The hunt in Grey Needle Forest had been a one-sided slaughter from the very beginning.
And it had been bound to be a slaughter.
The Mountain Spirits had been able to roam freely and commit crimes across Qiongzhou without the troubles ever letting up, not because they were especially powerful. Apart from their mysterious leader, most of the ordinary adults were only about as strong as Rogue Cultivators who had just entered Foundation Establishment.
In fact, with the Nine Provinces now dominated by the Human Dao, it was already hard to find many powerful demons in the wild. The centuries-old tree demon in Grey Needle Forest could practically be considered a protected cultural relic.
As for the size of their tribe, there were no more than thirty or fifty of them at most—and that was counting the old, weak, women, and children who barely added to their numbers.
So, according to Liu Cheng's intelligence and deductions, in terms of pure frontal strength, this group of Mountain Spirits might not even have been a match for a combined strike from a few Aristocratic Clan scions.
They were simply too good at hiding. Their mysterious, mutated leader seemed to possess a supernatural gift for divination. On top of that, the Mountain Spirits had mastered a strange demonic art of illusion within Grey Needle Forest, leaving the Monster Hunting Squad—whose strength surpassed theirs several times over—unable to find a way out, whether by sky or underground.
But once those two barriers were gone... In the face of a powerful enemy, the Mountain Spirits were nothing more than fish on a chopping block.
Zhu Ying hadn't gone into every detail of her hunt, but even from what she said, it wasn't hard to imagine how desperate the Mountain Spirits had been.
Just as the tribe was completely off guard, the nightmare came creeping in.
After that, no matter how they fled or where they hid... the nightmare was always at their heels.
Neither the chieftain's gift for foresight nor the forest's protection through its illusions could hinder the nightmare in the slightest.
Whenever the tribe showed even the smallest opening, she struck like thunder and claimed her prey. One blow, then gone—she never lingered.
Pursuit was entirely pointless. Even the tribe's most seasoned warriors couldn't catch a trace of their opponent. It was as if Grey Needle Forest, which should have sheltered them, had turned around and begun protecting their enemy instead.
Zhu Ying hunted with decisiveness and patience. She never got greedy or lingered in a fight, yet she never let a single opportunity slip by. Though she hunted alone, she was utterly unstoppable.
And she had been bound to be unstoppable.
Because she was the foremost disciple of Gujian Sect in Yan Mountain; and because the Demon Race bloodline she'd inherited had once belonged to a branch at the very top of the food chain.
Though, centuries later, the Demon Race had nearly gone extinct, and Zhu Ying, a descendant of a great demon, had switched to cultivating the Immortal Path and strictly followed the Human Emperor's teachings. Still young, she already possessed thirty-nine Human Dao Seals and had become a victim of exam-oriented education...
But the power buried deep in her bloodline had always been there. And Zhu Ying had never struggled with or rejected that power.
When faced with a Zhu Ying who was stern but not rigid, determined yet quick-witted, the Mountain Spirits' fate had been decided long ago.
Until an unexpected turn threw everything into chaos.
The Mountain Spirits captured a hostage.
A lone Rogue Cultivator who had been kicked out of the Monster Hunting Squad and then, unlucky enough to lose her way in the forest.
"Her name is Su Qiluo. She's a Second Generation Disciple of Suxin Garden, under Liuxiang Pavilion, and was born to an ordinary Desolate People artisan family. Because she had a fourth-grade Spirit Root and a delicate temperament, True Person Xuanyu of Suxin Garden took a liking to her and accepted her as a disciple."
"She achieved Foundation Establishment after eighteen years of cultivation. Her talent was quite good, and she was skilled at sewing and tanning... but she truly knew nothing about actual combat. In all eighteen years of cultivation, she'd never once fought anyone."
"Actually, she joined the Monster Hunting Squad by pure accident. She'd quarreled with True Person Xuanyu and joined out of spite... ahem. In any case, when everything that followed happened, she was completely helpless to respond."
"She got separated, lost her way, and ran into the Mountain Spirits. She was captured alive without putting up any real resistance... When I found her, she was hanging from a tree and crying."
"Mountain Spirits are cruel by nature. They kept her alive as a hostage, hoping to force me to surrender and tie myself up. If I showed the slightest refusal, they threatened to cut off pieces of her flesh and gouge out her eyes and nose."
"Fortunately, the day before, I'd also caught a Mountain Spirit cub. If those Mountain Spirits dared hurt her, I'd cut off pieces of its flesh and gouge out its eyes and nose."
"The Mountain Spirits may be brutal and ignorant, but they treasure the young ones in their tribe. That made a trade possible, more or less. So after a bit of trouble, I managed to exchange that girl... Su Qiluo back."
"Unfortunately, rescuing her meant I'd acquired dead weight out of nowhere. I could still protect myself, but it became much harder to approach the prey without being noticed... That girl really knew how to cause trouble."
When Zhu Ying spoke about Su Qiluo, her words were calm, with a hint of disdain, but a smile had already begun to spread across her face.
Clearly, the unlucky little weaver might have caused trouble, but Zhu Ying had taken quite a liking to her.
So was Su Qiluo the reason Senior Sister had come back from the hunt in such a good mood?
