Lou Yue’s words rang out with unmistakable force, and the surroundings fell silent.
After a brief pause, Lou Chengfeng barked, “And don’t get careless just because you plan to wipe them all out!”
To him, Lou Yue’s safety had always come first.
At a time like this, the Four Great Families had gathered all their strength. Clearly, they had set aside their old grudges and intended to join forces to eliminate her—the Celestial God Realm cultivator who had upset the balance of the cultivation world.
The last two cultivators to enter the Celestial God Realm were said to have died under the combined assault of cultivators at the peak of the Deity Transformation Realm.
He absolutely could not allow anything to happen to Lou Yue.
“The Four Great Families have deep foundations and countless experts. Once they join forces, the Rogue Cultivators’ Alliance won’t be able to resist them head-on. We must make every possible preparation.”
Lou Yue rested the back of her hand against her cheek and said calmly, “I’ll draw them away.”
Lou Chengfeng flatly rejected the idea. “If anything happens to you, they’ll be even less willing to let the Rogue Cultivators’ Alliance off. If you stay, everyone can unite around you and face the enemy together.”
“I agree with Godfather,” Hong Chou added earnestly. “Even if that weren’t the case, we would never let you face them alone.”
Liufeng Xin and Xiao Aiai nodded in agreement.
Lou Yue’s gaze slowly swept over them. She remained silent and said nothing more.
Hong Chou began explaining the arrangements she, Lou Chengfeng, and Big Brother Wei had discussed earlier. Lou Yue listened quietly, adding several key suggestions and ideas along the way.
Once they had finished discussing the major matters, the three women hurried off to make the necessary arrangements, leaving Lou Yue behind instead.
What Lou Yue feared most now was being alone with Lou Chengfeng. Over the past two years, her old man had become increasingly fond of rambling.
But the moment she rose to her feet, Lou Chengfeng’s shout came from behind her—
“Sit down!”
He pointed at the reclining chair, his pair of peach-blossom eyes—so much like hers—glowering fiercely at her.
Lou Yue sneered inwardly, then lay back down and closed her eyes.
Lou Chengfeng stared at his daughter’s thoroughly disgusted expression. His gaze unconsciously shifted to the black thorn-shaped ear cuff on her right ear. After a long moment, he asked in a deep voice, “Has Qinglin returned?”
“No.” Lou Yue answered with two words.
“That fellow has gone off to—” Lou Chengfeng cut himself off. “Tell it to come back immediately. An extra helper means better odds.”
Lou Yue parted her lips. “Are you done?”
Lou Chengfeng restrained his temper. He calmed himself, took several deep breaths, and then slowly said, “I’ve picked out several young people with excellent aptitudes for you. We’ll have to put it aside for now because of this siege. Once we get through it safely, I’ll have Little Qiu send them over. You can choose one then.”
Lou Yue opened her eyes and looked at him. “Choose what?”
Lou Chengfeng said solemnly, “A disciple. Choose one of them as your disciple.”
After a pause, he gritted his teeth and added, “If there’s one you particularly like, you can keep them around to sweep your courtyard too.”
Without another word, Lou Yue got up and left.
Lou Chengfeng had anticipated her reaction. With an air of complete composure, he called after her, “Take a good look when the time comes. Every one of them is outstanding—your father chose them himself.”
As she reached the steps, Lou Yue tossed over her shoulder, “If you like them so much, keep them for yourself and raise them as sons.”
Lou Chengfeng’s brows twitched. In an instant, he thought of a certain someone.
Back then, he had been the one to come up with the idea of taking that brat as his godson. Afterward, however, he had been slapped in the face again and again.
A son? He would never take in a son for the rest of his life!
Lou Yue had no idea that her words had stirred up a storm of resentment in Lou Chengfeng’s heart. She descended the steps and vanished in a flash.
Not long afterward, she reappeared in a courtyard above the sea of clouds surrounding the ruins.
A breeze drifted over the fence, stirring the flowers on the branches. Their faint fragrance filled the courtyard, yet could not dispel the boundless silence within it.
