Severing Ties: The Sect Regrets My Departure

Chapter 240: The Battle Begins! Calling Talismans and Summoning Registers, Ink-Black Ruler!

The three experts from the White Jade Tower were not the only ones surprised. Even Lu Dongshan, despite having steeled himself for a brutal engagement, was left utterly bewildered.

“What in the hell… is the situation now?” he muttered, eyes scanning the unexpected reinforcements. “I know Gu Xiu is a master at making friends, but when did he get so chummy with the Four Seas Gang and this Ning Yuan fellow? They’re actually standing their ground against the White Jade Tower?”

His question was aimed at Wan Xiaobei, but it only left her scratching her head in confusion. “Maybe… perhaps… the Four Seas Gang has decided to turn over a new leaf and become good people?”

She looked as baffled as he was. Two days ago, the Four Seas Gang had suddenly sent lavish gifts to the Ten Thousand Treasures Pavilion, offering a formal apology for their past transgressions. They had declared that the gang would be “sworn brothers” from then on—available at a moment’s notice, asking for nothing in return.

At the time, Wan Xiaobei had written it off as a bizarre trick or a prelude to a second attack. But seeing them now, it was clear they were dead serious. They knew their opponent was the terrifying White Jade Tower, yet they had charged in anyway.

They’re either heroes or lunatics, she thought. The White Jade Tower had existed for millennia; though they kept a low profile, their hidden depths were legendary. Even she had to muster every ounce of her courage to lead the Pavilion’s forces here without informing her father. Yet, a local gang like the Four Seas Gang didn’t seem to have the slightest bit of fear.

“Hmph!” The handsome scholar at the head of the White Jade Tower group snorted with icy disdain. “A pack of ants daring to obstruct our path. Since you seek death… so be it.”

“Kill them all!”

The moment his command fell, the two experts flanking him stepped forward. Their auras surged, cresting like a tidal wave and crushing the atmosphere. Both were Nascent Soul powerhouses. The terrifying fluctuations of their power immediately weighed down on the defenders blocking the alley.

One of them struck instantly. He unsheathed a longsword and, without a word of warning, swept the blade in a wide horizontal arc. He clearly intended to decapitate the entire front line of the crowd with a single, contemptuous stroke.

“Arrogant dog!”

A roar erupted from the Four Seas Gang. A Nascent Soul expert leaped out, eager to prove his worth to Yu Sihai. His heavy saber flashed, wreathed in a thick, suffocating killing intent, as he brought it down in a vertical chop to intercept the sweep.

On paper, their strengths were comparable. Even if the gang member couldn’t win, he should have been able to lock the opponent in a stalemate.

But the reality defied all logic.

The imagined clash of steel never happened. The moment the heavy saber neared the opponent’s longsword, the saber—an Earth-grade treasure—shattered like fragile porcelain hitting a boulder. It disintegrated into a cloud of metallic shards.

“What?!” The gang expert’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head. Even if his weapon wasn’t top-tier, it shouldn’t have been reduced to dust in a single exchange between equals.

Panic flared, and he moved to shift his stance, but a sudden anomaly paralyzed him. An invisible force appeared out of nowhere, binding his body as if he had been caught in a silken web. It felt like a high-level confinement talisman had been activated directly on his skin.

As a Nascent Soul powerhouse, his reflexes were honed by a century of combat. He surged his spiritual Qi, shattering the invisible binds in a heartbeat.

But that heartbeat was all the opponent needed.

A cold flash of steel swept through the air. The seemingly indestructible longsword passed through his neck with a sickening shlick.

The expert’s head was sent spinning from his shoulders. His Nascent Soul tried to flee, darting out from the stump of his neck, but a burst of magical flame ignited mid-air, incinerating the tiny spirit into ash before it could travel ten feet.

A Nascent Soul… extinguished.

The entire sequence had taken only a few seconds. By the time the crowd registered what had happened, their pupils shrunk to pinpricks.

“How is that possible?” “They were both Nascent Souls! How did he die so fast?” “What did the White Jade Tower do? That was too bizarre!”

It was indeed bizarre. The broken blade, the sudden paralysis, the spontaneous combustion of the Nascent Soul—it was a sequence of unnatural, overlapping effects.

“It’s talismans!” Yin Wenshu shouted, his voice tight with apprehension. “Watch yourselves! They are using talismans to augment every move!”

He had seen it. In that brief exchange, the White Jade Tower assassin had used no fewer than three distinct effects: a weapon-shattering divine charm, a body-binding seal, and a soul-burning hex.

“If they used talismans, why didn’t I see them activate anything?” Yu Sihai asked, his brow furrowed in a deep, troubled scowl.

“That…” Yin Wenshu gritted his teeth, unable to provide a technical answer. He knew the man had been sabotaged, but he hadn’t seen a single slip of paper ignite. It was as if the spells had manifested of their own volition.

Qin Meran, her expression grim beneath her scholar’s disguise, spoke in a low, sharp tone. “Centuries ago, the Talisman Dao Supreme, Xu Mozi, possessed a technique that reached the heavens. It was called Calling Talismans and Summoning Registers. It allowed the user to form ordinary talismans with a mere thought and activate pre-made ones without a trace of movement or spiritual leakage.”

