A magical journey of a sharp-tongued woman and a goofy man

As the morning mist flowed through the forest, Ye Shuli was teasing a small lizard peeking out from a crack in the rock with a blade of grass.

Jiang Ye lay on his back on a bluestone three zhang away, his arm as a pillow. The black energy seeping from his wound condensed into thin threads that wrapped around his fingers—this was a new sealing technique he had devised, which, in the other party's words, was called "making use of waste."

"There's a bloody smell in the southeast wind." Ye Shuli suddenly crushed the grass stems.

Before the words were finished, seven dark figures burst through the morning mist.

The cultivators, corrupted by the aura of the underworld, had bluish-gray sclera in their eyes, and their cracked fingernails left black smoke-filled grooves as they scratched the tree trunks.

The moment Jiang Ye flipped and leaped into the air, the lightning-patterned short blade hidden in his sleeve had already sliced ​​off half of the hand of the cultivator charging at the forefront.

"He's even fiercer than the aunties at the market who're grabbing discounted cabbages." He spun around and kicked away the second cultivator who lunged at him, and lightning on his wrist surged into an electric net that covered the space within three zhang.

The enemies that were thrown back crashed into the barrier with a sizzling sound like branding irons piercing flesh, and the smell of burning mixed with black smoke rose up.

The sphere of spiritual energy that Ye Shuli was conjuring at her fingertips suddenly stopped.

The incantations appearing on the necks of these cultivators were completely different from those of the Netherworld Cult members they had wiped out three days ago; they seemed more like… Her pupils constricted as she recalled the “puppet technique” recorded in the ancient books in the laboratory—the art of turning living people into puppets subject to multiple controls.

"Don't use area-of-effect attacks!" She flicked out a silver thread that wrapped around Jiang Ye's lower back, pulling him back to her side the instant the third cultivator self-destructed.

The splattered black blood corroded the barrier, creating honeycomb-like holes, and more than twenty dark figures emerged from the shadows of the forest.

Jiang Ye wiped away the blood splattered on the corner of his mouth, and suddenly changed direction, thrusting the Thunder Pattern Blade toward his left shoulder.

The wound, shrouded in black mist, exploded with a crackling sound as it was scorched by lightning. He grinned and flung the blood droplets, imbued with lightning spiritual power, at the crowd: "Try these freshly pickled candied hawthorn balls!"

The cultivator struck by the blood bead suddenly froze like a puppet, and Ye Shuli took the opportunity to throw out seven jade pendants.

The pendants landed and formed an array, trapping the frenzied cultivators within the pattern of the Big Dipper.

This is a spirit-locking array that she improved by combining modern mathematical topology principles. The three-dimensional geometric shape floating at the array's core is frantically devouring the aura of the netherworld.

"Southwest Kan position!" Jiang Ye suddenly bumped into Ye Shuli, who was at the core of the formation.

Three cultivators with completely black pupils tore open a spatial rift with their bare hands. Poisoned bone blades grazed his back, scraping sparks off the barrier talisman.

Ye Shuli pressed the lotus mark to the ground with her backhand, and the surging cyan-gold vines wrapped around the attacker's ankle.

The cultivators who were supposed to be purified suddenly retreated en masse, forming a human ladder at an odd angle as they lunged at Jiang Ye.

The strangulation net made of bone blades tore through the morning mist, forcing him to the edge of the cliff.

"Their attack pattern..." Ye Shuli slashed through the vines blocking her way and discovered that the incantations on the necks of each cultivator were flashing in sync as they moved.

When Jiang Ye's lightning-patterned blade pierced the chest of the third person, all the cultivators suddenly clutched their hearts and knelt down at the same time.

The deathly silence lasted only three heartbeats.

A sharp bone whistle sounded from the bottom of the cliff, and the kneeling cultivators all turned their heads toward Ye Shuli.

They tore open their own chests and pulled out their dark hearts, and chains of flesh and blood instantly wrapped around Jiang Ye's limbs.

The jade hairpin that Ye Shuli threw was deflected by a certain force half an inch away from his throat, and the end of the hairpin, which was embedded in the stone, still had ripples of spatial distortion.

"Southeast, Xun position, the third branch of the tree crown." Jiang Ye suddenly branded this sentence onto the chains with lightning.

Ye Shuli pretended to stumble and fall, and the modified version of the Rainstorm Pear Blossom Needle hidden in her sleeve covered the branch.

As the revealing powder attached to the needle tip exploded, half of the remaining soul-controlling talisman turned to ashes and dissipated in the morning breeze.

Jiang Ye's lightning-patterned blade sparked blindingly against the chains, and his right arm, which was bound by flesh and blood, suddenly twisted three times in the opposite direction.

Amidst the cracking sound of dislocated bones, he actually used the gap in the joint dislocation to channel lightning spiritual power into his meridians, and the exploding arc of electricity instantly melted the two chains.

"Southeast Xun position!" The moment Ye Shuli flung out the seven silver needles that pierced the tree trunk, Jiang Ye used his teeth to break the knot of the lightning-struck wood hanging from his neck.

Dark purple lightning struck down in the direction indicated by the silver needle, and the sound of burning cloth came from the tree canopy.

Through the gap torn open by lightning in the thick fog, the blue-faced, fanged soul controller was tucking the bone whistle back into his clothes.

