The female cultivator looked young, in her early thirties or forties, and nothing like other elders. She had silver eyes, black hair, and quite a talent for fighting.

  The elder reached for Zhu Xuelian’s throat while they fell toward the ground together and the elder’s spear kept Zhu Xuelian’s sword pinned to her abdomen, and there was little Zhu Xuelian could ordinarily do to stop the elder. But Zhu Xuelian rolled her shoulders and body, throwing the elder off balance just enough to sharply turn in another direction and shake her off completely.

  Even an elder like this could not compare to Zhu Xuelian’s impressive battle sense — forged through thousands of battles in the Killing Field.

  Zhu Xuelian spun around again and the battle cultivator quickly gained the advantage by grabbing a handful of the elder’s hair and yanking her head back into a qi platform resembling a dark sea of stars. Here, Zhu Xuelian climbed on top of the elder, jamming her knee into the shoulder of the elder's spear arm and immobilizing it.

  Her sword was knocked away and this opportunity was brief and fleeting. Zhu Xuelian raised her hand which quickly became shrouded in terrible flames.

  “Execution Blaze,” Zhu Xuelian uttered, and carved a hole through the elder’s chest, her arm settling up to the elbow in the elder’s insides.

  A kick impacted Zhu Xuelian’s ribs and sent her flying for several meters before she elegantly flipped over and landed on her talisman sword.

  A new elder joined the fray. This one she recognized — he was one of the elders present at the Galaxy Sword sect.

  The female elder stood up, seemingly unharmed, despite the hole in her chest. Zhu Xuelian was surprised that even this was not enough to kill one who crossed the boundary, and she admonished herself silently for not cutting the elder's head off.

  “Zhu Xuelian, what a surprise. Here I thought you crawled under a rock and died,” the elder said with a scowl. “Lady Yue isn’t around to save you now, is she?”

  Zhu Xuelian looked around. Mu Jingyu and Tian Li had broken off from the previous group and joined Lei Yangming and the others. They made good progress toward the sect so far.

  “Barely a year has passed and you are already in the Core Formation,” the elder Zhu Xuelian recognized said. “You really are a monster, but this is where it ends. It is time that we rid this world of a devil like you.”

  Dozens of cultivators began to gather above and behind the two elders, rapidly closing in.

  Zhu Xuelian chuckled at being called a devil. She took in a deep breath, recovering her energy from the nearby flames, fueled by the burning deaths of others.

  Then she sharply turned around and accelerated at top speed toward Lei Yangming and the others, who used her spearhead into the enemy formation to make ground toward the sect, unimpeded.

  The two elders quickly gave into pursuit, but abandoned the attempt as soon as it began, when they recognized that Zhu Xuelian was much faster than them.

  “Deploy the Dragon Slaying Formation!” The female elder shouted, and Zhu Xuelian could feel a vast confluence of qi gathering behind her. Sword force, spear force, blade force — all kinds of qi types merged and tempered each other, forming into a point of annihilating might. Even if Zhu Xuelian had nine lives, she wouldn’t survive being hit by that. She didn’t even dare look behind herself, just in case it affected her state of mind and lowered her chances of success.

  Zhu Xuelian jumped off her talisman sword and attempted her longest Star Crossing ever. Crossing a hundred meters was easy, but every twenty meters beyond that made it twice as difficult. But what other choice did she have?

  She consumed the Qi Recovery Pill that Ren Jinhai gave her earlier and stepped on the first constellation of sword qi stars.

  The stars vibrated under her feet, gently pushing her off and forward. She was like a fairy, flying from star to star, but the further she went, the more it felt like the wind was against her.

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  Two hundred meters.

  Here, the wind was more like a wall of paper, and each star crossing beyond it made the wall tougher. She felt weightless, and with little inertia, so each time she jumped through a wall, she had to break through with her qi.

  Three hundred meters.

  Her gold core churned through her reserves, its supreme construction turning the incoming qi restoration directly into power. Her meridians glowed brightly underneath her skin, fading as quickly as they blazed into existence.

  Four hundred meters.

  Zhu Xuelian stepped on a star, and it crumbled under her feet. She was completely out of qi.

  As Zhu Xuelian emerged from the movement technique, Wu Yulan waited for her there and caught her. “For a moment, I thought you’d stay and fight those elders.”

  Zhu Xuelian sighed in relief and giggled. “I might have thought about it.”

  Wu Yulan chuckled. If she wasn’t out of qi, she’d have also stayed and fought those elders. After all, she was certain that a fight like this one would be the closest brush with death she had ever experienced.

