The mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind.

Seeing this, Lu Qiancha was in no hurry. The cube in her palm once again flowed with a faint light, its form instantly twisting and stretching, transforming into a half-gold, half-red javelin with a restrained, cold glint.

Whoosh—!

A fatal streak of interwoven gold and red light tore through the wind and snow. Silent yet faster than lightning, it aimed straight for the heart of Qiong Gong, who had just clumsily blocked one of Shangguan Yunzhu’s sword strikes!

Alarm bells blared in Qiong Gong’s mind. In the face of life and death, his almost beast-like combat instincts screamed a warning. He didn’t even have time to discern the source of the attack. His giant saber, guided by the instincts honed in countless bloody battles, suddenly spun around, its thick blade shielding his chest like a door panel.

Rip!! Splat!

The gut-wrenching sound of tearing metal and piercing flesh rang out almost simultaneously!

The javelin, as if piercing through paper, had penetrated the thick-backed great saber forged from fine steel. Its terrifying piercing power, undiminished, continued to bite at the hastily dodging Qiong Gong.

“Ugh!” Qiong Gong let out a muffled grunt. Although he had tried his best to sidestep, his left shoulder blade was pierced by a gaping, bowl-sized bloody hole!

Only then did Qiong Gong notice Lu Qiancha’s presence. His eyes widened in fury, and he shouted, “It’s you!”

“Tsk,” Lu Qiancha shrugged lightly, her tone so flat it was almost cruel. “If I were you, I’d save my strength and shut up right now.”

With that, she thought, and the javelin embedded in the ice cliff disintegrated, turning into countless fine points of light that flowed back to the cube, which landed quietly in her palm as if it had never appeared.

“Bastard!! Die!!” The pain and humiliation sent Qiong Gong into a complete rage. His eyes turned crimson, and he recklessly swung his shattered great saber, wrapped in a monstrous fury and his life’s spiritual energy, and charged at Lu Qiancha like a madman, completely forgetting the threat of Shangguan Yunzhu at his side. However, the moment his body moved—

“Aaargh—!!!”

A scream, far more piercing than any from a physical wound, suddenly burst from the depths of Qiong Gong’s throat. The heart-wrenching pain seemed to come from the very depths of his soul. His burly body was seized by an invisible giant hand, and he twitched and convulsed violently.

“You villain… to use poison, you are truly despicable!”

Qiong Gong’s eyes were wide with rage as he glared at Lu Qiancha. His massive body, like a dry weed in a fierce wind, trembled violently and fell to the snow-covered ground. Sweat and blood instantly soaked his clothes, and each breath brought a deeper pain.

“Heh.”

Lu Qiancha didn’t say much in response to Qiong Gong’s words. She just chuckled lightly, then took out two bottles of distinctly different potions and, with a flick of her wrist—

Swish! Swish!

One bottle, black as ink, and the other, gray-black as ash, flew like two precisely controlled shuttles, striking the convulsing Qiong Gong on the ground and the still-struggling Qingfeng at the edge of the battlefield.

Qiong Gong was already a spent force. All his spiritual energy was instinctively fighting against the terrifying, bone-dissolving poison.

How could he have any strength left to dodge?

Thud.

The jade bottle struck his chest and instantly shattered.

The black, sticky liquid, like a living thing, splashed down.

Hiss, hiss, hiss—

A hair-raising corrosive sound suddenly erupted. The clothes, skin, and even flesh that came into contact with the liquid turned black, withered, and carbonized at a visible rate.

The biting cold wind blew past—the burly body that had been struggling and roaring just moments ago, like rotten wood that had weathered a thousand years, instantly shattered and peeled off piece by piece. After just a few breaths, all that remained in its place was a pitch-black, withered skeleton covered in strange, cracked patterns, standing silently in the wind and snow.

And from that withered skeleton grew a strange black rose.

On the other side, a faint sound of tearing air came from behind. Qingfeng, who had just knocked away two flying swords, casually swung his sword behind him. The move accurately struck the porcelain bottle…

‘Huh? Wait! Where did this porcelain… bottle…’

An indescribable sense of paralysis, like an invisible spider’s web, rapidly tightened from the ends of his limbs, instantly engulfing Qingfeng’s entire body. He swayed, and was pierced by the four flying swords shot by Shangguan Yunzhu.

Shangguan Yunzhu was a bit stunned by this scene. She had no intention of killing Qingfeng here. No matter how despicable he was, he was still a disciple of the Tianyuan Sect and needed to be brought back to the mountain to be judged by the masters.

But at this moment, Qingfeng had suddenly stopped resisting…

Shangguan Yunzhu was not very proficient with this sword control technique. Otherwise, she would not have been suppressed by four lower-realm black-clothed men earlier.

At this moment, she had no time to retract her swords. The four flying swords accurately pierced Qingfeng’s neck, forehead, chest, and abdomen.

The strikes were precise, extinguishing his three spiritual souls, piercing his dantian, clean and decisive, leaving no chance of survival.

“This…”

Shangguan Yunzhu was slightly taken aback, then a thought came to her, and she sighed softly, “Even with a heart as evil as yours, could you have a trace of remorse? Or… were you just a helpless pawn on someone else’s chessboard?”

