Chapter 232

Chapter 232: Traitor

Wu Yan kept pursuing Wang Jie, but Wang Jie focused on survival, weaving through chaos without ever letting the distance close.

Wu Yan’s strength lay in ambush and single-target killing. His speed could match Jia Eight Steps, but he couldn’t surpass it. The chase dragged on—and the longer it lasted, the more furious he became.

Wang Jie was hardly better off. Running across a battlefield meant danger from every direction. One wrong step and he’d be cut down by someone else’s stray technique.

He didn’t want to run.

But he couldn’t fight Wu Yan head-on. He would lose.

And Black-White Heaven’s situation worsened with every breath.

They’d been ambushed.

Defeat was only a matter of time.

Even Yue Jian was being forced onto the back foot.

Wang Jie even considered pulling out the brooch he carried—asking someone from Flower Country for help.

Then he saw it.

Behind Su Su, a shadow moved—arrogant, precise. A short blade lifted and fell.

Wang Jie froze.

Who…?

The zither cut off, abruptly, as if someone had sliced the sound in half.

Every gaze snapped toward Su Su.

No one could believe someone had reached her back through Singing Phoenix Hall’s protection.

Only Yue Jian seemed unsurprised, as if she’d expected it all along.

The short blade should have landed.

Instead, it vanished.

In its place, a gourd hovered behind Su Su’s neck, glowing with a blue-green light that threw her pale skin into sharp relief.

Su Su turned slowly, eyes calm.

“Six-Path Roamer Yun Que,” she said. “Long time no see.”

Yun Que stood behind her, less than a meter away.

Close enough to kill someone else.

Not close enough to kill Su Su.

Yue Jian’s expression turned grave.

Yun Que stared at the gourd, voice dark. “Void Mountains. Qing Xiao.”

The gourd spun and flew—landing in the hand of a man in a blue robe embroidered with cloud patterns.

He smiled, clean and bright, as if this were a pleasant meeting rather than a battlefield.

“We’ve never met,” Qing Xiao said lightly. “It’s an honor to be recognized by a Six-Path Roamer.”

“You’re the inheritor of this generation of Void Mountains,” Yun Que replied. “Not knowing you would be ignorance. I just didn’t expect you to show up in Ying Yang Battlefield.”

Qing Xiao hooked the gourd at his waist and strolled toward him. “Ying Yang Battlefield isn’t bad. It’s safe. Better than First Nebula’s battlefield. Too many freaks there. Even I get scared.”

Yun Que drew another short blade and advanced. “Good. If I can kill the inheritor of Void Mountains, my name will echo across Bei Dou bridge-pillar.”

Qing Xiao shook his head. “You’re overestimating me. But becoming famous in Second Star Cloud? Sure.”

They vanished at the same time.

Yun Que moved by blade-step—fast, but traceable.

Qing Xiao disappeared completely.

Wang Jie stared, stunned. What kind of footwork was that?

It was faster than Jia Eight Steps. Stranger, too. Not a thread of qi leaked.

Then Qing Xiao reappeared in a way that made Wang Jie’s breath catch—like drifting clouds over rolling waves, slow and clear, yet impossible to predict.

The moment Yun Que touched him, Yun Que was forced into view, stumbling backward step by step.

The void around them rippled.

Twisted.

Wang Jie’s eyes widened. Footwork that could warp the void?

Someone shouted, “Immortal-Walking Steps! It’s Void Mountains’ Immortal-Walking Steps!”

Wang Jie had never even heard of Void Mountains before today. But Yun Que himself had said killing Qing Xiao would make him famous across Bei Dou bridge-pillar.

That alone meant Void Mountains stood terrifyingly high—at least on par with powers like Singing Phoenix Hall and Dagger-Offering Order.

The war itself seemed to stall around their duel.

No one could interfere—not even Wu Yan.

Only Su Su and Yue Jian could enter that space.

And they did.

Su Su’s zither rose again.

Yue Jian struck to match.

Four top experts’ power shredded the battlefield’s edges. Shockwaves drove everyone back, ships and cultivators retreating alike.

Wang Jie retreated too. Yet he couldn’t stop watching.

When Qing Xiao used the gourd again and pulled Yun Que’s weapon away as if stealing breath from the air, Wang Jie felt a dizzy mix of awe and longing.

How could any technique be that absurd—turning an enemy’s weapon into your own trophy?

Yun Que, forced to improvise, snatched a blade from the battlefield and fought with it like it had always belonged in his hand. The edge of his technique was so fierce that even watching from a distance felt dangerous, like your eyes would be cut for daring to look.

The frozen earth split into fractured plates.

The four-expert melee grew harder and harder to see.

Wang Jie snapped back to himself—Wu Yan was moving again.

He felt the killing intent before he sensed the qi.

He ran.

Wu Yan’s face darkened. How did this man keep knowing?

