Extra chapter (1/1) from me, Koffeam! Buy me a koffee on ko-fi for more chapters. Thank you for your support!
Without any warning, the wildly flickering crimson light suddenly froze. After a peculiar muffled sound, the array gradually shattered. Bright sunlight spilled into the crimson purgatory, evaporating all the pain.
Liu Qingyin stumbled in, first shouting “Senior Brother!” toward Murong Chun, then angrily glaring at Lin Jiu.
‘Unscathed! She’s totally unscathed!’
‘With her mere Foundation Establishment cultivation, how could she have remained unharmed if it weren’t for Master and Senior Brother risking their lives to protect her?!’
Liu Qingyin realized it was not the right time to criticize Lin Jiu. She lifted her head, focusing her beautiful eyes on Wei Liang and Ji Yuan, who had appeared out of nowhere in midair, silently preparing to launch her attack.
Wei Liang’s calm and indifferent voice drifted down from mid-air, “My wife is very smart; his weakness is indeed the left hand.”
Ji Yuan, forced into revealing his true form, remained unfazed. Spreading his arms like a giant crimson bird, he floated backward, conjuring illusions to confuse Wei Liang.
Lin Jiu suddenly noticed that Ji Yuan was wearing eyeshadow and eyeliner. With a slight tilt of his head, she could see the vivid red accentuating his upper eyelids and the corners of his eyes. As lightning bolts struck his body, the makeup caught the light, making him appear strikingly dazzling in every sense of the word.
‘What a glamorous man…’ Lin Jiu marveled in astonishment.
“Wei Liang!” Ji Yuan laughed wildly, “You relied on your woman to break my Devilblight Mindshatter Array—has the leader of the righteous faction been reduced to live off a woman?!”
Liu Qingyin assumed he was speaking about her and instantly furrowed her brows, reprimanding in a sharp voice, “Evil being, you deserve to be vanquished! For someone like you, honor holds no place! Ji Yuan, today will be your end! If you must blame anyone, blame yourself for choosing the evil path!”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” Ji Yuan still had the leisure to throw flirtatious taunts while evading Wei Liang’s sword, licking his lips seductively. “Such a pure and righteous woman. I can’t wait to pin you down beneath me, and hear you begging for mercy…” His voice, dark and sultry, was extremely melodious, hooking straight into one’s heart.
“Impudent!” Liu Qingyin roared in fury, swinging her sword. She was already exhausted, and forcing out one sword move after another caused her to cough up a mouthful of blood essence. The last full moon she unleashed was much dimmer, as if being devoured by an eclipse, surrounded by a blood-tinged mist.
Wei Liang’s flying sword blocked Ji Yuan’s escape, forcing him to counter Liu Qingyin’s strike. With no other option, he stretched his right arm from his sleeve, revealing his pale palm. Suddenly, it opened like a gaping maw, and a crimson serpent emerged, swaying in the wind as it stretched to a length of thirty meters—its massive jaws snapped shut around Liu Qingyin’s blood moon.
Crack—Boom!
Ji Yuan vanished from his original spot, once again evading Wei Liang’s sword. His wild laughter echoed down, “A Sword Monarch who can’t use a sword move? Wei Liang, oh Wei Liang, you’re half-crippled now! Was that battle really so damaging? Ha, my efforts to orchestrate this event weren’t in vain!”
Such taunts had no effect on someone like Wei Liang. He continued to methodically seal off Ji Yuan’s escape routes, bit by bit cornering him within the attack range of Liu Qingyin and Murong Chun.
At some point, Murong Chun had stealthily positioned himself behind Ji Yuan. Sword beams flickered, and his spiritual aura condensed into countless green vines, blocking Ji Yuan’s upward escape.
In his evasions, Ji Yuan lost a strand of his long hair. His expression darkened ominously, and he opened his hands, summoning countless crimson shadows that transformed the world into an endless purgatory.
Wounds started appearing all over Ji Yuan’s body. Dark droplets of blood fell like ink, splattering onto the ground below.
Lin Jiu had no expectation of capturing Ji Yuan today. The blood puppet was not yet refined, and the sub-plot with the female lead had not even begun—heavens would not let him perish so quickly.
Moreover, for some reason, she had a sense that Wei Liang was deliberately hiding his true power in front of his two disciples. He had not used the phantom movement technique he employed to slay Wang Shanzhi, and while he had managed to come into contact with Ji Yuan twice, he did not use the pale white light that shattered the Wang family’s barrier.
If he fought with full strength, Ji Yuan would undoubtedly suffer more than just minor injuries.
While Lin Jiu was lost in thought, the dark blood droplets on the ground began to move slowly, crawling toward each other, forming larger circles, and gradually converging into small streams.
Two blood serpents quietly glided across the ground.
In mid-air, Ji Yuan placed his hands before him, a wicked smile curling on his lips as he enunciated each word, “Seal—Artificial Sky Devil!”
Behind him, the void surged with a crimson tide—slowly revealing a monstrous crimson figure.
The summoned creature loomed massively, its head rising swiftly to collide with the net of vines Murong Chun had woven over Ji Yuan. In an instant, its sharp horns and the emerald vines shattered together, releasing a deafening crash that reverberated through the air, sending shockwaves rippling across the surrounding clouds.
Ji Yuan let out a wicked chuckle as he landed in the palm of the artificial devil. Simultaneously, the two dark blood marks on the ground, which had merged into long serpents, suddenly rose into the air—one lunging toward Liu Qingyin, the other toward Lin Jiu.
Caught off guard, Liu Qingyin was ensnared in an instant.
As for Lin Jiu, what chance did she, a mere mid-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator, have of escaping a move that even the Great Sword Immortal could not avoid?