Lou Yue lay down on the broad reclining chair beneath the Chunhua fruit tree. She tilted her head back and gazed quietly at the clusters of frost-white blossoms overhead as they swayed gently in the wind.
That night, Lou Yue fell asleep in the reclining chair while watching those clusters of tiny flowers.
It was not until daylight had fully brightened the sky that she slowly awoke.
The first thing she saw was still the frost-white blossoms covering the branches.
Lowering her eyes, she plucked a white petal from the front of her robe.
The petal was as thin as a cicada’s wing, so fragile that it seemed it would shatter at the slightest touch.
Lou Yue raised her hand. The petal landed in her palm, but a gust of wind swept past and carried it away. In the blink of an eye, it disappeared from her sight.
Lou Yue slowly lowered her hand.
After a moment of silence, she stood and left the courtyard.
There were still many things she had to do.
The Four Great Families were besieging the Rogue Cultivators’ Alliance. As its leader, she had to fulfill her duty as well.
She went to several areas within the ruins where the demon beasts lived, assigning each of them a position to guard and restraining their actions to prevent them from harming their own allies.
The Rogue Cultivators’ Alliance issued a highest-level state of emergency under her orders and drew in its defensive perimeter. Even so, the Four Great Families arrived sooner than expected.
“That old bastard Cangya Lan actually used the Ten-Thousand-Edge Cloudship!” Lou Chengfeng cursed furiously.
He explained at lightning speed, “Cangya’s Ten-Thousand-Edge Cloudship has been passed down for thousands of years. It can cross ten thousand miles in a single day, but activating it once requires ten Mahayana cultivators to exhaust their cultivation power! The entire Cangya Family has no more than twenty or so Mahayana cultivators. To catch us off guard, they actually paid such a steep price!”
Outside the barrier surrounding the Rogue Cultivators’ Alliance, cultivators from the Four Great Families densely encircled it. Some rode magical artifacts, some piloted flying beasts, and others stood aboard cloudships.
Cangya Lan raised his hand and brought down a sword with devastating force, but the strike failed to break through.
Under the tremendous force, the pale-green barrier twisted violently and gave off an ear-piercing hum. Fine cracks spread across its surface, yet with the continuous infusion of spiritual power from hundreds of formation cultivators, it barely held together without shattering.
Cangya Lan struck down again with his sword. The cracks spread like a spiderweb. He turned and called out for the other three family heads to attack together.
Lou Mo did not move.
Cangya Lan shouted furiously, “At a time like this, the Four Great Families are all in the same boat! Don’t tell me you’re still thinking about your son and granddaughter? They clearly have no consideration whatsoever for the Lou Family. They established the Rogue Cultivators’ Alliance and openly opposed us!”
Lou Weixiao, standing behind Lou Mo, stepped forward and quietly urged him a few times. Lou Mo merely raised a hand to stop him. Lou Weixiao’s expression turned grim as he retreated.
“I only agreed to come. I never said I would attack.” Lou Mo’s tone was calm, with not a trace of emotion.
Yue Qianzhong said coldly, “Now that things have come to this, don’t tell me you still want to please both sides!”
“I will not attack.”
Standing at the front of the cloudship, Lou Mo glanced at the barrier below and at Lou Chengfeng and Lou Yue within it. Then he folded his hands behind his back and closed his eyes.
Cangya Lan gave a cold snort. Together with Yue Qianzhong and Liufeng Herong, he attacked.
Three streams of overwhelming spiritual power crashed into the barrier.
The barrier could no longer hold.
Boom!
With a thunderous explosion, it shattered into a sky full of glittering fragments. The cultivators stationed at the formation vomited blood one after another and collapsed unconscious.
A figure shot upward, breaking through the clouds of scattered light.
Lou Yue’s black hair whipped in the wind, her robes billowing as she stood alone in the highest reaches of the sky.
“Dharma Form—Heaven and Earth!”
At her clear cry, a golden divine maiden’s Dharma Form appeared high in the sky, blotting out the heavens and earth.