Worse—Wang Jie always chose the perfect escape route, as if he held some tool that could see through the chaos.

Wu Yan’s goal shifted. It wasn’t only to catch him anymore.

He wanted to see what Wang Jie was holding.

Wang Jie didn’t intend to let that happen.

Qiao Xi could recognize Jia Eight Steps. Someone like Wu Yan would recognize the tools of a star dao master even faster.

That identity couldn’t be exposed. If it was, the enemy’s desire to kill him would become a blaze.

He kept circling the battlefield’s edge, tracking Wu Yan’s qi through the star compass.

The battlefield spread. The killing did not soften.

At one point, polar earthworms surged into view again, spraying ice slurry.

Wang Jie dodged and looked up.

A line of earthworms was moving in from the main front.

No—fleeing from it.

Something had changed there.

Then a roar tore through the air, drawing every eye.

“Yue Jian—!”

Wang Jie turned.

His pupils contracted.

High above, Yue Jian’s hand was buried in Yun Que’s chest.

Blood burst outward—dark red against the white world—while Yun Que stared at her, eyes wide with disbelief and baffled, wounded fury.

Yue Jian had betrayed them.

Lightning cracked through Wang Jie’s mind.

Why hadn’t Second Star Cloud attacked the command hub while the rescue mission was underway? It made no sense unless they knew the command hub would hold—because someone strong had been left behind.

Which meant Black-White Heaven had planned for two possibilities: an attack on the command hub, and an attack on Skyport.

They just hadn’t known who the traitor was.

No one would have guessed Yue Jian.

She had commanded battle after battle, assigned mission after mission. Without her, Black-White Heaven would bleed itself dry.

An Elder betraying would have been shocking.

Yue Jian betraying was unthinkable.

And yet—

Yue Jian withdrew her hand.

Her pale arm was soaked in blood. Drops fell, freezing in midair into crimson chunks before clattering onto the white earth.

“Have a safe journey,” she said. “Yun Que.”

Yun Que stared at her, fingers whitening around his blade. “Why?”

Yue Jian’s eyes were ice. “Skeleton starforce has its benefits and its curses. I wanted to know why that twin star was given to Zhi He—someone beneath me—instead of to me.”

Yun Que’s expression twisted. “So that’s why.”

Yue Jian looked down at her blood-stained arm. “In Black-White Heaven, the Zhi family is heaven. A single direct bloodline brat speaks, and what should’ve been mine vanishes.”

Her gaze lifted. “Shouldn’t I betray them?”

Su Su smiled. “Of course you should.”

Qing Xiao sighed. “Rank and status. The oldest unfairness.”

Yun Que let out a bitter laugh. “You suffered unfairness from the Zhi family, so you take revenge on me. Then who do I take my unfairness to?”

He raised his blade. “If you want me dead, come. Let’s see who has the skill.”

He grabbed the blade with his left hand and shattered it.

Fragments spun around him like a storm, each shard packed with lethal starforce.

Yue Jian retreated instantly.

Su Su and Qing Xiao retreated too.

Yun Que was burning his life into that strike.

The shards scattered across the battlefield.

Frozen earth tore open in screaming lines. The continent itself seemed to split.

Wang Jie dodged one shard that hissed past his face and buried itself deep in the ground. The impact cracked the earth and destabilized the terrain beneath his feet.

In that moment of upheaval, Wu Yan moved.

Wang Jie didn’t see him—not even a shadow.

His instinct screamed.

He checked the star compass. A thread of qi was right on top of him.

Too close.

And at the same time, the frozen earth beneath them bulged.

A massive polar earthworm erupted upward, jaws yawning wide enough to swallow a ship—frozen earth and all.

Wang Jie tried to step—Jia Eight Steps—

But Su Su’s zither sounded again.

Not across the battlefield.

Not in a broad sweep.

Only on him.

His lockforce churned. His footwork stuttered.

The earthworm swallowed him whole along with a slab of frozen ground and vanished back beneath the surface.

In the distance, Su Su’s smile sharpened with satisfaction.

Finally.

Qiao Xi and Wu Yan had both failed before. But her music didn’t miss. Once swallowed by a polar earthworm, survival was nearly impossible.

Wang Jie didn’t fall into darkness.

Inside the creature, a faint white glow seeped through its flesh.

The worm’s body rolled and lurched as it tunneled. Wang Jie clung to the icy, slick walls with both hands. Below him lay bodies that hadn’t been digested—half-frozen, half-dissolved.

A severed head rested near his feet, eyes wide open, fixed in a dead stare that made Wang Jie’s skin crawl.

His fingers began to sting.

The flesh was trying to digest him.

Then he heard movement.

Someone else was in here.

Wang Jie turned toward the dim glow. “Who’s there?”

A figure crawled forward, face pale, eyes sharp.

Wang Jie’s breath caught.

“Wu Yan?”