At the thought, Wu Ming couldn't help looking at Zheng Lingxi beside him.
Second Senior Sister, your position is under threat!
Zheng Lingxi, however, seemed entirely unaware. She only widened her eyes in earnest and listened closely as Zhu Ying continued her story.
After saving Su Qiluo, Zhu Ying temporarily gave up hunting and decided to escort her out of Grey Needle Forest first... But after walking for two whole days, they not only failed to leave the forest, they nearly got lost!
The illusions shrouding the forest clearly hadn't lifted. Zhu Ying could sense where the Mountain Spirits were and hunt alone, but she couldn't find her own way out.
So Zhu Ying had no choice but to change tactics and look for more Rogue Cultivators who'd become separated in the forest. At the very least, she could entrust the little nuisance tagging along at her side to someone else, freeing herself to resume the hunt.
Now trapped with no way out, the only solution she could think of was this: perhaps if she slaughtered the entire tribe of Mountain Spirits, the forest's illusions would dispel on their own.
Then she found a woman from the Yuan Family who was skilled at refining pills and powders.
"She was Yuan Wan'er, a concubine-born daughter of the Yuan Family in Dongjun. She could barely be considered an Aristocratic Clan scion, but Liu Cheng and the others wouldn't accept her, simply because her nature was... extremely outrageous, to put it mildly! They were in the middle of a demon hunt and trapped in an illusory realm, and she still managed to get tangled up with the two men traveling with her! They'd only just met!"
At the mention of Yuan Wan'er, Zhu Ying was clearly gritting her teeth. Yet beneath that irritation, there was no genuine hatred in her eyes.
"I didn't like those three, but they... were only ridiculous in their behavior, not wicked in their hearts. Besides, they'd survived on their own in the forest for a long time, so they could at least protect themselves. After weighing things over, I still decided to entrust Qiluo to them for a while."
"Despite her absurd behavior, that Yuan woman knew right from wrong and understood what mattered. She promised to protect Qiluo and gave me a great many pills she had on hand... When the two men saw that, they inexplicably got competitive and rushed to offer me treasures. They nearly handed over the very things they relied on for self-defense."
"I picked out a few useful items and set off again... Fortunately, nothing else went wrong this time. After some time, I finally scattered the Mountain Spirit tribe completely. Unfortunately, I couldn't bring the ringleader to justice."
"When the Mountain Spirits were utterly defeated, the forest's illusions suddenly dispersed too. After that, the Golden Core guardians, who'd been missing for so long, appeared one after another. They quickly found Liu Cheng and the others, who'd been lost for ages, and then wiped out the remaining Mountain Spirits along the way."
"I didn't take part after that... But apparently, even with Golden Core cultivators directly joining the fight, the Mountain Spirit leader still managed to escape. I've no idea what it really was. I hunted down more than twenty of its kin in the forest, but never found a chance to go after it directly."
"In any case, the Demon Hunting Decree wasn't completed in full, and the operation ended with some regrets. But the demon hunt had already dragged on too long, and we'd still achieved tangible results. In the end, we collected even more Mountain Spirit remains than expected. So the Aristocratic Clan scions discussed it among themselves and decided to announce that the operation had been a complete victory..."
"Of course, there were plenty of trivial details to deal with, like covering up the infighting within the team... I couldn't be bothered to argue with those people. They could say whatever they liked. I just returned to the Prefecture City with the squad, collected the rewards I was owed, then said goodbye to Qiluo and Wan'er and came straight back to the mountain."
And so, the broken Senior Sister's legendary grand adventure finally came to an end.
As a suitably well-mannered listener who upheld civility and fostered new customs, Wu Ming promptly offered Senior Sister some tea. Zhu Ying accepted with a smile, took only a sip, then set down the cup and waited expectantly for her master's response.
She hadn't told that long story just to show off... She hadn't even gone into detail about when she'd broken through to Foundation Establishment Middle Stage, as if breaking through a cultivation realm meant nothing to her!
The truth was, the past month had been full of strange occurrences that left her utterly baffled!
First, why had those Aristocratic Clan scions led by Liu Cheng come in the first place? The Demon Hunting Decree alone couldn't possibly have been so appealing!
Second, what was going on with the illusions in Grey Needle Forest? It was one thing for the younger Qi Refining and Foundation Establishment cultivators to get trapped, but how could even the Golden Core guardians have been lost in there?
Besides, even if the Golden Core cultivators truly couldn't escape, how could no one outside notice that the Monster Hunting Squad had gone missing? Hadn't the old ancestors of those Aristocratic Clans come to rescue them?
Finally... those Mountain Spirits were strange too. Qiongzhou was sometimes troubled by demons and evil beings, even forcing the prefectures and the provincial government to issue Demon Hunting Decrees. But they were usually either chance occurrences—creatures who happened to gain the Dao—or great demons who'd slipped in from Minghai Guixu.
A native Demon Race tribe of Mountain Spirits that had been born and raised here, possessed a certain degree of intelligence, and rarely provoked humans—let alone roamed from place to place committing crimes—was deeply abnormal in itself!
Gu Bai fell silent for a moment, then gave his answer.
"Ying'er, you may have... stumbled into an Immortal Mansion."
Before you continue