Mu Luyin leapt back as a flaming sword shot past her like a bullet, narrowly missing.

Without fear in her eyes, she controlled roots that rose and formed a shield before her. The cultivator who attacked brandished another sword, condensing a fiery intent ready to slash the wall, when a blade pierced through his chest from behind, freezing him in place.

Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth, incredulity shining in his eyes. He lowered his gaze to the sword and realized it too carried a fiery aura, strangely similar to his own, yet more hidden and concentrated.

In shock, he tried to turn his head to see the owner of the weapon who had killed him without him even noticing, but there was no time. The enemy blade descended cruelly, rending his body from chest downward, destroying even the Nascent Soul in his dantian before it could escape.

Aotian, the assassin, controlling the Sword Pavilion avatar, looked at the corpse without a trace of emotion. He crouched down, pulled off the storage ring, and did not forget to take the fallen sword at its side.

There was neither rage nor discomfort in Aotian's eyes as he killed. He had already slain too many since arriving in this world.

Looking at the body, he thought for a second.

'Whether you were a cruel person who deserved death or not, the moment you drew a sword to kill me and the people around me, you were already condemned.'

Turning his gaze away without another thought, he looked at the other two bodies in the field, companions of the first.

They had also tried to surround Mu Luyin, and were cut down by the very avatars they had barely paid any attention to—almost at the same time as their companion.

Aotian did not forget to strip them of their belongings as well.

Another gain was that one of the enemies this time apparently had decent sword talent, and had actually developed his own intent—focused on the path of fiery sword.

Seeing this, his elders quickly copied it after watching him exchange a few blows with Mu Luyin. Along with the sword intent he had already copied from Jian Huiyin of the Bamboo Sword Sect long ago, he finally synthesized sword intent for the first time, with help from the inner elders of the Sword Pavilion.

[Name: Fēng Zhēn (Meaning: True Blade) Position: Elder of the Sword Pavilion Cultivation: 1st Level of Nascent Soul (1 Major Realm Above Host) Body Cultivation: 1st Level of Golden Core (1 Major Realm Above Host) Position Ability: Sword Intent Synthesis Position Bonus: Fight Beyond the Border (Power increased by 3x)]

The power of only two fused intents did not grow much, but it still showed a small improvement, and Aotian took the chance to thank the enemy by sending him to the afterlife with the new sword intent.

Seeing things were finished there, he wasted no more time.

"Let's go. The new limit should not be far," Gu Jian said, turning to everyone, then flew forward without saying anything more.

Everyone followed.

A few hours had passed since they entered the main mountain. After the battle against the fifteen men, they faced two more waves of enemies: one with seven people, and the latest, with only three cultivators who were bold enough to ambush them with such a small number, but in the end, were ambushed themselves by the avatars.

In the last two waves, all the opponents had focused on Mu Luyin, which allowed the avatars to ambush and kill them easily, without needing to use the exhausting Nascent-Tier spells.

Mu Luyin remained silent after witnessing their true power again and again. She knew that not even she could face them, and considering they were only Golden Cores, she began to seriously wonder if what they had told her brother Yun was true.

Of course, she also suspected that perhaps they were hiding higher cultivation realms, but the energy emitted by their spells left no doubt. No matter their true realm, the truth was clear: with Golden Core energy, their attacks were powerful enough to directly threaten—even in a head-to-head confrontation—some of the strongest Nascent Soul cultivators. And that alone was proof they were far from ordinary.

Lei Yun was also intrigued by the origin of the avatars. If before he had only considered joining their power to have guardians until he regained his cultivation, now he truly considered doing so to gain access to the powerful heritage they possessed.

Even if it would not be as useful once he returned to his true cultivation realm—the Mahayana realm, something he heard might not even exist in this world—he still thought their heritage would be useful before that, since the spells they mastered were extraordinary for the lower realms, far superior to anything he had ever acquired in his past life from those realms.

Still, he decided to wait until they resolved the situation in the mountain.

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And during this time, poor Lei Yun felt powerless, unable to help in any battle, only following and being protected due to his low realm.

Even in flight, he needed to be carried by Mu Luyin so as not to slow the group.

Back to the present, Gu Jian looked back as they advanced and warned:

"From now on, we're not far from entering the second limit. There will be more enemies, and even stronger ones, so it's best we use hoods to hide our identities."

He took out a black cloak and put it on, covering his body and head.

The avatars followed suit.

Mu Luyin and Lei Yun also nodded in agreement and donned their own cloaks.

The girl, who had already lost much of her distrust after witnessing the avatars' power, no longer spoke arrogantly to irritate them, and proactively decided to share what she knew to prepare everyone.

"Perhaps you already know, but it's better to warn you. The central mountain of the Shadowfallen Burial Mountain is divided by five limits. The first two are meant for cultivators of the Nascent Soul and below. The third is a separator— they say only great talents with powerful foundations can enter it before reaching Soul Formation."

"As for the fourth limit, only the best of Soul Formation can enter. The fifth, the mountain peak, no one has ever been heard of reaching. In any case, the further we cross, the more precious the opportunities we'll gain. But at the same time, if we want to advance further, we may have to leave people behind."

