Chapter 159

Chapter 159: Breaking Through Layer by Layer

The moment Liu Hao Tian’s words fell, Yun Xi’s hand held a pitch-black long staff. She didn’t even need to pour spiritual power into it. Purple sparks of lightning already danced across the body of the Seven-Star Doom Staff, radiating intimidation. Even the Yin family members who had been fighting instinctively stepped back.

Yun Xi raised the staff in one hand and slammed the Seven-Star Doom Staff into the ground. Its power spread outward at once, destroying everything around them. The warm, peaceful Peach Source Village instantly revealed its ruined, broken true face.

Yu Qing Cheng sneered at the village head. “See that? This is the real Peach Source Village. This place has been a dead village for a long time. Your obsession let a cursed artifact control everything. No one could see what it really looked like. Anyone who wandered in probably got offered up by you and turned into part of Peach Source Village too, didn’t they?”

The village head stared at the broken walls and scattered rubble, and at the uncollected white bones on the ground. It was like he finally woke up. He clutched his head and said, “I tried to stop them, but they went mad. They all made wishes to that bronze mirror. Villagers died one after another, and in the end no one could leave Peach Source Village.

As village head, I failed my duty. I sacrificed myself so the village could return to what it used to be, but it was all fake. All of it was fake!”

The village head’s hysterics tore away the last cover from Peach Source Village’s true state. The villagers who had been wailing turned into spirits, drifting above the village, as if they had finally remembered their past.

Liu Hao Tian gripped his sword. A streak of golden sword light shredded the village head’s soul. That act made the once-confused spirits erupt in panic. Afraid they would be destroyed like the village head, they fled in all directions.

Right then, a bronze mirror slowly rose from underground. It sucked in all the fleeing spirits, then fired a beam of golden light that wrapped around the four of them, trying to drag them into the mirror as well.

Xia You’s body stiffened. “The bronze mirror is trying to pull out our souls!”

“Hmph. In your dreams!” Yun Xi snorted. She hated soul-stealing artifacts most of all.

In the next second, she rose into the air. Under the surge of lightning spiritual power, the Seven-Star Doom Staff in her hand became a glowing purple mass. Yun Xi held it and thrust forward with one hand, driving it straight into the mirror’s face.

A faint crack sounded in Yun Xi’s ears. Cracks reappeared on the bronze mirror’s surface. The mirror dimmed, then dropped from the air and instantly sank into the ground, disappearing.

After Yun Xi landed with the staff in hand, the other three rushed over at once. The exchange had been brief, but they could all see Yun Xi had the upper hand.

Xia You released her spiritual sense to scan around, frowning. “The mirror escaped. I can’t find it.”

Yu Qing Cheng immediately said, “Look!”

At her prompt, everything around them snapped back together like puzzle pieces. They were back in the Peach Source Village they had first entered, but this time the entire village was dead silent, with only the four of them left.

Liu Hao Tian frowned. “We’re trapped inside the bronze mirror.”

“But we clearly weren’t pulled inside,” Xia You said with certainty.

Yun Xi made a bold guess. “From the moment we entered Peach Source Village, we were probably already inside the bronze mirror. It arranged for all those swallowed souls to act out a play for us because it wanted to keep us trapped in this space long-term, and then slowly devour our strength.”

Liu Hao Tian added, “The one that popped out to devour us just now should be the mirror spirit. It repaired part of its damage by swallowing the villagers’ souls, but it still can’t fully leave this place.

And we’re cultivators. Our souls are far stronger than mortals’, and they can help it recover even more. So after the mirror spirit was driven back by Fellow Cultivator Wei, it wanted to keep us trapped in its space. Given enough time, it could grind us down and kill us.”

Yu Qing Cheng said forcefully, “Then we’ll destroy this space. If this place is destroyed, the bronze mirror will be damaged too. Then we’ll see how it thinks it can keep us here.”

Xia You agreed. Yun Xi slammed the Seven-Star Doom Staff into the ground again. Breaking things was no problem for her.

Just then, the immortal artifact shaped like a flower mark on Yun Xi’s forehead slowly surfaced. In the next instant, a hurried voice rang in her ears. “Sister, please stop! I’ll let you out. Don’t destroy my true body!”

Feeling the reaction from the flower-mark immortal artifact, Yun Xi knew the mirror spirit had been secretly draining their souls. Otherwise, the artifact wouldn’t have automatically protected its master.

Her voice turned cold. “Have you heard a saying?”

The mirror spirit was clearly thrown off by Yun Xi’s unrelated question and asked instinctively, “What saying?”

“Easy to invite, hard to send away.”

After saying that, Yun Xi connected to the flower-mark immortal artifact and let it fully appear on her forehead.

The moment the immortal artifact appeared, an overwhelming pressure spread in all directions, tearing apart the “fixed” scene that had been pieced together.

“Don’t… ah! Mercy!!!”

A cracking sound rang out again. Yun Xi and the others felt their vision go black, and then they were standing back in Peach Source Village.

It was midnight now. They could see a sky full of stars and hear wild beasts crying in the surrounding mountains. The thin spiritual energy in the air proved they were back in reality.

Yun Xi held the bronze mirror in her hand. The cracks in it were deeper now. She flipped it over and over, studying it, while the flower-mark immortal artifact on her forehead had already vanished.

Yu Qing Cheng and Xia You leaned in too, both wanting to confirm the bronze mirror’s origin. Yu Qing Cheng said, “That bronze mirror is badly damaged. I wonder if the mirror spirit is dead.”

Xia You replied, “Even if it isn’t dead, it’s fallen into a deep sleep. It deserved it for plotting against us. Once we left that space, I finally realized our souls had been getting pulled out of our bodies. We just didn’t notice right away because we were inside the mirror’s space.”

Liu Hao Tian said to Yun Xi, “Good thing Master Wei has a protective spirit treasure. Otherwise, the longer we stayed in the mirror’s space, the worse it would’ve been for us.”

“Yeah. My master gave this to me for protection. The mirror spirit probably wanted to steal souls in secret, so the treasure automatically protected me,” Yun Xi said, keeping it vague. Only the mirror spirit knew that what killed it was an immortal artifact that shouldn’t exist in the mortal realm.

With the mirror spirit dispersed, the trapped mortal souls floated out of the mirror.

The villagers’ souls looked blank, not knowing where they were.

Liu Hao Tian frowned. “These souls can’t stay here. We should send them into reincarnation as soon as possible.”

Yun Xi asked uncertainly, “How do we send them? Take them to a temple and ask monks to chant the Rebirth Sutra?”

Liu Hao Tian’s eyebrow twitched as he said, “We probably won’t need to act. The ones who collect souls are here.”

In the next moment, a black hole appeared in the sky above Peach Source Village. Two figures, one in black and one in white, stepped out of it.

The man in black robes said with displeasure, “Who is so bold as to seize souls without permission?”

The man in white robes was the opposite. He pulled a booklet from a pouch at his waist and said in an unhurried tone, “Their lifespan had not ended, but their living souls left their bodies for too long. The bodies have already rotted. They cannot return to life.”