Shu Xin followed behind her junior brothers and sisters, looking like a diligent escort while actually slacking off.
Most of her divine sense was focused on the Sword Spirit, accompanying it as it searched for materials to cleanse the sword.
Well, the Sword Spirit had gotten a little picky.
It only wanted demons with profound cultivation. As for those below the Grotto-Heaven realm, after killing them, it would sigh and say things like, “They didn’t work hard enough. They were no challenge at all.”
Shu Xin was at a loss for words.
“When you talk like that, you sound like a nouveau riche with no taste,” she couldn’t help commenting.
【Oh, but I learned it all from you, Swordmaster. Like owner, like sword.】The Sword Spirit was in high spirits. Not only did it pay no mind to Shu Xin’s jab, it even threw in a compliment.
It wasn’t the Sword Spirit talking back that worried her. It was this kind of heartfelt gratitude.
For once, Shu Xin had no comeback.
The Sword Spirit was picking up bad habits much faster than her junior brothers and sisters.
At this rate, it might even surpass her.
That wouldn’t do!
Just as Shu Xin was worrying about how she’d keep the Sword Spirit in line from now on, she suddenly heard it laugh with delight. 【Wow, there are Sha Demon Sect cultivators up ahead too? Ohhh, Xuanling Dao Sect is just the best. We can wipe them all out in one go!】
Shu Xin jolted and immediately extended her divine sense.
If you ranked the demonic sects by how much the Sword Spirit liked them, spirit-possessing demonic cultivators would definitely come last. The cultivators of that sect generally had no physical bodies, and the cultivators they possessed were often already drained of spiritual energy. That left the Sword Spirit with only a little bit of blood essence to feast on—not exactly good value for its effort.
The Hehuan Sect came next. Its male cultivators gathered yin to replenish yang, while its female cultivators gathered yang to replenish yin. Sometimes they did it the other way around, of course; everyone had their own preferences. But most of them refined their own vital essence to improve their cultivation, so their blood essence was nothing special. They spent all day cultivating through dual cultivation, after all. Naturally, their blood essence was depleted.
The Sword Spirit preferred sects like the Yin Corpse Demon Sect, which it also called the Loan-Shark Sect. That name came about after Shu Xin heard about the sect’s outrageous methods and remarked, “So you can make money lending people money and start a sect with it?” Their cultivators often showed up with a whole host of corpse puppets in tow. It was all about quantity and value for money—like the cheapest buffet around. And since it was so cheap and promised to leave you full, you couldn’t exactly complain.
Then there were the Blood Demon Sect cultivators—especially the ones with deep cultivation. They liked refining countless cultivators and mortals into all kinds of supernatural abilities: blood seas, blood mists, blood fiends, and the like. Every one of them came with a heavy burden of karmic sin and an abundance of demonic energy. To the Sword Spirit, they were a veritable feast. Once it spotted them, it could hardly bear to let them go.
And last came the Sha Demon Sect. The Sword Spirit’s love for them was absolutely unrequited!
If spirit-possessing demonic cultivators were hard to find because there were so few of them and they were difficult to track down, then Sha Demon Sect cultivators were almost never seen in public at all. They preferred to strike from the shadows.
Cultivators of the Fiendsha Sect had to refine the Heavenly Gang and Earthly Fiends that existed between heaven and earth in order to advance their cultivation. In ancient times, there were Thirty-Six Heavenly Gangs and Seventy-Two Earthly Fiends. Once refined, each could become a protective divine ability for a Fiendsha Sect cultivator, possessing immense power. Even a low-level cultivator who possessed just one of them could challenge opponents above their realm. As a result, they were one of the sects no one wished to provoke.
Thus, in the beginning, the Fiendsha Sect was not called the Fiendsha Sect at all. It was known as the “Dao Sect of Heaven and Earth,” one of the foremost righteous sects.
But later, as great numbers of Earthly Immortals emerged, they siphoned away vast quantities of spiritual energy. Before long, there was no longer enough spiritual energy in the world for the Heavenly Gangs and Earthly Fiends to form. Even those that had already been collected gradually diminished, since there was not enough spiritual energy to sustain them.
With the foundation of the Dao Sect of Heaven and Earth’s cultivation system shaken, its disciples could only continue cultivating by killing their fellow disciples and seizing the Heavenly Gang and Earthly Fiends they possessed. In less than a century, this once-great Daoist sect had fallen completely into ruin.
