Chapter 247: The Ambition of Flying Birds

The people present fell silent in an instant.

Lan Haitan knew Chen Mobai was a born battle immortal with astonishing combat talent, but he understood that Chen Mobai hadn't yet experienced Foundation Establishment-level combat. He believed Chen Mobai would need to join the Heaven Mending Squad and complete several missions under his guidance before being qualified to join Six Squad.

However, the current situation greatly exceeded his expectations.

That guy, that sword strike just now—that was "Sword Light," wasn't it?

He just reached Foundation Establishment, didn't he?

How many years has it been since a cultivator at the first level of Foundation Establishment comprehended such a swordsmanship realm?

It must have been a thousand years!

"How about you work for another ten or twenty years, and after you retire, just let him take over as squad leader?" his deputy leader's slightly hesitant voice drifted into his ears. "I'm quite content as a deputy leader myself." Lan Haitan couldn't help but chuckle wryly at the words.

Suddenly, the Ascension Cult woman, who had been brimming with fighting spirit and eager to challenge Lan Haitan, showed no hesitation after witnessing Chen Mobai instantly kill Tuoba Wanyi with a single sword strike.

With a whoosh, she transformed into a streak of silver lightning and shot off rapidly towards the sea.

"She ran off. Should we pursue?" a magnetic female voice sounded in his ear. Lan Haitan nodded, glancing at Chen Mobai to signal that she should stay and handle matters below.

"After all, she's a cultist," he said. "Even though I scared her witless, just to be safe, I need to personally watch her leave the Immortal Sect's territory before I can rest assured." After saying this, Lan Haitan, controlling the force of primordial magnetism, pursued the silver lightning from afar.

Chen Mobai watched as the two figures, who had just been exuding immense power, their confrontation causing phenomena in the heavens, with wind, rain, and thunder exploding around them, disappeared one after another. He couldn't help but scratch his head.

*Perhaps they were afraid the aftermath of their battle would hurt us and wanted to fight freely, so they went to find a desolate place overseas.*

Just as he was thinking this, a pair of soft arms wrapped around his neck, and a warm breath brushed against his face.

"Brother-in-law, you're amazing!"

Yang Jing's fair, tender cheeks were flushed, her eyes wide. Her delicate face showed the relief of having survived a disaster, and she clung tightly to Chen Mobai with both hands and feet. When she woke up, she had just seen Chen Mobai draw the hairpin from his head and casually slice it through the air, cleaving the half-beast monster—who had easily subdued Qing Nv and Kong Feichen—in two with a single sword stroke.

Girls always longed for heroes. However, her childhood experiences had made Yang Jing only dare to transform into a snake and hide in the shadows. But Chen Mobai's invincible stance, as he slew his enemy with one sword strike today, made Yang Jing, whose heart had been frozen, feel the fiery thrumming of her heartbeat once more.

She felt a warm current flow through her entire body, making her tremble. The deep purple sword light, at the moment it struck down the enemy, seemed to break the shell that had confined her for over twenty years, allowing her to feel an emotion called excitement once more.

This was Chen Mobai's first time being so close to a girl. Although Yang Jing usually liked to wear hats, long-sleeved shirts, and long pants, keeping herself completely covered, she was in fact a very beautiful girl. Feeling her softness and curves pressing against him, he realized that Yang Jing's figure was far more prominent than Qing Nv's.

"Don't talk nonsense. Qing Nv and I are just good friends." As Chen Mobai spoke, he immediately released his left hand, which had been wrapped around Yang Jing's slender waist, signaling that the danger was over and she could get down.

"Brother-in-law, I can't fly." Yang Jing, however, refused to let go. Yet, with a hint of girlish shyness, she unhooked her legs from around Chen Mobai and leaned into his embrace, tightly clutching his neck.

Chen Mobai also realized that she hadn't yet reached Foundation Establishment, and his cultivation wasn't sufficient to carry people by spiritual power like Lan Haitan could. He could only let Yang Jing cling to his neck.

"It's good that you're okay," he said. "Qing Nv was very worried about you. Call her first to let her know you're safe." At these words, Yang Jing finally came to her senses. She shifted to holding Chen Mobai's neck with one hand, while with the other, she took the phone and dialed the number she knew by heart.

The two sisters naturally sobbed as they spoke, and Qing Nv repeatedly thanked Chen Mobai over the phone.

