“Go to this place, yes, just like that…”
Hua Jian moved like a clumsy giant. Her body was simply too massive, causing her thoughts to take a long time before her body could react.
Even after fully connecting herself to her enormous form, there was still a significant delay in her control over it.
Fortunately, she had already located the Colored Foliage near the first Switch Point and was directing them to surge straight toward it.
As laborious as it looked, this task was actually quite simple.
All she needed to do was find the direction and extend her tendrils over there.
At the distant first Switch Point, no cultivators remained, so everyone in the Secret Realm would remain completely unaware of what was happening there.
Mechanism No.1 had been activated earlier, and it would automatically shut down after a period of time.
At that point, cultivators who wanted to pull the first switch would need to return here and pull it down again, or the Transmission Array would have no way to activate.
Hua Jian had actually hidden a little trick here as well.
As everyone knew, this Secret Realm’s Mechanisms needed to be activated in order—one, two, three, four.
But when Mechanism No.1 shut down on its own due to time, cultivators who wanted to pull it down again would need to activate the last switch, thereby resetting all switches that had not yet been closed.
Hua Jian had originally wanted to make it so that pulling the switches in the wrong order would be impossible, but upon further thought, she decided that was too cruel a design, so she didn’t implement it.
Instead, she installed the reset devices for these mechanisms inside the fourth mechanism.
As long as the fourth mechanism was activated, all mechanisms would return to their original positions.
But if the fourth switch was activated while other switches hadn’t been pulled or had been pulled in the wrong order, the Transmission Array wouldn’t start.
Otherwise, if any troublemaker casually pulled a switch in the back, the first switch would be sealed for several days.
With someone sabotaging from within, not a single cultivator in the Secret Realm would be able to leave.
That kind of conduct was too ugly, so it was better for Hua Jian to sneak in under a hidden identity and stir up trouble instead.
This was also the confidence behind the Demonic Sect cultivators of Tianmomen being so bold.
As long as the fourth switch was in their hands, they were guaranteed to be able to retreat.
As for those little rats spouting arrogant words, before the army of their Tianmomen, they were nothing more than garbage not even worthy of being called speed bumps.
Only now, things were about to undergo a small change.
The Mechanism No.1 located at the very edge of the Secret Realm was about to be devoured by the void that no one knew about, and the consequences of this would undoubtedly be catastrophic.
This meant that once the signal emitted by the devoured Mechanism No.1 expired, there would be no way to activate the Transmission Array to leave the Secret Realm.
Even if the Tianmomen dominated the Secret Realm however they pleased, their only fate would be to perish along with it.
If they knew about this situation right now and pulled the final two switches in time, they would still have a chance to escape. But that was impossible.
Youye had only stationed two Demonic Cultivators to guard the switch point.
Even when dealing with five little rats, they had to take it easy, focusing mainly on interrupting and harassing.
Expecting them to notice the anomaly at the first switch point at this moment was nothing short of delusional.
Then did the other cultivators have a chance to discover this situation and come tell the Tianmomen cultivators to show mercy?
Unfortunately, no. In the current situation, where would there be any other wandering cultivators outside?
The Poison Circle had almost shrunk to its smallest.
All other cultivators were already gone. Aside from these five cultivators who had joined forces to fight for a way to survive, no other Demonic Cultivators existed in the Secret Realm.
So, the disappearance of Mechanism No.1 was destined to be silent and unnoticed.
Only when the Tianmomen wanted to pull the switches and leave would they despairingly discover that Mechanism No.1 had already been devoured, and they had lost their final chance to retreat.
Feeling that space shatter into fragments within her extended branches, Hua Jian couldn’t help but smile.
The Tianmomen probably didn’t know yet that they had very little time left to make a choice.
Once the time limit of Mechanism No.1 passed, this Secret Realm would completely become a dead land!
“Can they react in time? How exciting~”
……
The Tianmomen couldn’t react for crap. They had no idea that Wanhuagu could play such targeted tricks.
Who could have imagined that the Poison Circle, which had been progressing evenly, would suddenly extend a tendril and devour the switch point?
No one could have predicted such a situation.
Unless someone was the type of fortune-teller who could calculate everything and discern the impending crisis through mystical means.
If not, then they’d just have to step right into the trap.
Learn from mistakes and grow wiser, right?
Surely these Demonic Cultivators of Tianmomen wouldn’t make this mistake in their next lives… provided they had a next life.
