Chapter 702: Great Demon 65

Reaching the eighth-rank Immortal Monarch realm in less than one hundred thousand years, Jing Yue was indeed exceptionally talented. To be fair, no one could deny Jing Yue’s excellence. But no matter how excellent he was, the consequences of a corrupt heart were far more severe.

For example, to this day, Qinglian was still struggling desperately in the lower realm for a chance to re-ascend to the path of immortality. And then there was Qing Ming. Although he had already ascended to the Immortal Realm, was there truly no karmic link between him and Jing Yue?

Of course, there was. Although Qing Ming inherited Qinglian’s bloodline, it was Jing Yue who had seized Qinglian’s body back then, which led to Qing Ming’s birth. Therefore, this karmic debt naturally fell upon Jing Yue.

Now, Jing Yue’s desperate search for Tan You was for no other reason than to silence her. As long as Tan You existed, the vile deeds Jing Yue had committed in the past would eventually be exposed to the world.

And if he managed to eliminate Tan You and Qing Ming now, then even if there were other Cultivators or members of the Demon Clan who had ascended from the lower realm to the Nine Heavens, they would be too afraid of the Buddhist Sect’s influence and his own power to easily expose his secrets.

So, in Jing Yue’s mind, Tan You and Qing Ming had to die.

In the vast Immortal-Demon Battlefield, if one was determined to find someone, it was still possible. As long as the target was famous enough, and you yourself were famous enough, wouldn’t finding them be a simple task?

And so, Jing Yue ran into the Immortal Monarchs of the Taiyi Sect.

When the two parties met, they both knew exactly what the other was plotting. Others in the Immortal Realm might not know about Jing Yue’s past, but how could the Immortal Monarchs of the Taiyi Sect not know? The Tianyuan Sect was their branch in the lower realm; the Taiyi Sect naturally knew what had happened there.

And Jing Yue also knew many of the Taiyi Sect’s secrets. After all, regarding the plot against the Demon Clan’s fortune in the lower realm, he only needed to use his brain a little after returning to figure out who was behind it. With both sides harboring ulterior motives, they naturally hit it off immediately.

Furthermore, right after entering the Ancient Battlefield, the Taiyi Sect had encountered Tan You, resulting in one death and three injuries. They had been stewing in resentment ever since, vowing to leave Tan You behind in the Ancient Battlefield.

Thus, the Taiyi Sect was exceptionally proactive in the search for Tan You’s whereabouts.

Cultivators always had a plethora of strange and cunning methods. For instance, one Immortal Monarch produced a black butterfly: "Back when I fought that Golden Ring Snake, I had my Mist Butterfly memorize her scent. As long as we follow the Mist Butterfly, we’ll eventually find her."

"So that’s why you haven’t used your Mist Butterfly since we entered the Ancient Battlefield. You were saving it for this moment, weren’t you?"

"She’s just too good at hiding, and the Ancient Battlefield is so vast. Finding her is truly difficult."

"Well done! If we can take down that Golden Ring Snake this time, Junior Brother, you will be credited with the highest merit!"

"Thank you, Senior Brother. Let’s follow the Mist Butterfly."

Tan You didn’t know that a group of Cultivators was heading right for her, but she could roughly guess. The grand competition between the clans was set to last a year, and nearly nine months had already passed. If they still couldn’t find her, those people were bound to be getting anxious.

So, she was currently wandering around the Land of Severed Spirits. While they were thinking about killing her, she was thinking about hunting them for their Sha Crystals. As for whether she would kill them, it all depended on how strong their killing intent was.

But honestly, killing a few people was no big deal. If she could strip a layer of skin off the Taiyi Sect, that would be even better. After all, the ones making the decisions were at the top, while the ones carrying them out were merely the grunts at the bottom.

Rubbing her chin, Tan You leaned against a large green boulder and slowly closed her eyes...

Just as her eyes were about to close completely, the corners of Tan You’s lips suddenly curled up. She extended her right hand backward in a plain, unremarkable motion, and a small child of about five or six was caught in her grasp.

"Little one, I have a feeling you’re going to bring me an unexpected prize," Tan You chuckled, staring at him for a good while. Then, she casually tore open a spatial rift and tossed the child inside.

The little one opened his mouth to speak, but was suddenly overcome with dizziness. The figure he thought of as Mother disappeared from his sight, and he found himself disorientedly appearing before another group of people.

"Hm? A child this young has come to the Ancient Battlefield?" The little one had just emerged from the spatial rift when he ran into the very people who were painstakingly searching for Tan You: the Taiyi Sect Cultivators and Jing Yue.

Already in a foul mood, the sudden appearance of a child of unknown origin falling from the sky did nothing to improve the Immortal Monarchs’ temper. One of the more hot-tempered ones wanted to kill the child immediately to be done with it.

"Junior Brother Qian Jue, why are you stopping me? It’s just a child." The hot-tempered one’s Sword Qi had already reached the child when it was blocked by the Immortal Monarch who had raised the Mist Butterfly.

"This child carries the scent of that Golden Ring Snake." A butterfly rested on Qian Jue’s fingertip, flapping its wings as if communicating with him.

"Really?" The Immortal Monarch who had attacked was skeptical. "How could it be such a coincidence? We’re looking for her, and a child suddenly appears before us? We all entered together; there were no children among us."

"Besides, he came through spatial turbulence. Can this child really know where the Golden Ring Snake is? I doubt he even knows the way back."

"I heard the second-generation Snake Emperor was a master of the Dao of Space. Do you think this Golden Ring Snake is also skilled in it? After all, that was just a spatial rift."

Jing Yue shook his head. "Unlikely. She has probably dabbled in the Dao of Space, but she hasn’t mastered it. Jin Zhao walked the Dao of Causality."

"Otherwise, how could this child have ended up right in front of us by such ’coincidence’? She likely just tossed him out randomly."

The Taiyi Sect’s Immortal Monarchs immediately grew anxious. "Then what do we do? How do we find her?"

Jing Yue thought for a moment. "Let’s follow this little one for now. See where he takes us."

Qian Jue agreed. "We might as well follow the child for a while. If it leads nowhere, we can reconsider."

"Alright."

"I suppose that’s our only option."

"That Golden Ring Snake is really good at hiding!"

"If we really manage to kill her, the sect will give us..."

Their endless discussion was lost in the wind, and the group of Immortal Monarchs did indeed follow the little one in Tan You’s direction. It was a credit to the little one that he still remembered his birthplace. Despite taking many detours along the way, he eventually found it... the Land of Severed Spirits.

Tan You herself had never imagined that this place, known as the Land of Severed Spirits, could have actually given birth to a child with a budding, albeit muddled, consciousness. She had even randomly teleported him to some corner of the Ancient Battlefield, yet the child had, by sheer coincidence, landed right in front of Jing Yue and his group.

’He’s the perfect helper for my fishing expedition.’

Therefore, the moment the child and the Immortal Monarchs stepped into her upgraded God Trapping Array, Tan You felt it. In the middle of a fierce battle, Tan You couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. After successfully obtaining another Sha Crystal as she had wished, she slowly made her way toward the Land of Severed Spirits.

Meanwhile, within the Land of Severed Spirits, the Immortal Monarchs who had just arrived by riding the wind suddenly fell from the sky like dumplings being dropped into a pot. The Immortal Yuan power they relied on for survival could no longer be used, and their physical bodies became incredibly heavy.

Here, they could only rely on their own physical bodies to move, unable to use any external forces or techniques.