My best friend asked me if I was still doing system tasks.

Taibai Pavilion sent a total of eighteen people to surround and kill them. The two leading men were both at the early stage of the Nascent Soul Realm, and the rest were eight at the Great Perfection of the Nascent Soul Realm, four at the early stage of the Nascent Soul Realm, and four at the Great Perfection of the Golden Core Realm.

Four of the Nascent Soul Realm cultivators at the Great Perfection stage seemed to have some knowledge of the formation. They did not participate in the direct battle, but instead led two Golden Core Realm cultivators at the Great Perfection stage to break the formation set up by Luo Hanying. They also kept criticizing their shortcomings, trying to break the spirit of the old, weak, women and children protected by Luo Hanying.

Words like "waste," "burden," "disabled," and "vulgar" are commonplace to them.

They are just ordinary people, so why should they feel ashamed of their ordinariness?

Because of their shamelessness, Taibaixie even offered to spare these surviving people if they handed over Ruan Chayan and Luo Hanying.

The cultivators from Taibai Pavilion smiled and hinted that they should carefully consider the proposal. If they helped Taibai Pavilion capture Ruan Luo and his companion, it was not impossible for them to spare the offerings in Qiuxi City.

Should we believe the two strangers, or should we believe them?

Should they continue to hide and pray that someone can rescue their loved ones, or should they abandon the two unrelated monks in exchange for the safety of everyone else?

Arguments gradually erupted from the crowd, and people began to unleash their malice without restraint. However, they refrained from taking any substantial action because they were trapped within the formation set up by Luo Hanying.

As Luo Hanying listened to their words of "giving up" and "worth it," and looked at their eyes filled with suspicion and greed, she suddenly felt ridiculous.

An elderly man with gray hair and tears in his eyes said to Luo Hanying, "Miss Luo, we know you are good people. You even found reinforcements for Qiuxi City, but we will only be a burden to you. You and Widow Qiao should leave quickly and don't worry about us."

A little girl sobbed, "Sister, sister, please go! Don't worry about us! Sister, you can't die!"

"Senior Luo! You absolutely can't abandon us, Senior Luo!"

The younger men and women shouted, "You've protected us for so long, how can you give up halfway?! If we're sacrificed too, who knows what the Canghai Realm will become in the future?"

"Senior Luo, don't listen to those old women's nonsense! There's hope as long as we're alive, right? You said you'd protect us today!"

Luo Hanying stayed behind to ensure the safety of the elderly, women, and children. She was driven to the brink of despair by this group of people who did not resist and were simply waiting to die.

Luo Hanying turned around and roared loudly, "Can't you just shut up if you can't help?!"

"If I really wanted to give up on you, I would have left long ago! Can't you see I'm setting up an array?! Don't bother me!"

Once the formation shows cracks or is broken, she will reconnect the array plate, slowing down Taibai Pavilion's approach to them.

Mu Qing was amused by the irritable Luo Hanying. He muttered incantations, formed a hand seal, and slammed the hand holding the tattered umbrella heavily on the ground. Spiritual energy poured from the umbrella tip onto the ground, spreading outwards in layers from the tattered umbrella as the center, with the characters appearing and disappearing.

The movements of the cultivators at Taibai Pavilion, who were touched by the sound waves and words, froze.

Mu Qing's expression was serious: "Senior Luo, we need to be quick. This move of mine won't hold them off for long."

Luo Hanying took a deep breath and tossed a water pouch into Mu Qing's arms: "Give me water when the formation ends."

Luo Hanying gripped her brush and leaped away from the protective array, quickly writing: "Smoke curls from the water, crows cry in the still of the night. Lotus blossoms on the winding pond, a white jade sash around her waist."

The lines of cursive script quickly lengthened and changed, enveloping Luo Hanying and the six disciples of Taibai Pavilion in a sealed formation.

The six people were affected by Mu Qing's magic and their bodies could not react in time. They could only watch as a white fog rose in front of them, and their divine sense could not see the distant scene. There was not a single star in the sky.

The soil beneath their feet gradually softened and turned into a pool of water. After trying to make out the details for a while, they could only see lotus flowers and leaves swaying in the water. They flew up on their swords, wondering how they could see scenery that was only found in the Southern Yue Divine Continent in the Western Barbarian Divine Continent.

The mournful cries of birds, near and far, made it impossible to discern their exact location, filling them with dread.

Suddenly, white shadows darted out of the water. Although the disciples of Taibai Pavilion did not know what the white shadows were, they could guess that everything they were facing was related to Luo Hanying.

They unleashed talismans and sword energy, dodging and weaving as they tried to avoid the white figures.

The white shadows twisted and changed, densely wrapping around them as the six people felt something cold and sticky pulling tightly around their waists, forcefully dragging them into the water.

"Quick! Luo Hanying has pulled Yu Fu and the others into the formation! We must go help them!"

The two cultivators at the early stage of the Nascent Soul Realm stood confidently outside the battlefield, believing that these people were nothing more than their prey and that they could take them all down before dawn. However, they did not expect such a sudden turn of events.

They had all heard about Ruan Chayan and Luo Hanying to some extent, and therefore understood that Luo Hanying's move was not so easy to counter. In order to avoid casualties, they had to step in to help.

Ruan Chayan saw the situation on Luo Hanying's side, and they absolutely could not let those two Nascent Soul cultivators go to support them.

Ruan Chayan tossed the magical artifact from her Qiankun bag to the Drunken Monk and Widow Qiao: "Hold them back! Don't let them get past!"

The drunken monk and Widow Qiao took the magical artifacts without even asking about their specific uses, and immediately poured their spiritual power into them, aiming them at the enemy.

In an instant, the light from the magical artifacts burst forth, and the battle between the two sides caused the heavens and the earth to shake.

Sichuan pepper perched on Ruan Chayan's shoulder, gathering its spiritual power in its mouth and weaving an illusion with its cries. A faint, illusory tail appeared behind it.

The four Nascent Soul stage cultivators and the two Golden Core stage cultivators at the Great Perfection stage lost their strength and abilities, and they fell straight down, trapped in the illusion.

The drunken monk and Widow Qiao tried to kill them, but were repeatedly stopped by the remaining people.

Ruan Chayan made a hand seal with one hand and drew a talisman with the other, muttering, "Jade sound gathers qi, spiritual wind gathers smoke."

With the final stroke of her fingertips, she flicked her wrist and released the talisman. The spiritual energy surging from it transformed into wind and smoke, rushing straight towards the two early-stage Nascent Soul cultivators, swirling around them in an attempt to bind them.

Taking advantage of the moment when the two cultivators scattered the spirit talismans, Ruan Chayan threw out two spirit-binding ropes, but unexpectedly, Taibai Xie knew the incantation to break the spirit-binding ropes of the Shiren Sect, and they easily dodged the attack.

Ruan Chayan activated her defensive magic artifact to withstand the attack from the Nascent Soul Realm cultivator. She bit her fingertip and smeared the blood onto the talismans she had already drawn. Holding three blood-stained talismans in one hand, she chanted an incantation while making hand seals with the other: "There is a secret celestial artifact, revered by all the heavens. To divulge it will lead to hell and bring calamity upon seven generations of ancestors!"

Three talismans flew out in an array, controlling the two early-stage Nascent Soul cultivators within the formation. When they attacked the formation, dense seal characters could be seen surrounding them, compressing the space within the formation, and the two men showed expressions of pain.