Youye was still immersed in the joy of winning, winning, and winning everything.
The excavation work was going quite smoothly.
Several consecutive waves of Beast Tides mixed with Wanhuagu’s secret vein techniques hadn’t caused much trouble for their team either.
Except two more people had been ambushed and killed due to momentary carelessness.
But completing such a major operation while only losing four dispensable cannon fodder was definitely a very worthwhile deal.
Within the Tianmomen, although Ling King Realm cultivators weren’t numerous, it wasn’t like they couldn’t afford such losses.
Demonic Cultivators had plenty of methods for propping people up prematurely.
Once these cannon fodder were burned through, they’d just pick some from the Spirit Master Peak cannon fodder and elevate them.
As for the consequences and the costs—who cared? Demonic Cultivators didn’t concern themselves with such things.
These cultivators who had been propped up prematurely were lacking in Talent to begin with.
Now, being able to reach a realm they could never have touched through crooked paths was already satisfying enough for them.
Shortened lifespans, no future potential—those were things geniuses needed to worry about.
They were merely mayflies, born at dawn and dead at dusk, unable to think about such things.
They didn’t care about themselves, and the Demonic Sect naturally didn’t care about their lives either.
Youye was a genius among Demonic Cultivators.
Although her strength appeared to be at the same level as these Demonic Cultivators, she viewed them from above, with the attitude of a superior.
So what if four cannon fodders died?
As long as she could bring the Demon Corpse Crystal back to the Sect, her underlings would quickly be replenished. She wasn’t short on these four people.
As the excavation grew closer to the Demon Corpse Crystal, the frequency of shift changes among the Demonic Cultivators also increased.
A thick, almost materialized black aura surged out from the pit the Tianmomen had dug. This was the Demon Energy!
“We’re almost there! Once we dig out the Demon Corpse Crystal, we’ll have achieved glory!”
Youye couldn’t hide her excitement and urged the Demonic Cultivators working in the pit loudly.
“Dig straight through, no more shift changes! Win it all in one strike!”
Her voice was full of urgency, yet she failed to notice that the expressions of the Demonic Cultivators in the pit seemed a bit off.
These Demonic Cultivators had mostly been propped up prematurely, making their Soulforce more unstable and fragile compared to ordinary cultivators.
Prolonged contact with Demon Energy would inevitably lead to hallucinations and other conditions.
That was exactly why Youye had been having the Demonic Cultivators rotate shifts to dig.
But now, with the Demon Corpse Crystal within reach, she had grown impatient and didn’t want to waste any more time.
So she chose to have the Demonic Cultivators still working push through and dig out the Demon Corpse Crystal in one go.
And this choice caused the two Demonic Cultivators directly subjected to Demon Energy erosion in the pit to fully descend into the abyss.
When Demonic Cultivators were mildly eroded, it was hard to notice any effect, since they were already evil to begin with.
But these Demonic Cultivators were somewhat different.
Their greed was immense, and being eroded by the Demon Energy at such close range amplified the dark side of their minds to the extreme.
At this moment, their thoughts had quietly shifted from completing the mission and receiving rewards to: since this is a Treasure, why not keep it all for myself?
The Sect’s reward would have to be split among so many people. If they could successfully seize the treasure, then all the benefits would be theirs alone!
As long as they killed everyone in the know, no one would ever know what they had done, no one would know that the Demon Corpse Crystal was actually in their hands, devoured by them alone.
What did Venerables and Saints have to do with him, a mere Ling King?
Heaven is high and the emperor is far away—he refused to believe that a Venerable who never dared to show his face would personally hunt him down over such a trivial matter.
Both Demonic Cultivators had the same thought, and when their Spirit Tools struck heavily into the ground, a feedback sensation of hitting something hard came through, that thought reached its peak.
Without a hint of hesitation or doubt, they swiftly dug out an irregular black crystal the size of an adult’s fist from the earth.
As the crystal was fully unearthed, the pitch-black Demon Energy instantly engulfed both of them.
They grabbed the crystal together, and in that instant, their thoughts achieved perfect alignment.
And then, without mercy, they threw punches at each other.
“This treasure is mine, what right do you have to touch it!” Both Demonic Cultivators shouted in their minds simultaneously.
“What are you doing?! Bring the Demon Corpse Crystal up here!” Youye heard the commotion below and quickly waved her hand to disperse the pitch-black aura in the pit.
