Chapter 186 - The Sageridge Border Army (1)

Half an hour later, Xu Xinyao came out.

Xu Yuan raised his eyes. A pale blue dress wrapped her slender figure, and the look on her face had already returned to normal.

Just like before. Whenever she was sad, she only ever cried in secret, carefully tucking her feelings away so they would not trouble anyone else. ℯℯ𝑙.

Looking at her calm face, Xu Yuan asked softly, “All right now?”

Xu Xinyao lowered her voice. “Mhm. I’m all right.”

Xu Yuan slowly stood, shifted half a step to the side, and introduced the two women. “This is Ran Qingmo. And this is my younger sister, Xu Xinyao.”

Ran Qingmo’s quiet, clear eyes turned toward Xu Xinyao.

Their gazes met in the air for an instant. A few emotions flickered through Xu Xinyao’s eyes, and she said softly to Xu Yuan, “Third Brother, is she my sister-in-law?”

That was the judgment she made based on the Third Young Master’s former way of life.

Xu Yuan rolled his eyes. “Just call her Ran Qingmo.”

Xu Xinyao hesitated slightly, then gave Ran Qingmo a polite salute. “Sister Qingmo.”

“She’s younger than you. She’s only seventeen,” Xu Yuan cut in before Ran Qingmo could speak.

Xu Xinyao cast this older brother of hers a gentle, watery glance and said softly, “It’s all the same.”

Xu Yuan froze for a moment, then bared his teeth in a crooked grin. “Suit yourself.”

Ran Qingmo looked back and forth between the two of them, then finally rose slowly to her feet. “Hello. Thank you for saving Sageridge.”

She had heard Xu Yuan explain it just now. If they had not happened to run into Xu Xinyao, Sageridge would already have been beyond saving.

At those words, Xu Xinyao’s expression stiffened slightly. She instinctively turned her eyes aside and said in a low voice, “This matter began because of me. If not for my array, things would never have come to this.”

Ran Qingmo tilted her head, her clear voice tinged with confusion. “But wasn’t the murderer the Myriad Manifestations Sect?”

Xu Xinyao looked at her and blinked.

Ran Qingmo’s eyes held not the slightest impurity. “I heard the people in the town say that at first, you were...”

“Ran Qingmo.” Xu Yuan spoke up then, cutting her off. “She truly was poor in her choice of people. This matter did indeed begin because of her.”

Ran Qingmo glanced at Xu Yuan and said softly, “But...”

Xu Yuan’s tone grew heavier. “Ran Qingmo.”

Ran Qingmo obediently stopped talking.

Seeing this, Xu Yuan said offhandedly, “Let’s go. We’re going to Sageridge. You should see the fine mess you made with your own eyes.”

Xu Xinyao’s face turned complicated, but she nodded lightly. “Mhm.”

Since Sageridge was not far away, Xu Yuan did not have the Sage’s remnant soul carry him along this time. Because of that, however, he finally witnessed the methods of Xu Xinyao.

Her boots were engraved with an extremely wondrous array pattern, one that could briefly raise her speed to the level of a Grandmaster. The array patterns on her clothes protected her from the harm caused by that acceleration, and her reaction speed also seemed to be strengthened by some sort of array. Even while traveling, she still had enough attention to spare to speak with him through voice transmission.

No wonder Xu Xinyao had been so strong in Azure Point.

They covered the few miles of distance quickly. When they landed before the illusory mist array, which stood like a natural chasm before them, Xu Xinyao took a pale blue token from the Sumeru Ring on her finger. After forming several hand seals, the mist before them churned and then opened to both sides, revealing a semicircular passage about ten feet wide.

They stepped inside. Mist roiled on either side of them, and from deep within it came the faint roars of demonic beasts.

Although Xu Xinyao had already used the illusory mist array to alter Sageridge’s fate and spare it from total slaughter, the array was still only a trapping formation. It could not effectively kill the demonic beasts within. The beasts imprisoned inside the array were still very much alive.

