Chapter 167: The Origin of Lan Mo (Part I)

As her voice fell, sixteen spirit bows were instantly drawn to full tension. A terrifying aura that made souls tremble enveloped everyone present. Ji Mo wore a faint smile at the corners of her lips, standing with her hands behind her back, completely motionless. Seeing her so arrogant and dismissive, the sixteen expert archers were filled with rage, their killing intent boiling like churning water!

With a sharp hum, sixteen spirit arrows left their bows, converging into a torrent that surged toward Ji Mo. In that flash of lightning, an unexpected variable suddenly arose. Lan Mo, who had been standing quietly in a corner ever since Lan Yulou and the others appeared, transformed into a streak of lightning and charged out. A majestic and imposing blade glare flashed past; the arrows of the three black-clad spirit archers on the extreme left, who were closest to her, had just left their bowstrings when she forcefully intercepted them, shattering them into dust. While spirit archers possessed astonishing long-range killing power, once engaged in close combat, their greatest strength instantly became their fatal weakness.

Lan Mo’s speed was as fast as sparks striking flint. After shattering the three newly released spirit arrows with a single slash, her momentum unabated, she casually swung her blade directly at the spirit archers who were within arm's reach. The archers closest to her had nowhere to dodge, and it was entirely too late to draw their bows once more, leaving them no choice but to raise their bowstangs to block desperately. Crash! The three men in the front line were sent flying away without the slightest capacity for resistance.

All of this seems lengthy to describe, but in reality, it transpired in less than the blink of an eye. These sixteen spirit archers formed a cohesive unit; once sixteen bows were fired in unison, their combined arrows possessed the power to slay even a cultivator in the Dao-Integration Realm. Unfortunately, no sooner had the sixteen arrows left their bows than three were intercepted, leaving the remaining thirteen unable to merge into a single force, scattering randomly toward Ji Mo as they shot forward.

After Ji Mo's Heavenly Fiend Body-Refining Technique reached the seventh tier of Solidification, her physical sturdiness was already comparable to a top-tier sixth-grade defensive spirit artifact. Pushing low-grade sixth-grade arrows against her body was akin to a mere itch; how could they possibly injure her? Not to mention that she wore a magical robe of unknown grade. Standing motionless in her original spot, those thirteen spirit arrows automatically plummeted the moment they touched her garments.

The two scarlet-robed female cultivators had paid no attention to Lan Mo beforehand. Caught completely off guard when they saw their guaranteed-kill arrows thwarted, they burst into overwhelming fury. One of them immediately turned and lunged toward Lan Mo. Both of these scarlet-robed women were Void-Return cultivators. No matter how formidable Lan Mo was, she was no match for either of them individually—yet Ji Mo was there. Naturally, Ji Mo would not stand idly by and watch these two scarlet-robed women interfere with Lan Mo.

"Your opponent is me!" Ji Mo chuckled softly. With a flick of her silver whip, she instantly intercepted the scarlet-robed cultivator.

"Go to hell!" Seeing this, the other scarlet-robed female cultivator let out a loud roar and joined the fray, teaming up to attack Ji Mo. Every strike they unleashed was fatal. For a time, the surrounding hundred miles were thrown into tumultuous weather and swirling smoke. Yet, despite their raging fury, the two of them found themselves completely helpless against Ji Mo, driven to emit one continuous roar of frustration!

Lan Yutang nearby was scared out of his wits, his face drained of all color. Had there not been a Void-Return cultivator guarding his side, he likely would have been slain by the lingering shockwaves of the battle between Ji Mo and the others. As for the Stargazing and Moon-Gathering Tower, had its defenses not been exceptional, it would have collapsed long ago amidst the aftermath of the combat. Meanwhile, the moment those spirit arrows were aimed at Ji Mo, Qiuli had already been hoisted high into the air on Little Jin's back, retreating a hundred miles away and remaining untouched by the battle's fallout.

"Th-that person... she looks so much like Lan Mo?" Protected by the Void-Return cultivator by his side and having retreated several miles away, Lan Yulou could not help crying out in shock after catching a clear view of Lan Mo’s face. Lan Mo had been concealing herself in a corner all along, and with their full attention fixed entirely on Ji Mo, they had failed to notice her. It was not until Lan Mo charged out and single-handedly challenged sixteen Nascent Soul peak-stage expert archers that they realized this woman even existed.

