"Meng Fan might hear you? I think you actually want him to hear you, don't you?" Liu Yanping pinched Yang Shishi's waist.
The two girls immediately started wrestling with each other, scratching and pinching in playful retaliation.
Liu Yanping and Yang Shishi had been childhood friends, their relationship as close as sisters. Such teasing was second nature to them.
In the carriage, Meng Fan sighed softly. Whether or not the girl wanted him to hear, he had indeed heard everything.
He continued his cultivation in silence, ignoring the two playful girls.
With no distractions from women, cultivation becomes divine!
He gradually entered a state of selflessness, focusing entirely on his cultivation and subconsciously blocking out the girls' chatter.
***
Kongyue Town was not close to the Shu Mountain Sword Sect. It took three days and four nights by carriage to get there.
On the fourth morning, the three of them finally arrived at Kongyue Town.
Throughout the journey, Yang Shishi's hopes of getting closer to Meng Fan remained just that—hopes. They barely exchanged a few words.
"Senior Brother Meng, our mission is to eliminate the Ghost Shadow Sect disciple hiding near Kongyue Town. According to the information, there should be only one disciple. Once we take him out, our task will be complete," Liu Yanping said to Meng Fan.
Since this mission was assigned to True Martial Realm disciples, it indicated that the Ghost Shadow Sect disciple nearby wouldn't have a cultivation level beyond the True Martial Realm.
Such a minor threat was nothing to Meng Fan.
"This mission is primarily for you. I'm just here to support and ensure your safety.
After this task is done, I have another place to visit.
So, I won't be helping much with this mission. From finding the Ghost Shadow Sect disciple to dealing with him, it's all up to you."
As soon as they arrived in Kongyue Town, Meng Fan made it clear he was just a hands-off overseer.
Unless Liu Yanping faced a life-threatening situation, he wouldn't intervene.
***
At the Laifu Inn in Kongyue Town, they booked two rooms.
Liu Yanping and Yang Shishi shared one room, while Meng Fan had a room to himself.
It wasn't to save money; the two girls preferred to stay together for a sense of security while traveling.
After lunch, Meng Fan returned to his room, while Liu Yanping and Yang Shishi went to gather information.
Meng Fan had reminded them not to take unnecessary risks and to come back to him if they encountered danger.
As for accompanying them?
He couldn't be bothered!
After all, he was just passing through, not acting as a bodyguard.
Meng Fan spent the entire afternoon cultivating in his room, undistracted.
Although he had just broken through to the sixth level of the Heavenly Origin Realm, with the support of Elixirs and the Essence of the Sword, he wasn't far from reaching the seventh level.
However, compared to the Shu Mountain Sword Sect, he lacked the daily hour-long enhancement from the Thousand-Pound Gravity Formation.
As evening approached, Meng Fan frowned.
The Essence of the Sword within him had been depleted!
Before leaving Shu Mountain, he had cleaned up the first floor of the Sword Pavilion, wiping down the remaining dozens of long swords and storing some Essence of the Sword.
Even though he had been traveling for four days, he had spent most of his time cultivating, depleting his stored Essence of the Sword.
"I should have stored more Essence of the Sword from the second floor of the Sword Pavilion. Now that I'm out, there's no way to get more in this place," Meng Fan muttered to himself, feeling a bit helpless.
Suddenly, a thought struck him.
For him, obtaining more Essence of the Sword wasn't difficult because he had some on him!
He retrieved the Sword Pellet from the Sword Immortal of Alchemy's inheritance from his storage ring.
The Sword Pellet contained over a hundred Spiritual Swords, none of which he had absorbed the Essence of the Sword from.
"Since I'll eventually absorb the Essence of the Sword from these Spiritual Swords, I might as well do it now."
Meng Fan was in the middle of his cultivation and didn't want to stop.
He took out ten Spiritual Swords from the Sword Pellet and began wiping them one by one.
When he reached the eighth sword, a Sword Wraith surged towards him.
Meng Fan skillfully refined the Sword Wraith into memory.
***
In a pitch-black forest, every tree was black, including the branches and leaves.
"What a strange place."
Meng Fan's face showed a hint of surprise; he had never seen such an eerie place.
Black trees, even black leaves, gave an oppressive and sinister feeling.
In this forest, Meng Fan saw a young girl practicing swordsmanship.
The girl looked to be only thirteen or fourteen years old, her expression extremely cold. Meng Fan's first impression was that she was even colder than Ye Qingyu.
Day after day, the memory scenes were fixed in this forest, where the girl practiced her swordsmanship daily.
Meng Fan learned that this place was called the Dark Wind Forest, located in the Central Region of Shenzhou.
Meng Fan had only seen the Central Region of Shenzhou in the Sword Wraith memories; he had never set foot there.
The Shu Mountain Sword Sect was in the Northern Region of the Tianyuan Grand World, far from the Central Region of Shenzhou.
The Dark Wind Forest was the territory of the Dark Origin Sect.
The region belonging to the Dark Origin Sect was known as the Netherland in the Central Region of Shenzhou, filled with eerie and terrifying elements that mortals dared not approach.
Even ordinary cultivators kept their distance, as entering this place was a life-and-death gamble.
The girl was a disciple of the Dark Origin Sect, named Xu Weier.
The Sword Wraith memory Meng Fan saw was always of Xu Weier practicing swordsmanship in the Dark Wind Forest.
One day, while she was practicing, a middle-aged man in green robes flew into the Dark Wind Forest on his sword.
This man was Ye Lingyun, the Sword Immortal of Alchemy who had roamed the world hundreds of years ago.
Ye Lingyun descended into the Dark Wind Forest, and with a single stroke of Sword Qi, he beheaded the girl.
"This…" Meng Fan frowned.
The Sword Immortal of Alchemy descended and killed the girl without a word, which surprised him.
After all, the girl was only fifteen, not even an adult.
"Today, I descend upon the Dark Origin Sect to cleanse this Netherland and restore peace to the world," the Sword Immortal of Alchemy said coldly, looking at the girl's corpse.
What followed was the scene of the Sword Immortal of Alchemy massacring the Dark Origin Sect.
As he said, he flattened the entire Dark Origin Sect, killing all its disciples without leaving a single one alive!
A true massacre, leaving no survivors.
***
The Sword Wraith memory ended there, and Meng Fan slowly opened his eyes.
He looked at the Water Cold Sword in his hand and sighed softly.
He didn't know the full story behind the Sword Immortal of Alchemy's massacre of the Dark Origin Sect, so he refrained from making judgments.
But through the Sword Wraith memory, he deeply understood the cruelty of this world.
Human lives were as insignificant as grass, and entire sects could be annihilated, leaving mountains of corpses and seas of blood.
When Elder Wang destroyed the Blood Blade Sect, Meng Fan felt it was just revenge, albeit a bit ruthless.
But witnessing the annihilation of a sect firsthand, he felt the cruelty and the helplessness of the weak!
If one day, a supreme expert decided to flatten the Shu Mountain Sword Sect, then…
Proofreader & Editor: Peter Pan