Killing intent flashed through Shi Qinglu’s stunning face.

Lu Mingye was clearly here to take advantage of the situation. Even now, she was absolutely convinced that Jiang Chen had been poisoned. That fact wouldn’t change no matter how long the young genius stayed concealed.

But, if Jiang Chen ran out of the woods instead of showing himself, he might be picked off by Lu Mingye instead. That would be completely unacceptable.

The Flora Sacred Land was going to make a name for itself in Myriad Abyss and its case for leading the alliance of the ten sacred lands. At the same time, Shi Qinglu was aiming to be the champion of the grand competition.

There were only a selected few candidates who could threaten her. Lu Mingye was a fellow peer, but also one of her major opponents.

Once she’d taken out Jiang Chen, star candidate Lu Mingye would become one of the greater remaining threats.

He knew many of Shi Qinglu’s techniques, and as a genius of Flora, he had a few tricks up his sleeve as well. Therefore, Shi Qinglu did consider him somewhat of a formidable foe.

If he decided to interfere, she wouldn’t hesitate to teach him a lesson. This was her territory. Even Lu Mingye would be at her mercy!

Away from the heart of the woods however, Lu Mingye was too good to be taken out by the poison formations on the outskirts.

The two had been allies from the same faction with a common enemy in this matter. Now that Jiang Chen had been cornered and wounded, it was only natural that the two of them would fight for the right to finish off their prey.

Although Lu Mingye had been taunting Shi Qinglu, he was also quite wary of her. Despite his confident words, he hadn’t taken a single step into the dense woods, especially not into the core area.

He wanted to stay on the fringes and be an opportunist. He’d be able to sense it if Jiang Chen escaped the area, and then secure his prey with one swift blow.

This was a chance for him to make a name for himself and climb to the top by stepping on Jiang Chen, a dream shared by all top geniuses from the ten sacred lands.

With a slight smile, he vanished from Shi Qinglu’s sight. He would be waiting for his prey to come to him.

Shi Qinglu scoffed. Something dark flashed through her pretty eyes.

“I can’t wait any longer. Jiang Chen couldn’t have escaped into the sky. He must be hiding underground. Hmph, I’ll find him even if I have to dig to the core of the world!”

With a single thought and a twist of her hand, a silver little animal was conjured from thin air. It was a marten.

Its fur was smooth and had a stunning shine to it, making it quite endearing. There was a high intelligence behind its eyes. Clearly it was a remarkable spirit.

“My little marten, search underground and find Jiang Chen for me.” As a poison master, Shi Qinglu had kept a good number of pets. The marten was one of her proudest possessions.

It was as quick as lightning and remarkably poisonous. It moved with amazing speed on and above ground and navigated within the earth with no difficulty at all.

The marten nodded and flashed an adorable expression before diving underground.

A confident smile tugged at Shi Qinglu’s lips.

“It’ll find Jiang Chen in fifteen minutes. He wouldn’t be able to get far when poisoned. Even if he does, my marten will be able to overtake him.” Shi Qinglu was convinced of her victory.

But after fifteen minutes, doubt flashed through her eyes.

Her marten should’ve found something by now. Why hadn’t she heard from it?

She was beginning to wonder what had happened when a few vines erupted out of the ground with a whoosh, splattering soil everywhere. At the top of the vines was a blue lotus.

Through its icy, translucent petals, she could see the lotus trapping something within it like a mouth

—

her marten!

It was curled into itself, completely frozen. Its eyes were unfocused like it’d lost consciousness due to the cold.

What?!

Shi Qinglu stared at it with her mouth agape. She knew how quick her marten was. When underground, it was too fast and agile for ordinary empyrean cultivators to capture it.

But it had been trapped by a strange lotus and its vines, completely turning everything she knew about her marten on its head.

Before she could recover from her shock, countless vines shot out from the ground with a series of dull, bursting sounds.

One, two, three… In the blink of an eye, tens of thousands of vines had emerged and surrounded the area, obscuring the sun and trapping Shi Qinglu under layers of vines.

The girl’s face contorted. She was in real trouble now.

A twist of her wrist manifested a dagger with the shine of autumn’s frost. Her dagger sliced through the vines surrounding her with a flash of cold light.

Whoosh whoosh whoosh!

Dozens of vines were cut down.

However, that did almost nothing to the army of vines. What was worse, the vines soon regenerated. The strange scene suddenly reminded Shi Qinglue of something.

Could it be… Jiang Chen’s counterattack?

Realization dawned belatedly. Her heart sank.

“Haha, Miss Shi, you’re indeed skilled in poison.”

“Why don’t you surrender to me like your great-uncle Shi Xuan?”

“Miss Shi...”

In the blink of an eye, the vines seemed to have become Jiang Chen’s duplicates. Every one of them was smirking.

Shi Qinglu shook her head. This must be a hallucination! She closed her eyes firmly and opened them again after a moment. All around her were Jiang Chen’s projections, and their numbers were still growing. She was already surrounded by tens of thousands of Jiang Chens.

They all looked at her with mocking smiles.

“You’re just illusions! Disperse!” Shi Qinglu exclaimed. She wasn’t going to go down easily.

Her blade was quick and sharp.

Every time she slashed at a projection, it’d burst like a bubble but would quickly re-emerge. There were no words to describe what was happening.

“You’ve been poisoned, Jiang Chen,” exclaimed Shi Qinglu. “How dare you play such a trick on me? Do you have a death wish?!”

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