She raised her head and looked towards Lu Qiancha, who was not far away.

By now, Lu Qiancha had already cleaned up the battlefield—she had calmly placed the storage ring that had fallen beside Qiong Gong’s withered skeleton and the half-shattered great saber into her own storage artifact.

“Tsk,” she weighed the ring in her hand and couldn’t help but grumble inwardly, “Qiong Gong, you’re really poor.”

‘An Integration realm cultivator, and all he had was a single storage artifact and a saber. And that storage ring only had a few scattered spirit stones and some miscellaneous items…’

‘As expected, cultivators who mix in the secular world are mostly poor sods with no resources.’

“Senior Brother Qiancha, what are you doing here?”

Only then did Shangguan Yunzhu ask this question. This place was over seven hundred li from the Juezhang Treasure Forest, completely outside the trial area.

“I’m here to find herbs.”

Lu Qiancha pointed to the green vine hanging on the side of the mountain and said.

Shangguan Yunzhu nodded, her face solemn. “Senior Brother’s life-saving and enemy-defeating kindness today, Yunzhu will never forget! When I return to the mountain, I will surely give my all to repay Senior Brother’s great virtue!”

Looking at her extremely sincere and grateful eyes, Lu Qiancha’s gaze flickered, and she felt a strange sense of guilt. After all, her motive for helping this time was not pure; she had used Shangguan Yunzhu to help her obtain the Origin Returning Fruit.

“Awooo!”

But just as she was about to speak, a high-pitched, piercing wolf howl suddenly exploded from the peak of the mountain above them.

Almost at the same time as the sound fell, a dozen swift, ghostly white figures, as if coalescing out of thin air, shot out silently from the icy crevices and shadows of the giant rocks on all sides.

In the blink of an eye, they had surrounded the two, who were still in shock.

Pairs of ice-blue wolf eyes glinted with a cold, bloodthirsty light in the wind and snow. A thick demonic aura and a naked killing intent filled the air.

Shangguan Yunzhu’s pupils constricted, and her just-relaxed nerves instantly tensed up again. The red sword light around her body began to flow and rise once more. She pointed her sword fingers and shouted, “Senior Brother, be careful!”

Lu Qiancha had also wiped the unnatural expression from her face. With a grave expression, she tightly gripped the cube in her palm, her sharp, hawk-like gaze quickly sweeping over the suddenly appeared pack of snow wolves.

“Too coincidental…” Her thoughts raced. “They definitely didn’t just arrive! They must have been lying in wait for a long time, only appearing after we had finished fighting and were exhausted or even injured.”

‘Their intentions are truly malicious.’

At that moment, the wolf pack parted slightly.

A snow wolf, obviously larger and sturdier, its fur as dark gray as an ancient rock wall, its aura deep, strode out from the pack with a steady and oppressive gait.

Its pair of silver-gray beast eyes coldly swept over the two people in the field, as if looking at two lambs to be slaughtered.

“Roar!”

An earth-shattering roar erupted from its throat. A terrifying shockwave swept out, like a tangible heavy hammer smashing towards the two of them. It was not just a sound wave; it contained a majestic pressure that made one’s soul tremble.

“!!!” Lu Qiancha’s mind buzzed.

‘This pressure… this familiar yet incredibly unfamiliar aura of a superior…’

“An immortal… a demon immortal?!”

Just as this thought arose, a wave of intense dizziness engulfed her consciousness.

Thud! Thud!

Two muffled sounds followed.

Lu Qiancha and Shangguan Yunzhu, facing the terrifying pressure of a demon immortal, had no resistance at all. Like boneless puppets, they collapsed limply onto the cold, snowy ground, completely unconscious.

And in the instant she lost consciousness, the layer of disguise on Lu Qiancha also disintegrated, revealing her true appearance—a very young-looking blue-furred loli.

The massive dark gray wolf’s body swayed slightly and instantly transformed into a woman dressed in a gray fur cloak, with a cold face and long, silver-gray hair.

She looked at the unconscious Shangguan Yunzhu on the ground, her gaze as cold as if looking at a dead object.

But when her gaze fell on Lu Qiancha’s undisguised face, a strong sense of shock and confusion clearly flashed in her cold eyes.

“A royal cub?! Such a pure aura… How could it be active here, and consorting with a human cultivator to steal our clan’s treasured herb?”

“Grr?”

A slightly smaller snow wolf from the side approached a few steps, a questioning growl rumbling in its throat.

The female wolf retracted her gaze, her expression returning to cold indifference, and decisively gave an order, “Drag that human away and lock her in the ice prison.”

Her gaze shifted to the unconscious Lu Qiancha, paused for a moment, then added, “As for this cub… be careful with her. Bring her to my room. Royal blood must not be slighted.”

“Woof.”

The snow wolf lowered its head in acknowledgement.

Immediately, several strong snow wolves came forward. Some bit, some carried, carefully taking the two unconscious figures and, as if merging with the wind and snow, quickly disappearing into the vast, white depths of the ice plains.