Chapter 114 A Wrongful Conviction: He had almost married her. ...

While hiding behind Yun Tianjiao, Zhiwei whispered to her with her divine sense, "Your Highness, try to delay as much as possible. If I can break through to the Divine Venerable level here, I will be able to fight him."

Yun Tianjiao replied, "You've given me your Ghost Core, so this fighting and killing is none of your business. Focus on your breakthrough."

Zhiwei's peach blossom eyes curved into a smile, but when she looked into the deep eyes of the woman opposite her, she became even more annoyed.

"You, a dignified ghost king, are hiding behind a woman. If word gets out, you'll become a laughing stock in the Three Realms."

Zhiwei was not offended, but rather proud. "It's a pity that you, a Celestial Venerable, don't even have anyone to protect you. If there were a woman willing to stand in front of you right now, your cultivation would probably recover much faster."

His words were so hurtful, they really hit the nail on the head, making Lin Shen so angry that his face turned ashen.

"You're courting death." He conjured a long sword in his hand and thrust it towards Zhiwei.

"Oh, Your Highness, save me!"

Yun Tianjiao threw his vajra pestle, which slammed into the sword in Lin Shen's hand, producing a resounding clang.

Lin Shen's tiger's mouth was throbbing with pain from the impact. What was even more terrifying was that the fierce force actually traveled through the sword and into his body, almost causing him to vomit blood.

"Are you hurt?" Yun Tianjiao turned around and asked Zhiwei with concern.

Zhiwei glanced at Lin Shen deliberately before replying in a weak voice, "Fortunately, Your Highness acted in time."

Lin Shen: "..."

Yun Tianjiao gave the Ghost-Slaying Blade to Zhiwei for protection, while she herself mainly used the Vajra Pestle as her weapon. During her ten years of seclusion, she had completely absorbed the power of Zhiwei's Ghost Core and skillfully integrated it with the Vajra Pestle, making her adept at using it.

The Vajra can change size at the user's will during battle. When enlarged, it is like a towering pillar, powerful and fierce; when shrunk, it is only the size of a palm, agile and nimble, making it an excellent concealed weapon. Yun Tianjiao, being a woman, prefers to enlarge it to confront her enemies head-on.

Lin Shen was forced to retreat step by step by the powerful attacks of the Vajra Pestle, and in a daze, he seemed to see the demeanor of the first female war goddess of the celestial realm again. He kept probing Yun Tianjiao with his divine sense, but no matter what he did, he could not see the divine aura of Yu Meng on her.

This is not a dream, this is not a dream.

He repeatedly warned himself, but he couldn't take his eyes off the owner of the vajra.

Zhiwei was already exceptionally gifted in cultivation, and the richness of spiritual energy here was something he had never seen in his entire life. Even resilient weeds can grow wildly in barren soil, let alone be transplanted to fertile soil overnight.

While silently reciting the incantation and absorbing spiritual energy to the maximum extent possible to cleanse his divine meridians, he did not forget to provide assistance to Yun Tianjiao.

On one side, Yun Tianjiao unleashed his Vajra Pestle, striking at Lin Shen's vital points. On the other side, Zhiwei instantly conjured up thousands of spiderweb-like threads using array techniques, blocking all of Lin Shen's possible paths to dodge. Even though those threads were quickly shattered by Lin Shen, he still suffered a heavy blow from the Vajra Pestle due to the momentary sluggishness in his movements.

Such tacit cooperation continued to unfold between the two sides. However, as the battle deepened, they were constantly hampered, growing increasingly agitated and impatient.

Having been struck again, Lin Shen's eyes turned bloodshot, and he asked Yun Tianjiao in a vicious voice, "Your Highness, are you trying to kill me?"

Yun Tianjiao's reply was uncompromising: "A life for a life! As a god, your murder of a mortal is an unforgivable crime, intolerable by the laws of heaven!"

Their personalities are so similar...

Lin Shen couldn't help but think of that person again, and the black demonic energy that had been suppressed on his body began to dissipate once more.

"Why, why can't you be flexible... If you hadn't been like this back then, why would I have treated you like that..." he muttered, seemingly no longer able to distinguish who was in front of him.

As the black mist surrounding Lin Shen grew thicker, Yun Tianjiao became increasingly vigilant. "Zhiwei, is he about to suffer a qi deviation?"

But this time, Zhiwei did not respond to her as she had before.

Yun Tianjiao turned around and saw that Zhiwei had actually entered a meditative state, which meant that he had reached a critical moment for a breakthrough.

Her delicate brows furrowed slightly, a sense of foreboding creeping into her heart. She withdrew her vajra and stood protectively in front of the two, preparing to defend instead of attack, prioritizing helping Zhiwei protect the Dharma.

However, Lin Shen also noticed Zhiwei's unusual behavior.

