181: Chapter 181 A mere firefly dares to look directly at the bright moon?

In an instant, the cold wind inside the ruined temple seemed to freeze.

In those eyes, there was no innocence or fear that a child should have; instead, they were filled with an extreme indifference and majesty that had endured ten thousand tribulations and looked down upon eternal vicissitudes!

That was the gaze of a superior, the aura belonging to an expert of the Extreme Dao!

The Little Girl slowly sat up, her movements appearing extremely stiff and sluggish.

She lowered her head, her brow furrowing tightly in an instant as she looked over her frail, mud-stained Physical Body.

"Too weak..."

A young girl's voice that did not belong to this age rang out softly in the ruined temple, carrying deep exhaustion and unwillingness.

"I didn't expect... that the Realm Demonss crawling out of the rift would be so powerful; they simply don't belong to the laws of this Universe!"

"I, the Empress, cultivated bitterly for hundreds of thousands of years and finally broke through the shackles to attain the position of the Extreme Dao Great Emperor, thinking I could protect that Star Domain. I never imagined that even after exhausting all my imperial blood and Extreme Dao Imperial Weapon, I couldn't fully block a single strike from that Demon Commander..."

Recalling the battle where the starry sky collapsed and all things were annihilated, a trace of deep dread still flashed in the depths of her eyes, which were otherwise as calm as an ancient well.

To prevent her Divine Soul from being completely destroyed, she performed a Heaven-Defying Forbidden Technique at the final moment, discarding all her cultivation and leaving only a single wisp of her core remnant Soul to flee into the turbulence of time and space. Eventually, she drifted down to this place called the Qianji Realm and possessed this Mortal girl who had just died of cold and hunger.

"This Human Race body has blocked bones and Meridians, no Spiritual Root at all, and cannot even circulate a trace of the most basic True Qi. It's simply a piece of rotten wood."

The Empress felt the terrible condition inside her body, and her brow furrowed even deeper.

As a dignified Great Emperor of a generation, she had now fallen to a state even worse than a Mortal martial artist. If word got out, it would probably shock the jaws off countless experts.

"Gurgle—"

Just then, an extremely ungraceful sound of stomach growling came from her shriveled belly.

The Empress's small, mud-covered face suddenly froze.

Hunger?

She hadn't experienced such Mortal physiological needs for tens of thousands of years.

And now, the feeling of extreme weakness transmitted to her by this body was truly reminding her—if she didn't find something to eat quickly, this newly possessed shell would soon die of hunger again.

"A dragon swimming in shallow water is teased by shrimp; a tiger falling on flat ground is bullied by dogs."

The Empress took a deep breath, forcibly suppressed her pride as a Great Emperor, and stood up waveringly while leaning against the wall.

"The shadow of the Realm Demonss will spread here sooner or later. I must recover my cultivation as soon as possible."

She raised her head, looking through the dilapidated roof at the stars across the sky, her gaze becoming cold and determined once more.

"Even if I have to cultivate for another lifetime, I, the Empress, will still trample over the High Heavens!"

"Bang!"

Just as she stood up, the already rickety half-door of the ruined temple was violently kicked open from the outside.

"Damn it, this ghostly weather is so cold that my spiritual power is almost failing to circulate!"

Accompanied by a burst of grumbling, two men dressed in grey cloth robes with fierce and sinister looks walked in.

These two emitted weak spiritual power fluctuations, clearly being the lowest-level Loose Cultivators of the Qianji Realm, with a cultivation of roughly the second or third level of the Qi Refinement Stage.

"Big brother, stop complaining. The adults from the Blood Spirit Sect have spoken; they still need ten young boys and girls as Medicinal Catalysts. If we don't make up the numbers tonight, our Souls will be extracted and refined tomorrow morning!"

Another Loose Cultivator with a sharp chin and monkey-like cheeks rubbed his hands together, his gaze scanning the dark, ruined temple.

Suddenly, his gaze fixed on the small figure beside the haystack.

"Oho? Big brother, look! There's actually a live little one here!"

The eyes of the sharp-chinned Loose Cultivator lit up as if he saw walking Spirit Stones. He strode towards the Empress, "Although she's as thin as a bamboo pole, at least she's breathing. She'll do to make up the numbers!"

The Loose Cultivator called big brother also revealed a lewd and cruel smile: "Heh, count it as our good Luck. Little Girl, follow us obediently to avoid the pain of a beating!"

Facing these two approaching thugs, the Empress showed none of the panic or screaming expected of a Mortal child.

She just stood there quietly, her small mud-covered face slightly raised, her deep eyes devoid of any emotional fluctuation, as if she were looking at two cockroaches about to be stepped on.

"Second level of Qi Refining? This kind of inferior and turbid Spiritual Qi wouldn't have even been qualified to die before me in the past."

The Empress let out a cold, desolate sneer in her heart.

To think that she, a dignified Extreme Dao Empress, once had divine generals under her command like clouds, and could crush tens of thousands of ants of this level just by plucking a leg hair.

Now she had actually fallen to the point of being provoked by such trash.

"Little mute? Scared stupid, aren't you!"

Seeing the Little Girl motionless, the sharp-chinned Loose Cultivator sneered disdainfully and reached out his rough hand directly toward the Empress's collar!

