Questioning Heaven, Desiring the Way

“Do you want to know what betrayal feels like?”

While Rou Lingyun’s attention was focused entirely on controlling the formation to break the barrier above, Li Yu’s soft voice suddenly resounded from behind her. His tone sounded empty, numb, and hoarse, like the sound of two pieces of wood rubbing against each other. It made one’s hair stand on end.

“Wha…” Before she could react, a terrible pain shot through her body as something stabbed suddenly into her back. The excruciating pain made her slim body tremble slightly. Bright red patches of blood stained her dress like beautiful yet horrifying flowers.

“W-why?” Rou Lingyun felt like her heart had been torn apart as she tried her best to turn and look at Li Yu, who stared back at her with a vicious and twisted smile. Her words were tragic, her voice filled with grief. Like a fish pulled out of the water, her lips trembled slightly, and her expression was one of utter confusion.

“Why…AHHH!” Li Yu suddenly raised his head slightly to look right into the beautiful eyes that were no more than half a foot away from his own face. Fragments of memories flashed in his brain, and his consciousness became as muddled as glue. Pain overcame him like water bursting through a dam, which drowned his consciousness and made him pass out after letting out a scream.

“Who did this? Who did this terrible, sneaky thing?!”

These Nascent Change cultivators were no fools. They had seen how Rou Lingyun was wounded severely by Li Yu. The change in the situation made everyone’s expression darken, and the white-haired young man burst into a rage, unleashing an invincible aura as he scanned the crowd quickly with his bloodshot, demonic-looking eyes and spat out those words in a sinister voice.

As far as he knew, the most powerful people in all of Fengyang who were still alive had gathered in this place. Anybody else left alive elsewhere wasn’t powerful enough to prove to be a threat. If anybody had the chance to pull a sneaky stunt like that, it would definitely be one of the Nascent Change cultivators here. But he couldn’t figure out why someone would do something so vicious at this point in time.

“Who…did this?” Old man Li’s expression was even nastier. He had watched how Li Yu’s expression suddenly changed drastically. The young man’s gaze had been drained of any emotion as he drew a sword and stabbed it into Rou Lingyun’s back without any warning. Everything had happened so quickly, he couldn’t stop it in time.

“Save her first! Without her, we’re all going to die!”

Another cultivator glanced at the crowd, then commanded the qi around them to gather rapidly around Rou Lingyun’s body, which was barely holding up. A bright glow and faint fragrance filled the place as the qi flowed into her wound in an attempt to mend the injury that went through her entire body.

Unfortunately, that sword had been covered in something that refused to go away. Instead, it became more and more dense, spreading itself out like a leech on her bones.

“It’s poison…”

This time, everyone looked angry, as though they had swallowed a fly. They couldn’t help but exude an aura that would make anybody’s heart tremble in fear.

Craack!

The fates continued to be unkind to them. In just a few moments, the situation worsened significantly. The barrier in the sky became thicker and more solid, while the pillar of light from the altar became weaker and weaker. To make things worse, more cracks began to appear on the altar.

“Give it all you’ve got! Whether we make it or not depends on this!”

Rou Lingyun swallowed a pill for poison attacks and managed to stop the poison from spreading further. She gave a low shout, then sat cross-legged in the air to concentrate. Perspiration rained down from her body and quickly formed a puddle below her.

“Given the current circumstances, we have to throw everything in. If you hold back anything, we’ll all end up dead!” Duanmu’s face was all red from working so hard. He gritted his teeth and pulled out a bottle of pills, swallowing everything as he shut his eyes and ignored the throbbing pain in his heart. The internal energy in his body was surging and expanding at insane speeds, but he felt as though his heart was bleeding.

“We’ve got to give it everything we’ve got!!” Everyone yelled as they pulled out their best and most precious items. A majestic air filled the place as the pillar of light suddenly shone brightly once more and shot straight for the clouds again.

“Oho, they’re really going all out now,” said the scholar with a snigger. He looked at Gu Suihan standing in front of him with his hands folded behind his back from the corner of his eye and became even more wary of the mysterious young man.

He had finally understood exactly what Gu Suihan had done to the formation.

Contrary to his initial guess that Gu Suihan would damage the formation, it turned out that Gu Suihan had strengthened and fortified the formation instead.

If the other formation eyes contained a box and the energy it gave off was a pipe that was only as wide as a finger, then what Gu Suihan had done was to increase the width of that pipe by possibly up to ten times.

That way, the energy that this fifth pillar supplied would seem like an explosion compared to the rest and throw the whole thing off balance. The altar would be unable to hold up as a result and start giving problems after some time.

