A Loose Cultivator's Path to Longevity

He risked a glance over at Shuini’s side. Seeing her cut down two opponents with incredible power and now overwhelming the old cultivator from the Daoist Sect, he instantly changed his combat strategy.

Killing these two wouldn’t be easy. He decided it was better to just stall them.

Li Wuzhen and his partner immediately noticed Lü Zhong had become as slippery as an eel. He no longer confronted them head-on, instead constantly harassing them with attacks from his Mirror Light skill. It was obvious he was trying to stall them.

”A great reputation is never unearned!” Wuxuan stopped fighting and couldn’t help but sigh.

Li Wuzhen watched on, realizing his hope of redeeming himself was lost.

A short while later.

Xuming came tumbling through the air, clutching his chest. His robes were splattered with blood. Without so much as a glance at a battle-ready Lü Zhong, he grabbed Li Wuzhen and Wuxuan, then vanished in a streak of rainbow light.

”We won?” Lü Zhong asked, looking toward Shuini as she approached.

She was holding two Storage Bags and tossed one of them to him.

”My dear disciple, we’ll split the spoils fifty-fifty. Phew, that really took it out of me!” Shuini fanned herself. She was drenched in sweat, with beads of moisture dripping from her.

Seeing her state, Lü Zhong, who looked perfectly fine himself, cast a few Cleaning Skills on her.

”Nnngh...” Shuini let out a soft groan, the blush that had just faded returning to her cheeks. She shot Lü Zhong a look and chided playfully, ”My dear disciple, where are you aiming that Magic Skill? Don’t hit places you shouldn’t.”

Lü Zhong cringed internally.

He had been distracted watching the situation over at Changchun Valley; he never expected something like this to happen.

The two rested for a good while before the fighting at Changchun Valley finally concluded.

The cultivators stalling Zhang Daoyun and Muu Yunzhi weren’t particularly strong, but they weren’t weak either. The fact they were still fighting clearly meant neither side was trying very hard.

This was to be expected.

The Daoist Sect’s targets were the two of them, master and disciple.

The Changchun Valley Elder had no need, and no reason, to fight to the death for Lü Zhong and Shuini. The two Family Cultivators they were facing obviously felt the same way and were equally unwilling to risk their lives for the Daoist Sect.

And so, this was the result.

A moment later, the two from Changchun Valley approached.

”Fellow Daoist Shui, Fellow Daoist Lü, I now have a clear understanding of your strength. With this outcome, I imagine those noisy fellows won’t have anything left to say.” Zhang Daoyun’s expression was unchanged, as if he saw nothing wrong with his earlier actions; it was simply a matter of course.

”As for the matter of the Three Heling Sects, Fellow Daoist Shui can lead the assault tomorrow. We will do our utmost to hold back any interference from the Daoist Sect.”

Hah!

Lü Zhong didn’t believe a word of it.

But he didn’t let it show on his face.

The two sides talked for a while, agreeing to formally sign the Spirit Contract after Shuini conquered the Three Heling Sects.

Once the Spirit Contract was signed, it would mean the two parties had become allies.

...

「Inside a room.」

Lü Zhong helped Shuini onto the bed.

After he fed her a Holy Essence Pill, her aura finally stabilized.

On their way back, Shuini had suddenly coughed up a mouthful of blood, giving Lü Zhong quite a scare. He only relaxed after learning she had taken a Secret Medicine to temporarily boost her cultivation.

”Master, you don’t have to push yourself so hard,” Lü Zhong said as he helped heal her.

”And who do you think I did it for?” Shuini retorted. The opponents Lü Zhong had faced were the infamous Wind and Thunder Twins from Huayi Temple. She had only taken the Boiling Gold Pill because she was afraid something might happen to him.

A single Boiling Gold Pill cost fifty thousand Spirit Stones; the expense pained Shuini to no end.

Lü Zhong didn’t know how to handle Shuini; she wasn’t as easy to placate as Feng’Er.

He simply focused on the healing.

Tomorrow, they had to march on the Three Heling Sects, and they couldn’t do that until Shuini’s injuries were stabilized.

The Core Formation ancestors of those three sects were from after the split; they weren’t like the Jade Platform Ancestor and the others from the original Heling Sect. Otherwise, negotiations with Shuini wouldn’t have collapsed from the very beginning. These three ancestors felt no sense of sect kinship toward the master-disciple pair, and a full-blown fight was a real possibility.

The two of them only emerged at dawn.

Outside, Chuu Yueyun was already waiting.

Her expression was blank. Without a single glance at Lü Zhong, she cupped her hands toward Shuini and said, ”Senior Sister Shui, the Allied Army has assembled. Shall we depart now?”

Hearing this, Lü Zhong looked toward the distant mountain gates.

