"Chief, look what that is?!" his subordinate exclaimed.

Shi Mu hurriedly came to his senses and looked at the formations under his feet and in the sky, and was shocked.

Having lived for tens of thousands of years, how could he not recognize what this was?

"A judgment formation?!" Shi Mu's voice changed.

It was still such a large judgment formation, seemingly endless.

This raises the question of whether it encompasses the entire conservative territory.

Over there, Wan Quan's face had also darkened.

"What's going on?! Wasn't Qiyan's ability affected by demonic energy? How can he still summon such a large judgment formation?!"

They knew a little about Qi Yan, only that his abilities were affected, but they didn't know that it was because his divine status was affected.

He stared intently at Qi Yan, "Qi Yan, you've gone mad! You actually betrayed the Demon Lord and want to judge us?!"

Even someone as arrogant as Qi Yan was completely subdued by their Demon Lord. Now that Qi Yan has betrayed Shen Sangruo, isn't he afraid that she will punish him again?

The radicals were shocked and puzzled by Qi Yan's actions.

"I did not betray her." Qi Yan smirked.

Shi Muwanquan looked anxiously at Chen Sangruo, wanting to say something, but seeing the faint smile in her eyes and her unmoved expression, he was immediately swayed.

Considering what she said earlier, what else don't they understand?

Buzz—

Both of them stared wide-eyed, frozen in place, as if they had suffered some enormous blow, their faces filled with disbelief.

The shock they felt at the explosion of the blood pool and the summoning of the Judgment Formation by Qi Yan were not as intense as the shock they felt at this moment.

Qi Yan was right; he had indeed not betrayed her.

Good news: His alliance with Shen Sangruo is very solid.

The bad news: But Shen Sangruo is not in cahoots with the radicals.

"You're not the Demon Lord?!" Shi Mu asked through gritted teeth, but his conflicted expression betrayed his true thoughts.

The aura emanating from her soul was clearly that of Ya Lan!

Her soul was so powerful that she could even separate Wan Quan's soul; who else but Ya Lan could do that?

But now that the facts are right there, Shi Mu can't help but start to doubt his own judgment.

"Who are you?!" Wan Quan roared at her. "Where has the real Demon Lord gone?!"

Thinking about how he and the entire radical faction had been completely outmaneuvered by her during this period, a surge of anger rushed to his head.

He, a dignified leader of the radical faction, has been a lackey of some random person for so long, fawning over him to the extreme.

Disgraceful, utterly disgraceful!

The two racked their brains but never imagined that someone would actually dare to impersonate Ya Lan.

Who exactly is she?

The conservatives suppressed their nervous expressions and stood on the same side as Shen Sangruo and the other two, facing the radicals.

The situation is already quite clear.

If radicals still can't see what's going on now, they've wasted all these years.

“You’re in cahoots with the conservatives! You’re an undercover agent for the radicals!” Wan Quan spat out these words through gritted teeth.

They thought they were the hunters, having the conservatives completely under their control, but in reality, they were the prey, and they were the ones being infiltrated all along.

"You deliberately exposed your defensive deployment to lower our guard, intentionally luring us into this formation in an attempt to wipe us out!"

Shi Mu's mind was racing with speculations, and his thoughts had never been so clear before.

Such a large-scale judgment formation must have been summoned months in advance. Shen Sangruo and the others had planned it all along, but they were still kept in the dark.

Shen Sanruo nodded slightly and said to Shi Mu in the same tone as Ya Lan, "You guessed right."

Shi Mu, however, did not show the joy he usually felt when praised; instead, his expression was extremely unpleasant.

But if she weren't Ya Lan, where would she get the ability to persuade Qi Yan?

Even if she is not Ya Lan, the spiritual aura of Ya Lan on her body is unmistakable, she must have had contact with Ya Lan!

A sense of foreboding crept into his heart, and disregarding everything else, Shi Mu hurriedly asked:

"Who are you?! Where is our Demon Lord?! What have you done to our Demon Lord?!"

"Are you from the Hall of Ten Thousand Spirits?! Or an elder from some sect?! Or perhaps your number one cultivator, True Person Lingxiao?!"

Shen Sangruo's deeds were truly beyond the reach of ordinary people, so he subconsciously tried to align himself with those prominent figures in the cultivation world.

News doesn't circulate in the Misty Valley, so they still believe that the number one cultivator is True Person Lingxiao.

At this point, she no longer hid it.

"I am just an ordinary cultivator in the cultivation world. Perhaps some of you have heard of the name of my sect."

With her smile unchanged, she paused, then said, "The young sect master of Ninghua Sect, Shen Sangruo."

"Ninghua Sect?"

Shi Mu, Shang Qing, Shi Yi, and others who had experienced the great chaos reacted and spoke up in unison.

His expression became even more surprised.

They knew all too well the fates of the Ninghua Sect and the Taichu Sect.

In the end, almost the entire Ninghua Sect perished in the chaos, and the survivors were either injured, crippled, or even sealed by formations.

However, Chen Sangruo claimed that she was the young sect master of Ninghua Sect.

He's just the young sect leader!

Shi Mu believed that those who could fight him should at least be figures like Wuwei Daoren and Changli Xianjun.

I thought her youthful face was just a disguise, but it turns out that this is really her true appearance.

He looked to be only in his early twenties, yet he had completely outmaneuvered those who had lived for thousands or even tens of thousands of years.

An immense sense of humiliation overwhelmed him.

How could that be!

"As for your Demon Lord, I did encounter him by chance, but I didn't do anything to him. I simply executed this heinous criminal who wanted to make a comeback on the spot."

Fearing that radicals might still harbor hope, she specifically added:

"It's just about devouring his soul, making it impossible for him to be resurrected."

Seeing the surprise and doubt on Shi Mu and the others' faces, they thought she was talking nonsense. With Ya Lan's soul strength, how could she possibly devour his soul?

She added, "I am indeed not that powerful. I cannot completely devour Ya Lan's soul, so a wisp of her soul remains."

"But you don't need to worry. I've already refined that remnant soul, so there's absolutely no risk of Ya Lan being resurrected."

If Shen Sang knew how to kill someone by destroying their spirit, the glimmer of hope that Shi Mu and the others had just begun to have was ruthlessly extinguished by her.

"Oh right, the reason you can mistake me for Ya Lan is because of that wisp of remnant soul."

"Xiao Hei, come out and say hello to them." She smiled broadly.

A wisp of black mist lingered around her outstretched fingertip, obediently releasing the same divine soul aura as Ya Lan.

It rarely gets the chance to leave her body, so now it's fawning over her fingertips.

It's just like a clingy little pet.