The Forbidden Path to Immortality
Chapter 82

Qin Wanru couldn’t help but smile. But then her expression shifted. In a flash, she stepped forward. But she was too late.

Two sleek metal wings snapped out from Lin Wuyou’s back. Each was nearly half a meter long, silver-white and gracefully curved, inscribed with intricate restrictive formations that dazzled the eye. The moment they caught the night wind, they gave a sharp buzz—whoosh—and the girl shot into the sky like a bolt of lightning.

“Nightshade Wings?” Qin Wanru muttered in shock.

She hadn’t expected to see such a rare treasure here.

These flight wings, crafted by master artisans from Thousand Sail City in the Celestial Star Sea, exist in only two pairs in the world. When activated using a special incantation, their speed rivals that of standard flying swords used for message transmission.

And at night, the shift in the heaven and earth’s spiritual energy triggered a hidden restriction formation, pushed their speed even further by another thirty percent. So miraculous is it that even cultivators of the Falling Feather Sect, known for their escape techniques said to leave ‘no shadow across a thousand miles,’ would be left in the dust.

As soon as Qin Wanru saw that treasure, she knew there was no way she was catching that little rascal tonight. She gave a small shake of her head and didn’t bother chasing anymore.

From up in the sky came Lin Wuyou’s bright, clear voice: “Auntie Qing, I’m going ahead! Catch up soon, okay?”

Her last word barely faded before she was already hundreds of li away, her voice growing fainter, swallowed by distance and wind.

Back on the ground, Qin Wanru tilted her head, thinking. Her face lit with admiration. “Swift and decisive, no hesitation at all. That kind of clarity… few in the cultivation world can match it. The girl’s future is limitless.”

She looked up. The battle overhead was far from finished. But Qin Wanru’s thoughts had drifted.

Under normal circumstances, she thought, this decision would’ve been absolutely right. Qing Luan alone could handle anything. But tonight… tonight might be different.

And just as that thought formed, she felt a ripple in her senses, stepped aside. And something heavy crashed at her feet.

It was Li Xun.

Unconscious. Bloodied. Barely breathing.

The same man whose she’d shared countless moments of intimacy with; now lying at her feet like a broken puppet.

Shock and fury still lingered on his face. It wasn’t hard to imagine the thoughts racing through his mind the instant he was knocked unconscious.

Qin Wanru let out a faint sigh but didn’t spare him another glance. Instead, she lifted her gaze toward the battlefield. By now, the fight should be nearing its end.

The moment that thought crossed her mind, a sharp, piercing screech rang through the skies. Almost at the same time, the earth roared like thunder. The once rock-solid winter ground now quivered and surged like a swamp, churning and unstable.

In that single instant, tens of thousands of homes across Songjing crumbled to dust. At least a hundred thousand lives were snuffed out in the blink of an eye, caught unprepared in the sudden catastrophe.

A tide of resentment billowed into the sky.

To the west of the city, a blinding pillar of blood-red light rose into the heavens. It was as thick as a tree trunk and looked like a demon god's blade tearing through the night sky.

Moments later, the same kind of blood-colored beams erupted from the south, east, and north of the capital. Even with her mental preparations, Qin Wanru still felt an invisible weight slam into her body.

A cracking sound of gala came from beneath her. The ground split open with a massive rupture. Then came a tremor ten times more violent than the last, and the earth shattered. Fissures veined the land in every direction, spilling out dark red mist that quickly condensed into droplets of the same eerie hue, coating every crack.

Qin Wanru clutched Li Xun and rose into the air. From high above, she looked down on the capital. What met her eyes were scarlet scars crisscrossing the city like a blood-drenched spiderweb. It was a terrifying sight.

And things only got worse.

From those blood-hued fissures, ghostly flames began to erupt. So real they licked the air like living things. Any ordinary person they touched would ignite instantly, burning alive with no hope of escape.

The screams and wails from within the capital rose like a tidal wave, several times louder than before.

In the skies above, Blood Wanderer’s manic laughter echoed once more: “Fairy Qing Luan! How does my Blood Fiend Soul-Crushing Annihilation Formation compare to that Heaven-Execution Formation of years past?”

Qing Luan didn’t answer immediately. Instead, a chain of thunderous explosions ripped through the sky, drowning out his voice.

A streak of azure light shot out like a rainbow, blazing toward the outskirts of the city.

At first, nothing seemed amiss. But just twenty miles beyond the walls, the horizon exploded into chaos. Thousands of blood-colored lightning serpents slashed through the sky, painting the heavens crimson. The blue streak of light halted at once. And right on its tail, a barely visible mist chased close behind, weaving past it in a blur.

The azure light dimmed and plummeted toward the earth.

Following Yin Wanderer’s orders, Qin Wanru carried Li Xun into a hidden cave outside the city’s western edge. The two Wanderers hadn’t kept this place secret from her, but even so, this was her first time setting foot here. The moment she entered, she felt an unseen pressure all around her. It was clear the cave had been heavily fortified.

Her knowledge was broad, and after glancing around, she quickly recognized it for what it was: a Shapeshifting Yin Pit, created by drawing upon the earth’s qi, gathering a hundred strands of yin energy, and forged with immense postnatal cultivation power.