He saw a veritable forest of Flying Ships, their colorful banners fluttering in the wind. They were already arranged in a massive aerial formation, their defensive barriers raised, ready to depart at a moment’s notice.

With such a mighty force, they could probably even challenge a Nascent Soul cultivator.

Shuini took a deep breath. With a flick of her hand, she sent the Four-Spirit True-Return Seal into the sky. In an instant, it stained the clouds, forming a colossal emblem that blotted out the heavens and drew a tidal wave of cheers from the Heling Sect disciples.

”Move out!”

The Allied Army set forth.

Upon reaching the Flying Star Sect, it surrendered at the mere sight of their forces.

The Profound Moon Sect mounted a futile resistance and was crushed with thunderous force.

After retaking two major sects, the Allied Army arrived at the Tuoyang Sect, located on Heling Mountain where the original Heling Sect once stood. But all they found were tightly shut gates, a sky obscured by dark clouds, and the distant clusters of buildings shrouded in an ominous black qi.

A familiar presence hung in the air.

”Soul of the Dead? No, it’s an Evil Spirit!”

Lü Zhong was inwardly astonished, but Shuini and the others beside him only sensed that something was amiss. When he opened his Celestial Net Eye and saw clearly what was inside Heling Mountain, his face twisted in horror.

”Fall back! Master, we have to fall back now!”

”Do as he says,” Shuini commanded without asking for a reason.

At her command, the entire fleet began to turn around. Parts of the formation fell into disarray due to a lack of coordination, but there were no collisions.

Only after they had retreated over a hundred li did Shuini ask him for the reason via voice transmission.

Lü Zhong naturally held nothing back, telling her everything he had seen—though he did omit the parts concerning Changchun Valley and the Central Earth Divinity Transformation.

”I can’t believe it... Evil Spirits are real!” Shuini’s eyes were wide with shock. It seemed she had read about them in ancient texts but had always dismissed the accounts as fiction.

Yet she never imagined she would see one here today.

She immediately cast a Spiritual Eye Skill and gasped. Where the Tuoyang Sect’s gates, wreathed in black qi, had been, a colossal mountain of flesh now stood.

It was latched onto Heling Peak and was at least a thousand zhang tall.

”It looks like a chrysalis...” Chuu Yueyun murmured.

Different Spiritual Eye Skills perceived Evil Spirits differently.

Lü Zhong agreed with her.

In his vision, it was indeed a giant chrysalis. It used the mountains of skeletons at the Tuoyang Sect gate as its nursery, and a humanoid monster was in the process of emerging from it.

He could see that the monster had a pair of wings sprouting from its sides.

’What in the world is that?’

The question arose in all three of their minds.

”Whatever it is, we’re pulling back another hundred li,” Shuini ordered, opting for caution.

Now that the Three Sects were dealt with, nothing stood in the way of the Four-Spirit True-Return.

There was no need to lead her people into such peril.

Lü Zhong, confident in the protection afforded by his Thunder Skill and Yang Fire, decided to stay behind to observe and see if he could find a solution.

Seeing this, Shuini decided to stay behind with him as well.

She ordered Chuu Yueyun to take command of the cultivator army, make camp a hundred li away, and keep an eye on the surrendered Cloud Obscurity Ancestor of the Flying Star Sect and their prisoner, Miyue Master of the Profound Moon Sect.

”Well? If you’re not confident we can handle it, let’s just leave it alone,” Shuini said. She had read in ancient texts that Evil Spirits were extremely territorial and rarely strayed far from where they were born.

Beside her, Lü Zhong materialized a Thunder Spear.

He held it up, sizing it up against the giant chrysalis.

Compared to the humanoid monster’s several-hundred-zhang frame, his zhang-long Thunderous Spear, though as thick as a water cistern, was less than a single strand of hair. He figured it wouldn’t do much damage even if it hit.

”I’ve got it!” Lü Zhong’s eyes lit up.

With a flip of his hand, he summoned the Thunder-Attracting Needle, making no effort to hide it from Shuini.

”The Thunder-Attracting Needle...” Shuini’s expression was one of surprise, and she couldn’t help but give Lü Zhong a playfully wounded look. ”My dear disciple, you’ve really kept your master in the dark! If I’d known you snatched this treasure from the Yan Zhen Sect, I would never have needed to take that Boiling Gold Pill!”

”Well, Master, it’s not like you asked,” Lü Zhong retorted, a small act of revenge that made Shuini’s chest heave in frustration.

He said no more to Shuini and began channeling lightning power into the needle.

Pouring in the equivalent power of nine Thunderous Spears.

He felt the Thunder-Attracting Needle begin to resist.

’Full? All right...’ Lü Zhong stopped channeling the power of his Thunderous Spear into it. He would need to rely on this sword in a moment, and without the Thunder Return Secret Skill, he couldn’t fire a Thunder Pillar.

He then aimed a Sword Gesture at the distant chrysalis.