The blood serpent coiled around Lin Jiu four or five times, binding her arms tightly. Then, a short section protruded, its mouth opening and closing as Ji Yuan’s deep, seductive voice came forth, “Stay still, sweetie. I can’t bear to hurt you.”
As it hissed, the serpent’s tongue brushed against Lin Jiu’s chin flirtatiously. If she hadn’t already been hardened by Wei Liang’s seduction ‘training,’ this moment might have made her heart tremble uncontrollably!
She glanced up at Liu Qingyin, noting that her fellow damsel-in-distress was far less composed than she was. The female lead’s face burned with a blend of anger and embarrassment as she struggled desperately. However, with her aura already drained from earlier, her efforts were in vain.
Perhaps annoyed by her resistance, her serpent hissed, coiling around her delicate neck and slowly tightening. Liu Qingyin’s fair face instantly flushed with another color. Her lips parted slightly, letting out a gasp of pain.
“I like an obedient girl…” the serpent coiling around Lin Jiu hissed in Ji Yuan’s voice.
Lin Jiu remained calm. She knew Ji Yuan had a peculiar habit—he wouldn’t kill women, especially beautiful ones. Since he had captured both her and Liu Qingyin, he likely intended to use them as leverage against Wei Liang or drag them back to his lair for his amusement. Either way, she felt no concern.
Unlike the female lead, who was hopelessly devoted to Wei Liang, Lin Jiu had no such attachment. If Ji Yuan actually took her back with him, she might even consider building a relationship with him. Who knows? Maybe she could even successfully redeem this big villain. It certainly seemed better than her current predicament—being strung along by Wei Liang’s whims despite knowing it would lead nowhere. How exhausting.
Lin Jiu felt herself becoming increasingly resigned to her situation. She looked up at the sky, ready to see what move Ji Yuan would make next.
At that moment, lightning bolts rained down relentlessly, striking the artificial devil and engulfing its entire body in devil flames. Clasping its hands into fists, it swung toward Wei Liang and Murong Chun.
Ji Yuan leaped gracefully onto the artificial devil’s shoulder, like a crimson rose in bloom, looking as though a mere gust of wind could sweep him away. His voice, filled with amusement, echoed, “I’ve heard that the Sword Monarch holds a deep bond with his youngest disciple. I wonder, who weighs more in your heart—your wife or your beloved disciple? Take this punch, and then you may choose to save one.”
As his words fell, the artificial devil, engulfed in raging flames, abruptly cut off Wei Liang and Murong Chun’s path of rescue! At the same time, the dark blood serpents moved—one to the left, the other to the right—dragging the two captives in opposite directions.
“Master!” Liu Qingyin’s neck was tightly strangled, her voice breaking in pain, “Master…!”
Lin Jiu cheerfully shouted, “Don’t worry about me! Go save Liu Qingyin! If you dare choose me, I’ll die right here on the spot!”
‘Not bad, not bad at all. Now I can finally get free from the male and female lead and get a chance to flirt with a gorgeous man…’
‘Yup! Not bad at all!’
Lin Jiu forced a smile. ‘Yes, this is exactly what I want! I choose my own path; I won’t wait around for others to decide for me!’
Yes, she would never again put herself on a scale and let others make the decision.
Being abandoned by her family was more than enough. She would never allow others to do that to her…
Lin Jiu’s thoughts suddenly came to a halt. She realized the blood serpent was staring at her with an odd expression. Was it just her imagination, or did she see the corners of its mouth twitch violently a few times?
The coiling pressure around her loosened considerably. In a somewhat uneasy tone, the serpent cautiously asked, “Why are you so excited? Do you have some lewd intentions toward me?”
Lin Jiu: “…”
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And this is why I dislike Liu Qingyin, she is a self-centered, self righteous bish. All the good that she does is to promote her image. She thinks that everyone looks up to her and if anything good is said about a female, she thinks it is about her.
If Ji Yuan was the ML.. it would be very interesting😂😂
LOL as amusing as the cavalier divorced from reality ‘reader view’ that Lin Jiu has towards Ji Yuan is, if an upcoming twist at the end here lightens up on the ‘oooh he loves to SA and violate women, how sexy…’ angle that would be nice. Cheeky transgressive fantasy is different from reality ofc, but a little narrative perspective is nice. Especially if we’re actually meant to buy into the silly idea that Liu Qingyin is being ‘self-centered’ by quickly rebutting a serial harasser’s attempt to misogynistically mock someone for being protected by a woman.
I also get that we’re supposed to be thumbing our nose at the side characters who don’t realize LJ has a secret superpower, but I am not a fan of stories (which, so far as they know, this would be one of) where the FL is a frail damsel but charges into every battlefield to be a liability for plot purposes, so it’s hard for me not to sympathize with them lmao. (Not that I need every heroine to be a combat powerhouse, but IN stories where FL is not a combat powerhouse, I like if the author lets them showcase other forms of strength.)
I look forward to Wei Liang picking up on her urgent desire to get out of the plot quagmire that she believes her position on the mountain is LMAO. She’s like ‘bro you have WAY too much baggage, I’m not looking for drama and I’d rather go w/the f*ckboi.’ Although ngl his sexiness would go down several tics for me if I was contemplating liberation and not wanting my personal trauma of abandonment to be dealt to others and he started whining and plucking his figurative robes over how unseemly reciprocated desire is in a woman. Men who only want to get their snake to lick women who don’t want to be licked are guaranteed to be disappointments….especially in crucial areas. Altho it sounds like in the original book he wasn’t, so apparently his plot armor is concentrated in very select areas. >.>