"Why, why is it that every time you protect someone, it's not me... Why, when we've both been guarding the pillar of heaven and accompanied each other for hundreds of years, are you so cold and indifferent to me alone..."

He seemed to be thinking of something, mistaking Yun Tianjiao for Yu Meng again, and his eyes filled with boundless hatred as he looked at Zhiwei.

"You forced me to do this, you forced me to do this..."

With a flick of his wrist, the longsword vanished into nothingness. He flipped his palms, gathering extremely strong spiritual power, and the enormous golden body of the Celestial Venerable, which could almost fill the entire dungeon, instantly unfolded behind him.

The Dharma form radiated dazzling divine light, so sacred that it was impossible to look directly at it. It slowly opened its eyes, indifferently looking down at Yun Tianjiao and Zhiwei, who were like ants on the ground, and then lightly extended a single index finger, pressing it towards them as if crushing a small insect.

Yun Tianjiao felt unprecedented pressure. The Vajra pestle in front of him trembled violently, as if it could not withstand the pressure of the Heavenly Venerable.

The Heavenly Venerable's image is compassionate and righteous, yet his pressing finger shows no mercy.

Yun Tianjiao's skin began to crack, like broken porcelain, with faint golden light emanating from the cracks.

Zhiwei, I think I can't hold on much longer... How much longer do you need...?

Zhiwei kept her eyes tightly closed, her eyeballs rolling rapidly under her eyelids, seemingly in great urgency. However, one cannot afford to be distracted when breaking through to the Divine Essence of a Celestial God; otherwise, the consequences would be unimaginable.

Just as Yun Tianjiao thought he was going to die here with Zhiwei, hundreds of oil-paper umbrellas appeared in mid-air at high speed, flew to the two of them, and gathered into a huge umbrella that was comparable to the Heavenly Venerable's Dharma Image, blocking the Heavenly Venerable's Dharma Image's pressed finger back.

Lin Shen seemed to have suffered a severe injury, spitting out blood and staggering back a few steps before the Heavenly Venerable's Dharma form disappeared.

At the same time, the giant paper umbrella shattered into thousands of crimson light fragments, and the God of Yuli fell from mid-air, also vomiting a mouthful of blood.

"Yu Li, what are you trying to do? Are you trying to rebel?!"

Lin Shen clutched his chest, staring at Yu Li with a sinister gaze. He never expected that this usually unassuming, humble, and almost invisible goddess, the last remaining goddess of the celestial realm, would inflict such a heavy blow on him at this moment.

Yu Li wanted to say something, but then vomited a mouthful of blood. Clearly, she was more seriously injured than Lin Shen in their recent fight.

"How dare you betray me..." Lin Shen was filled with hatred and struck Yu Li with a palm from a distance.

Just then, Zhiwei suddenly opened her eyes and successfully completed the breakthrough from Immortal Venerable to God Venerable, blocking the palm strike for Yuli.

After catching his breath, Yun Tianjiao circulated his ghostly power, and the almost cracked marks on his body gradually disappeared. He quickly bent down to check on Yu Li.

"Lord Yuli, are you alright?"

Yu Li Goddess looked extremely weak. She leaned against Yun Tianjiao's chest, looked up at her, and there was a hint of relief in her eyes. "I have always felt guilty for not being able to testify for you back then. Considering that I have been protecting your soul and spirit all these years, Yu Meng... could you forgive me?"

Yun Tianjiao didn't understand the meaning of Yu Li God Venerable's words for a moment, but she was soon stunned.

That familiar feeling is back again.

She had experienced this feeling once before after being knocked unconscious by Zhiwei and then waking up.

Something seemed to float away from my body, like a thin veil that I've worn since birth, suddenly lifted up by the wind.

However, this time was different from the last time. The veil was no longer lifted briefly, but completely peeled off.

Lin Shen's gaze suddenly shifted to Yun Tianjiao, a hint of surprise flashing in his eyes before quickly darkening again.

"It really is you, Yu Meng, you're still alive." Lin Shen suddenly laughed, which aggravated his internal injuries, causing him to cough violently until tears streamed down his face. "It really is you..."

Yu Li stared coldly at Lin Shen, her eyes devoid of any former respect for the Heavenly Venerable. She looked at him with utter disgust and sneered, "Lin Shen, how dare you call Yu Meng's name? Back then, you were mediocre, and to secure your position as Crown Prince, you used the Heavenly Pillar to cultivate with evil techniques, which caused the pillar to break. You could use threats and bribes to silence everyone, but you dared not drag Yu Meng and Kenian into this mess. That's why you set up a scheme to slander Yu Meng, driving them to their doom. How dare you utter her name again?!"

Lin Shen laughed loudly, "You're playing the good guy here. If it weren't for your testimony, Yu Meng wouldn't have been convicted in the end. How much better are you than me?"

