"So Senior Brother Han really did hold such an important woman cultivator in his heart."
Yu Yaoyao remembered the time she accompanied Senior Brother Han and their sect members on an expedition. They had ventured deep into the ocean and fought a battle against a thousand-year sea clam.
At that time, Senior Brother Han was only in the Nascent Soul stage. With one injured arm, he fought bravely and eventually subdued the beast, retrieving a thousand-year sea pearl from inside it. She had only focused on his injury then, hurrying to find healing medicine, and had completely missed the real significance of what he'd taken.
Later, she heard by chance that Senior Brother Han had accepted a sea-based mission. He practically overturned the surrounding sea region, gathering every kind of thousand-year sea pearl he could find. He then sought out the most skilled artifact forger within Cloud Sea Sect to refine them into a spiritual treasure.
Curious, Yu Yaoyao had secretly followed Han Pengfei. When he went to retrieve the finished treasure, she manufactured a coincidence to cross paths with him. At that moment, her divine sense scanned the object in his hands—a magnolia hairpin. Her heart instantly tightened. It was clearly a spiritual artifact meant for a female cultivator.
After that, for a long while, she paid close attention to the hair ornaments worn by the women of the sect. Yet the spiritual treasure seemed to have vanished like a fleeting bloom. She eventually convinced herself she must have seen it wrong in that brief moment.
But now, the same magnolia hairpin had appeared in the hair of a female cultivator.
She didn't need an explanation. She understood.
Yu Yaoyao didn't even know how she left the dueling platform. Wandering aimlessly with her attendant, she found herself drifting to Yunyin Peak without conscious thought.
Although Jian Dan was casually chatting with Zunzhǔ Xiao Yong beside her, she felt a heated gaze on her. The gaze was fixed on the newly acquired magnolia hairpin in her hair.
When that gaze landed on the hairpin a second time, Jian Dan's divine sense quickly identified the source: Yu Yaoyao, Han Pengfei's admirer. She had seen the girl leave in a daze, clearly shaken.
Jian Dan raised an eyebrow. So this treasure had a story behind it.
Just then, her mother insect, the silver-armored one, transmitted a message. Jian Yu was placing formation plates on Yunyin Peak.
What was he planning?
Jian Dan sent a transmission talisman directly to Jian Xu Zūnzhǔ.
Moments later, Jian Xu responded: Jian Yu was setting up a defensive array. As for why, he couldn't say. Jian Xu wasn't deeply skilled in formations, so to be safe, he had already swapped the formation plates with illusory talismans. As long as the array wasn't activated, no one would notice the switch.
Jian Dan silently praised his caution. Jian Xu Zūnzhǔ truly handled matters prudently. This Jian Yu was clearly suspicious.
From the beginning of the Divine Transformation stage matches, Jian Dan had felt an internal alarm sounding. That familiar sense of danger had returned. When she left Yunyin Peak, she didn't bring Wu Siyuan with her. Instead, she left him to assist Jian Xu Zūnzhǔ and only took Jian Gui (Tao Chengfeng) and Jian Hong (Cao Chenfeng) with her.
"Zūnzhǔ, Yue Liang has been captured!"
Jian Dan suddenly received a voice transmission. Her posture straightened immediately. The other side had lost patience and made their move.
"Zūnzhǔ, she brought me to the forbidden ground of Yunhai Sect: the 'Yunhai' itself."
"Zūnzhǔ, she's trying to throw me into the Yunhai vortex!"
Listening to Yue Liang's real-time updates, Jian Dan rubbed her temples and transmitted back:
"Return immediately. I don't have permission to enter the Cloud Sea forbidden ground."
"Understood!" Yue Liang chirped back.
A moment later, the expressions of all the Zūnzhǔs on the main platform shifted slightly. Their gazes turned toward Jian Dan.
Right beside her, a golden array of space transmission flared into being. Within the confined space, it solidified, and Yue Liang materialized inside. She plunged headfirst straight into Jian Dan's arms before the array vanished.
"Yue Liang, what happened?"
