Chapter 136: Resolution

"Heh, I never took you for such a principled young punk, clear on your debts of gratitude and enmity."

A sneer crept onto Yunxuzi's lips. Secretly circulating his profound cultivation art, he stood up and glanced around.

"You mentioned earlier that we were separated into the inner and outer arrays by Mengqi and the others, which means they can't reach me right now, doesn't it?"

Liang Yan smiled slightly, giving a noncommittal response, but to Yunxuzi, this silence was taken as confirmation.

"Kid, the River of Stars Sand is in your hands, isn't it?" Yunxuzi asked.

"Indeed!" Liang Yan openly admitted.

"Very well. In consideration of you saving my life, I'll trade the antidote for the River of Stars Sand in your possession."

"Oh? Does that mean I should be thanking you?" Liang Yan retorted with sarcasm. "You poisoned me, and now you want to trade the antidote for my treasure? How is it that, in your eyes, this still feels like some supreme bestowal of grace?"

"Boy, you don't seem like a dullard. How can you not know that in the world of immortal cultivation, the strong are supreme? The fact that I am willing to grant you a path to survival right now is already the greatest fortune of your life."

"Then I shall grant you a path to survival as well!"

Liang Yan's tone gradually turned icy. "Hand over the antidote right now, or I shall take it myself! Heh, the Soul-Search Technique is far too overbearing; when you were unconscious earlier, I refrained from taking the antidote precisely out of fear that under the soul-searching, you would drop dead on the spot. Now that our grievances are settled, you can't blame this junior for lacking courtesy."

"Fine! Very well!"

Yunxuzi was so furious he laughed, repeating the word twice.

"I never expected that because I haven't shown my might, even a mere Qi-refining junior dares to challenge me! I'd like to see what qualifications you have to attempt a soul-search on this old man!"

With that, Yunxuzi waved his right hand, and a hazy cyan ring emerged. Then, forming a hand seal with his left hand, he pointed a finger at the ring.

Complying with the command, the ring instantly shot upward toward the top of Liang Yan's head, then descended from the sky as if attempting to slip around his neck.

However, Liang Yan's figure flickered, and he vanished from the spot. The cyan ring landed on a stone pier, shattering the entire structure into dust instantly.

"Oh?"

Yunxuzi uttered a cry of surprise, thinking to himself, "Strange, why is this kid's speed suddenly so much faster?"

Having missed his target, he quickly flipped his hand to recall the ring while scanning his surroundings vigilantly, trying to locate Liang Yan's hiding spot.

At that exact moment, a faint sound suddenly echoed from behind a collapsed wall nearby.

Yunxuzi whirled around and roared, "Brash brat, show yourself!"

Pointing a finger as he spoke, the hovering cyan ring shot out once more, striking straight toward the wall where the noise had originated.

***

Boom!

The wall collapsed, and a figure in gray sprang out from within. It was indeed Liang Yan.

Yet, there was not a single scratch on his body, clearly having evaded the ring's attack once more.

"How is this possible?"

Yunxuzi exclaimed in disbelief, "You're just a Qi-refining junior, how could your speed possibly be this fast?"

"No! It's not that your speed has increased... it's that my attacks have... slowed down?"

By now, a tempest was raging in Yunxuzi's heart, accompanied by a faint, ominous premonition. Before he could react, a surge of killing intent suddenly erupted behind him.

Startled, he slammed his feet hard against the ground and leaped into the air.

However, the killing intent at his back pursued him relentlessly. While airborne, Yunxuzi felt a sudden tightening around his ankles. Looking down, he saw a black ghost vine coiled tightly around each of his ankles.

Plummeting from the air, Yunxuzi rolled hastily upon landing and scrambled back to his feet. He then formed swords with the fingers of both hands and slashed at the two black vines before him, finally regaining his freedom.

Standing before him now, aside from Liang Yan, was a young woman in blue. With an oval face and a small mole just beneath her left cheek, she stood prettily by Liang Yan's side—none other than Zhao Xunzhen, whom they had previously encountered within the palace.

