After Infusing Love Poison to the Cold Sword Sovereign - Chapter 58

The heavy night enveloped the Demon Sect’s headquarters. The three from Miaojiang stood in a row, with Lan Ting squeezing in front of Chuncao, using her own body to block the other’s line of sight.

“Is it her?” Wu Ruo seemed to realize something, asking abruptly without context.

“It’s her,” Lan Ting replied gravely, understanding her meaning.

It was she who led tens of thousands of demon troops to destroy Miaojiang.

It was she who captured Lan Ting, subjecting her to a life worse than death.

The Right Envoy of the Demon Sect, just as the rumors said, wore a ferocious and terrifying Asura mask on her face. The exposed half of her face was crisscrossed with countless scars. Her skin appeared aged and decayed, weathered like that of an elderly mortal in their twilight years, as if she had lived for thousands of years.

No one knew whether the other half of her face beneath the mask was as stunningly beautiful as the legends claimed.

The woman remained lazily reclining against a massive demonic beast, the half-mask fixed firmly in place. The exposed half of her face twitched, as if she had curled her lips into a smile, but the movement of the hideous scars only made her appear more terrifying.

Aside from the demonic beast she leaned against, several other green-faced, fanged monsters slowly closed in. These creatures, known as Qingtie Pao, fed on blood. They had canine-like limbs but grotesque heads resembling human demon masks.

“Well, well, you’ve come out.”

She looked old, but her voice sounded surprisingly youthful, with a rising intonation as if she had just watched an intriguing opera performance and was lazily clapping out of politeness. Then, she suddenly straightened up, and an immense pressure surged forth, spreading aggressively in all directions!

“Ugh!”

All three of them were affected. Lan Ting, likely suppressed by her demonic bloodline, was the first to lose control. Her knees buckled, and she staggered, struggling to maintain her stance.

“Heh heh heh.My dear Lan Guardian.”

The woman’s figure abruptly shot forward, appearing before them in an instant.

The green-faced, fanged monsters had also finished lapping up the blood Lan Ting had spilled, letting out a loud screech. They dashed swiftly on all fours, arriving in front of Lan Ting in the blink of an eye. One raised its front hoof and kicked her hard!

“As my guardian, you’re nothing but a two-faced sneak who crept into the prison?”

Lan Ting could no longer control her body. Her knees severely injured, she collapsed to the ground with a thud.

“For her? Oh, I remember now. Back then, you kowtowed a thousand times to me, swearing your loyalty, all for her sake. Who knew it was just a facade.”

The Right Envoy sneered coldly and was about to command the Qingtie Pao to bite down again when Chuncao shouted loudly, “Stop!”

Though clearly injured herself, Chuncao forced her way in front of Lan Ting, one hand secretly slipping into her pocket, ready to strike with golden needles at any moment.

The woman actually halted her actions, scrutinizing Chuncao brazenly from head to toe before letting out a sinister laugh. “Oh? It’s you. It seems you’ve found your friend. How wonderful. I’ve also found, my friend.”

With that, she laughed loudly and shrilly, striding over to Wu Ruo. “The Miaojiang, heh hehe. Holy Maiden, greetings.”

“Demon Sect Right Envoy,” Wu Ruo replied coldly, her gaze fixed on the other.

“Oh my, what a rare guest to grace our humble Tianwu Divine Sect. Oh, I forgot, I accidentally annexed your Miaojiang territory. Now, you should address me as Lord Right Envoy.”

Wu Ruo remained silent, channeling her spiritual energy into her Qiankun pouch. In an instant, her lifebound sword was summoned, its cold gleam unsheathed.

“Drawing your sword the moment you see me. Heh, as expected of a cultivator who studied at Zhiyuan Immortal Sect. Willing to abandon Miaojiang just to remain in your utopia.”

Before Wu Ruo could retort through gritted teeth, she heard Chuncao shout sharply, “Shut up!”

“Oh? Little one, if I recall correctly, you sent out hundreds of signals begging her to return, yet she paid no heed.”

“Why should she come back?” Chuncao bit her lower lip, standing her ground fearlessly even as monstrous creatures loomed nearby. “To die together? Your goal is to slaughter the village, you’re a demon! Don’t you dare pin any blame on her!”

“Oh? So she turned a blind eye to your suffering, and you don’t even resent her?!”