This glance did not matter, but Lan Yulou was so startled his jaw nearly hit the ground, for he discovered that this woman closely resembled his cousin, Lan Mo. Lan Mo? How could that be? Wasn't she born with the Five-Elements Defective Physique? Given her aptitude, all these years later, her lifespan should have long since been exhausted and she should have passed away. How could she have leaped to become an eighth-tier Solidification body-refiner?

"Uncle Jiang, c-could that woman really be Lan Mo?" Shaken to the core, Lan Yutang asked the grey-clad man beside him for confirmation once more.

"She looks very much alike, but I cannot be certain either," replied the man addressed as Uncle Jiang with a grave expression.

Lan Yutang was currently over five hundred years old and served as the Young Master of the Lan family, whereas Lan Mo was the daughter of his paternal uncle, making them cousins. However, Lan Mo had been born with a Five-Elements Defective Physique, unable to cultivate at all, and was nearly a hundred years younger than him. Logically speaking, there should have been no intersection between their paths, and Lan Yutang ought not to have known her.

The problem, however, lay in the fact that Lan Mo's biological mother was a top-tier spirit chef blessed with extraordinary culinary talent. The Lan family was a prominent merchant clan in Xinyue City, renowned particularly for their culinary estates. The importance of a top-tier spirit chef endowed with unique talents, such as Lan Mo's mother, to the clan can well be imagined. Although the family held her daughter—a defective physique incapable of cultivation—in utter contempt, they still maintained a polite facade. Thus, Lan Mo did not suffer any major hardships during her early childhood.

When Lan Mo was sixteen years old, her father met an accidental death while away on orders. Devastated and deeply in love with her husband, Lan Mo's mother listened to rumors claiming her husband's death was linked to internal family factions. In a fit of rage, she refused to serve the Lan clan any longer and attempted to leave the family estate taking her daughter with her. However, the Lan family still required her culinary skills and refused to let her go. Consequently, they used Lan Mo as leverage, forcibly detaining the mother and daughter pair for a full fifteen years.

Fifteen years later, when Lan Mo was thirty-one years old, her mother died of unknown causes, leaving behind a thirty-something Lan Mo who had only reached the sixth tier of body-refinement. Heartbroken beyond measure, Lan Mo hugged her mother's corpse day and night for seven days and seven nights without sleep or rest, appearing as though her soul had been sucked out of her—completely dazed and sluggish. Seeing that she was nothing more than a useless cripple in such a state, the Lan family paid her no further heed, leaving her to fend for herself.

One year after her mother's passing, Lan Mo disappeared. The members of the Lan family originally assumed she had long since perished. Who could have imagined that four hundred years later, this person whom everyone in the Lan family had long believed dead would suddenly reappear—and do so with such an overwhelming and tyrannical display of might? The magnitude of this shock can well be imagined.

Lan Yutang was five hundred and thirty years old and considered the person with the highest natural talent of this generation in the Lan family, yet he was currently only at the mid-stage Nascent Soul realm. Lan Mo, on the other hand, was a whole century younger than him, yet she was already at the eighth tier of Solidification. Not only was she at the eighth tier of Solidification, but she was also capable of fighting dozens of peak Nascent Soul spirit archers single-handedly. Everything unfolding before their eyes completely subverted the cognitive understanding of both Lan Yutang and Uncle Jiang.

"Perhaps she just happens to look similar," Uncle Jiang said, staring at the woman with astonishing combat power before him, increasingly unable to believe that she was the same Lan Mo who had once been as utterly hopeless as mud unable to support a wall.

Regardless of whether she was Lan Mo or not, she must be killed at all costs! Better to kill mistakenly than to let anyone escape! Recovering from his shock, Lan Yutang's eyes flashed with a surge of intense killing intent.

Bang! Yet, no sooner had his murderous thoughts stirred than the two scarlet-robed female cultivators, who had been locked in combat with Ji Mo for a while, were sent flying backwards. Lan Yutang was once again struck dumb. How was this possible? Both Feiyun and Feiqing were experts in the Void-Return realm; the Lan family, as a third-rank clan, possessed only six such experts in total. Yet the two of them working together could not even last twenty moves against Ji Mo? What kind of freakish monster was this young woman before them, who clearly appeared to be only at the Core Condensation realm?

Bang! Bang! Bang! Before the shock in Lan Yutang's heart could fade, right on the heels of Ji Mo sending those two Void-Return cultivators flying, the remaining sixteen expert archers were likewise knocked down from the air one by one by Lan Mo, lying motionless on the ground, leaving it unclear whether they were dead or alive. (To be continued...)