When Immortal Ascension Fails Time Travel to Try Again

Story 4 - What Happens in a Slaughter Formation, Stays in a Slaughter Formation (12)

I had discounted my friend’s nephew for far too long. But I had my reasons. For one, he didn't have a motive to kill the Junior Sect Leader. Oh, sure, he liked Jujube... but was removing her fiancé for a possible chance with her worth hurting his beloved uncle like that? Not to mention that he never got together with her in my past life. It seemed highly unlikely that this was his motive.

That meant that there was another reason. One I still needed to discover.

Aside from the missing motive, I also knew from my past life that just because someone was an asshole did not mean that they were a murderer... Of course, this was me giving the author of the original bad harem novel too much credit. I mean, if he really wanted to surprise people, he could have made a nice kid like Justice Reaching Divine Blade the murderer.

But an asshole like fuck face over there? Too easy. Easier than making the one who did it, a butler.

But, I’d been dealing with pleasant people for so long recently that I’d forgotten the golden rule of this Xianxia. Sometimes an asshole was just an asshole, but, more often than not, they were actually murderers... In fact, everyone was a killer. Here, you either became a killer, or you died.

Another thing. I’d been too arrogant, believing my mere presence here would be enough of a catalyst to change the outcome. Since, really, I was just that remarkable.

That had turned out to be false. I mean, I was still amazing. But, since my presence didn't change the outcome, then that meant Glittering Dickhead over there had been planning this since before I even arrived.

Looking back on everything that happened during my time with this group, I could see what Glittering Iron Omniscience had been attempting.

First, was the Purple Python Monster. He must have divined that Unyielding and Justice would both be badly hurt during the fight, making his death seem more and more like an accident when it came time to collect the Blood-Soaked Resonant Rhododendron.

Of course, he was pissed at Little Spring and I for coming along because our presence added uncertain variables into his plan. He must have quickly divined how to get rid of my little brother by standing where he did. Because if he hadn’t stood there, I would have stopped him before he even neared the wall.

Next was the Narcissus. It was my belief that he dragged us to that flower instead of to the other one because he needed Fairy Third out of commission to enact his final plan.

This fight would also force the injured Justice and Unyielding to push themselves to the limit.

He may have also believed that this fight would have taken me out as well... Except that I had been hiding my strength this whole time. And without me telling someone, he would have no way of knowing my true ability. Not to mention that my Immortal Ascension stage soul would completely throw off any divination he attempted to do for me.

Which brought me to the nail in Unyielding’s coffin.

Without Fairy Third and with a mourning Fairy Blissful Jujube, the group would have stood in this exact spot where they relied solely on Glittering Iron’s divination to enter the right path.

He’d gotten them here with his perfect divinations. Surely, his talent was reliable enough to risk one's own life on. And he was the nephew of the Sect Leader. He also loved and respected his uncle. So, of course, he wouldn't try anything nefarious.

Except, he did.

Using just his devious divinations, he took out three of his party members and returned a hero.

And the only reason he was able to get away with it was that the dim-witted Jujube was so grief-stricken that she likely wasn't even there for his report. And if she wasn't there, she couldn't contradict it.

To be honest, I wanted to applaud the asshole’s genius and audacity.

Except that he was scum.

And, he made a small mistake.

::Junior Sect Leader. Don't trust Senior Glittering Iron Omniscience. He’s trying to kill you.::

His eyes narrowed slightly, but I had his attention.

::What makes you say that?::

::He had the right spot, but he purposefully moved it.::

::I saw that, but I thought he was correcting his position. Are you sure he’s trying to kill me?::

::Am I sure? Who do you think I am?!::

::...::

::I’m your martial great aunt.::

::Not officially. And he’s my master’s nephew,:: he pointed out.

::Doesn't mean he can't still be a murderer.::

::He also led us here.::

::But not without issue. Didn't everything seem a bit too perfect yet also perfectly dangerous.::

He didn't respond. He was a smart kid and must have figured it out as well.

::Just let me handle this and back me up.::

::Very well.::

I stepped up to Glittering Iron Omniscience and tilted my head cutely. “Senior. Are you sure this is the right spot to enter the formation from?”

He nodded, back straight, arrogance exuding from every pore. “Absolutely.”

“Would you stake your life on it?”

His eyes narrowed and he glared at me as if he could kill me.

“You’re questioning my skills in divination?”

“Yes. Because if you were willing to stake your life on it then you’d be willing to stick your head in the formation, right there, for the time it takes an incense stick to burn.”

I grinned up at him.