With those final words, the Right Envoy’s aura exploded exponentially. She shrieked viciously at Chuncao, her hair and nails rapidly elongating as five grotesque, sinister Qingtao Pao creatures gathered, hooves raised, stirring up clouds of dust in an instant!

Whoosh!

Wu Ruo didn’t even see how the woman moved. Black mist dispersed in the air as a withered, dark hand burst from the cracked earth. In that moment, a sinister wind howled, and the world seemed to lose its color.

“Falling Snow, Fourth Form!”

She soared into the air, pouring all her formidable spiritual energy into her life bound sword. Every bone in her body felt as if it were burning, a resonant, zither-like vibration coursing through her limbs, warming her entire being.

Knowing she could only muster one strike, her mind had never been clearer. The image of Luo Qingyi teaching her swordsmanship surfaced in her thoughts holding her hand, guiding her gracefully amid the snow-blanketed peaks of Falling Snow Peak.

The warmth of that hand seemed to linger beside her. Luo Qingyi had patiently corrected her grip, movement by movement, with utmost tenderness.

Yet, she had thrown a tantrum at Luo Qingyi, recklessly ventured into the demon realm to save Chuncao, failed, encountered the notoriously cruel Right Envoy, and even dragged Lan Ting into danger.

What a failure.

She had let down Lan Ting. She had let down Chuncao. And she had let down. Luo Qingyi, who was waiting for her at the inn.

Luo Qingyi was probably still in the room. Her parting words had been too harsh. Though Luo Qingyi only meant well, she had rejected that kindness, venting her frustrations on the one closest to her, she must have hurt Luo Qingyi’s heart.

Once again, she had failed Luo Qingyi.

She smiled wryly, countless thoughts flashing through her mind in that instant, all culminating in the ultimate sword technique she had mastered, a move that defied cultivation realms. In one burst, she unleashed her full power.

Falling Snow Fourth Form: Storm Without Return. A technique to challenge foes three realms above her, at the cost of chaotic inner energy, disrupted meridians, and three days of incapacitation.

Luo Qingyi had once told her that bloodline disorder was the root of a cultivator’s inner demons. Cultivators, who cultivated their minds and nurtured their qi, were already prone to inner demons. If their bloodlines became entangled and reversed, it was a sign of stagnating cultivation and the risk of qi deviation. This technique was not to be used unless absolutely necessary.

But now, it was a moment of crisis. She still wanted to try, to struggle desperately in the face of death.

Powerful snowflakes tangled with swirling dust, creating a silent, snow-covered scene as if the sky had shattered. A sharp sword technique sliced through the wind, striking fiercely toward the Right Envoy’s location,

Bang.

The withered black giant hand that had burst from the ground was instantly sliced into several pieces of rotting black mud by the sword’s flourish. Two green-faced, fanged monsters were also struck, writhing on the ground in agony, their mournful cries suggesting they were not long for this world.

Wu Ruo clutched her chest, her face deathly pale, forcing herself to stay upright.

But as the thick black mist dissipated, the Right Envoy before her remained unscathed.

No, the woman’s robes seemed tattered, countless sword marks etched across the black fabric. Yet her attire was so thick that it securely concealed what lay beneath.

What was even more terrifying was the Right Envoy’s hand, which seemed to have clawed into something and was now stained crimson with blood. It was…

She had clearly been targeting Chuncao, but as the smoke cleared, she saw clearly who she held in her hand.

Lan Ting.

The Right Envoy gritted her teeth and muttered a low curse. Her hand was sticky, drenched in large patches of red that stained her palm and wrist. Impatiently, she shook her hand, flinging the blood onto the ground.

Lan Ting clutched her chest. Even in her black robes, thick, fresh blood gushed from the wound on her chest, soaking through the dark fabric and dripping to the ground, quickly forming large, spreading pools.

“Didn’t expect that, did you?” Despite the immense pain, Lan Ting was still laughing, a bitter, mocking laugh tinged with a strange satisfaction, even as her voice faltered and she struggled to speak, spitting out mouthfuls of blood that gurgled from her throat. “You, threw me into the Blood Gu Pool, turned me into a monster. So, you think killing my friend won’t be so easy.”

“Lan Ting!” In that split second, Chuncao felt a force shove her aside, firmly shielding her from the fatal blow.

