The Purgatory Calamity
Chapter 380 - 359: Ambushed_1

Chapter 380: Chapter 359: Ambushed_1

At the mouth of Water Moon Town.

Zeng Yulan, dressed in light blue robes with a Sword Command at her waist, drew countless gazes.

Her natural beauty, even without intentional adornment, and despite her cold demeanor, still shone brightly.

To her, the small leaders of the Mountain and River Club were no more than chickens and dogs.

Not worth mentioning.

"We truly didn’t know!"

The desperate plea of the Mountain and River Club’s leader was tinged with sobs.

Lei Qie, standing by and seeing these proud Second Realm gang leaders behave so humbly before a Sword Tower disciple, grew even more determined to join the Sword Tower.

He secretly vowed to spare no effort or price in securing the status of an outer sect disciple.

For himself and for...

Watching his panicked mother and his fairly attractive sister, Lei Qie clenched his fists and mentally exclaimed, "Sword Tower!"

Pang Jian gave no reply but stared in astonishment towards the distance.

"Whoosh!"

A ship that had set sail from Shuiyun City swiftly arrived at the mouth of Water Moon Town, docking below the Sword Boat.

The portly An Qian, wiping sweat from his brow, leaped out and, bowing and scraping beside Zeng Yulan, inquired about the situation.

"People from the Mountain and River Club lured my... little brother into gambling and swindled him out of all his Spirit Jade," Zeng Yulan said coldly, her attitude towards An Qian starkly arrogant compared to how she treated Pang Jian. "This brother of mine just came from the Lower Realm and was planning to join the Sword Tower. We were but slightly negligent and these filthy rats set their sights on him."

"The Mountain and River Club?"

With narrowed eyes, An Qian glanced at the five terrified leaders and said coldly, "Truly courting death!"

He summoned his Carefree Fan.

With a flick of the fan, a blinding light flashed, and the five small leaders of the Mountain and River Club at the Innate Realm were cleaved, their bodies separating from their heads.

The spray of blood and flying heads caused many onlookers in Water Moon Town to shrink back.

The An Family, the actual controllers of Shuiyun City, considered Water Moon Town to be part of their territory.

Within a hundred-mile radius, the plump An Qian had the power to give life and take it away from the residents and cultivators.

"What would you require of our An Family to do now?"

An Qian asked, bending at the waist.

Not questioning Zeng Yulan’s identity or her origins, he noticed the Sword Command she wore at her waist, recognized it as one belonging to an inner sect disciple of the Sword Tower, and hence, gave his intervention.

Up above on the Sword Boat was Pang Jian, whose status was clearly higher, and whom he had already taken note of.

But he dared not look too long, for fear of causing offense.

"Junior Brother Pang, what do you think?"

Zeng Yulan asked again.

"That’ll do,"

Pang Jian nodded.

"Then let it be so."

Zeng Yulan huffed, leading Lei Qie and his family up onto the Sword Boat, not bothering to spare another glance at An Qian, and said to Song ZiHe, "Junior Sister, let’s go back."

The Sword Boat rose into the sky.

"Junior Brother Pang? Surname Pang..."

Only when the Sword Boat had flown far did An Qian dare to focus on it, his expression filled with contemplation: "The surname Pang isn’t rare; there should be many from the Sword Tower. She, an inner sect disciple, shows such respect to that young man, indicating that not only is he an inner sect disciple, but his status is far above her’s."

"This narrows it down quite a bit, Pang..."

An Qian trembled with a sudden realization, and exclaimed in horror, "Could it be him?"

Turning, he looked at another of the An Family members in charge of Water Moon Town, ordered with a cold face, "Execute all the leaders of the Mountain and River Club in our Shuiyun City! Moreover, make the matter quite loud, it would be best if the information could spread..."

"Forget it, such a trivial matter probably won’t reach the Sword Tower."

"Then ensure the Mountain and River Club is disbanded."