"I only contributed a little," Chen Mobai said. "It's nothing worth mentioning." Chen Mobai meant what he said. Setting aside the ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivator he'd instantly killed with a single sword strike, he knew he was definitely no match for the white-eyed woman who could confront Lan Haitan and cause cosmic phenomena. He felt that if he hadn't brought Lan Haitan, that notorious figure, facing these two Ascension Cultists alone, he would at best have only been able to save his own life. He certainly wouldn't have been able to rescue Yang Jing.

"Brother-in-law is so strong, and yet so humble," Yang Jing thought to herself as she returned the phone to Chen Mobai. "Sister is so lucky."

"Let's wait here for a bit," he suggested. After thinking, Chen Mobai felt it wouldn't be right to just leave. After all, Lan Haitan had come to help, and they should at least wait until dawn out of courtesy. Moreover, although it was self-defense just now, he had still killed someone. This was within the Immortal Sect's territory; he wondered how it would be handled. He wanted to ask Lan Haitan about it.

However, the deputy leader of Six Squad, who was hidden not far away, felt there was no need for Chen Mobai to waste time like this. After all, their leader was expelling the Ascension Cultists, and there was no telling when he would return.

*Beep beep beep!*

Just then, Chen Mobai's phone rang. He thought it was Qing Nv calling again, worried, but to his surprise, it was Lan Haitan.

"You all head back first. I might not be able to return for another two days."

*Is this guy really that strong? He can send text messages during a battle?* Chen Mobai looked shocked, feeling he had underestimated the strength of a perfected Foundation Establishment cultivator. Indeed, he still had a lot of room for improvement. To avoid disturbing Lan Haitan's peak confrontation with a powerful expert, he didn't reply to the message, intending to discuss it in detail once the latter returned.

However, Chen Mobai realized at this moment that ever since he reached Foundation Establishment, he had become a bit lax. It was as if his lifelong dream had been realized, and he had lost some motivation.

"Then let's set another small goal!" he thought. "Strive to reach Lan Haitan's realm soon! Once I reach perfected Foundation Establishment, I'll be able to perfectly wield the strongest realm of Sword Rainbow Splitting Light. By then, if I encounter powerful experts like the white-eyed Ascension Cult woman again, I can fight alongside Lan Haitan!" Chen Mobai, not wanting to be a burden, secretly made up his mind.

"Hold on tight. I'm taking you home." Hearing these words, Yang Jing immediately tightened her embrace again. Her straight, slender legs were about to bounce up, but Chen Mobai gave her a look, causing her to stop and shyly lower her head.

Watching the two disappear, a short-haired grey female head emerged from the void. Her skin was snow-white, her eyes brown, but the lower half of her face was covered by a black mask, obscuring her features. Behind the head, a right hand appeared, holding a phone. It was she who had just logged into Lan Haitan's number to text Chen Mobai, telling them to go back first.

It was a very strange sight: a head and an arm floating in mid-air. If anyone had seen it, they might have mistaken it for someone practicing flying corpse arts.

"Where did the squad leader find such a monster!" Lin Yin, as the deputy leader of Heaven Mending Six Squad, was also battle-hardened. Her most dangerous encounter was against an evil sword cultivator from the Ascension Cult who, during his duel with Lan Haitan, used the Sword Rainbow Splitting Light realm to send a streak of sword light towards her. That single streak of sword light had nearly split her in two, just like Tuoba Wanyi. A sword cultivator who had mastered Sword Rainbow Splitting Light at the first level of Foundation Establishment could no longer be called a genius! They should be described as a "monster"! But this was good too; at least it ensured that the leader of Six Squad would always be a "monster."

Lin Yin had no idea that Chen Mobai had no intention of joining the Heaven Mending Squad at all.

Without Lan Haitan's primordial magnetism force to carry them, it was almost dawn by the time he and Yang Jing returned to Danxia City.

After arriving at the apartment, the scene of Qing Nv and Yang Jing hugging each other was too beautiful, so Chen Mobai and Kong Feichen walked out onto the balcony.

"Thank you. I owe you my life," Kong Feichen said to Chen Mobai seriously on the balcony.

"It was nothing," Chen Mobai waved his hand, signaling him not to be so serious.

"Do you want to know our story?" Kong Feichen suddenly asked.

"Now that you mention it, I am a bit curious." Chen Mobai nodded. The two sat on the small sofa on the balcony. Kong Feichen opened a bottle of beer and began to speak as he drank.

"The three of us grew up in a laboratory. There were hundreds of children like us there. From the moment we gained consciousness, each of us was confined like insects in small, cube-like rooms."

"Every so often, someone would be taken out for various experiments. Some children never returned after they left."

"I'm sure you've guessed it. The experiments there were about how to create top-grade spiritual roots. We were their most satisfactory results."

