Chapter 25: A Passerby

Yue Qingshuang did not answer.

She simply gripped the Lunar Cold Sword tighter and aimed its tip forward.

Even as her fingers trembled.

Even as her consciousness blurred.

She would not surrender without a fight.

Li Cang sighed. “Why must the Saintess be so stubborn? The Sect Master is quite interested in the Taiyin Sacred Body. Come with me willingly, and with the union of yin and yang, he might even spare your life.”

Yue Qingshuang still did not answer.

All she did was—

Draw her sword.

This strike was colder, faster, and more resolute than any before it.

Li Cang frowned and raised a hand to block.

The blade pierced three inches into his palm before Blood Fiend Energy seized it in a vice grip.

“Too proud for a toast? Then drink the forfeit.” A cold gleam flashed in Li Cang’s eyes as blood-red light erupted from his palm and surged rapidly up the Lunar Cold Sword.

Yue Qingshuang tried to pull back, but the sword was already locked tight by the Blood Fiend Energy.

She made the split-second decision to release her grip and retreat.

But it was already too late.

Li Cang’s other hand had already transformed into a massive blood-colored claw, slashing straight for her chest.

This strike held nothing back.

A full-force blow from the Divine Ability Realm was more than enough to kill a Golden Core cultivator on the spot.

Yue Qingshuang closed her eyes.

In the end… I still couldn’t get the Profound Yin Bead.

Master…

I’m sorry…

*

But the killing blow she expected never landed.

Yue Qingshuang opened her eyes.

She saw that the blood-colored claw had stopped, three feet from her chest.

Not because Li Cang chose to spare her.

But because someone had caught that claw with a single hand.

Li Cang’s expression twisted completely in that instant.

“Wh-who are you?!”

“A mere Blood Fiend Sect dares to lay hands on someone from my Tianyue Palace?”

The light faded, revealing the figure of a middle-aged woman.

She wore a blue robe and had a stern, cold face. Her brows carried the unforced authority of someone long accustomed to high station.

Her aura subtly harmonized with heaven and earth itself—a Divine Ability Realm peak expert, unmistakably.

“Aunt Liu!” Yue Qingshuang’s eyes reddened, and her rigid body finally sagged with relief.

Liu Yun, personal attendant to the master of Tianyue Palace, had watched over Yue Qingshuang since she was a child.

Attendant in name, but in truth, she was more like a half-teacher.

“The Saintess set out alone to search for the Profound Yin Bead. The Palace Master was uneasy and had me follow in secret.”

Liu Yun shielded Yue Qingshuang behind her, her gaze sweeping over Li Cang and his men like a blade.

“As I suspected. Someone couldn’t keep their claws sheathed.”

She turned to Li Cang, murderous intent blazing in her eyes.

“The Blood Fiend Sect. A second-rate demonic clan. And you think you can set your sights on my Tianyue Palace’s Saintess?”

“It seems you’ve grown tired of living.”

But Li Cang only smiled.

He clutched his injured wrist, his grin eerie and triumphant.

“Tianyue Palace… a dominant power of the Southern Region. What a grand reputation,” he chuckled darkly.

“Out in the open, if I ran into people from your Tianyue Palace, I’d certainly have to take the long way around.”

“But—”

His tone shifted as blood-red light flared in his eyes.

“Right now, you’re standing on my turf!”

Boom!

The instant those words fell, the whole of Blackstone City shuddered violently.

Yue Qingshuang and Liu Yun’s faces changed at the same time.

They could feel it—an overwhelming, suffocating torrent of Blood Fiend Energy surging madly from every corner of the city.

Across the ground, countless blood-red patterns ignited, crisscrossing until the entire city lay trapped within their web.

The Blood Sea Grand Array was fully activated.

“Y-you…” Liu Yun’s pupils contracted to pinpoints.

“You actually set up such a vicious array!”

From all across the city, faint, terrified screams echoed in the distance.

The civilians who had been asleep moments ago now jolted awake from their dreams, only to find the blood in their veins boiling, burning.

Threads of crimson mist steamed from their orifices and pores, drifting toward the center of the array.

“You think we wouldn’t prepare before scheming against Tianyue’s Saintess?” Li Cang howled with laughter.

“If you lofty sacred lands weren’t so arrogant, always assuming no one under heaven would dare provoke you, would we ever have had this chance?”

“The dignified Saintess ventures out with just a single Divine Ability peak attendant. Should I call that confidence, or simple conceit?”

He licked his lips, his gaze roaming across Yue Qingshuang without the slightest restraint.

“Once the Sect Master becomes a son-in-law of the Tianyue Sacred Land, I suppose that makes me part of Tianyue Palace too? Ha ha ha—”

The seven Nascent Soul cultivators roared with laughter.

Liu Yun’s face turned iron-gray. She raised her hand to send a distress signal.

