[System Alert: Unforeseen Spatial Anomaly Detected]
The sky was a bizarre dark purple, devoid of sun, moon, or stars. Only surging demonic qi churned like storm clouds, blanketing everything.
The earth was cracked, and dark magma flowed from the fissures, emitting a pungent smell of sulfur.
In the distance were mountains, their shapes twisted and strange, as if kneaded by some immense force, or like living creatures frozen mid-struggle.
Jiang Huai looked around.
Behind him, the entrance to the Secret Realm still existed like a vertical Light Gate, emitting a faint glow.
‘Looks like the retreat path is safe.’
He breathed a slight sigh of relief.
“Jiang Huai!”
A crisp voice rang out.
Ao Yao hopped down beside him, looking around. Her big, emerald eyes blinked rapidly.
“This place is so strange. I feel a bit uncomfortable.”
Qin Xuange stood holding her spear, vigilantly scanning their surroundings.
Her brows were furrowed, and her Dragon Eyes were narrowed.
“Be careful. The Demonic Qi here is too heavy. I’m afraid…”
Before she could finish her sentence,
a low, guttural roar echoed from the distance.
The sound seemed to come from the Abyss, carrying a heart-stopping malice.
It was not like a beast, nor a human. It was like something that shouldn’t exist in this world, declaring its territory through that sound.
The expressions of all five people turned stern in an instant.
Jiang Huai’s pupils contracted sharply.
Qin Xuange gripped her spear tightly. Ao Yao instinctively took a half-step back, her small hand resting on the Short Sword at her waist.
Cang Jing and Cang Ling simultaneously stepped half a pace forward, shielding Jiang Zhun behind them. Their robust bodies radiated a faint yellow light.
The next moment, a mass of Demonic Qi solidified and charged!
The Demonic Qi shot up from a distant crack, coalescing into a blurry form in midair.
It was humanoid, yet not.
It had no facial features, only hollow eye sockets burning with purple flames.
When it opened its mouth, the split reached its ears, revealing a mouthful of sharp fangs as it pounced at Jiang Huai!
“Looking for death!”
Qin Xuange let out a sharp cry. Her figure flickered as she stood before Jiang Huai.
Her spear swept horizontally, the tip cutting through the air, bringing a sharp, dark light.
With a loud boom, the spear shaft collided with the Monstrous Being. Demonic Qi splattered everywhere, and the creature let out a piercing shriek as it was blasted back several feet.
Jiang Huai didn’t hesitate.
He took a step back, and a white light flashed in his hand.
A Crystal Coffin appeared before him.
Jiang Huai bit his fingertip, using his Essence Blood as a medium.
A single drop of blood seeped from his fingertip, bright red with a faint hint of black and white.
Then he took out the Essence Blood of the previous Yin-Yang Body. Using his own bloodline as a bridge, he communicated with Ji Xi inside the Crystal Coffin.
Inside the coffin, Ji Xi, who lay quietly, suddenly opened her eyes.
In her pupils, black and white colors slowly swirled, like a Taiji diagram rotating.
Jiang Huai felt his Lingli and Original Source pouring out like water from an opened floodgate. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to command it.
Ji Xi’s remains stepped out of the coffin in one stride.
She stood there, her green robes like ink stains, fluttering slightly in the windless air. Her tall, robust figure stood straight as a pine.
Her eyes, swirling with Yin and Yang, swept across this broken world, across the surging Demonic Qi.
More and more Demonic Qi gathered.
In the distance, within that crack, more Monstrous Beings were coalescing.
Purple light surged like a tide. One, two, ten, a hundred. They came from all directions, surrounding the five of them.
Jiang Huai quickly assessed the situation.
‘With my strength and the others’, we can probably handle these Monstrous Beings. Their attacks aren’t strong—it’s just their numbers.’
He manipulated Ji Xi’s body, raising its hand.
Those long, slender fingers grasped at empty air.
A Sword materialized in her hand.
The blade was completely interwoven with black and white. It was long, and the edge flickered with an uncertain light.
Ji Xi lifted her eyes.
She looked ahead, at the surging Monstrous Beings, at the churning Demonic Qi, at this polluted world.
Then she swung her sword once.
BOOM!
An immense surge of Qi, like the creation of heaven and earth!
The sword light, intertwined with black and white, transformed into a Sword Qi dozens of feet long. It split the air, split the Demonic Qi, and split everything in its path.
Where the sword light passed, the Monstrous Beings didn’t even have time to scream before turning to ash and dispersing.
The surging Demonic Qi melted away like snow under a blazing sun!
This one sword strike had cleared everything.
Those Extraterrestrial Demons were like they had met their natural enemy. They had no power to resist before the black-and-white sword light.