The talisman patterns carved into the walls were meant to gather and concentrate in the ambient yin force. The formation had already reached its final stage; now all that remained was to use a “seal-cutting pattern” technique to seal all the yin energy within.

She knew exactly what came next. Without hesitation, she headed deeper into the cave.

Just as Yin Wanderer had described, at the convergence point of the hundred strands of yin, a clear spring gurgled up, forming a small pond. This was the Shapeshifting Yin Pit.

Intricate and ancient symbols ringed the pool’s edge, winding down into its depths, converging into a small circular cavity at its center. The style of these carvings was clearly different from the rest; Qin Wanru recognized the handiwork of Yin Wanderer at a glance.

According to the plan, all she had to do now was place the unconscious boy into the pool and stand guard. But something felt... off.

An uneasy feeling suddenly welled up in her chest, like she’d forgotten something important. Something very important.

Li Xun’s back was already touching the water, and in the blink of an eye, a thick layer of ice began to form over it. Qin Wanru’s arm dropped suddenly under the weight. At that exact moment, a spark of realization flashed in her mind.

Cough, cough... Dammit, how did I forget to watch out for that move?

Li Xun, looking thoroughly disheveled, clambered out of the pool and gave himself a hard shake. The icy crust covering his body shattered completely.

He looked a mess, but inside, he felt absolutely elated. Glancing at Consort Qin—her expression obedient, her eyes respectful—he let out a soft laugh.

He’d won his bet.

When all he had was this one single card to play, he’d tossed it like a gambler on the edge—eyes bloodshot, risking everything. And the heavens had rewarded him generously.

He had gambled that Consort Qin truly had Yin Wanderer’s trust. That she’d be involved in the plan. That at the critical moment, she’d be close enough to rescue him.

Of all the schemes Li Xun had ever pulled, this was the most unpredictable. There were so many variables. He hadn’t known if the face waiting for him when he opened his eyes would be friend or foe.

But the heavens had smiled on him.

And now that they had, he wasn’t about to waste his chance. Once he got the lay of the land from Consort Qin, he immediately got to work. Not wasting a second, he made his way to a corner of the cave and dug up the stash of tools he had buried five days earlier.

He turned to her and gave a little beckoning gesture. “Come here.”

Consort Qin came as ordered, graceful and poised, her eyes clear and bright, showing no signs of being under control. And yet, she was as docile as a kitten, as if Li Xun had always been her master. Everything about it felt completely natural.

This was the brilliance of the Soul-Driving, Spirit-Refining, Mind-Binding Grand Technique

Li Xun looked at his handiwork. Even in the middle of a looming disaster, he allowed himself a satisfied smile. As long as he held this woman under his control, he had a shot at clawing his way out of certain death.

Just as he was thinking this, the air around them suddenly shifted.

The yin energy that had been flowing through the cave came to an abrupt halt. Like the heavy stillness before a thunderstorm. A stifling pressure bore down on them.

Li Xun’s heart skipped a beat, but then leapt with excitement.

He waved Consort Qin off to handle her part and moved to set up the next formation.

He had only taken two steps when a deafening crack of thunder exploded overhead, rattling his ears. Then came another ten blasts, each just as powerful.

A chain of sonic booms hammered through the cave, shaking the rock overhead until cracks spiderwebbed across the ceiling. Chunks of stone and clumps of dirt, along with water from hidden reservoirs above, came crashing down like a torrential storm.

Li Xun hadn’t expected the battle outside to reach such a ferocious level. This clearly wasn’t part of the two Wanderers’ original plan. Qing Luan must’ve gone all in, he thought. Her temperament was fiery; if she sensed no hope of winning, she’d fight to the death without hesitation.

There was no time to dwell on it. Urgency clawed at him. Li Xun quickly located the dozens of markers he’d hidden days ago and activated his NetherYin Qi, pressing down small pearls no bigger than his pinky nail into the ground. Each one sank into the earth like water, vanishing without a trace.

He moved as fast as humanly possible, but the pace of the battle above was still faster than expected. By the time he pressed the final pearl into place, the air around him had already turned violently unstable. It was wild, chaotic, suffocating. An ordinary person wouldn’t even be able to breathe in such conditions.

Li Xun wasn’t quite at that point, but the true breath in his body was trembling and shrinking. He could barely muster thirty percent of his full strength.

Cursing under his breath, he realized there was no time left to double-check whether Consort Qin had completed her part of the preparations. Without a second thought, he dashed straight to the Shapeshifting Yin Pit, clenched his jaw, and leapt in.

Consort Qin had already finished her tasks. She stood quietly at the edge of the pool, hands folded at her waist, the perfect image of a devoted protector. The scene was identical to how it looked when the two of them had first entered.

The very instant Li Xun plunged into the water, the cave’s structure hit its limit. A screeching, skin-crawling groan echoed through the air. A sound like stone and space twisting themselves inside out. Then the sky above the cave suddenly collapsed, folding downward and fusing with the earth in one cataclysmic crash.

Everything, the cave’s ceiling and surrounding mountain walls spanning over ten li, disintegrated into gray dust in an instant. The layers of water trapped between rock strata burst apart like thunder, tearing through everything in their path, sweeping it all into the low-lying lands below.