DDT - Chapter 174

Chapter 174: Immortal Venerable × Meow Meow Cat (29)

Within the illusion array, everything was proceeding in an orderly fashion. Seeing the Nine-Tailed Cat Divine Beast, who she was almost certain was her little disciple, rush recklessly into the depths of the illusion like an untamed beast, Immortal Venerable Qingyun also welcomed her own illusion after the surrounding bright white mist briefly stagnated. At the same time, Yun Qian, who had been focused on the woman he had his eyes on, discovered that he too had been unknowingly enveloped in a ball of white mist.

Seeing that the three people in the array were all "getting into the swing of things," and the white mist was gradually shrouding the entire formation, the demon cultivator sat contentedly within the spatial rift. Since he was not inside the array, as its creator, he could only sense waves of panicked and violent spiritual energy fluctuations. He was extremely confident in his ancient Soul Refining Forbidden Curse, which he had tested countless times without ever failing. At his level of cultivation, it was utterly impossible for an ordinary person to escape the array.

All he needed to do now was wait. It would only be a matter of one or two hours. For a demon cultivator like him, whose lifespan was so long it was nearly endless, it was but the blink of an eye. The demon cultivator took out his storage bag and began to search for items to deal with the tribulation lightning for his ascension to the Upper Realm, which would surely come soon after he finished refining the souls and completely possessed the divine beast's body. Although his cultivation was nearly at the standard for ascension, he would inevitably be in an extremely weakened state right after the strenuous possession of a divine beast's body. If he didn't bring out some of his ace-in-the-hole treasures and spiritual items, he worried he might be carelessly blasted to smithereens by the tribulation lightning. It was better to be safe than sorry; the demon cultivator had always made it a habit to be fully prepared.

Chi Junluo, transformed into a divine beast, had clearly lost her reason. It had to be said that in this higher-level cultivation world, the residual instincts in the original body were unprecedentedly difficult to suppress. The Heavenly Dao stood somewhat nervously above her sea of consciousness, watching everything outside. He was a first-generation Heavenly Dao, had lived long enough, and was sufficiently powerful. If he were to intervene now, although there was a risk of being discovered by this world's guardian Heavenly Dao, it wasn't entirely impossible. However, his intuition, honed by his long existence as a first-generation Heavenly Dao, told him that perhaps he shouldn't interfere now. This was Chi Junluo's own affair, her own battle. Recalling Chi Junluo's true identity, he decided not to intervene. Although this crisis seemed immense, he believed that the Main God would certainly be able to resolve it. And the Main God would surely not want him to interfere, right?

The hierarchy of power in a cultivation world was absolute and strict. Chi Junluo's original body had already suffered the torment of the Soul Refining Forbidden Curse once before in this world. Perhaps all that remained in this divine beast's body was a mere remnant of a soul. This body lacked formidable strength, and its cultivation had regressed to the point of being nearly crippled. Now, facing an enemy who had reached the pinnacle of this world's power and had deeply harmed the original owner, the suppression spanning several major realms meant that the barely conscious Chi Junluo seemed to have no chance of victory.

In just a short moment, the divine beast within the illusion was already listless from the mental attacks. The beast stopped its meaningless assaults and roars, standing dazedly in place. The white-robed figures conjured by the illusion all closed in. The part of the array directly beneath the divine beast's feet emitted an exceptionally dazzling red mist, which coiled around the beast's four limbs and gradually spread upward. The array's soul refining process had begun, and its first target was the Nine-Tailed Cat Divine Beast, which had already lost its consciousness.

The sound of the divine beast's roars seemed to have vanished. Immortal Venerable Qingyun, however, had no mind to consider what was happening with her little divine beast disciple, because with a single blink, she found herself in a strange place. The buildings here were bizarrely tall, and the towering structures, which resembled city walls, were pitted and scarred, with some marks that looked as if they had been gnawed by ferocious beasts. Dark purple bloodstains remained on these strange walls, and the pungent smell of rotting flesh assaulted her nostrils.