...

On the Sword Boat.

Pang Jian turned to look at the timid Miss Lei and Lei Yu, her brother from a different father, and said, "Lei Qie, you will be a member of the Sword Tower."

Overjoyed, Lei Qie bowed deeply in gratitude to Pang Jian.

Miss Lei also led her daughter in a frantic thank you.

She was petite and exquisite, her beauty passable, but amongst Lei Kun’s many women, she wasn’t outstanding.

When Lei Kun took a fancy to her, she already had a child by her side.

But fortune favored the bold; after bearing a son for Lei Kun, she instantly became his most cherished woman.

As a result, both she and her daughter from her previous husband benefited, not only embarking on the path of cultivation but also being sent to the Qitian Continent by Lei Kun at great expense when disaster was about to strike the Third Realm.

The other women of Lei Kun didn’t receive such treatment, merely struggling to survive in several fragmented lands of the Second Realm.

"Old Lei, still quite sentimental,"

Pang Jian mused to himself.

After pondering for a moment, he humbly sought advice, "Senior Sister Zeng, since it isn’t the day for recruiting disciples at the Sword Tower, do we have to wait?"

Lei Qie’s eyes suddenly brightened, and his breathing quickened.

"If an Elder takes an interest in him, he doesn’t need to go through those stringent steps, and can directly become a member of the Sword Tower, even an inner sect disciple," Zeng Yulan explained with a smile. "When elders traveling abroad encounter a disciple they favor, as long as they bring them into the sect and register them in the records, our Tower gains another inner sect disciple."

"Of course, such occurrences are rare."

"Moreover, only those eight Elders have the right to do that."

Yao Junhong, Xu Yu, Wang Ce, Guanghe, Cai Xin, Lu Xiaolin, Shi Bingyun, and the Great Elder Jiang Ran.

Of the eight great Elders, only Shi Bingyun is the lowest in realm, currently in the late stages of the Extinction Realm.

The rest of the Elders are at the early and middle stages of the Immortal Realm.

It is only these eight who have the privilege to bypass the internal rules of the Sword Tower and to recruit disciples on their own.

"It must be an Elder..."

Pang Jian frowned slightly.

"Junior Brother Pang, with your influence, perhaps you could let those four take a look at this boy. Maybe they will take a fancy to him and be willing to give him a spot as an Inner Sect Disciple," Zeng YuLan said, smiling.

"The Outer Gate, even an Outer Sect Disciple would be fine!" Lei Qie mustered his courage to interject.

"That’s easy." Zeng YuLan laughed in a low voice and said, "Junior Brother Pang, with just a word from you, Qi Feng could arrange it."

"When we return to the Sword Tower, how should they be settled?" Pang Jian further inquired.

"Just say that they’re your family members and temporarily stay in the towns between the mountains. Of course, as unofficial disciples, they are not allowed to roam the various peaks, nor are they allowed to set foot on Sharpen Blade Peak."

"Understood."

...

The Sword Boat crossed the boundaries of the Sky Water Swamp, entering a slightly desolate wilderness.

Pang Jian suddenly changed expression and shouted lowly, "Be careful!"

Zeng YuLan and Song ZiHe were taken aback.

They had never known that in the Qitian Continent, there was anything the Sword Tower disciples needed to be careful of.

"Someone is lurking underground," Pang Jian’s expression turned solemn.

On the way there, the wilderness, which had shown no signs of abnormality, now had intense spiritual soul magnetic fields surging from about ten meters below the ground!

And there were three of them!

Without any further scouting, as the Sword Boat sped over this place, Pang Jian’s spiritual soul directly sensed something.

He directed, "First change direction, do not go in a straight line. Also, make the Sword Boat ascend!"

He stretched out his golden divine sense.

He immediately saw, about ten meters underground in a few man-made caves, there were three people wearing ghost-faced masks, also using divine sense to scout above them.

The divine senses of both parties directly touched underground!