Golden radiance swept across the desolate firmament. Her robes flowed like drifting clouds, and her features carried the vast, awe-inspiring might of one who looked down upon all living beings. The moment she appeared, the spiritual energy between heaven and earth seemed to freeze beneath her pressure.
Her cultivation was already superior to theirs. Ending the battle swiftly and resolving them all in a single strike was, instead, the fastest and safest course of action.
Lou Yue raised both hands slightly, and the colossal avatar behind her lifted its giant palms in unison. Dozens of golden rays, each piercing from heaven to earth, shot violently from its palms. The attack was so fierce that Cangya Lan, Yue Qianzhong, and Liufeng Herong were forced to retreat in haste, their expressions changing drastically.
Yue Qianzhong gritted his teeth. “The God Realm is actually this powerful…”
Killing intent surged in Cangya Lan’s eyes. “We have to kill her.”
He turned to Liufeng Herong. “Herong, what are you waiting for?”
“Don’t call me by my name!” Liufeng Herong snapped coldly, but she still summoned the glazed lantern that had been enshrined in her family’s ancestral shrine for a thousand years.
She retreated to the back of the flying beast and sat down cross-legged, her fingers moving rapidly through a series of seals. The glazed lantern hovered before her, radiating dazzling light as the entire sky filled with multicolored brilliance.
In the next instant, countless chains of spiritual light surged in from all directions, coiling around the avatar’s neck, hands, and feet. Chains also appeared around Lou Yue herself.
Lou Yue snorted coldly and shattered the chains around her feet on the spot.
But at the very moment those chains broke apart, the members of the Loose Cultivators’ Alliance below her and the cultivators from the four great families on the opposite side all let out agonized cries.
Lou Yue’s hands froze.
She focused her gaze and looked downward.
Whether they belonged to the Loose Cultivators’ Alliance or the four great families, every cultivator except the four family heads slowly began to emit a faint purple glow from their souls. Wisps of it drifted upward like soul-guiding threads, flowing toward the chains binding her.
A sinister, bone-chilling smile tugged at the corners of Cangya Lan’s mouth. “Did you really think we came unprepared? These chains are linked to the souls of your loose cultivators. If you dare break them, you’ll be taking their lives.”
Lou Chengfeng cursed furiously below. Riding on Qinglin’s back, he rose into the air, and countless loose cultivators followed him, forming a battle formation to protect Lou Yue.
In an instant, sword qi crisscrossed the sky, and spiritual light burst in every direction.
Yet no matter how desperately Lou Chengfeng and Qinglin tried to intercept them, Cangya Lan and Yue Qianzhong continued charging toward Lou Yue without the slightest regard for their own safety.
Yue Qianzhong pulled an ax-shaped weapon from his robes. The weapon expanded in his hand with the wind, transforming in the blink of an eye into a colossal ax capable of splitting heaven and earth. Its edge gleamed with a bone-chilling light as it came crashing down toward Lou Yue, who was bound by the chains.
Lou Chengfeng’s pupils constricted. “Yue’er!”
Lou Yue’s expression turned cold. Though her hands were bound, she turned one palm upward, and spiritual power began gathering around her with frenzied intensity.
At that critical moment, the spiritual energy between heaven and earth suddenly vanished.
The spiritual power gathering in Lou Yue’s palm collapsed, while the ax also lost the spiritual energy sustaining its form and began to shrink.
Then, in midair to their side, a vertical blood-red formation suddenly unfolded with a thunderous roar.
Its patterns were intricate and complex. As it revolved, it frantically devoured the surrounding spiritual energy. For a time, the winds and clouds surged, while the sun and moon dimmed.
Everyone’s gaze fixed on the formation that had appeared without warning.
In the next instant, a vast wave of flames erupted from its core. The fire was white streaked with gold, its light cold and sinister, carrying an overbearing might like the depths of hell—powerful enough to burn even the heavens to ashes.
Lou Yue stared at the white-and-gold flames, falling into a daze.
A figure slowly stepped out of the fire.
The man wore black robes as dark as ink, while snow-white hair cascaded over his shoulders. His features were cold and sharply defined, his brows slanting upward toward his temples. His eyes were deep-set, and his pair of icy eyes seemed to conceal eternal galaxies—vast, silent, and unfathomable.
