Chapter 553 - Destruction In Rage

The group all walked out of the cavern, going after Hongyu to try and bring her mood up. Unfortunately, the little girl merely went into the house, ignoring them all. At this point, Ming Yue followed after, finding her sitting and looking away from the cultivator. 

"Hongyu... Hongyu! Listen to me, I was just making sure that it was safe. I didn't want to make you worried or anything of that sort."

The young woman knelt down and looked at Hongyu's back, trying her best to lift the child's mood.  Unfortunately, the child wasn't budging in the slightest. She just ignored Ming Yue, not even showing the slightest reaction to anything she said. 

In the end, Ming Yue sighed and stood back up. 

"Whenever you feel better, come out, okay?" she said. 

After that, she left and looked at the three beasts, all of which were upright and alert in front of her. 

"Stay by her, make sure she's safe, and don't let her go into that cave." 

The trio all nodded, understanding what she wanted of them. Afterward, she walked a bit further out before pointing her ring forward, planting the array model onto the ground with a thud. And then she stared at it for a while, walking in circles, trying to glean off some sort of clue. 

But there wasn't much for her to find, it was a copy of the teleportation array. It was a circular stone piece carved in with patterns and symbols, interweaved with one another. Only a master would understand the flow and formula of it all and there was no master here. 

In the end, she could only click her tongue and frown.

"I should've asked around about activating the teleportation array. Hah, how am I going to do this?" she asked herself. 

Standing there for a bit, Ming Yue turned around and left. 

"Maybe, I should just focus on the sword first, go clear out some of the roots under the spires."

With that in mind, she quickly flew off, arriving at the spires alone. Landing in the middle of it, she looked around the spires, finding no real change compared to the last time she was here. The strange silence was always there as she was surrounded by nothing but those giant trees and plateaus. 

"I wonder if that Devouring Goose is still up there, nesting on the trees."

Looking up, Ming Yue glanced at each of the treetops, trying to find some sort of silhouette of this terrifying beast. 

"Hm, I guess it's either still asleep or gone."

Thinking to herself, the young cultivator activated her armor and jumped down into the gaps between the plateaus. Walking across the roots, she made it to where she was before, finding the gap she had dropped into. 

Examining the area she had struck, there was a strange expression on her face. 

"Hm, it's not fully healing. I thought it would considering that it's feeding off of the Calamity Energy but since it's almost all absorbed, it must be trying to conserve its strength... In that case, I should just hasten its death even further. I can't let it continue to spread like this."

This time, Ming Yue went for a different approach, hopping out of the crack and raising her hand to the skies. One by one, Blasting Gales and Storm Lances formed above her until they numbered a hundred. Some spun furiously while others sparked out with azure lightning but each one was a fully powered strike. 

"Alright, I wonder if this is enough."

The power she brought forth was immense, so much so, that the deeply packed roots seemed to tremble and unravel as she began to hear the skittering shrieks of the mutated denizens below. Ming Yue could hear them climbing up and through the cracks but she didn't strike just yet. 

She was floating in the air, far above what their acidic bite could reach. 

Ming Yue just waited and watched, ready to launch her volley of lances at any moment. The skittering and shrieking grew louder as the roots slowly unraveled. And then, the first one came out. 

It was just for a moment but she caught a clear look at it. 

it was a centipede, a large one whose size matched that of a snake. Apart from the dozens of little black legs, its body was also black with red spots. The mandibles were thick and sharp like fangs. They were jagged too, perfect for tearing bodies apart, drooling with that acidic spit. 

But that wasn't the most disturbing part of this creature, it was the face that made even Ming Yue tremble a bit. 

The mutated centipede's face resembled that of a man's face, only slightly wider and with red gem-like eyes. It was as if the centipede ripped off the face of a man and wore it. Even that idea didn't seem too far off but a single moment wasn't enough for Ming Yue to make a judgment. 

Rather, the moment it burst out from the roots, she let all one hundred lances go. Like a wave of arrows, they practically covered the sky, driving into the ground all at once. What came after was an eruption loud enough for the entire northern region of the continent to hear. 

And ear-shattering boom followed by the crumbling of broken earth and the cries of dying bugs. 

Ming Yue watched as many of them were blown to smithereens, some were still alive but they didn't have much time left. Their cries and struggling only grew weaker and weaker as their purplish blood was splattered everywhere, eating away as the surroundings. 

She looked at this scene, find a similarity with it in the war. In fact, the scene of it flashed into her eyes for just an instant, causing her to flinch for a moment. Her eyes were cautious as she held Blood Moon, waiting for the visions and the noise to come but it didn't. 

It was just a single flash and nothing followed after it, just that single image. 

"Hm, strange." 

Thinking that for just a moment, she looked back at the ground beneath her, seeing the massive craters she created. Aside from the massacre of these insects, the roots were blackened and burnt, much of it was gone, vaporized by the attack. 

She looked at the damage before showing a rather relieved expression. 

"Ah, that was good", she muttered. 

"Were you here to just deal with the roots or were you really just here to release your anger?" Xue Yue suddenly asked. 

Ming Yue barely even skipped a beat to answer her counterpart, not appreciating the question. 

"Listen, I haven't had a decent night's sleep in quite a while. I finally found out more about the Lunatic Sword only to find out about the Order of the Astral Sword. This secret order is somehow responsible for the creation of the teleportation arrays. There are clues to it but I don't know enough to understand so that stone model is just a useless rock to me. And Hongyu is angry at me. So, I do feel a bit of frustration at the moment." 

With such an answer, Xue Yue could only respond with silence before saying something. 

"You know, you weren't always this emotional. The girl and that trio really changed you."

Ming Yue slowly floated down and sighed, landing by the edge of the plateau. 

"I know but things are different now, aren't they? I'm stuck. I feel stuck. I am stronger and yet, it feels like I'm never strong enough."

She stared at the destructive scene before her. 

"Hah, I'm free to do whatever I want here, and yet, I miss my home. I feel that I must have a path or a goal before me.... How long has it been since I started on this path? Seven? Eight years? More? Less? I'm not sure, I don't know anymore, I really don't."