Chapter 142: Winter Curse [PART 2]
Li Yao slashed downward with her sword, cleaving through another monster as it leaped toward her. Below her feet lay hundreds of similar creatures, their bodies strewn across the stone floor. She flicked her blade to one side, casting off droplets of viscous blood that clung to the polished steel.
"Why are there so many of them?" she muttered, her brow furrowing in frustration. "Isn’t this supposed to be a tomb of a human expert? Why then is it filled with monsters?"
[The tomb wasn’t very well hidden, so perhaps some small monsters managed to enter and reproduce,] she explained. [Anyway, this is also nice practice.]
Li Yao’s shoulders slumped at the Empress’s words. "But won’t it take too long? I haven’t seen senior brother in thirty hours, fifty-eight minutes, and twenty two seconds" she complained.
The Empress sighed deeply, [Well, it wouldn’t take that long if you just quit thinking of him and killed the monsters,] she pointed out with exasperation. [Have fun. I’m going back to rest,] she added, withdrawing to the depths of Li Yao’s spiritual sea.
"Hmph, who needs you anyway?" Li Yao pouted, her expression defiant. But her indignation proved premature as a monster lunged at her from behind. She spun around with lightning reflexes, her blade flashing as it bisected the creature mid-leap. "Well, maybe I do need you a little," she admitted reluctantly.
Without the Empress actively using her divine sense to alert her of approaching threats, Li Yao had to rely on her own qi sense. Since she wasn’t completely in the Golden Core realm, maintaining her qi sense continuously required considerable effort.
Lost in thought, her expression suddenly hardened, eyes widening with alarm. "Dammit! I let my guard down," she spoke, her heart rate spiking. "Who is it?" she demanded of the empty air.
In an instant, she transformed into her elemental form, crackling with raw elemental power as lightning enveloped her body. "Which vixen dares to touch my senior brother?" she bellowed, her voice thundering through the tomb as she rocketed skyward.
Bolts of lightning cascaded from her radiant form, incinerating every monster within a hundred-meter radius. In mere seconds, the battlefield was cleared, smoking craters marking where her enemies had stood.
"Change of plans. I’m clearing this place in three days max," she declared, her face etched with fierce determination.
Inside her spiritual sea, the Empress observed this sudden shift with genuine surprise. "Someone touched her senior brother?" she wondered, perplexed. "But how did she know?"
The Empress had never taught Li Yao any divination techniques, and even if she had, could Li Yao possibly divine information about someone like Xiang Yu? Unless...
...
As Xiang Yu served the food, Meiling couldn’t help but marvel at the carefully arranged dishes before her. The Grand Elder truly was an expert in the culinary arts. Although she had tasted spirit food once before, it was nowhere near this level of quality.
The dishes radiated spiritual energy so dense she could almost see it shimmering above the plates, while the aromas that wafted toward her carried notes of rare herbs expertly balanced with the natural essence of the ingredients.
She eagerly anticipated taking her first bite, her fingers tightening around her chopsticks in anticipation. As these thoughts crossed her mind, she felt the air around them suddenly shift. The temperature plummeted with unnatural speed, frost crystallizing on the table’s edge as their breath began to form visible clouds.
There was only one thing she knew that could create such an effect.
Meiling’s head snapped up, her eyes widening as she spotted Xiuying flying toward them—or more precisely, directly toward Xiang Yu. Meiling’s body tensed, temporarily frozen in indecision. The Winter Curse was flaring up again, but this time with far greater intensity than any previous occurrence. The icy aura radiating from the girl’s body created a visible distortion in the air, like heat waves in reverse.
Multiple calculations raced through Meiling’s mind. Should she move to intercept Xiuying? Doing so would place her directly in the curse’s path, risking severe injury or worse. Yet the girl was heading straight for the Grand Elder—would this be interpreted as a deliberate attack from their faction? If so, the negotiations would collapse instantly, and they might not escape with their lives.
Even with her enhanced Mind level allowing her to process thoughts thousands of times faster than ordinary cultivators, Meiling felt time slipping away. The air around her continued freezing at an alarming rate, her movements growing sluggish as frost formed on her robes. If she hesitated even a moment longer, the encroaching ice would render her completely immobile.
With a split-second decision, Meiling grabbed Elder Huang and Elder Guo by their collars and leaped backward with every ounce of speed her Golden Core cultivation could muster. The movement felt agonizingly slow, as though she were dragging the elders through thick honey rather than air.
In the next heartbeat, the space they had occupied just moments before transformed into a massive, crystalline block of ice. Inside this transparent prison stood Xiang Yu and Xiuying, their expressions perfectly preserved—his face locked in shocked disbelief, hers in childlike joy as she embraced him from behind. The ice block gleamed with unnatural clarity, not a single bubble or imperfection marring its surface.
As the commotion subsided and the swirling frost particles and dust settled, Elder Huang and Elder Guo finally processed what had transpired. Everything had happened with such blinding speed that their senses had barely registered the danger before Meiling had yanked them to safety.
When Elder Huang’s gaze fell upon Xiang Yu’s imprisoned form, her face contorted with fury. Without uttering a single word, she immediately activated the sect’s formation, her fingers forming a sequence of complex commands, ready to unleash the formation’s full power at any moment.
"What is the meaning of this?" she demanded, her voice trembling with barely restrained rage.
"Calm down, this is a misunderstanding," Meiling urged, raising her palms in a placating gesture. Sweat beaded on her forehead despite the freezing temperature.
"What misunderstanding?" Elder Huang spat. "You have clearly targeted the Grand Elder. What’s there to misunderstand?" Her fingers twitched, hovering mere moments away from triggering the devastating formation.
"Calm down," Elder Guo interjected firmly, placing a restraining hand on Elder Huang’s shoulder. "If she wanted to harm him, she wouldn’t have saved us," he reasoned. "Why don’t you let her explain herself?"
Elder Huang’s posture relaxed fractionally, though the formation remained active, ready to attack at any time.
Elder Guo shifted his gaze toward Meiling, his typically amiable expression transforming into something cold and unyielding. The change was so dramatic that Meiling instinctively took a half-step backward.
"I really hope you are not targeting Xiang Yu," he stated. "Otherwise, I won’t even consider our past relationship."
Meiling felt a shiver that had nothing to do with the surrounding ice. Though his power had diminished substantially, his words carried weight not through qi pressure but through the absolute certainty that he meant exactly what he said.