When she saw Mo Mian’s Jadewind Sword headed her way, a look of genuine shock showed on the young lady’s face, finally breaking the calm demeanour that she had maintained since earlier.
However, simply being shocked did not mean that she was unable to react.
The young lady immediately leapt backwards, directly throwing herself off the rooftop.
Mo Mian did not relent either, leaping off the rooftop himself in order to give chase.
As she was falling from the roof, the young lady channelled her essence energy to the limit before throwing out a talisman.
With a flick of her wrist, a sword appeared in her hands, which she immediately used to pierce the talisman that she had just thrown out.
Boom-!
The moment her sword pierced the talisman, the latter exploded into a huge cloud of red mist, creating a cover that hid her figure in its entirety.
“Tch!” Mo Mian hurriedly covered his mouth and nose with his sleeve.
Being right behind the young lady during her freefall, he had no choice but to fall into the red mist as well.
Thankfully, he did not feel anything strange despite coming in physical contact with the red mist. But without knowing what it actually comprised, he dared not get careless.
Mo Mian quickly leapt out of the red mist upon landing on the ground. However, the young lady was still nowhere to be seen.
At this moment, two daggers flew out from the nearby trees and into the cloud of red mist.
“Shit!” the young lady’s enchanting voice was heard cursing for the first time as she quickly leapt out of the red mist.
Boom-! Boom-!
The two daggers that had flown into the red mist exploded upon striking the ground – the explosion instantly dispersed the cloud of red mist.
“Just how many of you ar-!” the young lady tried to say something but was forced to take evasive measures once again as a bolt of lightning headed in her direction.
Boom-!
She managed to dodge out of the way just in time as the lightning bolt instantly set fire to where she was standing just a moment before.
Unfortunately for her, Mo Mian was back on her tail by now.
Wind gathered behind Mo Mian as he charged towards her with his Jadewind Sword at the ready. There was no doubt that the treasure sword would be thrust forward the very moment he got in range.
“Enough!” the young lady threw another talisman in Mo Mian’s direction and pierced it with her sword.
Boom-!
The talisman exploded, this time turning into a tangible red wall of energy instead of a cloud of mist.
However, Mo Mian quickly adapted as well.
Essence energy erupted from within him, and his figure turned into a blur as he became one with the wind.
This blurred figure of his seemed to disperse as it collided with the red wall, only to go around it from all angles and form back together on the other side.
He lost little momentum from that either, immediately continuing on his path towards the young lady.
Panic was starting to show on the young lady’s face as she reached for more talismans, only to find that she was suddenly no longer able to move as freely as before.
It was only then that she realised an illusory emblem had formed above her – one that was applying a heavy force of suppression directly upon her.
Under this suppressive force, every little movement would take multiple times the original amount of energy required.
Even something as simple as reaching for her trusted talismans was now taking a huge toll on her body!
Slash-!
Blood spurted out and dyed the cold mountain path red as Mo Mian’s Jadewind Sword finally found its target.
However, it failed to reach her vitals.
Despite not being able to grab her talismans in time, she managed to at least tilt her body sideways. This way, she ended up sacrificing her left arm to the attack instead.
By now, the young lady had finally managed to grab her talismans.
Boom-!
Another cloud of red mist appeared around her, prompting Mo Mian to retreat despite being in his state of being one with the wind.
He had no idea what this red mist was, and thus did not dare to take any chances.
The Scarlet Leaf Sect was infamous for their unorthodox ways, and poison was just one of their common methods.
Of course, just because the party could not go near, it did not mean that there was nothing else they could do.
They had dispersed the cloud of red mist earlier, and they could always do it again.
However, Chu Han had another idea in mind this time.
“Terra Seal Formation!” Chu Han ordered.
On his cue, the members of the party finally showed themselves by leaping out of their respective hiding places.
If the young lady thought that she was safe in her cloud of red mist, then she was sorely mistaken.
Since she liked staying within the red mist so much, they would fulfil her wish and just seal her up along with the whole damn thing!
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“Physical Seal, activate!” Chu Han shouted.
“Elemental Seal, activate!” Gui Longcan was next.
“Vitality Seal, activate!” Pu Feixiang continued.
“Mental Seal, activate!” Zhao Yunxiao followed.
“Temporal Seal, activate!” Mo Mian finished it up.
Everything happened in mere moments, resulting in the formation of a globe of light comprising light waves of five distinct colours.
This globe of light hovered above the cloud of red mist, and a multi-layered suppressive force fell upon the area.
It was an overwhelming suppressive force that made the earlier pressure from the illusory emblem seem almost insignificant.
Subjected to this suppression from the Terra Seal Formation, the cloud of red mist did not stand a chance and instantly dispersed!
And as the red mist cleared, the young lady’s figure was forcibly revealed once more.
She was in a sorry state right now.
Her face was pale – a sign of overstraining herself.
Her long robes were torn, revealing a huge sword wound that started from the young lady’s left shoulder and reached all the way down to the elbow.
Fresh blood continued to pour out of this deep wound, almost enough to form a puddle of blood by her feet.
“Wait, stop! I give up! You win!” the young lady raised her right hand in surrender.
Her left hand remained by her side, but perhaps it was understandable considering the state of that arm.