"Puff! Puff puff!"

The earth suddenly roared with thunder.

Pang Jian’s divine sense, filled with majestic divinity and gold in color, simply crushed the divine senses of the three Ghost Masks, forcing them to retreat their divine senses back into their Sea of Consciousness!

"Soul Wandering Realm!"

"Who said he was of the Spirit Condensation Realm?"

"Damn it!"

The three men underground shouted in alarm, realizing that their whereabouts had been exposed and they could no longer hide from Pang Jian’s divine sense.

"Swish! Swish swish!"

The three Ghost Masks hidden underground burst forth one after another, charging directly toward the Sword Boat.

One of them casually tossed out something, and a pair of dark talons, shaped like eagle and vulture talons, suddenly enlarged dozens of times, gripping the Sword Boat from below.

"Boom!"

The power of the talons erupted, and the Sword Boat’s ascent was immediately halted.

For a brief moment in the void, the Sword Boat was suspended, then it violently plummeted downward.

"The Sword Boat is really sturdy; it didn’t even shatter from one claw!" one of the Ghost Mask Men marveled as he raised a flagpole made of white bones, waving a blood-red flag filled with mist towards the people above the Sword Boat.

Within the blood-red flag, numerous blood veins twisted like worms, emitting a strange and wicked force.

"Puff! Puff puff!"

Apart from Pang Jian, the two female disciples from the Sword Tower, including the Lei Qie family of three, all began to bleed profusely from their mouths.

"Mom! Sister!"

Lei Qie suddenly began to wail.

Protected by a cherished garment close to his body, Lei Qie’s eyes turned red as he was spared his life, but Miss Lei and his sister Lei Yu, not having been given precious and rare life-saving robes by Lei Kun, simply lost too much blood and died from just one encounter.

The one who released the Eagle and Vulture Talons angrily scolded without naming names, "Idiot! Be gentler with your blows! If everyone dies, won’t that boy just flee back to the Sword Tower without any concerns?"

"Those at the Meridians Channeling Realm are only slightly stronger than ordinary people; even my lightest touch would kill them!" another person said helplessly.

"Boom!"

The Sword Tower suddenly crashed to the ground.

Zeng YuLan’s mouth leaked fresh blood, her face full of disbelief, she screamed, "To think, to think that someone would dare to attack us!"

She seemed unable to accept what had happened, her deep-rooted beliefs preventing her from understanding the situation at hand.

Song ZiHe was also dumbfounded.

Having lived on the Qitian Continent for so long, and having traveled on the Sword Boat countless times, as long as they carried the Sword Command of the Sword Tower’s Inner Gate disciples, they received the respect of ten thousand people wherever they went in any city on the Qitian Continent.

Scions, individual cultivators, they treated them as if they were divine, not daring any slight.

They could never imagine that anyone on the continent would dare to brazenly attack them while they were on board the Sword Boat!

"They’re after me," Pang Jian stated solemnly while hovering mid-air, not falling to the ground with the Sword Boat, "Was it arranged by Su Yue or Zhou Wenhao?"

With the Astonishing Spear in his right hand, he pinched a Sword Command in his left hand and directed a wisp of spiritual sense towards a Sword Light Symbol.

He transmitted a message at the first opportunity.

But strangely, the three light spots representing Pu Zhaotian, Qi Qingsong, and Zhuang Yuyan did not respond at all.

The Array engraved inside the Sword Command was as if restricted by some magnetic field and couldn’t operate.

"Soul Wandering Realm? All three of them?"

Zeng YuLan grunted.

After wiping the blood from the corner of her mouth, she also hastily pinched the Sword Command, seeking help from her master, Xu Yu.

Song ZiHe was doing the same thing.

The two women were frightened and frantic.

They had both heard Pang Jian was in the Spirit Condensation Realm, but with three Soul Wanderers coming their way, it was clear they intended to put Pang Jian and them all to death.

...