"... That was so dangerous, almost struck by lightning."
Outside Palace of Heaven, Wang Lu looked at the bottomless rift valley behind him with lingering fear. Sure enough, Deity Stage cultivator was really extraordinary. Even separated by such a long distance, their thunderbolt in the clear sky was enough to turn a Jindan Stage cultivator into ashes.
Fortunately, just now, he and Liu Li didn't stand on the spot where the thunderbolt struck, but rather, using the sword-person swap move, they guided the power of the thunderbolt to completely pour into the ground.
Looking at the deep rift split open by the power of the thunderbolt and smelling the pungent burning smell in the air, Wang Lu's heart palpitated and he could not help but sigh with sorrow. Fortunately, even though he was far from being equal in cultivation base, his IQ was high enough to comprehensively overwhelm Moonless, so much that he could guess in advance every single step of her response and made the appropriate arrangement beforehand.
Through Liu Li's person-sword swap move, Wang Lu successfully helped her escape from Moon Capital. However, since this would immediately cause them to be hunted down by an all-out effort of a Daoist Master of Deity Stage, Wang Lu didn't feel that the time he had won would allow them to escape far enough.
Therefore, Wang Lu simply left some clues for Moonless in Moon Capital as an advanced initiative to guide her next move. Liu Li's person-sword swap was not a perfect escape skill. The reason why she could freely swap position with her sword and hide from the perception of Moonless as well as the strict monitoring network in the Moon Capital lied in the fact that Liu Li's brilliant sword heart refined her flying sword as part of her body, making the person-sword swap as effortless as raising a hand, and unlikely to cause any excess wave of magical power.
However, the downside was that the link between the person and the sword was too close, that once it was caught by someone, it could be traced back to the source. Secondly, if he wanted to leave an illusion of Liu Li in Moon Capital, in order to prolong the time as far as possible, he had to leave behind a powerful immortal sword. Considering the distance and other factors, only Skybreaker could take on this heavy task. However, to leave behind an immortal sword in Moon Capital was too heavy of a loss. Moreover, Skybreaker was already an inseparable part of Liu Li that, once taken away, at least half of Liu Li's cultivation base would be washed off. Thus, when the illusion was broken, Liu Li immediately did the sword-to-sword swap move and replaced it with the least linked sword in her hand.
However, by using this sword-to-sword swap blatantly in front of Moonless, no matter how mysterious this magical ability was, she would still catch some clues. And with Moonless' temper, under her wrath, she would immediately take action. And with the skill of a Deity Stage cultivator, striking the enemy dead from a great distance was as easy as flipping the palm of the hand… Therefore, Wang Lu had told Liu Li to prepare a substitute sword ahead of time and sacrifice a flying sword for her life at the critical time.
As expected, after the Skybreaker was swapped back, a thunderbolt fell on their head. Were it not for Wang Lu's preparation, which allowed them to promptly escape together, both of them would be severely injured by the thunderbolt.
After this thunderbolt strike, presumably Moonless would be even more annoyed. Because her original intention in dropping that thunderbolt was not to kill the two of them, but just to seriously injure them. Then she herself would come to follow the thunderbolt mark to capture them and bring them back to Moon Capital to inflict eternal torture. However, it turned out that Wang Lu and Liu Li were not hurt by that thunderbolt. The thunderbolt from Moonless only broke one of Liu Li's flying swords, but failed to leave any scratch on them. Now, even when Moonless carried out a blanket search on the area where the thunderbolt hit, it would be impossible to locate her target.
Because Wang Lu and Liu Li had left the boundary of the Palace of Heaven and entered the boundary of Sky City.
No matter how great the authority Moonless had in Palace of Heaven, it would not bring influence in Sky City. This Heavenly Earth's central city bore the highest authority in the institution of Temple of Heaven. Among the nine ranks position within the Temple of Heaven, the person who at the first position, Chengtian, and the six people in the second position, Shentian, all resided in Sky City. In Sky City, there were at least dozens of vassal lords the like of Moonless, and Moonless was by no means the most outstanding one among them.
Therefore, Wang Lu had no fear that after entering the Sky City, Moonless had the ability to search for him and Liu Li.
After all, Moonless' vassal lord status was too special. Let alone her Harmonious Heaven rank, even if she ascended by another rank, she still could not behave unscrupulously in Sky City.
"So… we should be safe now. Liu Li, in the next few days, I will help you to heal… and then, we'll get through the Jindan Tribulation."
Liu Li nodded her pale face. The smile that often plastered on the girl's face was now replaced by a sullen look. Her eyes had lost their light and her lips had turned white, which clearly showed that she had suffered injuries.
This was also the price for their escape. Even after so many preparations, in the end, they still had to pay a heavy price. Liu Li's refined-into-body flying sword was crushed by Moonless, and another one was struck by lightning. The effect of which was no less than cutting off both of her arms. And thus, although there was already a preparation, the injury was still not light. And more importantly, Liu Li was on the cusp of crossing through Jindan. Although she could still bear the loss of two flying swords, it had greatly shaken her Jade Mansion that the highly condensed Void Core in it revealed irregular tremors which she could not suppress during the transformation to golden core.
In order to achieve Jindan Stage, Liu Li was already well prepared in advance. Regardless of the level of method, magical power reserve, and her state of mind, everything was already perfect. She just needed the opportunity to come, and she would achieve a perfect breakthrough in one fell swoop. However, such a profound accumulation had, in fact, somewhat transcended the common sense. If it were other people, with only half of Liu Li's accumulation, it was impossible not to break through even if they don't want to. For Liu Li to be able to suppress her stage so far until now was all due to her special brilliant sword heart physique.
