Since it had been a few minutes, I sent my divine sense into Hu Huan.

His organs and meridian blockages had already started the clearing process. There were a few areas where small bits of leftover toxins were sticking. This was worse than I originally suspected, but it wasn’t that bad.

The acupuncture had done its work, so I pulled out the needles.

To clear up his condition, I took back his cup of spring water, refilled it and added a shaving from a mild cleansing pill that could work for mortals.

It did have side effects. But I was sure those would be helpful.

Little Spring continued to chat at Hu Huan about what the mortal would have to do as the new head of his household. The poor kid blankly sipped on the drugged water with my forceful encouragement.

Once he’d finished the cup, I interrupted. “Hu Huan.”

He jumped and turned to face me. “Before your mother died, she made a deal with me to treat your disease.”

He blinked. “H-haven’t I already been cured?”

“You were being kept alive through force and had your pain receptors blocked. You were still on the verge of death. That’s why you barely looked any better.”

His mouth opened, but then his eyes turned to where a group of cultivators I’d seen work under the city lord were respectfully retrieving his mother’s corpse. The maids must have called for them earlier because they’d arrived within minutes of her death.

I put a hand on his shoulder. “Your mother wanted you to live a long life and become a government official. And as your benefactor, I want you to help many people and not give in to corruption.” I added that last part so he would strive to balance out some of the bad karma he’d accumulated by benefiting from the massacre. It would be up to him whether he succeeded or not.

Of course, asking him to do that could backfire, but I was willing to make the bet. The author may have made a Xianxia universe filled with assholes and immoral shits, but there were still a few decent individuals that helped make living here not a complete hell.

“I’ve finished your initial treatment so you'll ‌begin to feel healthy soon.”

He blinked, his eyes unfocused. Poor child was probably still in the denial stage of grief.

I cleared my throat. This next part might be hard on him. “Sometime in the next few minutes, you’ll experience a pain in your stomach and the call of nature.”

His eyes grew wide, and he clutched his abdomen.

“This is normal... The next hour is going to be very uncomfortable for you, but once you’ve excreted all the toxins, you’ll feel better than you have in your entire life.”

I had a feeling that this was about to kick start his anger stage of grief.

“Ah!” He pointed in a direction and ran off. Probably to go find a restroom somewhere.

Little Spring scowled at me. “Couldn’t that have waited?”

“The kid had foreign energy infesting his system, barely keeping him alive.”

“You could have done the treatment later,” Clear Eyes pointed out.

I narrowed my eyes at the teen. “Look, if I didn’t flush out those energies along with the impurities from his disease, then Demon Thorny Devil Vine may have used them to kill little Hu Huan before I could fulfill my promise. You think I’d let that happen?”

Both Little Spring and Clear Eyes Mad Tongue looked thoughtful.

Even if the things I did seemed strange or eccentric, they always had a reason.

I crossed my arms and grinned evilly. “Besides, sometimes, when you’re grieving, you need a distraction. And nothing distracts a person more than explosive diarrhea.”

Vaguely horrified expressions appeared on both of their faces.

The kid tugged at my sleeve. “Sister Lin, please never give me explosive diarrhea.”

Mad Tongue looked pained. “If you ever feel the urge to help me in my time of need, please do not.”

I scowled. “I didn’t purposefully give... It’s a side effect! A side effect!”

Little Spring did not look reassured at all, but he still changed the topic. “While we have the chance, shouldn’t we go back and make more of those trick—”

The whole yard suddenly rumbled, cutting the kid off. A few of the gathered maids screamed and crouched low or clung to wood columns. One of them accidentally sent the basket of laundry flying into a mud puddle.

From the dirt ground of the courtyard, a line of thorny, glowing pink vines grew up like some kind of eldritch… bush? Hedge maze?

It only came up to my waist before it stopped growing, so it wasn’t all that impressive.

Still, what the fuck was this?

I sent out my divine sense, stretching it out as far as I could go without breaking the seal on my soul’s appearance.

The lines of bushes ran through the entire city in a familiar pattern.

In a dozen areas, massive pink wyverns used their braided wings to pull themselves from beneath the ground. Each was at least twice the height of the one we fought earlier.

A large swarm of demonic vine tumbleweeds rolled from each of the holes the wyverns made. They rampaged through the streets, knocking over citizens and smashing into cabbage stalls.

There were way more of these vine entities than we’d thought.

This could only mean that our enemy was already in the Nascent Soul realm.

And Salamander was off fighting that hyperintelligent vine fucker!

Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to worry about him. I had to believe that Elder Grass Sprout could reach him before his situation became too dangerous.