She explained in a solemn tone, looking worriedly especially at Lei Yun, who had the lowest realm among them. Mu Luyin was already considering sacrificing her own chance to advance further, to remain in the lower limits with him and protect him.

Aotian's eyes grew distant in thought. He already knew these things from the memories he had read, and reflected on them.

After receiving nods of confirmation from everyone, the group continued flying.

On the way, Aotian located an herb using the treasure-radar map, but upon arrival discovered it had already been harvested.

'The radar was used seven days ago and many people have already entered the mountain. It's normal that some herbs were removed… but I think it's time for Bao Wuji to handle things and return.'

He sighed helplessly and decided to do what he had been putting off.

…

A long distance from Shadowfallen Burial Mountain, there rose an enormous mountain range. Though at least ten times smaller and incomparable to that mountain, it was still breathtaking.

Cranes flew, roars of beasts echoed, and even mythical creatures like winged tigers appeared with cultivators mounted on their backs.

Spiritual energy mist enveloped the many palaces on the surface, the beautiful waterfalls and peaks, giving the entire sect an ethereal and immortal atmosphere.

Its energy environment, born through condensation arrays, was of low-quality 5th level, revealing that, in truth, the sect had been built upon a perfect-quality 4th level spiritual vein.

That mountain, curiously, belonged to the sect of the poor Ancestor Tie, who had died uselessly at Bao Wuji's hands seven days earlier, and which now already seemed to have new owners.

In the main hall, the eleven ancestors of the twelve powers were gathered, all with serious faces.

Seven days before, while discussing what to do about the new and unknown enemy, they had watched their Nascent Soul cultivators vanish right under their noses at an alarming speed, which threw them into extreme panic.

Making a quick decision, they chose to take refuge rather than risk fighting an unknown enemy in the open. The only places safe enough to help defend them were the mountains of their respective powers.

The problem was that none of them wanted to draw danger to their own home, nor were they willing to go into another's territory and leave their own unguarded while defending someone else's.

But faced with the panic caused by the invisible enemy, they compromised on a middle ground: they chose the mountain of the poor Elder Tie, who had been captured by the enemy.

And it was the sect leadership of Elder Tie that suffered the most for it. As if it weren't enough that the soul lamp of their ancestor and nearly twenty inner elders in the Nascent Soul realm had shattered, signaling their deaths, they now had to watch the eleven ancestors suspected of being the culprits invade and occupy the place as if it were their own home.

The sect leader was even forced to serve tea to those men, with a forced smile on his face, though his heart was full of hatred and humiliation. He thought countless times of activating the sect's killing arrays, but dealing with all those Soul Formation ancestors at once was not something he dared risk now that his own ancestor was dead.

But what the ancestors did not know was that the whole time, the terrifying enemy they awaited was actually inside the sect's inheritance hall, leisurely reading all the stored content.

'Huuh… so many things, and I've already read everything of Formation-Tier and Nascent-Tier that this sect had. I've also recovered much of my spirit from reading 500,000 years of memory. Time to visit the minds of some mischievous ancestors,' Aotian pondered, turning his attention to Bao Wuji.

Invading a Soul Formation sect with Void Refinement cultivation was no problem. Just opening a rift was enough to bypass the formations without difficulty or alerting anyone. Such was the terror of a realm above.

He had only refrained from attacking the ancestors earlier because his mind and spirit were exhausted from the constant Soul Searches he had applied for five days straight. For that reason, he waited two days to rest before turning to the main course.

Without wasting time, Bao Wuji cleared out all the jade slips of the pavilion, as well as several treasure pavilions he found—something he had not done before in order not to alarm the targets—then he headed directly to the mountain's main hall.

The 11 ancestors, drinking tea while discussing countermeasures, froze in panic as they felt a powerful aura press down on them, and their hearts nearly leapt from their throats when they realized which realm that aura belonged to.

"Impossible!! That's not a Soul Formation peak! It's a Void Refiner!" Ancestor Xu shouted in despair, immediately activating the mountain's formation authority, searching for the target with his eyes and with the feedback the formation transmitted to him.

But no matter how he searched, there was no sign of where the pressure came from. It seemed to appear from nowhere, and without a target, he had nothing to strike.

Aotian calmly watched them fall into panic and terror, some even planning their escape once they realized the enemy's true cultivation level—a difference that was simply despairing.

No matter how hard they tried, they could not sense him, because Aotian had already gathered enough data to synthesize Nascent-Tier Qi-disguising techniques, equivalent to the best Formation-Tier techniques. Combined with Bao Wuji's powerful realm, it made him practically invisible to anything or anyone below Void Refinement.

The eleven ancestors, wide-eyed in panic, suddenly saw an old figure with a calm smile appear before them, pressing an unbearable weight onto their hearts.

Bao Wuji, in his golden robes, long white hair and beard, and hands behind his back, gently nodded to them all, amusement in his eyes.

"Hello there!"

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