The memories of all humanity are awakening, except for mine.

"Is there something wrong with that woman?"

"It's not a good thing."

Jiang Chuan tapped the table lightly with his fingertips.

"With my cultivation at the peak of the third realm, I was unaware that my face was covered by a woman's undergarment. Do you think this is normal?"

Wang Han was wiping his long sword when he heard this and looked up.

"Soul-capturing technique?"

"Not like."

Jiang Chuan shook his head.

"More like... bait."

He looked out the window at the darkening sky.

"I'm going to meet her tonight, you guys..."

"Well, now we have to clean up your mess again."

Su Wen spat out the sunflower seed shells.

"What are we betting on this time? I bet that girl is from the Hehuan Sect."

"I bet she won't live past midnight."

Jiang Chuan sneered and downed the wine in his glass in one gulp.

After nightfall, Jiang Chuan stood in front of the room where Chen Qing was staying and gently knocked with his fingers.

The door creaked open, revealing Chen Qing's aloof face.

"What if I fall for their trick..."

Jiang Chuan rarely acts seriously.

Chen Qing patted the jade flute at his waist.

"Don't worry, I'll collect your body if you die."

"Quite loyal."

Jiang Chuan grinned, then turned and disappeared into the night.

Under the willow tree in the backyard, the moonlight was fragmented by the clouds.

Jiang Chuan stood with his hand on his sword, the night wind swirling withered leaves past the edge of his boots.

A fragrant breeze wafted by, and Hongluan emerged from behind the tree, her red dress as dazzling as blood in the dark night.

"Young master is very punctual."

She moved with light, graceful steps, and with each step, the silver bells at her waist jingled crisply.

Jiang Chuan didn't move, watching her walk to within three feet of him.

Hongluan reached out and touched his chest.

"Where's the gift?"

"At this."

Jiang Chuan suddenly drew his sword. The black jade sword was drawn from its sheath like a dragon's roar, and the tip of the sword was pointed directly at Hong Luan's throat.

But just as it was about to pierce through, it abruptly stopped—Hongluan neither dodged nor avoided, her eyes even carrying a smile.

"Young master, how cruel you are..."

Her voice suddenly became ethereal, and her figure swayed like ripples on water.

Jiang Chuan felt a chill on his back as two soft mounds pressed against his spine, and Hong Luan's arms wrapped around his neck like snakes.

"caught you."

Her breath was sweet as orchids, and her lips brushed against his earlobe.

Jiang Chuan felt his hair stand on end, and his sword intent erupted, but it was like a mud ox sinking into the sea.

Hongluan's figure disappeared again, then instantly reappeared in front of him, their noses almost touching.

Under the moonlight, Hongluan's face began to contort, and something seemed to wriggle beneath her skin.

Her mouth stretched to her ears, revealing her gleaming white fangs.

"Young Master Jiang... do I look beautiful?"

Jiang Chuan retreated three steps, his sword sweeping across.

"Pretend to be a ghost!"

The sword energy slashed through Hongluan's body, but only shattered a fragment of her image.

The true Red Phoenix has appeared on the willow tips, its red robes fluttering like a blood-red banner.

"Your soul... smells wonderful."

She licked her lips, her pupils shrinking to pinpoints.

"The souls of cultivators at the Great Perfection of the Third Realm are enough to refine a batch of excellent pills."

Jiang Chuan suddenly felt dizzy, and the sweet scent of the undergarment seemed to still linger in his nasal cavity.

Jiang Chuan felt a blur before his eyes, and the scene in the backyard of the restaurant suddenly distorted and deformed.

Ripples spread across the blue brick floor, and the surrounding walls seemed to be dough being kneaded by an invisible hand, constantly stretching and contracting.

He instinctively took a step back, only to find that the blue bricks beneath his feet had disappeared, replaced by countless swirling, colorful fragments.

"Illusion?"

Jiang Chuan felt a chill run down his spine and immediately bit his tongue, the sharp pain spreading through his mouth along with the taste of blood.

The scene before me remained unchanged; in fact, it became even more distorted.

