A heart at peace

Chu Xingchen answered the elder's furious rebuke with an even fiercer Divine Ability.

A cascade of sword intent surged toward the elder like a tsunami.

His second disciple's condition looked rather grim. Nothing about his appearance suggested he was all right.

No matter how he looked at it, time was not on his side.

After all, his disciple was only at the Foundation Establishment Boundary. Even with a teleportation talisman to save his life, his safety was hardly assured.

Ending the battle swiftly was the right course now.

Terror filled Mo Chen's heart. He felt every trace of his aura locked down, and beneath that terrifying sword strike, the star of death seemed to flash wildly above his head.

"Master, wait! Spare his life for now!"

Li Xingtian suddenly called out from the mine entrance.

After a moment's hesitation, Chu Xingchen pulled back his strength in the nick of time.

The Sword Qi shifted slightly, sparing the elder's head, his face nearly splitting with terror.

Seeing his master hold back, Li Xingtian breathed a sigh of relief, then shot forward.

He charged straight at the elder. Blood-red spiritual energy suddenly rose around his hand, which he pressed firmly against the elder's head.

Although Chu Xingchen's strike had not killed the elder, the elder had still taken its force head-on.

If he was not already at death's door, he was gravely wounded. As Li Xingtian rushed toward him, Elder Mo Chen did not even have the strength to raise his hand.

He could only let Li Xingtian press a hand against his head.

Then, to his horror, the elder discovered that the blood power within his body was being ravenously siphoned away by that brat in the Foundation Establishment Realm.

A Foundation Establishment cultivator draining a Golden Core cultivator? Such a thing was unheard of, even accounting for his severe injuries.

Yet Elder Mo Chen could clearly feel that this was actually suppression imposed by the cultivation technique itself!

The evil art this brat practiced was even more damned evil than his own!

This sinister thing even drained Evil Cultivators!

Chu Xingchen watched his disciple begin drawing blood power from the elder's body, just like an Evil Cultivator.

Dark-red blood energy swirled around them both. Chu Xingchen could not help frowning as he asked:

"What's going on?!"

Li Xingtian could only turn his head slightly toward his master and explain:

"There's an Evil Cultivator ritual formation here. They've been draining the miners' Spiritual Roots and blood energy to cultivate their evil arts!"

Chu Xingchen tightened his grip on his sword and glared at Li Xingtian, snapping:

"I'm asking about you! What's going on with you?!"

"Me?!" Li Xingtian froze at his words. Only when he looked down and saw his own spiritual energy brimming with blood energy did he understand.

"I'm fine. It's just that your cultivation technique seems able to interact with those blood pools too, Master..."

At that point, Li Xingtian's expression also grew somewhat strange.

After all, he had never heard of any orthodox immortal cultivation technique that could interact with an Evil Cultivator's ritual formation.

Moreover, the technique he currently practiced even took precedence over those Evil Cultivators' arts.

Will every move I make from now on unleash mountains of corpses and seas of blood?

But time was pressing, and this was no moment to dig down to the roots. Chu Xingchen hurriedly said:

"As long as you're all right. Their reinforcements are probably almost here. How are things?"

Li Xingtian quickly felt the spiritual energy within him filling to the brim. As his technique circulated, his cultivation also climbed by leaps and bounds.

He immediately answered, "I just saw Senior Sister heading into the mine. I've killed all the Foundation Establishment cultivators inside, so she should be perfectly safe. Master, go grab the things in the warehouse, then get out of here. I'll deal with this man!"

Chu Xingchen nodded slightly, then headed straight for the warehouse.

The other Foundation Establishment disciples of the Clearwind Sect had already scattered the moment their elder was felled by a single sword strike.

No one came to stop Chu Xingchen now, and he kicked the warehouse doors straight open.

Yet the sight that greeted him made him pause.

There was a decent quantity of spirit stones in the warehouse, but a formation inside nourished them with blood energy flowing from the mine.

The spirit stones before him were no longer their usual pale blue, glowing with spiritual energy.

Instead, they were pale red and reeked of blood.

Wait... if I use these spirit stones to buy anything, won't I be branded an Evil Cultivator on the spot?!

Of all the things these people could ruin, they had to ruin spirit stones.

But he could not worry about that right now.

With the thought that he was already here anyway,

Chu Xingchen still swept every spirit stone before him into his Spatial Ring.

The ring's storage space soon filled to bursting, leaving a few stray spirit stones behind.

Chu Xingchen casually picked up another two spirit stones and tucked them into his robes, then stopped being greedy.

When he went outside, Li Xingtian had already finished off Elder Mo Chen.

Elder Mo Chen now resembled a desiccated corpse, nothing but skin wrapped around bones.

Chu Xingchen looked over and saw that Li Xingtian's cultivation had reached the Foundation Establishment Middle Stage.

He had caught up with Li Yingling's progress.

Now Li Xingtian was preparing his first plan.

He was setting up the simplest possible teleportation formation. How simple? Neither its destination nor its range could be determined.

Chu Xingchen tossed Li Xingtian several blood-red spirit stones from his Spatial Ring to power the formation.

Just then, Li Yingling emerged from the mine carrying someone in her hand.

Li Yingling also wore a ghost mask. The man she carried was Ning Qianqian's father-Ning Kun.

After Li Yingling came out, quite a few miners rushed out of the mine behind her.

"You've seen it yourselves. Stay here, and you'll die without a doubt. It's only a matter of sooner or later," Li Xingtian said, his hands never stopping. "I've drawn a teleportation formation now."

"There's no telling how far this formation will send you, or where! You may very well be caught by members of the Clearwind Sect again."

"Of course, you can choose to stay. I won't force you, but this is your only chance! Think it over carefully! Anyone willing, step inside the circle."

Li Xingtian infused his voice with spiritual energy, making his words reach the miners' ears clearly.

All the miners stared at the scene before them, looking rather bewildered.

But some were quick-witted. During Li Xingtian's battle inside the mine, the sweeping spiritual energy had shattered a foundation of the illusion formation somewhere.

As the illusion faded, the miners naturally saw the bloody pools, as well as the blood sustenance being extracted from their own bodies.

How could they fail to understand? Being worked like oxen and horses here was one thing, but in the end, those people from the Clearwind Sect would suck even their marrow dry.

Someone among the miners cried out emotionally:

"Thank you, benefactor, for saving our lives! We have no way to repay you!"

Li Xingtian said nothing. He simply kept his head lowered and finished drawing the formation's final stroke.

He slotted the spirit stones into the formation's foundations.

The formation suddenly blazed with light.

Li Xingtian drew a deep breath. "You don't need to thank me. Just don't stand by with your hands tucked into your sleeves when you have a chance to act."

For some reason, whenever he saw those people, Li Xingtian thought of his brother from the same village, the friend he had shared everything with, right down to a pair of trousers.

He had died here.

Then Li Xingtian could not help giving a self-mocking smile. He did not know why he wanted to save them.

But isn't cultivating immortality about letting your heart be at peace?

If you want to do it, then do it. Whether it's to ease your conscience or because you remember your old brother.

In the end, it's what your heart wants.

Then he glanced sideways at his master.

His master merely gave him a gentle nod.