Immortal Venerable Qingyun took a few steps back and saw a group of strangely dressed people standing atop the wall. They held peculiar objects of unknown material in their hands. She had never seen them before, yet the names and uses of these objects suddenly appeared in her mind. They were "guns," a type of weapon. Before she could even wonder why the things she feared most in this illusion were these places she had never been to and people she had never seen—to be honest, she didn't even know what among these things could cause such a strong emotional fluctuation in her—the people on top of the wall burst into a commotion. The crowd automatically parted, and a tall figure walked to the edge of the massive wall. It was a woman. The wind grew stronger, howling past the top of the wall, causing the woman's loose-fitting clothes to whip about and her short hair to become wild and messy.

Immortal Venerable Qingyun heard her own heart, which had rarely beaten so fast in centuries, now pounding faster and faster. The sound of it striking her chest grew louder and louder. A strong, ominous premonition surged through her. A sharp pain pierced her mind, and then, before she could react at all, the woman on the wall, who had already been teetering, leaped off.

"No!!!" The woman standing at the foot of the wall cried out in terror.

She saw the woman's soft body hit the ground with a dull thud.

It was this very scene! In Immortal Venerable Qingyun's youth, before she had set foot on the path of cultivation, the scene of that unknown, faceless woman falling had once been her most heart-wrenching nightmare. She had thought that after so many years, after centuries of cultivating immortal arts, that baseless scene from her dreams had long since vanished into the river of time. She never expected that it would reappear before her eyes in such a way today.

The woman lying quietly on the ground had her head turned to the side, preventing Immortal Venerable Qingyun from seeing her face. She lifted her foot, wanting to walk over and see what the woman looked like, but just as she took a step, the scene around her instantly switched.

People bustled around her, the air filled with a cacophony of voices. Although she was surrounded by a dense crowd, no one noticed the sudden appearance of Immortal Venerable Qingyun, whose attire was completely out of place. She noticed that everyone was looking up, their faces twisted as they stared at something above.

She raised her head and saw a young girl standing on the very edge of a tall building's roof. That feeling of terror surged wildly within her again. She quickly realized—that girl wanted to kill herself!

And she absolutely did not want to see that tragic end! She understood at once. This illusion was manifesting the painful memories buried deep in her heart, hidden in the depths of her very soul! It was true she had never seen these people or places in this life, but what if they were from her past lives? Then everything would make sense!

She was a special person, one who still retained memories of a past life, or perhaps many past lives. Her soul had transmigrated through reincarnations, yet those memories were deeply etched into its core. She didn't want to forget these people and events. Perhaps, what she didn't want to forget was that unknown woman.

She tilted her head back, straining to see the girl's face, but she couldn't make out anything clearly. The wind around her began to pick up. Immortal Venerable Qingyun's heart tightened, and she immediately circulated her spiritual power to fly upward. The moment she left the ground, the girl fell without warning. Immortal Venerable Qingyun opened her arms, trying to catch the girl in her path of descent, but she could only watch helplessly as the girl's body passed straight through her arms and plummeted to the ground. Immortal Venerable Qingyun froze in mid-air, her ears ringing with the familiar dull thud she had just heard, the gasps of the onlookers, and a familiar sob.

She stiffly turned her head to look down. A long-haired girl of the same age was kneeling over the brutally broken body on the ground, weeping bitterly. Soon, she was pulled away by several middle-aged men in black uniforms. The moment that girl looked up at the rooftop, Immortal Venerable Qingyun saw a face she knew very well and a pair of eyes erupting with hatred, grief, and despair. That girl was herself.

Yun Qian was wrapped in a not-so-large cocoon of white mist. He saw that he had become the Emperor of the Demon Race, yet he was imprisoned on the throne in the demon palace, unable to move. And the two women he had brought back to the Demon Realm and made his consorts years ago were now being affectionate with each other right in front of him. Yun Qian, the Crown Prince of the Demon Race, roared with frustration! For a brief moment, he regained some clarity and seemed to see the woman from the Xianyuan Sect he had his eye on, sharing a deep embrace with her little disciple—his nominal junior sister.