“It’s…really a way to kill someone without leaving any traces…” Xia Yun was in a daze as she stared down at the formation of runes below the red pillar next to her. Her heart shuddered fearfully.

“The most brilliant of plans is to give the opponent a chance to get out of the fight alive besides killing you off…that way, they would focus on the other option and not fight to the death with you,” said Chamu with a sigh. A grim look appeared in his eyes.

Tang Xiaoyun seemed to have come to a realization as he sighed slowly. “These cultivators are at Nascent Change, alright. They’re actually willing to work together even under such dire circumstances. That’s why we always call them monsters!”

“Now, the seeds of suspicion have been sown, so they just need some water and fertilizer!” said Gu Suihan quietly as a creepy smile that would send anybody shuddering in fear spread across his face. He raised his right hand and pressed it gently on his saber. The rest watched in shock as the saber suddenly shot out from its sheath. It glowed dimly and was surrounded by a blackish layer of fiendish qi. It came down fiercely, the blade glinting through the wisps of black qi as it unleashed the power to affect the laws of nature. Just like slicing through tofu, the saber sliced the formation pattern in the ground to pieces.

“You’re the one who created this problem.” Gu Suihan glanced in the direction of the white-haired young man, then flipped his large cloak. He and the rest of his group disappeared instantly.

“Damn it! What’s going on?”

The pillar of light suddenly darkened and was clearly a lot smaller in diameter than before. It even seemed a little exhausted and about to give up.

This made everyone’s heart sink. What was going on? Did something go wrong again?

“One of the formation eyes has fallen apart.” Rou Lingyun was in control of the whole situation, so she got the answer immediately by checking the altar. She fixed her darkened gaze on the white-haired young man. “It’s the formation eye that was filled up by the warring souls you released.”

Duanmu seized the chance. “Were you also the one who did that just now?” he asked as he deliberately pretended to look really angry and hateful.

It was obvious that Duanmu was just taking this opportunity to protect himself from blame, like grabbing a pot randomly and using it as a helmet. At the same time, he was clearly making things difficult for the other party.

But the white-haired young man quickly discovered that, given the situation, it was going to be hard for him to explain things. He was now like a man accused of pooping his pants, even though it was nothing but mud.

“To hell with you! Did you think I had nothing better to do? Why in the world would I do something that would only bring harm to myself?” yelled the young man.

“You didn’t have a good reason for contributing so many souls earlier either,” piped up another cultivator. He threw the people around him a glance, and they moved to surround the white-haired young man.

The young man’s expression fell when he saw them surround him and snorted. “Whether I was the one who did this or not, there’s got to be a good reason why all of you are joining forces against me, right? Never mind whether this reason is reasonable or not…seriously, all of you are trying to play dirty and pretend to be righteous at the same time.”

“That’s exactly it, my fellow cultivator.”

The rest exchanged glances and grinned. They weren’t ashamed of being accused of this at all.

Then again, all of them were seasoned cultivators who had lived for centuries now. Who cared about logic? They were just instinctively trying to save their own reputation now.

“Excellent. Since that’s the case, fight and prove yourselves!”

The young man gave a low shout. A bright light flashed as a small flag appeared in his hand. He waved it gently, and a violent wind was stirred up and spewed fiendish qi everywhere. The entire place turned as dark as night while countless spirits of all kinds appeared, accompanied by cries and howls. The atmosphere was extremely sinister like they were in hell.

“A bunch of dead things are nothing!” Duanmu smirked as he slammed a hand on his belt. A bead gave off a brilliant sparkle, and the sounds of Buddhist chants filled the air. It frightened the fiendish qi present and turned the shrieking spirits into mere ash.

The dead aura around the cultivators shook, and the darkness that descended upon them earlier disappeared, leaving behind a few traces of the spirits’ yin qi.

“Ghosts shall become visible, dead armies shall rise. Thousands of soldiers will obey my command!”

The young man scoffed and waved his flag gently again. Runes gleamed brightly, and the surface of the ground was instantly covered in layers of a sinister and gloomy qi, thickening and spewing nonstop like a fountain. In the blink of an eye, countless ghost infantry soldiers holding halberds and shields and dressed in mottled heavy armor appeared. Roaring ghost generals riding the skeletons of horses appeared at the same time.

“Chants of Buddhist scriptures! Golden lotuses bloom from the ground! May all the Buddhas above save all living creatures below!”

Duanmu flung the jewel out, bit his tongue hard, and sprayed a mouthful of blood onto the bead. The illusion of a genial-looking bodhisattva with a kindly smile and a sympathetic aura slowly began to appear.