“Xu Mozi founded the Ink Chill Tower. The White Jade Tower is a splinter of that legacy. They must have inherited the technique. What we are seeing is the Calling Talismans and Summoning Registers.”

A collective chill ran down the spines of the defenders. The Talisman Path was terrifying precisely because it bypassed the usual limits of spiritual consumption, but its weakness was the time required to activate the medium. If the White Jade Tower could invoke spells invisibly and instantaneously, every movement they made was a hidden trap.

In a high-stakes battle, a single moment of interference—even for an instant—meant a messy death.

“You have a keen eye for a dead man,” the White Jade Tower assassin sneered. Without missing a beat, he thrust his longsword toward Qin Meran’s throat.

Qin Meran snorted. “Daring to point a blade at me? You’re courting death!”

She flipped her sleeve. A blur of black wood soared out—the Ink-Black Ruler.

The ruler was a modest tool, barely fourteen inches long and less than two inches wide. It was carved from ancient, pitch-black wood and etched with intricate runes and lines of tiny, meticulously engraved characters. Upon closer inspection, the text consisted of the words of the Sages.

The ruler erupted in a dazzling, golden brilliance. The sacred text shimmered, radiating a pressure that forced a sense of instinctive awe upon everyone present.

“Careful! Fall back!” The two experts behind the lead assassin shouted in alarm.

The sword cultivator didn’t need the warning. He sensed the danger and retreated instantly. However, while his body moved back, his sword did not. He released the hilt, commanding it through Sword Riding to continue its flight toward Qin Meran. He intended to behead her from a distance.

He had vastly underestimated the “humble scholar.”

The flying sword had barely traveled half the distance when the Ink-Black Ruler intercepted it. The ruler tapped the blade with the casual grace of a teacher correcting a wayward student.

Clack!

The sound was light, but the result was devastating. The longsword, still imbued with the weapon-shattering charm of the White Jade Tower, snapped into several jagged pieces.

The assassin’s soul nearly fled in fright. The ruler didn’t stop; it accelerated, chasing him with a speed that defied his ability to flee.

Desperate, the cultivator threw out a handful of talismans, hoping to create a barrier of explosions to buy himself a few seconds of life. But it was futile. The Ink-Black Ruler ignored the billowing fire and lightning, passing through the chaos unaffected.

Clack!

The ruler struck the Nascent Soul expert’s skull. The force sent him crashing into the cobblestones, blood pouring from a massive head wound.

Qin Meran moved her fingers, forming a hand seal to deliver the killing blow. But before the ruler could descend, she sensed a needle-thin threat. She snapped the ruler back to her side.

Clang!

A metallic spark flew as the ruler deflected a steel needle aimed at her heart. Looking closer, she realized it wasn’t a needle at all—it was a single hair from a high-grade writing brush.

The “hair” retreated, flying back to the hand of the handsome scholar leading the group. He had intervened just in time to save his companion. His gaze was now fixated on Qin Meran with cold, predatory intensity.

“I underestimated you,” he said. “For someone who supposedly failed their Divine Invocation, you possess a remarkable treasure. Who are you, really?”

Qin Meran frowned but didn’t bother to reply. She could sense that this man was at the Soul Formation stage. He was dangerous.

“No matter,” the scholar said, dismissively. “Today, you will become part of the earth. That ruler is quite a fine piece. I think I’ll take it for myself.”

He didn’t wait for a response. He lunged, his hand transforming into a giant spectral claw to seize the Ink-Black Ruler.

Qin Meran feinted a retreat, pulling the ruler back. The scholar accelerated, his fingers brushing the black wood. A look of triumph flashed across his face as his grip tightened.

But then he saw it—the slight, mocking curl of Qin Meran’s lip.

“What—?”

He tried to release the weapon, but it was too late. The Ink-Black Ruler exploded with a blinding, holy light. The talisman seals etched into the wood bloomed like golden lotus flowers, forming a divine cage that locked the Soul Formation expert in place, paralyzing his movements entirely.

The scene left everyone stunned. No one expected the “scholar Ning Yuan” to have a trump card capable of trapping a Soul Formation master. Even Yin Wenshu looked on in horror.

“Don’t just stand there gawking!” Qin Meran shouted, her voice strained. “Kill them now! I can’t hold him for long!”

The Four Seas Gang exchanged glances. Yin Wenshu was the first to snap out of it. He raised his arm, his voice a battle cry. “Do not hesitate! Strike!”

“The White Jade Tower is too dangerous to let live! Kill them all!”

Yu Sihai roared his agreement. “Four Seas Gang—ATTACK!”

The floodgates opened. Despite their leader being trapped, the remaining two White Jade Tower experts—one of whom was already half-dead—turned into human artillery. With the Calling Talismans and Summoning Registers technique, they didn’t need to weave signs. Every gesture detonated a fresh wave of fire, ice, and lightning.

The alley became a meat grinder. The sheer volume of talismans being detonated caused widespread casualties among the gang members.

In the midst of the carnage, Yin Wenshu didn’t join the fray. His eyes were fixed entirely on “Ning Yuan.”

The way the scholar fought… the poise… the aura…

I know you, he thought, his heart pounding. You feel entirely too familiar.