I Was Forced to Marry a “Trash” Cultivator, But She Turned Out to Be a Reborn Empress!

Before the gates of the ancient Spirit Herb Garden, a dozen Tianyao Sect disciples leveled their glares at Shen Xian, their faces masks of overbearing arrogance.

Jiang Yingyue tilted her chin upward, her gaze sweeping over him with calculated disdain. In her mind, this lone cultivator should have been trembling, his knees buckling under the collective weight of a premier orthodox sect’s righteous fury. She adjusted her posture, puffing out her chest as she savored the chance to bolster her sect’s prestige before the gathered masses.

Shen Xian’s response was a thin, mocking curl of his lip. “And if I refuse your ‘mercy’?”

“Refuse?” Jiang Yingyue’s eyes flashed with a cold, predatory light. “Then prepare to drown in the wrath of the Tianyao Sect!”

“Senior Sister, please!” Bai Qingyao surged forward, her face pale with desperation.

“Junior Sister, stand down!” Jiang Yingyue’s voice boomed, reinforced by the crushing Pressure of a Golden Core perfection. She activated the [Heavenly Sound Art], her voice vibrating with a soul-shaking frequency that forced Bai Qingyao to stumble back. “Have you forgotten the seventy-second rule of our code? To collude with the heretical is to be stripped of your path and cast out as a pariah. Step back, and I shall forget this lapse in judgment.”

Bai Qingyao’s lips trembled, but before she could speak, several fellow disciples seized her arms and hauled her back into the golden barrier.

The surrounding observers—elders from the Divine Wood Sect and warriors from the Wind Thunder Sect—unanimously retreated. The air was thick with the hum of the [Heavenly Sound Art], a technique that had silenced countless enemies of the orthodox path.

Jiang Yingyue felt the weight of their gazes and stood taller. She tapped her jade flute against her palm, causing the seven inlaid spirit pearls to pulse with a brilliant, rhythmic light. This was a top-grade Spirit Treasure, a gift from her Master that few in the mortal realms would ever even see.

“Senior Sister is too kind!” Yang Tiantian chirped, her voice dripping with sycophancy. “This demon didn’t show an ounce of hesitation when he let the insects devour Senior Sister Fu…” She squeezed out a few crocodile tears, describing Fu Shuang’s end with gruesome, embellished detail.

Jiang Yingyue’s expression softened into one of performative grief. “Junior Sister Fu was a beacon of talent… a tragedy that must be avenged.”

She leveled the jade flute at Shen Xian. Seven beams of golden light erupted from the instrument’s holes, weaving through the air like lances. “I gave you a choice. You chose death. Now, I shall excise this rot!”

“Ten Directions Spirit-Locking Array! Form up!”

Ten disciples blurred into motion, their positions instantly aligning with the celestial star charts. They hoisted their jade waist pendants into the air, and ten pillars of light converged to form a shimmering, impenetrable heavenly net.

“One of the Three Great Arrays of Tianyao!” an onlooker gasped.

Jiang Yingyue stood at the array’s eye, her silks billowing in a gale of her own making. She infused her voice with [Spiritual Power], ensuring every word echoed across the wasteland. “I give you three breaths. Three… two…”

As she reached the final count, she caught Shen Xian’s gaze. He wasn’t afraid. He looked bored, as if he were watching a poorly acted street play.

“Die!” she shrieked, her pride snapping.

The jade flute cut a crescent arc through the air. The ten disciples slammed their hands into a unison seal, and the golden net suddenly blazed with the silver characters of the [Supreme Demon-Suppressing Scripture].

“Those are the Demon-Suppressing Seals!” a Wind Thunder Sect disciple shouted. “They’re designed to unravel any evil cultivation on contact!”

Jiang Yingyue smirked, tapping the flute to her lips. “If you beg now—”

She stopped. Shen Xian was laughing. It was a soft, genuine sound that made her meticulously applied makeup feel like a clown’s mask.

“You wretch! Kill him!”

Ten flood-dragons of golden light pounced. Jiang Yingyue could already see the man’s Meridians snapping under the weight of the scripture’s judgment.

Shen Xian simply raised a hand.

“Break.”

A single word. A phantom projection of the [Heavenly Mechanism Compass] materialized at his fingertip, its internal rings spinning with a terrifying, high-velocity hum.

CRACK.

The sound of shattering glass filled the valley. The “unbreakable” Ten Directions Spirit-Locking Array disintegrated into sparkling dust. The ten disciples were thrown backward, their jade pendants exploding into powder as they coughed up mouthfuls of vital blood.

“What?” Jiang Yingyue’s heart skipped a beat. Her flute grew white-hot, the seven spirit pearls shattering one by one. This array was supposed to hold a Nascent Soul expert!

Before she could process the failure, the sky turned red.

Countless threads of blood-colored [Qi] rained down like a crimson monsoon.

“Ah!”

The screams were short-lived. The ten disciples were struck in the center of their brows by the crimson needles, their bodies stiffening and collapsing before they could even blink.

Yang Tiantian turned to flee, but three blood threads caught her mid-stride—piercing her throat, her heart, and her Dantian simultaneously. She didn’t even have time to scream before her body vanished in a fine mist of gore.

Shen Xian raised his left hand, and the [Blood Lotus] in his palm bloomed in a blinding, rhythmic pulse. The area within a hundred zhang became a literal cage of hanging blood-filaments.

“Form up! Protect the leader!” the survivors wailed, huddling together behind a barrage of defensive Dharma Treasures.

A bronze mirror rose to intercept a thread, only to be punched through by three more, exploding into a cloud of copper shards. The girl holding it slumped, a neat hole appearing between her eyes.

“Senior Sister, save—”

One disciple reached for Jiang Yingyue’s sleeve, but her hand turned into a withered claw mid-air. Her skin shriveled against her bones, her essence sucked dry by the threads in a heartbeat. With a dry clatter, a skeleton wrapped in tattered silk collapsed onto the red crystals.

The onlookers surged back in terror.

“This… this is a Soul-Extraction and Blood-Refining technique!” a Divine Wood Sect elder stammered, his beard shaking.

Jiang Yingyue stared at the husk at her feet. Her breath came in ragged, shallow hitches. Her manicured nails dug so deep into her palms that blood dripped from her fists.

“You… you dare…” Her voice was a cracked, hideous rasp. The phoenix hairpin in her hair rattled violently against her skull as her teeth chattered in a mix of fury and soul-deep fear.

The Wind Thunder Sect elders began forming defensive seals, no longer watching a show but preparing for a slaughter.

“Senior Sister Jiang…” A trembling disciple reached out to her, but Jiang Yingyue violently threw her off.

“Kill him!” she shrieked, a sound so shrill it set teeth on edge. “KILL HIM!”

Her makeup was a ruined mess of black streaks and tears. She reached into her robes and produced a crimson jade talisman carved with the word ‘Tianyao.’ It pulsed with a dangerous, unstable radiance.

Bai Qingyao’s eyes widened. “Senior Sister, no! That’s the Sect-Destroying Mark!”

“Shut up!” Jiang Yingyue screamed, crushing the jade. A pillar of blood-red light shot into the heavens. “Today, one of us ends!”