Yue Liang shook her head to clear it, then cried out urgently:
"Zūnzhǔ, something big just happened!"
Jian Dan pressed her hand lightly to the girl's head and spoke gently.
"Don't rush. Start from the beginning."
The remaining eight Zūnzhǔs and the Cloud Sea Sect cultivators had all turned their attention toward her now.
Hearing Jian Dan's calm voice, Yue Liang steadied her breath and began recounting everything without hesitation, not even avoiding the others nearby.
"Zūnzhǔ, I finished my patrol of Yunyin Peak and was heading to place my bets when I ran into that woman Yu Yaoyao at the base of the Yunshui Stairs. She's nuts. Didn't say a word and just bound me with a Binding Immortal Chain."
She bared her small white teeth in irritation before continuing:
"Then she dragged me straight into the Yunhai and tried to throw me into the vortex. I followed your order and activated my location transfer. But just before I got pulled away, I saw a man in black toss Yu Yaoyao into the Yunhai!"
As Yue Liang's last word fell, the floating peaks around Cloud Sea Sect began to tremble. Waves surged into a frenzy. In just a few breaths, towering walls of water submerged the outermost peaks.
"Move!"
None of the Zūnzhǔs were the type to hesitate. The moment the change occurred, they vanished from their seats and took to the air.
Quick-reacting cultivators followed, soaring with swords or by flight to see what had happened.
Jian Dan looked toward Yunyin Peak. A red-tinged black light barrier now covered it. Sweeping it with her divine sense, she found that the other sects' peaks had also been sealed off by similar barriers. Only Cloud Sea Sect's remaining peaks were unaffected.
The only exception was the Heavenly Sword Sect's floating peak. It had no resentment-born Azure Dragon forming inside.
"The Azure Blood Dragon Array!" the Zūnzhǔ of the Formation Sect called out.
"This is an ancient evil formation. Quickly! Break it. If not, everyone inside will be turned into nourishment for the evil cultivators!"
As soon as he finished, he vanished from the scene, the rest of the Zūnzhǔs following close behind. The cultivators participating in the final Divine Soul stage battle quickly followed their sect leaders to rescue their fellow disciples.
Only the Heavenly Sword Sect's nine Divine Transformation stage cultivators remained in place.
"Zūnzhǔ, should we take action?" Guan Shanyue asked respectfully. Their Zūnzhǔ hadn't moved, and their peak was clearly less affected.
"No need. Someone inside will break the formation."
Just then, a silver sword light shot into the sky from within, slicing the formation barrier around Yunyin Peak apart.
The moment it shattered, Jian Dan flew over and met Jian Xu as he rose into the air.
"Senior Brother, are you alright?"
"No casualties. Good thing I swapped out Jian Yu's formation plates in advance."
"Where is Jian Yu?"
"She vanished the moment the formation activated. Once I saw that, I didn't bother stopping her."
Jian Xu replied. Jian Dan sent a voice transmission to the silver-armored mother insect, who answered that Jian Yu had also headed toward the forbidden Yunhai ground.
"Have Xiao Yin return. She's walking into her own death."
Then Jian Dan released the Heavenly Sword Sect's flying vessel.
"Disciples of the Heavenly Sword Sect, board the ship!"
Flashes of sword light streaked across Yunyin Peak. In moments, all disciples were assembled aboard.
Meanwhile, across Cloud Sea Sect's domain, the floating peaks gradually stopped shaking. The surging waves calmed, little by little.
"Fellow Daoyou, the forbidden ground of Cloud Sea Sect has undergone a change. Please pardon the disruption."
"Hahaha! Hahaha! Yun Yun, none of you are leaving Cloud Sea Sect today!"
"Something's wrong!"
Jian Dan moved faster than thought. In an instant, she swung her sword upward. An unstoppable sword force blasted skyward, colliding with the merging protective formation of the sect.
A deafening boom thundered in every cultivator's ears.
"Zhēnzūn, do not activate the sect-protecting array! That's the true Azure Blood Dragon Array!"
===
We've officially hit Chapter 400~!!
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