After a short while of thinking, Gu Ran spoke slowly with an extremely reluctant look on his face, “You’re not wrong…” He hesitantly looked at the bunch of Demonic Cultivators that had gathered together and then at the Purple Spirit Sect disciples. He sighed with a reluctant expression. “... It is not impossible to let you go.”
Immediately, the Demonic Cultivator’s expressions lit up in joy!
Compared to the Demonic Cultivators’ joy, the disciples of the Purple Spirit Sect disciples’ expressions were anything but good. They cursed inwardly, but in the end, they resigned themselves. No matter what, they really couldn’t afford any more losses. So, as unhappy as they were, they could only resign themselves!
However, not everyone could accept it.
“Senior Brother!” a pink-haired disciple shouted. Her face contorted into an outraged scowl. She shrieked, voice piercing the battlefield, “How can you even consider letting them go?! How are we supposed to avenge the Martial Brothers and Sisters who lost their lives to these bastards?!
“How are we supposed to appease the Souls of our loved ones?!” Tears welled up in the corner of her eyes. Her clenched fists were like a weak dam that quivered under the emotional tsunami that was her grief.
She had lost her elder brother to the Demonic Cultivators. Even if she had not seen him lose his life, she could imagine how miserable his ending must’ve been. Her heart felt like it was tearing apart when she laid her eyes on his incomplete corpse.
Moreover, her Dao Companion suffered a severe blow to his Cultivation Foundation - leaving basically no chance for him to advance on the path of Immortal Cultivation. It felt like someone was driving an icy dagger into her broken heart every time her gaze landed on him. His eyes that shone with starlight now were dim and dark, like dead stars in the dark void.
She had practically lost everything.
Thus, now that they had the upper hand, she wanted revenge! Her Dao Heart would collapse if she didn’t!
There were many like her, who wanted revenge no matter the cost! They shouted with all their might!
“My heart won’t rest until I’ve slaughtered all these bastards!” Another disciple roared, his fiery aura erupted like a volcano, scorching the very air.
Many others voiced similar thoughts - they wanted vengeance.
Sadly, just because they wanted revenge, did not mean they could have it. There were still many more rational people who held them back.
“So you want to bring us all down with you for your selfish desire?!” A disciple rebuked, nursing the stump that was his left arm. Barely containing his rage, he spat out through his gritted teeth, “So what if you’ve lost your loved ones? Do you think no one else did?! Do you think you’re the only one who wants revenge?!
“We’ve lost our loved ones; we also want revenge, dammit!
“But we aren’t clamouring like fucking monkeys are we?!” he seethed. “Because we can’t afford to lose more!”
The pink-haired disciple retorted, her eyes filled with contempt, “You just don’t have the guts to actually face them!”
“How dare-!”
“ENOUGH!” Jun Meiling’s Zhenqi-powered shout slammed into them, causing them to stagger slightly, effectively silencing them. “We’ll let them go; that is the final decision.”
The ones who wanted revenge wanted to protest, when Gu Ran spoke up again, turning to the Demonic Cultivators with a severe expression, “We can let you go - but not just yet. We can’t be sure if the 8th Disaster Demonic Cultivators have left yet.
“What if they had anticipated the current situation and stayed back to wait for us to open the Formation?” He shook his head. “Therefore, you will have to wait for some time. Let Junior Sister Xiao forge a Control Token so that we can open and close the Formation quickly enough. And also wait for us to recover, so that we can respond if something unforeseen happens.”
“Like hell I’ll believe you! You must be delaying us because the reinforcements are not far away!” A 1st Disaster Demonic Cultivator exclaimed. “You-”
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Shwing!
The Demonic Cultivator’s voice abruptly stopped and his head slowly slid off his neck. As a 1st Disaster Demonic Cultivator, he could not muster an inch of resistance against Gu Ran’s Sword Qi!
Immediately, the remaining Demonic Cultivators’ auras erupted!
“What do you mean by this?!” The blonde 7th Disaster Demonic Cultivator who had spoken up at first, roared in anger!
“To show you who is in charge.” Gu Ran’s impassive and indifferent voice rang in their ears. “The only reason you trash have a chance to leave alive is because we’re letting you live. Not because you actually have any advantage.
“Do you really think that we will suffer all that much? If it weren’t for me not wanting to lose more comrades, do you think you'd even have a chance to negotiate?