Because, being the formation master I was, I knew that this whole fucked city was in a massive slaughter formation.

And this palace was right in its center.

The only good news was that a demonic-type array of this size and level would take around 25 minutes to become fully lethal. Then everyone would die.

There wasn’t a lot of time.

But it would be enough to get to and destroy the Life gate and Death gate flags.

We just needed to reach them before the demonic formation fully activated. Well, this city didn’t have a flying ban. So... I pulled out my flying sword spiritual tool and attempted to activate it. It refused to even hover a foot off the ground.

It just figured that whoever set this situation up would add a fucking flight ban to their goddamn city wide trap.

I sent a telepathic message to everyone, ::Stay calm. Our situation seems bad, but it’s not the worst. The city is in the middle of a slaughter formation activated by Demon Thorny Devil Vine. We’ve uncovered his involvement in disseminating the plague, so he must have decided to cut his losses. He’s going to use this formation to steal all the life energy from the city.::

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Frankly, using an energy-expensive array like this wasted a majority of the power he would gain from this city — which was probably why it was his last resort.

Fairy Swift Dove’s calm voice entered my mind, ::Senior Lin! Should we help the alchemists retreat?::

::We are not going to leave all these people to fend for themselves. Besides, the new flight ban surrounding the city will make it quicker to stop the formation than to escape.::

::But how are we going to destroy it? We didn’t bring a formation master with us who’s strong enough to dismantle something of this level, right?!:: Drunken Blade sounded stressed.

::Don’t you dare underestimate me. I am a formation master of sufficient level and I’ve already calculated where the Life and Death gates are.:: I hope that information helped steady the others. ::We’re splitting into two groups because we have to get to them as fast as possible.::

Speaking of which, I started running in the direction of the Life Gate and motioned for Little Spring and Clear Eyes to follow.

::Fairy Swift Dove, I need you to lead the sword cultivators and alchemists near you to the Death Gate. It’s closer to you.::

Mentally, I sent her a map where the Death Gate would be located... right on top of where a vine wyvern perched.

As rapidly as possible, I explained what they could expect fighting it, how to defeat it, and how to get the flag underneath it. ::Also, I need you to wait for my signal. While pulling out the flags at separate times will still interrupt the formation, the only way to kill it quickly is to pull them both out at the same time.::

::We’ll wait until we can’t.::

::Good. We’re dealing with a highly intelligent demonic cultivator here. Stick together and watch each other’s backs.::

::Yes, Senior Lin!::

Ah, it was so nice to work with competent people. No complaining that we should leave the city to fend for itself. I didn’t even get a, ‘This isn’t what I signed up to do.’ Just a simple yes and doing their utmost to follow orders.

The Daoist, formerly known as Young Master Zhang, ran around a corner and reached our team. Of course, now he was called Spear that Weaves Through Lightning.

“Senior Lin!” He said with a huge grin on his face as he fell into step beside us. “I’m here to aid this side, so it isn’t uneven.”

“Good!” I wouldn’t look down on any extra help, even if he wasn’t as useful as an additional foundation establishment cultivator.

“Also, they sent me with a couple batches of trick pills.” He brought out two bottles. I took one and waved the other back to him.

The spear cultivator would need it more.

***

image [https://i.imgur.com/tPVW0mJ.jpeg]

As the fog slowly thickened, I guided us down streets where people raced around like frightened chickens or dashed towards shelter. Fortunately, most of the mortals were already inside somewhere.

A few of the cultivators we passed fought off vine tumbleweeds. Since they looked like they were handling the situation, we conserved our energy.

About halfway to our destination, the ground cracked and rumbled.

We attempted to keep going. Unfortunately, a trash-can-sized cylinder of vines rose from the cracked road a few yards in front of us. Then another couple of pillars beside it followed.

Finally, the last two appeared, creating five digits and the vine palm they were attached to.

Mad Tongue narrowed his eyes at it. “Why a hand?”

“Does it really matter? It’s blocking our path.”

“Can’t we just go around it?” Little Spring asked as he cast a spiritual palm to block the pinky from crushing him.

“The streets on either side of us have massive Vine Wyverns. We can take on this small hand easier.”

Spear That Weaves sent a physical slash at the pink index, slicing a good chunk off.

Of course, he then almost got his ass handed to him by a crushing attack from the middle finger next to it. Fortunately, he stopped it with his spear’s shaft. The force pushed him back, causing his feet to leave lines on the road.

I grabbed the back of his collar and used a combination of my body cultivation and spiritual-energy-enhanced muscles to drag him away from the entity.