Even after the Earthly Immortals were slain by the Immortal-Slaying Sword and spiritual energy returned to heaven and earth, the Heavenly Gangs and Earthly Fiends had still lost the conditions necessary for their formation. It would take at least ten thousand years for them to condense anew.
And so, this sect—which had slaughtered its own members until only a few dozen remained—transformed itself into the Fiendsha Sect and began artificially creating “Earthly Fiends.”
For instance, they would collude with the Bloodfiend Sect. After Bloodfiend Sect cultivators cast countless mortals into seas of blood, the Fiendsha Sect would arrange the corpses and bones according to certain peculiar formations, then bury them beneath the soil. They would also lure cultivators to fight there, using their spiritual power to stir the resentment of the souls and give birth to “fiendish baleful energy,” which they would then harvest.
The baleful energy they manufactured and collected in this manner was equally formidable. Not only could it taint a person’s soul and magical artifacts, but it could also contaminate spiritual energy itself. It was practically the cultivation world’s all-purpose poison.
For that reason, they rarely showed themselves in public. Yet behind nearly every vile deed committed by the other demonic sects, there were traces of Fiendsha Sect cultivators.
It was truly difficult for Shu Xin and the others to find Fiendsha Sect cultivators. The cultivators of this sect might not have excelled at much, but they were exceptionally skilled at fleeing. Their bodies carried innate baleful energy, and that energy was, in turn, a tangible manifestation of countless karmic sins and grievances. To the Sword Spirit, they were nothing less than a first-rate feast.
When they had wandered the outside world before, they might not encounter even a single Fiendsha Sect cultivator in several decades. Yet here, near the Mystic Spirit Dao Sect, they had unexpectedly run into a whole group of them.
They absolutely could not let this chance slip away!
With a whoosh, the Sword Spirit shot toward the Fiendsha Sect cultivators.
When Shu Xin saw the direction in which the Sword Spirit was flying, she was stunned.
Wait a moment—wasn’t that the direction where she and her junior brothers and sisters were?
No way. Could they really be this unlucky?
Shu Xin immediately withdrew most of her divine sense back into her physical body.
“Stop for a moment,” Shu Xin hurriedly said.
Her divine sense had been roaming outside, while her junior brothers and sisters cleared the way ahead. Naturally, she had been slacking off whenever she could—but she had not expected her little break to uncover something this big.
Yi Renjie, Yuan Dawei, Cao Ru, and the others had been working together seamlessly, fighting with great enthusiasm. Hearing their senior sister suddenly call out, they immediately stopped and asked curiously, “Senior Sister, what is it?”
“There’s a problem up ahead.” Shu Xin carefully surveyed the surrounding terrain and frowned. “This place is strange. It’s one of the formation cores of the Xuanling Dao Sect, rarely visited by anyone, and the spiritual energy here is rather weak. I don’t know much about feng shui, but to cultivators from the Baleful Demon Sect, this may actually be an auspicious site.”
“The Baleful Demon Sect?” Yi Renjie’s expression darkened when he heard those three words. “They’re here too?”
The other junior brothers and sisters were somewhat surprised, but they didn’t yet understand how serious the situation was.
“Eldest Senior Sister, Second Senior Brother, what’s so dangerous about the Baleful Demon Sect cultivators? We’ve killed plenty of cultivators from other demon sects,” Meng Wenrui asked curiously.
The Xuanling Dao Sect could practically be called a gathering place for demon-sect cultivators. Along the way, they had lost count of how many cultivators from orthodox sects and demonic sects they had killed. Whether they had heard of them before or not, they had slaughtered them all, carving out a bloody path for themselves.
The cultivators who had originally thought the small number of disciples from the Inquiry God Sect would make easy prey had stopped appearing before them altogether. Instead, they had slunk off to search for treasures elsewhere.
Who would want to compete with this pack of killing machines from the Inquiry God Sect?
“When Baleful Demon Sect cultivators show up, it means they must have planted a baleful root here long ago. It’s like stepping straight into the core of a formation laid out by a formation master. Whatever is waiting for us certainly won’t be anything good.” Yi Renjie explained cautiously, “Our master has been famous for many years and has killed countless cultivators. Yet the only time he was ever injured was after killing a cultivator from the Baleful Demon Sect, when he was contaminated by that person’s baleful aura. Master had to seclude himself for half a year before he could remove all the flesh tainted by the baleful energy. It was an enormous nuisance.”
When Yuan Dawei and the others heard their Second Senior Brother say this, they all sucked in a sharp breath.