He suddenly realized that this was no ordinary illusion. An illusion that even a cultivator about to form his core couldn't see through must be at least a technique of the fourth realm supreme level.

"boom!"

A heavy blow struck him squarely in the chest, sending Jiang Chuan flying backward, his back shattering a non-existent wall.

Amidst the flying pebbles, he felt no pain, only a strange sense of floating.

As he tried to get up, the ground suddenly collapsed, turning into a bottomless abyss.

"Hold!"

Jiang Chuan cursed and his body fell uncontrollably.

He instinctively wanted to control his sword, but found that his internal energy was in complete disarray and could not be gathered at all.

Even more terrifying, he couldn't even hear his own voice anymore.

It felt as if I had fallen into a completely isolated alternate dimension.

Suddenly, countless black chains appeared in the void and wrapped around his limbs.

The moment the chains tightened, Jiang Chuan felt as if his bones were about to be crushed.

He opened his mouth to call out to Sister Chenqing, but he couldn't even make a sound.

"The head of the Four Young Masters of the Immortal Sect? He's nothing special."

Hongluan's figure appeared out of thin air, standing in the distorted space and looking down at him.

That once beautiful face was now twisted and deformed, its mouth stretched to its ears, revealing its gleaming white teeth.

With a gentle wave of her hand, the chains tightened suddenly, and Jiang Chuan heard the crisp sound of his ribs breaking.

"This is no longer the backyard of the restaurant, young master."

Hongluan's voice came from near and far, carrying a mocking tone.

"From the moment you stepped into the backyard, you were already in my Thousand Illusions Bewitching Array."

Jiang Chuan's pupils suddenly contracted.

The Thousand Illusions Bewitching Array—this is an ancient illusion technique, said to be able to make people forever lose themselves between reality and illusion.

No wonder even Senior Sister Chenqing didn't notice anything unusual, because this illusion array has isolated the entire space!
"You... are at least a Fourth-Level Supreme..."

Jiang Chuan managed to squeeze out a few words, each syllable mostly swallowed up by the distorted space.

Hongluan laughed, her voice piercing Jiang Chuan's eardrums.

"Only found out now? It's too late!"

She suddenly reached out and grabbed Jiang Chuan by the neck.

"Let me see what the souls of a genius from the immortal sects taste like!"

At the critical moment of life and death, Jiang Chuan made a resolute decision.

He stopped trying to break free of the chains, and instead closed his eyes, focusing his mind on the deepest part of his dantian.

"Yan Yu, wake up!"

The black sword that had been dormant in his dantian for a long time suddenly trembled, and a ferocious ghostly shadow roared out from the sword.

This is Jiang Chuan's last trump card—the thousand-year-old ghost general sealed within the Demon Prison Sword.

The moment the ghost general appeared, the chains binding the river shattered.

"How dare you be so presumptuous, you mere ghost!"

Hongluan sneered, and a red light flew out from her sleeve, revealing a blood-red jade pendant.

The jade pendant grew taller in the wind, transforming into the size of a small mountain, and pressed down upon the wearer.

The ghost general let out a shrill scream, and when it was illuminated by the red light, it was like snow meeting the blazing sun, and its body quickly melted away.

Jiang Chuan was shocked. This ghost general was a being who could rival a cultivator of the third realm, yet he was suppressed by Hong Luan with a mere flick of her wrist!
"Use whatever other means you have."

Hongluan hovered leisurely in mid-air, her eyes full of the playful mockery of a cat toying with a mouse.

Jiang Chuan knew that today was a matter of life and death, and to hold back any longer would be tantamount to courting death.

He activated his pure Yang energy, circulating it in reverse, and a blue mark suddenly appeared between his eyebrows.

"Mountain Spirit Seal, open!"

The cyan mark shone brightly, and Jiang Chuan's aura surged, instantly breaking through his own limits and reaching the Supreme Realm. This was a life-saving technique left to him by his master; once activated, it granted him temporary Supreme strength, but at the cost of severed meridians afterward.

"Oh? It's interesting."