“Fight from a distance!” I said then let him go. I’d have to lecture him on this when we made our way back to the sect.

“I’m trying to conserve energy.”

“This isn’t the enemy for that.”

Spear That Weaves grimaced, then sent a slashing Qi attack toward it.

Another finger attempted to flick Clear Eyes.

Mad Tongue threw blades of sword Qi at it, stopping the attack. Chunks of glowing pink vines flew off the demonic vine entity and turned brown.

Then, as if to prove me wrong when I talked about it being easier than a wyvern, an arm grew out of the ground, lifting the hand high into the air.

It fell toward us like a flyswatter.

We all used our techniques to jump backward by a dozen yards before it could smush us.

The ground shook with its attack, causing cracks to shoot out and break the building foundations around us.

It flicked a finger, sending a vine shooting out toward me. I dodged using Impossible Leap.

Grimacing, I swept my sword in an upward arc. “Thousand Cuts!”

The swarm of tiny blades hit the vine hand. Two-thirds of it burst into debris.

Unfortunately, the fingers quickly regrew, like snakes weaving together. Then they doubled the speed of their attacks, trying to keep us from its weak base.

Spear That Weaves was also having trouble because of his lower cultivation. Despite my earlier warning, he kept using his physical blade to fight them off.

Frankly, this wasn’t a great opponent for any of us, except maybe Clear Eyes Mad Tongue.

Wait! Wasn’t this a chance?

I tossed Little Spring the pill bottle he’d given me earlier. “Test out one of your trick pills!”

“How?”

Right, I had never taught him about these. “Just toss it at the base of the arm!”

He used a bit of spiritual energy and threw it where I’d directed.

Unfortunately, the demonic vine entity wasn’t going to let us kill it that easily. The arm slammed down on the pill, crushing it before it could damage its roots. The pale yellow ball turned into a cloud of gold.

Wherever the pill dust touched, the plant dimmed and shriveled. Unfortunately, new vines wrapped around the dead portions and helped stabilize its form.

The hand lifted into a slapping position while shivering with intensity.

We’d probably angered it. Which made for a great distraction.

Clear Eyes must have seen the opportunity because he ran under it.

Just as the vine arm began to smash down, he plunged his sword into the ground near the plant’s base and sent a massive sword Qi stab into its roots right where the weak point was.

The entire arm changed from glowing pink to tinder brown.

The lifeless vines came crashing down on Clear Eyes. He raised his sword. “Hundred Cuts!”

This wasn’t like my Hundred Cuts or even my Thousand Cuts. This was a technique cast at the Foundation Establishment level. The sheer amount of energy this took up would have drained me three times over.

It created a massive gap in the vine arm, allowing him to avoid getting crushed.

Mad Tongue jumped out of the hole he’d made with a giant grin on his face. He also had a saw mill’s worth of debris resting on his shoulders and piled on top of his head.

I had the urge to use the cleaning technique but I needed to conserve energy. There would be time to sanitize us all later.

After doing some quick calculations, I estimated that we still had around fifteen more minutes before this formation became fully active and killed us all.

Fortunately, we had a clear path toward the Vine Wyvern. Of course, the fog from the slaughter formation made it difficult to see. It even worked against my divine senses to a minor degree.

“Keep going!”

***

Little Spring and I Consistent Stepped our way down the city’s dirt streets followed by Clear Eyes Mad Tongue and Spear That Weaves Through Lightning.

A few small vine tumbleweeds chased a group of mortal civilians down a road that crossed our path. This time, there weren’t any helpful cultivators around.

All without slowing down, we took turns sending a slash of Qi at the round weeds. The pink balls shattered into debris right before they could attack a girl that was having trouble keeping up.

The group waved their thanks, but we were already far past them.

***

We were only a few hundred yards from our target, the Life Gate when we reached a long stretch of empty road.

image [https://i.imgur.com/lQ2zVL1.jpeg]I sped up.

That was when a crowd of several dozen burst from the buildings that lined the street and blocked our path.

I was honestly just going to sidestep them all and keep going... but I slowed to a stop.

Because these people had glowing pink vines wrapped around each of their limbs and horrible expressions on their faces.

They shuffled toward us on stiff legs controlled by demonic vines.

Moans of pain escaped from several of them, echoing through the once quiet streets.

The only thing this situation needed was one of them saying, ‘brains,’ while holding their arms out.

Wait a second! Earlier today, hadn’t I compared this demonic disease to the black plague if a zombie virus caused it?

When did I take over Clear Eye’s job as the damn crow’s mouth of the group?

And why did Demon Thorny Devil Vine bother making motherfucking Vine Zombies?!