Seeing her two subordinates actually fighting each other over the Demon Corpse Crystal inside the pit, Youye was furious.
What were they fighting for? Even if they won, the crystal wasn’t theirs anyway!
“Bring the thing up here now! We’re retreating!”
But the two Demonic Cultivators in the pit ignored Youye’s reprimand entirely, continuing to fight each other like madmen, no different from wild beasts.
Finally, Youye’s second-in-command noticed something was wrong. The two Demonic Cultivators in the pit were clearly in a strange state.
“They’ve been affected by the Demon Energy!” he warned Youye loudly.
Losing rationality and becoming slaves to desire—that was the classic sign of being affected by Demon Energy. These two Demonic Cultivators should be exactly that.
“Tch, what a bunch of failures!” Youye clicked her tongue lightly, with no intention of trying to save her two eroded subordinates.
Sure, the two subordinates had been eroded because of her orders, but what did that have to do with her?
Other people hadn’t been eroded, so why were only you two eroded? Clearly because you weren’t working hard enough!
Hmph, not only were they useless, but they also dropped the ball at the most critical moment. They weren’t worth regretting!
“Then… should we just kill them?”
“What else? Wait for them to finish fighting and come attack us?” Youye replied with an annoyed expression. “The eroded ones might still be savable, but they’re not worth saving.”
Eroded cultivators could still be saved with certain methods, but those methods weren’t something just anyone could use.
Even a Saint Sect couldn’t use such methods on every cultivator affected by Demon Energy, let alone a Demonic Sect that was poorer and crueler than a Saint Sect.
The cost of dispelling the erosion on these Demonic Cultivators would be greater than training two new Spirit Master Realm Demonic Cultivators from scratch.
These guys weren’t once-in-a-millennium Heavenly Talents, so how could the Demonic Sect possibly pay such an expensive price for them?
Once they were eroded, their fate was already sealed.
Youye was a very pure Demonic Cultivator.
She viewed her subordinates as nothing more than a group of moving tools, so she could issue kill orders without a moment’s hesitation.
No matter how many of these people died, as long as her Mission was completed, it didn’t matter at all.
Grieve and feel sorry for them? That didn’t exist. She would only rejoice at the success of her mission.
This, is what it means to be a Demonic Cultivator.
……
“What an utterly cold-blooded individual. I think she’s the real future threat to your Right Path.”
Hua Jian, who had already destroyed Mechanism No.1, had shifted her attention back to Youye’s side.
Seeing Youye issue execution orders so swiftly and decisively, she felt that compared to her ‘good sister,’ she was far more humane.
If she encountered such a situation, she would definitely think about how to pull people back.
If someone she knew, someone who had been helping her all along, encountered this, she would spare no cost to save them.
Even if those people were just expendable resources assigned to her by Wanhuagu to command as she pleased.
“Most Demonic Cultivators are like this. Nothing surprising about it.” Linglong frowned, clearly disapproving of Youye’s actions.
But Demonic Cultivators were just like this. Demonic Cultivators with loyalty and righteousness might exist, but their existence was far too improbable.
Would a genuinely good person really become a Demonic Cultivator? Linglong didn’t believe such people existed in this world.
“Compared to her, I’m practically a radiantly righteous Saintess of the Right Path. Truly, there’s always someone worse out there.” Hua Jian continued her commentary.
Her badness was toward her enemies, and her goodness was toward her own people.
That was simply human nature, within the scope of a normal person.
But Youye was bad to her enemies and equally bad to her own people. That made her far worse than Hua Jian.
Compared to Youye, Hua Jian really did count as a good Saintess.
If the disciples of Wanhuagu were asked to choose a leader, probably not a single one would pick the former.
“Having someone like her in the Magic Path isn’t necessarily a bad thing.”
Linglong was silent for a moment before speaking softly, “You know, in the eyes of Master and the others, a Demonic Cultivator like you is the truly dangerous one.”
“Huh?” Hua Jian didn’t understand. What did she mean by a Demonic Cultivator like her being dangerous?
Setting aside whether she was actually a Demonic Cultivator or not, how could a Demonic Cultivator with a decent personality who cared for her subordinates be more terrifying than one who was evil to the core?
“Evil people like her can’t unite the power of the Magic Path, but someone like you can. The human heart is the most powerful weapon of all!”