My Enemy Became My Cultivation Companion-Chapter 670 - 441: How She’s Changed (Two in One)_2
He trembled violently, collapsing to his knees with a loud thud, nearly bowing his head to the ground.
"The sinners of Chongyang Temple shall be executed as of today..."
"Executed!"
The three women froze where they stood.
Min Ning turned her head in disbelief, exclaiming, "You did all this?"
Yin Weiyin hesitated momentarily, her gaze sweeping across the corpses strewn across the ground.
So... it was all me who slew them?!
That wasn't a dream!
In the instant her thoughts turned, the female crown felt as if her entire world had been upended.
"It was nothing,"
The white-robed female crown held her sword at an angle before her, her sleeves fluttering as she softly intoned:
"In a dream, I slew three million ghosts, yet I've never used the flying sword to claim a human head!"
Such was her casual and unrestrained momentum.
Min Ning's pupils contracted sharply, her heart skipping a beat for no reason, as the jade hairpin in her hair seemed to inexplicably grow heavier.
She knew that the Jing Princess had changed,
But how had Yin Weiyin... become so utterly different from before?
Could it be she could no longer contend with her?!
......
Firelight flickered within the cavern, the ground littered with corpses so vividly gruesome that anyone who saw the scene would feel their skin crawl. Even Min Ning, who had wandered the Jianghu for half a year, found her gaze trembling.
The white-robed female crown moved swiftly, arriving at the center of the magic platform. There, the Taoist of Chongyang Temple, clad in the Ancestor Master's Robe, still knelt on the ground, muttering the word "executed" over and over again.
As she glanced sideways, she saw Lu Ying's face also marked with shock. Yin Weiyin didn't even need to guess—he certainly never imagined the visions from the dream were real.
Because neither had she.
Yin Weiyin scanned the magic platform, observing the arrangement and patterns of the banners. She immediately recognized it as the Dream-Kill Technique—dragging people into a dream realm to slay them. At its lightest, it left one's spirit drained; at its worst, the soul dispersed entirely. It was a method that avoided direct confrontation, undoubtedly vicious.
Yet, what they hadn't anticipated was that while she was in the Core Formation Realm, by a peculiar twist of fate in the underworld, she had condensed a Nascent Soul.
In the dream, where divine senses grappled, the Taoists of Chongyang Temple, at most at the Golden Core cultivation level, could never hope to withstand the Nascent Soul Realm. After all, a Nascent Soul itself is formed through the refining of divine senses and the soul.
The ground was stained red with blood. The Chongyang Temple Ancestor Master remained prostrate, his vacant eyes staring ahead. Yin Weiyin suddenly recalled—this was the King Yan of the dream.
Thud. Thud. The Ancestor Master repeatedly kowtowed, his forehead striking the ground with a force that left blood smears on the floor.
Struck by a single sword, his soul had been damaged. Though he hadn't perished on the spot like the others, he had already gone mad. Yin Weiyin frowned slightly, silently regretting that her dream-self had struck with no measure of restraint, rendering him useless even for a Soul Search.
She lifted her gaze and saw a painting hanging in the hall. The brushwork was free and unrestrained, almost purely impressionistic. Faintly discernible, it depicted two figures dueling atop a mountain peak. Thunderous serpents tore the heavens asunder amidst torrential winds and rain, and the ground below was pierced with countless long swords, as if silently bearing witness to this life-or-death struggle.
"What's with that painting?"
Since she couldn't search his soul, she might as well ask directly.
The Ancestor Master paused his kowtowing, raising his battered head dazedly to reply:
"Wu Buxu, Loulan Sword Emperor... sword momentum pierced the heavens, the heavens split open. Together we ascended, together we ascended..."
Even though they had already suspected as much in their hearts, the three could not help but feel a jolt of shock at his words.
In the painting, the heavens seemed to be torn open by the sword qi thrust skyward.
Dots of ink drifted upwards, resembling countless souls surging forth.
"They really... ascended?" Min Ning muttered.
From everything they had seen and heard along the way—whether it was the grey-clothed Taoist who had severed three corpses or the corpses strewn all over—it all seemed to confirm this truth.
The heavens split open, and countless Chongyang Temple Taoists ascended into the sky.
Lu Ying murmured, "I'd heard before that the old master of Chongyang Temple invited the Loulan Sword Emperor and Wu Buxu to battle in the Sword Pool. Could it be... that their sword intents pierced the heavens, split it open, and they ascended thereafter?"
Chongyang Temple borrowed power.
They leveraged the full-force clash of two of the top ten martial masters on the rankings, amassing the temple's centuries of sword intent to achieve celestial ascension in a single stroke.
As for the Sword Pool churning with rampant sword intent, causing the Secret Realm to nearly collapse and leaving Shantong City teetering on the brink of ruin, all of that was left for future generations to deal with.
Yin Weiyin calmed her mind, surveying the surroundings before asking:
"Where are the others?"
She recalled she hadn't managed to kill them all; many had escaped.
The Ancestor Master trembled as he replied, "To the Heavenly Rift, to the Heavenly Rift... calling Immortals to descend, calling Immortals to descend..."
His voice was garbled, and only a few fragmented words could be discerned.
Boom!
