Hua Jian felt that she could change her name now, to call herself Hua Zilong.
It was hard to imagine that she would experience the feeling of being besieged by thousands of troops in a Secret Realm equivalent to an entrance exam.
These black-clothed cultivators were all very strong, having all fallen from the Ling Wang Realm.
Those who weren’t cultivators who had fallen from the Ling Wang Realm were all puppets, which were also extremely troublesome to deal with.
Counting carefully, there were over ten living black-clothed cultivators here. Adding those puppets, the number was impossible to count clearly.
Although there were a few helpers in the array formation helping Hua Jian distract the invaders, those people, while having strong momentum, weren’t very smart.
They were quickly bogged down by the puppets.
The Soul-Confusing Spiritual Fragrance was effective on people, but its effect was much weaker on puppets that didn’t even need to breathe.
And those few Sword Hero helpers were breathing in the Soul-Confusing Spiritual Fragrance in big gulps.
They seemed alert, but in reality, they had already fallen into a state where they couldn’t control themselves.
Their intelligence had almost dropped to zero, their minds filled only with the desire to fight.
With such performance, it was perfectly normal for them to be held back by a few expendable puppets.
As for where their leader, the Sword Hero, was… The Sword Hero had withdrawn from this battlefield as soon as the Miwuda Zhen was activated.
He hadn’t taken the alchemy pills Xia Hui gave, so he wasn’t immune to the effects of the Soul-Confusing Spiritual Fragrance.
The new intoxicating fragrance formed by the spiritual fragrance mixing with the mist made him afraid to even touch it, worried that the slightest contact would knock him out.
In this battle, he was of no use here at all.
Fortunately, Hua Jian didn’t really need his help either.
To deal with these enemies, Hua Jian had already used all her skills, bringing out everything she could use.
A Meng had also been called out by her. Although her strength was limited to the peak of the Spirit Master Realm, the elusive butterflies could still pose a huge threat to the attacking black-clothed cultivators.
Taking advantage of the time A Meng bought, Hua Jian thrust her sword through the chest of a nearby puppet.
Vines extended along the blade deep into the puppet’s body, devouring the spiritual power source hidden in its chest.
The existence of these puppets wasn’t entirely bad for Hua Jian.
The puppets could attack her, and she could also kill the puppets to absorb the spiritual power within them, achieving an extended combat duration.
The spiritual power within a single puppet was enough for her to fight for quite a while!
Throwing the drained puppet to the ground, Hua Jian saw a black-clothed cultivator who seemed to want to take this opportunity to ambush her.
Her eyes darted, and a plan came to her mind.
She deliberately sold a flaw, pretending not to have noticed this black-clothed cultivator.
Only when the opponent’s blade was about to land on her did she suddenly reach out and grab the thrusting sword.
The spiritual sword made contact with the snow-white glove, yet it couldn’t do anything to this seemingly thin layer of fabric, leaving no mark on it and unable to injure Hua Jian’s palm.
Vines sprouted from Hua Jian’s palm, rushing along the spiritual sword straight toward the black-clothed cultivator’s body.
This cultivator hadn’t expected Hua Jian to counterattack in this way. It was too late to escape.
The vines quickly spread to the cultivator’s hand, piercing his skin like fine needles, causing the black-clothed cultivator to let out a suppressed cry of pain.
At this moment, Hua Jian didn’t think too much, instinctively using the absorption ability she employed on puppets.
The vines piercing the cultivator’s body immediately began to expand at an extremely fast rate, frantically absorbing the nearby flesh and blood energy.
A large amount of spiritual power was sent along the vines into Hua Jian’s body, making her momentarily stunned.
‘Was the difference between a person and a puppet really that great?’
In her moment of distraction, a sword light slashed from not far away, severing the vines between Hua Jian and the black-clothed cultivator.
Hua Jian’s pupils contracted in pain. These vines growing from her body were like her own limbs; she could feel pain when they were cut.
However, although the physical connection had been severed, she could still control the vines remaining in that black-clothed cultivator.
“Don’t even think about running!” Seeing the black-clothed cultivator about to be escorted away by other black-clothed men, Hua Jian pointed at the cultivator without thinking, making the vines left in his body begin to act freely.
“Kid, your opponent is me!”
The moment she finished pointing, several black-clothed men pressed forward together, forcing Hua Jian to shift her attention back to focus on dealing with the enemies before her.
She didn’t know the immense suffering the black-clothed man entangled by her vines was now enduring.
After being rescued by his companions, the black-clothed cultivator had initially breathed a sigh of relief, thinking the matter was over.
Who would have thought the pain in his hand wouldn’t diminish at all, instead growing more intense and even beginning to spread toward his chest.
“Something’s wrong, be careful of her vines…” He only had time to leave this one warning before his pupils became unfocused.
His true body had already been sent out of the Secret Realm due to encountering a fatal danger.