Hongluan finally dropped her disdain, formed a hand seal, and the surrounding space distorted once again.

"But what about the Supreme Being in my illusion?"

Jiang Chuan stopped talking nonsense, made a grasping motion with his right hand, and a long sword with a solid green body appeared out of thin air.

This is his natal flying sword—Bitter Sea. The sword trembled, emitting a clear and melodious sword cry.

"Brother Deer, help me!"

With this call, the Bitter Sea Sword suddenly burst forth with a dazzling green light, and complex patterns appeared on its blade.

Jiang Chuan held his sword with both hands and slashed fiercely at the void.

"The spirit of mountains and rivers!"

The emerald-green sword energy swept out, distorting and shattering the space in its path.

Hongluan's expression changed drastically, and she hurriedly retreated, but she was still hit by the aftershocks of the sword energy, and her left arm was immediately covered in blood.

"Click——"

The entire illusion began to collapse.

Jiang Chuan's vision blurred, and when he opened his eyes again, he found himself standing on a desolate open space, with the outline of a small town faintly visible in the distance.

"We've reached the edge of town..."

Jiang Chuan's forehead was covered in cold sweat.

The power of the Mountain Spirit Seal is waning, and a tearing pain is shooting through my meridians.

"hiss--"

A chilling hissing sound came from behind.

Jiang Chuan suddenly turned around and saw that ten zhang away, Hong Luan had already revealed her true form—a giant white snake as thick as a water bucket!
The snake's body was covered with crystal-clear scales that gleamed coldly in the moonlight.

The strangest thing is that there is a human face on the snake's head, which is the face of Hongluan.

"The Azure Scale Serpent Clan?"

Jiang Chuan's heart skipped a beat as he thought of an old friend.

But now was not the time to be distracted, because he suddenly discovered that the Bitter Sea True Qi within his body was beginning to change.

The true energy, which was originally like mist, is rapidly liquefying and forming a vortex in the dantian.

"not good!"

Jiang Chuan's face turned deathly pale. This was a sign that he was about to condense his Golden Core!
Normally this would be a great joy, but now with a powerful enemy in front of us, once we begin to form our core, at best our cultivation will be completely ruined, and at worst our bodies will explode on the spot!
He hurriedly tried to dispel the Mountain Spirit Seal and the Jade Sword Intent, but it was too late.

Thick, dark clouds had gathered in the sky, with lightning flashing within them and the faint rumble of thunder.

"Heavenly tribulation?!"

Jiang Chuan was practically cursing.

He only temporarily borrowed the Supreme Realm, so how did he attract the Heavenly Tribulation?
Hongluan also noticed the abnormality, and a look of surprise and uncertainty appeared on her face.

But the next moment, her eyes flashed with ferocity, and she twisted her snake body and pounced.

"Boom!"

A bolt of purple lightning suddenly struck down, hitting the snake's body squarely.

The red phoenix let out a shrill scream, and large patches of charred snake scales fell off.

She writhed wildly, her face contorted with resentment.

"You little bastard! I'm going to devour you alive!"

Jiang Chuan dared not linger and ran away as fast as he could.

Strangely, the thunderclouds followed him, occasionally unleashing a bolt of lightning that terrified him.

"Senior Mountain Spirit! What do we do now?"

Jiang Chuan shouted in his heart as he ran.

"It consumes true energy and delays the formation of the core."

An old voice echoed in his mind.

"The heavenly tribulation is aimed at the liquefied true energy within your body."

Jiang Chuan's eyes lit up, and he abruptly stopped and turned around.

The red phoenix was chasing after them, dragging its charred snake body, and was now less than three zhang away.

"Damn it, let's fight!"

He stopped suppressing the boiling true energy within his body and instead unleashed it with all his might.

The Bitter Sea Sword emitted a joyful hum, and its blade blazed with a burst of blue light.

"Azure Dragon Sword Intent, take form!"

With this roar, ten illusory azure dragons flew out from the sword, each over ten feet long, with scales and claws flying, lifelike.

