Volume 1 Chapter 43: Thunderous Force
As she watched the two remaining attackers fly away, Feng Yudie was so angry that she felt her teeth could shatter. She had completely forgotten about the bleeding hole in her left shoulder.
It was Xiaotian’s reminder that made her take a deep breath and swallow back her anger.
『Yudie, you still have a hole in your shoulder.』
Feng Yudie was taken aback by the words, lowered her head to look at her left shoulder, and saw that blood had already stained her dress red. Only then did she feel the intense pain of the puncture.
Looking over at Pei Lengxue, she thought for a moment, then suddenly sat on the ground, exclaiming, “Ouch! It hurts so much!”
“Ah?!”
Upon hearing Feng Yudie’s agonized cry, Pei Lengxue hurriedly approached, squatting down and tearing open Feng Yudie’s sleeve to examine her wound.
Seeing this, Feng Yudie quickly spoke in a weak voice, “Junior Sister Pei, I think I’m dying. Could you fulfill one of my wishes? I’ve always wanted to…”
Pei Lengxue didn’t pay attention to what she was saying, but upon seeing the large hole in her shoulder, she immediately recalled the emergency treatment methods her senior brother had taught her.
Under normal circumstances, the effects of using pills would undoubtedly be the best. However, she didn’t have any medication for treating puncture wounds in her storage pouch. So, she decided to follow her senior brother’s advice, starting with “disinfection,” followed by bandaging to stop the bleeding.
With that in mind, Pei Lengxue picked up a can of salt left over from roasting the deer, twisted the cap open, and poured it onto the wound on Feng Yudie’s shoulder.
“Endure the pain, it might hurt a bit.”
“Ah?”
Feng Yudie looked at her taking out a can, thinking it was medicine, so she didn’t say anything.
However, as the first white-yellow granule fell onto her shoulder, the swamp immediately echoed with a sound akin to a pig being slaughtered.
Listening to it, it sounded like a particularly indulgent pig.
“Aaaaaaah—!!”
In no time, Feng Yudie rolled her eyes and collapsed onto the ground, fainted.
“Tsk~”
Pei Lengxue nodded in satisfaction and proceeded to tear a piece of fabric from Feng Yudie’s dress, wrapping up the wound. After finishing, she left Feng Yudie there and ignored her.
Then, she looked over at Xiao Yunluo.
At the moment, Xiao Yunluo was crouching in front of the bodies of “Second Brother” and “Third Brother,” not knowing what she was doing. She kept muttering to herself, saying things like “Stay strong!” and “Don’t be afraid,” with her hands rummaging through the storage pouches of the two men.
Seeing this, Pei Lengxue walked over with a puzzled expression and asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Ah?!” Xiao Yunluo was startled, quickly stood up, and said, “I was… trying to find my sword. Those people just took it from me.”
“Oh…” Pei Lengxue nodded in understanding and asked, “Did you find it?”
“Uh– I…”
Xiao Yunluo felt a bit embarrassed, pursing her lips and avoiding eye contact.
In fact, this was her first time encountering such “fresh” corpses—she was scared!
But she felt that admitting she was too afraid to touch their storage pouches would be quite embarrassing. After all, she was the young lady of the Profound Star Sect! How could she be afraid of something so trivial?!
After hesitating for a moment, she said with uncertainty, “I’m worried that there might be traps or something set in their storage pouches. So, I’m a bit hesitant to touch them.”
“Oh.”
Pei Lengxue nodded in understanding.
And fearing that Pei Lengxue would think she was timid, Xiao Yunluo quickly added, “I’m really not scared, it’s just that I’m worried about traps… Like what the other disciple mentioned, don’t go randomly touching other people’s storage pouches; there might be poisonous insects or something inside…”
“You can use your spiritual sense to scan the contents first, you know?”
“Ah– that’s true…”
Xiao Yunluo awkwardly smiled and then clenched her fists, summoning her courage to send her spiritual sense into the storage pouch of “Second Brother” and searched around. Meanwhile, Pei Lengxue started exploring the contents of “Third Brother’s” storage pouch.
Unfortunately, apart from some pills and spirit stones, there was nothing else inside.
Not finding anything, Xiao Yunluo’s face fell with disappointment. After a moment of thought, she asked, “Besides the two people who escaped, there were still two others, right? Could they have something?”
“Let’s go back and look for them later,” Pei Lengxue nodded and pointed towards Feng Yudie lying on the ground, saying, “Stay with her for now, and if you need anything, just let me know. I’ll go explore the forest.”
“Ah– okay.”
With that, Pei Lengxue hurriedly entered the nearby forest.
Earlier, her senior brother had used a whistle to alert her to the location of the formation’s eye, so her senior brother must be around here.
It was fine that Feng Yudie had fainted, but if Xiao Yunluo happened to see her senior brother and developed feelings for him, she would gain another rival.
So, when she reached the depths of the forest and confirmed that Xiao Yunluo hadn’t followed her, she cleared her throat and imitated bird calls, calling out for her senior brother.
Chirp chirp~~ Chirp chirp chirp chirp~ Chirp chirp~
Chirp chirp~~ Chirp chirp chirp chirp~ Chirp chirp~
Unfortunately, she called more than ten times without any response. She pursed her lips, looking annoyed.
“Where’s my senior brother? He was just here…”
After waiting for a while and still not seeing her senior brother, Pei Lengxue returned to the previous location.