The three of them walked over the uneven dirt ground and emerged from that long, narrow path through the mist.

Xu Yuan looked at the scene before him and said in a daze, “Looks like the crisis here still won’t be solved until reinforcements arrive from the surrounding regions.”

As his words fell, he followed the sight before him, and what entered his eyes was nothing but ruin and corpses.

The area around Sageridge’s walls had been cleared into an open field, and across that field lay countless demonic beast corpses. Mixed among them were a few torn human limbs, on which the uniforms of the Sageridge border army could still be faintly seen.

But that was only the small part.

Following the carpet of demonic beasts and border soldiers across the ground and looking farther ahead, at the end of the three’s line of sight, there stood a wall of flesh and blood. It was made from the mangled bodies of demonic beasts and border soldiers. One could even see the arms of some border soldiers, arms that had struggled desperately before death, now hanging limp.

That was the edge of Sageridge’s town protection array.

Countless masses of flesh and blood had piled up like a mountain, stretching in one long line, even rising higher than Sageridge’s walls.

Xu Yuan did not use the Sage’s soul power to fly over. Instead, he walked forward step by step.

None of the three spoke. Step by step, they climbed onto that high wall built from flesh and blood, and only then did the scene inside Sageridge come into view.

A great stretch of the town wall had collapsed. The parts that still stood were riddled with pits and scars. Some of the array patterns on the wall’s surface were still operating, but their spiritual glow was dim now, flickering as if they might fail at any moment.

And deeper within was hell on earth.

Inside the collapsed town wall, the number of human corpses suddenly surged. Severed limbs could be seen almost everywhere. Countless bodies had been torn in half by the hideous jaws of demonic beasts. The grisly scene stretched along the ruined streets and spread deeper into the town. Sageridge, a border town that had only just begun to prosper with such difficulty, had now been dyed entirely in blood.

Dawn had just risen. On the deathly silent streets, a few surviving soldiers of the Sageridge Border Army led scattered martial apprentices from the wandering hero bands and merchant caravans, searching street by street for survivors who could not possibly exist.

At that moment, Xu Yuan truly understood what it meant for blood to flow like a river.

Beneath his feet was soft flesh and blood.

Xu Yuan’s fist tightened slightly. He turned his eyes sideways and asked the adopted sister in the pale blue dress beside him, “How does it feel?”

Xu Xinyao clenched her fists. Her breathing had grown strained. “I... I only wanted to save them.”

Every step sank into thick, sticky blood. The sight of mangled flesh and the waves of stench kept needling Xu Yuan’s senses. He said in a low voice, “Doing something bad with good intentions still means you did something bad.”

“Mhm.” Xu Xinyao pressed hard against the two wounds on the back of her hand. The pain that drilled into her bones barely helped keep her conscious. “I... I understand.”

Xu Yuan stepped down from the mountain of flesh and said quietly, “The arrays you’ve studied, and your status as the Fourth Miss of the Chancellor's Manor, mean every move you make affects the lives and deaths of many people. Think more about the consequences before you act. I’ve already reported this matter to Father. He’ll handle the Myriad Manifestations Sect, but you won’t be this lucky next time.”

Xu Xinyao followed silently behind him. After a long while, she said softly, “Father... is going to move against the Myriad Manifestations Sect? Does he have evidence?”

Xu Yuan’s tone was neither warm nor cold. “Why? Do you have evidence?”

Xu Xinyao shook her head. “No. They only supported me with the resources and silver needed to build the array. I don’t know anything else. Even that control node for the array can’t be traced back to them at all.”

Xu Yuan shook his head and said in a low voice, “I caught someone from the Myriad Manifestations Sect earlier who knew the inside story. I’ve already handed him over to the Blackscale Guards at Yellow Dragon Market. Once they finish interrogating him and find solid evidence, Father will act.”

“Thank you,” Xu Xinyao said, her voice full of guilt.