This time, the lower-realm cultivators were truly panicking.

Their only remedy was to dig three feet into the ground to find the true body and send the sinful dragon back into the God-Slaying Array within a single day.

At this moment, only a few hours remained before the millennial calamity. It was precisely when that true body would gradually weaken, its danger greatly reduced; the divine soul of Void Abyss Ancestor was also suffering the heart-devouring torment of the millennial calamity and would absolutely not appear.

Therefore, this was their final chance.

Fortunately, the cultivation world had no such thing as a stroke. Though Dao Xuzi was several hundred years old, he was still vigorous with age. Although his cultivation had regressed by an entire realm from anger, though he had coughed up much blood and looked barely alive, he still held on.

At least he did not let the already headless-fly-like lower-realm sects continue to descend further into chaos.

The first thing he did upon being revived was order a strict lockdown on the entrances and exits of the three cities.

Though that strand of divine sense restricted him from speaking Shu Tiantian’s name, it did not prevent him from making the correct judgment.

Beyond the three cities, Void Abyss was nothing but black dense forests filled with miasma, where all manner of strange beasts ran rampant and evil cultivators gathered in clusters—extremely dangerous. Shu Tiantian would absolutely not go there—her only choice was to enter a city.

Her cultivation was low, and her pace was slow. As long as they waited at the city gates now, guarding the stump for the rabbit, there was still a chance to salvage everything.

The order spread from the Dongwu City council hall, transmitted rapidly throughout the entire city. The atmosphere among the Eight Great Sects was tense; all of them stared fixedly at the gates of the three cities, guarding them with strict vigilance. Even a passing fly had to have its ancestral lineage interrogated for three generations before being allowed through—they were determined to catch her!

Dao Xuzi, forcing his frail body to endure, ground his teeth in fury, determined to find Shu Tiantian. Every time he thought of how his cultivation had fallen by an entire realm from anger, and how hundreds of years of effort were gone, Dao Xuzi could continue to persist.

However, just as everyone’s gaze was fixed on the city gates, in a medical hall two streets away from the council hall, Shu Tiantian—her arm wrapped with a little black dragon—was listening to everyone talk about that sinful dragon. From time to time, she even nodded in agreement, fitting in perfectly among the group of alchemy cultivators.

If Void Abyss’s Ancestor style of conduct was strength above all, then Shu Tiantian had only one principle: lie low.

When it came to staying alive, Shu Tiantian’s talent was truly exceptional.

Lu Xun once said: the most dangerous place is the safest place. Shu Tiantian firmly believed this.

—So she had mixed into the enemy’s main base.

The dragon-stealing thief Shu Tiantian had already fled far away two hours before they discovered anything.

While the sky was still bright in the afternoon, she swallowed a concealment pill, slipped out of the Scarlet Flame Flower Field, and then promptly took the antidote, avoiding the fate of turning into a hundred-watt high-brightness light bulb at the moment night fell.

But leaving the flower field was still far from safe.

So Shu Tiantian changed her appearance, casually asked a passing cultivator for directions, found the location of the Alchemy Sect among the Eight Great Sects, chatted briefly with the senior sister guarding the gate, then, carrying the dragon in her arms, openly slipped into the Alchemy Sect medical cultivators’ cart.

The Alchemy Sect had come with several hundred people—naturally, not everyone knew one another.

Shu Tiantian looked obedient, with a small dimple appearing whenever she smiled. After disguising herself, she even carried a Nightingale-like air, her whole body emitting the medicinal fragrance belonging to a medical cultivator. If someone tried to drag her out and point at her delicate little frame, saying she wasn’t from the Alchemy Sect, the Alchemy Sect itself would argue with you in outrage.

Relying on her powerful composure and gentle demeanor, and with inspections rather lax, Shu Tiantian smoothly mixed into the medical hall of Dongwu City.

She had just slipped in when the entire city began inspections.

So by the time the gates of the three cities were sealed, Comrade Shu Tiantian was already in a medical hall two streets from the main base, chatting and laughing with her friends from the Alchemy Sect.

What was called the highest realm of lying low?

Not only were the cultivators guarding the gates and patrolling outside—who hadn’t seen a single person all day—starting to doubt their lives, even the Dragon Bone Sword began to doubt. It even wondered whether its master’s many years of being universally detested as a villain was because he simply didn’t look like a good person.

