420: Chapter 420 Gu Jing's Inner Demons

He suddenly shuddered, a layer of cold sweat instantly soaking his back.

But at the same time, an uncontrollable surge of wild joy welled up in his heart.

The Piaomiao Sect is gone, and the Divine Dragon Cult is gone too.

Then this Tianyang Star...

Wouldn't it...

"Hahaha..."

He couldn't help but laugh out loud, though his laughter carried a hint of trembling.

It was triumph, but also fear.

Triumph because Tianyang Star would belong to him alone from now on.

Fear because if the person who could wipe out two major powers at once made him the next target, what then?

He took a deep breath to steady his mind and moved his body.

A moment later, he hovered in the sky above the Piaomiao Sect—

Below was a mountain range stretching for thousands of miles.

This place used to be filled with buildings, shrouded in mist, with spiritual cranes flying about; it was a cultivation Holy Land that countless Cultivators yearned for.

Now, only ruins remained.

The mountain range had been forcibly leveled by dozens of zhang; all the buildings, palaces, spirit fields, and Formations were gone.

Huge crisscrossing cracks marked the ground, with smoke still rising from them.

Among the broken walls and debris, one could occasionally see half a corpse or a patch of dried blood.

Quiet.

A deathly silence.

Elder Huangfu stood there, feeling a chill run from the soles of his feet straight to the top of his head.

He didn't stay long and moved again.

A moment later, the Divine Dragon Cult.

This was an isolated island that originally floated above the sea, spanning thousands of miles with buildings like a forest.

Now, the entire island was nearly ground flat.

The island's foundation, which used to be dozens of zhang above sea level, was now less than one zhang of wreckage.

Seawater poured in, submerging half of the ruins.

Broken buildings poked out of the water like the fingers of a drowned man.

There were no corpses.

Perhaps there were, but they had been washed away by the sea or buried under the rubble.

Elder Huangfu hovered in mid-air, watching this scene, and remained silent for a long time.

He suddenly remembered something.

Why did that person behind the scenes help him?

No—were they helping him?

Or rather...

He thought of an even more terrifying possibility.

What if one day that person wanted to destroy him?

He instinctively shrank his neck, his Divine Sense frantically scanning the surroundings; only after confirming there was nothing unusual did he breathe a small sigh of relief.

Fortunately.

Fortunately, he was cautious enough; his main body had always been hidden on another Star Continent and never shown to anyone.

As long as his main body remained, he still had a chance for a comeback.

But that fear simply could not be suppressed.

He hovered in mid-air, looking at the ruins beneath his feet, the expression on his face complex to the extreme.

It was relief.

It was wild joy.

And also... a dread that reached his very bones.

The destruction of these two major powers was, naturally, your handiwork.

You split your forces into three paths.

One path was you; taking Gu Jing with you, you had long since left the Imperial Capital and arrived at Tianyang City.

For the second path, you had Qin Han take the xuantian treasure mirror to the Divine Dragon Cult to launch a sneak attack and kill the Shenlong Sect Master, then destroy the Divine Dragon Cult.

With the support of the xuantian treasure mirror, how could the Shenlong Sect Master be a match for Qin Han?

He didn't even have time to escape.

For the third path, you had Zhulong launch a sneak attack to kill True Monarch Piaomiao and then wipe out the Piaomiao Sect.

With Zhulong's Body Integration strength, doing such a thing was naturally easy.

At this very moment,

Qin Han and Zhulong had already arrived at Tianyang City to rendezvous with you.

Actually, you had also wanted to kill Elder Huangfu, but even Zhulong couldn't find the location of his main body.

Perhaps due to some concealment method, or maybe because the main body was too far from the Clone, Zhulong didn't know where Elder Huangfu's main body was hidden.

This allowed Elder Huangfu to narrowly escape disaster.

Once you, Qin Han, and Zhulong regrouped, you took Gu Jing and left Tianyang Star for Ziyang Star.

Your purpose for doing this was naturally to let the people of the Heavenly Palace and the Liu Clan notice the commotion on Tianyang Star and guess it was your doing.

By then, those who were blockading you in the Void Realm might come to Tianyang Star.

This might provide an opportunity to escape the blockade.

As for why you went to Ziyang Star first, it was because the divination showed that the direction of Ziyang Star was auspicious.

Meanwhile, the divination for Tianyang Star had changed, showing: Great Peril.

This indicated that your plan was effective in the short term.

Of course, Gu Jing was naturally completely unaware of what happened in the Imperial Capital and the subsequent situation of the Gu Family.

You also naturally pretended to be ignorant.

In the sixtieth year,

It had been over a year since you and Gu Jing arrived at Ziyang Star.

You opened an Immortal Cave deep in an uninhabited mountain range and stayed there for a year.

With the xuantian treasure mirror active, the entire Immortal Cave was under a hundredfold acceleration.

One year was used as a hundred years.

After such a long time, you finally managed to grind the Law of Destiny from entry-level to Minor Achievement.

But strictly speaking, the one who gained the most was Gu Jing.

This girl was indeed ambitious.

With the support of the xuantian treasure mirror, her cultivation surged, reaching Nascent Soul Peak in one go.

That is, the three Realms of Perfection—Realm, Divine Soul, and Physical Body were all perfected.

It looked like she could step into Soul Transformation.

But unfortunately, a problem arose at the Heart Demon Tribulation step.

Half a month ago, Gu Jing attempted a Breakthrough to Soul Transformation.

Everything started smoothly; the energy was sufficient, her Physical Body could withstand it, and her Divine Soul state was good.

Unfortunately, she eventually stumbled during the Heart Demon Tribulation.

That Heart Demon Tribulation came strangely, and she couldn't pull through—

Regarding the specific circumstances of the Heart Demon Tribulation, she was hesitant and didn't tell the truth, so you don't know what she experienced.

If Zhulong hadn't stepped in time to protect her, she would have been gone by now.

She was saved, only suffering some damage to her Divine Soul, which could be healed with rest.

But this matter of the Breakthrough had to be reconsidered.

After a final discussion, you guessed where the problem lay—it was the xuantian treasure mirror.

This thing is good; hundredfold acceleration saves too much time.

But it has a fatal side effect.

Think about it: a person who has always been poor is suddenly given a mountain of gold.

He buys this today and that tomorrow, looking wealthy, but in his bones, he still lives like a poor person.

It is hard to go from luxury to frugality.

After returning to reality, the gap in time and space makes it feel like the century of seclusion was just a fleeting moment.

This sense of discrepancy will always exist to some extent.

After all, during the seclusion, she had no experiences, and her mental state didn't grow.

She was like a little girl who had never seen the world.

Gu Jing is like that now.

In one year, she traveled the path that others take a hundred years to complete.

Her cultivation is there, and her Realm looks perfected, but those things that should have been slowly tempered over long years—

Heart-Nature, experience, understanding of worldly affairs, indifference to life, death, glory, and disgrace, and so on—she has none of them.

Those things cannot be tempered through seclusion.

One must walk in the world, suffer enough hardships, and persuade oneself in countless nights of being unable to let go, before they truly become part of oneself.

She lacked this process.

So when the Heart Demon came, she couldn't withstand it.

Gu Jing improved too quickly, so fast that she didn't even have time to know herself.

This is the price.

Moreover, she won't say what she experienced during the Heart Demon Tribulation.

Otherwise, you could prescribe the right medicine, let her experience those things and see through them, and then she could face the Heart Demon Tribulation with composure.

But since she is unwilling to speak, you feel awkward asking too much.

After all, a Heart Demon Tribulation involves the deepest weaknesses and secrets in a person's heart—the hardest things to talk about.