When Calamity attached itself to a cultivator, it gradually spread, eroding their vital essence. Once it spread over a large area, even a Divine Infant would be infiltrated.
The higher one's cultivation, the faster it spread. During the dozen or so days Dugu Zixuan had spent in seclusion recovering from her injuries, she had sealed off every energy channel in her body.
Only by creating a state close to suspended death had she prevented the black mark from continuing to spread.
Otherwise, it would not have been as simple as scraping off a layer of flesh.
Dugu Zixuan gently covered her lips with her right hand, lingering fear in her voice. "You mean Lin Zhique may have been assassinated by people from the Left Faction of Martial Arts, all so they could take you away?"
"Not take me away—kill me! They wanted the Fortune on me. No matter what, if I fell into their hands, I definitely wouldn't survive."
Long San had already made it very clear: the Chosen One was a vessel for Fortune, and to plunder that Fortune, they had to kill its bearer.
"This is bad! If that bastard was infected by Calamity and never realized it, after more than twenty years of seclusion... could he still be alive?"
Mother finally understood. Lin Zhique was a Dao Integration mighty one, and unlike her, he had not suffered a drop in realm from bearing a child... Even if he had been injured, he should not have remained silent for over twenty years without a trace.
Unless he had died long ago, killed by the contamination of Calamity, while all of them had assumed he was in seclusion.
A day as husband and wife brought a hundred days of grace. Though Dugu Zixuan wanted nothing more than to slap