As the full moon outside gradually rose, only two hours remained before the millennial calamity.

The little black dragon’s true body had also fallen into an extremely weakened state, its tail tightly wrapped around Shu Tiantian’s finger, hidden inside her sleeve as it sank into deep sleep.

They only heard the little medical cultivator gently ask,

“Big brother, what do you think of my pills? Doesn’t your spiritual energy recover especially quickly?”

Before big brother could even nod, her gentle voice sounded again, “Doesn’t your whole body feel full of strength… and also, a kind of feeling where you can’t breathe, where the air is getting thinner and thinner?”

Big brother: Huh? That really is the case.

With a thud, big brother collapsed.

The little medical cultivator patted the dust off her sleeves, tucked in her hands, stroked the little dragon, and closed the door.

Turning back, the entire room had gone into shock.

The world is dangerous—fake medicine harms people, friends.

Dragon Bone Sword: trembling.

Shu Tiantian picked up the Water Mirror and fell into deep thought.

She had no way to crack this kind of magical artifact in a short time, but a Water Mirror was still, in the end, a kind of mirror. No matter if you were a sky full of gods and buddhas—if it was a mirror, it would reflect light.

So Shu Tiantian took out her concealment pill and reforged it in the furnace, removing the glowing and invisibility functions, leaving only the function of “using spiritual energy to create reflective panels all over the body.”

Half an hour later, having stripped a high-level cultivator of their magical artifact and disguised herself once more, Shu Tiantian strode away from the scene.

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

When dawn arrived as scheduled, the horizon gradually took on a streak of ominous crimson. The black miasma of the entire Void Abyss, together with the full moon gradually emerging from the clouds, slowly grew denser, as if black liquid would begin to flow through the air itself.

The millennial calamity had finally arrived.

Dao Xuzi was about to lead everyone to welcome the Sword Saint’s descent, yet at this moment they had not even seen a trace of the dragon. Thinking that when the time came they would not even have an excuse, the people in the council hall were nearly pacing in frantic circles.

When at last a cultivator hurried in, all the assembled cultivators straightened, each carrying a trace of urgency.

But when they heard this cultivator report that it was merely a case of cultivators fainting without cause at a nearby medical hall, everyone in the council hall was deeply disappointed: it had nothing to do with the dragon.

Only Dao Xuzi, upon hearing this news, froze entirely. His voice turned somewhat dry,

“You said where?”

“A medical hall two streets away from the council hall…”

Dao Xuzi took two deep breaths. That familiar, heart-attack-inducing feeling came again—others might not know, but how could he not? It had nothing to do with the dragon, but it had everything to do with the dragon thief!

But no matter how many times he tried, he simply could not say those words! He could only be helpless and irritable like a trapped beast, ordering these people to keep searching the city. After taking a deep breath, he could only brace himself and head to the walls of Dongwu City to welcome the Sword Saint’s descent.

Although they all knew this time nothing good would come of it, what else could they do?

Because of this delay, by the time the Sword Saint made his grand arrival, Dao Xuzi and the others arrived a step too late.

Yet even that one step was too late—before they could apologize, a blazing gust of wind swept up, directly flinging all the cultivators who had come to welcome him three zhang away, smashing them hard onto the ground.

Dao Xuzi stood at the very front and bore the brunt of it. He spat out a mouthful of blood. The others fared no better. Several Nascent Soul cultivators could not withstand even a single exchange—they could not even crawl up after just one palm strike.

The Sword Saint, dressed in robes red as fire, with sword-like brows and star-like eyes—because he possessed a fire spiritual root and cultivated the blazing God-Slaying Sword year-round, even his long hair had been dyed crimson. Wherever he passed, one could even feel the scorching air.

Yet the temperature of his voice was entirely different. He coldly spat out two words,

“Trash.”

He called the people of the lower realm trash—naturally because, right under the noses of those of the lower realm, that dragon had still disappeared.

The fallen lower-realm elders dared to be angry but not to speak. Upper-realm cultivators had always looked down on them. Now that it was their mistake, being scolded as trash was something they could only swallow.

Behind the Sword Saint on the city wall stood a group of upper-realm arrivals dressed in white feather robes, densely filling the walls of Dongwu City.