Chapter 75: Misfortune Befalls Every Departure

With a perilous swing, she split apart the Canglin Wolf King's renewed pounce. Both sides faced each other, each waiting for an opportunity to strike. Ji Yao fixed her gaze on the wolf’s ghostly blue eyes, her right hand trembling slightly around the sword.

In that moment, the distance between them was completely closed—so much so that the Wolf King’s sharp claws, as it lunged, were already pressing against the sword blade, yet remained unscathed. This alone revealed just how formidable the Wolf King’s fur and hide were as armor.

Her slender sword was ill-suited for head-on clashes; should she trade forceful blows, the blade would vibrate with each impact, emitting a series of resonant hums. Against ordinary beasts of the same rank, such humming would interfere with their movements, directly affecting their brains, slowing them, and even affecting multiple foes at once. Unfortunately, her opponent was the Canglin Wolf King, immune to sonic attacks. The frequency of the vibrations did nothing to him, only rebounding into Ji Yao herself, making her sword hand tremble.

This technique was not unique to her Snowdust Sword; even the Freespirit Sword, for all its advantages, behaved similarly. The difference was that the Freespirit Sword’s scabbard, the Clear Moon Flute, was an integrated sonic treasure. The rebound of the resonance would be absorbed by the flute and dissipate soundlessly through its tone holes. The Snowdust Sword’s scabbard, though also a sonic artifact, had to be wielded in her left hand at this moment, requiring active cooperation.

All these thoughts passed in the span of a single breath. Ji Yao caught sight of the wolf pack about to burst from the woods, a dozen or so strong. She wasted no more time. With a swift motion, she tossed the scabbard from her left hand into the air, formed a seal with her fingers, and the red-plum scabbard froze midair, spinning rapidly. The wind it stirred passed through the plum-shaped apertures, turning into wailing notes that spread outward in circular waves.

The Wolf King, keenly aware of openings, seized the moment she formed her seal and darted forward. Its fangs gleamed coldly as it lunged straight for Ji Yao’s throat. An average cultivator at the peak of Qi Refinement might have faltered, but Ji Yao was different. Her cultivation allowed her to divide her consciousness with ease.

Holding fast, Ji Yao transitioned her sword from a swing to a thrust, sending a ray of swordlight straight along the blade. At such close range, the swordlight pierced directly into the Wolf King’s open maw. With no fur to shield it, the beast’s mouth was run through by sword energy—a bloody hole, as thick as a finger, was left through its tongue and lower jaw. Crimson blood spurted out, inevitably splattering across Ji Yao’s face.

Devastated, the Wolf King’s taut body lost all strength, collapsing onto the grass, its throat giving a pained howl. Its body convulsed in agony, a pitiful sight.

Ji Yao had no time to wipe the blood from her face. Spiritual energy surged; she drew her Snowdust Sword again and stabbed upward through the Wolf King’s gaping maw, piercing its brain. The beast convulsed a few more times, then finally lay still.

Retrieving her sword, Ji Yao watched as the dozen Canglin Wolves gave chase from the woods. Her spinning red-plum scabbard remained in the air, its sonic waves disrupting the wolves’ minds. They hesitated, pupils unfocused, but the scent of their king’s blood kept them advancing, throats rumbling with low growls, refusing to retreat.

Ji Yao had no wish to let these wolves escape and become a future threat. Yet to slaughter all at once would mean too much blood, possibly luring even more beasts. She decided to forgo collecting pelts and materials from these ordinary Canglin Wolves.

She swiftly stowed the Wolf King’s corpse, drew out a dozen homemade fire talismans, activated them with spiritual energy, and sent them flying. Each talisman burst into a fireball, enveloping a wolf. The stench of scorched flesh and their anguished cries were all contained within the power of the talismans, limited to this small clearing.

Ji Yao recalled the red-plum scabbard, sheathed her sword, and waited until all the wolves were reduced to blackened ash. With a wind spell, she scattered the remains to the breeze.

Only then did Ji Yao tend to herself, casting a cleansing spell to rid her body of blood. Her spiritual sense confirmed there was no one nearby. She slipped into her storage space and changed into a narrow-sleeved, dark-green robe.

When she emerged, she had transformed into an ordinary-looking middle-aged female cultivator, her neck adorned with the ill-gotten Illusion Leaf, hidden beneath her robes.

She pulled out the secret realm map from her storage bracelet, studying it carefully. She realized she was at the western edge of the secret realm, near a forest bordering the grasslands. The formation plate given by Dongfang Shun showed two red dots, one south, one west—she was at the western dot, Dongfang Shun at the southern.

According to their plan, they would meet in the secret realm, then head for its center together. The safest and shortest route was to travel along the forest’s edge and rendezvous on the outskirts. If beasts of the second rank’s peak could be found at the edge, the center likely teemed with third-rank beasts descending from the Yunqi Secret Realm. To venture alone would be unwise.

Moreover, the quest for the Ascension Grass still required searching within the forest. All cultivators entering the Ascension Secret Realm shared this mission, whether assigned by their sect or by the Alliance.

Determined, Ji Yao set off, confident that Dongfang Shun would make the same choice—unless his luck was so extraordinary that he encountered not a single beast. But in this realm, not meeting beasts was cause for greater caution.

Retracing her steps, Ji Yao first collected the corpses of the two Canglin Wolves she had slain at the start. Perhaps cowed by the wolf pack’s presence, no other beasts had approached the original battlefield.

The bisected spiritual rhinoceros still lay where it had fallen, its blood drained dry. The other beast corpses had long been devoured by wolves, leaving the scene a mess. Yet, as the rhino had been the Wolf King’s exclusive prey, most of its hide remained intact, and its single horn was still there. Ji Yao deftly stripped the horn and hide, then departed.

Skirting the forest’s edge, she saw many spiritual plants and herbs trampled and destroyed by beasts. A field of Lotusheart Grass survived only in scattered clumps. Adhering to her principle of leaving nothing behind, Ji Yao took out a jade hoe, dug up the remaining intact Lotusheart Grass with their roots and soil, and sent them into her storage space.

After all, her own space still had plenty of empty ground!

She traveled for half a day as dusk fell. They had entered the secret realm at noon; time within flowed as in the outside world, and night here was the most dangerous. Alone, Ji Yao would never camp in the forest. She chose a sturdy tree branch, leapt up, set a concealed defensive formation, activated it, and returned to her storage space.

After planting the spiritual herbs she had gathered, she prepared to rest in her bamboo abode, when her formation alerted her to someone approaching outside.

Near the pond in front of her bamboo house, Ji Yao activated her spiritual sense—instantly, the water’s surface reflected the scene outside, offering her any angle she wished.

She saw five people: three men and two women. One man and one woman wore matching robes of a small sect; the other three dressed as rogue cultivators. The strongest was a handsome young rogue at the peak of Qi Refinement, followed by two at the tenth level—a pair from the small sect and another slightly older rogue male. The last, a young woman dressed as a rogue, was only at the eighth level. Delicate and pitiable, she was the kind of pure, gentle beauty that stirred a man’s protective instincts.

The five appeared hurried and exhausted. The four with higher cultivation bore wounds, large or small; only the young woman, though disheveled, was unscathed.

Ji Yao stroked her chin and clicked her tongue. “A girl at the eighth level of Qi Refinement dares enter the current Ascension Secret Realm? If she isn’t truly skilled, then she must be very cunning indeed.”