Chapter 45
Chapter 45: Array Eye
Jiang Li Sheng wanted to cry.
The moment Chen Liu An saw her eyes redden, he panicked. His hands didn’t know where to go, his voice tripping over itself. “Jiang—Junior Sister Jiang, don’t cry. People say once a secret realm opens, it takes months before it goes dormant. We still have time. We’ll think of a way. We’ll definitely get out.”
Jiang Li Sheng wasn’t crying because she couldn’t get out.
She wanted to cry because she was furious with herself.
If she’d known, she would have dragged Ji Fu Ling in with her. If they had to die, they could die together. Better that than letting Ji Fu Ling stay outside safe, able to expose the truth without the sect taking her life—while Jiang Li Sheng’s life might not be worth a copper coin.
She sniffed, forcing her voice steady. “Senior Brother Chen, I’m not crying.”
“Right, right. You’re not.” Chen Liu An nodded rapidly. “I saw wrong.”
Jiang Li Sheng nodded along, then asked the question she couldn’t shake. “Senior Brother Chen… will anyone come save us?”
Chen Liu An hesitated, then answered honestly. “Probably not. If we’re truly trapped inside a Grand Array, people outside won’t even know where we are. The only chance is if someone who entered this secret realm with us is a Grand Completion Stage expert—and extremely skilled with formations.”
He sighed. “But I haven’t heard of anyone like that. Formations are hard. People who cultivate them are rare. Grand Completion Stage experts are rarer still.”
As far as he knew, there was only one Qing Xu Sect master in the world who dual-cultivated sword formation and formations—one of the few at Grand Completion Stage.
He looked at Jiang Li Sheng. “If your master were here, we’d be saved.”
Jiang Li Sheng’s throat tightened. “He can’t be here. With his cultivation, even if he suppressed it, this secret realm wouldn’t allow him in.”
Otherwise, after all these years, her master would have taken her through secret realms long ago. With him protecting her, what would she have to fear?
But many secret realms rejected Grand Completion Stage cultivators outright, suppression or not. That was why she’d never been allowed to test herself in the first place.
Chen Liu An nodded, resignation in the movement. “Some secret realms simply can’t bear a Grand Completion Stage cultivator. Even suppressed, they’re rejected by nature.”
Then he tried to push hope back into her. “Junior Sister Jiang, how much of your master’s skill did you learn? Senior Brother Ye said you shouldn’t have lost to him that badly back then. You can do it. He met you once and still believed in you.”
Jiang Li Sheng stared ahead, expression blank. She really had to thank Ye Xing Ci for knocking her flying with a single sword—and then having the nerve to believe in her afterward.
She sat down hard, mind racing through what she’d studied. “To break a Formation, we have to find the array eye. But this Grand Array is… Tai Xuan-level profound. It’s just dead forest, dead forest everywhere. Every place looks the same. Where am I supposed to find an array eye?”
Chen Liu An immediately pointed out, “Not every place is the same. There’s one thing that’s different.”
Jiang Li Sheng looked at him.
“That bastard mutt,” Chen Liu An said.
Jiang Li Sheng’s breath hitched. “Right. That mutt…”
The thought hit her like a blade of ice. Her eyes widened, and the words died in her mouth.
Chen Liu An’s stomach dropped. “Junior Sister Jiang—did you realize something? Is the Formation tied to that thing?”
This time she really did want to cry. She spoke as if the idea itself hurt. “What if… what if the array eye is that bastard mutt? What if we can only break the Grand Array by killing it?”
Chen Liu An looked sick. “N-no way…”
But even as he said it, he could feel the truth pressing in.
They’d fought so hard just to escape it. Now they might have to go find it on purpose.
And even if they found it—how were they supposed to kill it?
They couldn’t kill it before. Now it had advanced.
“We’re finished,” Jiang Li Sheng said, face crumpling. “Senior Brother Chen, are we going to die here? When you say we’ll go dormant with the secret realm… you mean that literally, right? If we fall asleep with it, do we die? In a hundred years, can we wake up with it again?”
Chen Liu An had been to other secret realms—smaller ones that opened every ten years. He didn’t think it worked like she hoped. He answered with brutal honesty. “Everyone who went into a secret realm and never came out turned into bones. I’ve stepped on skeletons in other realms. Some looked like they were sleeping… but the moment you touched them, they crumbled into ash.”
Jiang Li Sheng went silent, horror rising in her throat.
Chen Liu An forced himself to think like a cultivator instead of a victim. “Junior Sister Jiang, while your concealment-illusion talismans are still holding and it still can’t see us, we should go back. It’s in the open, we’re hidden. We ambush it, maybe we find a weakness.”
He tightened his grip on his sword hilt. “If this is a Grand Array, running won’t help. Hiding won’t help. We need a way out.”
Jiang Li Sheng nodded. Compared to dying here, she’d rather gamble everything in a fight.
“Go,” Chen Liu An said, stepping onto his sword.
Jiang Li Sheng rose with him. The moment she drew her own sword, her hand trembled. “Senior Brother Chen… the concealment-illusion talisman failed.”
Chen Liu An felt it too, like a veil tearing away. His heart lurched, but he steadied himself. “It held that long. That’s already incredible.”
Jiang Li Sheng’s eyes sharpened. “Then we stop searching. We wait here.”
Chen Liu An blinked. “Wait?”
“If that mutt really is the array eye, then once the concealment-illusion talisman failed, it’ll sense us and come,” Jiang Li Sheng said, voice flat with determination. “We should conserve strength. Let it come to us.”
Chen Liu An considered it, then nodded. “That makes sense.”
They put their swords away.
Jiang Li Sheng sat down again, pulled out her storage pouch, and tore open a pack of snacks. If the mutt was coming anyway, she wasn’t going to die hungry. She crunched several bites in quick succession, like she was racing the end.
Chen Liu An watched, catching the rich scent in the air. He couldn’t remember ever noticing it in the mortal world. Back then he’d been too focused on missions and discipline. Now, smelling it here in this dead place, it didn’t seem foul at all.
It smelled… good.
Jiang Li Sheng noticed him watching and paused mid-bite. “Senior Brother Chen, do you want to try some?”
Chen Liu An hesitated only a moment, then nodded.
Jiang Li Sheng immediately pulled out a large pack and handed it to him without the slightest stinginess. “I don’t give this to just anyone. That bastard mutt wants some? It gets nothing.”
Chen Liu An accepted it. “Thank you, Junior Sister Jiang.”
He mimicked her, pinching a piece and tasting it. He chewed for a moment, then nodded with quiet certainty. “Mm. It’s good.”
Jiang Li Sheng brightened like someone had praised her greatest treasure. “Right? Way better than pills. I study pill refining partly because it’s interesting, and partly because I want to make pills taste like all kinds of snacks.”
Chen Liu An let out a short laugh, unable to help himself. “Then keep it up.”
“I will.” Jiang Li Sheng nodded hard.
She’d barely finished one pack before a blaze of red came charging through the dead forest.
Her body snapped upright. Terror burst out of her in a shout. “Senior Brother Chen—the bastard mutt is here!”
Chen Liu An saw it too. He shoved the half-eaten snacks into his storage ring, sprang to his feet, and drew his sword in one clean motion. “Junior Sister Jiang—fight!”
Jiang Li Sheng’s first instinct screamed at her to run, but she forced it down. Gritting her teeth, she slapped a talisman straight onto Shan Gao’s forehead.
Smack.
The talisman stuck—and Shan Gao immediately began spinning in place, furious and disoriented.
Chen Liu An surged forward and swung his sword for the kill.