From Cold Palace Princess to Celestial Empress Ch. 18
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Indeed, there was a group of evil cultivators in the cave, the very ones causing chaos around Beiyang City.
This cave served as one of their hideouts, where they would rest after abducting people.
According to the burly man, their gang consisted of five members, known as the “Fifty Bandits.”
However, only four were currently in the cave; their leader had gone out on business and had not yet returned.
“How many people have you abducted in total, and where are they being held?” Xiao Minghuang finally asked.
“We’ve captured seven women and four children, all locked in the deepest dungeon of the cave.”
“And where is the female cultivator at the seventh level of Body Tempering?”
Hearing this, the burly man was startled. This female warrior even knew about the female cultivator they had captured. Could she be a family member of the cultivator, here to rescue her?
“That female cultivator is locked in Third Brother’s… no! In the Third Demon’s room. That demon practices evil arts, often stealing the primordial yin of women to cultivate. Afterward, he brutally kills them. You must not spare that beast, warrior!”
The burly man spoke with righteous anger, as if sharing a common enemy.
Hearing this, Xiao Minghuang smiled faintly and asked, “You accuse others of practicing evil arts, but you reek of blood. Aren’t you also cultivating by drinking blood?”
“No! I’m not!” the burly man hastily denied. “This is animal blood, not human blood!”
Xiao Minghuang did not respond. Whether it was true or not, she had her own judgment.
After everything was explained, the burly man trembled and asked, “Warrior… I’ve answered all your questions. Can you let me go now?”
Xiao Minghuang’s expression remained impassive as she withdrew her finger, which had been lightly pressing on the back of the burly man’s neck. The golden light faded, and darkness returned.
“Go.”
Feeling the immense pressure on the back of his neck disappear, the burly man felt as if he had been granted amnesty and immediately took steps to flee.
But after just two steps.
In the pitch-black cave, a golden light suddenly flashed, like a shooting star streaking across the night sky, vanishing in an instant.
Whoosh!
The starlight was incredibly fast. Before the burly man could react, the light pierced through his chest, leaving a thumb-sized hole.
The burly man’s vision went dark, and a sharp pain erupted in his chest. Crimson blood gushed out like a spring, and in the next moment, he lost consciousness, his body collapsing to the ground.
After killing the burly man, Xiao Minghuang didn’t even spare a glance at the corpse. Her expression unchanged, she gracefully descended from the table and continued deeper into the cave.
As she ventured further, she encountered more evil cultivators, none of whom exceeded the sixth level of Body Tempering.
These cultivators were weak and completely unaware of Xiao Minghuang’s presence, being slain in their sleep.
It didn’t take long.
Xiao Minghuang reached the deepest part of the cave.
After clearing the path, more than ten evil cultivators had fallen by her hand. Apart from the leader of the “Fifty Bandits,” all had been executed.
“Aside from the leader who isn’t here, the remaining three should be in this stone building.”
Xiao Minghuang gazed at the towering stone pavilion before her, steadying her nerves.
“To carve such a massive structure within a small cave, they must have put in a great deal of effort!”
Standing at the entrance, she faintly heard the clamor of the evil cultivators inside, far more than just the three leaders.
Over twenty auras emanated from within the building, but most were not highly cultivated, with only a few surpassing the sixth level of Body Tempering.
Only three auras at the peak of Body Tempering were present, likely belonging to the three leading evil cultivators.
As for Qi Refinement warriors, there were none.
“The leader of the evil cultivators must not be here; it’s all underlings. Dealing with them one by one would be too troublesome. I might as well kill them all at once.”
Since she began cultivating the 《Purple Star Imperial Path Scripture》, she had never fully unleashed its power. Now was the perfect time to test the might of the starlight.
Xiao Minghuang murmured to herself, then stirred her spiritual energy. Vortex-like spirals of energy appeared at her abdomen, chest, and hands, drawing in the free spiritual energy from the surroundings.
A faint light flickered between her brows, and a golden light emerged from her body, illuminating the entire dark cave, turning it as bright as day in an instant.
The dazzling starlight, like a comet in the night sky, seemed to carry the power to pierce through heaven and earth, pressing down forcefully toward the stone pavilion.
…
Inside the stone pavilion.
“Come on, brothers! Keep drinking!”
The evil cultivators were all bleary-eyed, their heads spinning. Suddenly, they saw a flash of light outside the window.
Before they could react, the light descended upon them.
The evil cultivators widened their eyes, their pupils filled with disbelief, as if they were witnessing the most splendid and beautiful sight of their lives.
But after the boundless brilliance came the cold embrace of death.
…
The starlight faded.
Xiao Minghuang’s face paled slightly, and the four energy vortices on her body disappeared. Feeling the emptiness in her dantian, she took out a pill and swallowed it, her spiritual energy gradually recovering. She couldn’t help but let out a bitter laugh.
