Chapter 13: 1.H

Demoness Hu bristled with impotent rage, not for the first or thousandth time since she’d allowed herself to be stranded in this cursed forest. The information was too good to be true. A new inheritance site had appeared, one from a World Venerable Sage. She’d been in seclusion at the sect, preparing for her breakthrough into Nascent Soul.

The rumors stirred up a storm. The place limited the entrance to Core Formation experts, and the methods and laws one could get there surpassed anything anyone had ever seen.

She, of course, didn’t need a new method. Her Illustrious Blood Boiling Petals was Heaven-ranked, even if none of her peers knew that. She didn’t need a new cultivation method, but the other techniques she could learn… All heaven-ranked as well. And Immortal-grade treasures and peerless pills could guarantee her breakthrough into nascent soul. Core experts from all over the continent flocked to this new inheritance site. She couldn’t let this opportunity pass.

It had been all true. Even if everything had been an elaborate trap for her and others. The entire forest suppressed the cultivation base and the only way to leave was to pass the trial.

That had been four hundred years ago.

She’d failed it. The first trial demanded a level of accomplishment on a cultivation method that affected all three simultaneous pillars of cultivation. Everyone knew such cultivation methods were a myth. Her own Illustrious Blood Boiling Petals only affected the Blood and Soul.

Cultivation methods were myriad. The countless possibilities and choices one made during cultivation resulted in different methods. The soul, body, and spirit were three areas that one could cultivate. Minor cultivation methods existed that combined several aspects. They could derive an artifact cultivation method from a body cultivation method. Her own used the blood as a medium to enhance the body and the soul. It was not truly body cultivation, but reaching the pinnacle in one area was faster and one could step into immortality using body, soul, or spirit cultivation.

The more areas one method affected, the harder was to cultivate it.

Demoness Hu had tried to convince the trial spirit to teach her a new method that would qualify for the trial, but the dammed thing refused. Her fate already corrupted was unsuitable, said the blasted thing!

In a fit of rage, she’d killed almost all the other cultivators. None could stand against her, even with suppressed cultivation.

Another mistake. She’d learned later that one could enter the trial only once.

Since then, she’d been trying to escape from this dammed forest. She had just a few more years to live. Demoness Hu needed to escape, regain her cultivation base, and breakthrough.

The last attempt was the indigenous tribe.

Once every ten years, the trial entrance accumulated enough energy to open again, and she would send tribesmen she had carefully educated to be loyal. She hoped that at least one could master the method from the trial and help her escape from this dammed place or gather some of the miraculous treasures inside.

Under her leadership, the tribe conquered the region, driving all the other influences away. She taught them how to enhance their body using the blood of creatures and defeated enemies. None of them were cultivators, she didn’t want to make the same mistake, but the stronger body allowed them to secure and control the trial site.

It had been only four years since the last trial, and Demoness Hu feared that her time would end before the next attempt, but the explosion of Qi and the lightning that fell reminded her that the heavens had not forsaken her.

Greedily she drank from the fast-fading Qi, the bulk of it being dissipated by the suppression. Before it dissipated fully from her body as well, she cycled her cultivation method, reinforcing soul and body, her life span expanding for a few more decades.

She left seclusion and sent her bonded hell-spawned birds to see what caused such strange phenomena.

The two young women she found unconscious were a surprise. She’d recognized where they were, one of the old gates that gave access to this trial.

From her bird's eyes, she observed. The dark-haired hurt and covered in some black goop. Cultivation impurities. Whatever bought them here had also destroyed their storage devices, spilling their shredded content all around.

It was easy to guess what had happened.

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They fought and lost. The injuries in the small one and the tears in the big one’s clothes were proof enough. Then, the naked one advanced her cultivation mid-fight, and that made it possible for them to escape. Maybe a life-saving talisman. But something went wrong, and they ended up here. The poor sods.

Noting how the big blonde took care of the other woman, a new plan took form in her mind.

Long had she noticed the trial entrance related to the suppression, the energy it drained powering the formations that maintained the pocket dimension. Such discharge of energy inside the area should be more than enough to open a new entrance.

Demoness Hu or the Great Matriarch, as the tribe took to calling her, summoned the elders and declared that this was an auspicious year. They’d need to prepare for the proving once more. The heavens had blessed them and the entrance would open earlier. The thunder and lightning signal that the Heavens had blessed them.

She’d also tasked the tribe with bringing the two foreigners' cultivators to the festival site. They’d need her help to adapt to this place, and she would take her recompense by sending them into the trial after they’d agreed to get a certain item from there. That would be enough to break free. Not immediately, but with the decades she now had it was more than enough.

 

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The Great Matriarch fumed in anger, as the group dispatched to gather the cultivators attacked the two women! The imbeciles. Worse, one of the elder’s grandchildren died in the ambush. Why in damnation had they taken a child along?!

Imbeciles one and all!

Her plans had to change, but it was of little importance. What did she care about two nobody cultivators? She’d let the tribe get their satisfaction, she’d even send her birds and beasts to herd the two toward the trial. She would need to make life hell for those two. The Great Matriarch wouldn’t ditch the tribe in favor of two outsiders. The tribe would keep them alive, but the petty torture she would overlook.

While they’re being led, Demoness Hu prepared.

 

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The Great Matriarch glared in anger at the surrounding elders.

The elder whose grandkid died would need to be punished. He tried to kill the dark-haired girl. It was good the other cultivator stopped him. The blonde woman seemed to care for the small one a great deal, yes, that might work. She would hold the hurt one as a hostage and force the other to do her bidding.

Once preparations were complete, she tasked her warriors to bring the blonde over.

She hit a snag she hadn’t foreseen. They shared no language, and how would she threaten someone that doesn’t understand her words? Demoness Hu laughed. She strained her soul to cast a mental technique on the other woman. Originally, it would be a geas, and the victim would have no choice but to obey, but now, it only transmitted a bit of information. That was more than enough.

The big blonde, which she still didn’t know the name of, agreed without delay. The matriarch led her to the trial’s entrance and opened the portal.

The other woman hesitated to cross the portal, but Demoness Hu would have none of that and pushed the woman. Once she’d gotten the Lotus, she would kill them both and drink the essence from their blood.

The blonde stepped through the portal, and all hell broke loose.

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