Just as his fingers, carrying a foul wind, were about to touch the Empress—

The Empress moved.

There was no heaven-shaking eruption of spiritual power, no brilliant light and shadow of Martial Skills.

She simply moved half a step to the side with a rhythm that was extremely eerie yet perfectly aligned with human limits, just happening to brush past that large hand.

"Hmm?!" The Loose Cultivator was stunned, clearly not expecting this little beggar to be able to dodge.

Before he could react, a terrifying Divine Soul deterrent suddenly erupted from the Empress's seemingly weak eyes.

Although this pressure couldn't harm anyone because there was no cultivation to support it, that look of a superior looking down from the depths of the Soul pierced into the Loose Cultivator's Sea of Consciousness in an instant!

"Boom!"

The Loose Cultivator's brain felt as if it had been struck hard by a heavy hammer, and his thinking suffered a fatal half-breath of stagnation!

It was this half-breath!

The Empress's thin right hand had at some point picked up a rusty three-inch iron nail from the ground.

She made no extra movements; her wrist flipped, and with an extremely precise angle, she avoided all the firmest muscle areas on the Loose Cultivator's body, following the defensive blind spot of his jaw, and thrust it upward fiercely!

"Puchi—!"

The rusty iron nail accurately pierced through the Adam's apple, severed the carotid artery, and destroyed the central Acupoints for Spiritual Qi circulation!

"Ugh... ga..."

The sharp-chinned Loose Cultivator's eyes bulged, his hands tightly clutching his neck which was spraying blood frantically. His large body collapsed with a bang, and after twitching twice on the ground, he became a complete corpse.

Silence!

A deathly silence fell over the ruined temple!

"Sec... Second brother?!"

The smile on the face of the Loose Cultivator big brother standing behind froze instantly. Looking at his brother lying in a pool of blood, then at the weak girl who hadn't even caught her breath, he felt a chill rush from the soles of his feet straight to the top of his head!

How was this possible?!

A little beggar without a trace of spiritual power, who would fall over with a gust of wind, actually used a broken iron nail to kill a Qi Refinement Stage Cultivator in one move?!

At this moment, the Empress slowly withdrew her blood-stained little hand.

She stepped on the Loose Cultivator's corpse without any hesitation, letting the thick blood stain her tattered straw sandals.

The Empress looked down at the remaining, terrified Loose Cultivator big brother, her tender and shriveled voice uttering a peerless pride that froze the Soul:

"A mere firefly dares to gaze directly at the bright moon?"

"Gho... Ghost!!!"

The Loose Cultivator finally broke down.

The gaze of this Little Girl before him was too terrifying; it was simply not a gaze a human should have!

As a small fry of a demonic cultivation Sect, where had he ever seen such an eerie scene?

He gave a strange cry, turned around, and was about to rush out of the ruined temple on all fours.

"Since you've come, then turn into the nourishment for my re-cultivation."

The Empress spoke coldly to herself. Although her Physical Body was frail and couldn't catch up with him, how terrifying was a Great Emperor's combat awareness?

Her toe suddenly flicked on the ground!

A broken wood-chopping knife from that Cultivator on the ground flew out like an arrow from a bowstring!

"Chish!"

The wood-chopping knife followed a perfect parabola, accurately piercing through the back of the fleeing Loose Cultivator's head and pinning him firmly to the door frame of the ruined temple!

Both Qi Refinement Stage Cultivators were dead!

"Hu—"

After doing all this, the Empress's frail Mortal Physical Body finally reached its limit. Her legs softened, and she almost fell.

"The load on this body is too heavy. Just using a moment of muscle explosive power has caused signs of tearing in the Meridians."

The Empress's brow was tightly furrowed, but a trace of decisive ruthlessness flashed in the depths of her eyes.

She dragged her heavy steps to the middle of the two corpses and slowly sat down cross-legged.

Then, she stretched out her two bony little hands and pressed them onto the crowns of the two corpses respectively.

"Heaven Swallowing Dao Transformation Art... Rotate!"

As obscure and ancient syllables escaped her mouth, a weak yet extremely overbearing devouring force surged from her palms!

Visibly, the blood within the two Loose Cultivators' corpses, the residual Spiritual Qi, and even the weak Soul fragments turned into wisps of blood-red mist, frantically surging into her withered Physical Body through her palms!

This was a forbidden Cultivation Technique she had seized after killing a certain Demon Venerable while roaming the starry sky in her previous life. Previously, she had disdained to use it.

But now, in order to survive, she didn't care at all about the distinction between righteous and demonic!

As the blood Qi surged in, a strange flush gradually appeared on the Empress's originally paper-white face, her shriveled muscles also recovered a trace of vitality, and even her stomach stopped growling.

"Although the Spiritual Qi is messy and inferior to pig feed, it's barely enough to open one meridian and let me enter the first level of Qi Refining."

Half an incense stick later, the two corpses had turned into two shriveled mummies.

The Empress slowly opened her eyes and exhaled a mouthful of turbid air.

She stood up, and although she still looked like a tattered little beggar, there was already a hint of inviolable majesty in her every move.

She walked out of the ruined temple and looked up at the Qianji Realm's night sky, which was filled with a killing aura.

"Time is tight; I must understand this world as quickly as possible!"