Seeking Truth with a Sword-Chapter 702 - 632: Self-Sabotage

"Hmph. Heh heh. HA HA HA HA! HA HA HA HA HA HA!"

Jun Qianzi put down the Nearby Worm and looked up at the dim ceiling, letting out a hearty laugh.

"What’s so funny? Have you gone mad?"

Lady Zhu shot him a sharp glance, then resumed stitching the wound on her palm with a needle and thread.

This place was an underground chamber—to be precise, a cellar buried over a thousand meters beneath a city in Jing Country.

The cellar wasn’t spacious. Rough cloth tarps were nailed to the floor and walls to keep out dirt and sand. A single Luminous Pearl lay on the only table.

The Luminous Pearl cast a cold light, illuminating the gloomy faces of the Zhao Ming members and the slave cultivators cowering in a corner, too afraid to make a sound.

"Shattering the Zhou Kingdom Imperial Palace, assassinating the Grand Shaman of the Turkic, exterminating the elders of the Jing Country noble families, and felling the peaks of Taihao Mountain."

Jun Qianzi ticked off Lian Xuanyao’s achievements for the day on his fingers, a smile playing on his lips. "My master has killed more top-tier cultivators today than the so-called Demon Sect has in the past thirty years."

"You realize that too?"

Shangyang, his chest and abdomen injured, lay pale-faced on a stretcher in the corner. He spoke weakly, "At the Near-Cliff Realm, one looks down upon the mortal world as if observing fish from an abyss. I must have been insane to provoke him alongside you all."

"He won’t live much longer."

Feilian stroked the fresh burn scar on his cheek and said ominously, "The Heaven and Earth Association reclaims spiritual energy from cultivators after they die. He’s currently in the throes of the Heavenly Person Five Decays. The more powerfully his Qi Sea erupts, the closer he is to death. One day—no, half a day at most—and he’ll be dead, his soul scattered..."

Before he could finish, Feilian’s expression shifted as if he’d sensed something. He sprang up from his chair and strode toward a corner of the room, his face grim. Pointing at a slave, he demanded coldly, "What did you do?"

The slave he addressed had lost half his nose in a previous battle. It was now crudely bandaged, but blood still seeped through, clogging his nostrils.

He stood up, trembling. "I... I was feeling a bit suffocated, so I just..."

"So you cast a spell to make it easier to breathe?"

Feilian grabbed the slave’s hair and kneed him squarely in the face, roaring, "Don’t! Fucking! Use spiritual power! Didn’t you see we’re hiding deep underground, not daring to use any talismans? Even the lamp we’re using is a Luminous Pearl, not an oil lamp!"

An oil lamp consumed oxygen. Using one for an extended period would require spiritual power to draw and circulate air from the surface, needlessly increasing the risk of exposure.

Feilian was unwilling to take any more chances until Lian Xuanyao’s death was confirmed.

The other Zhao Ming members watched impassively as Feilian brutalized the slave. Only when the man’s face was a bloody pulp and his lips too swollen to speak did Feilian release his hair. Wiping his hands twice on the wall in disgust, he returned to the table and sat down.

A heavy silence descended upon the room once more. Shangyang lay in the corner, his weak groans occasionally breaking the quiet.

Lady Zhu, having finished stitching her wound, somehow produced knitting needles and yarn. She crossed her legs and began to knit.

Ping He remained as silent as ever, absorbed in polishing his black blade with a tattered cloth. Harvard, meanwhile, pored over a copy of the Nameless Buddhist Scripture, a foolish grin on his face.

After what felt like an eternity, Feilian, who had been sitting with his eyes closed in concentration, suddenly opened them. "One thousand li," he announced in a deep voice.

The Zhao Ming group had anticipated their failure to ambush and kill Lian Xuanyao at the Xingzhou River. Consequently, they had prepared multiple escape plans. They had also set up sensing formations in the outskirts of the State Mansions surrounding their various strongholds. These formations would issue a warning if strong spiritual energy fluctuations were detected in the skies above.

"Could he just be passing by?" Shangyang asked weakly.

The city above the cellar was situated on the southwesternmost edge of Jing Country, not too far from Taihao Mountain.

"Seven hundred and fifty li." Feilian forced the words through gritted teeth. "He’s still approaching."

RUSTLE.

Harvard rose from his chair, closed the Nameless Buddhist Scripture, and looked eastward, his expression grave.

"Six hundred li," Feilian said, his words quickening. "He’s not coming straight for us; he hasn’t locked onto our position yet. He must still be searching."

Everyone stood up. Without a word, they refrained from circulating their Qi Seas, instead drawing their weapons and gazing up at the ceiling, which was reinforced with layers of lead plates.

Six hundred li might be a vast distance for mortals, but for top-tier cultivators, it was perilously close.

Lady Zhu lowered her voice and asked Suo Luo, "Is You Qiong-kun not going to intervene?"

Lian Xuanyao’s oppressive might was too intense; perhaps only the equally unfathomable You Qiong-kun could contend with him.

Suo Luo, feeling everyone’s eyes on him, calmly shook his head but offered no explanation.

Not here? Unable to? Unwilling? Or does he not dare? Lady Zhu’s eyes flickered, and she bit her lip.

"Qi signature." Jun Qianzi, who had been meditating, opened his eyes. "None of us have activated our Qi Seas, and the ceiling is reinforced with lead," he stated calmly. "He must have locked onto us through some intangible Qi signature."

"What’s the use of saying that now? If You Qiong-kun doesn’t act, all we can do is pray to Haotian for protection." Shangyang clutched his chest and coughed. "If I had known, we should have split up to flee. At least some of us might have survived."

Jun Qianzi remained unfazed. "It hasn’t been long since your last encounter, so the Qi signature he has of you isn’t deeply imprinted. It’s different for me; he knows me too well."

"Are you... planning to sacrifice yourself?" Feilian frowned at Jun Qianzi, his face a mask of suspicion. He didn’t believe for a second that Jun Qianzi would make such a noble, righteous gesture. Besides, no one in Zhao Ming was a white lotus; beyond their respective partners, they felt little camaraderie.

"Something slightly better than that." Jun Qianzi offered a faint smile and gestured with his eyes to Ya Jiu, who stood nearby.

Ya Jiu nodded, walked to the wall, and pulled aside a dust cover, revealing a hidden alcove. From it, he dragged out an iron bed. The bed frame was unremarkable, but the bedboard itself was studded with dense iron spikes, like a prop from a Jianghu performer’s act.

Jun Qianzi stepped towards the bed and lay down. Under the astonished and uncertain gazes of the Zhao Ming members, he explained with a slight smile, "Lian Xuanyao is tracing me by my Qi signature. That being the case, I must erase my Qi signature."

With that, he lay back on the bed of nails and nodded to Ya Jiu.

Without hesitation, Ya Jiu took a row of thick, long steel needles from a groove beside the bed and plunged them into Jun Qianzi’s body.

With steel needles piercing his limbs, face, and shoulders, Ya Jiu arranged Jun Qianzi’s body into a contorted posture, like a grotesque and bloody work of art.

Correspondingly, Jun Qianzi’s life aura began to fade rapidly, his presence dwindling to that of a near-corpse.

"You...?" Feilian exclaimed in horror. "You’ve crippled your own cultivation, willingly falling from the Divine Talisman Master realm?"

"Yes." Blood streamed down his needle-pierced cheeks. Jun Qianzi, his words whistling through the gaps, chuckled, "I can just cultivate it back later, can’t I?"