IVYSCP - Chapter 130

Chapter 130

Long swords collided, spitting scorching sparks. Lou Wudu raised her eyes, and her gaze froze for an instant.

The person before her was no longer Ling Qingyue, but someone from a distant memory she had nearly forgotten.

Lou Wudu's lips trembled as she murmured, "Grand Tutor Liu…"

Liu Sheng had been her grand tutor in childhood, teaching her letters, martial skills, and how to be a ruler. While she was crown princess of Yuelou, Liu Sheng had been the person she respected most, second only to her mother.

The Liu Sheng standing before her now looked just as she remembered: no illness, no gray at her temples, long sword in hand, poised with easy confidence.

After a single dazed heartbeat, Lou Wudu snapped alert. Liu Sheng had died long ago.

"Ling Qingyue! You think this can shake my resolve?" Lou Wudu hacked her sword at the image of her former mentor, her gaze cold and merciless.

The scene within the Yin-Yang Formation had already transformed. Pale ink-wash tones sketched an unnervingly real Yuelou Kingdom. People on the street saw her, smiled, and bowed. "Your Highness."

Lou Wudu pressed her lips tight and swung out a sword stroke.

False. All false. Yuelou was gone. No one would call her Your Highness anymore.

"Your Highness!"

A little girl of five or six came running over, beaming, a book clutched in her hands. She pointed eagerly at a poem on the page. "Your Highness, I recognize the words, but I don't know what they mean. Can Your Highness tell me?"

The hand gripping the sword trembled. Lou Wudu recognized this child. She had been clever and bold. Where other children feared or revered her, this girl alone had dared to approach with a book and speak. She had even said that when she grew up, she would enter the palace and defend Yuelou at Lou Wudu's side.

She remembered the child's name was Anle, a name that meant a lifetime of peace and joy.

Seeing the hopeful look in Anle's eyes, Lou Wudu raised her arm and brought the sword down.

"Older Sister."

Lou Wudu's gaze halted. She slowly lifted her eyes.

Her younger sister, Shi Yanchun, stood right in front of her, head tilted in a smile. "Older Sister, I've missed you so much."

Lou Wudu lowered her eyes, her voice barely audible. "Yanchun, Older Sister has missed you too."

In the next instant, sword light flashed. Lou Wudu parried a long sword slashing in from one side, her palm strike simultaneously forcing back a long spear with no hesitation.

Chi Que and Ying Ying's expressions shifted. A mirage drawn from the deepest recesses of the heart was having no effect on Lou Wudu at all.

Lou Wudu's brows pressed down; she struck back mercilessly.

Chi Que and Ying Ying rapidly disengaged, but her overwhelming spiritual energy still rattled their heart meridians. They coughed up mouthfuls of blood.

Had they not been standing on the formation, they might not have dodged that blow.

Ying Ying spun her spear and wiped the blood from her lips. Chi Que turned to her. "Are you all right?" Ying Ying nodded, though her face was now drained of color.

The two exchanged a glance and retreated in unison, their figures dissolving into the ink wash until they vanished.

Lou Wudu narrowed her eyes. The scene shifted again, this time to the Liuyun Immortal Sect. Her gaze indifferent, she looked at the faces before her, at once strange and familiar. Shangbieli hummed in her hand, stirred by her emotions.

She wanted to kill these people all over again.

The thought was immediately followed by action. Since this was an illusion, they would have to be cut down eventually. Lou Wudu's lips curved; killing intent surfaced in her eyes.

She raised her sword and struck at them. Her memories were indeed many. Some faces she had believed she had already forgotten, but once she saw them, she still could recall how they had spoken arrogantly, how they had humiliated her.

Lou Wudu slaughtered until her eyes went red. She saw Ming Yuan, saw Lian Yange, the two who had deceived and harmed her.

Ming Yuan and Lian Yange stood together, identical false smiles on their faces.

Ming Yuan reached out a hand. "Junior Sister, it's fine if you don't have the three thousand gold. Your senior sister can still teach you the cultivation methods and mental formulas."

