*Hoo Hoo...*
Everything was silent. Only the cold wind brushed the branches and sent the fine snow flying through the snowy forest.
On a pine tree branch, a round snow hawk stared at the snow in the forest with a faint light flashing in its eyes, making sounds of searching for prey.
*Gugu... Gugu...*
Suddenly, the snow under the tree exploded.*Boom---*
A head with festering skin stuck out from the ground, frightening the snow hawk so much that it instantly spread its wings and leaped up.
"Cough..."
The man who crawled out of the ground had lost his human appearance because he had absorbed the *Heavenly Lightning* technique. As he stood up, his flesh and blood slowly dripped down like mucus.
The man gritted his teeth and used his spiritual power to take a pill out of the storage bag and put it in his mouth. He then sat cross-legged on the ground and began to condense his energy to heal his wounds.
"Why are there three ***Black Star*** Sect cultivators here?... Gotta bring the news back..."
At this moment, an eagle's cry suddenly sounded in the quiet forest.*Kiiii--!*
The eagle's cry came from above. Looking up, he saw a fiery red dot circling over his head in the dark sky.
"...A Fire Phoenix?"
Then, the sound of footsteps creaking on the snow drew the man's sight to the forest again.
In the dimly lit forest, a young man, not very tall, wearing a bamboo hat and holding a black ice sword, slowly approached.
Ye Anping raised his hand to hold his hat and looked at the man. Seeing that the left half of his body had disappeared yet he was still alive, he frowned slightly.
When his sister and the others surrounded and attacked this man, he was nearby, watching.
This demonic cultivator's base was only at the early stage of the *Core Formation*. After what the girls had done, even if he had ten lives, he had lost at least nine.
However, he still managed to escape.
He had suspected that this might not be the real body, and he confirmed this by exploring it up close with his spiritual sense.
This man was the doppelganger that had been refined with parasites and his own soul.
Ye Anping stopped five feet away from him, holding the *Snow Jade Spirit Sword tightly*, and asked, "Soul Compulsion Incarnation?"
Hearing this question, a trace of surprise flashed in the man's fly-like eyes. Ye Anping's figure was reflected in dozens of compound eyes.
"Ooh? To be able to see it at a glance, you're truly knowledgeable. May I know your name?"
Ye Anping did not answer. He was silent for a while before asking back, "Do you know a demonic cultivator named 'Wu You'?"
"What?!"
"It seems that you know. Then, I think I know who you are." The *Snow Jade Spirit Sword* turned half a circle horizontally in Ye Anping's right hand. "Before your master died, he mentioned you to me. Do you want to know what he said?"
"How do you know..."
"He said, you are an incompetent piece of shit, Jiang Mojiao."
The words fell, and the sword acted.
Ye Anping's figure flashed, and he instantly arrived five feet behind the man.
*Thump---*
Jiang Mojiao's incarnation did not even have time to react before his head rolled off his shoulders.
The fly-like eyes glared at Ye Anping, who had his back to him. He seemed to want to speak, but his vocal cords were not attached anymore, so he opened his mouth but made no sound.
"This sword was a meeting gift for you."
Ye Anping put the *Snow Jade Spirit Sword* back into the storage bag while the Fire Phoenix hovering in the sky also swooped down, opened its beak, and spit out rolling flames, igniting all the parts of the incarnated body.
The hissing sound of insects suddenly resounded through the forest, but they soon turned into ashes and dissipated along with the fire.
After circling above Ye Anping's head, the Phoenix flew onto Li Longling's shoulder as she walked out of the forest.
Li Longling looked at the remnants of the demonic cultivator and walked over to Ye Anping. "Anping, you just said that this is an incarnation... but this incarnation is already at the *Core Formation* stage..."
"Yes, the real body is at least at the early *Nascent Soul* stage..."
Ye Anping's face showed a troubled expression. Lianxue and the girls were facing a demonic cultivator at the *Nascent Soul* stage. Without the sword that was currently with him, it would be really difficult to kill him.
Li Longling looked at his worried expression and tilted her head in question. "Is it difficult?"
"A little, but it's okay..." Ye Anping came back to his senses. " Let's see what the girls are going to do..."
...
Meanwhile, in a room on the second floor of the *Traveler's Pavilion Inn*.
"Woo-aaaa..."
Heartfelt crying resounded throughout the room.
The three girls rescued by Pei Lianxue were frightened. They probably hadn't recovered from the shock they suffered and hadn't cried yet.