They feared it. They screamed. They fled in a frenzy. But they could not escape the sword light’s range.
After that one strike,
the heavens and earth in this area became pure.
A massive rift was torn into the purple Demonic Qi overhead, revealing the original sky behind it. Although it was still dark, it was no longer that sickly purple.
The pungent sulfur smell in the air also faded, and one could even faintly detect a trace of the earth’s scent, originally belonging to this Small World.
Jiang Huai quickly put Ji Xi away.
A white light flashed, and the tall figure lay back into the Crystal Coffin. The lid closed, and everything returned to calm.
He gasped for breath, fine beads of sweat forming at his temples.
‘Tested its power. It’s okay. Should be enough to handle the current situation.’
He silently apologized in his heart.
‘Sorry, Senior Ji Xi. I really don’t mean to use your body as a weapon like this.’
But he figured even if Ji Xi saw it, she wouldn’t say anything.
He felt the senior was quite open-minded and cheerful.
“Should we go forward?” Qin Xuange asked softly.
She put away her spear and stood there, her Dragon Eyes fixed on Jiang Huai with a questioning look.
She hesitated, wondering if she should go up to the Immortal Realm now to contact Qin Qingyue.
But so soon after the last time… going to find her now wasn’t a good idea.
Because the time since the last visit was too short. Even if she could possess her now, the possession time probably wouldn’t last long.
Plus, she didn’t know if Senior Qin was in danger over there.
If she had problems too, wouldn’t that create a double dilemma?
“Keep moving forward.” Jiang Huai commanded.
He looked at the people around him, his gaze pausing on each face for a moment.
“Stay close to me, and be careful.”
For some reason, his eyes fell on the Short Sword at Ao Yao’s waist.
That Short Sword was really eye-catching.
The pale cyan scabbard was carved with lifelike Azure Dragon patterns.
The dragon’s head was raised proudly, its body coiled, its claws spread wide, as if it would burst out of the scabbard at any moment.
“That Short Sword of yours…” Jiang Huai suddenly spoke up, praising it. “It’s really good-looking.”
‘The scabbard is truly beautiful. It looks so real, as if a real Azure Dragon is coiled on it. It must be an Immortal Artifact of the Azure Dragon Clan.’
Ao Yao gave Jiang Huai a strange look.
On her delicate, jade-carved little face appeared an odd expression, tinged with a bit of shy annoyance.
She mumbled in a low voice, barely audible.
“Why do you have to praise everything? You male pervert.”
“What?” Jiang Huai asked, frowning.
He thought he’d heard the word “pervert.”
“Nothing.” Ao Yao shook her head, but those big, emerald eyes looked away, unable to meet his gaze.
Jiang Huai looked at her suspiciously, but didn’t press further.
The group began to move forward.
The deeper they went, the heavier the Demonic Qi became.
The purple mist swirled around them, sometimes coalescing into twisted faces, sometimes turning into countless tiny tendrils writhing wildly in the air.
Jiang Huai and the group began to eliminate the demons.
Qin Xuange’s spear moved like a dragon.
The tip jabbed, thrust, swept, and slashed. Every strike was precise and fierce. The Monstrous Beings were like paper before her.
Cang Jing and Cang Ling’s cooperation was seamless.
The sisters stood back-to-back, their fists and feet glowing with earthy yellow light. Each blast shattered a patch of Monstrous Beings.
Jiang Huai didn’t attack. He needed to conserve his strength, ready to use Ji Xi at any moment.
As he walked, he observed his surroundings.
It was strange.
He had thought that the further in they went, the more powerful the Extraterrestrial Demons would become. Otherwise, why wouldn’t the cultivators who explored deeper ever come out?
But he unexpectedly found that they didn’t get stronger.
Some were even quite weak.
The women casually eliminated those Monstrous Beings, like cutting vegetables.
“I thought they’d get stronger.” Jiang Huai asked in confusion, turning his head to look at the people behind him while walking. “Why are they so…”
His words stopped.
He turned his head.
Behind him, there was not a single dragon left.
Qin Xuange was gone. Ao Yao was gone. Cang Jing and Cang Ling were all gone.
Only Jiang Huai remained alone.
Standing under that strange, dark purple sky, beside the crack with its flowing dark magma, among those twisted and strange mountain ranges.
All around was dead silence.
Only the occasional low roar echoed from the distance in this broken world.
Crack.
Jiang Huai froze there.
He slowly looked around, his gaze sweeping over every inch of space, every rock, every shadow…
Nothing.
“Qin Xuange?” he called out tentatively. His voice sounded particularly jarring in this dead silence.
No response.
“Ao Yao?”
No response.
“Cang Jing? Cang Ling?”
Still no response.
Only his own voice echoed in the empty world, growing weaker and more distant, eventually fading into the endless purple.
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