Miss Fairy, Please Hear Me Out

“The fall of the Splendor Bloom Sect,” the Sage’s remnant soul murmured the words, then gently shook his head.

Now was not the time to talk about that. The fall of the Splendor Bloom Sect was certainly intriguing, but the most important thing right now was resolving the crisis brought by Tian Yan and that mad woman.

After a brief pause, the Sage’s remnant soul said softly, “Judging by the time, that Ran girl should be close to succeeding.”

Xu Yuan pondered for a moment, then nodded. “Let’s hope everything goes smoothly.”

As he spoke, he slowly raised his eyes toward the domed ceiling of the enormous palace. The arrays inside this technique transmission hall were still intact. The chaotic concealment array and several other defensive arrays continued to operate in perfect order.

With the Saintess’s soul key, and the support of the Sage’s remnant soul power, Xu Yuan could faintly sense the terrifying clash of energies in the sky above.

After Luo Daofan’s sneak attack just now, the pink mist pressing down from the air had clearly thinned somewhat.

Unfortunately, before Xu Yuan could get a closer look, a thunderous explosion suddenly erupted above their heads.

The vast hall shook violently as if the mountains themselves were trembling. The array patterns inside the palace flickered wildly, bright one moment and dim the next. The still-intact structure of the palace cracked in an instant, and countless fractures appeared across the inner walls, spreading like a spiderweb.

Xu Yuan steadied himself amid the tremors, his pupils narrowing. It was that mad woman. She could see him!

“That woman can probably sense the mark between your brows!” the Sage’s remnant soul suddenly barked.

Xu Yuan’s heart sank. Reality was just like this. You never knew which would arrive first, tomorrow or disaster. Their original plan had been to hide below, using the chaotic concealment array inside the palace to conceal themselves while waiting for an opportunity to strike. But now, it seemed the plan had to change.

Without needing any reminder, his figure had already turned into a blur as he shot toward the array platform at the rear of the hall.

The defensive formations carved into the palace had not been broken through in a single blow, but judging from the situation, they were not far from collapsing. Staying here would be suicide.

Without a sneak attack, Xu Yuan and the Sage’s remnant soul combined might not even be enough for Tian Yan to swat aside with one hand, let alone that mad woman who had already turned hostile.

He raced forward. Above his head, the roars continued without pause, and from the dome of the great hall, broken stones and fine sand kept raining down.

In a battle at the level of Tian Yan and the mad woman, even an old antique like the Sage’s remnant soul could not hold out for long. In the blink of an eye, the defensive array around the hall was already on the verge of collapse.

Thankfully, Xu Yuan had already fled near the array platform. In only a few more breaths, he would reach it and escape.

The mad woman kept attacking from above. Tian Yan seemed to realize that Xu Yuan had not left immediately, and her voice came down from the sky.

“Xu Changtian, didn’t you say you had a way to break this mad woman’s Dao Field?!”

It was not a private transmission. It was an open, righteous shout, a voice spread with source qi for all to hear.

Under the mad woman’s furious assault, freshly provoked and absolutely frothing, Tian Yan seemed to have no spare attention left for precise voice transmission.

Of course, it was also possible that the chaotic concealment array was interfering with her, preventing her from pinpointing Xu Yuan’s exact position.

Xu Yuan ignored her. That sneak attack just now had pulled every scrap of the mad woman’s hatred straight onto him. If he had not escaped fast enough with the Void Step Slash, he would probably already be a corpse. Now that the array was about to break, opening his mouth to answer was basically the same as telling the mad woman, please fire at me.

And Tian Yan was still trying to bait him. Better a dead fellow Daoist than a dead poor Daoist. No one understood selling out teammates better than him.

And just as Tian Yan’s voice faded, a sharp, miserable scream suddenly rang out in midair.

“Ahhhhh!” That voice belonged to the mad woman.

Xu Yuan frowned slightly and asked inwardly, “Old Luo...”

Before he could finish, the Sage’s remnant soul answered with a smile, “Most likely, that Ran girl cut down the mad woman’s true body. Let’s hurry up and leave. We’ll leave the rest to Tian Yan, then come back later to pick the peaches!”

“Mhm.” Xu Yuan nodded. In two breaths, he reached the array platform built inside the inner chamber of the technique transmission hall.

At a life-or-death moment like this, the Sage’s remnant soul immediately activated the array.

