As Lu Zhexuan flew toward the Ancient Battlefield of Meditation, her heart suddenly trembled, she had sensed a surge of terrifying might tearing through the clouds and space, instantly crossing the sky.
She wasn't unfamiliar with this presence.
After all, the "Martial Saint" Mu Zhao was nothing like the elusive Xi Mengquan, who was as mysterious and untraceable as a divine dragon.
On the contrary, Mu Zhao could be considered the most publicly recognized among the Saints.
The Monument of Dao Transmission and the Martial Saint Pavilion were irrefutable evidence of how Mu Zhao had widely accepted disciples and preached the Dao selflessly to the world.
In the eyes of many, the status of the Martial Saint could even rival that of the Master of Liberty Mountain.
However, without guidance, even the faintest trace of Dao resonance would be useless to an average cultivator.
Moreover, the Martial Saint Pavilion only accepted cultivators who had already reached the Middle Third Grade.
More importantly, one of the techniques cultivated by the Martial Saint involved an aspect of the Incense Flame Dao, that is, utilizing the faith of others to stabilize one's own Dao Domain.
Among cultivators of the Upper Third Grade, this was no secret at all.
Hence, in Lu Zhexuan's eyes, this so-called "Martial Saint" Mu Zhao could only be described with one word:
"Hypocrite."
In the path of enlightenment under the Cangyuan System, actions outweigh intention, but the approach varied from person to person.
Lu Zhexuan maintained strict self-discipline, and she demanded the same of her disciples, always striving for unity between knowledge and action.
What she disdained most were those who preached but did not practice, who only cultivated superficially while remaining spiritually hollow within, mere embroidered pillows that looked impressive but lacked substance.
While this didn't necessarily block their path to the Dao, it did not stop Lu Zhexuan from holding deep contempt for such people.
She was even aware that her most prized disciple, Shen Xingzhu, known as the "Dao Beacon" had this very problem, and perhaps to a severe degree.
Lu Zhexuan had made multiple efforts to converse with this aloof and proud disciple, attempting to warn and guide her onto a different path.
But the result?
Nothing changed...
Shen Xingzhu was very much like Lu Zhexuan in her younger days, just as stubborn, with a deep-seated unwillingness to admit defeat.
As if she were constantly wrestling with the entire world through sheer willpower.
If not for the appearance of that one person back then who changed Lu Zhexuan's perspective, she might have lived out the remainder of her years in that remote mountain Daoist temple, ending her days in obscurity.
Shen Xingzhu didn't suffer the same external hardships, but due to her arrogance, she always held a mocking, manipulative attitude toward everyone else.
But was that not also a form of cognitive obstruction?
Lu Zhexuan had long sensed that Shen Xingzhu would suffer a grievous loss because of it.
However, as a teacher, she did not interfere with some of Shen Xingzhu's covert actions. With people like her, unless they came to understand on their own, no amount of persuasion would work.
She just never expected that once Shen Xingzhu stumbled, she would fall that hard, her Dao Heart directly shattered!
That was the first time Lu Zhexuan had heard the name "Chen Kuang", a name that would, in the future, be passed around by countless mouths.
Fortunately, Shen Xingzhu's constitution was unique. Her Dao Heart could still be salvaged.
And in truth, the root of it was Shen Xingzhu's own excessive arrogance, looking down on the world, only to be outmaneuvered by a mere mortal.
Back then, Lu Zhexuan had been preoccupied with that great demon's body, so she hadn't paid much attention to that rather peculiar mortal. Nor had she any intention of stepping in for her disciple.
After all, the fault lay with Shen Xingzhu. If she overstepped to shield her, and ended up harming a mortal in the process, what would that make her?
Lu Zhexuan didn't take that mortal seriously. Even after, she only heard from others that this man had gone on to do some earth-shaking deeds.
And in the end...
She heard he had died at Mu Zhao's hands.
Right and wrong, gratitude and grudges, all turned by the wheel of fate.
At the time, Lu Zhexuan merely felt a strange sense of loss and melancholy, thinking perhaps she had become too sentimental after all the years gone by.
Soon enough, her attention returned to her disciple.
Or rather... two disciples.
Shen Xingzhu and Shen Meinan, they could almost be considered two halves of the same whole.