Tears instantly streamed down Chuncao’s face. She knelt on the ground, tightly holding Lan Ting’s body, pulling a Soul-Returning Pill from her pocket and quickly feeding it to her friend. Then, channeling her qi to her fingertips, she attempted to transfer energy to Lan Ting.

But her friend stopped her: “Chuncao, don’t. I’m already a demonic cultivator, the healing qi of a medical cultivator is useless to me.”

“Are you two done with your sentimental display? Such good friends, huh? Willing to die for each other!”

The Right Envoy impatiently grabbed one of the injured green-faced monsters, wiping the blood from her hands on its fur. She snarled furiously, her gaze fixed intently on Wu Ruo.

“Heh heh hehe,Good friends, such good friends! You’d turn to demonic cultivation for her, you’d throw yourself into the Blood Gu Pool, you’d die for her, you’d do anything! Unlike…”

The last two words seemed insignificant, so faint and light, yet Wu Ruo heard them. She stared intently at the other’s face, the aged skin, the wrinkles, and the countless hideous scars had long obscured the appearance of their youth.

Wu Ruo leaned on her lifeTbound sword to steady herself. “Do I know you?”

“You!”

The Right Envoy suddenly burst into wild laughter, the eerie, cold wind echoing endlessly in the air as her sharp voice rose and fell, lingering without fading.

In that instant, it seemed as though she had covered her scar-ridden face.

“So, hehehe, hehehe just die, all of you! All of you, all!”

A deafening roar reverberated around the headquarters of the Tianwu Sect, accompanied by the howling wind, the trembling earth, and the woman’s piercing, desperate screams.

The colossal beast behind the Right Envoy finally took a step forward. Its aura surged violently, and its body expanded dozens of times in an instant, becoming as enormous as the Xuanwu puppet of the Zhiyuan Immortal Sect, a truly colossal presence.

Boom!

In a flash, a fierce gale swept through, plunging the world into darkness. Light seemed to have ceased flowing around them, leaving only boundless demonic energy swirling amidst the deathly silence of the Tianwu Sect’s headquarters.

Whirling sand filled the air, and an aura of death spread everywhere.

The gigantic monster towered immensely, and with each step it took, the earth shattered and mountains crumbled in a terrifying spectacle. Amid the woman’s maniacal laughter, it stomped again and again, over and over.

After an unknown length of time, the dust settled, and silence reigned.

The limbs of the fully grown Qingqiao Pao stood like towering pillars, planted firmly on the open ground of the headquarters. Looking around, there was no sign of life. The trio from Miaojiang, already a group of wounded and disabled, had likely lost their mobility and perished beneath the iron hooves.

Satisfied, the Right Envoy slowly removed the Asura mask from her face.

For so many years, she had almost always exposed her disfigured face to the world, never revealing the other half.

Beneath the mask, in stark contrast to her ugly side, the other half of her face appeared as smooth as congealed fat, with cheeks like blooming peach blossoms.

She pressed the Asura mask against her disfigured face and began to laugh foolishly once more, then, like a Miao maiden, gently gathered her not-so-long hair and tied it into youthful braids.

Just like at her graduation ceremony when she was eighteen, she had worn two glossy braids, holding the carefully refined gu insects she had cultivated still inferior to her friend’s and sat anxiously at the evaluation assembly. Her heart was filled with longing for the vast world and genuine admiration for her friend.

Perhaps, there was also a little, just a little bit of envy.

Her friend, the one she had once believed to be her best friend.

That friend would open her heart when she felt lonely and withdrawn, inviting her to go down the mountain together, to see the village streams and admire the boundless sea of flowers. She brought her into the group and dispelled her gloom.

Her friend would also, at the evaluation assembly, selflessly yield the first-place position to her, simply because she had said she wanted to see the world.

But…

The Right Envoy finally finished braiding her hair. The mask concealed her ugly, terrifying half-face, leaving only the half of a maiden’s cheek, soft, lovely, carrying the world’s gentlest hopes, along with her boundless, overwhelming hatred.

Wu Ruo, oh Wu Ruo, did you know that this evaluation was nothing but a deceitful scheme of the demonic sect all along?

“Wu Ruo, oh Wu Ruo, did you conspire with the former Witch Envoy to pass this damned, soul-crushing opportunity to me, just so I could die for you?”

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