Chapter 75: The Fragrance of Gossip Is Irresistible

No one had expected such an outrageous blunder.

The disciple from Mountain River Pagoda Sect had drawn the face of the “slaughter demon” with utter confidence—only for it to turn out to be completely wrong.

You Tianyou was livid.

He gave the disciple two vicious slaps across the face, swelling it up on the spot.

"You didn’t even see clearly—why the hell were you drawing anything?!"

The disciple was wronged beyond words. He had only hesitated for a moment, and Elder You had insisted that he had seen it. He himself had also felt sure he had seen it—the image he drew did look like what he remembered...

Now, all the survivors who’d escaped with their lives began to work together, carefully and collaboratively describing the true appearance of the killer.

After half an hour of cross-referencing—

Finally, a new figure was projected into the air.

When they saw this image, silence fell.

It was simply... too absurd.

Even those within the Grand Dao Sect stared at the projection, utterly baffled.

"Good, good... it seems that unless we fight, none of you will be satisfied!"

"You're telling me this is a youth—just eighteen years old this year—who hasn’t even been in our sect for a full year? And you believe he could do all that?"

An elder of the Grand Dao Sect roared in fury.

"Since ancient times, has anyone ever cultivated for barely half a year and slaughtered Combined Dao cultivators with such ease? Can you name a single person?!"

"You’re not trying to find the truth—you’re just looking for an excuse to gang up on the Grand Dao Sect. Come on, then—fight!"

The other sects were silent.

Lu Ye—such an obscure little disciple—had barely drawn any attention before this.

The only thing anyone remembered about him was how, before the Heaven’s Chosen Ancient Battlefield opened, he’d calmly meditated without the slightest ripple.

Then, when the battlefield opened, he was the first to soar into the sky.

That was it...

Beyond that, no one remembered anything else about him.

You Tianyou took a deep breath and looked at Bai Qiulan again.

But this time, Bai Qiulan had unleashed her full aura. Her hands formed seals, and a terrifying Taiyin Divine Sword had begun condensing in the clouds above. The temperature of the world was plummeting at an alarming rate.

You Tianyou...

This time, if he dared force her to swear again, there would be war.

Earlier, his pressure had stemmed from the belief that Bai Qiulan wasn’t someone who would risk plunging the world into chaos.

But now, she had made her stance abundantly clear.

"This person is a disciple of the Grand Dao Sect. Might I ask—has his soul stone shattered?" You Tianyou asked.

Bai Qiulan looked toward Sun Li.

Sun Li had long since silently destroyed Lu Ye’s soul stone.

"It shattered."

He gestured toward the empty soul stone in front of him.

Shattered?

You Tianyou didn’t believe it. He immediately began cross-referencing the ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) soul stone’s aura against the sect’s members.

The final result left his face black with frustration.

It really had shattered...

"It seems... a demonic entity has taken over Lu Ye’s body. That’s the only explanation for such carnage."

"Then we wait. When he emerges from the Heaven’s Chosen Ancient Battlefield—whether human, ghost, demon, or monster—we strike him down immediately!"

"I propose we form a formation!"

"I second that!"

"The opponent seems to have some mastery over formations as well—we’ll need an extremely powerful one!"

"Agreed. With one heart and one will, we shall slay this demon!"

"Not just us—we must contact our sects and summon even stronger cultivators!"

...

Sun Li’s scalp tingled.

He was the overseeing elder for this operation, a powerhouse at the Sixth Heaven of Combined Dao.

Back when Bai Qiulan had suddenly asked him to destroy Lu Ye’s soul stone, he hadn’t understood.

But now... everything made sense.

The one carrying out this massacre within the Heaven’s Chosen Ancient Battlefield...

Was a disciple of his Grand Dao Sect.

And not just any disciple—he was from the newest batch of the ninety-second generation.

No, seriously—Sun Li knew who Lu Ye was. First place in the sect's internal Genius Tournament. But that was only the tournament for newcomers. Newcomers!

Meaning Lu Ye couldn't be more than twenty years old.

A disciple like that? Let alone touching the Combined Dao Realm—even encountering someone at the Void Refinement Realm and surviving would’ve been bragging rights for the next fifty years.

But now?

He’d killed a Combined Dao cultivator?

He’d killed a group of Combined Dao cultivators?

Sun Ruowei was the only person—aside from Lu Ye’s few deceased soulmates—who had some idea of what was actually going on.

Since leaving the Heaven’s Chosen Ancient Battlefield, her expression had stayed exactly the same.

Not a flicker of change.

It was stiff.

Utterly, unbelievably stiff.

Everyone assumed she’d been traumatized by the massacre—which wasn’t all that strange, honestly. Even Combined Dao cultivators had come out questioning their own existence.

And Sun Ruowei was terrified.

But it wasn’t just fear of the slaughter. Right now, her mind was spinning with an avalanche of information.

Every single piece of it required a huge amount of time to process.

This was a case of too much gossip—too juicy, too mind-shattering—it had broken her.

The first bombshell: Bai Qiulan had called Lu Ye husband!!!

She had heard it. Clearly. Vividly. The exact words: husband. With tenderness—real tenderness—that Sun Ruowei had never seen from Bai Qiulan in over sixty years of knowing her.

The second nuclear-grade revelation: not only did Bai Qiulan call her disciple Lu Ye husband, her other disciple Yue Hongling was also crazily fixated on Lu Ye.

Tally it up—Chu Ling, Yue Hongling, Bai Qiulan. Three women were already in love with Lu Ye.

Holy fuck, Infinite Celestial Venerable!

Chaos!

Pure chaos!

This alone had shattered Sun Ruowei’s entire worldview—but somehow, instead of fear, all she felt was thrilled. An uncontrollable, irrational excitement was bubbling up inside her.

The third and final megaton explosion: Lu Ye was strong. Not just strong—terrifyingly strong. The kind that could scare people to death.

Why was he so strong?

The curiosity ate at her soul. Even if Bai Qiulan killed her to shut her up, Sun Ruowei had to figure it out.

If she didn’t unravel these three gossipy bombs, she was sure her Dao path would crumble.

Oh my god!

There was such juicy gossip right under her nose—how could she not eat it up?! She was going to feast on it!

...

Meanwhile, Lu Ye was still killing.

The mountain of corpses had grown hundreds of meters high. Streams of blood ran down its sides. Lu Ye stood atop that pile of demonic corpses, eyes glowing red as more demons charged at him.

But his eyes—were no longer quite as red as before.

The effects of the Slaughter Lotus Seed were fading. His bloodlust had been vented.

The flow of incoming demons had slowed dramatically.

This time, Lu Ye didn’t act impatiently. He simply waited, standing still, letting the demons throw themselves at him.

And when the last demon was split in half, its corpse crashing down upon the mountain of the dead—

Lu Ye stopped.

The wind blew, but couldn’t lift his blood-soaked clothes. His hair had turned entirely crimson, soaked in gore.

At this moment, within the entire Heaven’s Chosen Ancient Battlefield—

Only one living being remained.

From the ninth layer, all the way down to the first.

He had wiped it all clean.

Good or evil, grateful or vengeful—all of it vanished into nothing.

Only one remained in this world.

The stone sword vanished.

Streams of red light gathered, forming Lu Ye’s image—flashing rapidly across his body.

The battle for the Dao had begun.