“If we fight, there will be losses on both sides.
“If there really are other Demonic Cultivators waiting outside for us, we will definitely suffer a much smaller loss if we were to fight you to the death! So the choice for us is obvious.
“Moreover, if we really fight, you Demonic Cultivators will definitely be annihilated!” Gu Ran sneered before continuing, “At worst, I’d burn a bit more of my Cultivation Base, and you would be just like that fellow.” He casually gestured towards the headless body of the Demonic Cultivator. Obviously, Gu Ran apparently did not take him seriously at all.
The blonde 7th Disaster Demonic Cultivator’s face turned red in humiliation! Being mocked by a Cultivator who was at the same level as him yet not being able to refute left him feeling as though there was a volcano in his heart wanting to erupt, but he could only suffer in silence!
It was truly suffocating!
Suddenly Gu Ran smiled, “But you don’t have to worry! The reinforcements are rather far away and won’t be able to come here. At least, it should take a few days for them to reach here.
“So you can rest assured.
“I swear on my Dao Heart that everything I said just now is true!”
Upon hearing Gu Ran’s words, the Demonic Cultivators relaxed a lot. Swearing on one’s Dao Heart was not a joke. If someone swore on their Dao Heart and still went back on their words, it would leave a flaw in their Dao Heart. The Dao Heart was one of the most important things to a Cultivator along with Resources and Talent. It was immaterial and intangible, but it was the core of their Cultivation. It was more important than the Dantian, the Meridians, Essence, Body or even Spirit! A flaw in their Dao Heart would mean that the Cultivator would stagnate, unable to advance.
So, Cultivators rarely went back on their words when it involved their Dao Heart.
“... Alright. We’ll stay here for a while.” The blonde 7th Disaster Demonic Cultivator reluctantly agreed.
***
Xiao Hong just looked on at the whole thing with a strange expression. She did not believe for a second that Gu Ran would let them go - the fellow was way too sinister for that. She would be an idiot to believe that he would really let these people go.
‘Nope, he definitely has a way to screw these Demonic Cultivators over.’ Xiao Hong thought to herself.
And sure enough, after a short while, she smelled a very, very faint scent in the air. It was so faint that she would have never realised it without the incredibly powerful senses her Cultivation Method gave her and her Alchemical expertise.
It was an aphrodisiac.
To be precise, it was Beast Incense for the large packs of Red-striped Demon Jackals that lived in the Purple Spirit Forest. The Red-striped Demon Jackals were one of the challenges the Purple Spirit Sect’s disciples had to clear in order to set up their base because once these Jackals targeted you, they would not let you go until one side was gone for good. And because of this unrelenting nature of theirs, they were rather fearsome.
The disciples of the Purple Spirit Sect had, over time, come up with the idea of exploiting the unrelenting nature of these Demon Beasts. After numerous trials and errors, they came up with the idea of the Beast Incense.
The Beast Incense wasn’t purely an aphrodisiac - it was a mixture of the pheromones a female member of these Demon Beasts emitted when they were in heat, some targeted aphrodisiac and a powerful, slow-acting stimulant that is exclusive to these Demon Beasts’ biology.
Anyway, the disciples came up with the idea of using these Red-striped Demon Jackals to attack other Demon Beasts, effectively reducing the amount of work they had to do. With the combination of these things, the intelligent, but not-so-intelligent Red-striped Demon Jackals would think that the other Demon Beasts had tricked them and would then, under the stimulants, become enemies with the framed Demon Beasts, resulting in the mutual elimination of both.
One of the responsibilities Xiao Hong had as an Alchemist was that she needed to refine the Beast Incense. So she could not be any more familiar with it.
Xiao Hong’s mouth twitched, ‘As expected of an old fogie like you! You are truly sinister!’ Xiao Hong shuddered inwardly as she looked at the smiling Gu Ran. He had managed to convince the Demonic Cultivators to stay around and nicely stew them in the Demon Beast aphrodisiac so that they could happily run to their deaths!
She made a resolution - never make an enemy out of this fellow!
The Demonic Cultivators who had come here for the first time probably didn't know a thing about the distribution of Demon Beasts in this place, let alone the specific situation of the Red-striped Demon Jackals.
As for the disciples of the Purple Spirit Sect? It was something they made after all, if they did not prepare a counter for this, they might as well stop calling themselves a Super Faction!