As a result, after entering the house, Pei Lianxue lit a pot of charcoal fire, and the two girls, except Xu Xiyue, sat on the bed and started to bawl their eyes out.
Pei Lianxue was also terrified and hurriedly went up to pat their backs and check their pulse. "What's wrong? Where does it hurt? Tell sister..."
"Woo-woo-wa-mother... ah-ah-ah-"
After all, they were two young girls, only twelve or thirteen years old. After seeing those bloody scenes today and encountering a demonic cultivator in the middle of the night, they probably wouldn't dare enter the forest again for a long time.
Pei Lianxue was not good at comforting people. Looking at the two girls crying, she was at a loss, and a trace of embarrassment appeared on her face.
"If it was Brother... what would he do... ah..."
She looked at the two of them anxiously and tried to recall.
When she was crying...
"Oh, right..."
Muttering to herself, Pei Lianxue took the two crying girls in her arms and turned her body into a rocking chair as she rocked them. "Don't cry, don't cry! If you keep crying, I will throw you out."
?
Although her tone was very flat, after hearing this, the two little girls paused slightly, then immediately cried even louder.
Pei Lianxue's cold face revealed a panicked expression.
When she cried in the past, she would immediately stop if her brother said this to her. But why...
"...Ah?"
Watching this scene, Xu Xiyue was speechless. She kinda felt that this Senior seemed a little stupid. She took a deep breath and quickly reached out to grab the faces of the two girls.
"...Stop crying! This is a *Core Formation* stage Senior. You guys are being rude!"
Pei Lianxue paused for a moment and shook her head. "It's fine, it's fine. I don't mind..."
"..."
Xu Xiyue was stunned. Then, she simply grabbed the ears of the two girls and reprimanded them with a frown. "Stop crying."
"But... but Sister Xu, my mother..."
"Your mother is fine, this Senior will save her, calm down! The Senior has already chased away the demonic cultivator, so no one can eat you now."
"Suck--"
After Xu Xiyue's fierce scolding, the two girls finally calmed down, and their crying turned to sobbing.
Pei Lianxue smiled and gently rubbed their heads. "Don't worry, I'm here. No one can hurt you."
"Uhm... sob--"
The little girl looked at Pei Lianxue's face, clenching her clothes with her little hands.
Noticing this, Pei Lianxue paused, and then hugged the two of them and lay on the bed. "Get some good rest. Big Sister is here with you~ Good girl!"
The two girls seemed to be very tired, and after they rested on Pei Lianxue's shoulders for a while, they fell asleep.
Xu Xiyue watched by the bedside and was quite surprised. It was the first time she saw a *Core Formation* stage cultivator coaxing two small *Qi Refining* strangers like this.
After hesitating for a while, she lowered her head and apologized softly for her friends. "Senior, I apologize to you on their behalf."
"It's fine..." Pei Lianxue shook her head slightly and caressed their backs. She then looked left and right and, seeing that both her hands were occupied, asked, "Do you want to lie on me?"
?
Xu Xiyue paused, not quite understanding what she was thinking, and tilted her head. "Ah? Senior..."
"Weren't you scared?"
"I..."
"It's really okay. If you're scared, just lie on me. I'll protect you."
"..."
Xu Xiyue pursed her lips and blushed looking at the two girls. In the end, she simply crawled over from the foot of the bed carefully, slowly lay on Pei Lianxue, and hugged her.
Pei Lianxue nodded, and with a slight twist of her wrist, she lifted the quilt on the bed with her spiritual power and covered themselves with it.
"Don't be afraid, don't be afraid~ Just rest peacefully. Big Sister is here to protect you."
After the three girls hugged her for a while, the door was gently opened from the outside.
"Sister Pei!! We..."
Carrying two poisoned women on her left and right shoulders, Feng Yu Die barged into the room, followed by Xiao Yunluo. Seeing Pei Lianxue on the bed, hugged by three little girls, they were both stunned.
"Sister Pei, what are you doing?"
"They were scared..."
Feng Yu Die paused for a moment. With her head down, she said, "Sister Pei, I'm scared too."
Xiao Yunluo, who was carrying the female shopkeeper, glanced at her coldly and interrupted. "Lianxue, we brought these three back. It took some effort to subdue them. What should we do now?"
"Well..."
Seeing that the three girls in her arms had fallen asleep, Pei Lianxue carefully lifted them up with her spiritual power and got out of bed.
"Let's go to another room. Second idiot, you stay with them."
"Ah? Sister Pei, I'm afraid..."
Without waiting for Feng Yu Die to agree, Pei Lianxue took the two women from her shoulders and left her there, taking Xiao Yunluo to the next room.
