Chapter 93

If it had been an ordinary child here, Teacher Yuan would not have said these things to her.

But Song Yi was a genius. Once she grew up, she might become a guidepost in some field.

An important reason human civilization could establish itself in the cultivation world and continue on was this: when the sky fell, the tall ones held it up.

Right now, Song Yi was still one of the short ones, so of course she could run. She was someone being protected. But one day, when she became one of the tall ones? Was she supposed to keep running then?

If possible, Teacher Yuan certainly did not want his students to encounter any danger, but a sense of responsibility and mission was also a required course in a person’s life.

This was why he had been willing to bring Song Yi and the others out. Nothing made people understand more easily that no one was a lone boat, and that every person was part of humanity, than being outside the Human Realm and encountering danger.

Song Yi was a child who was a little difficult to teach. Because she already had a complete set of ideas of her own, and trying to move her with words alone was very hard.

But she was not an unteachable child. If you let her truly feel that this was what the world was like, it would also change her imperceptibly.

Teacher Yuan just had not expected that he had originally only wanted to turn on hard mode, only for it to turn directly into hell mode. They had to face a wave of ghost creatures as soon as they arrived. That was way too unlucky.

After all, according to common sense, the closer one was to the Human Realm, the less likely ghost creatures were to form a wave.

Before long, the scouts returned. They said, “Preliminary judgment: it can be defended against, but it may be a hard fight. In about five minutes, the wave of ghost creatures will arrive. Fellow Daoists, please prepare for battle.”

They roughly described the ghost tide’s situation. It was about two to three times the size of this settlement. Inside, there were probably two or three with strength equivalent to the Transformation stage, and many with strength equivalent to Nascent Soul.

They did not cultivate and had no cultivation methods, but they retained the bodily strength of cultivators or demon beasts, and they would grow stronger by devouring. They themselves were utterly fearless of death, because they had no concept of life and death. Ghost creatures were cunning. If the settlement were suddenly impacted, there really was a possibility it could be destroyed.

But thanks to the person who had reported the news, they had been given time to prepare. It was not necessarily impossible to fight.

Meeting the enemy meant that everyone remaining in the settlement had to go provide support, including the students.

Teacher Wang instructed them, “Groups of three. Support one another. You must maintain contact with the others. If the situation turns bad and the evacuation order sounds, get on the spirit-energy car at once. Otherwise, no one will wait for you. Understood?”

“Yes!” the students shouted.

Were they afraid?

Many people were afraid.

But they were already at the safest defensive line. Even if they really had to evacuate when the time came, they would also be among the first batch to leave. With so many people standing in front of them, there was no time to be afraid.

They were even a little happy. There was actually somewhere they could help too.

Teacher Wang also went to the front to provide support.

The shopkeeper rapidly made arrangements and adjustments. The enemy-engagement zone was set at the very front, with suppression applied around the surrounding area. This would allow the resources within the settlement to be concentrated and used, avoid as much as possible letting the ghost creatures circle around the back and surround the entire settlement, and have the corresponding cultivators clean up the small number of ghost creatures that tried to flank them.

Within the enemy-engagement zone, they set up as many obstacle-type restrictions and long-range attacks as possible, so the ghost creatures would have no way to surge up all at once. Handling them in batches would make things much easier for everyone, or at least give them moments to catch their breath.

The scouts were invited down to rest, and the owner of the golden medal also revealed his true appearance.

He removed his hooded robe, revealing a handsome, pale face. That was not strange. What was strange was that aside from his head, his body was entirely made of puppet components.

Seeing a child staring blankly at him, his gaze drifted for a moment before he asked, “Something wrong?”

He was considering whether he should put the hooded robe back on.

Reminded by his voice, Song Yi jumped up. “That person who reported the news earlier, she can switch to something like this too!”

She had been in a daze just now.

This was not the worst situation she had ever encountered. She was not afraid of danger. The greatest impact on her had not been life or death, but her beliefs.

But when her muddled mind heard this person’s voice, Song Yi suddenly remembered that now was not the time to think about so much. She could do something. She should do something.

That person was a little surprised by Song Yi’s reaction. He had not expected that she had been staring at him for the sake of that other cultivator who reported the news.

But he said regretfully, “No. A major surgery like changing into my state needs a professional medical cultivator and puppet master to perform it. She won’t last until then.”

If a small wound was infected by ghost qi, there were ways to solve it. Whether by forcing it out or, more ruthlessly, directly amputating, one could preserve the person’s life first. But when everyone saw her, the ghost qi on her body had already spread through her whole body. Possibly only her brain was still fine.

Preserve only the brain? There was no medical cultivator here that strong.

