Don't Get Worked Up

These three people clearly knew what was going on.

Because the Gongsun Household had a disciple who was trained by the main branch and sent to Cloud Gathering City for training hundreds of years ago, and who was well taken care of by Duan Weixue at that time, the two had a close personal relationship. Therefore, Gongsun Jingge, who was being asked by name, could not ignore her and had to carefully choose his words to avoid provoking her further.

"Fellow Daoist Duan, please calm down and let me explain from the beginning..."

He had barely opened his mouth when Duan Weixue interrupted him incredulously, "I've only been in seclusion for fifty years without contacting you, and I've already become 'Fellow Daoist Duan'?! You didn't call me that back then!"

Lu Xunfeng and Yun Qianxin, who were standing to the side, immediately turned to look at Gongsun Jingge with meaningful expressions, as if to say: We never expected that you, Gongsun Jingge, were like this.

Gongsun Jingge:...

After a moment of silence, he reluctantly changed his tune and continued, "Brother Weixue, I will tell you everything that happened, but you have to promise me you'll listen calmly and not get agitated at the first thing."

Duan Weixue took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, nodding and saying, "Okay, I'm ready. Go ahead and say it. I'm not excited."

"Alright, here's the thing, we broke through the protective formation of Cloud Gathering City..."

"What?! It was you who broke my ancestral city-protecting formation?! I'm severing ties with you! Old man Gongsun, make your move! Today it's either you or me! From now on, it's either you or me in this world! I will never let the Gongsun Household live under the same sky!" Duan Weixue shouted a string of words, rolled up her sleeves, and was about to rush forward to fight Gongsun Jingge hand-to-hand.

Yun Qianxin and Lu Xunfeng quickly stepped forward and grabbed his arms on either side to stop him.

Gongsun Jingge took several steps back, waving his hands and slapping his thighs, and said urgently, "Hey, don't be in such a hurry! You just agreed, why are you getting excited again? Let me finish!"

"What's the point of talking between us?! How is leading people to break my ancestral formation any different from desecrating my ancestral graves?! From this day forward, our friendship is severed! I will fight you to the death!" Enraged Duan Weixue struggled to break free, his hands unable to move. He roared at the two men blocking his way, "Let me go! I will fight this old thief to the death!"

After much persuasion from them, Duan Weixue was extremely angry, finally calmed down and listened to them recount the whole story.

"So you're saying that the Annihilation Immortal used some means to trigger the Cloud Burst in advance, and then used the energy of the Cloud Burst to successfully trigger the highest defense of my city-protecting array to seal off Cloud Gathering City, achieving the goal of using the Execution Qi to hunt down the cultivators in the city, while at the same time being unable to contact me who was in seclusion, so you had to break the array in order to rescue people and eliminate the Execution Qi inside?" Duan Weixue, roughly repeated Gongsun Jingge's narration.

"That's right." Gongsun Jingge nodded, wiping the sweat from his forehead, finally accepting what he was hearing.

Duan Weixue stopped struggling and, with her arms held up, suddenly stared blankly at the ruins of Cloud Gathering City.

Lu Xunfeng and Yun Qianxin exchanged a glance, then silently let go of his arm.

For a moment, no one spoke, and a faint sadness filled the air.

"Ahem, Fellow Daoist Duan, were your injuries caused by forcibly leaving seclusion?" Lu Xunfeng coughed lightly, breaking the silence. He had noticed Duan Weixue's internal injuries and unstable cultivation Duan Weixue taken her arm.

Forcibly exiting seclusion usually leads to a drop in cultivation level, and in severe cases, it can even damage one's very essence, making it impossible to advance again in the short term.

Duan Weixue while she said softly, "Even with so many of you working together, you can't deal with the opponent's clone. Do you think I have any chance of getting revenge?"

Gongsun Jingge and Yun Qianxin silently shook their heads.

Lu Xunfeng simply said, "No chance."

"Sigh..." A strong gust of wind blew by, carrying away Duan Weixue's soft sigh.

He turned his back, wiped his face hard with his sleeve twice, and then said in a slightly damp voice, "I'm going to collect the bodies of the victims."

After saying that, Duan Weixue flew off toward the direction where the rescue ships had crashed.

Watching him leave, Gongsun Jingge sighed and shook his head, "Brother Weixue is also a man of strong character..."

Duan Weixue arrived at the crash sites of the rescue ships she had previously rescued.

Now all that remains here are corpses wrapped in straw mats.

At that time, the thirty-two Void Return cultivators and the Annihilation Immortal were fighting a great battle in Cloud Gathering City, and the heavens and earth trembled. The Cloud Burst was about to descend again. Seeing the critical situation, the leaders of various sects and Aristocratic Clan made a decisive decision to order everyone to return immediately.

As for the hundreds of thousands of people whose lives were taken away by the Execution Qi and who ultimately failed to escape, the rescuers only brought back the remains of their own comrades. As for the remaining remains, all they could do before leaving was to hastily cover the corpses with straw mats, so that at least the deceased wouldn't be left to rot in the wilderness.

Duan Weixue glanced around and saw that the area within a hundred miles was littered with corpses, with not a single living person.

No, not at all.

He was surprised to discover that there was another person still alive a hundred miles away.

The man appeared to be uninjured, and he sat loosely cross-legged beside a corpse, his eyes vacant.

Perhaps some relatives or friends had perished here, and they were grieving, Duan Weixue thought, and sighed with a sense of empathy. She did not go over to disturb them, but instead began to move the other remains to the ruins of Cloud Gathering City.

In fact, Lin Xiao was not sad. After all, he had only known Jiang Qu for a day. Although he felt sad, it was not yet to the point of grief.

He was thinking, trying to make his logic consistent.

At first, he was annoyed that he hadn't cultivated harder. He had a system at his disposal, a cultivation speed that many people didn't have, and he could also transform Spiritual Power energy into essence to suppress the Execution Qi. He had also discovered the whereabouts of the Execution Cultivator in advance.

He wondered if his cultivation level were higher, would he be able to save Jiang Qu and the hundreds of thousands of people in Cloud Gathering City more quickly?

"You should go." Duan Weixue, who had moved all the remains to the ruins of Cloud Gathering City, came over and saw Lin Xiao still sitting there quietly. Seeing that the Cloud Burst should be coming soon, he came over to persuade him to leave.

Lin Xiao, interrupted from his thoughts, looked up and saw another young man in white robes, whose cultivation was completely unfathomable and whose aura was powerful. He nodded slightly and replied, "Thank you for your concern, senior. I'll sit for a while longer."

Seeing that he still hadn't left, Duan Weixue patted his shoulder and comforted him, "I know you're sad, but the deceased is gone, and we still have to look forward."

"Thank you for your guidance, senior," Lin Xiao replied.

Duan Weixue clicked her tongue lightly; this kid was a bit stubborn.

He pointed to Jiang Qu in front of Lin Xiao and asked him, "I plan to build a Ten Thousand Souls Mound on the ruins of Cloud Gathering City to bury all those who perished in this disaster. Do you, my relative and friend, wish to be buried there?"