Liao Tingyan: Why was it always so difficult to follow this powerful master’s train of thought? She always felt as if she had missed ten episodes of the story, which led to her inability to communicate normally.

Sima Jiao was still urging her to answer with his gaze, but Liao Tingyan’s head was full of question marks that she couldn’t shake off.

When a man says he’s willing to give his life to someone, it should be quite touching. In any romance novel, this would be the confession scene between the male and female leads. But this Master Sima Jiao had the unique ability to make such words sound like he was demanding someone else’s life.

Liao Tingyan had no experience dealing with such situations. After a moment, she said, “Squeak squeak squeak?”

Sima Jiao glared at her. “Speak like a human.”

I’m an otter right now, this is my natural sound.

Sima Jiao: “Do you want my life or not?” True Speech buff activated!

Liao Tingyan blurted out, “Not really.”

Sima Jiao looked at her with furrowed brows, with a hint of disappointment in her lack of ambition. “Isn’t this your mission? Even if you don’t want to kill me, my dying by your hand would benefit you. How can you have so little drive to succeed?”

Liao Tingyan was completely bewildered; she hadn’t fully understood her role in all this. But regarding ambition, he was right—she truly had none. In this world, some people work diligently, while others prefer an easy, ordinary life. She was the latter.

“It’s like this: my mission isn’t important, and I don’t want to kill anyone or take your life. I think your mental state seems fine; you don’t look like someone about to die. Why not try to find someone to examine you, or take some spirit pills? I think you can still be saved—don’t give up on treatment so casually.” Liao Tingyan was quite nervous, looking at the blood dripping from his body, very much wanting him to see a physician.

Sima Jiao: “You don’t want it?”

Liao Tingyan: “No.”

Sima Jiao: “I gave you your last chance.”

Liao Tingyan suddenly felt a chill down her back and couldn’t help scratching with her paw. Then she heard Sima Jiao say, “In that case, you’ll die with me.”

Liao Tingyan: …How did you reach that conclusion?

“Won’t you take some medicine?” Liao Tingyan couldn’t bear it anymore.

Just as she finished speaking, Sima Jiao coughed up a large amount of blood right in front of her. Liao Tingyan was startled, her first thought being: What a waste! This stuff is extremely precious!

Sima Jiao moved his finger, and flames appeared out of nowhere, burning the pool of blood completely clean. Seeing Liao Tingyan staring, he laughed and said to her, “When I die, my body will also be burned clean by these flames. They won’t get even a bit of my flesh and blood.”

Cremation? That’s quite modern of you.

Sima Jiao beckoned to her. “Come here.”

Liao Tingyan flew over, carefully standing upright on his thigh. Blood was everywhere, making it difficult to land. Sima Jiao looked down at her with a strange expression, speaking slowly: “I thought you would run. I’ve sentenced you to death, yet you still don’t flee.”

Liao Tingyan first believed she couldn’t possibly escape from under this ancestor’s nose, and second, suspected he was deliberately waiting for her to run—if she ran now, she’d probably be burned to a crisp within three seconds. Although they hadn’t spent much time together, she seemed to understand his twisted nature quite well.

Sima Jiao: “Why won’t you run?” This wasn’t a question but more like a sigh, as if he couldn’t understand.

Liao Tingyan felt this person lived a very complicated life and had no idea what he wanted her to do. He said he was dying, yet his mind was still occupied with tormenting her, his ally. Liao Tingyan just thought he should see a doctor, and she really couldn’t stand seeing him covered in blood.

“Master Sima, if you won’t see a physician, couldn’t you at least change your clothes and tidy up a bit?” Liao Tingyan didn’t know why she still maintained this strange composure, as if facing a work deadline with an unfinished task yet feeling fearless, even wanting to slack off.

Sima Jiao stroked the fur on her body, his bloody hand leaving red streaks all over her. “Since we’ll all be burned to ashes anyway, what does it matter what we look like?”

Liao Tingyan, discovering her fur matted with blood: This wretched pig’s trotter is truly too much.

Sima Jiao continued petting his otter while sprawled in that ordinary chair, like an old man at life’s end, prepared to await death peacefully. His agitation gradually subsided, revealing rare bewilderment and emptiness—though his hand never stopped stroking the otter.

“Dying like this—those people’s expressions must be interesting. The Fengshan clan will be completely extinct, and the root system of Gengchen Immortal Mansion will also be severed. These flourishing flowers that grew by absorbing flesh and blood will soon wither. The premier Immortal Mansion will collapse and fall within a hundred years.” After saying this, Sima Jiao laughed heartily, like a deranged lunatic.

Just then, a powerful pressure suddenly descended from outside, majestically hovering above the courtyard.

Sima Jiao’s laughter abruptly stopped.

He looked outside with a gloomy expression. Although the building blocked his view, his divine sense could already see the magnificent crowd tens of miles away. Sect Leader Shi Qianlü had arrived with a group of palace masters and elders and would surround him within moments.

“Sima Jiao, today we cannot let you live!” The voice arrived before the person.

Sect Leader Shi Qianlü’s usually mild, respectful, and frugal temperament and kind face could no longer be maintained. Anyone could see he was furious.

How could he not be angry? The Shi clan had worked diligently for thousands of years, painstakingly creating Hundred Phoenix Mountain just to completely grasp the Gengchen Immortal Mansion in their hands, becoming masters without being constrained by the Sima clan. Now, at the moment of near success, all was ruined, a thousand years of achievement gone. No one could bear it.