  Wu Yulan flew toward the others and joined their ranks.

  “Deploy the Barrier Talismans now!” Lei Yangming shouted.

  Yuan Qiuyue, Xiang Liling, and Ren Weisheng threw jade charms behind themselves, three at a time, and horizontal barriers deployed one after another, creating multiple grand layers of defensive light.

  Right then, the Thousand Dragon Slaying Formation emitted its annihilating light, which was so bright that everything else plunged into darkness.

  The first wall of the barrier crumbled instantly, falling apart like a bubble popping out of existence. The second wall caved inward, trembled, then ruptured like a sheet of silk, then rebounded and the rest crashed away like glass.

  The third and final defensive wall broke at the impact but withstood just enough to deflect the beam of the Thousand Dragon Slaying Formation around them.

  Dazzling, multicolored lights glowed over and around them like an aurora, splitting apart and twisting into themselves. Whatever the splintering beam touched was effortlessly blasted apart, and if this were any of them, it was unlikely that they would survive.

  The three threw more talismans behind themselves, catching a few more stray beam splinters that wouldn’t have hit them in the first place, but better safe than sorry.

  The sky overhead had already begun to darken and turn purple, and large swathes of cultivator squads stopped their pursuit when faced with this cloud. Those few who attempted to go through, despite their instincts screaming at them to abandon that foolishness, fell from the sky like dolls filled with straw, and lifelessly impacted the ground and remained still. Their bodies melted.

  Hundreds of cultivators rushed in after the beam of the Thousand Dragon Slaying Formation, with the two elders at the head of this group, as they gave pursuit.

  “Mu Jingyu! The sect barrier!” Lei Yangming shouted.

  If the sect didn’t lift the barrier, even briefly, all of this was for nothing, and they would all die.

  Mu Jingyu raised her Sect Jade toward the Frozen Peak Palace, and Yuan Qiuyue and Xiang Liling did the same.

  “This Mu Jingyu of the Frozen Peak Palace requests entry into the sect!” Mu Jingyu shouted at the top of her voice.

  There were only a few hundred meters left between them and the sect, and the distance was quickly shrinking, with no sign of the barrier being lowered. This close, they could see the prismatic effect of light playing on the translucent barrier, like an oil spill smeared across the surface of a clear lake.

  “This Mu Jingyu of the Frozen Peak Palace requests entry into the sect! Please open the barrier!” Mu Jingyu shouted again.

  “Weisheng, how many talismans do you have left?” Lei Yangming asked.

  “A little over twenty,” Ren Weisheng said.

  Another confluence of qi began to gather behind them. It was not the Thousand Dragon Slaying Formation, but its power was just as impressive.

  Mu Jingyu’s eyes began to well with tears.

  “Sect Master, please let us in! Are you just going to watch us die?!” Mu Jingyu shouted.

  A few moments later, the barrier rippled, and a small hole appeared in it.

  They all flew through the small opening at top speed, and the sect’s flying prohibition immediately knocked out their flying talismans and caused all of them to plummet out of the sky and impact the grand courtyard of the sect like arrows. Immediately after they crossed inside, the barrier closed behind them.

  They rolled across the ground several times before coming to a stop, staring at the sky, as the latest offensive formation beam broke against the sect’s barrier, and created another aurora of beautiful lights. If they had been even a little slower, there was no telling how many of them would have survived.

  Relief washed over them. Mu Jingyu cried tears of joy and gratitude, Ren Jinhai cried tears of relief. Whether they did or didn’t show their tears, they all celebrated earning themselves another day of being alive, and some of the disciples even hugged Lei Yangming and Xiang Liling for their decisive leadership.

  Even Zhu Xuelian received hugs from Wu Yulan and Mu Jingyu, and even Yuan Qiuyue came over to squeeze her gratefully, which caused her to wince. She was certain that at least one of her ribs was broken from that elder’s kick.

  Lei Yangming roared with laughter suddenly, which caused everyone to look toward him as if he had lost his mind.

  “Ren Jinhai!” He shouted.

  “H-huh?” Ren Jinhai rubbed his eyes and looked at Lei Yangming. “What is it?”

  “Do you still want to fight the entire Sun Kingdom?” Lei Yangming asked.

  Ren Jinhai stared at Lei Yangming, and then his face went completely red. “You know, that idea about marrying that princess… it doesn’t sound so bad anymore…”

  Everyone laughed.