Chapter 922: Battle Between Factions

Chapter 922: Battle Between Factions

As Fu Yan’s chilling laughter echoed, and the true, horrifying scope of his betrayal was laid bare, the battle for the Crimson Pill Sect began in earnest.

A handful of loyalist elders, four in total, their faces pale with rage and disbelief, did not hesitate. They roared in defiance and shot through the air, their own Core Formation auras flaring as they formed a tight, defensive circle around their besieged Sect Mistress.

"Protect the Sect Mistress!" one of them, a stout man named Elder Guan, bellowed, his voice thick with fury. "To the death!"

"Traitors! You will all die today!" another, Elder Ping, shrieked, his sword already drawn.

They unleashed their spiritual energy, but it was a visible, painful struggle. The air around them felt like thick, heavy water, resisting their every action.

"This array... curse it!" Elder Han gasped, his face already beaded with sweat. "It’s insidious! It’s not just suppressing my Qi; it feels... sticky, heavy! I can barely maintain my aura!"

"It’s my mind," the fourth elder, Elder Su, whispered, her eyes wide with terror. "It’s trying to cloud my thoughts! I can’t... I can’t focus properly!"

From his high platform, Fu Yan sneered at their pathetic struggle, halting his own advance to savor the show.

"Fools! You decrepit old loyalists! Do you feel that?" he taunted, his voice dripping with contempt. "That, my ignorant friends, is the Azure Sword Clan’s masterwork: the ’Sky-Sealing Gravitas Field’! And that lovely little itch in your mind? That is a gift from our friends at the Silent Puppet Guild: the ’Mental Discord Wave’!"

He laughed, a harsh, barking sound. "Your strength is meaningless here! You are nothing but trapped rats in my cage!"

As if on cue, his allies moved.

Deacon Jiao, the scarred Azure Sword cultivator, pointed his blade at Elder Han. "Azure Sword disciples! Formation! ’Azure Sky Net’! Trap the old fool on the left!"

A dozen elite Azure Sword warriors, all at the peak of Foundation Establishment, moved in perfect concert. They unleashed their sword-light, which wove together in the air, forming a crackling, inescapable net of blue energy. It shot forward, enveloping the struggling Elder Han before he could react.

"Curse you! Break!" he roared, slamming his fists against the net, but it only buckled, holding him fast.

At the same moment, the monotone leader of the Silent Puppet Guild waved his hand. "Primary units... engage. Target the other three. Tear them down."

The stone floor of the arena erupted. Dozens of grotesque, metallic, multi-limbed puppets, like nightmarish spiders with spinning blades for limbs, burst from the ground. They were ’Blade-Wheeled Crawlers’, and they scuttled towards the other three elders with a terrifying, unnatural speed.

"Abominations!" Elder Guan roared, blasting one with a gout of fire.

But it was too late for Elder Han. While he was trapped, struggling against the sword net, three of the Blade-Wheeled Crawlers scuttled up his back with impossible speed. He tried to erect a defensive barrier, but the array’s suppression made him fatally slow.

With a wet, sickening sound, the puppets’ spinning claws punctured his defensive aura and plunged deep into his back and heart.

"Gah...!" He slumped, his eyes wide with disbelief.

"Elder Han!" Lianhua screamed, her voice breaking with grief and rage.

The remaining three elders, Guan, Ping, and Su, exchanged a single look of grim, desperate resolve. It was hopeless. They knew it.

"Mistress, live!" Elder Guan roared, his eyes red.

"Our lives are forfeit!" Elder Ping shrieked, his face a mask of suicidal fury. "But we will buy you time!"

"For the true sect!" Elder Su cried, her fear replaced by a cold determination.

They all, in unison, popped small, blood-red pills into their mouths. "Crimson Essence Burning Pills"!

"They’re burning their lifeblood!" Fu Yan sneered, his eyes wide with manic glee. "How heroic! How pointless!"

Their cultivation bases flared to a temporary, suicidal peak, their auras exploding outwards, momentarily shattering the array’s suppression around them.

But they didn’t charge Fu Yan. They didn’t try to save Lianhua.

"FOR THE SECT!" they roared in one final, unified cry, and charged away from Lianhua, directly into the thickest concentration of Fu Yan’s deacons and allied cultivators.

They were a meteor of pure, self-destructive rage.

"Grand Firestorm!"

"Glacial Peak’s Descent!"