Lian Yange looked deeply gratified. "Good disciple, your master truly did not misjudge you."

Lou Wudu gave two cold laughs and gathered the full weight of her sword intent to cleave them apart.

The hatred surged, boundless and sky-blackening, enough to set off a faint sting in her meridians and make the thunder in her ears roar louder.

The next instant after she swung, a flash of silver glinted at the corner of her eye. A familiar long sword thrust straight for her heart. Lou Wudu twisted her wrist and blocked with the flat of her own blade. She showed no surprise at who had come.

"Using such illusions to muddle my mind, then seizing the chance to strike. Truly a good plan. Regrettably…"

Lou Wudu laughed once and suddenly poured spiritual energy into her sword. Her backward momentum stopped dead. She slammed forward, and the interplay of offense and defense flipped in an instant. "This plan is useless against me!"

Ling Qingyue met her sword moves. Within the Yin-Yang Formation, their two figures were little more than afterimages flickering. Hundreds of moves passed in the blink of an eye.

The surrounding illusion had shifted from the Liuyun Immortal Sect to the Shangtianqiong Sect, the Shangtianqiong of over a century ago.

One black-clad figure and one white-clad figure were sparring with swords. An older woman sat at a stone table nearby.

Lou Wudu's peripheral vision caught the scene, and a malicious smile tugged at her lips. She suddenly spoke. "Junior Sister, look. Wasn't our master so lovely back then? Her cultivation may not have advanced further, but she was still the Sword Venerable without peer in swordsmanship, the exalted Immortal Venerable."

Ling Qingyue snapped coldly, "Shut your mouth! You are unworthy to call me junior sister, and unworthy to speak of our master!"

"Then do you know how our master ended up the way she is now?" Lou Wudu felt her opponent's sword strikes turning fiercer and fiercer; her smile deepened. "She fought the Formless Demon Lord to mutual injury. Then, while she was still stabilizing her breathing, news came that you had fallen. She ignored her wounds to avenge you. After that, to preserve your soul, she did not hesitate to damage her own cultivation. Look at her. Such a wonderful master."

"Lou Wudu!!!"

Ling Qingyue stopped dodging. She took a sword cut to her left arm, and at the same time Jiuge sliced across Lou Wudu's back shoulder.

Lou Wudu acted as though she felt nothing and continued. "You must know by now how you really died."

Ling Qingyue's eyes went red; Jiuge vibrated wildly in her hand.

It was Lou Wudu who had caused her death. It was Lou Wudu who had used her death against their master.

"In truth, one could say you harmed her as well. If she had not been so set on protecting your soul, it would not have been so easy for me to succeed." Lou Wudu sighed. "Qingyue, look. You have already brought our master to this state. Do you want to drag your other friends into death and dissolution too? Chi Que, Ying Ying, they were perfectly fine, Lingxu Immortal Palace and Wushi Sect would have stayed perfectly fine if they had simply stayed out of today's affair. And Pei Yin, I heard she nearly suffered a cultivation deviation earlier, also because of you, wasn't it? So, are you still going to stand by and watch her die here today?"

"Qingyue, hand over the Seven-Aperture Exquisite Heart and I will let them go…"

"Dream on."

A cold female voice sounded behind her. Lou Wudu frowned impatiently. Multiple formations locked together and rotated, trapping her on all sides, and the God-Striking Whip was already before her eyes.

Among all these people, Pei Yin's cultivation was the deepest. She was indeed a heaven-blessed genius of her generation: at one hundred years of age, she had reached Soul Formation perfection, a mere step away from Tribulation Transcendence.

Lou Wudu took this whip strike and retreated several paces.

By relying on realm suppression, she could forcefully break through Pei Yin's formations and restrictions. But that would drain her spiritual energy even faster. This group's aim was to use illusions to wear her spiritual energy down little by little.

