Empty Mountain Sect's Great Calamity

Chen Yan's expression stiffened slightly. Then he took a step back and put on a stern face.

"Don't fool around!"

Cheng Ziying gave a light hop backward and smiled.

"When are we leaving?"

"Now... or tomorrow."

"If we leave now, we definitely won't make it back by tomorrow. But I still have duties to attend to at the Training Ground."

Cheng Ziying hesitated for a moment, then added:

"How about the day after tomorrow?"

The day after tomorrow was when the Outer Court Calamity would descend.

"The day after tomorrow..."

"We'll leave the morning after tomorrow, Senior Brother. Please, please—tomorrow's duties at the Training Ground are very important. I really can't get away!"

Seemingly half-joking, Cheng Ziying pleaded with Chen Yan.

Other than Chen Yan, no one knew what would happen the day after tomorrow.

Thus, he had no sufficient reason to persuade Cheng Ziying to cast aside her duties at the Training Ground and accompany him on a sect mission.

If he told Cheng Ziying what would happen the day after tomorrow...

No. It would likely bring even more trouble.

If they left the morning after tomorrow, there would still be enough time.

"Then I'll see you outside the sect at the outer mountain the morning after tomorrow, Senior Brother!"

The young girl's figure was playful and lively as she waved goodbye in Chen Yan's direction.

"..."

Watching Junior Sister Cheng's departing back, Chen Yan sighed.

Over the course of this cycle, Cheng Ziying seemed to have gradually developed certain feelings for Chen Yan.

The reason the thin sheet of window paper between them had not been pierced, leaving them merely as ordinary senior brother and junior sister, was because Chen Yan had deliberately kept his distance from her all along.

Chen Yan did not think of himself as a dull person.

But...

Forget it. Forget it.

The most important thing now was to take Cheng Ziying away from the sect the morning after tomorrow and avoid the Outer Court Calamity.

As for everything else, none of it was something he should be considering right now.

Empty Mountain Sect, outer mountain.

Strictly speaking, the outer mountain did not belong to the Empty Mountain Sect.

Because this place was merely the Empty Mountain Sect's mountain gate.

From the foot of the mountain to its summit, there were a total of ten thousand and one steps. Every three years, when the Empty Mountain Sect opened its gates, this was the only path for mortal youths who wished to come to the Empty Mountain Sect seeking immortality and the Dao.

It was also the only path for Empty Mountain Sect cultivators below the Qi Sea Realm when they wished to descend the mountain.

Only when one's cultivation reached the Qi Sea Realm or above could one ride qi through the air.

Chen Yan stood at the mountaintop. To his left stood a massive boulder nearly ten meters tall.

The three large characters "Empty Mountain Sect" were carved upon the boulder in a free and elegant hand. According to the sect's elders, these three characters had been inscribed by the first Peak Master of Yibai Peak.

Two days ago, he and Cheng Ziying had agreed to meet here before heading to Taiyun City, five hundred li from the Empty Mountain Sect's mountain gate, to deliver a letter to the city's resident envoy.

Taiyun City was the closest city to the Empty Mountain Sect's mountain gate, and also the Empty Mountain Sect's bridgehead in the mortal world.

In name, Taiyun City was the capital of the Western Regions of the Qingque Kingdom, but its actual control rested entirely in the hands of the Empty Mountain Sect.

In Taiyun City, even the city lord's words carried less than a tenth of the weight of the Empty Mountain Sect's resident envoy.

Chen Yan stood alone before the Empty Mountain Sect's mountain gate. The surroundings were utterly still.

Today, Chen Yan had arrived here early to wait.

He turned to look toward the mountains within the sect, but saw neither anyone's figure nor any trace of them.

The agreed time had already arrived. Cheng Ziying was not someone who would break an appointment, and she was very punctual.

Yet she had not appeared.

Chen Yan suddenly realized something.

"It can't be..."

He turned and ran toward the sect's outer court.

Chen Yan would never forget the calamity that would occur in the sect's outer court today.

From beginning to end, that calamity lasted only seven breaths.

In those seven breaths, over ten thousand Outer Court Disciples were killed or wounded.