He had conquered the world, but the women around him had all paired off with each other! He was all alone. What was the use of this empire! He couldn't even get kisses and hugs!

Yun Qian grew even angrier!

The demon cultivator had finished preparing the spiritual tools, treasures, and talismans to face the tribulation lightning, so he had some free time. "All is ready, I'm just waiting for the opportune moment." He was just waiting to absorb the refined soul power. He watched the faint movements in the illusion with great interest, but he noticed that the area around the divine beast, his main concern, seemed unnaturally quiet.

The white mist in the illusion obscured his vision, and he began to feel restless. His past experience with the Soul Refining Forbidden Curse told him that nothing should go wrong; he just needed to wait a little longer. Yet, a nagging bad feeling lingered in his heart. Just in case, he became vigilant.

Within the illusion, under the shroud of white mist, the bloody patterns of the array coiled around Chi Junluo's divine beast form were trying to drag her soul out. If the array had a consciousness, it would surely be cursing up a storm. This was the most difficult soul it had ever tried to pull. The souls it usually dragged out, whether human, cultivator, demon, or spirit beast, were all perfectly integrated with their bodies. No matter where it started, it could always touch the edges of the soul. But this divine beast today was too strange. It couldn't feel a soul in her limbs. The array's patterns could only wind their way up the beast's legs, trying to drag it from the body, but despite the beast's enormous size, it couldn't find the soul's location. The array expended a tremendous amount of effort before finally finding a tightly curled, round soul deep within the divine beast's crystal core in its heart.

It was like an incredibly smooth ball. No matter which direction the array's patterns probed from, they couldn't find a corner or a wrinkle to grab onto.

It was so damn smooth, a fly would slip and break its legs if it landed on it!

The array: I don't think you're a divine beast. You're a damn sentient ball of light!

The demon cultivator, who was connected to the array, also discovered this bizarre situation. He silently cursed the array for being brainless and took manual control, gradually forming the array's patterns into a net outside the divine beast's heart, preparing to tighten it all at once and scoop the balled-up soul right out.

Just as the net was about to close in on Chi Junluo's soul, countless rays of blinding golden light burst forth from the spherical soul. This energy, different from the ordinary spiritual or demonic qi of this world, directly tore the net-like array to shreds, dissolving it. The golden energy rapidly spread throughout the divine beast's entire body, quickly melting away the array patterns that bound it.

Chi Junluo quickly regained consciousness. She opened her eyes, which had been tightly shut. Her blue beast pupils were now ringed with gold. The golden energy from the depths of her soul coursed through every corner of the divine beast's body. The beast, originally covered in black fur, was transformed by this baptism, its entire body turning a shining gold. Nine enormous, fluffy golden tails materialized behind her. Her four paws remained a brilliant snow-white. The immense power directly melted a huge hole in the array beneath her. Perhaps due to the imbalance of energy inside and out, a large amount of white mist and demonic qi frantically squeezed out through the hole in the array. With the array broken, the demon cultivator who controlled it and had drawn it with wicked arts immediately suffered a massive backlash. He spat out a mouthful of old blood, a great distance away. He had been struck by the rebound of the ancient forbidden curse!

The golden divine beast's body swelled even larger, now standing as tall as three or four people, looking domineering and incredibly majestic! Chi Junluo had no time to admire her exaggerated divine beast form. Right now, her beloved heroine was far more important!

The golden nine-tailed cat released her divine sense and quickly locked onto her heroine's location. Pushing off the air with her hind legs, she shot over in that direction.

The demon cultivator had no time to repair the hole. Seeing his years of wishes and long-laid preparations about to turn to dust, he was filled with unwillingness!

The demon cultivator frantically channeled all his demonic qi toward the section of the array trapping Immortal Venerable Qingyun, attempting with all his might to trap the woman and the beast completely and seize their souls! He would absolutely not allow his hope of ascending to the Upper Realm to be shattered like this!

For a moment, the space within the array was thrown into chaos, with sand and stones flying everywhere. Only the once-again-forgotten, dignified Crown Prince of the Demon Race, Yun Qian, remained peacefully in his ball of white mist, getting angry at his fake harem.

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