Chapter 113 Rifting

The sweeping storm caused unparalleled gales to surge, stirring the entire realm of the Thirty-Six Kingdoms of the Western Regions.

The root of this lay in the pure, turbid qi that erupted when Buzhou Mountain was toppled. Its rank was extremely high, and it had continuously fought fierce enemies in the Kunlun Ruins, one of the core areas of the Turbid World, forcing it to absorb a large amount of Turbid World energy. The Kunlun Ruins and the side of Buzhou Mountain, two of the most formidable foundations even in the Turbid World, merged into one.

The original clear qi of Kunlun, vast like the long winds of the Nine Heavens, was also suppressed.

The fierce and majestic Tan-An mask shattered.

Revealing part of a beautiful, ethereal face, but now, the clear hurricane wind eye in her eyes was dim, and her beautiful eyes were lowered.

She clutched her forehead and staggered to her feet.

Seeming lost and confused, she walked forward aimlessly.

The wind and sand were heavy, and the camel bells rang as she stepped onto the shifting sands, each step sinking deeper than the last.

She didn't know how long she walked before the sound of horses' hooves suddenly reached her ears, followed by camel bells. A cavalry team galloped towards her, all agile horsemen wearing veils to shield themselves from the scorching sunlight. They were desert bandits, coming and going like the wind, looting oasis tribes, seizing grain, women, and children.

In the spring, when the tribesmen went out hunting, they would rush into the tribes and rape the women.

After October, they would come back and kill all the adults, male and female, young and old, and kill children over the age of five who could remember things. Then, they would take away children under five and newborns as replacements for their manpower.

Cruel, tyrannical, and insane, they were the lawless hyenas of this great desert. "Brother, there seems to be a straggler ahead."

"Judging by the quality of the clothes, she's wealthy!"

"Good, it's still something."

"If it's a man, kill him. If it's a woman, take her away!"

They drew their gleaming, cold sabers from their waists and charged forward, howling.

But the Tan-An mask was covered with cracks, revealing a strange coldness. The sand bandit was stunned, then laughed loudly and leaned down, reaching out to remove the girl's mask.

"Hahaha, still wearing a mask, so mysterious."

"Let this granddaddy take it off for you."

Her dark, lightless eyes narrowed slightly.

Many sand bandits circled around on horseback, forming a large ring to prevent the target from escaping, watching the spectacle.

Then, they saw the tall sand bandit who had been laughing and reaching out a second ago suddenly turn to…

Sand, scattering down like it had been dried for tens of millions of years under the endless scorching sun, even the hard bones like a sand pile that would collapse at a slight touch after being dried.

The smiles of the wicked sand bandits froze.

Then, they saw the corners of the girl's mouth, not covered by the mask, twitch slightly.

The violent wind and sand seemed capable of swallowing everything.

In an instant, the cavalry team of dozens of people was swept away by the storm. This group of bandits was returning from a looting, and there were people tied to the camels. It wasn't spring, so there weren't many of them. They saw the brave and strong bandits all turn into stone statues in an instant.

Then, they gradually weathered into sand, flowing down.

Surrounded by the storm, the girl in black and red martial attire walked slowly, then raised her hand.

Stretching it forward with indifference.

A child who had fallen from a camel suddenly broke free from his ropes. He had a small knife for cutting meat hidden in his sleeve, his eyes wide. He stood in front of his family, gripping the knife tightly, staring fearfully at the figure in front of him, who seemed like a god or demon descended from the heavens, invincible. He was already crying with fear, but he didn't run away.

"Don't... don't hurt my mother."

"Don't!"

Her pale hand fell flatly.

Approaching little by little.

If it fell, then the people in front of her would instantly weather away, their souls extinguished. Just then, those who had been looted seemed to see a trace of struggle flickering in the eyes of the god-like, demon-like girl. Her hand paused in the air, and when these people were in a daze, they found that the ropes on their bodies had been untied, the surrounding sand bandits had all turned into dust, and the camels and horses were still alive. The girl's figure was gone too.