However, in Moon Capital, she had gained rich experience in her first match, and then it was followed by repeated shock to her Jade Mansion by Moonless, which finally caused her to somewhat unable to suppress it anymore.
With her qualification, there was no bottleneck in achieving Jindan, which she could achieve basically at any time. However, at this time, she was seriously injured, which would lead to an incomplete golden core if Jindan Stage were to be achieved in a rush, wasting her previous hard work and preparation. Therefore, Wang Lu had to bring Liu Li to the city as soon as possible to heal her injury. Even if Moonless did not dare to be reckless in the Sky City perimeter, it was easy to capture two Jindan Stage level cultivators in the outskirt.
—
The process of entering the city was smoother than expected. They only need to pay the basic cost of entering the city, plus showing the token obtained in the Temple of Heaven in Gorgeous Town. Wang Lu then entered the central city of Heavenly Earth along with Liu Li, just like previously when he entered alone.
It seemed that Moonless' power hadn't infiltrated this Sky City, which was a good news… Of course, it might also be that, after Moonless had calmed down, she just ordered her subordinates to monitor the city in secret. And after enough preparation, the thunderbolt would come crashing down again… However, Wang Lu couldn't care less.
After entering the Sky City, Wang Lu quickly found a high priced training room for rent, which was rich with spiritual energy and a complete array of elixirs and medicine pills. Although it was just comparably good to normal places, if compared to the training room of Brilliant Peak on Spirit Sword Mountain, this place was far from being inferior, but it could barely meet the need of Liu Li, and Wang Lu could not afford to be nitpicky.
During the next three days, Wang Lu was trying his best to help Liu Li suppress her golden core and heal her injuries. Although he did not deliberately learn the immortal method of healing, he did have a middle-level Jindan Stage cultivation base, which allowed him to quickly stabilized Liu Li.
In the next few days, Liu Li began her Jindan Stage tribulation. The process of which was orderly and quickly went on the right track. It was expected that within ten days, she would have a perfect golden core.
To complete this golden core was not easy. Once the core was completed, its quality and shape would be unprecedentedly perfect, comparable to that of Wang Lu's golden core which condensed two great immortal level methods.
And Wang Lu very much looked forward to this.
However, during the period when the girl condensed her golden core, Wang Lu could not stay in the training room to avoid his power from interfering with her. Wang Lu thus guarded at the door and propped up Non-Phase Sword Defense all around the perimeter in the form of a faint curtain of light so as to keep out all possible interference.
By the third day, Liu Li had reached the final step of golden core condensation. A round golden core had already been formed in her Jade Mansion. She would be successful when it was perfectly integrated with her body and primordial spirit.
Wang Lu had been maintaining Non-Phase Sword Defense outside the training room for the entire three day-and-nights, which caused him to feel a bit tired. However, when he thought that Liu Li was about to successfully reach Jindan Stage, the faint excitement washed away his exhaustion.
As the saying goes, completing ninety percent of the journey could be only counted as half-done. The closer a person is to the last step, the more careful they should be in any aspect. If anything went wrong in the final stage of Jindan's integration, then it would be too late to regret.
Thinking of this, Wang Lu took a deep breath and somewhat supported his Non-Phase Sword Defense a bit firmer… In this way, after nobody knows how much time has passed, he suddenly felt two full-of-desire eyes that came from afar.
Wang Lu immediately turned his head, only to see a row of white walls.
His rental training room was located in a quiet corner in Sky City, surrounded by mostly empty buildings. They were tall, majestic, and uninhabited, typical of a planning mistake of Sky City. But for Liu Li to achieve Jindan, this was safer. These last few days, he had been propping up Non-Phase Sword Defense around the place but he had yet to see anyone noticing him. Unexpectedly, he caught the attention of others while it was in the critical time.
Wang Lu gazed through the layers of building with rapt attention and saw that, a few miles away, a woman in a long dress was looking at him with a pleasant surprise. Her eyes also penetrated the layers of the building.
That woman's appearance was elegant, and her facial features looked energetic and confident, showing a bit of heroic look. Wang Lu thought that she was quite familiar, but he could not remember where he had seen her.
At that moment, the woman flashed across the distance and appeared in front of Wang Lu.
Wang Lu was surprised by the speed of this woman, but there was an even more thing that surprised him.
"I can't believe you're here!"
As soon as the woman opened her mouth, all of the hair on Wang Lu's body stood up on end. Because that voice was very familiar to him. Just a few days ago, the owner of that voice was still his enemy.
The master of Palace of Heaven, Moonless Harmonious Heaven!
In an instant, it was already too late for Wang Lu to carefully consider the situation. He had no time to think about why Moonless would suddenly appear here at this time, why the half living half skeleton had become a living person in its entirety, and why would she dare to find trouble for him in Sky City at this time… In this moment, a flash of delay was fatal.
Wang Lu immediately rose up his primal chaos heaven splitting sword qi, ready to erupt out all his power… Although such a force might be insignificant in the face of a Daoist Master of Deity Stage, he had to win some time for Liu Li!
However, the action of Moonless was much faster than him! The speed of a Daoist Master of Deity Stage was simply too fast, even faster than the speed of Wang Lu's thought. While his primal chaos heaven splitting sword qi was still brewing in his golden core, Moonless had already rushed over, lying on his chest with her smooth as jade, warm and soft body along with a good smell, and then...
And then, she said a sentence that caused Wang Lu to be so shocked that he forgot to resist.
"Sister Wu, I miss you to death!"