Chapter 159: All Four Sects Revealed

"Buzz..."

Around Jiang Yan's body, invisible spiritual consciousness sliced through the air, producing a dense barrage of whistling sounds.

The towering tree grown from the Azure Wood Vine remained completely intact, save for the myriad of varying-sized dents scattered across its surface. The verdant vitality meandering across the cyan trunk continued to flow, warm and lustrous like jade.

Behind Ximen Nayan, the two green-robed disciples of the Xixia Sect had already fallen. Although both possessed the strength of the early Foundation Establishment stage, facing the third-grade Seven Stars in a Row, they could only watch helplessly as the Azure Wood Arrows pierced through their spiritual armor defenses, meeting their doom beneath the arrows.

A mountain wind blew, fluttering Ximen Nayan's white hair and his green robes, which began to billow in the gale, veering over the long sword with which he leaned upon, panting heavily.

Jiang Yan stood quietly with his hands clasped behind his back, the cyan tree transformed from the Azure Wood Vine before him, and the gracefully smiling Zisu standing behind him.

"Ximen Nayan, if you have any last words, this sovereign can pass them on for you. As for your belongings, forget it—those are my spoils of war," Jiang Yan said calmly, standing with his hands behind his back.

"You..."

Ximen Nayan suddenly reached out, his hair and beard standing on end in fury as he pointed a trembling finger at Jiang Yan. Judging by his expression, he wished he could tear Jiang Yan into ten thousand pieces.

"Winners become monarchs and losers become bandits. Ximen Nayan, since you came to kill Jiang, surely you understood that those who kill are destined to be killed in return," Zisu said coldly, emphasizing every single word.

"Puff..."

A mouthful of blood spewed from Ximen Nayan's mouth as he dropped to his knees. His eyes were brimming with hatred; grinding his teeth with a ferocious expression, he rasped, "Jiang Yan, consider yourself lucky to have such a life! To think you are a first-grade talisman master! If you weren't a first-grade talisman master, how could this old man have lost? How could I have lost..."

Ximen Nayan roared up to the heavens, his voice carrying far down from the mid-mountain side, echoing through the East Wood Mountains and startling a flock of roosting birds and beasts in the forest.

"This old man is not reconciled!" Ximen Nayan suddenly lowered his head, his eyes flickering with a dark, gloomy light as he stared intently at Jiang Yan.

Jiang Yan suddenly waved his hand, signaling Zisu to step back. In his spiritual perception, the spiritual Qi surrounding Ximen Nayan was beginning to fluctuate violently. Drawn by some invisible traction, the spiritual Qi rushed like a madman toward the kneeling Ximen Nayan.

"Whoosh... Whoosh..."

Because the spiritual Qi surged with such immense velocity, it dragged the surrounding air along with it, creating the chilling whistle unique to a cold gale blowing through the atmosphere.

"Clatter, clatter..."

Drawn by the wildly surging spiritual Qi, the leaves on the Azure Wood Vine tree—leaves that had remained completely motionless despite the howling mountain winds—suddenly began to rustle violently.

"Flap, flap..."

The corners of Jiang Yan's robes lifted. Due to the terrifying speed of the spiritual Qi's surge, his garments were whipped into a frenzy, fluttering so rapidly that they produced a dense barrage of snaps in the air.

"Little bastard, since I am dying, you needn't hope for an easy way out either. Ah哈哈哈..."

Amidst the swirling vortex of dust and wind whipping around his body, Ximen Nayan stubbornly stood back up. Fresh blood continued to pour from the corners of his mouth, staining his floating white beard red. With his white hair flying wildly and his appearance turned savage, Ximen Nayan shrieked as he marched toward Jiang Yan.

"Tomorrow of next year shall surely be this old man's death anniversary, and you, Jiang Yan, shall not escape either!"

The surging spiritual power finally came to a halt. The muscles on Ximen Nayan's face completely distorted; the blood at the corners of his mouth, his venomous gaze, his wrinkles entirely smoothed away on his aged face, and his forehead glowing with a golden radiance...

Jiang Yan's eyelid twitched. It looked like this old man Ximen Nayan was pulling out a fatal trump card, willing to perish together with him.

He pressed his palm slowly against the Azure Wood Vine tree, channeling wood-elemental spiritual power instantly into the cyan trunk, sending it surging straight toward the crown...

"Bang..."

A plume of blood violently erupted from Ximen Nayan's body without warning...

"Little Jiang Yan, go to hell!" Amidst the towering crimson light, Ximen Nayan wore a sickly flush, laughing ferociously and maniacally.

"Bang..."

A mighty wave of golden spiritual power suddenly materialized. A golden cloud laced with blood-red hues abruptly manifested before everyone's eyes, and then burst violently. The golden spiritual power, mixed with fragments of flesh and blood, erupted outward with a deafening, explosive shriek through the air...

...

"Damn it, to think this old fellow was actually driven to self-detonation!" A vexed curse drifted down from the cliff on the side of the mountain path. High upon the precipice, a middle-aged, whiskered man in crimson robes registered his extreme astonishment on his dark, rugged face.

Behind the whiskered man, a youth in red snapped his folding fan shut with a sharp *clack*, tapping it rhythmically against his arm as he spoke in a tone dripping with disbelief, "To be able to execute such a move... that Mount Hua Sect Leader is likely more than just a first-grade talisman master."

The dark-faced, whiskered man paused, asking with unconvinced skepticism, "Not a first-grade talisman master? Could he be a second-grade talisman master?! Impossible, impossible! When has our Tianyue Realm ever been able to nurture a second-grade talisman master? Impossible! Li Ruohan of the Tiannan Sword Sect is only at the first-grade peak himself and hasn't crossed into the second grade; for this kid, it's impossible."

