Chapter 33 Illusory Dream (Part 3) The Inconspicuous Core of the Array.
Outside the Dream Array—
There were simply too many demons in the Blood Peach Forest. For every one they killed, two more would appear, not to mention the many more trying to infiltrate from the outer perimeter. To better cope with this, Qinghe and Jiuquchen led their disciples in two groups: Qinghe was responsible for the high-level demons, while Jiuquchen's group was responsible for the mid-to-low-level ones.
"Why did they all suddenly appear?!" Shen Wan swung her sword and slashed at a demon, then took a few steps back and switched directions with Xie Yuzhou. She then flew in circles to Duanmu Tingzhu's side, removing the threat behind him.
Duanmu Tingzhu was writing communication talismans rapidly in his hand. He looked unwell after seeing something, and even his hands were trembling.
Shen Wan asked him, "How is Senior Sister?"
Before Duanmu could reply, a high-level demon pounced from behind. Shen Wan's expression hardened, and she grabbed Duanmu by the shoulder and threw him aside.
"Senior brother, help me!"
Xie Yuzhou had just stabbed his sword into the eye of a demon when he heard Shen Wan's call. He immediately flipped over using the hilt of his sword and slapped her from behind.
At the same time, Shen Wan flew forward and plunged her slender sword straight into the monster's back.
Click!
A horrifying gash appeared on the monster's back. It cried out in pain, howling and wildly thrashing its tail in all directions. Shen Wan gripped the sword hilt tightly, refusing to let go no matter how the monster swung.
But this monster was incredibly strong. It spun Shen Wan around several times, almost shaking her brains to a pulp.
"Senior brother...you poked it!" Shen Wan gagged. "I'm going to throw up!"
Xie Yuzhou used the momentum to deliver a flying kick to the demon's eyes, then punched it in the nose, summoning his sword while it was stunned.
"Kaguya!"
The blue sword arrived in response, flying to Shen Wan's front. The latter reached out, took it, and plunged it into the crack.
"Me too, the lifeless water!"
Guda rushed over with a shout. Shen Wan was startled by the large ball of lifeless water in its hand. She let out a "Heave-ho" and rolled off the monster's back, lifting Guda's hand and protecting it as it leaped into a large pit nearby.
thump!
The moment the Water of No Life touched the demon, the rift opened up, the two slender swords were knocked away, and the demon exploded on the spot, stirring up waves of spiritual energy.
Monsters within a hundred meters were also blasted away, their scales, tentacles, and horns scattered everywhere.
"Luckily, I reacted quickly." Shen Wan popped her head out of the pit, climbed up with Xie Yuzhou's help, looked left and right, and asked curiously, "Where's Tingzhu?"
She had just thrown the person under the tree.
Guda choked on the dust that had just been kicked up, and frowned, saying, "I don't know."
Xie Yuzhou frowned slightly. He took half a step back, but suddenly felt that the ground was uneven, as if he had stepped on something.
"His bag!" Shen Wan exclaimed in shock. She grabbed the cloth bag from the ground and patted it hard.
The cloth bag was still intact, only stained with some blood and dust. Shen Wan opened it and found a pile of brand-new talisman papers inside.
"The bag's here, but where is he?" Gudako asked, leaning closer.
Shen Wan suddenly felt a little panicked: "What talisman cultivator would abandon their own talisman paper?"
Moreover, this is someone like Duanmu, who would yell and scream if asked for just a talisman.
"What's wrong?" Qinghe approached, sword in hand, after dealing with the monsters.
Shen Wan said urgently, "Tingzhu is missing!"
"Tingzhu has also disappeared?" Jiuquchen shook his numb hands. Ever since he learned that Qingxing was missing, his heart had been hanging in suspense, and now it was pounding wildly.
What kind of broken magic array is this?! How could it steal someone away right under a group of people's noses?
For the first time, he was annoyed by his laziness in cultivation, which ultimately prevented him from even protecting his disciple.
Guda hesitated, "What if I accidentally enter the magic circle like my master?"
Wenren Xi twirled the silk thread in his hand, frowning slightly upon hearing this: "It shouldn't be. The thread isn't broken, it's just loose."
Where would she go then? Duanmu Tingzhu wouldn't be the kind of person to run away without a word.
Shen Wan's voice trembled with tears: "I should have pulled him back!"
"Don't panic," Qinghe said decisively, "Let's split up and search."
After saying that, he quickly made a communication talisman and sent a letter to the Duanmu family:
"Qingxing and Tingzhu have gone missing. We request that the head of the family send more people."
The communication talisman instantly burned, and he wrote another one for Xuan Ying:
"Hurry to the Blood Peach Forest, head southwest."
After doing all this, he raised his hand and tossed the compass to Shen Wan: "Wenren Xi and I will head southeast, and Jiu Qu Chen will take you to the northwest."
Inside the Dream Array—
"Breaking through the thunder and lightning!"
Qingxing raised her hand and smashed a peach tree, its dark red juice splattering out and covering her completely.
She leaped onto the cross-section of the tree stump, glancing back at the swarming crowd behind her—led by Duanmu Rui, those guys from Wuning Village with the surname "Duanmu" were running in a contorted posture toward her.
The tree stump underfoot was still dripping liquid, and the pungent smell of blood filled my nostrils.
Qingxing glanced at the red clouds above. The sudden change had happened too quickly. Just as Duanmu Rui finished saying those chilling words, the world hummed, the surrounding scenery flipped, and Peach Blossom Valley turned back into Blood Peach Forest.
It wasn't the one she had just arrived at, but the Blood Peach Forest from the great war between humans and demons five hundred years ago.
The ground was covered with monster remnants and undried blood.
Without hesitation, she took off running. But these guys were clearly not human; they chased her for most of the peach orchard without stopping for a second, not even panting.
