A Guide to Self-Rescue in the Cultivation World - Chapter 20

The two hundred skeletons that had just broken free from their fleshly casings moved with a drifting gait, like newly sentient specters.

They stiffly rotated their spines, their hollow eye sockets, like bottomless abysses, fixing precisely on the four people in front of them.

A silent, dreadful stare.

Qi Jie’s hand was already on his sword hilt, his knuckles a terrifying blue-white from the strain. Beside him, Qi Shuo Bei grit his teeth against the pain, his heavy meteor hammer thudding onto the palace’s fine stone pavement.

Zhou Suyao frowned deeply, her fingers already forming a spell seal. The millennia of despair from the mass grave and the ancestral hatred of the Demon Clan were whipping up a tempest in her consciousness, but she knew this was no time for emotional fragility.

“Don’t move recklessly.”

Even facing this horrific scene, Master still stretched out his arm to shield them, his voice a soft caution.

He stepped forward, and a circle of faint golden Fu Xi Eight Trigrams diagram spontaneously appeared beneath his foot, visible to the naked eye. The diagram gently expanded, silently dissolving the sickening scent of bl00d in the air wherever it passed.

“Go!”

At his command, the three of them rushed forward without hesitation, following the unkempt figure.

Zhou Suyao bit down, suppressing the chaos in her mind. She knew the power embedded in Master’s Trigram was immense, enough to barely hold onto her flickering clarity.

Just as the four of them began to move closer.

The skeletal puppets moved.

Like puppets controlled by invisible strings, the two hundred skeletons moved with perfect, eerie synchronization, silently surging toward them.

Their decayed finger bones, sharp as blades, tore through the air with a piercing shriek. Their target was clear and precise: the person at the center of the group with the most erratic aura.

“You seek death!”

A flash of fury crossed Qi Jie’s eyes. His longsword instantly left its scabbard, fiercely meeting the onrushing skeletons. The few skeletons at the forefront didn’t even have time to scream before they instantly turned into scorched powder.

Just as the others let out a collective sigh of relief, the situation drastically changed.

The skeletons that had just turned into black powder instantly reformed, even phasing directly through Qi Jie’s defense with a tricky angle, as if they had calculated the exact moment he wouldn’t be able to provide a timely rescue.

A lethal coldness instantly seized Zhou Suyao’s heart.

She looked down slightly. The white bone claw had already passed through where her body was, and she could even see dark red, shredded flesh adhering to the bone.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

Again?

However, she didn’t have time to lament her tragically difficult life. An invisible force instantly filled her entire body. This force was cold, violent, and full of destructive power, like a temporal torrent, erupting from within her.

The unseen energy condensed into a powerful shockwave, exploding outwards with her as the epicenter. The few skeletons about to grab her were hit first, instantly disintegrating into a shower of bone dust. The surrounding puppets were violently flung backward by the surge of raw power, scattered hundreds of meters away.

Qi Jie stared, turning to Zhou Suyao in disbelief. How could such immense power erupt from her small frame?

But only Zhou Suyao knew that this sudden outburst wasn’t strength; it was the total loss of control of her demonic power.

She felt as if her soul was being violently torn in half. One half was the terrified, panicked her. The other was completely submerged by an endless desire for slaughter.

The final moments of the ten thousand demons flashed wildly in her mind.

The scorching furnace, the heartbreaking cries, and—

Ning Qinggui’s bl00d-and-tears-stained eyes.

They all seemed to be shrieking the same voice:

Kill! Kill them all!

Zhou Suyao’s vision was covered in crimson. She was on the verge of losing herself in this overwhelming hatred, wanting only to tear everything before her limb from limb.

Master’s pupils contracted. He rushed forward but was pushed back by wave after wave of shockwaves. Sensing danger, he quickly drew a rune with both hands.

In an instant, he flickered beside Zhou Suyao, his withered fingers moving like lightning, precisely tapping her glabella.

The moment his fingertip touched her, a warm sensation seemed to melt into her body, enveloping the out-of-control demonic resentment within her.

Her body instantly deflated.

“Hold on to your true self,” Master’s voice gently echoed beside her. “Their power is hate and sorrow, but it is not your Path. Don’t let yourself be consumed by them.”

Master’s words carried a force even heavier than his spiritual power. Zhou Suyao painfully arched her back, a sliver of lucidity struggling to return to her crimson eyes.

Two fundamentally different spiritual forces collided in her chaotic consciousness.

But Zhou Suyao knew what she had to overcome.

She fiercely bit her lower lip, struggling to mobilize her entire spiritual power, guiding the maddened demonic force and attempting to force it onto a controllable track.

However, in this brief moment of deadlock between Master and disciple, a sudden change occurred in the deep darkness ahead.

Qi Jie’s longsword was no longer shimmering golden as it was at the start. His spiritual power could no longer sustain a battle of this scale.

“We can’t win. We can’t kill these skeletons!” Qi Jie panted. His arm was weak, and each attack lacked its former power.

Qi Shuo Bei’s situation was even more desperate. Already severely wounded, he had been entangled with these skeletons for a long time. Now, his spiritual power was exhausted, with only his sheer will keeping him going.

