Translator: CinderTL
Gongsun Cailu found herself in a dilemma.
Should she flee or stay? She couldn’t decide.
If she fled, the Formation would be left unmanned and easily broken by Song Wen, who would then effortlessly catch up to her.
If she stayed, the Formation wouldn’t hold Song Wen for long either.
She had clearly witnessed Song Wen’s battle with Gou Jun earlier. Without the Formation’s assistance, Gou Jun would never have been able to capture him.
In a split second, Gongsun Cailu made her decision.
She activated her escape technique, turned, and fled in the opposite direction from Xue i.
She clung to a sliver of hope that Song Wen wouldn’t pursue her but would instead chase after Xue i. After all, it was Xue i who had betrayed him.
Xue i was the one Song Wen hated most.
Song Wen plunged into the lake, retrieved the Soul Cleaving Blade, and arrived at the edge of the Formation barrier. With a single slash, he shattered it.
Unmanned, the Formation’s power had diminished, and the barrier crumbled easily under Song Wen’s blade.
He glanced east and west.
Gongsun Cailu, to the west, had only managed to flee a hundred miles.
Xue i, to the east, had vanished, likely having escaped into the lake.
Song Wen quickly ford a Thunder Incantation with his hands.
In an instant, the once serene high sky transford dramatically.
Dark, oppressive storm clouds surged in like a tide, rapidly spreading to cover the entire sky.
Wild winds howled, churning the clouds into a swirling vortex.
Faint streaks of lightning flickered within the storm clouds.
Boom!
A deafening explosion ripped through the sky, echoing across the heavens.
Gongsun Cailu’s heart lurched at the sound.
She frantically looked up, only to see a bolt of purple lightning pierce through the black clouds. Like a writhing giant serpent, it descended toward her head.
Terror seized Gongsun Cailu’s mind and spirit, and a profound sense of helplessness washed over her.
The might of the lightning was far beyond her ability to withstand.
She desperately channeled all her Spiritual Power into a Blood-Colored Corpse Coffin.
The Blood-Colored Corpse Coffin, swirling with billowing Corpse Qi, rose to et the descending lightning.
Boom!
The lightning struck the corpse coffin.
The Corpse Qi swirling around the coffin, like frost under the scorching sun, instantly vanished.
The coffin itself shattered into countless fragnts, exploding into pieces.
Pfft!
Gongsun Cailu vomited a torrent of fresh blood, her aura instantly weakening.
The Blood-Colored Corpse Coffin was her natal Mystic Treasure, painstakingly refined and bound to her life.
With her natal Mystic Treasure destroyed, Gongsun Cailu suffered a backlash, her physical body and soul simultaneously devastated.
"Senior, spare my life! Gou Jun is dead. I now control the Corpse Demon Sect, and I’m willing to offer everything the sect possesses to you..."
Song Wen ignored her pleas, and the slightly weakened Purple Mansion Divine Thunder continued to descend.
"Aaaah..."
The thunder struck Gongsun Cailu.
After a few agonizing screams, her physical body turned to ash, and her soul t the sa fate, dissipating into nothingness.
Song Wen was montarily stunned!
In his haste, coupled with his recent breakthrough to the mid-Nascent Soul stage, he hadn’t fully controlled the power of the Purple Mansion Divine Thunder.
It was a pity to waste Gongsun Cailu’s essence blood and soul like that.
Song Wen raised his hand and shot out a stream of Spiritual Power, seizing Gongsun Cailu’s Storage Ring.
Then, he activated his movent technique and sped eastward.
Song Wen spread his Spirit Sense, ticulously searching every inch of the lakebed.
Before long, he had traveled over three thousand miles, and the distant shore was now in sight. However, aside from a few Qi Refining rogue cultivators trembling in fear from Song Wen’s overwhelming Spirit Sense, he found nothing else.
Song Wen turned around and returned to Xue i’s Cave Abode.
He gathered everything from the cultivation cave: the Alchemy Furnace, Formation Flags, ditation cushions, stone bed, tables, and chairs.
