“So we don’t need to do anything?”
“Well, that’s not quite right either. We only need to do one thing—make sure Tianmomen can’t withdraw.” Hua Jian extended a finger and gently waved it in front of her lips.
“If they try to pull the gate early and leave, we step in and stop them. If they don’t think of that at all, we do nothing and let them play themselves.”
Kill whoever you want, search whatever you want, but thinking you can just leave the Secret Realm with the loot? What a fantasy!
We already set up this tailor-made lucky scenario for you all, we’re not even holding the illegal party formation against you, and you still want to evacuate?
Do you really think Wanhuagu and Hua Jian run a charity here?
“See, there are only two teams left with any real fighting power in the Secret Realm right now, but I estimate the Tianmomen only needs one day to devour them. That gives Tianmomen a grand total of three days to gather treasures, and they’ll pull the gate on day six.”
That’s a full three-day time gap—enough to completely bury Tianmomen in the Secret Realm.
“Although the Spirit Beasts around here have already been cleared out by those Demonic Cultivators, the Demon Corpse Crystals are sitting inside the Array of Bewilderment. There are still some surviving Spirit Beasts guarding the area, and those things won’t be easy to deal with either.”
Counting up the difficulties Tianmomen had to face, Hua Jian felt the three-to-four-day window was actually quite tight.
These Demon Corpse Crystals were buried deep underground—just digging them up alone would keep Tianmomen busy.
And while they were digging, the aura of the Demon Corpse Crystals would attract all nearby Spirit Beasts.
These beasts might not match the Demonic Cultivators in raw strength, but their ferocity far surpassed them!
Not to mention, due to the drastic changes in the Outer Region of the Secret Realm, the Spirit Beasts that originally lived there were also gathering toward the inner areas, joining the siege against Tianmomen.
Dense red dots appeared all over the map Hua Jian summoned—these were the Spirit Beast auras sensed by the seeds she had scattered throughout the Secret Realm.
Most of these Spirit Beasts were weak, but once they rallied into a herd, they’d be enough to give those Tianmomen Demonic Cultivators a real headache.
But most of them were only at the Ling Shi Realm, nowhere near a match for Tianmomen’s Ling Wangs.
This Secret Realm was ultimately too small; there were barely any native Ling Wang Realm Spirit Beasts to begin with, so Linglong’s worries were completely justified.
No matter how many Ling Shi Realm Spirit Beasts there were, facing this full squad of Tianmomen Ling Wangs, they might as well be serving themselves up as a meal.
She knew Hua Jian wanted to use these Spirit Beasts to slow down Tianmomen’s treasure-hunting progress, preventing them from finding everything too smoothly—but at the same time, she couldn’t actually let Tianmomen crash and burn.
If the Demonic Cultivators were to unite and siege Tianmomen together, then Tianmomen’s odds of failing would be extremely high.
That’s why Hua Jian would stand by and watch when Tianmomen was dealing with the other Demonic Cultivators—even lending a hand when needed.
But after the Demonic Cultivators were handled, Hua Jian would throw some obstacles in Tianmomen’s way, making sure they could dig up the Demon Corpse Crystals before the Secret Realm collapsed, but couldn’t successfully evacuate.
This way, they could lure Tianmomen’s big fish into making a move to retrieve the crystals, and the Saint Sect experts lying in ambush nearby could pick off those big fish one by one.
Who could have possibly imagined that behind this perfectly normal Secret Realm lay such an earth-shattering secret?
Even if Tianmomen did a full review afterward, they wouldn’t find a single trace of Wanhuagu’s scheming.
Everything was just too normal—a normal Secret Realm exploration, normal battles, normal accidents.
Even the appearance of the Saint Sect Venerable could be considered normal.
To successfully pull off this ambush in the Secret Realm, the attacking Venerable had already arrived in the Beijing under a plausible pretext, waiting nearby for the Demon Path Venerable to make his move.
Though Hua Jian had no idea who the attacking Venerable was—even Linglong didn’t know the specifics.
This was the most tightly guarded secret. No outsider knew which Venerable was making the move, and no one knew where she came from.
Hua Jian guessed it was probably a Venerable from Jade Pool, stationed here under the pretext of protecting Linglong.
That reasoning sounded perfectly plausible, right?
But all of this was just Hua Jian’s wild speculation—who knows if that’s actually how it would play out.
“Forget it, it’s got nothing to do with me anyway. I just need to do what I’m supposed to do.”
Running her fingers through her hair, Hua Jian muttered under her breath, then shared her plan with Linglong.
Since ordinary Spirit Beasts couldn’t stand up to Tianmomen’s cultivators in a direct fight, why not add some pressure?
Just give the regular Spirit Beasts a few little buffs.
Like Immortal Spirit Beasts that wouldn’t fall apart even under Ling Wang Realm attacks, or trap-style Spirit Beasts that would burst out Man Eating Flowers from their corpses.
Hua Jian had plenty of tricks and methods to pressure Tianmomen’s cultivators.
You see, Hua Jian’s combat strength truly only reached its full potential in direct confrontation.
But when she lurked in the shadows, the dread she instilled was no less terrifying than her combat power.