In that cycle, Chen Yan had narrowly escaped disaster, while Cheng Ziying had perished within it.

If he could take Cheng Ziying down the mountain before the Outer Court Calamity arrived.

If only...

But there were no ifs.

"Haah, haah..."

Chen Yan stood on an Outer Court street, gasping for breath.

He had pushed the true qi within his meridians to its limit and finally made it back here.

The street was filled with disciples clad in the standard daoist robes of the Empty Mountain Sect's Outer Court, all of them unhurried and at ease.

Compared to them, Chen Yan's exhausted and bedraggled state looked utterly out of place.

But this was not the time to care about that.

Among the passing Outer Court Disciples, Chen Yan spotted a familiar teenage figure, around fourteen or fifteen years old.

It was Zhao Hong, an Outer Court Disciple who had only come up the mountain a few years ago and lived behind and to the right of Chen Yan's residence.

"Junior Brother Zhao!"

He shouted at the figure.

The disciple Chen Yan had called Junior Brother Zhao turned around. Seeing Chen Yan panting for breath, he froze for a moment.

"Senior Brother Chen, what happened to you...?"

"Have you seen Ziying?!"

"Senior Sister Cheng? Not long ago, she went to your residence looking for you. She said the Prefectural Senior Sister over at the Training Ground had suddenly assigned her a task, so she couldn't accompany you..."

Before Zhao Hong could finish, Chen Yan had already sprinted toward the Training Ground.

Cheng Ziying had advanced to the Qi Condensation Realm at nineteen. That speed of cultivation placed her solidly among the upper-middle tier in the Outer Court.

Those disciples with even greater talent would usually leave the Outer Court eventually and enter the Inner Sect.

Thus, disciples like Cheng Ziying, with upper-middle talent, were all the more valued by the Outer Court's elders and deacons. They were given special training and treated as the future pillars of the Outer Court.

That was precisely why the Prefectural Senior Sister at the Training Ground often assigned Cheng Ziying various tasks.

But not today.

Forget a task from the Prefectural Senior Sister—even one handed down by a deacon, supervisor, or even an Outer Court elder would not do.

Because Chen Yan remembered.

He remembered that the heart of this calamity was the Training Ground.

Chen Yan raced down the street, the overworked true qi making his muscles ache and swell.

Then the Training Ground was right before him.

Suddenly, the air above the Outer Court congealed in an instant.

"...Cough!"

Chen Yan suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood.

In that instant, the true qi in Chen Yan's meridians had begun to violently quake, dealing considerable damage to his meridians.

It had come.

The greatest calamity the Empty Mountain Sect had suffered in a thousand years, one so immense it had even alarmed the sect's Supreme Elder, had come.

A deafening roar echoed over the Empty Mountain Sect's Outer Court, and the Outer Court Disciples on the streets all looked up.

On the street before the Training Ground, Outer Court Disciples whose cultivation had not reached the Qi Condensation Realm exploded one after another, turning into clouds of blood mist.

Struggling onward, Chen Yan rushed into the Training Ground. Cheng Ziying, slender and graceful in the Empty Mountain Sect's pale white standard daoist robes, stood before the platform.

"Ziying!"

Cheng Ziying turned around somewhat sluggishly and looked at Chen Yan.

"Senior Brother Chen..."

Then Cheng Ziying's originally fair cheeks suddenly began to flush crimson. Blood streaks even surfaced in her eyes.

The next instant, a mass of blood mist erupted from where she stood before the platform.

Chen Yan froze where he was.

"Cough—urgh..."

He collapsed to the ground, vomiting a pool of foul blood mixed with fragments of internal organs.

The shadow of an enormous black serpent began to emerge directly above the Training Ground.

Suddenly, a streak of azure radiance flashed across the sky, cleaving the enormous black serpent shadow in two.

An immense spiritual pressure swept through the entire sect's Outer Court.

Chen Yan barely managed to raise his head.

In the final moments of his life, he saw a young girl in white, her long black hair like ink.

She stood outside the Training Ground, looking up at the severed shadow of the black serpent in the sky. Her eyes were filled with indignation and...

Regret.