Jiang Ke’er’s shout carried a momentum that seemed to overpower the Divine Retribution.
Rays of light shone from the distant horizon, as if something had torn through time and space, bringing a massive Divine Sense down into this World.
A moment later, Jiang Ke’er finally received the response she so desperately craved.
The heavenly light and auspicious clouds coalesced into words.
[Useless!]
Jiang Ke’er nonchalantly swung her legs and whistled while looking at the sky.
[Handle such a trivial matter yourself!]
“Don’t! I can’t handle it! I can’t block this move, and if I divert it, the Underworld is full of Divine Souls, so I can’t send it there either,” Jiang Ke’er said urgently.
[Can’t you divert it elsewhere?]
“Pffft…”
Jiang Ke’er punched her palm, suddenly enlightened. “Oh right, the Realm of the Dead recently built a Bridge using the Underworld as a stepping stone to reach any space. Hehe~ it was just built, so I’m not used to it yet.”
Having decided on her countermeasure, Jiang Ke’er decisively rushed toward the place where the Sarira was erupting.
“Xiao Xian! Keep Sealing! Compress it! Make it smaller!”
“Mm.” A cold response; she was already doing so.
Jiang Ke’er used a Flash Step to reach the clouds, looking down at the shockwave of the Sarira’s explosion.
“A bit smaller! Otherwise, it’ll be bad if it grazes the souls in the Realm of the Dead!” Jiang Ke’er chattered.
Qiao Xiaoxian’s arms, inputting characters, moved so fast they almost blurred into a Thousand-Hand Guanyin. She gritted her teeth. “Why don’t you try?!”
“I can’t learn the Z Prophecy!”
“You have the nerve to say that?!”
Despite being full of resentment, Qiao Xiaoxian quickly finished compressing the Sarira’s explosion wave.
She seemed to have shifted all her resentment from Jiang Ke’er’s sharp tongue elsewhere, storing it up, waiting for it to accumulate to a certain value before returning it a hundredfold in one go.
Jiang Ke’er didn’t realize she had quietly ignited a dangerous bomb; the fuse just hadn’t finished burning yet.
She seized the opportunity, focused her attention, and as Qiao Xiaoxian compressed the explosion’s shockwave to the extreme, she swung her long sword.
The blade drew a circle along the edge of the explosion.
The sky and earth were torn apart, and the shockwave was pulled away by the empty void, transferred to who knows where.
Seeing the Sarira being moved away, Qiao Xiaoxian finally breathed a sigh of relief and released the compression.
Just then, the cloud-script in the sky seemed to tremble.
The characters reorganized, quickly forming a new sentence.
[Dammit! Was there nowhere else for you to throw that?!]
Jiang Ke’er stuck out her tongue and sent out a blast of sword qi to wipe away the communication clouds in the sky, pretending nothing had happened.
Qiao Xiaoxian’s mouth twitched. “How do you have the guts…”
“That place is the safest in the entire universe…”
“…That’s true.”
***
With the crisis averted, I could finally focus on my Tribulation Crossing in peace.
At this moment, the ninth lightning was nearing its end.
The Divine Retribution in the sky had gradually weakened, and the dark clouds dissipated reluctantly.
In their place, a beam of heavenly light poured down from the center of the dark clouds, illuminating my battered body and Divine Soul.
Warm and pleasant, I clearly felt the reward I deserved after the storm.
Under the tempering of lightning and the brink of life and death, my body and Divine Soul were drawing closer and closer to my peak state from back then.
My connection with heaven and earth became smooth, the circulation of Lingqi was no longer obstructed, and my body felt as if it didn’t exist, letting the cool breeze pass through.
A wisp of Heavenly Dao Light fell, trying to escape… but I grabbed it.
Why are you running? Don’t recognize your father?
I glared at the Heavenly Dao Light, and it immediately became submissive, obediently being refined and absorbed by me.
“I owe you one.” I felt my bones and muscles relax; that sense of security from planning and controlling everything in this World had finally returned.
“Where did an expert like you come from?” Jiang Ke’er looked at me curiously. “I’ve been in Shenzhou for decades, and I’ve never seen you.”
“You’ve only been here for decades and already have this kind of strength… where did you come from?” I countered.
Jiang Ke’er thought for a bit and suddenly said, “Odd stays the same, even changes!”
I jolted and blurted out without thinking, “The signs depend on the quadrant!”
Jiang Ke’er’s eyes lit up. “Imperial Jade Liquor!”