“Wait... cough, cough, cough...” As the teleportation array rapidly charged, Tian Yan’s somewhat flustered and furious voice came from the sky again. “Why... why can this woman trigger the Beguiling Sakura Flower inside my body... wah...”

Before she could finish, all that remained was the sound of the young girl coughing up blood.

When Xu Yuan heard it, his pupils contracted sharply. But a moment later, he felt this might be another one of Tian Yan’s tricks. After all, no matter how he thought about it, a first rank soul body without its physical shell should not possibly be a match for Tian Yan.

The thought flashed through his mind.

Then, with a deafening boom, the palace dome shattered.

Xu Yuan looked up. The scene before his eyes made him suddenly realize that this time,Tian Yan did not seem to be lying to him.

ᯓ➤

Sakura Leech Lake.

Ran Qingmo held her black sword and silently retreated. That one sword strike just now had already overdrawn the source qi in her body.

The enormous tree was now completely covered in ice crystals. In the middle section of its trunk, there was even a sword scar so deep it had nearly cut the entire tree in half.

A wound of that degree would have been enough to kill any plant outright, but the Beguiling Divine Sakura before her had instead begun to grow.

Within the ice crystals, countless tender buds and young branches had already sprouted from the trunk. The branches growing from inside gradually forced cracks through the layer of ice on the surface, then shattered it.

But because of the lingering cold from the sword art’s power, those broken ice crystals once again covered the newly grown branches in the blink of an eye.

Over and over, the Beguiling Divine Sakura’s growth seemed as if someone had pressed a fast-forward button.

In an instant, the cherry blossoms bloomed once more, as beautiful as before. Only, at this moment, the surface of the Beguiling Divine Sakura was still frozen beneath a thin layer of fine ice.

Ran Qingmo’s dark brows drew together slightly. The state of the Beguiling Divine Sakura before her was strange.

It had only bloomed. The sword scar she had carved into its trunk, along with the eight enormous holes pierced through it by the ice spikes, showed no sign of growing over or healing. They still radiated a bone-chilling cold.

The scene in front of her had gone a little beyond Ran Qingmo’s understanding.

Under the sunlight, the giant tree covered in beautiful blooming cherry blossoms suddenly let out a deep, tremendous hum. The pale blue ice crystals coating the petals instantly shattered into countless sparkling specks of dust.

At the same time, along with that hum, a pink halo burst outward from the Beguiling Divine Sakura and shot into the distance.

The sudden change made Ran Qingmo instinctively raise her black sword to block, but the spreading pink halo seemed to carry no power at all. Only the breeze it stirred lifted the hem of her black robe.

“What... is this?” Ran Qingmo frowned and looked back.

She saw that after releasing the halo, the Beguiling Divine Sakura seemed to have exhausted its final trace of life. Its enormous body began to tilt and collapse along the line where it had been cut.

ᯓ➤

“Rumble!”

The shock from the damaged defensive array inside the hall temporarily disrupted and halted the charging teleportation array.

A huge hole was immediately blasted open in the palace dome, and sunlight poured in from outside.

Xu Yuan, who had been on full alert, instantly looked up. Then, he saw a girl in palace robes falling from the sky like a kite with its string cut.

CRASH! Tian Yan’s petite figure smashed into the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.

Immediately after, the mad woman also appeared inside the palace. The Dao Field that had originally surrounded her had already dispersed. Yet the mad woman did not continue attacking Tian Yan. Instead, she turned her eyes slightly and looked at Xu Yuan.

For some reason, her hollow, lifeless eyes were now becoming clear, bit by bit.

They looked at each other for two seconds.

“Thank you,” she said. After a pause, she lowered her voice again. “I’m sorry.”

With that, Wang Yuchu smiled faintly. It was a smile of release. As a pink halo spread outward, her soul body burst with a soft bang beneath the sunlight, transforming into countless dazzling cherry blossoms that scattered and swept through the air.

Xu Yuan stared at the scene in front of him in shock. What was going on? She self-destructed? While he was still in a daze, the Sage’s remnant soul suddenly roared inside his heart.

“The Splendor Bloom Sect was destroyed by this Beguiling Divine Sakura! Run! If those petals sweep you in...”

Amid the fluttering rain of fallen blossoms, the scene before Xu Yuan’s eyes had already become unfamiliar.