The blood-red spider embroidered on his black robe rose and fell with his breath, and its eight legs suddenly grew into solid form, tearing Ye Shuli's sleeve as they plunged into the ground.

"The Thousand-Faced Spider, the most skilled at hide-and-seek among the seventy-two hall masters of the Netherworld Sect." Jiang Ye caught the Bone-Regenerating Pill tossed to him by Ye Shuli; his wounds, scorched by lightning, were healing at a visible speed. "When your lair was wiped out last month, was it you who escaped by hiding in the cesspool?"

The Soul Controller's eyes, hidden behind the spiderweb mask, glowed red, and the spider silk sprang from his fingertips suddenly entangled the three puppet cultivators.

The incantations on the necks of the three people swelled to a blood-red color, and the bulging muscles tore through their Taoist robes, actually tearing a gap in the spirit-locking array set up by Ye Shuli.

Ye Shuli suddenly grabbed Jiang Ye's wrist and used the lightning in his palm to draw a six-pointed star in the air.

These were the exorcism hand seals that the purification master taught her three days ago—at the time, she disliked the old monk for his archaic language, but secretly memorized every detail of the spiritual energy flow.

The moment the pale golden light rippled from her fingertips, the five puppet cultivators in the front row suddenly clutched their heads and knelt on the ground.

The incantations around their necks writhed wildly like earthworms being doused with boiling water, and two of them even began tearing at their own flesh.

"It works!" Jiang Ye threw out three explosive talismans and used the shockwave to flip up to the treetop.

The sparks from the lightning-patterned blade striking the spider's leg joints illuminated the bronze bell hanging at the Soul Controller's waist—the birth date and time engraved on it in intaglio clearly belonged to the Qingfeng Temple disciple who had disappeared three months prior.

The spider legs of the soul controller suddenly secreted black mucus, and amidst the corrosive stench, Jiang Ye's clothes instantly turned to ash.

He simply ripped off half of his sleeve, revealing an arm covered in sealing runes: "I heard you spiders are most afraid of fire?"

Dark red karmic fire suddenly burst forth from his palm; this was a pseudo-Samadhi True Fire forcibly generated by reversing the five elements using lightning spiritual power.

The moment the flames licked the spider's legs, the Soul Controller finally let out an inhuman roar. Black blood seeping from the cracks in the mask dripped onto the ground, corroding a deep pit that emitted green smoke.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Ye Shuli tripled the range of the improved Spirit Locking Array.

As she bit her fingertip and dripped her essence into the center of the formation, the bluish-gold vines suddenly bloomed into rebirth flowers the size of bowls.

The twelve puppet cultivators who had regained their senses collapsed to the ground, the soul-controlling talismans that had appeared on their chests being devoured by the flower petals.

"Watch out for spatial nodes!" a monk who had regained consciousness suddenly shouted.

His mutilated right hand was pointing at the feet of the Soul Controller—where a vortex-like spatial distortion had appeared at some point.

Jiang Ye's lightning-patterned blade had already pierced three inches into the Soul Controller's ribs, but he felt the tip of the blade sinking into the mud.

The enemy, who should have been seriously injured, suddenly revealed a sinister smile, and the skin covering his face with a mask peeled off, revealing blue skin covered with compound eyes underneath.

“Thank you both for helping to break the seal.” The Soul Controller’s voice suddenly became a mixed male and female tone. He tore open the fabric of his shirt, revealing a spatial stone embedded in his heart that emitted an eerie purple light. “As a reward, how about I send you on a sightseeing trip to the Void Abyss Sea?”

The Binding Immortal Rope that Ye Shuli threw out suddenly broke apart three feet away from its target.

She then realized that the flow of spiritual energy within a ten-zhang radius had been completely reversed, and the karmic fire that Jiang Ye unleashed was uncontrollably swirling towards the spirit-locking array she had set up.

"The Big Dipper hangs upside down, Yin and Yang reversed!" She bit her tongue, spitting out a mist of blood, and forcibly activated the inversion array improved by modern geometric algorithms.

The cube array suspended in the air suddenly split and reassembled, but was swallowed up by the purple light bursting from the space stone just as it was about to take shape.

The Soul Controller's mangled body was dissipating in the pillar of light, and the last bone whistle he threw out exploded into dust in mid-air.

Jiang Ye grabbed Ye Shuli's wrist, trying to teleport out of the danger zone, but found that the surrounding air had solidified into a gel.

"Hold on tight!" The moment the lightning-patterned blade pierced the ground, the ground beneath their feet suddenly collapsed into a black vortex.

In the instant that the feeling of weightlessness struck Ye Shuli, she caught a glimpse of half a blood-stained blue garment flashing through the depths of the vortex—the texture of the fabric was clearly the same as the attire of the Netherworld Cult's saintess, whom they had wiped out three days prior.

Amidst the sound of the lightning shield shattering, Jiang Ye's body temperature suddenly vanished from his palm.

Ye Shuli barely opened her eyes as she plummeted downwards, seeing countless fragments of space reflecting countless versions of herself like prisms: some were wielding swords on ancient battlefields, some were speeding across icy plains, and in one scene she was shouting something into the void...

Finally, what came into view was a half-lotus mark emerging from the edge of the vortex—completely overlapping with the birthmark on the back of her hand.