When Lang Jiuchuan laid eyes on the black-robed figure, the bone-deep hatred that surged through her body confirmed at once that this was one of the individuals who had brutally murdered her original self. It was precisely why, the moment she saw him, that overwhelming tide of hatred flooded every corner of her chest.

When enemies meet, the hatred runs all the deeper.

Violent fury enveloped Lang Jiuchuan entirely — and in that same instant when Zhengyang Zi caught a clear glimpse of her, he too was struck with utter shock.

Half a year ago, he and his fellow cultivator Pingguang Dao had followed the mistress’s orders, torturing this person to death to seize her spirit bone, leaving behind nothing but a mutilated corpse. Even after her soul had fled her body, they had gone so far as to bind her wandering spirit.

One thing was certain — that person could not have returned from the dead. The woman standing before him now could only be a stray soul that had seized control of another’s body.

He had no idea whether this being was a demon or a ghost, yet she dared to inhabit a human body and roam freely in the world of the living. It was absolutely intolerable.

It was no wonder Zhengyang Zi did not recognise that Lang Jiuchuan had become an entirely different person. After that incident, his cultivation mind had sustained damage, and he had taken the opportunity to enter seclusion here to tend to it while serving as guardian. As a result, the Rong Family had not informed him of the subsequent news — and he had no idea that the people they had sent to kill Lang Jiuchuan had failed, time and again.

Perhaps in the eyes of the one behind it all, dealing with a mere wandering ghost like Lang Jiuchuan did not warrant deploying someone like Zhengyang Zi, who stood at the very threshold of Foundation Establishment.

Now that the two of them had come face to face, it could only be called the will of heaven.

Lang Jiuchuan secretly transmitted her voice to A’Piao and Jiangche: activate the mechanism, enter the water dungeon — this person she would handle herself.

A’Piao disagreed. “This person’s cultivation is extremely high. He should be among the top five elders of the Rong Family. From what I know, the one who favors black Daoist robes and wields the Eight Trigrams Bow as his spiritual weapon — that should be Zhengyang Zi. He is on the verge of Foundation Establishment. Going up against him alone is incredibly reckless.”

She had only just depleted her spiritual energy dealing with the affair at Duke Dingguo’s estate and had not yet recovered. Facing a cultivator of such a high cultivation level now would inevitably cost her something.

“This is the karmic debt of this body I inhabit. It must be I who resolves it.” Lang Jiuchuan fixed Zhengyang Zi with cold eyes, watching the darkness that clung to him like a second skin, and gave a cold laugh. “A man steeped in karmic sin like him dares to dream of achieving Foundation Establishment? Then I’ll tear the heavens apart. He owes a blood debt to this body. That debt — shall be repaid.”

The moment that final word fell, Lang Jiuchuan’s toes lightly touched the ground, and she vaulted out of the lake pavilion. Without knowing when she had done it, the Dizhong had already come into her grasp. She gave it a light shake, and its vast, resonant sound crashed against the talisman that Zhengyang Zi had sent hurtling toward her. A tremendous boom rang out, and the lake water surrounding the pavilion surged upward by more than three meters.

“Who exactly are you?” Zhengyang Zi was shaken to his core. He stood suspended in the air, his gaze fixed sharply on the ancient bronze Dizhong in her hand. The bell body had just unleashed its power, and even now it gleamed with extraordinary brilliance — profound thunder runes and cloud seal scripts rising to its surface, radiant and piercing to behold.

With a single glance, he was certain: this bell was of immortal artifact rank.

But how could that be?

The mere Lang Family could never possess a treasure like this. And the original Lang Jiuchuan had never possessed the ability to control an immortal artifact. She had only been born with a spirit root and an innate heavenly eye — yet with no one to guide her cultivation, all those spirit-root gifts that every Daoist practitioner in the mystical sects would have envied had gone entirely to waste.

Given that, why waste anything further on her?

And yet the person before him — with just a single move — had already made him understand that she carried the might of a formidable cultivator.

Of course. If she were merely an ordinary person, how could she have broken through the barrier formation laid over this lake — and how could she have drawn him here at all?

The expression in Zhengyang Zi’s eyes shifted from contempt to gravity, and then to wariness. At the same time, as his gaze swept across the Dizhong in her hand, a flash of greed crossed his face.