Remove the ghost qi from her whole body? At present, there was no such method.

That cultivator’s aura was growing weaker and weaker.

But Song Yi still threw herself over and asked, “Do you want to live? I can’t guarantee anything. I might even make you die in great pain. Do you want to try?”

She thought of her Heavenly Tribulation energy. She thought of the ideas she still had not tested. At this moment, she no longer cared about not exposing one’s wealth, nor about “one’s own people are most important.”

“I want to try!” The cultivator’s eyes revealed a desire to live.

Song Yi took out dozens of bottles of Heavenly Tribulation energy. She poured half of them into a bathtub and had people carry the cultivator inside, then kept the other half. “Draw it in. Circulate your cultivation method. Start cultivating.”

This feeling would undoubtedly be extremely painful. Her body was already demonizing, and what she had to absorb was a power that rejected it.

A pained growl came from her throat, but she still gritted her teeth and did as instructed.

When the faint blue light touched the eerie ghost qi, it let out a sizzling sound, wiping out the energy and dissolving the ghost qi into nothing.

The speed at which the ghost qi spread through her body slowed.

But it was still not enough.

Song Yi frowned. The Heavenly Tribulation energy in her storage pouch could not be considered little, but if it continued being consumed at this speed, it definitely would not be enough. Some of what she had in her pocket was even that less stable type of energy.

She made a prompt decision. “Do you know any lightning-drawing cultivation methods? The more overbearing the type, the better. Don’t circulate a basic cultivation method anymore.”

That person no longer had the strength to reply, but after hearing Song Yi’s words, she silently changed the cultivation method she was circulating.

Lightning-drawing cultivation methods were harder to control. In her current state, it was as if she was using her life to circulate the cultivation method. Lightning flashed and crackled over her body. She looked exactly like someone whose cultivation had gone wrong.

But Song Yi watched coldly. If one’s cultivation went wrong but one did not die, at most one’s cultivation would be crippled and one would start over.

If this had been in the Old Era, perhaps death would have been preferable. But in the New Era, only by being alive would there be infinite possibilities and opportunities.

The energy in the pool she was soaking in was affected by her and began to bubble and gurgle.

Never mind that this was energy liquid inside. In reality, her current state was no different from being roasted over a fire. Her entire body was torn open and bleeding.

Driven by instinct, she badly wanted to get out of it, but Song Yi had already prepared for that. She had people seal her inside this small space.

“Also, you’re a sword cultivator, right? Has this sword already been refined into your lifebound sword?” Song Yi asked her.

She nodded with difficulty.

Song Yi picked up her sword, then directly poured the defective Heavenly Tribulation energy over it, using the simplest method to temper it.

Fortunately, Song Yi was a sword cultivator just like her. Fortunately, before this, Song Yi had already tempered her own sword and could be considered to have some experience. Otherwise, with neither facilities nor equipment here, and not a single artifact refiner either, who knew what would have happened.

It was impossible to temper it into something like Song Yi’s own broad sword. There was not that much time, nor that many materials, but at least its surface now possessed a trace of Heavenly Tribulation’s divine might.

“Now use your lifebound sword to cut off all the ghost qi that has invaded your sea of consciousness. Cut away the divine sense that has been corroded too.”

An even more piercing scream came from the room once again.

The people standing guard outside could not help gripping their weapons, because it sounded as if the person inside had already turned into a ghost creature.

The medical cultivator assisting at the side went numb. This was completely different from the knowledge she had learned, okay...

Previously, she had still been able to hold back, but after seeing Song Yi have the cultivator cut her own divine soul, she could not quite endure it anymore. “Isn’t this no good? She’ll die in great pain.”

Surgeries related to the divine soul did exist, such as inner demon cutting surgery, but they were even stricter than physical surgeries. But now this... they had none of the conditions at all. This was too reckless!

Song Yi said calmly, “Nothing will happen. We sword cultivators are just that brave.”

A lifebound sword and an individual’s divine soul aura were interwoven and connected. It could reduce the damage to the lowest possible level. If the divine soul was damaged, it could be nourished later. But if Song Yi acted, she might make the other party’s divine soul be destroyed completely.

Do not ask how Song Yi knew. When it came to attacking her own divine soul, she also had some心得 and experience. It was just that people in this world did not seem to do things this way much.

The medical cultivator’s expression was a bit wooden. I may not have studied much, but don’t lie to me. The sword cultivators I knew before were not like this.

If she could not endure it, she would indeed die. But if she endured it... that was a chance at life.

The ghost qi on her body was fading, and it was surging toward her two legs. This was an area deliberately left open, making those things think this place was a safe zone.