Then, using these items one by one, he cast the Thousand Mile Breath Tracking Technique.
To Song Wen’s disappointnt, not even the ditation cushions, which Xue i used daily, carried any trace of her scent.
"It seems Xue i planned this all along," he muttered. "Everything in this cave was deliberately arranged to deceive . She never actually used any of these things."
Song Wen soared into the air above the lake and shouted toward the heavens:
"Xue i, I know you’re still in Heavenly Heart Lake. I’ll rember this day’s humiliation. When we et again, I’ll take your head!"
He channeled all his Spiritual Power into his voice, making it thunderous and resonant, echoing through the clouds and reaching nearly every corner of Heavenly Heart Lake.
With his words spoken, Song Wen turned and flew toward Yishi Ridge, vanishing into the horizon in an instant.
A month later, Song Wen reappeared at the small island where Xue i’s Cave Abode stood.
"It seems Xue i left Heavenly Heart Lake long ago," he thought.
After leaving that day, he had secretly returned to Heavenly Heart Lake. For the past month, he had hidden at the lake’s bottom, releasing two Shadow Gu to search every inch of the lake dozens of tis.
Still finding nothing, Song Wen had no choice but to give up.
Fifteen years later.
Song Wen erged from his Cultivation Cave on Qingluo Mountain.
During these fifteen years, he had solidified his cultivation, refined the Corpse Puppet and twelve Corpse Coffins left behind by Gou Jun, and broken through to the Peak Nascent Soul realm in Spirit Sense.
The twelve Corpse Coffins were a set of top-grade Mystic Treasures capable of forming the Twelve Capitals Corpse Formation.
With his mid-stage Nascent Soul cultivation, refining and activating the twelve Corpse Coffins was still sowhat challenging.
Song Wen had spent considerable ti refining this set of Mystic Treasures.
He had also attempted to set up the Twelve Capitals Corpse Formation, but his control was far less effortless than Gou Jun’s. The Giant Corpse Phantom he conjured was significantly weaker than Gou Jun’s.
This left Song Wen rather disappointed.
He estimated that he would need to advance to the late-stage Nascent Soul realm before he could effectively use the formation in combat.
The Fourth-Tier Peak Corpse Puppet, once refined, moved at his command as if it were an extension of his own arm, significantly boosting his combat prowess.
Song Wen’s Spirit Sense had reached the Peak Nascent Soul realm.
During his exploration of the Divine Blood Hall, he had devoured nurous souls of Fourth-Tier Demonic Beasts and Nascent Soul cultivators. Combined with Gou Jun’s soul and the souls of cultivators and demon beasts collected by the Asura Sect over the years, this accumulation finally paid off, allowing his Spirit Sense to advance.
As Song Wen erged from his Cultivation Cave, Zhou Siyi, who was inspecting the Spirit Fields at the foot of the mountain, noticed the disturbance and flew over to him.
"Junior Brother, you’ve finally erged from seclusion! That was quite a long retreat," Zhou Siyi said with a smile.
"Yes, it was a bit longer than usual," Song Wen replied vaguely.
He didn’t reveal his current cultivation level to Zhou Siyi, even though she was the person he trusted most.
Ever since Xue i betrayed him, Song Wen had suddenly realized that since reaching the Nascent Soul stage, he had beco less cautious in his actions, perhaps due to his greatly increased strength.
During Gou Jun’s ambush, if Gou Jun hadn’t tried to seize his body, Song Wen likely wouldn’t have survived. Even with countless Substitute Puppets, they wouldn’t have been enough to stop Gou Jun’s relentless attacks.
Becoming more cautious, Song Wen grew increasingly wary of those around him.
Even if soone had no intention of harming him, there was no guarantee that an accident wouldn’t reveal his secrets. It was best to remain guarded.
This caution also kept Song Wen from associating with Lan Chen for the past fifteen years. Despite Lan Chen repeatedly sending people to Tiancang Mountain to invite him, Song Wen never appeared.
(End of the Chapter)
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