"Boy! You poisoned me!" Yunxuzi's eyes bulged with rage.

"Senior saved my life that day by poisoning me while I was unconscious," Liang Yan said, his expression completely unchanged. "Now that it's Senior's turn to be unconscious, this junior at least knows how to follow the established pattern."

"Liang Yan, what a marvelous scheme! It seems that through some fortuitous encounter, you really did acquire the key to control this grand array. Not only did you lure me here, but you even brought along an accomplice!"

In truth, Yunxuzi's guess was not far off. Xiaojiu was the master of the Three-Nine Grand Array, and Liang Yan was the master of Xiaojiu. Thus, as long as anyone was within the Three-Nine Grand Array, Liang Yan was entirely aware of their situation.

Earlier, it was precisely when Yunxuzi was in mortal peril that Liang Yan activated the Three-Nine Grand Array, luring him into the inner array, while Mengqi and the others were guided into the outer array.

As for Zhao Xunzhen, she was the helper he had recruited to deal with Yunxuzi.

"Heh, old fox. You don't need to try and stall for time by talking to me. I've heard that the Innate One-Qi Art is immune to all poisons, but what you consumed just now wasn't poison at all!"

"What did you feed me?!" Yunxuzi finally realized something was amiss. He had just secretly circulated his profound art, attempting to purge the toxins from his body, yet after running his spiritual power through a complete macrocosmic cycle, he could not detect a trace of poison.

However, his cultivation realm had plummeted continuously, and by now, it had dropped all the way to the peak of Qi-refining.

"Have you ever heard of the Blood-Melting Bead?"

"What?! You brat corrupted my Innate True Qi!" Yunxuzi was struck with horror. Only now did he realize that his sudden drop in cultivation was actually the precursor to his cultivation being shattered.

Liang Yan glanced at him. Seeing his pale face and chaotic spiritual power, he thought to himself, "It seems Granny He was right! Before the Innate One-Qi Art is perfected, it possesses a fatal flaw—it is easily contaminated by certain external objects. If he were at his peak, I might be helpless against him, but since he was severely injured beforehand and swallowed the Blood-Melting Bead, forcing his spiritual power to circulate will inevitably shatter his cultivation!"

***

With this realization, Liang Yan sneered, "Originally, as long as you didn't harbor murderous intent toward me and didn't forcefully elevate your true essence, the Blood-Melting Bead wouldn't have acted up. Blame only your own boundless greed for courting your own destruction!"

"Brat! I'll fight you to the death!"

Yunxuzi's face flushed a deep crimson, and blood seeped from the corners of his lips. Waving both hands, he drew two circles in the air, faintly materializing a pair of opposing cyan Taiji diagrams.

With a furious roar, Yunxuzi pushed forward with both hands, each propelling a millstone-sized Taiji diagram as he charged directly at Liang Yan!

Faced with the tyrannical spiritual power emanating from the Taiji diagrams, Liang Yan showed not a shred of panic. With a flick of his sleeve, he and Zhao Xunzhen vanished from the spot the very next moment.

Boom!

Yunxuzi's strike hit empty space, pulverizing the stone piers within a radius of ten zhang into dust.

"It's useless! Haven't you realized where this place is yet?"

The figures of Liang Yan and Zhao Xunzhen reappeared on a flight of steps just behind Yunxuzi.

"What do you mean, where? This is nothing more than a pile of broken ruins!"
Yunxuzi's hair was disheveled, and he looked like a madman.

A peculiar expression crossed Liang Yan's face as he looked at Yunxuzi and said, "So, in your eyes, this is a palace ruin?"

"What do you mean, in my eyes? Aren't they?" Yunxuzi roared.

Liang Yan shook his head and replied, "I told you long ago, this place is the Heart-Demon Enticement, and the only one trapped within it is Senior yourself!"

"What?!"

Yunxuzi started, jolted as if recalling something.

He looked around in a daze, and the surrounding broken ruins slowly began to look familiar...

Some things, after too much time has passed, even one's self forgets; perhaps all that remains is that single lingering obsession.

"This is the Great Tang Palace! My... home?"