The signal shot out—and vanished like a clay ox sinking into the sea. No response whatsoever.

“Useless,” Li Cang said coldly.

“The Blood Sea Grand Array is its own sealed world, completely cut off from the outside. Today, no one can save you!”

He swept a hand forward, and the array released countless blood-slaughter threads, coiling toward Liu Yun and Yue Qingshuang.

Liu Yun’s sword lashed out, slicing through them—only to find that the severed threads multiplied endlessly, an inexhaustible tide.

Worse still, Li Cang had joined the fray personally.

At the middle stage of Divine Ability, augmented by the Blood Sea Grand Array, his strength now rivaled the peak of the realm.

And Liu Yun, formidable as she was, had to split her attention to protect Yue Qingshuang while resisting the array’s corrosive influence. She was gradually losing ground.

“Saintess, find a way to break out—now!” Liu Yun gritted her teeth as she fought desperately.

Yue Qingshuang wanted to help, but the backlash from the Taiyin Origin was growing more severe by the moment. She could barely stay on her feet.

Just as the noose was about to tighten—

Rumble!

A thunderous roar erupted from the edge of the array.

Li Cang’s face darkened.

“What’s going on?!”

He swept out his divine sense—and his pupils contracted violently.

The Blood Sea Grand Array’s eight critical formation nodes were collapsing, one after another.

“N-no. Impossible!” Li Cang’s voice cracked.

“The formation nodes are perfectly hidden. How could—”

Before he could finish, the eighth node crumbled.

The Blood Sea Grand Array fell apart completely.

The skyful of Blood Fiend Energy dissipated like an ebbing tide. Across the city, the tormented civilians slumped weakly to the ground.

Exhausted, but alive.

Moonlight spilled down once more.

In that cold, clear light, a figure in azure robes stood quietly at what had been the array’s central nexus.

At his feet lay three Nascent Soul corpses.

“Wh-Who are you?” Li Cang’s eyes burned crimson as he stared, unblinking, at that figure.

Chen Ping slowly raised his head.

His gaze passed over Li Cang and settled on the blood-drenched Liu Yun and the faltering Yue Qingshuang.

Then, he spoke.

His tone was flat. “A passerby.”

Li Cang ground his teeth. “Who the hell are you?”

He focused his senses carefully.

“Golden Core… no. Qi Refining?” Li Cang’s eyes filled with pure disbelief.

“Impossible! How could a Qi Refining cultivator possibly—”

“—possibly break my Blood Sea Grand Array!”

Chen Ping did not answer that question.

He simply raised his hand and curled his five fingers into a light grip.

Li Cang and the four remaining Nascent Soul cultivators all felt an invisible force lock around them simultaneously.

That force was vast as heaven’s own judgment. They could not struggle free. They could not resist.

“Y-you…” Li Cang’s face finally showed genuine terror.

It was not as if he had never seen powerful cultivators before.

He had witnessed Grotto-Heaven Realm experts, Dao Severing experts—even Saints.

But the man before him felt deeper than any Saint.

Chen Ping looked at him, thinking of his disciple Xiaoyu, whose mother had been driven to her death by the Blood Fiend Sect.

Coldly, he said:

“The Blood Fiend Sect’s crimes are beyond counting. Today is as good a day as any to settle the accounts.”

As the words fell, his gripped fingers gave a light twist.

Crack—

The four Nascent Soul cultivators’ necks snapped, and they dropped dead on the spot.

Li Cang was hoisted into the air by that same force, dangling like a chicken awaiting the butcher’s knife.

“Y-you can’t kill me…” Li Cang’s voice came out hoarse.

“I am the Blood Shadow Hall Master. If you kill me, the Sect Master will never let you go…”

Chen Ping glanced at him.

Just one glance.

Yet Li Cang felt as if his very soul had been seized by an invisible hand.

The sensation was a hundred times more horrifying than the Blood Fiend Demonic Seal flaring up.

“Sect Master?” Chen Ping’s tone was calm.

“I’ll look for him later.”

His five fingers closed.

Li Cang’s neck snapped.

His corpse dropped to the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.

*

The night breeze carried a faint scent of blood.

Liu Yun stared blankly at the azure-robed figure, momentarily robbed of speech.

She had cultivated for centuries and seen countless prodigies and heroes, but never someone like this.

His cultivation was clearly just Qi Refining… no, that couldn’t be right. How could a Qi Refining cultivator slaughter Divine Ability experts like chickens?

“S-senior…” she managed, her voice trembling despite herself.

Chen Ping turned around.

Under the moonlight, his true face was finally revealed.

A very young face, barely past twenty.

His features were refined, but his eyes held a depth that seemed capable of piercing straight through a person’s soul.

He looked at Liu Yun, then at the utterly exhausted Yue Qingshuang behind her, and frowned slightly.

“Taiyin Origin backlash?”

Yue Qingshuang bit her lip and nodded.