Chapter 91: At Last, Back in the Fold

After cycling through another round of talismans of every attribute, Ji Yao finally managed to see the members of Azure Cloud Sect clearly with her own eyes. Only... were all their faces cramping or something?

She had no time to dwell on it. She was already deep inside the encirclement of demonic beasts, and could not afford the slightest distraction. Her gaze quickly swept over the fellow disciples ahead before locking onto the young man she had seen before entering.

Without caring what he might think, Ji Yao sent him a thread of voice across the distance.

“Senior Brother, when the third round of talismans is used up, please arrange for people to cooperate as quickly as possible. The moment those beasts unleash their skills on me, have four people attack one beast each and kill those five third-stage beasts in one strike!”

She had observed that every time a third-stage beast released a skill, there was at least a breath’s pause in between. Whether they were gathering power or doing something else, that window was the best chance they would get.

And the reason for assigning four people was to seal off the possibility of the third-stage beasts escaping.

The other man’s pupils widened for a fleeting instant, his gaze revealing unmistakable astonishment.

This kind of distant voice transmission was impossible to conceal; by his own estimation, his spiritual sense cultivation was nowhere near sufficient to do it. Yet she made it look effortless, and none of the others seemed to react.

Unable to answer Ji Yao, he could only blink at her, then flash a smile that showed all eight teeth.

What sort of reaction was that? Wasn’t this kid perfectly normal just a moment ago? Could he not nod, or at least mouth a reply? She could see him clearly enough; Ji Yao even caught sight of his canine teeth and the two dimples at the corners of his smile.

Fine then. She would take it as though he had understood.

Because she saw his expression turn grave, his eyes sweeping across the people around him in sequence. He was clearly sending voice transmissions to those he needed to arrange.

By the time she flung out the final round of talismans, Ji Yao was no longer merely bleeding from the heart. Her heart was being cut to pieces.

And yet she still had to keep up the composure she had shown at the start. She could not possibly have come this far only to ruin everything over a single expression at the finish line.

Just now, in passing, she had taken a glance. In her storage bracelet, all that remained were a little over fifty ancient talismans in total, and more than ten of them were not even attack talismans.

There were still more than ten days left in the mystic realm. The huge hole in the middle was still leaking, and third-stage beasts were still pouring down one after another. So after this, she would still need to rely on her sword more often.

Once the three rounds of talismans had been exhausted, the Snow-Drifting Sword was already tightly gripped in her hand. The sharp-metal talisman array blazed with golden light, and Ji Yao knew the third-stage beasts had exhausted their patience. They would no longer allow her to continue. This strike would surely come all at once.

Ji Yao looked at the third-stage Earth-Scale Beast ahead, then glanced at the white ape nearby. Her foot stalled, her body shifted sideways, and with the shield still under attack, she began to whirl forward and left.

Just as expected, the beasts moved, and the spells the five third-stage beasts had long been preparing arrived as well.

Ji Yao turned and struck with only a single sword. In the end, the force was still a little lacking, and she merely deflected the attack coming from the right by a small margin.

But because Ji Yao evaded in time, the attacks from the Earth-Scale Beast and the white ape collided and canceled each other out. Of the remaining three attacks, one from the right had been deflected slightly and skimmed past the shield.

The last two, coming from behind, struck Ji Yao squarely, one after the other.

The light on Ji Yao’s body flickered on and off, flashing eight times in succession, and she was sent flying by the impact. Yet the direction was as though it had been calculated in advance; she was sent straight toward the Azure Cloud Sect crowd.

There was one more point worth being thankful for: the arrangements made by the young cultivator were reliable enough. They seized the gap while the five beasts were casting and, not disappointing her, killed all five beasts in a single move.

Ji Yao counted the eight Vajra Talismans attached to her body as they burst one by one. Though she had not suffered serious injuries, the savage force of those spells still struck her so hard that her chest constricted, her vision darkened, and she nearly lost her breath.

By the time she finally hit the ground, heavily injured for real, Ji Yao had already prepared herself to pass out. Unexpectedly, just as she closed her eyes, someone supported her around the waist and stopped her from collapsing in a heap.

Abruptly opening her eyes, Ji Yao saw a face that was somewhat familiar.

“Senior Brother, what is your surname? Could you tell me your name?”

What a good person! Ji Yao was nearly moved to tears.

The young man with the dimples was momentarily stunned by her words, then hurriedly concealed his embarrassment before saying, “If Junior Sister is all right, you can get up first before we speak.”

All right? How could she be all right?

Ji Yao sprang up at once, turned back, and grabbed his arm, emphasizing rapidly, “Senior Brother, the corpses of those five beasts must be recovered at all costs. They are of great use!”

After saying that, she even nodded solemnly.

This time, the other man frowned, but said nothing. Instead, he personally went into action and retrieved the five corpses.

Only then did Ji Yao realize just how fast he was. So he was an exceptional spirit-root cultivator, with a single wind spiritual root. No wonder he had been able to save her at the last second.

“Senior Brother Yun, have you noticed how long it takes for a batch of third-stage beasts to appear in the center of the mystic realm? How many appear each time? Any other unusual information?”

Yes, this young man was named Yun Fei. He was the person in charge of this operation in the Immortal-Opening Mystic Realm, and also the only person who knew about Ji Yao’s mission from the Law Enforcement Hall.

So if Ji Yao wanted to know anything, asking Yun Fei was the most suitable choice.

Yun Fei considered it for a moment before saying, “A batch appears every two days. As for the number each time, the first two batches had four and five beasts respectively, and it seems to be increasing. If there is anything unusual, it is probably that each third-stage beast has never remained in front of us for more than seven days.”

Though his answer was simple, the information he gave was precisely what Ji Yao wanted to know.

“Then do the other sects have any thoughts on this? Or any plan to act in unison?”

“The original plan was to set up another formation around the leak in the mystic realm, temporarily seal the exit for the third-stage beasts, and keep them confined there. But...” Yun Fei did not finish.

Ji Yao completed the thought for him.

“But the descended third-stage beasts have taken control of the native beasts in the Immortal-Opening Mystic Realm, expanded the area around the leak, and there have always been more than eight third-stage beasts standing guard, so we simply cannot get close, right?”

Yun Fei looked slightly surprised. “You figured that out yourself?”

The earlier points were easy enough to analyze, but on what grounds had Junior Sister Ji guessed this last part? And yet her guess was almost exactly in line with reality.

“Uh, yes!” Ji Yao could hardly say she had experienced it firsthand.

No wonder she had not seen a single cultivator appear back then; it turned out they had been besieged by beasts.

At this rate, things would not work. With the crowd scattered and each sect acting on its own, they could not bring out their greatest strength. They still needed to unite, compensate for each other’s weaknesses, and break through by concentrating force on one point.

Ji Yao did not think for a moment that this should become the task of any single person or any single sect. She had to pull more people in, or else her method would seem far too abrupt.

At the very least, they needed people from the Hall of Mysteries and the Talisman Sect. Otherwise, expecting her own bunch of sword cultivators to understand formations and talisman arts would be pure nonsense.

“Senior Brother Yun, shall we go talk business with the Talisman Sect in a while?” Ji Yao pointed toward the Talisman Sect’s position not far away, her meaning obvious.

She had long since noticed that when the people over there saw her throwing talismans, their eyes lit up, and their gazes never left her for more than ten feet.

This business was definitely worth making.