Shen Ying was eating at a rapid speed. Perhaps it was because she had already missed two meals. Within 20 minutes, a table full of food had disappeared. All that was left was the sauces on the various plates. Yi Qing cleared the empty plates from the table and replaced them with freshly cooked dishes. Then, he returned to the kitchen to continue cooking.
Shen Ying was making the food look too delicious. Lonemoon, who had been sitting across from her for a long time, could not help but reach out for some with his chopsticks. Just before the food entered his mouth, he felt a sharp pain in his cheek. For the umpteenth time, he screamed, "Ow! It hurts, it hurts, it hurts..."
Lonemoon tossed his chopsticks aside and rubbed his swollen face. He emanated a cold aura as he turned to glare at Shen Ying indignantly. "You freaking knew that I would not be able to heal these wounds using immortal sorcery. Why couldn't you control your strength?" He wondered if he would be disfigured for life.
Shen Ying swallowed her mouthful of food, looked at him icily and tutted. "If I had not done that, the invaders would not have left your body. Given your skills, you would not have been able to get rid of them for the next 500 years. What's more, what right do you have – as a weak chicken who could not even fend off invaders – to ask me to control my strength?"
Lonemoon, the weak chicken: "..."
The Celestial Emperors, weak chickens: "..."
The Skyfiend, weak chickens: "..."
She made absolute sense. They were struggling to find something to say in retort.
"Exalted... Exalted Goddess!" Seeing that Lonemoon's swollen face was flushing even more from being embarrassed, Little Black could not help but step in. "What exactly were those things? How did they take control of our bodies so easily?" What they went through did not feel like a possession – it felt more like something else had entered their body so that even their primordial spirits were affected. The longer those things stayed in their bodies, the weaker their primordial spirit felt. Although they were alright now, each of them could feel that their cultivation levels had deteriorated slightly.
"Given your intellect, I find it hard to explain." Shen Ying finally looked up at the rows of people staring at her. Her expression was hard. "That's why there is no need for you to know."
The crowd: "..." That was piercing.
Lonemoon tried to adjust the swells on his face so that he could talk. Facing Shen Ying, he said, "What's going to happen next, then?" She had already dealt with those invaders who suddenly entered their world, but the mushroom world still existed.
The hand that Shen Ying had been using to scoop her rice paused in midair as her expression fell. A moment later, she thought about something and said in a low voice, "For now, they do not have the strength to do another invasion. Seal that little world and break off any connections it might have to any other world."
Lonemoon nodded. "Although those people had come from a whole other plane, for a long time nobody had realized that they were here. They had probably already taken full control of that world. Now, the only thing they could do was seal up that world so that the rest of the small worlds did not get affected."
Everybody else looked confused for a long while before they finally began to understand.
"Exalted Goddess, you mean to say that those things came from the lower realm?!"
"Such things actually exist in the lower realm. Even we were almost defeated by their technique. Then other realms..."
One by one, their faces turned pale as they thought about how serious the problem was.
"Exalted Goddess is right. We should seal up that small world," they agreed after awhile. "If Exalted Goddess do not mind, we can offer some help."
"That's right. If we combine our powers, we can give it a shot and seal up that small realm for good. We'll make sure that it will never again see the light of day!"
"We cannot let that thing invade the Three Realms again."
"If we could not fend for ourselves against them, the living creatures in other mortal realms would be wiped out by them for sure!"
"We cannot delay dealing with this matter anymore. Let's take the chance now while we're slightly better to act!"
They got to their feet one by one, their expressions somber. Yet, Lonemoon could not take them seriously. If their faces had not been so swollen, perhaps they would have sounded more persuasive.
Lonemoon scanned the group of people whose faces and noses looked just as swollen and bluish as his. He was shocked that the Celestial Emperors and Skyfiends, who normally minded their own business, would band together like this. What's more, they were offering to help even before Shen Ying made any requests.
Wait! An unbelievable thought slipped into his mind. He took a closer look at the group. Shen Ying was right – she had used a special technique when she beat them up earlier. That was why the invaders of their consciousness left their bodies. It took them a full hour before they regained their consciousness, and that was because Yi Qing had tried his best to drag them back to reality. At the same time, however, their wounds could not be healed using sorcery. Instead, all they could do was wait as they recovered naturally.
Could it be that they were so excited because... they did not want to go back to their respective territories with their faces looking this swollen? Was that the reason they were offering to help?
They were afraid of being embarrassed – that must be it!
"..." Lonemoon pursed his lips, causing a sharp pain to spread across his face once again. He rubbed his face. Why did he suddenly empathize with them? Why did Shen Ying specifically target all of their faces?
He turned to glance at Shen Ying. "What do you think?"
Shen Ying lowered her gaze as something flashed across her eyes. A moment later, she nodded. "Alright, go ahead!"
"Thank you all." Lonemoon nodded at the group.
One by one, the people in the group cupped their fists and moved to conjure seals.
"Wait," Lonemoon suddenly called out. He turned to face Yu Hong. Perhaps it was because she was a body cultivator. Her wounds looked the lightest out of them all. There were only a few patches of blue-green on her face, which did not even look swollen. "Yu Hong, bring everyone to Lan Hua to retrieve a few pills. We cannot help with their superficial wounds, but we can at least help with their internal injuries."
"Yes, Elder!" Yu Hong turned and led the group out.
They did not stand on ceremony. Afterall, the battle had caused them to deplete most of the pills they had on hand. It was true that they did not have many left. Therefore, they followed behind Yu Hong. One by one, they set up isolation arrays around themselves, so that the cultivators they met on the way would not be able to recognize them for who they were. However, their sorcery could only work on those lower-level cultivators. As for whether Lan Hua would poke fun at them upon seeing their faces, Lonemoon could not be sure. He guessed that Lan Hua would be laughing for at least a year.
Only after the group left did Lonemoon turn to face Shen Ying. As if something was weighing down on his mind, he said worriedly, "Shen Ying, I think the invader that controlled me was different from the others."
Shen Ying turned to look at him.
Lonemoon frowned, unsure if he was mistaken. He was different from ordinary people after all – invaders would not take control of his consciousness as easily as they would ordinary people. However, the one who did take control of his body was different. "I felt like he had a strength that could match mine." Their powers felt very similar, yet very different at the same time."
"Did he have the assistant's seal?" Shen Ying suddenly asked.
"Eh?" Lonemoon paused. "That power was from the assistant's seal!"
"Your sensing is right. He was indeed no ordinary invader."
"Then... he is..."
"The assistant of that foreign realm!"
"... What? Why did an assistant of another plane have to do this?!"
"Plane invaders are not as simple as you imagine them to be," Shen Ying explained matter-of-factly. "Invaders are not just ordinary people from foreign realms."
"..." In other words, it was probable that they had just been invaded by a whole other plane.
Holy shit, that was practically a declaration of war!