After going around in circles, she still couldn't find anything resembling a "strategic point".
This illusion array is so large that it must have taken the artist considerable effort to maintain it from being easily destroyed.
The key to that formation must be something that ordinary people cannot easily perceive or see.
As Qingxing pondered this, the villagers' strange cries of "Ah la la" kept assaulting her eardrums, getting closer and closer to her.
She looked up and faced the crowd in front of her.
Hundreds of identical eyes stared wide-eyed, like embers raised in the dead of night, resentfully closing in on her, determined to gather together and set her ablaze.
A foul stench rushed in, and the surrounding air heated up again, almost to the point of boiling.
The situation was somewhat critical, but Qingxing didn't move; she just stared at them. She seemed to have caught something subtle, and the truth about the Dream Array was about to surface.
The heat burned her cheeks as she looked at the ground riddled with deep craters, and suddenly a thought struck her—
From the moment she stepped into Wuning Village, she felt an inexplicable eeriness in the atmosphere. Now it seemed that this eeriness came precisely from the villagers before her.
Despite their different appearances and builds, their expressions and walking postures were completely identical.
She hadn't taken it to heart, assuming that the person who drew the array had simply overlooked the details, which was why the "person" was depicted so stiffly.
But... Qingxing raised her hand and pinched a peach blossom petal.
She had just been chased through almost the entire peach orchard and discovered that although the peach trees looked the same from a distance, upon closer inspection, each one had its own unique growth posture: some were thick, some were slender, some were straight, some were crooked... their shapes were so realistic, as if they had truly taken root here for a hundred years.
It doesn't make logical sense that the people who create the array are willing to replicate Peach Blossom Valley so perfectly, yet they are unwilling to put effort into the villagers of Wuning Village.
There is probably another reason.
Since it is neither a living person nor a demon, Qingxing has only ever seen it behave in this way with puppet cultivators.
Duanmu Rui's fingertips had already touched the hem of her clothes. She swept the Unending Wood forward with force, and a flash of blue light appeared. The people in the innermost circle were knocked down and knelt down in a flurry.
She grabbed Duanmu Rui by the collar and lifted him up.
"A-Rui?"
The "person" in front of her naturally wouldn't respond to her. He struggled, clutching Qingxing's clothes tightly, as if trying to drag her somewhere.
Qingxing sighed softly, then used the inexhaustible wood as a sword to swiftly slash diagonally two inches from his head.
"Click!"
With a crisp sound, as if an invisible thread had snapped, Duanmu Rui stopped moving instantly.
His neck was bent in half, and his head drooped down, like a puppet that had lost control.
Qingxing was stunned for a moment before slowly letting go.
Just as she suspected, the villagers of Wuning Village were all puppets made from the skins and personalities of living people.
And the core of the formation...
Qingxing covered her eyes with her right hand, lightly touched her right arm with the fingertips of her left hand, and slowly moved forward inch by inch.
"A single line of ghost lanterns reveals both yin and yang."
As the incantation was uttered, a red thread appeared from the right hand, spreading to the tip of the middle finger, breaking through the skin and flesh, and floating in the air drop by drop, gradually merging into one and then unfolding, turning into a translucent veil.
A thin veil floated before Qingxing's eyes. Qingxing stared intently at it, and many reflective spots appeared in mid-air.
"Open your spiritual eye!"
The thin veil stretched straight instantly, instinctively binding Qingxing's eyes. Under the spiritual eye, the puppet's strings were fully exposed, hundreds of silver threads overflowing from the villagers' heads and limbs, gleaming coldly in the dim sunlight.
Qingxing gripped the Endless Wood tightly in her right hand and swung it forward with a fierce chop.
Sizzle! Sizzle!
Countless threads were cut apart by the sharp spiritual power. The villagers below, who had been howling just moments before, suddenly collapsed in heaps without warning, turning into pieces of damp, moldy wood.
Qingxing did not stop. When the last silver thread broke, the world suddenly trembled, and the ground beneath her feet cracked inch by inch. A sharp roar came from below, as if a ferocious beast was struggling to break free of its shackles and leap out.
The array's core has been broken, and the Illusionary Dream Array is gradually collapsing. The sky is fading, and a fierce wind is raging all around, blowing up countless specks of dust that are slapping against Qingxing's body.
The red gauze before her eyes transformed into twinkling starlight. Qingxing stood on the treetop, coldly gazing at the abyss below.
It was a gaping, dark maw, like a giant eye, staring down at everything above.
Just before returning to the Blood Peach Forest, a giant hand bearing hideous wounds swiftly reached out from the abyss, heading straight for Qingxing.
Qingxing frowned slightly and leaped towards the treetop ahead. But the hand persisted, flicking its tongue like a venomous snake, swallowing the peaches she had trampled, and even trying to devour her.
But it had no chance.
In no time, the scenery had changed completely. It was as if some irresistible force was pulling the poisonous hand from underground, and the poisonous hand was unwilling to give up and grabbed the tree crown, leaving a long string of marks on the ground.
Qingxing continued running forward, and the moment the poisonous hand disappeared, she heard a hoarse voice.
The voice was extremely ethereal, as if it came from a very distant place, carrying the bitter resentment of its owner.
"You can't run very far."
"Whose blood do you think flows in your veins?"
In an instant, the world changed, and Qingxing blinked, firmly planting her feet on the ground of the Blood Peach Forest.
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Author's Note: I just saw a reader's comment!
My computer isn't with me right now, and I don't know why I can't reply on my phone...
Here's the thing: because the word count gets too high later on and the number of favorites doesn't keep up, it'll be harder to get on the charts. So, I'll be updating less when there are no charts. [pats head] Daily updates might have to wait until I go VIP (can I go VIP? [clown])
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