In a head-on fight, at least the enemy could see her, exchange a couple of moves, and if they couldn’t win, they’d die a clean, quick death. At least that was merciful.
But once Hua Jian went into hiding and started playing dirty, things got interesting.
The battle instantly shifted from a beheading to a slow dismemberment—the torture aspect really came to the forefront.
Especially her tricks—they seemed practically designed to be disgusting.
How could those pure-eyed Demonic Cultivators ever imagine that a cluster of plant vines would burst out of the Spirit Beast corpse they just cleaved open?
That’s the kind of setup you’d only see in horror movies!
“Let’s pick these little darlings…” Hua Jian closed her eyes and projected her consciousness onto some nearby seeds.
She didn’t go out of her way to track down the Spirit Beasts still charging in from afar.
Instead, she directly targeted the ones already drawn in by the Demon Corpse Crystal aura, the ones currently tearing into each other.
On that Spirit Beast battlefield, there were plenty of wounded and dying beasts that had lost their fights.
These beasts had no ability whatsoever to resist Hua Jian’s invasion.
Not to mention, Hua Jian was clever enough not to devour these Spirit Beasts’ Soulforce.
Instead, she slightly altered their cognition, making them wait for her command before acting.
In corners the Spirit Beasts never noticed, eerie blood-red vines slowly grew out of the soil.
They greedily absorbed the remains of fully dead Spirit Beasts while surging toward those still alive.
Soon, the surviving Spirit Beasts were converted into Hua Jian’s most loyal army.
The vines that penetrated deep into the beasts’ bodies channeled all the vitality absorbed from elsewhere into these creatures.
They began rapidly dividing, replacing every corner of the beasts’ bodies.
The Spirit Beasts’ internal organs were completely hollowed out, their empty abdominal cavities becoming ammunition depots for weapons.
When the time came, these fanged, razor-toothed vines would tear through the beasts’ bodies and lunge straight at their targets.
Surely this would bring a little surprise to those Tianmomen Demonic Cultivators.
While Hua Jian was preparing gifts over here, Tianmomen had already begun clearing out the last opponents in the Secret Realm.
Relying on their numerical advantage, Tianmomen quickly completed an encirclement of these few opponents.
Their opponents, however, had been so focused on each other that they only realized something was wrong at the very last moment—and by then, it was already too late.
Tianmomen pressed right up to their faces.
Having just finished a great battle without their strength fully recovered, these two teams of Demonic Cultivators faced this sudden new enemy and truly found themselves powerless to turn the tide.
The various defenses on the city walls had been almost completely destroyed in the recent battle—barely any remained.
The geographical advantage they’d relied on no longer existed.
Not to mention, their opponent was a massive alliance, and the cultivators within showed absolutely no sign of distrust toward their teammates.
Anyone with eyes could tell something was wrong.
“Damn it, they’re all in on it together!”
One Demonic Cultivator spoke the truth in a single breath.
This massive group wasn’t a loose alliance of individuals fighting for their own interests that had formed temporarily inside the Secret Realm—it was an army that had belonged to the same faction before ever entering!
“They’re from the Demonic Sect—that aura, it’s Tianmomen!”
As another Demonic Cultivator shouted out that name, the others immediately wore expressions of utter despair.
Right. This was the Beijing, and Tianmomen was a Demonic Sect of the Beijing. How could they not stick their noses into something this big?
They’d just assumed Tianmomen would only send a small squad for a fair competition.
Who could have imagined Tianmomen would be this shameless—not only sending this many people in, but also illegally grouping up in the Secret Realm to bully the few with the many!
“Bastards! You have no shame!”
Facing the Demonic Cultivators’ curses, watching the panic on their faces, Tianmomen’s cultivators quickly burst into laughter.
These Demonic Cultivators didn’t have many hobbies, but listening to the dying wails of those about to die was one of them.
If you asked them when they were happiest, many would say it was when they killed and heard the screams.
The Demonic Cultivators’ insults didn’t make them feel like they’d done anything wrong. Instead, it stirred up their bloodlust, making them even more ferocious in the coming battle.
“No one said we couldn’t do this. If you had united just like we did, no one would’ve stopped you either.”
Youye slowly stepped out of the encirclement, her expression practically saying: so what if I cheated? What are you gonna do about it?
I formed a group, you could’ve done the same. Was it that you didn’t want to? Or that it never crossed your minds?
Wanhuagu never said grouping wasn’t allowed. You couldn’t come up with the idea yourselves, so why blame her for being clever enough to think of a good one?
“A bet’s a bet. Losing to me, Youye, is nothing to be ashamed of.” She let out two very satisfied laughs, then raised her hand and gave a casual wave. “Kill them all—not a single one left!”
As a villain, Youye was very mature. She would indeed step forward and gloat like she just had, but once the gloating was done, she’d immediately act to eliminate the threat completely.
She wouldn’t be like those other low-tier villains who just postured and flaunted their power, only to have their plans interrupted and then throw a tantrum.
“Go! Kill them all!”
Tianmomen surged forward like a black tide, crashing into the last two teams of Demonic Cultivators.
Black quickly swallowed up that last trace of alien color completely.
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