“Even though I’ve advanced to the fourth level of Qi Refinement, unleashing the starlight once drained all the spiritual energy in my dantian.”
Xiao Minghuang took out another pill from her storage bag and swallowed it, replenishing her depleted spiritual energy.
But even so, she had made significant progress compared to before.
When she first learned the 《Purple Star Imperial Path Scripture》, she couldn’t independently execute the technique.
She had to rely on external spirit stones to supply the necessary energy.
Now, however, she could perform the technique using only her own spiritual energy, marking a considerable improvement.
Moreover, Xiao Minghuang noticed that the 《Purple Star Imperial Path Scripture》 and the 《Seven Stars Sword Technique》 seemed to share the same origin, with no barrier between them.
“Is it possible that the 《Seven Stars Sword Technique》 is a part of the 《Purple Star Imperial Path Scripture》, but was later separated?”
Xiao Minghuang murmured to herself, though this was just a conjecture she couldn’t verify.
She stepped into the stone pavilion, and the sight of corpses scattered across the floor greeted her.
“I acted too quickly. I should have asked where they were keeping the people they captured.”
Xiao Minghuang frowned slightly, then expanded her spiritual sense outward.
But.
Her spiritual sense didn’t travel far from the pavilion before she saw a small hut and suddenly sensed a restless aura.
“I remember someone mentioning that they captured a woman at the seventh level of Body Tempering and locked her up alone in the room of the three demon heads.”
Thinking of this, Xiao Minghuang immediately moved toward the hut.
As she approached the house, Xiao Minghuang faintly heard the sound of porcelain shattering from within.
A sense of foreboding rose in her heart, and she quickened her pace to rush over.
…
Inside the room.
A woman dressed in a fiery red wedding gown stood with a graceful figure. Through the thin red veil, one could vaguely glimpse her beautiful face, as smooth and radiant as white jade.
At this moment, the woman was huddled in the farthest corner of the room, her entire body bound with ropes, unable to move. A towel was stuffed into her mouth, preventing her from making any sound. Her eyes were covered with a red cloth, and her body trembled incessantly, clearly terrified to the extreme.
The woman was none other than Lin Wanqiu, the only daughter of the Beiyang City Lord.
Born with blocked meridians, she had relied on sheer determination and the meager resources provided by the City Lord’s residence to forcibly cultivate herself to the seventh level of the Body Tempering Realm.
However, as her cultivation advanced, the disadvantage of her blocked meridians became increasingly pronounced.
In an attempt to cure his daughter’s condition, the Beiyang City Lord had sought the help of royal physicians, but to no avail.
A month ago, Lin Wanqiu had come across a passage in an ancient book.
It mentioned a rare spiritual herb that, when consumed, could break through blocked meridians.
Coincidentally, just a few days ago, she had received news that a similar herb might be growing in the wild forests. Thus, she had hurriedly set out with her guards.
After much exploration, she had finally obtained the herb, only to find that it had already been targeted by a group of evil cultivators. Her guards had all perished in the fight to protect her.
Despite her valiant efforts, she was ultimately overpowered and captured by the evil cultivators.
Before being captured, however, she had managed to hide the herb.
The evil cultivators, coveting the herb, had refrained from harming her.
But this morning, they had forced her to put on this set of clothes, a clear sign that their patience had run out.
“Little beauty, let me show you some love…”
A fat man dressed in bright red, with a greasy face and a lecherous grin, was slowly closing in on her, his eyes nearly squinting into slits.
At that moment.
The door silently opened, and a gentle breeze swept through the room, extinguishing the candles and plunging the room into darkness.
The sudden turn of events startled the fat man, who had been plotting something sinister, but before he could react.
A faint golden light flashed by, piercing through his heart, and then vanished in an instant.
Xiao Minghuang grabbed the fat man’s sleeve and effortlessly tossed him out the door, sending him flying over ten meters away.
Her movements were swift and precise, and she used her spiritual energy to open and close the door without making a sound.
After completing this task, Xiao Minghuang returned to the room and walked over to the bed, taking a closer look at the woman.
Having reached the ninth level of the Body Tempering realm, she could see clearly in the dark. The woman’s graceful figure, her fiery red wedding dress, and her neck, smooth and radiant like white jade, were all fully exposed to Xiao Minghuang’s gaze.
“Was she kidnapped on her wedding day?”
But upon closer inspection of the obviously cheap and poorly tailored wedding dress, and recalling the fat man in red she had just thrown out.
“She must have been forced to wear this after being kidnapped.”
Xiao Minghuang raised her right hand and pulled out the towel that had been stuffed in the woman’s mouth.
The towel was of decent quality, smooth and soft, but it was soaked with saliva, sticky and unpleasant.
In the pitch-black room, silence reigned.
Before Xiao Minghuang could speak, the woman took the initiative.
“Chief Chen, how about we discuss some terms?”
Translator: Glariosa
Editor: Ruu
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