“Nonsense! Of course, this is the right location. In fact, not only am I willing to risk my own precious life on this fact, I’m willing to risk the Junior Sect Leader’s life as well. His life is worth far more than my own.” He said this as if he was confident that Unyielding would defend him.

Except that the Junior Sect Leader knew I was a master at formations and agreed to let me handle it. And because this wasn’t a democracy, his opinion as the leader of the group was the only one that mattered.

While the members of the team may have posed ideas or asked questions, they still always followed his orders in the end. Because a sect had a hierarchy, and because, right now, he had the greatest authority here (at least until I officially became his martial great aunt).

When Glittering Iron didn’t hear Unyielding step up to defend his ability, he glanced over. I followed his gaze to see the Junior Sect Leader with a frown on his face and his arms crossed under his chest.

Unyielding stared at the diviner, face a mask of skepticism. “If you’re so confident, diviner Glittering Iron Omniscience, then why don’t you do as she requests?”

“Nonsense!” His bird spirit beast clucked in outrage.

“Are you reluctant because you know it’s a death trap?” I asked, a wide grin on my face.

Glittering Iron moved his hands behind his back and glared at me. The stupid chicken on his shoulder did the same.

Seemed like this asshole needed a bit more pushing. I pulled my hairpin from my head, turned it into a sword, and made a slash into the ground where the real entrance was.

“This, right here, is the safe place to enter the formation.”

He scoffed. “That’s only a half step.”

“Anyone who knows formations, knows how precise they need to be. And a precious natural formation like this may have a bit of leeway but not that much.”

“You expect me to believe a kid like you knows formations?”

I merely smiled and turned to Unyielding who nodded.

“Most of you,” I addressed Unyielding, Justice, and Jujube, “May have already realized the place where I drew my line is exactly where you,” I pointed to Glittering Iron, “originally had the stick. That was a poor move on your part. Sloppy work.”

He sneered. “So what if it was? I was just adjusting it based on my divination. If it was incorrect then it was merely that my divination was slightly off.”

“What are you then? An incompetent diviner or a murderer?”

“Even the most competent of diviners make mistakes every now and then.”

“True. But not you. Not for this. You’ve made perfect predictions so far, leading us here, to this point. Haven’t you? All to get our dear Junior Sect Leader to enter a false door.” I pointed the tip of my sword at him. “And no one would have had a clue, except for one small thing. There was another flower in the meadow. One of the same variety but a slightly lesser age. It would still be usable, and it was in a far less dangerous area.”

Jujube gasped as she finally understood. She had stood where I had earlier and must have seen it as well, but it had only clicked for her after I laid out the facts.

“If it wasn’t for my antidotes, your divinations would have purposefully gotten Fairy Third Peach Sapling killed.”

“Senior brother! Tell me you didn’t hurt Third Peach on purpose!” A tear ran down Jujube’s cheek.

He didn’t say anything — just stared at me, spine straight, as if nothing could touch him.

I glared into his dark eyes. “You are so damn arrogant, aren’t you? And you believe you’re right. As if no one could be more intelligent than you.” I shook my head. “You are smart. A genius when it comes to divining. I’ll give you that. But, you’ve forgotten the first rule about being a genius. Which is to remember that it doesn’t mean ‘always right.’”

He chuckled. “Do you really think they’ll really believe you over me?”

“Don’t they already?”

Justice strode up to us, cold fury clear on his face. In general, sword cultivators attempted to remain honorable and virtuous — one of the reasons I respected them. This betrayal must have triggered his sense of righteousness.

Glittering Iron stepped back, face pale. “You can’t seriously believe her! She’s not even a member of our sect!”

“Why are you frightened?” Unyielding asked with narrowed eyes as he followed his friend over. “You were fine when you thought I would be going in there.”

“She said, ‘it was the wrong spot.’”

“But you don’t trust her.”

Justice’s hand wrapped around Glittering Iron’s neck. The chicken spirit beast attacked him, but the Junior Sect Leader stepped up and caught it by the base of its wings. It flailed around uselessly.

Glittering Iron took out a dagger from his spacial ring and jabbed it toward Justice’s heart. The sword cultivator easily grabbed that hand and disarmed it.

Glittering Iron should have known better than to fuck with a sword cultivator like that. And he did.

While Justice was distracted with the unexpected knife the diviner’s tortoiseshell came out and knocked him away by several feet. Glittering Iron must have realized that his situation didn’t look good because he left his bird behind and stepped backward into the formation. And he managed to enter the exact spot I had indicated.

Fuckin’ idiot.

Justice took a step toward the formation, but I threw out an arm and stopped him.