“If you want us to believe you, then seal your own meridians!” Mo Mian did not easily believe the other party’s words.
A cultivator relied on their spiritual meridians to channel essence energy within their body.
Sealing a cultivator’s meridians would block the utilisation of essence energy, effectively preventing the cultivator from executing any cultivation techniques.
This would render most cultivators completely helpless, perhaps with the exception of those who trained in the path of body strengthening. But even for the latter, not being able to imbue their attacks with essence energy would still make them much weaker than usual.
Therefore, this was a common method used on captured cultivators, preventing them from doing anything unexpected.
Even though it was not impossible to unseal one’s meridians, the process was both time-consuming and noticeable, so their captors would be able to prepare for it, if not stop it entirely.
“There are five of you and I am alone, but you still need me to seal my meridians? How ungentlemanly!” the young lady grumbled.
“You have three seconds,” Mo Mian cautioned, not intending to get into a debate with her at this point.
“Are you really doing this to a frail lady like myself? What did I even do to you?” the young lady sighed in a pitiful manner.
“Two seconds left,” Mo Mian said.
“Is this really necessary? Or do you intend to do something strange to me after stripping me of all forms of possible resistance?” the young lady covered her chest with her arms in a suggestive manner.
“One second,” Mo Mian emphasised.
A halberd appeared in Zhao Yunxiao’s hands.
“Fine, I will do it. How impatient.”
The young lady promptly kept her sword away and tapped a few meridian points on her body. With that, the malevolent aura that she had been emanating all this while vanished in an instant.
It was as though the enchanting devil from earlier had been purified all of a sudden, reverting back into an ordinary mortal.
A frown instantly appeared on her face as she immediately fell to her knees.
Even when she had her essence energy as support, simply standing under the Terra Seal Formation was a torturous experience.
Now that she no longer had that support, she could no longer even pretend to be fine!
“Recall the formation!” Mo Mian immediately said.
The party members did as they were told, and the globe of light above the young lady slowly dissipated.
Huu-!
It was only then that she was able to let out a sigh of relief.
And she was not the only one feeling relieved at this moment, either. Just like her, the party members similarly felt a load being lifted off their chests.
Now that her meridians had been sealed, they could finally relax a little.
As for Zhao Yunxiao, he could not help but feel impressed by how easily the entire process went.
When Mo Mian first decided that they would be taking down this cultivator from the Scarlet Leaf Sect, he had been preparing himself for a hard battle ahead.
However, this fight ended almost as soon as it started.
If one could even call it a fight, that was.
After all, from start to finish, the young lady never had a chance to go on the offensive!
Of course, this was not nearly enough to make Zhao Yunxiao let down his guard.
While this was happening, he was secretly controlling a clone to search around the area, checking if there was anyone who came with the young lady.
“So, are you going to just stand there and leave me be?” the young lady said with watery eyes that easily invoked sympathy. “I will bleed to death at this rate, you know?”
Her words drew the attention of the party members to her left arm. Even now, blood was still streaming out of the huge sword wound.
“Treat yourself then, we will wait,” Mo Mian said.
“How am I supposed to do that? I can’t access my spatial pouch without essence energy,” the young lady complained before raising her left arm towards Pu Feixiang. “You, cute one. Come over and treat me.”
Pu Feixiang felt the corner of his lips twitch.
What did she mean by cute one?
He might not be ugly, but he knew that he obviously did not look as good as Chu Han.
It was obvious that the young lady was trying to tease him, probably due to their conversation earlier.
But to do so in this situation...
“Are you not afraid?” Pu Feixiang asked.
“Why do I need to be afraid? As expected, are you intending to do something strange to me while pretending to treat me?” the young lady tilted her head and asked with a playful smile.
“I’m not talking about that!” Pu Feixiang retorted. “I’m asking why you are acting so frivolous! Do you not realise that you are now our priso-”
“Ah, I’m feeling faint!” the young lady cut him off and weakly felt her forehead with her right hand.
“Go treat her,” Chu Han said.
“Me?” Pu Feixiang pointed to himself in disbelief.
“That’s right, why do you keep making a shy lady say something so embarrassing? Come here already. I will be fully entrusting my body to you tonight, so please don’t betray my trust,” the young lady added with a seductive smile.
Everyone could only smile wryly in response.
“Well, you heard her. She specifically asked for you. Someone has to do it anyway, or do you expect me to do it instead?” Chu Han answered with a sigh.
It was a different matter if the opponent had decided to fight to the death.
But now that she had willingly surrendered, they of the orthodox Black Tortoise Sect would naturally not push for her death. That was the case even though she was from the notorious Scarlet Leaf Sect.
In fact, the ideal outcome would be to bring her back to the sect for the administrators to deal with. That way, perhaps they could gain more information about the Scarlet Leaf Sect and better prepare the sect members for future encounters with them.
In the best case scenario, they could even help her change her ways and reform her for the better.
But for that to happen, they had no choice but to first treat her wound.
The young lady might be speaking in a frivolous manner, but her wound was definitely real.
And it was extremely serious as well, which was not at all surprising considering the fact that it had been personally inflicted upon her by Mo Mian.
If they did not get it treated quickly, not to mention returning to Purple Plum Mountain, she might not even survive long enough to see the break of dawn!