“What? Even Master fell victim to it?”
“The Baleful Demon Sect isn’t nearly as famous as the Blood Demon Sect or the Corpse Yin Demon Sect. Who would’ve thought they were so powerful?”
“They have so few people, yet they’re one of the core powers among the demon sects. They must have something special about them.”
【Exactly. In terms of the threat they pose to cultivators, the Baleful Demon Sect is no less dangerous than the Spirit Parasite Demon Sect. The only reason the other sects don’t bully them is that they, too, have an ancestor at the Earthly Immortal Realm holding down the fort.】The Sword Spirit hurriedly returned to Shu Xin’s hand.
The Spirit Parasite Demon Sect had suffered precisely because they had no Earthly Immortal to support them. Otherwise, once they matured, they could definitely have gone toe-to-toe with the Baleful Demon Sect. In a certain sense, their cultivation techniques were the perfect counter to those of the Baleful Demon Sect.
“Eldest Senior Sister, what should we do now?” Yi Renjie immediately asked for Shu Xin’s opinion.
“Hmm. Let’s get out first and talk afterward.” Shu Xin made her decision at once. “I’ll lead the way. Follow me.”
“Yes.” Everyone agreed immediately, without the slightest objection.
“I didn’t expect them to discover us so quickly.”
“As expected of Shu Xin from the Inquiry God Sect—one of the most outstanding cultivators in the Grotto-Heaven Realm. She truly is formidable.”
“Too bad for her. Her luck is terrible.”
Just as Shu Xin and the others were preparing to leave, the voices of the Baleful Demon Sect cultivators rang out beside their ears. Yet not a single one of them could be seen.
“Be careful. I once heard Master say that once a Baleful Demon Sect cultivator possesses a baleful force of their own, they can hide within baleful energy and block divine sense.” Yi Renjie warned them.
Xu Guan was concealed in the darkness, just about to strike.
But the area around him was already filled with baleful energy.
“Xu Guan, all those years ago, you killed my senior brother, destroyed the baleful aura he had cultivated, and gravely wounded me. This time, I’ll make you watch with your own eyes as my disciples slaughter yours and use secret arts to nurture baleful aura from their corpses.”
Where in the world were there so many coincidences?
A Flawless Realm cultivator leading the Fiendish Aura Demon Sect’s party had discovered Xu Guan’s presence. He had deliberately set a trap ahead of the destination of the Asking Dao Sect disciples, waiting for them to walk straight into it.
Unfortunately, the baleful aura formation had not yet been fully arranged before it was discovered. Otherwise, by the time Xu Guan realized something was wrong, he would have found his disciples being corrupted by the baleful aura one after another, going mad and slaughtering each other. Their bodies would ultimately become cradles for nurturing baleful aura. The expression on his face then would surely have been a sight to behold.
“That’s an amusing thing to say.” Xu Guan sneered. “You couldn’t beat me a hundred years ago. What makes you think you’ll be a match for me a hundred years later?”
Running into me would be one thing. You might still have a chance to escape.
But running into Shu Xin? Your life and death would be anyone’s guess.
The spirit swords in Shu Xin’s hands had already been replaced by the genuine *Wait* and *Hold On*.
If divine sense could not be used to scout them out, then she would simply defeat them with combat skill.
Suddenly, Yi Renjie’s hair stirred.
Shu Xin’s eyes lit up. Wait and Hold On streaked forth like shooting stars, piercing through the air beside Yi Renjie’s ear. A miserable cry rang out, and the tips of the swords were already stained with blood.
A cultivator’s body appeared behind Yi Renjie, impaled by the flying swords. He still held a blue-glowing dagger in his hand, clearly just about to strike at Yi Renjie.
“The first one.” Shu Xin crooked a finger, and the swords flew back into her hand. The Fiendish Aura Demon Sect cultivator she had just slain with a single stroke had already been reduced to dust beneath the ravaging force of the sword light. At a gust of wind, he scattered and vanished before everyone’s eyes.
There was no helping it. With so many people watching, they could not let anyone discover that this demonic cultivator’s entire body of blood essence had been drained dry. So they could only grind him to dust and destroy the evidence.
The Sword Spirit thought this with complete composure.
Ah, this baleful aura wasn’t very tasty. Its grade was far too low.
This cultivator simply wouldn’t do.
For a moment, the Fiendish Aura Demon Sect cultivators who had only just been smugly confident that victory was in their grasp fell utterly silent.
How had she found him?
Their divine sense could not detect them at all!