"Wrath of the Wind Serpent!"

They unleashed their final, most powerful techniques, a suicidal explosion of elemental energy. A storm of fire, ice, and wind tore a temporary, chaotic hole in the enemy’s formation. Dozens of Fu Yan’s disciples were instantly vaporized. A dozen of the metallic puppets were shattered into molten slag.

But it cost the three elders their lives. Their bodies, their lifeblood and spiritual energy completely incinerated, crumbled to ash in the air.

Wang Jian, watching calmly from the high shadows, slowly shook his head.

’Heroic. And stupid,’ his inner thoughts were cold and precise. ’A complete, total waste of three Core Formation resources. What did that buy her? Thirty seconds? Maybe a minute, if she’s lucky. Pathetic.’

He watched Lianhua, who was now truly alone, her face a mask of pale shock and grief.

’But... it serves my purpose perfectly. It isolates her. She has no one left to hide behind, no one to sacrifice themselves for her. The main show, the real show, can begin. Good.’

The sacrificial, desperate charge of her last loyal elders snapped something in Lianhua. Her grief, her shock, her confusion—it all coalesced, burned away, leaving behind only a cold, pure, lethal rage.

"NOOOO!" she screamed, her voice not one of sorrow, but of bone-chilling fury. Her eyes, which had been filled with worry, now burned with a white-hot fire.

"You will pay for this, Fu Yan!" she shrieked, her voice echoing in the sudden, shocked silence of the arena. "Every last one of you! I SWEAR IT ON MY ANCESTORS’ SOULS!"

She didn’t wait for them to attack. She acted.

"Come!" she commanded. "Nine-Lotus Cauldron!"

A magnificent, azure-colored cauldron, its surface etched with nine intricate, closed lotus flowers, appeared before her. It was not just a tool for alchemy; it was her primary life-saving spiritual artifact.

𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

"Nine Lotuses Bloom! Form the shield!"

The cauldron spun rapidly, and the nine metallic lotus flowers on its surface bloomed, opening one by one. With each bloom, a powerful, layered, azure-colored defensive shield projected outwards, one on top of the other, encasing her in a fortress of light.

But she wasn’t just defending. She was attacking.

"And BURN!" she shrieked, unleashing her own spiritual flame.

It was nothing like Liu Ruyan’s crimson fire. A pure, almost blindingly bright, azure-blue flame erupted from her body, taking the shape of a magnificent, roaring phoenix. The "Azure Sky-Heart Flame." It was a type of Heavenly Spiritual Flame, rare, powerful, and filled with a purifying, righteous energy.

The remaining Blade-Wheeled Crawlers, which had been scuttling towards her, were instantly enveloped by the azure fire.

HSSSSSS!

There was no battle. They were simply erased. The advanced, tough, metallic puppets melted like wax, their complex mechanisms and dark energy cores turning to slag under the flame’s intense, purifying heat.

"My puppets! You bitch! You’ll pay for that!" the Silent Puppet Guild leader, his voice usually so flat, cried out in a rare, genuine spike of anger.

Lianhua didn’t stop. She was a whirlwind of power. She threw out a handful of high-grade jade talismans, which exploded into dozens of layered, smaller light shields that orbited her like moons.

"Myriad Jade Shield Talismans!" she yelled, reinforcing her cauldron’s primary defense. "You will not touch me, traitors!"

For a moment, she was a terrifying sight. Her white robes danced in the wind of her own attacks, her every move both graceful and deadly. Her azure flame lashed out like a whip, forcing even the elite Azure Sword deacons to back away, their swords melting, their defensive artifacts cracking under the sheer heat.

"She’s... she’s resisting the suppression!" one of Fu Yan’s deacons cried out, his voice tinged with fear.

"It’s the Heavenly Flame, you idiot!" Deacon Jiao roared, his face grim. "It’s purifying the array’s influence around her! Don’t let up! She can’t maintain that level of output for long!"

The array was relentless. The heavy, sluggish feeling of the suppression never ceased, and the mental discord wave continued to scratch at her mind. She was burning her spiritual energy at a terrifying rate just to stay active.

Deacon Jiao rallied his men. "Forget the disciples! Focus on her artifact! All units! Shatter that cauldron! Without it, she’s nothing!"

"Azure Sky Net! Again! On the cauldron!"