Chen Mobai frowned upon hearing this. *Did such stories, which he had only seen on television, actually exist in reality?*

Kong Feichen rolled up his sleeve, revealing a dark tattoo on his chest: "Yi Er."

"I was a second-grade spiritual root holder. Later, it seems the experiments were exposed, and a large group of Immortal Sect members came to handle the aftermath."

"The three of us were then sent to the orphanage here in Danxia City."

"However, before leaving that laboratory, a curse mark was placed on all of us, prohibiting us from revealing anything about the place."

Chen Mobai found this very strange. "Then why can you tell me now?"

"I didn't study at the Grand Medical Academy for nothing these past few years. I specifically broke the curse when I was trying to reach Foundation Establishment, but because of that, my Foundation Establishment failed."

"No wonder, with your aptitude and all the spiritual resources we prepared for you, you still haven't successfully reached Foundation Establishment." Chen Mobai's expression cleared, finally solving a long-standing doubt in his mind.

"Actually, there's one more thing, something even Sister and Yang Jing don't know." Kong Feichen suddenly put down his cup and said something that greatly intrigued Chen Mobai.

"What?"

"I also cultivated the Two-Part Divine Art."

"Hm?" Kong Feichen looked at Qing Nv and Yang Jing, who were asleep on the sofa, embracing each other after crying themselves out. A hint of tenderness appeared in his eyes.

"When Yang Jing was little, she imagined that if she could transform into a snake, she could crawl out of those cube-like rooms and see the green grass and flowers outside."

"What I dreamed of was becoming a flying bird, so I could soar freely among the blue skies and white clouds."

"Captain Gan's sealing art, which he gave us back then, was correct, but I tampered with the sealing art I gave you."

Chen Mobai's expression changed drastically. He tried to stand and make a move, but his body suddenly felt heavy, and he couldn't move.

"Did you poison this beer? What did you do to Qing Nv and Yang Jing?" Only then did Chen Mobai realize something was wrong. Given Qing Nv's and Yang Jing's cultivation levels, no matter how tired they were, they shouldn't have fallen into such a deep sleep. And they hadn't emerged even while Kong Feichen was recounting such important past events.

"It's not poison," Kong Feichen said, pulling an empty glass vial from his embrace. "It's a medicine that can enhance the quality of spiritual power. For the past four years at the Grand Medical Academy, I've been the top student in pharmacology, hailed by my mentor as a genius who could change the landscape of Immortal Sect's pharmacy in the future."

"This spiritual medicine is called 'Knot.' You can think of it as an upgraded version of condensed qi liquid; it can solidify a cultivator's spiritual power. As is well known, the process of liquid spiritual power condensing into a solid is the process of forming a Golden Core."

"My medicine simulates this process, though it only has one ten-thousandth the efficacy of a Golden Liquid Jade Restoration Pill. Still, it can allow you to experience higher quality spiritual power slightly in advance."

"However, because your physical body and divine sense are still only at the Foundation Establishment level, you can't control such high-quality spiritual power, and the effect of the medicine will only last for half a day." After Kong Feichen finished speaking, he placed the empty glass vial on the table in front of them, then drained the rest of his beer.

"Oh, and by the way, this medicine only works on liquid spiritual power. For a Qi Condensation cultivator like me, it's truly just beer."

"What are you doing?" Chen Mobai tried to figure out a solution while probing Kong Feichen's true intentions.

"Nothing much. It's just that I can't abandon my past," Kong Feichen said, pointing to the tattoo on his chest and smiling self-deprecatingly. His face twisted slightly, and his eyes suddenly turned dark gold.

"I cultivated the Two-Part Divine Art, hoping to bury and seal away all the hatred, pain, and despair from my past. But I overestimated myself; I simply couldn't do it." Seeing this, Chen Mobai realized that Kong Feichen had been taken over by another personality within him. Or perhaps, the two personalities had reached an agreement through their shared hatred.

"These past few years, I've been searching for an answer to the Two-Part Divine Art at the Grand Medical Academy. The only solution is the source of this forbidden art: the Spirit Devouring Art." Kong Feichen walked into the living room as he spoke. He picked up Yang Jing from Qing Nv's arms on the sofa, then covered Qing Nv with a blanket. He walked back to the balcony and activated a talisman.

A silver ring of fire opened a portal in the void before the balcony.

"I'm leaving Sister to you. I'm taking her to be cured," he said. After saying this, Kong Feichen, carrying Yang Jing, stepped into the silver ring of fire.

Just at that moment, a short-haired grey head appeared in mid-air. Lin Yin, holding a dagger, silently slashed towards Kong Feichen's neck.