A clap of thunder shattered the silence of the sky.
The Chongyang Temple Ancestor Master's pupils dilated, momentarily regaining clarity. He slammed his palms into the ground, a circle of black mist erupting around him. An azure soul burst free from his shattered body, frantically fleeing deeper into the cavern.
Faintly in the wind, the whisper of "Soul, return..." could be heard.
Yet Yin Wei's expression remained placid as a still lake. She raised the Peach Wood Sword and uttered a single word:
"Go."
A brilliant light erupted from between her brows. An ethereal blue Nascent Soul emerged, wielding a divine sword. A boundless sword flash shot forth.
The sword flash streaked like lightning.
It pierced directly through the soul of the Ancestor Master, pinning it to the wall.
Yin Weiyin extended her hand, intending to capture the soul.
But it was as if the Ancestor Master had anticipated this. Chanting an incantation, his azure figure suddenly condensed into a ball of light, which quickly contracted before detonating within the cavern.
In the fleeting moment before his obliteration, his voice howled:
"You and I are both Taoists, yet you pursue utter annihilation—utter annihilation!
Today, though my soul is scattered, none of you shall emerge unscathed. Heaven splits, one thought awakens the Dust, chaos erupts in all eight directions—calamities in all eight directions!"
As the light faded, so too did his voice disappear into the void.
Unperturbed, Yin Weiyin sheathed her sword as if dealing with nothing more than thin air.
Min Ning, on the other hand, frowned deeply at his words.
One thought awakens the Dust...
Wu Buxu?
"...Wu Buxu is here?"
Min Ning could not help but murmur to herself, but no answer came.
She repeated the question,
Zhu Yu remained immersed in silent contemplation.
A sudden crash of thunder broke the stillness.
Resonating thunder tore through the stone walls. Dust and gravel tumbled down as the three stumbled to steady themselves.
This thunder seemed to strike directly at their souls, causing them to shudder uncontrollably.
Atop the mountain peak Sword Pool, the oppressive sea of clouds descended further, bristling with thunder and lightning.
......
Amid the storm of lightning serpents, a pavilion stood outside the Sword Pool. Its hipped roof extended outward dramatically, resembling a giant with arms spread wide, clutching two serpents.
This was the Ancestor Master Tablet Tower before ascension—one Yang Tower, standing within Chongyang Temple, and one Yin Tower, located within the Sword Pool Secret Realm.
The sea of clouds weighed heavily upon the pavilion, and the tablets housed within were shrouded in endless shadows, bending slightly forward as if gazing downward.
In front of the ceremonial table sat thirty kneeling figures, all clad in the crimson robes of the Grand Raft Fasting Ceremony. The three foremost figures wore wide-sleeved yellow Ancestor Master's robes.
Thin wafts of smoke curled around the incense burner as these last three elder masters, who had endured arduous cultivation for centuries, now knelt humbly, like timid children.
The three raised their voices together.
The one in the center chanted: "We burn incense, beseeching the Ancestor Masters of Heaven to descend and command armies of a million soldiers; Thousand Star Thunder God, shining with a thousand rays, your sword strikes down demons and confusion."
The elders on either side chanted: "The great demon Wu Buxu, ensnared in mortal toil for centuries, stirs chaos in the Sword Pool. The survival of Chongyang Temple hinges entirely upon this day!" 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎
The thunder roared endlessly, and the tablets bent further still, yet no response came.
As though they intended to witness ascendancy or ruin unfold.
Suddenly, the figure in the center drew their sword, its light slicing through the air with a sharp hum.
Burning hot blood splattered onto the ceremonial table.
"We unfilial disciples offer our blood to beseech the Ancestor Masters to descend from heaven!"
The incense smoke swelled, curling in misty layers. Within the haze, a faint glimmer of light could be seen.
But it was only a faint glimmer, so slight it was nearly imperceptible.
The elders on either side immediately brandished their swords, intoning:
"Chongyang Temple has stood for hundreds of years. Is there no Ancestor Master willing to aid us in this catastrophe?!"
Two more sword flashes cut through the air.
Behind them, the remaining twenty-seven disciples slammed their foreheads to the ground with a thundering sound.
"We unfilial disciples offer our blood to beseech the Ancestor Masters to descend from heaven!"
When Chongyang Temple split open the heavens years ago, numerous cultivators who failed to ascend were granted Immortality, riding dragons, cranes, or rainbows into the celestial planes.
Two sticks of incense burned in the incense burner.
Today, they sought but two Immortals to descend.
The burning incense emitted radiant flames as the array of Ancestor Master tablets bent almost entirely in half.
Time passed unnoticed, and as the incense was about to burn out completely, two flawlessly translucent hands, like glazed crystal, reached out from either side to lift the two remaining incense sticks.
The tablets of the two Ancestor Masters glowed with golden light.
The left belonged to Li Zheng Yuanjun, and the right to Ming Dao Yuanjun.
One wielded a gleaming violet treasure umbrella; the other carried an ancient sword. Both were clad in yellow and purple Daoist robes, wearing crescent-mooned headdresses, their bearing extraordinary and unearthly. In three steps, they had passed the crowd and walked into the distance.
With each step, a small green lotus bloomed from the ground.