At this moment, several streaks of sword light appeared in the distance.
Wang Shouren, leading seven or eight inner disciples, flew over on their swords.
After looking at the three people below and the two decapitated bodies, Wang Shouren frowned, immediately ordering the inner disciples around him to search the surroundings and stay vigilant. He then descended from his sword.
Initially, Wang Shouren had thought that there had been a fight between them and another group participating in the sect’s selection. However, after asking Xiao Yunluo about the situation and examining the two corpses, he was utterly dumbfounded.
The sect’s great formation consumed millions of spirit stones from Profound Star Sect every year. Even powerful cultivators wouldn’t be able to break through the formation in a short period. Yet now, a group of Foundation Establishment cultivators had stealthily infiltrated the sect without anyone noticing?
As Wang Shouren commanded the disciples to search for the two individuals who had escaped, a bolt of lightning suddenly streaked across the sky.
An elderly man with bushy white eyebrows flew over in a lightning-fast manner.
Upon seeing him, Wang Shouren immediately bowed respectfully and said, “Elder.”
—This man was one of the five elders of Profound Star Sect, Lei Wanjun, a cultivator in the Nascent Soul stage.
After glancing at the two bodies on the ground, Lei Wanjun’s eyebrows furrowed, and he asked in an angry tone, “What happened?”
“Some people sneaked into the rear mountain, attacked Miss Xiao and two disciples participating in the sect’s selection, and now two individuals are still on the run. Disciples are currently searching for them,” Wang Shouren quickly reported.
Lei Wanjun turned his head slightly to look at Pei Lengxue and Feng Yudie on the side, then nodded. “I recognize these two. They are the two disciples who displayed incredible strength during the Sword Trial, right?”
“Yes, that’s them,” Wang Shouren replied, gesturing for the three of them to come forward and pay their respects.
Feng Yudie, sensing that Lei Wanjun was a formidable Nascent Soul cultivator, immediately bowed respectfully, saying, “Greetings, Senior.”
Xiao Yunluo followed suit, arching her hand and saying, “Greetings, Elder Lei.”
However, Pei Lengxue’s approach was quite different. She cleared her throat, stood up straight, and shouted loudly, “Greetings, Senior!”
Lei Wanjun was momentarily startled by the loud voice but didn’t take offense. Instead, he chuckled and said, “You, little girl, are full of spirit.”
“Ah– my senior brother said that we should greet loudly, hehe…”
Lei Wanjun patted Pei Lengxue’s shoulder and then stepped back a bit, narrowing his eyes as he raised his hand in a sword gesture.
In an instant, the previously clear sky was filled with countless thunderclouds.
A deafening rumble echoed for quite some time before Lei Wanjun waved his hand again.
The thunderclouds in the sky dispersed completely, as if they were mere illusions.
“These Foundation Establishment cultivators sneaked into Profound Star Sect without anyone realizing and even managed to escape?” Lei Wanjun’s voice carried a sense of disbelief, even though he had already used his spiritual sense to scan the rear mountain of Profound Star Sect. He turned to Wang Shouren and asked, “Escaped?”
“If they didn’t escape, that means they managed to evade my spiritual sense detection. Elder Lei, do you think that’s possible?” Wang Shouren replied, finding it hard to believe himself.
“This… is indeed unlikely.”
After that, Lei Wanjun walked over to the side of the two corpses and carefully examined them.
“Two wandering cultivators… they seem to be from the Seven Killers Sect,” he said and then looked at Feng Yudie and Pei Lengxue, adding, “It seems one of you two has quite the bounty on your heads.”
Feng Yudie looked puzzled. “Huh?”
“Did you provoke someone?”
Feng Yudie answered uncertainly, “I don’t think so… right?”
Lei Wanjun sighed and waved his hand.
“Never mind, this matter must not be spread. As for the Seven Killers Sect…”
He considered for a moment. Instead of making a big fuss, he decided to send an elder over in a few days to have the sect leader of the Seven Killers Sect apologize to Feng Yudie and Pei Lengxue and compensate them with some items and spirit stones.
However, before he could finish speaking, an inner disciple rushed back in a fluster from a distance.
“Elder!”
“Why the rush? What’s the matter?” Lei Wanjun glanced at the disciple.
“It’s not– this! In one of the individuals’ storage pouches, I found this map…”
Saying that, the inner disciple kneeled on one knee and presented the “Profound Star Sect Great Formation Map” that Ye Anping had left in “Fourth Brother’s” storage pouch to Lei Wanjun.
Lei Wanjun took it and looked at it. His initially amicable expression instantly turned into a frown.
A deafening roar of thunder echoed in the sky.
“The audacity of the Seven Killers Sect!!!”
Wang Shouren was taken aback, quickly walking up and casting a glance at the map in Lei Wanjun’s hand. After seeing the map, he too widened his eyes, inwardly exclaiming:
—The Seven Killers Sect really dares to do anything for money, huh?!
They actually dared to inquire about the locations of the nine formation eyes of the sect’s great formation. And what’s worse, they actually managed to find it out.
The nine marked positions on the map were undoubtedly the nine formation eyes of the sect’s great formation.
Once this map was leaked, Profound Star Sect’s great formation would be rendered useless. Anyone would be able to come and go as they pleased in Profound Star Sect.
By doing this, the Seven Killers Sect was practically declaring war against the Profound Star Sect.