessary!
Since only Hua Jian could open the exit, anyone who wanted to escape had to treat her as their savior.
After finishing outside, Hua Jian closed her eyes and re-entered the Dreamscape to inform the Wanhuagu Ling King woman and A Meng of her decision.
“You’re coming with me. A Meng, you can come out by yourself, right?” She was here to bring the woman out.
“I’ll sense it when the Secret Realm collapses. I’ll come out then.”
“Good, then I’ll take her out first.” With A Meng’s answer, Hua Jian didn’t hesitate, bringing the woman out of the space.
Next, it was time to let this Secret Realm take the Chai Family Patriarch with it to the grave.