The Shen family had originally planned for Shen Meinan to formally become Lu Zhexuan's disciple as soon as she was a little older, just like her elder sister.
Over the years, Lu Zhexuan had occasionally disguised herself as an ordinary woman and interacted with Shen Meinan, who had no idea of her true identity.
She'd grown quite fond of this lively and innocent girl.
But now, it seemed Shen Meinan had developed some peculiar feelings toward Chen Kuang, and because of that, she had come into conflict with Shen Xingzhu. The two sisters were now sulking.
Upon learning of this, Lu Zhexuan couldn't help but sigh.
"Love... truly harms more than it helps."
And now, with Shen Xingzhu's body inhabited by Shen Meinan's soul and trapped within the Ancient Battlefield of Meditation, Lu Zhexuan was naturally worried, and had rushed over immediately.
She was startled at first, then frowned.
"Mu Zhao's disciple was also trapped in the Ancient Battlefield of Meditation... so his arrival is understandable."
"But why does he carry such heavy killing intent?"
"He doesn't look like he's here to rescue. He looks like he's here to kill."
Mu Zhao's murderous aura surged skyward, its target unclear, which made Lu Zhexuan uneasy. Without hesitation, she accelerated and followed him closely.
...
To everyone else present, the sequence of events had been nothing short of utterly bewildering.
They didn't even know what had happened inside the Ancient Battlefield of Meditation, and had still been in the middle of researching how to extract those trapped inside...
But then, everything jumped ten thousand steps forward.
Especially the sect elders of the various great sects, when the Martial Saint suddenly struck, they had no idea what had triggered it and were left completely dumbfounded.
It felt like...
Eating hotpot and singing songs, only to suddenly get robbed by bandits.
Yes. That kind of feeling.
Fortunately, the cultivators' instincts hadn't dulled. The moment they sensed danger, and witnessed Shen Yuliu, utterly unguarded, suddenly collapse to his knees in disgrace.
They immediately prioritized protecting their own sect's pride and prodigies, shielding them from harm before they could be accidentally caught in the crossfire.
A Shen family Grandmaster reacted just in time, snatching up Shen Yuliu and retreating at maximum speed, dragging him far from the battlefield.
A Saint was attacking in the flesh, this was no laughing matter!
Even though the target wasn't them, "When the nest is overturned, how could any egg remain unbroken?"
They were running now to preserve their own lives!
"Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!"
In an instant, several Grandmasters had withdrawn over a thousand li away, yet still remained rattled and breathless.
"Boom..."
The barrier that had once housed the Ancient Battlefield of Meditation's stone gate shattered like glass. Beneath it, the massive mountain crumbled into a heap of loose gravel, collapsing in on itself.
The ground split and trembled, as if a dragon beneath the earth had turned over, its effect spreading across a vast area beyond imagination.
From the sky, one would see that with this location as its epicenter, countless pitch-black cracks now slashed across the land within ten thousand li.
"Fwoosh-"
A towering pillar of dust exploded upward like a mushroom cloud, its shockwave rippling out in rings and dispersing the clouds.
Ling Yazhi was stunned. Losing all composure, he shouted:
"Is he insane?! To strike like this, without any restraint, right here! This place is at the border of the Kingdom of Yang, the Kingdom of Zhou, and the Kingdom of Li, this is tantamount to declaring war on all three!"
The original placement of the stone gate had, of course, been chosen to maintain geopolitical balance.
The other Grandmasters were equally shaken and pale with fright.
Xu Datong's expression was especially grim. Staring into the swirling cloud of dust, his face had gone ghostly white.
The moment he realized that the Martial Saint's target was Chen Kuang, he had instinctively wanted to intervene, but in the next instant, he understood who the opponent was.
Even if doubts and shock raged within him like wild grass in the wind, all he could do was retreat.
The two words "Martial Saint," were not something mere mortals could resist.
And now, with Chen Kuang's life hanging by a thread, this was nothing short of a public slap in the face for Xu Datong, who had once claimed that only the Master of Liberty Mountain had the right to discipline the disciples of the Peach Grove.
But someone else was taking it even harder.
"Why hasn't Wen Yao come out?!"
A Martial Saint Pavilion Grandmaster finally realized something was wrong. He rushed over, grabbed Ling Yazhi by the collar, and roared.