The red-robed youth ignored the self-talking, whiskered man, tapping his fan a few times in his hand. His brow furrowing, he stated with absolute finality, "Send word down: have the major elders in the rear withdraw immediately. No further interception of the Mount Hua disciples is permitted."

The whiskered man's expression darkened as he asked incredulously, "But Young Master, we've already accepted a hefty sum of spiritual stones from the Golden Flame Sect. Isn't this going back on our word..."

The red-robed youth snapped his folding fan open with a *swish*, shaking it twice as he replied with unshakeable confidence, "We are not the Xixia Sect. Figures at the peak of the Great Perfection of Foundation Establishment are not so plentiful even in my Naming Wuji Sect. Have them all pull back. The waters in this East Wood District run a bit deep. If we try to wade through it blindly, we're bound to lose quite a few experts. Isn't the Northern Plains Sect still behind us? Let them take the brunt first."

The whiskered man's face lit up with delight as realization dawned on him. "A fisherman reaping the profit—Young Master is truly wise." With that, the whiskered man flicked his body and vanished swiftly behind the youth.

Simultaneously, on a mountain path atop the stone steps, a middle-aged man in black sitting cross-legged suddenly jerked awake. Opening his eyes, he spoke urgently to the black-robed youth standing at his side, "Fenglin, pass down the order: instruct all disciples to retreat completely and forbid any engagement with the Mount Hua disciples."

Seeing the black-robed youth depart, the middle-aged man wiped the sweat from his forehead and reached out to grasp an orb emitting an ink-dark glow suspended right before his eyes. Had Jiang Yan been present here, he would undoubtedly have recognized it as a Hundred-Illusion Spirit Pearl, an artifact used for close-range intelligence gathering that possessed functions identical to the Thousand-Illusion Crystal Ball.

...

"Swish..."

Just as Jiang Yan's spiritual power poured into the crown of the Azure Wood tree, a cyan radiance suddenly cascaded from the edge of the tree's canopy. A circle of crystal-clear, transparent light curtain tightly shielded Jiang Yan and Zisu standing beneath the tree.

The golden cloud tinged with blood-red crashed against the crystal light curtain, stirring up a flurry of ripples. The ripples spread like water across the entire surface of the giant tree.

"Wuwu..."

As the light curtain blocked the blood-red golden clouds, friction and impact generated a low, rumbling roar. As the golden shockwave continued to batter it, the transparent light curtain gradually distorted, stretching out into a long, spindle-shaped point like an awl piercing into jelly.

"Clack..."

The crystalline light curtain finally shattered. Like glass pushed to its absolute limit against an external force, the barrier in front of Jiang Yan fractured instantly into a myriad of pieces, transforming back into spiritual energy that fluttered across the sky.

"Swish..."

The towering Azure Wood giant tree instantly shrank by a notch.

In Zisu's astonished gaze, the tree formed by the Azure Wood Vine rapidly diminished. In the brief moment it took for the crystalline barrier to shatter, the giant tree had already reverted to its original half-human height, and the cyan radiance on its surface appeared noticeably dimmer.

Jiang Yan stroked the Azure Wood Vine on his arm with a pang of heartache. Ximen Nayan's desperate, dying strike had ultimately damaged this spiritually responsive spiritual weapon. Thinking of the immense inconvenience of wielding other spiritual weapons with this one damaged, Jiang Yan felt rather annoyed that he hadn't simply displayed his second-grade talisman master strength from the start; facing a genuine second-grade talisman master, Ximen Nayan wouldn't even have had the chance to detonate himself.

"Buzz..."

After a flash of cyan light across the sea of spiritual consciousness between Jiang Yan's brows, his spiritual consciousness—now twice the thickness of a strand of hair—surged forth like a breached reservoir. In the blink of an eye, a spindle-shaped cocoon took form right in front of Jiang Yan. It was precisely one of the techniques from the Divine Cocoon Art—Transforming the Divine into a Cocoon.

The spiritual impact generated by Ximen Nayan's self-detonation was predictably blocked outside by the cocoon. Faced with this technique of Jiang Yan's, even a living Ximen Nayan might not have found a way through, let alone the residual shockwave of his own self-destruction.

Having slain Ximen Nayan of the Xixia Sect, Jiang Yan led Zisu all the way forward, heading straight for the core area of this third-grade sect gathering—the Martial Arts Stage in front of the Sword Qi Hall.

By the time Jiang Yan arrived beneath the stage, Ning Qian was already standing there looking refreshed. Having taken a few Qi Gathering Pills, aided further by Tang Wan's Azure Wood Spirit-Transforming Art, the fatigue and spiritual exhaustion accumulated from successive intense battles were swept away in a flash.

Seeing Jiang Yan and Zisu arrive, Ning Qian and the rest of the Mount Hua disciples respectfully bowed in unison. "This disciple pays respects to Master."

Jiang Yan waved his hand, signaling them to dispense with the formalities, and turned his gaze toward the stage.

In the center of the martial arts stage, Mu Yun and Xie Wenxuan were locked in fierce combat. Their figures were agile, darting back and forth across the arena like butterflies weaving through flowers. A golden and a yellow phantom circled the leaping combatants, the sound of clashing spiritual weapons ringing out across the venue from time to time.

Behind Mu Yun stood his apprentice, Sun Yang, and further back, near the railing, stood Tang Wan with her graceful poise. Perched upon a fractured section of the stone railing sat the delicately carved little girl, Yun Ying. Supporting her chin with her small hands, she dangled her little legs back and forth, wondering idly why her eldest senior brother hadn't arrived yet, completely ignoring the bizarre, hair-trigger tension filling the arena.