Pei Yin moved to Ling Qingyue's side, a trace of worry in her eyes. Ling Qingyue was soft-hearted. What Lou Wudu had just said had stabbed squarely at her most vulnerable places.

Ling Qingyue's lashes were damp, and the demonic qi in her body was somewhat restless, yet her killing intent only mounted higher. She took two deep breaths and gave Pei Yin a small smile, signaling her not to worry, that she would not let her mind fall into chaos just because of those words.

Pei Yin trusted her. After receiving that reassuring look, she turned a cold gaze back to Lou Wudu across from them.

The Yin-Yang Formation could only trap a person in one place for a time. The true caster of the illusions was Pei Xi. Working in concert with Chu Qianshan from the shadows, Pei Xi exerted every ounce of her Dream-Eating Tapir ability. Lou Wudu's cultivation was too high; Pei Xi could not force her into a nightmare. She could only merge Lou Wudu's memories with the Yin-Yang Formation.

In the Ancient Yao Forest, Pei Xi had already awoken from a deep slumber and was still in her juvenile form. Now, overusing her ability forced her to revert to her yao body. This sudden change drew a glance from Chu Qianshan beside her, one glance that made Chu Qianshan turn her head away, unwilling to look any longer.

Pei Xi whimpered in aggrieved protest. Chu Qianshan suddenly felt as if there were a pig next to her.

It was startlingly ugly enough; did it have to sound so wretched too?

"How much longer?" Pei Xi whispered.

Chu Qianshan had been in constant communication with Pei Congyi. She frowned slightly. "Wait a little more. Lou Wudu has her tricks; she has hidden that person very securely."

Pei Xi lowered her head and fumed, "Ling Qingyue! Pei Yin! You two owe me so much! I'll need to eat heaps and heaps of dreams to make up for this!"

Chu Qianshan sent her gaze back into the formation, inwardly growing anxious. Lou Wudu had not yet fully unleashed her killing intent. If she truly started slaughtering in earnest, this formation and the illusions would likely not hold her back at all.

Feeding desire with desire. Lou Wudu had truly cultivated the Six Desires Path to its extreme. She knew her own desires inside and out and poured them into her clones, indulging their unbridled excesses, fattening their appetites larger and larger, until in the end all of it returned to serve the original self. In a sense, Lou Wudu was indeed a talent of rare gifts; it was just that this talent was too vicious to be suffered by the world.

---

Zhaoyang Hall, main peak.

The Dao Debate Platform had descended into chaos, and now no one was left guarding the main peak.

"We must hurry." Pei Congyi looked into the distance; her voice no longer carried its usual gentleness.

Nie Wenxiao nodded and helped Liu Qingtang inside the hall.

Liu Qingtang carried the Daughter Gu within her body. If she could use it to sense the position of the Mother Gu, they could find the Gu Vine. In Liu Qingtang's memories, Lou Wudu's younger sister was kept in the same place as the vine. Lou Wudu would stop at nothing to revive her sister. If that was the case, her sister was her vulnerable point, her weakness.

"Then I must ask Senior to release the restriction within my Spiritual Platform," Liu Qingtang said, bowing to Pei Congyi.

Nie Wenxiao turned her head, unwilling to watch.

Releasing the restriction could very easily allow Liu Qingtang to fall completely under the Gu Vine's control again and revert to how she had been before. Lou Wudu might also detect it. But only by releasing the restriction would the link between the mother and Daughter Gu become more distinct.

"Have you considered this fully?" Pei Congyi asked.

Liu Qingtang smiled. "I considered it long ago. If using the Daughter Gu inside me can locate that hidden place, it would be my honor. And in a way… it would be my atonement."

Nie Wenxiao's eyes rimmed red. "Qingtang…"

"Very well." Pei Congyi raised her hand.

"There's no need."

A frail voice spoke up. All three turned to look. It was the Hidden Moon Lord of the Yue Family, the one who could no longer perform the Heavenly Divination Art.

Yue Shouming walked past them, step by step, straight into Zhaoyang Hall.

"I know where it is."

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