The Grandmaster of the Three Calamities Sect had gone utterly ashen.
Only now did everyone realize, nine had entered the Ancient Battlefield of Meditation, but only seven had returned.
Of course, Ling Yazhi had no clue. He'd been outside the entire time, how could he possibly know?
Beside him, a flash of icy light flickered across Jiang Yunqing's usually emotionless face. In a cold voice, he said:
"You still dare ask? Wen Yao colluded with Mu Zhao, altering the spatial structure of the Ancient Battlefield of Meditation to set a death trap, intending to slaughter all of us!"
"Yan Hui was killed by him! We all saw it with our own eyes!"
"Brother Chen fought with his life to stop Wen Yao and save the rest of us."
Jiang Yunqing raised his sword and pointed toward the dust cloud:
"Now that the scheme has been exposed, Mu Zhao is here to silence us!"
"I ask all Grandmasters present, notify every sect immediately. Send reinforcements at once!"
The Grandmaster of the Three Calamities Sect was dumbfounded.
Now it was the Martial Saint Pavilion's Grandmaster whose pupils shrank violently:
"Impossible! Lord Martial Saint would never do such a thing! You insolent brat, how dare you spout such slander!"
Yet the grim expressions on the other prodigies, unanimous and resolute, spoke volumes without a word.
The Crown Princess of the Kingdom of Zhou, Ji Wangquan, suddenly stepped forward, clasped her hands toward one direction, and solemnly declared:
"May the Dao Lord uphold justice for us!"
Everyone turned to look, and finally saw that "Shen Xingzhu" had been silently restrained from behind by a Daoist nun.
It was none other than the newly arrived Dao Lord of Earthly Spirit, Lu Zhexuan!
The moment she arrived, she had witnessed Shen Meinan, in Shen Xingzhu's body, attempting to rush into the battlefield.
With a frown, she'd pulled her out of range, suppressed her cultivation, and forced her to calm down.
This was an enraged Martial Saint in action.
Let alone Shen Xingzhu's current cultivation, barely that of a Grandmaster, even Lu Zhexuan herself wasn't confident she could retreat unscathed.
Behind her translucent veil, her eyes, once cold, had now turned bloodshot as she stared at the smoke and thunder ahead. She sobbed uncontrollably, struggling against her master's grip:
"Shifu... let me go! Chen Kuang... I can't let him die in front of me again! Master, please, let me save him!"
Again, Chen Kuang!
This man was actually still alive?!
And once again, he had inexplicably appeared at the center of this upheaval within the Ancient Battlefield of Meditation...
Yet from the look of it, perhaps it was fate. Even though he had escaped death once before, in the end, he might still fall to Mu Zhao's hands.
Lu Zhexuan held her tightly, her expression solemn:
"What can you do to save him? That is the Martial Saint! I've already summoned Lin Qingya. He will intervene. No sect will allow Mu Zhao to act recklessly."
Shen Meinan cried, trembling:
"But I only want him to live..."
Lu Zhexuan's heart twisted painfully.
Back then, hadn't she wished the same?
As long as he lived...
The Daoist nun was still lost in thought when she suddenly heard a sharp, resounding sword cry.
She instinctively turned her head, and saw a ragged silhouette burst out from within the smoke and dust, swordlight cleaving a path before him.
Behind him, twisted sword radiance intertwined with the power of Time, forcibly halting Mu Zhao in place!
Chen Kuang was charging straight toward Shen Meinan's direction.
Mu Zhao's freeze lasted for mere fractions of a second, he had already resumed his assault, fist swinging once more with the force of an avalanche.
Chen Kuang wasn't heading for Shen Meinan, he merely intended to circle past her.
But in the instant the two brushed shoulders, before Chen Kuang could so much as admire the wet shimmer in the girl's teary eyes, he suddenly felt a cold light flicker past his face.
"Shhhk-"
A blade of gleaming frost suddenly unsheathed, slicing across Chen Kuang's cheek and leaving a bloody trail.
Shen Meinan froze and so did Chen Kuang.
That sword... had come from Lu Zhexuan.
That single strike, pierced directly through Mu Zhao's fist.
"Long time no see..."
Lu Zhexuan spoke softly:
"Senior Tongjun."