Several of the Fiendish Aura Demon Sect cultivators had already realized that Shu Xin was a tough opponent. But their elder had personally ordered them to kill the Asking Dao Sect disciples, and they did not dare flee.
Gritting their teeth, they covered one another and split their forces. Most of them charged at Shu Xin together, while the rest moved to attack Shu Xin’s junior brothers and sisters.
If they could not defeat the powerful one, could they not at least defeat the weak ones?
Shu Xin gripped her sword hilt and thrust backward, driving the blade beneath her shoulder.
Another cultivator revealed himself.
“How did you find—” Before the cultivator could understand how he had met his death, the Sword Spirit had already ground him to dust and ashes.
“Because all you know how to do is sneak attack,” Shu Xin said calmly. “Did you think that just because you couldn’t be seen, no one could judge your movements?”
It was like being at school: even if there were no cameras in the classroom, a sharp student could still sense where the homeroom teacher had appeared from the subtle shift in the atmosphere.
You didn’t need to look to know.
“Xu Guan, you’ve certainly taught your disciple well. To keep us at bay, he wiped out my disciple so completely!” The Wugou Realm cultivator from the Baleful Demon Sect was furious. That seamless combo—killing him, destroying his soul, then grinding his bones to dust and scattering his ashes. It was the full service. The elder would stake his life on the fact that the boy had practiced it beforehand.
Xu Guan gave a wry laugh. As if he could have taught him that.
“Heh. You really think that’s all we can do?” the Elder of the Baleful Demon Sect barked. “Attack!”
Suddenly, a surge of baleful energy erupted from beneath the ground where Shu Xin and the others stood.
The Baleful Demon Sect cultivators had planted a baleful core here long ago. It had finally matured, and now its energy burst forth.
Qi Feiyang happened to be standing closest to it. Though he circulated his spiritual power at once to protect himself, he still couldn’t withstand the baleful energy invading his body. His limbs stiffened.
One cultivator after another appeared beside him, quickly surrounding and restraining him.
“Junior Brother!” Yi Renjie rushed to his aid at once.
But the spiritual energy in the air had been tainted by the baleful energy. The moment he circulated his own spiritual power, it would invade him too.
“Don’t make any sudden moves!” Shu Xin warned.
But it was already too late.
Yuan Dawei, Cao Ru, and the others had no experience fighting the Baleful Demon Sect. They had never imagined the sect’s cultivators would release the baleful energy they had spent so long cultivating in advance, all to taint the local spiritual energy and seize control of the Inquiry God Sect disciples.
There was clearly no small amount of hatred between them.
Seeing this, Xu Guan flew into a rage. The force of his attack suddenly multiplied several times. “You’re asking for death!”
“Hahaha!” The elder of the Baleful Demon Sect roared with laughter. “Xu Guan, today, every last disciple of the Inquiry God Sect will die here!”
A Baleful Demon Sect cultivator appeared beside each of Shu Xin’s junior brothers and sisters.
Their faces were smug. They clearly thought victory was already theirs.
“Stop! If you take another step, your junior brothers and sisters won’t leave here alive,” a sinister-looking cultivator shouted. “Go ahead, try attacking again. This place is crawling with baleful energy. Once it’s tainted them, not one of your junior brothers or sisters will escape. You’re the only exception.”
Xu Guan gritted his teeth, but his attacks slowed.
These demonic cultivators had never been bound by any scruples.
At the same time, Xu Guan cursed the incompetence of the Profound Spirit Dao Sect. He had thought Busi Manor, reduced to an appendage of the Blood Demon Sect, was bad enough. But the Baleful Demon Sect had planted baleful cores right at the heart of the Profound Spirit Dao Sect, and they hadn’t even noticed. They had brought this disaster upon themselves!
Seeing Xu Guan’s furious expression, the elder of the Baleful Demon Sect felt reassured.
As expected, Xu Guan cared deeply about his disciples.
“Wait. You want me to stop?” Shu Xin said, sword in hand. He clicked his tongue. His fighting spirit hadn’t diminished in the least—in fact, it seemed to be rising.
The instant his words fell, an attack came out of nowhere and cleaved the heads from Li Qinghe and the demonic cultivator beside him. A flurry of sword strikes followed, crushing their bodies to pieces.
Li Qinghe was inevitably struck by the sword light as well, and could only collapse to the ground.
Shu Xin looked at the demonic cultivators without the slightest trace of fear. “You’re the one who captured them. Why should I stop?”