Yu Li shed two tears, saying bitterly, "I only hate myself for being cowardly back then, for not having the courage to stand up and clear Yu Meng's name. I feared your status as the Crown Prince, and I worried about the Heavenly Venerable's favoritism back then. Even if I told the truth, I couldn't protect Yu Meng, and I would only implicate myself. But all these years I have suffered retribution, living day and night in self-blame and regret. But you, Lin Shen, have you ever felt ashamed of the sins you have committed?"

"Ashamed? How could he feel ashamed?"

This time, it was Yun Tianjiao who sneered. She conjured up a recliner, carried Yu Li onto it and settled her in, then turned to face Lin Shen.

Only then did she finally understand why she had been wronged back then.

She originally thought that the breaking of the Heavenly Pillar was just a coincidence, and that the Heavenly Court was just looking for a scapegoat, so they forcibly pinned the crime of destroying the Heavenly Pillar on her. However, she did not expect that she would be so tough and would go all the way and cut the Heavenly Pillar in half.

Unexpectedly, there was another hidden story behind this, and the culprit turned out to be Lin Shen.

Now everything makes sense, and it's no wonder that apart from Ke Nian, the others gave false testimony.

Since it involves both old and new grudges, today is the perfect time to settle them all at once.

“Yu Meng, how do you know I haven’t regretted it all these years? You and I were quite close back then, so you should understand my predicament. As the Crown Prince, my cultivation has never been outstanding. If I were to inherit the position of Heavenly Venerable in the future, how could I win the hearts of the people? Back then, the Ghost King Yan Lie of the Netherworld was a warlike and bloodthirsty man. I had no choice but to take this measure. If you weren’t so upright and incorruptible, I wouldn’t have resorted to this.”

Lin Shen spoke with utmost sincerity, seemingly genuinely remorse for his crimes, but to Yun Tianjiao, it was nothing more than a joke.

“Lin Shen, you are wicked and only think of yourself. Don’t bother with any excuses. If you had even a shred of conscience left, you wouldn’t have committed patricide and usurped the throne.”

Lin Shen narrowed his eyes. Yuan Si Tianzun died suddenly back then. Although there were occasional speculations from the outside world, he had cleared them all away. Now that so many years have passed, no one has doubted it anymore. Why would Yu Meng, who has been gone for many years, suddenly bring it up again?

Yun Tianjiao smiled. "What, don't you remember me? I'm your little sister Meng."

Lin Shen's pupils contracted slightly, and his face showed an expression of near horror.

"You...you are..."

“That’s right, I am the Ghost Princess from back then, A Meng.” Yun Tianjiao said as he walked towards Lin Shen, but Lin Shen retreated step by step as if he had seen a living ghost.

"I am the one you have always been wary of, the one you are worried about, the one who is the illegitimate child of Yuan Si Tianzun and his sweetheart, the one who is suspected to be your half-sister."

Then came the sound of footsteps; it was Mo Bei and Gong Xin.

"Is it the God of Desire Dreams?" The two were clearly drawn by the undisguised soul and divine aura emanating from Yun Tianjiao, but upon witnessing the horrific aftermath of the battlefield, they were both stunned.

Yun Tianjiao did not turn around to look at the two of them, but kept her eyes fixed on Lin Shen's. She put away the Vajra Pestle and instead summoned back the Demon-Slaying Blade, pointing the blade at Lin Shen.

"You are actually...A-Meng..."

For a moment, countless thoughts flashed through Lin Shen's mind, but none of these thoughts lingered in his mind for long, until only one remained—

He almost married her.

"Back then, you didn't have any ulterior motives for framing me, did you?" Yun Tianjiao's bright and beautiful eyes were sharp as knives, mercilessly peeling away Lin Shen's layers of hypocrisy. "You were clearly afraid that Yuan Si Tianzun would pass the position to a more powerful god-king. And back then, among all the god-kings, I was the strongest. Even without the breaking of the Heavenly Pillar, you would probably have tried to get rid of me, wouldn't you?"

Lin Shen's face was ashen, but he couldn't help but curl the corners of his lips into a smile, and his eyes shone with admiration as he looked at Yun Tianjiao.

His long-suppressed, secret thoughts, which he dared not tell outsiders, were thus exposed by her in front of everyone. Amidst his panic and embarrassment, he also felt a sense of relief.

After all, no one wants to keep a rotten, foul-smelling sore inside their body forever.

"You know that Yuan Si Tianzun and Zhu Miao had a past relationship. Princess Guiyu might be Tianzun's daughter. Fearing that she would threaten your position as crown prince, she used the pretext of a marriage alliance to trick me into going to the Heavenly Realm. Then she used someone else to kill Yuan Si Tianzun and then falsely accused Guiyu's people of killing Tianzun. What a clever scheme."