No sooner had he spoken than Qi Jie saw the skeleton whose head he had just cleaved off shakily stand up again and launch another attack.

He failed to dodge and was severely scratched on the shoulder by the skeleton.

Just as the skeleton was about to strike again, a golden barrier descending from the sky instantly shielded him. Stunned, he looked up and saw Zhou Suyao, supported by Master, send another protective spell toward Qi Shuo Bei.

“Stop fighting, all of you.”

Although Zhou Suyao was physically distant, her voice landed directly in their minds.

“Listen to me. I just counted. There are two hundred and six skeletons, which perfectly correspond to the two hundred and six bones in the human body.”

“So what!” Qi Shuo Bei yelled. “Maybe we just happened to kill them down to two hundred and six skeletons!”

“No,” Zhou Suyao replied. “I observed them just now. These skeletons cannot be truly killed. Even if they turn to ash and disappear, they reform shortly after.”

“I think,” she frowned deeply, “this is another one of Xuan Yangming’s dark arts. The saying goes: ‘Shed the flesh, only two hundred and six bones remain, along with bl00d, filth, hair, and intestines.'”

“Therefore! He shed his own body, and the remaining two hundred and six bones were turned into two hundred and six skeletons to delay us!”

“He’s stalling for time!”

No sooner had she spoken than the ground beneath their feet suddenly let out a low groan. Bricks shattered, and the skeletons that had been fighting them instantly vanished, leaving the four of them staring at each other.

However, beneath the fractured bricks, Zhou Suyao sensed a familiar spiritual energy.

This energy felt deeply connected to her bl00d.

She felt dread. The familiarity was because she had sensed this energy before, on the altar, when Xuan Yangming drained her bl00d to nurture the Three-Path Meridian Flower!

She turned, whispering to Master, “The Three-Path Meridian Flower… I’m afraid…”

Master’s face instantly darkened, and the spiritual power pressed into Zhou Suyao’s palm abruptly intensified.

“No time left,” his voice was low, every word forced out between his teeth. “Suyao, and you two, we can’t wait any longer. Follow me… charge in.”

But the moment he finished speaking, the world drastically changed.

The Heavenly Dao Emperor, whom Zhou Suyao had repeatedly calculated was a puppet, suddenly appeared at the gate of the palace building before them.

“Rumble!”

Behind them, the sound of heavy footsteps approached rapidly. As they turned, they came face-to-face with Imperial Guards clad in dark black heavy armor, wielding sharp, long halberds.

Looking further behind them, a second group followed: figures dressed in uniform, moon-white fitted clothes, their faces expressionless, radiating cold, pure spiritual energy fluctuations.

Heavenly Dao Assassins!

This elite unit’s target was precise. They moved left and right with chilling pressure, aiming their attacks fiercely at Zhou Suyao, who was positioned on the flank of the group.

In this moment of crisis.

“Form the array!”

Master’s hair and beard bristled, and his tone carried unprecedented solemnity. His withered figure instantly flashed to the forefront of the group, his hands flying rapidly, instantly condensing a golden Fu Xi Eight Trigrams diagram before him, transforming into a massive barrier shimmering with a golden aura.

“Clang! Clang! Clang!”

The Imperial Guards’ long spears rained down like a storm, creating a deafening clang of metal. Zhou Xuqing groaned under the force, and the ground beneath his feet cracked inch by inch.

Two Fu Xi Eight Trigrams diagrams, plus forcibly suppressing the demonic qi within Zhou Suyao, had already pushed him close to exhaustion. Facing the assault of the Heavenly Dao elite, he now seemed to be struggling.

“Master!”

Zhou Suyao’s pupils contracted. Fury caused the demonic qi in her body to surge wildly again. They seemed to be screaming:

“You need me! You need me!”

“Yes.”

Zhou Suyao closed her eyes, as if resigning herself, ceasing all struggle.

When she opened her eyes again, one was deep black, and the other was a terrifying red.

She had forged a bizarre, desperate balance with the demonic power within her.

Then, she instantly shot through the barrier, seizing the throat of the leading Heavenly Dao Assassin with a chilling surge of killing intent.

“Boom!”

Demonic qi and pure spiritual energy violently collided, instantly exploding! Zhou Suyao was staggered backward by the shock. Her throat tightened, and the metallic taste of bl00d filled her mouth.

Yet, she had still overestimated her strength.

The moment she stood back up, the Imperial Guards had already surrounded her. Countless long spears wove a net of death, poised to fully annihilate her right there in the Imperial City.

“Hahahaha!!” A bloodcurdling cackle erupted from beside the Heavenly Dao Emperor. The grim-faced old eunuch Xuan Yangming  seemed to be claiming victory as he shrieked:

“Zhou Xuqing! You couldn’t save Ning Qinggui a hundred years ago! And you can’t save this good-for-nothing apprentice of yours a hundred years later. Watch her die right before your eyes!”

The silvery weapons glowed with a sinister white light. Zhou Suyao resignedly closed her eyes.

However, in this last-ditch, desperate moment.

“Swoosh.”

Tens of thousands of arrows instantly flew, carrying a killing intent that seemed to incinerate the land, shooting with deadly precision into the throats of the Imperial Guards.

Who dares touch my Junior Sister?