And the worst hadn’t even happened yet. Sima Jiao, this madman, had previously deceived him, sneaking in a surprise attack that destroyed the Shi clan’s life’s work. Now he was preparing to take Gengchen Immortal Mansion down with him. If he completely extinguished the spirit fire, that would be the worst scenario. They had stood in the cultivation world for too long; being cast down from their divine status was harder for them to accept than death.

They had to get Sima Jiao’s life in their hands before that happened! No matter how many casualties!

Sima Jiao coldly laughed inside the room. “Want my life? Delusional. These things aren’t enough to subdue me.” He stood up, completely lacking his previous near-death appearance, instead resembling Death himself, ready to harvest lives.

The ancestor suddenly rekindled his fighting spirit for survival, preparing to take more lives before his death.

Weren’t you just peacefully preparing for death? Now that others have come for your life, you’re suddenly energized. Liao Tingyan found it absurd. What a bizarre situation—thanking the enemy for stirring up our leader’s will to live!

She once again became an accessory, carried by Sima Jiao as he stood on the rooftop. To avoid disrupting this villainous dark lord master’s imposing presence, Liao Tingyan, with her overly cute appearance, temporarily hid inside his collar. Thanks to her small otter form, she wouldn’t have fit.

Both sides saw red, and the killing would begin after just two or three exchanges of words.

Sima Jiao was completely reckless. Flames erupted from his body, becoming a sea of fire, fully prepared for everyone to die together. But Shi Qianlü and his people valued their lives and weren’t willing to die alongside him. They planned to beat Sima Jiao half to death, not completely, so despite their numbers, they were constrained.

Liao Tingyan had previously seen Sima Jiao fight others. She knew he was formidable, a super-ultra-mega boss, but only in this battle did she understand just how heaven-defying he truly was.

Besides Shi Qianlü, many secluded seniors had arrived, numbering around three hundred. Liao Tingyan couldn’t discern each person’s cultivation level, but clearly, they were all at least one major realm higher than her Nascent Soul stage, perhaps even more.

This must be almost half of Gengchen Immortal Mansion’s top leaders, right? Probably everyone who could come had come, except those who had to stay behind, since this was a matter of life and death. Liao Tingyan clicked her tongue, feeling she would likely perish here today. She calculated her vacation days and felt satisfied.

Sima Jiao killed two more people, laughing like a true villain. Liao Tingyan didn’t need to look to know how ugly the expressions of those immortal-like masters must be.

“Don’t let him get close! He absorbs others’ spiritual energy and cultivation!” Shi Qianlü shouted, ordering everyone to disperse.

The sea of fire beneath Sima Jiao’s feet spread even more widely, forcing them back when they tried to retreat.

“Useless.” Sima Jiao, within the sea of fire, seemed to become the flame itself, merging with the fiery ocean. Even behind him appeared a strange fiery phantom—the enlarged form of the Spirit Mountain Fire.

He was mercilessly slaughtering those attacking him. At first, these people didn’t want to kill him completely and were holding back, but gradually they realized that holding back was pointless—if they didn’t use their ultimate skills, they might be killed themselves.

Although Shi Qianlü and his group appeared to be retreating step by step, unable to handle Sima Jiao, Liao Tingyan looked up and saw the terrifying bulging veins on Sima Jiao’s neck. The blood vessels and skin on his hands had cracked open, like scorched earth, both pitiful and frightening. Inside his collar, Liao Tingyan could feel fresh blood slowly seeping through his inner garments, nearly dyeing her entire otter form red.

Only now did Liao Tingyan gain some real understanding—this ancestor truly seemed to be at his limit, his body about to collapse.

Sima Jiao seemed unaware of how terrible his condition was. His eyes were completely bloodshot as he laughed amidst the fearful or hateful gazes of the crowd. He waved his hands, and wherever his blood fell, a sea of fire erupted.

They fought in the sky, with the sea of fire spreading above, melting the buildings below with its heat. Occasionally, attacks from others would fall like meteors into the city below. People in the city screamed and fled; low-level cultivators, under such powerful intimidation, were no different from ordinary mortals, also screaming and fleeing, trying to escape this city that had become a battlefield.

None of the cultivators on the battlefield cared about these people. Although in the eyes of many ordinary civilians, the lofty cultivators were all righteous and kind immortals who would protect them from evil demons and monsters, this was just a wishful, beautiful illusion. In reality, these cultivators didn’t care about the lives of some people.

On this point, Liao Tingyan had always had a very accurate understanding. So she was probably the calmest person on the battlefield, still having the presence of mind to organize the space she had carved out in her consciousness, waiting for the war to end.

This war lasted much longer than Liao Tingyan had imagined. The sky darkened and brightened, brightened and darkened again, yet still, it didn’t end. There was only the seemingly never-extinguishing great fire and Sima Jiao, devouring people like an evil ghost.

Liao Tingyan curled up in his embrace, taking a small nap. When she woke, she found her entire body stained with his blood. The once refrigerator-like environment had now become a charcoal stove—no longer cold, but extremely hot.

For a moment, she wondered if all the blood in his body had drained away.

She couldn’t help but reach out a paw to touch Sima Jiao’s stomach. The next moment, she felt herself pressed down by a damp, bloody hand.

“Are you afraid?” Sima Jiao said hoarsely. “What do you have to fear? The ones truly afraid are those dog things over there.”

Liao Tingyan didn’t understand why he had to cough blood every time he said fierce words to show off. She felt he had held on remarkably well until now and was probably near his end.

She gently patted this ancestor’s stomach and said, “If it’s too painful, just let it go. Since you’re going to die anyway, there’s no need to prolong your suffering for them.”