After placing the three of them on the bed, Pei Lianxue followed the method her brother had taught her before, injecting spiritual energy into her fingers and placing them on their backs.
The three Heart-Consuming parasites were forced out by her spiritual energy.
She had Xiao Yunluo bring some wine, and after washing the three living centipedes, without saying a word, she opened her mouth and swallowed all three of them.
"Yunluo, when you hear me shout, use your finger to touch my back, the same place where I just touched them."
"Lianxue, are you sure it's okay?"
"It's okay. My brother has done this before."
Pei Lianxue took out a woven mat and sat cross-legged on it. She placed her sword fingers in front of her chest, released her spiritual power along the meridians, and at the same time, infused her spiritual sense into the three poisonous insects she had eaten.
Her spiritual sense tracked the souls of the parasites along a silken thread to a cave hundreds of miles away.
Countless white floating eggs adhered to the walls of the cave, and below them were many skeletons that had not yet turned yellow and still had flesh and blood attached.
A black-robed man was meditating in the middle of the skeletons. His murderous aura gathered into wisps of purple mist around him.
Pei Lianxue bit her lips, trying to see the man's face clearly, but at this moment, the man suddenly turned his head and looked in her direction.
Seeing that she was discovered, Pei Lianxue hurriedly shouted, "Yunluo!!"
*Bang---*
Energy burst out when Xiao Yunluo pointed her finger at her back, and Pei Lianxue's spiritual sense returned to her body from a hundred miles away.
A mouthful of black blood spurted out from her mouth along with three centipedes, which fell to the ground.
Pei Lianxue gritted her teeth slightly and raised her hand to summon her sword from the storage bag. She used her energy to control the sword and cut off the three parasites on the ground. She then used fire element talismans to burn them off.
"Yunluo, there is a demonic cultivator in the early stage of the *Nascent Soul*. He is on a mountain in the north, about one hundred and seventy miles away."
...
Meanwhile, in the cave.
Jiang Mojiao, who was sitting cross-legged among the corpses, squinted his eyes and looked at the sky behind him. He felt as if someone had just sent their spiritual sense here to peek.
However, it was a fleeting feeling.
Before he could send out his spiritual sense to catch the culprit, the feeling disappeared.
Jiang Mojiao was silent for a moment, then slowly stood up, ready to walk out of the cave to take a look.
However, just as he stood up.
*Swish---*
A stream of ice-blue spiritual energy flew out from his neck and directly chopped up the spider parasite that had been laying eggs on the wall.
"Cough--"
Jiang Mojiao lost control of his body and fell to his knees. He covered his neck as a trace of shock flashed in his compound eyes.
Someone had not only decapitated his soul compulsion incarnation but also injured his original body's *Nascent Soul*.
Just as he was wondering, the memories of the compulsion incarnation surfaced sporadically in his mind.
A young man in white clothes and a bamboo hat, a spirit sword made entirely of black ice, a fiery phoenix, and a name -- 'Wu You'.
*---"Do you know a demonic cultivator named 'Wu You'?"*
*---"He said, you are an incompetent piece of shit, Jiang Mojiao."*
*---"This sword was a meeting gift for you."*
"Impossible!!"
The kid's playful tone rang in his mind.
Jiang Mojiao's eyes suddenly bulged out, and a visceral fear arose spontaneously. His hands began to tremble uncontrollably.
What followed was the loud hissing and clicking of those parasites in the cave.
*Kakakaka---*
But with Jiang Mojiao's angry roar, the insects chirping instantly stopped.
"Shut up! You are now my parasites, not my master's!!!"
The parasites let out a burst of disgruntled chirps. "Hiss, hiss-- Click--"
"Shut up all of you! He's dead!!!"
Jiang Mojiao glared at a huge spider on the ceiling and crushed a small spider with his foot.
"You are my slaves, not his! I am your master, I am!!"
The spider parasite hanging in the air reflected Jiang Mojiao's figure in its insect eyes, but there was no expression.
It only opened and closed its pointed teeth. "Hiss--"
Then, it turned around, ignoring him.
Seeing how the spider looked down on him, Jiang Mojiao bit his right thumb and muttered crazily. "No, no, no, I need help... help... help, help!"
Biting his lips with his sharp teeth, Jiang Mojiao grabbed a black jade slip from his storage bag with a shaking hand. He smashed it to the ground and shouted with a trembling voice, "Grandmaster of the ***Magical Poison*** Sect, Jiang Mojiao, asks for help to destroy an Immortal!!"