The rest no longer needed Song Yi to handle it. The medical cultivator standing beside her knew what to do: cut off this sword cultivator’s legs, feed her some pills Song Yi did not recognize, and preserve her life.

Of course, in actual operation, it was a little more refined than Song Yi’s description, and the pain inflicted on the person would also be a little less.

That sword cultivator also understood that she had passed through the gates of death. She was weak, yet strangely energetic.

Her eyes gleamed as she looked at Song Yi, and she said in a hoarse voice, “For the grace of saving my life, I have no way to repay you. In the future, if there’s anything you need, just say it.”

Song Yi turned her head aside. “You don’t need to thank me. You saved a lot of people. You were the one who endured it.”

“I didn’t expect I could endure it either. Maybe I have the talent to become a medical cultivator. You don’t know how steady my movements were when I cut myself. For sea of consciousness surgeries, does this count as self-taught mastery?”

Song Yi nodded thoughtfully. “What you said makes a lot of sense.”

New career path for sword cultivators: get.

The medical cultivator beside them trembled slightly. With such a hardcore “medical cultivator” joining the ranks, it really made one worry about the future doctor-patient relationship.

But on second thought, if sword cultivators entered this line of work, even if patients wanted to start a conflict, they would have to consider a sword cultivator’s individual combat ability, right? Maybe this was a blessing for medical cultivators.

The expressions on everyone’s faces relaxed. The fact that they could imagine the future and consider all those random things was because that sword cultivator had escaped danger, and also brought hope to everyone.

Nothing could lift people’s spirits more than surviving a desperate situation.

They believed that, just like this sword cultivator, they would also get through this wave of ghost creatures.

At the very front of the defensive line, they had already entered close combat with the ghost tide. The light formed by attacking magical artifacts such as spirit-energy cannons, talismans, and more lit up half the sky.

After confirming that she was no longer needed here, Song Yi hurried out. There were still many things she wanted to do.

The situation at the front seemed all right. Everything was proceeding according to the deployment. This could be seen from the expressions on everyone’s faces.

The classmates grouped in threes were carrying out flank support.

They could not go to the very front line, but the dawn of victory had given them courage again, making them feel that they could fight ghost creatures head-on. So they chose the flank. Only a small number of ghost creatures were circling around from there. A few of them surrounding one was still very safe.

“It’s low on health, low on health!”

“Just the last hit left!”

She watched them control a ghost creature while letting out excited howls, and could not help falling silent.

These classmates with barely any practical combat experience slashed over, and it was like scraping at it. Where did they get “low on health” from? It had clearly been enraged, okay?

Whether falling into the hands of these little classmates was lucky or unlucky for a ghost creature, who knew? It would probably take another ninety-nine slashes to end its life.

Song Yi was overflowing with mercy and decided to end its suffering sooner. She slashed out, and the blue-black ghost creature was split into pieces. Only after its limbs fell to the ground did the mucus on its body flow out.

That classmate was still showing off. “I told you it was severely low on health! You still didn’t believe in my strength.”

Song Yi: ...

Sorry. It really was not that she wanted to steal the credit. It was just that the ghost creature just now could not be said to have been at its last gasp. It could only be said to have been in peak condition.

Of course, those classmates who had taken more Martial Dao classes performed all right. They were a bit unaccustomed at first, but they were slowly learning to put what they had studied into use.

Just then, Lin Ze grabbed Song Yi. “Little Yi, something feels wrong.”

Just now, he and Li Wenwen had also been providing support.

It was just that Li Wenwen had a problem. From time to time, she would pay attention to the ground and her feet to see if any sand worms had crawled up.

Then they discovered that there were more sand worms on this side than they had imagined. This was inside the settlement, and the ground was not sand. It was not the wasteland outside. Clearly, something was not quite normal.

They followed the traces of the sand worms and found a patch of ground. The stone slab on the surface was intact, but underneath it was all sand. A little farther down, there was a hollow passage.

“We didn’t continue down. It felt wrong, so we came to find you.”

At this moment, inside the room, the medical cultivator was chatting with that sword cultivator about the front line’s situation. “We should be stable for this wave.”

“There’s a Tribulation Transcendence cultivator in the settlement?”

“No. Our deployment is sound. A ghost tide of around three to four hundred can be handled. Of course, we have to thank you for delivering the message.”

But the sword cultivator’s face turned even paler. “No. Not three or four hundred... It was clearly a ghost tide that covered the sky and earth...”

“Don’t worry. Under those extreme circumstances, it’s very normal for your judgment to be wrong. This is the information we got from scouting again and from fighting head-on. We’ll all be fine,” the medical cultivator comforted her.

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