He glared. “We have to prevent him from harming the rhododendron.”

Just as I suspected, he was absolutely furious.

“Never go into a slaughter formation when you’re upset. You’ll make mistakes and mistakes will lead to death. Or at the very least harm. I’m the formation master here. I’ll go first. You can follow when you’re calm.”

“He’s in Foundation Establishment, and you’re just in Qi Condensation. You’re not his match.”

I grinned. “In a formation, he’s not mine. Don’t worry. I’ll make sure he comes back alive, so he can be charged for his crimes.”

I stepped into the formation’s safe entrance. Immediately, the world around me that had been trees, foliage, and vines, turned into motion.

The ground that had been flat moved me up and down. It even turned me around. Every effective slaughter formation had a type of illusion or confusion aspect to it.

Those who just entered from any other position might try and take a step back, only to realize too late that their step back was actually a step forward. This would bring them deeper into the formation and trap them inside.

Of course, this disorientation would help hide any of my more advanced techniques.

In a perfect slaughter formation, there would be no pathway like this. Those who entered would be helpless unless they happened to have a formation master’s compass and the knowledge of how to avoid whatever killed people within. The exception was natural formations. These types always had imperfections, leaving small pathways open to a lucky individual who might find it. And I, luckily, knew how to move through this formation regardless of if I had a compass or not. But, I happened to have one.

I took it out with my offhand and held my sword with my right.

I used the compass to find the correct direction Glittering Iron would have fled in. Since he was the Sect Leader’s nephew, he would have several life-saving talismans. That meant I didn’t have to hold back as much!

I estimated how long it would take him to divine his way through, then with a seemingly casual motion, I slashed in that direction. Thousand cuts!

It felt good to use that technique, especially since I went wide with it to account for any errors.

I didn’t hear any yells, but I didn’t expect to. Not with this illusion obfuscating everything around us so well that even divine sense couldn’t penetrate it.

But I knew I hit him.

I slowly took two steps forward. Each step felt like I was on a little boat in a fierce ocean storm. But I ignored that feeling. This was normal.

Once again, I estimated where he would be and sent another thousand cuts over to him.

I turned to the left and the already spinning and dipping world turned sideways. After taking one step backward it appeared as if I were traveling through a starfield of greenery.

I heard the steps of someone in the distance. That meant I was very close to him!

A massive spinning coin appeared out of nowhere.

I ducked down low, to both avoid the coin, and because that was the next step in getting past this formation.

The world stabilized for a single beautiful moment even as the coin flew above my head.

But this spot was a trap, if I stayed here for too long, I’d get sucked right the fuck on into the deepest part of the formation, so (while still crouched) I quickly shuffled to the right a few feet. Then I sent another Thousand Cuts towards the direction the coin came from.

A grunt of pain managed to reach my location, then a footstep.

I stood up. The luscious green foliage bloomed with strange crimson flowers... I really doubted that those were real. In fact, the way everything looked still yet still moved made me think they were actually poor low-level spirit beasts the formation had caught and was slowly draining of blood.

There was a reason the rhododendron was called ‘Blood-Soaked.’

Another coin came at me from the front. This time aimed lower. I had to move forward next, or I would get stuck in the formation again.

I jumped up and over the coin, while moving forwards. Those flowers around me vanished, and the world turned dark.

I spun around as if doing a spinning sidekick. This time the coin zoomed towards the foot I was standing on. I jumped, but it still clipped my little silk shoe and knocked me off balance. My foot ached like a bitch.

At least I still had a foot. Fuck. If I hadn’t had my talisman or if I’d been any slower...

I thought I heard laughter, but that was just the illusion of the formation. I stood up and then took another step forward, gritting my teeth and ignoring the pain.

The world cleared. A small clearing lay before me like a shallow bowl in the ground. Small streams of liquid spiraled down into the bottom of the bowl where a little bush with small red flowers bloomed. And a quarter of the way to that spiritual plant was Glittering Iron who ran so fast he practically flew.

Most of his clothes were ripped to shreds, and he bled from various spots, but, according to my quick divine sense scan, it was only surface damage. Tch. The difference between Qi Condensation and Formation Establishment was too high, especially when life saving spiritual tools were involved.

And how had he gotten so far?! Hadn’t I been right behind him? How the fuck had he gotten through the formation so fast... unless it was a lie that he didn’t know his way through!

Shit! He was likely trying to get to the plant first to use it as blackmail. Either we forget his crime, or he’d destroy the only chance to save our Sect Leader — his own damn Uncle. This Fucker!

There was no time to pop a healing pill to repair my foot, so I ignored the pain and ran.

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