Me: “One hundred and eighty a cup!”
Jiang Ke’er: “How is this wine?”
Me: “Listen to my boast!”
In an instant, the mutual suspicion and friction between experts vanished between me and Jiang Ke’er.
We embraced and wept as if we had found a long-lost relative.
“A fellow countryman!!!”
“A fellow countryman!!!”
“???”
The people around were completely bewildered.
A thousand words couldn’t compare to a single line about Imperial Jade Liquor.
Once the wavelengths matched, the recent history of the Cultivation World that had been bothering me finally made sense.
“So you’re Hou Tu? When I saw you last time, you were still covering your face.”
“Ah? Last time? When?”
“It must have been over three thousand years ago.”
Jiang Ke’er frowned in thought, then quickly realized.
“Oh right, the Realm of the Dead is developing a Cross-Temporal Soul Fetching function. Currently, it can only fetch souls that died within five hundred years. If you saw me three thousand years ago, that means in the future, the Realm of the Dead will be able to fetch souls from three thousand years back.”
“I see. So you’re the one who invented the Avada Eat Melon move?”
“Yes! You learned it too?!” Jiang Ke’er joyfully grabbed my hand. “How does it feel?”
“A bit of a trap. It only pits longevity against each other—injuring the enemy by a thousand while losing a thousand yourself. There’s plenty of room for improvement.”
“Actually, that’s not it…” Jiang Ke’er shook her head.
“Avada Eat Melon is too strong. Anyone who knows the chant and has a bit of mental power can use it. If the release conditions weren’t designed to be harsh, everyone would just be eating melons the moment they met.”
“So… you did it on purpose?”
“Yeah, since I have infinite longevity anyway…” Jiang Ke’er spread her hands.
You have infinite longevity, so you won’t let others use it?
Ha! Sinister enough! Just my style!
I jumped up, wagging my little Tail, and as my skirt perked up, I shared a high-five with Jiang Ke’er in perfect sync.
I saw Jiang Ke’er was in a hurry, seemingly busy with something.
“What’s wrong?”
“Friend, to tell you the truth, I’ve had a bit of a problem lately…”
“If you have a problem, just say it.”
Jiang Ke’er sighed and took out a Book.
I looked at the title—Author: Yun X.
“Emm…” I was speechless and rubbed my forehead. “This Book… where did you find it?”
“In an ancient ruin. It’s said to be the Cave Heaven Abode of the former Xian Emperor before he left the Three Realms. After I broke through the restrictions inside, I found a giant safe. Inside the safe was this Book…”
“……”
Damn!!! That was my house!!
“I followed what the Book said and went to a small Sect to be a servant, but for some reason, the enemies of that small Sect haven’t shown up yet…” Jiang Ke’er frowned. “It seems this move isn’t working?”
“You’re being too direct,” I shook my head. “You said yourself it’s just a small Sect, and they’ve recently offended an enemy. Since you know this Sect has offended a great enemy, it means the news has spread far and wide, right?”
“That’s true… the rumors have been going around for a long time.”
“At a critical juncture like this, you suddenly join to be a servant. That’s too abnormal. If the other party wants to destroy this small Sect, they must have been watching their every move. Your abnormal appearance was factored in, so they definitely wouldn’t dare to act rashly… After all, cough, I’ve used this trick too many times myself.”
“I see,” Jiang Ke’er wasn’t stupid; she had just been a bit lazy lately and hadn’t wanted to think.
My point made everything clear.
“It must be that Book. That wicked author must have used this trick so many times in the past that everyone is on guard now…”
“Mhm… mhm! That’s a possibility!”
“Then I’ll go back and try a different identity.”
Having said that, Jiang Ke’er cupped her fists toward me.
She’s so short.
As she solemnly bowed with cupped fists, her Tail perked up, and the tips of her ears almost poked my chest.
Well, I’m very short too.
I took two steps back and returned the gesture to avoid a head-on collision.
“I am grateful for your help during this Tribulation Crossing. I, Yun Luo Xian, owe you all a favor. If you have any requests, feel free to ask,” I said loudly in thanks.
As soon as I said it, I regretted it.
As soon as those words left my mouth, I felt as if I saw exclamation marks pop up over the heads of Xunfang, Silian, Dahlia, Jiang Ke’er, and Qiao Xiaoxian!
An approachable character with a triggerable side Mission.
I knew it.
I should have known!
There’s no such thing as a warm-hearted fellow cultivator in this world, and there’s no such thing as a free lunch!
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