Chapter 166: Slaying the Princess

Ji Mo used immortal energy to carry her words, sending her voice echoing far beyond a radius of a thousand miles. While it might be an exaggeration to say the entire Xinyue City could hear her, it was certain that in the central district of Xinyue City, including the imperial palace, very few people failed to hear her voice. In that instant, countless people were startled, raising their heads to look in the direction of the Stargazing and Moon-Bowing Pavilion: Who on earth was this person? How dare she so unsparingly point her spearhead directly at the Crown Prince's Mansion?

Merely a hundred miles away from the Stargazing and Moon-Bowing Pavilion, inside the Crown Prince's Mansion, a man who looked to be around thirty years of age abruptly raised his head from his desk upon hearing Ji Mo's voice, a terrifyingly sharp and fierce gleam shooting from his eyes!

Setting aside the reactions of others, the blue-robed young man standing right in front of Ji Mo and the two gray-robed men behind him experienced a drastic collective shift in their complexions upon hearing her words. Almost by instinct, all three shouted out simultaneously: "You—what kind of nonsense are you spouting? How dare you groundlessly slander the Princess and the Crown Prince's Mansion?"

"Nonsense? Groundless slander? Heh, when Princess Chixia and I had our friction, there were plenty of people present. Even if everyone chose to remain silent and dared not step forward to speak a word of justice out of fear for Princess Chixia's status and deterrence, a restaurant as grand as the Stargazing and Moon-Bowing Pavilion surely has recording crystals. You only need to retrieve and display the footage to know whether my words are false. Heh, I only fear that you lack the courage to publicly reveal your establishment's recording crystals."

"Princess Chixia is merely a female cultivator at the Condensing Dan realm. Were it not for her noble birth and the backing of the Crown Prince's Mansion, could she act so lawlessly? A dignified princess entirely devoid of the poise and breadth of mind becoming of royalty, whose default reaction is to take lives and plunder fortunes, and who attempts to extract souls and refine spirits at the slightest sign of disobedience—such a person is no better than the evil fiends of the Demonic Path or the marauding bandits roaming the Six Paths. If a princess with such a disposition is nurtured, how can it be anything other than a reflection of the lacking moral integrity and cultivation of the Crown Prince's Mansion itself?" Ji Mo sneered repeatedly.

Initially, she had no intention of courting this kind of attention or deliberately setting herself against the Crown Prince's Mansion. To say the least, purely out of consideration for Bai Ze, she had no desire to needlessly cause trouble for the current Lanfeng imperial family or put him in an awkward position. However, the Stargazing and Moon-Bowing Pavilion and Princess Chixia's relentless entanglement had truly irritated her to a degree. Reflecting upon the people and events she had encountered in the mortal realm, she suddenly no longer wished to let matters rest. What of the Crown Prince's Mansion? What of a princess? Could one simply act as they pleased merely because of a noble birth?

It was true that she shared a friendship with Bai Ze, but she would not forsake her own core principles for the sake of that relationship. At her core, Ji Mo was a person guided by her inner heart. Over the years, her style of conduct could neither be called submissive nor described as unbridled. Because she had encountered too many things along her journey that ran counter to her will and left her powerless, she had adopted a relatively moderate and peaceful attitude when facing most matters. Yet today, she no longer wished to choose moderation.

As a cultivator, if one lacked even the unobstructed flow of breath to confront their own true heart, how could one hope to forge ever onward along the Daoist path? With her current personal might, she certainly lacked the capability to contend against the entire Lanfeng imperial family, but if she could not contend, no one could stop her if she chose to leave! Today, she refused to be moderate, refused to let matters rest, and wished to act willfully just once for the clarity of her own soul!

"Audacious! You wretched harlot, how dare you spout wanton falsehoods and pass judgment on the Crown Prince's Mansion! This is treason! Lanyulou, why haven't you ordered her killed yet?" The moment Ji Mo's voice trailed off, Princess Chixia's shrill scream erupted. Accompanied by the sound, Princess Chixia's figure appeared before the main entrance of the Stargazing and Moon-Bowing Pavilion. Having endured for so long, and now seeing Lanyulou and the others reveal themselves while hearing such treasonous words from Ji Mo, how could she possibly contain the fury raging in her heart?

"Xiao Jin, kill her!" A cold flash crossed Ji Mo's eyes as she spoke to Xiao Jin, who had already descended from the air and was resting upon her shoulder.

"An ugly fool like this should have been killed long ago!" Xiao Jin muttered, transforming into a streak of golden lightning as it charged directly toward Princess Chixia. Lanyulou and the two gray-robed men behind him had already been frightened half to wits by Ji Mo's treason and arrogance. Seeing her now give the command to execute Princess Chixia, they were struck with even greater terror. As Xiao Jin moved, before they could even think, a gray shadow flashed as they attempted to intercept the creature.

"Humph!" Since Ji Mo had already decided that Princess Chixia must die, how could she allow the gray-robed man to save her? The instant the gray-robed man's figure shifted, a heavy, mountain-like whip projection crashed down overhead. His heart tightened, and just as he attempted to dodge, he realized he could not evade it at all.

He could only watch helplessly as the silver whip descended upon him. The next moment, his entire body was sent flying away with a violent lash. This gray-robed man was a peak Deity Transformation cultivator, yet he was knocked flying by Ji Mo in a single move. Lanyulou and the remaining gray-robed man, despite having previously witnessed the might of Ji Mo's whip against the Stargazing and Moon-Bowing Pavilion, still drew in sharp breaths of cold air.

"Ah!" The exact moment the gray-robed man was sent flying by Ji Mo, Xiao Jin arrived right before Princess Chixia and lashed out with a paw. Princess Chixia's eyes widened in horror as a piercing, miserable scream tore from her throat. Immediately afterward, her head exploded like a shattered watermelon. Even in death, her eyes remained filled with absolute disbelief; she simply could not believe that within Xinyue City, anyone would dare to kill her!

"Princess!" Several voices rang out simultaneously. Two of them belonged to Lanyulou and the gray-robed man, while the other two came from a pair of unfamiliar female cultivators. The moment Princess Chixia's head burst open, these two female cultivators happened to be plunging down from the sky, accompanied by a retinue of sixteen black-robed elite archers gripping tier-six spiritual bows.

Ji Mo turned her gaze toward them. The two newly arrived female cultivators were dressed in crimson robes. Although their exact cultivation levels could not be clearly discerned, judging by their aura fluctuations, they ought to be Void Return realm cultivators. The sixteen elite archers following behind them were all at the peak Nasational Infant realm, each gripping a tier-six spiritual bow. The very instant Ji Mo turned around, all sixteen spiritual bows were already locked onto her.

Spiritual bows possessed the strongest long-range lethality among all spiritual weapons. Even for Ji Mo, suddenly facing these sixteen spiritual bows induced a faint sense of threat deep within her soul. Nonetheless, her expression remained completely unchanged as she stood there with detached indifference, gazing at the eighteen newly arrived cultivators.

"It was you who killed the Princess!" The two crimson-robed female cultivators stared deeply at Ji Mo, murderous intent surging in the depths of their eyes. Glaring at her, they uttered each word distinctly through clenched teeth.

"Indeed. She repeatedly declared her intention to kill me, so to avoid unnecessary trouble, I had no choice but to kill her first," Ji Mo replied indifferently.

"Very well! Excellent! Kill her!" The crimson-robed female cultivator gritted her teeth and repeated the affirmation, her voice ultimately dissolving into a surging torrent of murder! (To be continued...)