Coordinated beams of sharp, blue sword-light, amplified by the suppression array, slammed into the Nine-Lotus Cauldron’s layered shield.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

The shield shuddered, the outer layers cracking and shattering, though new ones quickly formed.

Fu Yan laughed from his safe distance, his confidence returning. "Hahaha! Your flame is impressive, Lianhua! A true Heavenly Flame! What a prize it will be when I claim it! But how long can you maintain it? How long can you fight me, Song Wei, Deacon Jiao, and my array all at once? You’re burning yourself out, you foolish woman!"

He decided to join in, to speed things up. "Let me help!"

He summoned his own artifact, a heavy, brutal, black-iron hammer with a leering skull at its head. The "Soul-Crushing Mallet."

"Go! ’Phantom Skull’!" he roared, swinging the hammer in a vicious arc.

A dark, shrieking phantom skull, trailing black, corrosive energy, flew out from the mallet and smashed hard into the Nine-Lotus Cauldron’s defense.

BOOOOOOM!

The sound was deafening. The azure shields shattered like glass. The cauldron itself took the full, unmitigated impact. It shuddered violently, and Lianhua was thrown back a step, stumbling in the air, a small trickle of blood escaping her lips.

A small, but undeniable, hairline crack appeared on the cauldron’s azure surface. Her primary defense was damaged.

Wang Jian, high above, hidden, watched the entire, desperate battle, his focus ninety-nine percent on Lianhua. He wasn’t just assessing the fight; he was enjoying the show.

’Damn, she’s good,’ his inner monologue was a lecherous, running commentary. ’Look at that flexibility... twisting away from that sword-light like a ribbon. So graceful. And sexy as hell when she’s angry. That face, all flushed with rage... fantastic. A real, high-and-mighty sect leader. I can’t wait to see her broken.’

His gaze tracked her every movement as she fought, his eyes lingering. ’And those tits... gods, look at them bounce when she unleashes that flame attack. They’re magnificent. Huge. Must be a handful... no, two handfuls. And that ass...’

He clinically assessed her power, his mind cold and detached. ’Her flame is strong, no doubt. A true Heavenly Flame, way better, purer, than Ruyan’s mutated Blood Spirit Flame. It’s a cleansing type. Powerful against those puppets.’

But he also saw her mistakes. ’She’s burning through her spiritual energy at a massive rate, though. She can’t keep that up for long, not while fighting the array’s suppression and two other Core Formation experts, plus that Jiao bastard.’

He noted her tactics. ’She’s wasting power on those puppets instead of focusing on the deacons. She’s letting her rage guide her, not her head. A bad move.’

His perverted observation continued, his gaze fixed on her form. ’Mmm, look at that. Her white robes are sticking to her now... sweat and a bit of blood from that last shockwave. Clinging to her magnificent, mature figure. God, you can see the perfect outline of her entire ass when she sways like that to dodge. She’s flexible. Very flexible. Good to know...’

He made no move to help. Not a single twitch. He just watched, patiently, as she was worn down.

’Not yet,’ he thought, as he saw her pop a high-grade Qi recovery pill into her mouth. ’Not even close. She’s not broken. She’s still in ’righteous fury’ mode. She’s still angry. She still thinks she has a chance to win, or at least escape. Look at her, popping pills already. See? She’s still got plenty of fight in her. Still full of hope.’

His goal was not just to save her. It was to own her.

’I need her exhausted,’ his plan was cold and simple. ’Completely. Her Qi depleted. Her Heavenly Flame extinguished. Her artifacts broken. Her spirit crushed. I need total despair.’

He envisioned the perfect moment. ’She needs to have no hope left. Absolutely none. She needs to be on her knees, waiting for the killing blow, her mind in a black, empty pit of despair. That’s the moment the savior arrives.’

"A savior’s timing is everything," he murmured to himself, a cold, calculating, and deeply lustful smile hidden in the shadows. "If you save them too early, they’re not grateful enough. They still have their pride. You save them at their absolute lowest, most pathetic point... and they’ll be yours forever. Body and soul."

He settled in, adjusting his position slightly for a better view. He was enjoying this private, one-of-a-kind performance. A powerful, magnificent woman, a proud Sect Mistress, being slowly, systematically, and violently torn down.

’Come on, Fu Yan, you old bastard,’ Wang Jian thought, his gaze fixed on Lianhua’s heaving, magnificent chest. ’Work for me. Wear her out. Break her. Break her spirit. I’ll be waiting patiently to pick up all the pieces.’