The child stared blankly for a while, his legs weakening, and he fell to the ground.

The dagger fell down.

Then, he burst into tears of fear.

"Waaah—"

"No, no."

The girl supported her forehead, staggering through the desert.

Her expression was sometimes dazed, sometimes struggling.

Crack.

Behind her, the Guixu Jade Talisman, which at least served as some kind of anchor, fell, landing on the desert.

Along with the already shattered saber, it was soon buried by the wind and sand. Guixu Core, Tianji Formation.

The Kunlun Celestial Maiden Yao Ji was still hiding here, 'stealing electricity' to purchase all kinds of delicious and fun things from the myriad worlds, while looking at the drafts submitted by the painter [Vodka Niangniang in the Zhenyao Museum's Attic] whom she had found earlier.

Even with ten times the remuneration.

The other party still followed the instinct of a dead pigeon, barely handing it over before the deadline.

However, considering the quality was as excellent as ever.

Yao Ji still generously forgave her this time.

And still promised extremely generous remuneration.

Anyway, she wasn't spending her own money. The Lord of Guixu was rich beyond measure, so using it didn't hurt at all.

Especially now that the big boss, the Lord of Guixu, was working hard to make money.

Yao Ji was living a very comfortable life. She flipped through the last page of the manga with satisfaction, lazily stretched, and said, "But speaking of it, Canglong, there's a question I've wanted to ask you for a long time. After I was defeated by that guy, the Lord of Guixu, my soul should have scattered. How were you able to preserve my soul and spirituality?"

Canglong didn't even move his eyelids and said, "Luck."

Yao Ji was clearly not satisfied with this answer. "What do you mean by luck?"

"Explain it to me clearly..."

Canglong didn't plan to answer. Of course, it wasn't luck. It was just that this matter involved a transaction back then, a transaction with one of the Ten Great Peaks. Explaining it would be troublesome, and Yao Ji would become smug. It was better not to say it. He immediately lowered his eyes and pretended to be dead, not saying a word.

"Tch, a clam..."

Yao Ji muttered dissatisfiedly, and then planned to continue negotiating and communicating with that painter Vodka Niangniang about whether the details in the manga could be more detailed. Ahem, more could be drawn in the paid sections. It's not like she couldn't afford the price. She glanced around at Guixu, even more confident.

Just as she was negotiating, a trace of crimson light suddenly lit up on the Tianji Formation.

Canglong saw Yao Ji's face freeze in an instant.

Losing all color in an instant.

"Pi... Jue."

"Lost contact."

"She... has fallen?"

Staggering, without a fixed place.

"Anchor..."

Jue, who had left behind her mask, saber, and jade pendant, suddenly remembered what Wei Yuan had told her about the characteristics of the Ten Great Peaks, and thought of the rumored anchor points. She understood that she now needed to rely on the [anchor points] to stabilize her self-will that she had struggled to regain, so as not to truly fall.

Unconsciously, she had already walked to the place where the Sword Immortal had lived in seclusion. Perhaps it was a coincidence, or perhaps it was karma in the dark. The place where the Sword Immortal had lived in seclusion was precisely the area where the girl had been sealed by Guixu and Kai Ming. At this moment, her turbid qi and clear qi were intertwined, fighting endlessly.

Barely hoarsely, she stopped a villager and asked:

"There used to be a swordsman living here... and a white-haired little girl."

"Do you know where they are now?"

The villager was surprised.

Then, he suddenly realized, "Oh, oh, little girl, are you talking about the teacher of the current General of the Golden Guards, the Sword Saint of the Tang Dynasty, General Pei?"

"I have an impression."

"That master passed away many years ago. As for that child, I don't know. Perhaps she was taken away by General Pei and his wife?"

"I was just a child of ten years old back then, and now my beard and hair have grown long."

"Haha, it was Empress Wu who was in power back then; now, it's already the Kaiyuan Prosperous Age."

The villager shook his head and walked away.