This was Jiang Chuan's trump card, which he could usually only summon three of at most. But now, with the immense true energy of his impending Core Formation, he summoned ten in one go!

"go with!"

Ten azure dragons roared as they charged toward the red phoenix, cracking the ground and raising dust wherever they went.

Hongluan has no way to avoid it and can only face it head-on.

Amidst the earth-shattering explosion, a giant crater over twenty feet in diameter was smashed into the ground, and the shockwave destroyed all the trees within a radius of a hundred feet.

Jiang Chuan knelt on one knee, panting heavily.

This attack almost exhausted all his true energy, and the liquefaction rate in his dantian indeed slowed down considerably.

"It should be resolved by now..."

He had just breathed a sigh of relief when his pupils suddenly contracted.

At the edge of the giant pit, a charred claw suddenly gripped the ground. The blood-covered Hongluan struggled to crawl out.

Her face was half-destroyed, revealing bare white bones, but the resentment in her eyes was even stronger than before.

"I will... tear you... to pieces..."

With each word she spoke, Hongluan coughed up a mouthful of blood, yet she still managed to stand up unsteadily.

Jiang Chuan's face was extremely ugly.

"This isn't going to kill you?"

He had very little internal energy left, but the heavenly tribulation thunderclouds were still swirling overhead, ready to strike at any moment.

Jiang Chuan's ten Azure Dragon Sword Qi entangled Hong Luan's Bitter Sea True Qi.

The originally surging black true energy was cut and dispersed by the sword energy, and its gathering speed was significantly slowed down.

Hongluan's red lips curled slightly, showing some surprise.

"A mere third-realm cultivation level can actually interfere with the circulation of my true energy."

Jiang Chuan did not answer. He gripped the sword hilt tightly with his right hand and made a hand seal with his left hand, causing the Five Elements Sword Intent within his body to circulate wildly in his Purple Mansion.

He could feel the sword energy of the five elements (metal, wood, water, fire, and earth) merging within his internal organs, forming a colorful sword beam in his dantian.

"The five elements unite as one, the sword shatters the heavens!"

Jiang Chuan roared, drew his longsword, and a sword aura infused with five-colored light shot straight at Hong Luan.

A look of seriousness finally appeared in Hongluan's eyes. She formed a hand seal, and the demonic energy around her suddenly contracted, forming a pitch-black shield in front of her.

"The sea of ​​suffering is endless, turn back now!"

The moment the two forces collided, the world fell silent, followed by a deafening roar.

The shockwave destroyed all the trees within a radius of 100 meters, and the ground cracked with spiderweb-like fissures.

Just then, the thunder and lightning that had been locked onto Jiangchuan in the sky suddenly changed direction, and several bolts of lightning as thick as a child's arm struck the top of Hongluan's head.

"what?!"

Hongluan was terrified and hastily diverted a portion of her demonic power to resist the lightning tribulation.

For the first time, panic appeared on her delicate face.

"Why is the lightning tribulation happening...?"

Jiang Chuan was taken aback at first, then burst into laughter.

"Hahaha, God help me!"

He sheathed his sword and, with lightning speed, sped off towards the town's tavern.

"Want to go?"

Hongluan was furious and was about to give chase when another bolt of lightning struck, forcing her to deal with it with all her might.

She gritted her teeth as she watched Jiang Chuan's departing figure, her beautiful eyes filled with murderous intent.

Jiang Chuan ran wildly while praying silently in his heart.

"Chop her to pieces! Turn her to ashes if you can!"

However, as he approached the restaurant, his heart sank to the bottom.

A large hole was clearly torn in the roof of the restaurant, with wood chips and rubble scattered all over the ground, indicating that a fierce battle had just taken place.

"not good!"

Just as Jiang Chuan was about to rush in, he suddenly felt the surrounding space distort, and the scene before him spun around him.

When he regained his balance, he found himself in a strange space.

The restaurant stood on the dark lake, with a mottled stone arch bridge connecting two identical restaurants.

Under the pale moonlight, a chilling wind blew, and unnatural ripples appeared on the water's surface. (End of Chapter)