No one knew better than he did just how ravaged Lang Jiuchuan’s body was. One look was enough for him to see that she had not fully recovered. When a soul seized a new body, it required time to achieve true compatibility with the flesh — and if this ruined body could not sustain her soul, it would only drag her down.

Without a robust physical form, how could she use spell arts?

What was more, she appeared to have depleted her spiritual energy not long ago, leaving her at her most vulnerable. If he killed her, it would serve two purposes — first, he could claim merit with the main family; second, her spiritual weapon would become his.

The thought settled it. Greed finally conquered caution, and Zhengyang Zi’s killing intent poured out of him in full.

This woman had to die.

Lang Jiuchuan laughed coldly. How fortunate — she felt exactly the same way.

This battle: one must die.

“Who am I? I am the one who will kill you!” Lang Jiuchuan’s gaze swept across the small yet sinister Eight Trigrams Bow in his hand, and then across the long nail he held pinched between his other fingers.

Something flashed through her mind, and her eyes sharpened at once. The nail was lacquered gold from end to end, neither metal nor wood in nature. Its tip was set with a piece of spirit stone emitting a ghostly glow, upon which dense rows of talismanic inscriptions had been carved — giving off a bone-chilling aura that made the heart recoil.

This was a talisman arrow. Once it entered the body, it would wound the soul and scorch the flesh.

Lang Jiuchuan quietly raised her guard, channeling her spiritual energy to form a golden protective barrier around herself.

Zhengyang Zi seemed provoked by her words. With a thunderous roar, he cried: “Monsters are to be slain!”

His movements were swift as lightning. Both hands moved at once — he nocked the bow and drew.

A brilliant light surged in Lang Jiuchuan’s eyes. Her heavenly eye captured every detail of his motion. The bowstring was drawn to its full extent, humming with tension, and the arrow leapt free of the string. Carrying the mist rising off the lake, it flew toward the space between Lang Jiuchuan’s brows at terrifying speed.

If the arrow struck her spiritual seat — her divine soul would surely be damaged.

In almost the same instant, Lang Jiuchuan channeled her spiritual energy into the Dizhong in her hand. Her wrist snapped down sharply, giving the bell a forceful shake.

Clang!

A deafening peal rang out like nine thunderbolts tearing through the heavens, crashing headlong into the incoming arrow.

Boom!

Golden light burst forth. A peal far heavier than the one before resounded through the Ren Estate, and everyone outside who heard the commotion turned to look in that direction.

What in the world was happening?

At that same moment, A’Piao seized the opportunity and pressed down on the phoenix head. A thunderous rumbling followed. In the center of the lake pavilion, the stone table — which had appeared to fit perfectly flush with the floor — slid to one side, revealing an opening large enough for two people to pass through.

A rush of cold yin wind shot up from the opening, carrying with it the foul stench of rot and decay.

The moment Zhengyang Zi saw the mechanism of the lake pavilion triggered, his pupils contracted violently. Furious and shaken, he bellowed: “You wretched creature — how dare you!”

Another arrow — faster than the one before — shot toward A’Piao, carrying with it a sharp, venomous aura.

A flash crossed Lang Jiuchuan’s eyes. She spun on her heel and shook the Dizhong. The sound it produced split into two: one wave surged to intercept the arrow aimed at A’Piao, while the other condensed into a pale golden blade of sound and came crashing down upon Zhengyang Zi outside the pavilion.

Bang. Bang.

Before A’Piao could even shatter the arrow with his ghost-fiend energy, the sound wave of the Dizhong struck it and broke it apart. The golden light blazed intensely, and even the aftershock that washed over A’Piao left his divine soul unsteady — his body swayed, and his ghost energy scattered.

This was the Dizhong’s might — like the sacred bell before a deity’s throne, carrying an immense Dao resonance that shook the nine heavens. It was not something a lesser ghost entity like him could withstand.

“Get in!” Lang Jiuchuan’s command came sharp and fierce.

A’Piao, his heart still pounding with lingering fear, leapt down through the opening. Jiangche, who had just received the transmission in his mind from Lang Jiuchuan, followed close behind.

And Zhengyang Zi — struck by that blade of sound — was sent hurtling backward by the enormous force for several meters. The pain to his divine soul was excruciating. He retched out a mouthful of black blood, his face drained white, his expression one of pure terror.

How formidable.

Lang Jiuchuan gave chase, swift and soundless as a wraith.

Still not enough.