Yun Tianjiao continued to recount Lin Shen's evil deeds, to which Lin Shen remained silent, leaving the two gods behind, Mo Bei and Gong Xin, completely bewildered.

"And now you've probably discovered that Immortal Lord Zhujing might be a fragment of the Heavenly Pillar, so you plotted against him at the Ascension Ceremony and even killed Shen Qiongzhi to silence her..."

In fact, Yun Tianjiao had begun to speculate as soon as she entered the palace that only the Heavenly Pillar possessed such a continuous flow of spiritual energy since the beginning of creation. Since the source of this spiritual energy was the body of Immortal Lord Zhu Jing, she was very likely related to the Heavenly Pillar. Back then, she was able to reincarnate as a human again with only a trace of her remaining divine essence, so Zhu Jing must have been able to do something similar.

"I didn't intentionally frame Zhu Jing." Lin Shen finally interrupted Yun Tianjiao. He seemed to have recovered from the initial emotional shock. He calmly dusted off his sleeves and straightened the hem of his divine robe. "Back then, I cultivated using unorthodox techniques and fell into a demonic possession. It has flared up many times over the years. During the Ascension Ceremony, it was just a demonic possession. By the time I came to my senses, I had already killed the Prime Minister's daughter. I had no choice but to find a scapegoat. But I never expected that this scapegoat would have such a wonderful purpose."

As Lin Shen finished speaking, he laughed triumphantly. At this moment, the demonic energy emanating from his body had spread to his face, making his smile appear even more sinister and terrifying.

"Look, Yu Meng, even the heavens are helping me." Lin Shen said, looking at Zhu Jing, and subconsciously licked his lips. "As long as she's here, this bit of demonic energy in my body will soon be refined away, and my cultivation will advance by leaps and bounds. I will become the strongest Celestial Venerable since the creation of the world, and eventually unify the Three Realms, invincible. If you are willing to submit and marry me, I am willing to share these Three Realms with you, is that alright?"

Yun Tianjiao was disgusted, but before she could even open her mouth to curse, Zhiwei said nonchalantly, "Stop dreaming. Who here isn't more talented than you? With Zhu Jing, anyone can easily make leaps and bounds and crush you."

"..."

Lin Shen's face instantly turned extremely ugly, as if someone had stuffed his mouth full of excrement.

Even the usually gentle and virtuous Goddess Yuli looked at Zhiwei with an almost worshipful gaze.

When it comes to getting to the heart of someone's problem, Zhiwei claims to be second to none.

Lin Shen went berserk, and this time Zhiwei stopped dodging and fought him to the death. However, Lin Shen was, after all, a Celestial Venerable who had reached the level of a God Venerable hundreds of years ago. Compared with Zhiwei, who had just been promoted to God Venerable, he was still slightly inferior.

Yun Tianjiao also joined the battle, and the two of them fought to a draw, with two against one.

Yu Li was too badly injured to fight anymore, so he urged Mo Bei and Gong Xin, who were standing nearby, "What are you two still watching for? Lin Shen has already fallen into the demonic path. Do you want to continue to aid and abet evil?"

Seeing that the demonic energy on Lin Shen's body was getting heavier and heavier, and that another demon was about to be born, Mo Bei and Gong Xin exchanged a glance and finally stopped hesitating. One of them carried a palace lantern and the other carried a clay pot, and they went to help Yun Tianjiao and Zhiwei.

Seeing that Mo Bei and Gong Xin had defected, Lin Shen knew he would suffer losses in a prolonged battle. He secretly shifted his gaze to Zhu Jing, who was standing to the side. Suddenly, he feinted with his gun and, taking advantage of the others' distraction, quickly darted toward Zhu Jing, intending to take the scroll and escape with her.

However, just as he was about to succeed, a dark shadow suddenly flashed in front of him, followed by a sharp pain in his chest. A ghostly claw had actually reached into his chest and grabbed his divine essence!

Without hesitation, the five ghostly fingers clenched tightly, crushing his divine essence into powder.

Lin Shen stared at the girl's face in front of him. It was somewhat unfamiliar, yet it felt as if he had seen it somewhere before.

"you……"

He wanted to say something, but he was so shocked that he didn't know what to say for a moment.

"I smelled your scent. You're the one who killed me." Shen Qiongzhi stared directly into Lin Shen's eyes and declared resolutely, "I told you, Immortal Lord Zhu Jing is innocent!"

She shielded Zhu Jing with her own body, protecting the deity she worshipped at the last moment. The overflowing ghostly power made her hair and skirt flutter wildly, making her look like a fierce and unapproachable demon. In fact, she was suffering from the burning of spiritual energy almost every moment, enduring excruciating pain, yet her gaze remained firm and blazing.

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Author's Note: Thumbs up for Miss Shen! The next chapter will be the last chapter of this volume, marking the beginning of a new volume: [Tales of the Immortal Sect].