The girl clutched her forehead, standing in front of the house from back then, but decades had passed, and it was already overgrown with weeds. The walls were dilapidated, and a part of it had collapsed during the previous strong winds and heavy rains. Weeds that had come with the wind had already grown taller than a child.

She stood in front of it, sensing that another string pulling her like a kite had broken.

Her mind became more and more unsteady, and her turbid qi surged more and more.

Finally, she saw the Sword Immortal's tomb, standing there blankly for a long time.

The villager was worried that she had nowhere to live, so he came to look for her the next day, but from afar, he only saw a shadow like flowing wind and clear shadow, disappearing in an instant. Above the sky, the sea of clouds was vast, and it split apart in an instant. Jue stepped into the place where Guixu and Kai Ming had sealed her back then. The layers of seals were extremely tricky for her in the past, but now they were easily blown open by a trace of flowing wind.

She slowly stepped into it.

The clear qi flowed into it, awakening the past girl who was sleeping in the seal. She slowly opened her eyes.

Those eyes were clear and peaceful, like the unchanging long wind above Kunlun.

Before Jue could open her mouth, she saw the opposite, past 'self' change her expression slightly, blurting out, "Turbid qi!!!"

"Such heavy turbid qi?!"

"You!"

"Are you a demon god of the Turbid World?!"

The clear wind was instantly awakened. Although it was weak, it still tangled towards the girl in black and red martial attire without hesitation. But this not-so-weak storm only made the girl's sleeves flutter slightly. It seemed that even the wind was subject to her. The past Jue, who had just awakened, was stunned, unable to believe that her full strength was only like this.

Her mind swayed, and she was temporarily exhausted.

But she found that the figure opposite her, which exuded majestic turbid qi and whose face she couldn't even see clearly, staggered two steps, and a familiar laughter with self-deprecation came from her mouth. Then, in the next moment, a storm rose and turned into a gust of wind, flying towards the outside, but because her mind seemed to be shaking, she failed to break the seal here when she left.

So Jue of the Tang Dynasty was also affected by this Guixu formation and fell into a deep sleep.

But it was precisely because of this interruption.

That led to her not surrendering as Guixu had expected 1,600 years later.

Instead, she regained some of her strength and was able to resist for decades.

Until the anomaly there was detected.

Until the time when the Crouching Tiger left the mountain.

"Yuan has already gone."

"A-Wa has also disappeared..."

"Even myself, they say I am a demon."

Jue left that mountain village. The external anchor points no longer existed, and the anchor points in her own heart had disappeared, pulled up one by one.

This wouldn't have been anything in the past.

Most of the time, she would have just smiled lightly and let it pass.

But at this moment, when her mind was most unstable and the most critical time, every trace of influence was extremely crucial and important. Jue just held on with the last bit of effort, hoping that A-Wa was in Chang'an City, in the Pei family. She traveled all the way by wind to Chang'an, scanning with her divine sense, but there was no trace of the white-haired girl at all.

Li Chunfeng and Yuan Tiangang had also passed away long ago.

The last possibly existing anchor point, the key point was that the anchor point in Jue's heart, which could barely support under the two majestic turbid qi of [Under Buzhou Mountain] and [In Kunlun Ruins], shattered and disappeared. The turbid world aura took advantage of the girl's moment of fatigue and helplessness, and instantly erupted, surging upwards, with no more obstacles.

In her pupils, it turned into a deep storm.

Suddenly,

A Buddhist bell rang.

Buddhist light, invisible to the naked eye, rose from the Great Ci'en Temple.

Turning into a familiar monk, with his hands clasped together, his expression gentle: "Amitabha..."

He was clearly in the state before his death, but he was more transparent and gentle than when they first met, with a smile:

"Just like what I said when we first met..."

"..."

"This humble monk, Xuanzang, is here outside Chang'an City."

"At this time, at this moment, in this place."

"Waiting for benefactor for a long time."

ps: Today's first update...

Some say that Wei Yuan's karma is that as long as there is karma, nothing will happen. If he really does whatever he wants,

He would have been invincible long ago.

Huantian still has a deadline, let alone just him now.