The puppet body swapped in for him then bore the brunt of the vine attack, also allowing the other black-clothed cultivators to witness the result of being pierced by Hua Jian’s flower vines.
First, raised ridges surged from the puppet’s already withered arm toward its chest.
After churning around the heart area in the chest, these vines then spread out from the chest to various parts of the body.
This puppet body, which originally had no vitality, rapidly withered. In almost the blink of an eye, the flesh and blood on the puppet were completely absorbed by the vines.
Colorful branches and tender leaves pierced through the puppet’s skin, stretching out in the air as if rejoicing in their new life.
But seeing the base from which it grew, anyone would feel a chill in their heart.
It was foliage that had grown upon a human body, absorbing human flesh and blood!
And even more terrifying, these branches and leaves weren’t entirely plants. They could still drive the body they occupied to move in an extremely bizarre manner.
After watching for a few moments, one of the black-clothed cultivators couldn’t help but throw out a ball of fire, wanting to burn these branches and leaves to ashes completely.
But something that made their hearts palpitate even more soon appeared.
The puppet’s remains quickly turned to ash and disappeared in the flames, but the colorful branches and leaves persisted for much longer than the puppet, only slowly withering due to spiritual power depletion.
Before completely withering, they weren’t harmed by the flames at all. Only after they completely lost life did the flames successfully burn them to ashes.
“This technique… is truly terrifying.” The cultivator who released the fire clenched his fist, unable to resist looking toward the place where the fierce battle was still ongoing. “We can’t hold back anymore. We must drive her out immediately!”
‘Let the elders judge right and wrong. I just feel we can’t let Hua Jian stay in the Secret Realm any longer.’
‘This method is just too unsettling.’
‘No matter who you ask, seeing such a method of killing would instinctively make them think the person using it isn’t a good person, right?’
These ‘Magic Path’ members naturally thought the same. What kind of good person kills people like this?
But they still didn’t dare to draw a definitive conclusion now, so let the elders judge.
Just directly drive Hua Jian out of the Secret Realm, and won’t the matter be resolved?
“Right, let’s attack together and drive her out!”
The other black-clothed cultivators nodded in agreement. This method was now the safest and most stable.
‘We can’t very well stop halfway and tell Hua Jian, ‘Actually, we’re Saint Sect disciples just like you,’ can we?’
Who would believe such words?
Moreover, their orders didn’t permit them to expose their identities. So, they still had to act their part.
Since that was the case, they would just go all out to drive Hua Jian out of the Secret Realm.
“At all costs, drive her out!”
“Good!”
As the black-clothed cultivators made up their minds, the pressure Hua Jian felt instantly became enormous.
She realized these black-clothed cultivators’ behavior had undergone a massive change.
‘Before, it seemed a bit like probing. Now, they’re starting to get serious.’
The power of the attacks they released became stronger, their tactics and coordination more sophisticated.
Sometimes, to injure her, they would even directly send puppets to rush forward and self-destruct to create an opportunity.
Under such a siege, no matter how skilled Hua Jian was, she could only retreat step by step.
She was, after all, not Hua Zilong, unable to move freely amidst a myriad of troops.
Moreover, the stated strength of these black-clothed cultivators was not a single one weaker than hers.
She was essentially challenging over ten peak Spirit Master Realm cultivators while being of a lower realm, and these peak Spirit Master Realm cultivators had an even greater number of puppets assisting them.
If she could still win under these circumstances, Hua Jian could truly become a Saintess jointly acknowledged by the Five Great Sacred Sects.
Whoosh!
A sharp sword stabbed Hua Jian in the chest, sending Hua Jian, who couldn’t dodge in time, flying backward.
The black-clothed cultivator who completed this attack looked helplessly at the spiritual sword in his hand, cursing inwardly.
As they launched their full assault, Hua Jian had been directly hit by their attacks many times.
The problem was, their attacks simply couldn’t penetrate the spiritual garment on Hua Jian’s body.
If an ordinary Spirit Master stood here and took a direct thrust from him like that, they would definitely be easily pierced through and teleported out of the Secret Realm.
But with Hua Jian, it was different. When he thrust, he could indeed feel he had hit her, but he just couldn’t pierce through.
It was like poking something very elastic with a wooden stick.
It was true that Hua Jian was at a great disadvantage now, but the black-clothed cultivators didn’t have the ability to deliver a decisive blow. They simply couldn’t handle Hua Jian.
‘Her defense is too high. Ordinary methods can’t solve this at all.’
“Form the array! Use that exile formation to deal with her!” a black-clothed cultivator shouted loudly.
Apart from making Hua Jian suffer a fatal threat to trigger the token’s teleportation function, they also mastered another method to trigger the token’s teleportation.
This was a kind of mechanic kill. As long as they confined the target within the formation and then activated it, they could actively trigger the token on the other person.
But this thing was generally useless. If you had time to set this up, it was more practical to just raise your blade and strike.