Lou Yue’s eyes burned. She immediately pressed her lips together and lowered her lashes.
“Xiao Rangchen!” Cangya Lan snarled through clenched teeth. “You’re still alive!”
Xiao Rangchen crooked a finger.
The ax hovering before Lou Yue was instantly engulfed in white flames. The glazed lantern before Liufeng Herong was swallowed by the flames as well.
The two of them immediately reached out to dispel the fire, but before their hands could even touch it, the flames leaped onto their bodies as though they had a life of their own. Yue Qianzhong and Liufeng Herong cried out in agony.
The flames began spreading upward. Unable to withstand the excruciating pain of having their souls burned, the two made a decisive choice and severed their own arms with a wave of their hands.
When Cangya Lan saw the power Xiao Rangchen had displayed with a mere lift of his hand, cold sweat broke out across his back.
Xiao Rangchen… had actually reached the God Realm as well…
He turned and fled, but his body suddenly stiffened in midair. The surrounding space seemed to freeze, leaving him unable to move even an inch.
Xiao Rangchen walked toward him through the air, one step at a time.
Cangya Lan stared at him in terror. “Impossible… Impossible…”
Xiao Rangchen raised a hand with icy indifference.
Cangya Lan continued muttering as though he had lost his mind. “Impossible… Impossible…”
In the next moment, Xiao Rangchen’s five fingers clamped around his throat. Fierce white flames erupted from his palm, swallowing Cangya Lan whole in an instant.
“Ahhh—!”
His scream was so shrill and terrible that it tore through heaven and earth.
Cangya Lan, the head of the Cangya Clan and a cultivator at the peak of the Divine Transformation stage, was burned to ash before the eyes of countless onlookers. Not even a trace of his soul remained.
The world fell utterly silent.
The wind stopped. All sound vanished. Everyone stood frozen in place, afraid even to breathe too loudly.
Yue Qianzhong stared blankly at the empty patch of sky. Only after a long moment did he recover from his overwhelming terror. He turned and tried to flee, but with nothing more than a casual lift of Xiao Rangchen’s hand, white flames wrapped around him just as they had around Cangya Lan.
“Ahh—! Please…”
His plea was cut short.
Yue Qianzhong did not even manage to finish a complete sentence before he was burned into nothingness within the cold, silent flames.
When Liufeng Herong met the sweep of those icy eyes, her legs went weak. Trembling, she pleaded desperately, “I-I only bound her! I didn’t do anything else! Please spare me, I beg you—!”
At that moment, Liufeng Herong no longer cared about maintaining the dignity of a clan head. Cold sweat poured down her body, and she shook like a sieve, hoping to trade anything for a chance to survive.
Xiao Rangchen turned and slowly walked away.
Only after he had put some distance between them did Liufeng Herong finally let out a breath of relief.
Then, without warning, cold white flames ignited all over her body.
“Ahhh—!!”
Lou Yue had never looked at them. She stood suspended in midair with her lashes lowered. The chains that had bound her had long since vanished, yet she seemed as though she were still restrained.
Xiao Rangchen gazed steadily at the figure who had haunted his dreams and been carved into his very soul and bones. The cold severity and murderous intent in his eyes gradually softened, melting into a deep, restrained tenderness.
He walked up to her and stopped before her.
After a long silence, he called out in a low, hoarse voice, “Lou Yue…”
Lou Yue slowly raised her lashes.
Smack!
The crisp sound of the slap rang out with startling clarity across the silent heavens and earth.
With the corners of her eyes red and her expression cold, Lou Yue blurred into motion and vanished from the air.
Above and below, whether they were the loose cultivators still recovering from their shock or the dazed, trembling cultivators of the four great families, everyone froze. Their gazes shot toward the sky in unison.
The man who had just incinerated three family heads with a mere lift of his hand, displaying overwhelming and tyrannical power, now stood motionless with his head turned to one side.
The icy severity in his eyes had shattered completely.
All that remained was utter bewilderment and helplessness.
