Dual Cultivation System: My Cultivation Was Crippled, So I Rely on Intimacy to Level Up

Chapter 247: Wait, Are They All Sisters Here?

Yang Zhonglei’s face was a mask of thunder.

Song Buqi stared fixedly at Su Xuan, his voice dropping to a lethal, measured crawl. “What… did you just say?”

Without warning, the full, crushing weight of Song Buqi’s Nascent Soul Aura Pressure detonated, bearing down on Su Xuan from every conceivable angle.

The sheer atmospheric gravity hit Su Xuan like a physical blow. The metallic tang of blood flooded his throat. He swayed violently, a thin crimson line trickling from the corner of his mouth.

His legs turned to jelly, but through sheer, bloody-minded willpower, he locked his knees and kept his spine rigidly straight, refusing to let Gao Feihuang’s unconscious body slip even an inch from his shoulder.

Li Juefeng snorted coldly. With a casual flick of his voluminous sleeve, an invisible, perfectly countered force rippled outward, instantly neutralizing Song Buqi’s Aura Pressure.

“Junior Brother Song,” Li Juefeng said, his tone dripping with condescension. “Is there truly a need to throw a tantrum at a junior disciple?”

He turned his gaze back to Su Xuan. “You all performed exceptionally well.”

With a flick of his wrist, Li Juefeng produced a palm-sized Compass. The device was carved from flawless black jade, featuring concentric, interlocking dials that began to glow sequentially as he injected his spiritual light.

He tapped the faceplate, feeding a precise pulse of Mana into the mechanism.

“Take Gao Feihuang to the Li family’s private estate for medical treatment. Certain factions have suffered catastrophic losses today, and I will not rule out the possibility of petty, dishonorable ambushes outside the valley walls. Once this operation concludes, you will all be heavily compensated for your service.”

The Compass needle spun into a blur before locking onto a coordinate with a clear, resonant chime. Where the needle pointed, the empty air rippled like disturbed water, tearing open a glowing portal.

Before Su Xuan could even formulate a word of gratitude, a gentle but absolute kinetic force billowed from the portal, lifting him and Gao Feihuang off their feet and dragging them inside. The tear in reality snapped shut instantly, leaving no trace behind.

The murderous gloom vanished from Yang Zhonglei’s face as if it had never existed, replaced by his trademark, impenetrable politician’s smile. “Senior Brother Juefeng, please. You jest. The disciples of the Yang family hold their honor in the highest regard; we would never stoop to such base tactics.”

Li Juefeng pocketed the Compass and clasped his hands loosely behind his back. His gaze bypassed the other two Peak Masters, staring thoughtfully toward the invisible depths of the forbidden zone. His voice was casual, almost conversational.

“Fascinating, isn’t it? A squad comprised of five Golden Cores and a Viscera Refining expert… yet they somehow allowed an early-stage Foundation Establishment scout like Fang Lizhe to escape completely unscathed.”

Song Buqi’s face turned the color of bruised iron.

Li Juefeng didn’t spare him another glance. Smoothly changing the subject, he flipped his hand to reveal three pristine tea leaves. They were a vibrant emerald, thin as cicada wings, and laced with natural, intricate veins that seemed to hum with inherent Dao Rhyme. The unbrewed fragrance alone was intoxicating.

“Gentlemen,” Li Juefeng offered, “would you care to sample my newly acquired ‘Spirit Immortal Buds’ while we wait?”

Tongming Valley. The subterranean ley lines.

The deeper they went, the more viscous the ghost mist became. The ambient demonic energy was so suffocatingly thick it felt like trying to breathe underwater.

A faint, divine golden light pulsed steadily in Du Chuyao’s eyes. Deep within her pupils, liquid jade seemed to swirl and flow. Wherever her gaze fell, the oppressive ghost mist thinned out by a third, peeling back the darkness.

“Thirty zhang ahead, ten o’clock. Three feet below the bedrock,” she instructed softly, her tone absolute.

Zhou Kai moved instantly. He hefted the Chaotic Sky Hammer and brought it crashing down onto the exact coordinate she specified.

BOOM!

The bedrock splintered and caved. A geyser of hyper-condensed, ink-black Evil Qi rocketed out of the fissure. Mixed within the debris and flying dirt were several fist-sized, pitch-black stones that pulsed with a dark, crystalline luster—Evil Soul Crystals.

And they were of exceptional quality.

Wu Hongxiao let out a booming laugh. Her crimson spear darted forward like a striking viper. With a masterful flick of the tassel, she generated a localized vacuum, neatly snatching every single scattered Evil Soul Crystal out of the air and depositing them into her sleeve.

“Over there,” Du Chuyao pointed toward an unremarkable fissure in the cavern wall. “Soul Channeling Nether Grass. The ambient energy suggests roughly two thousand years of medicinal maturation.”

Li Youci raised a hand, flicking her index finger. A mote of black, lotus-shaped Nether Fire drifted across the cavern. It struck the rock face, silently melting a wide hole through the dense stone to reveal a delicate, ethereal plant pulsing with soft spiritual light.

Zhou Kai stepped up personally. He completely withdrew his Mana, knowing the volatile energy would ruin the harvest. Moving with surgical precision, he used a specialized jade knife to carefully excavate the Soul Channeling Nether Grass, keeping the root system and surrounding soil perfectly intact before sealing it inside a stasis box.

Li Youci watched his clumsy but intensely focused efforts. A genuine sparkle lit up her eyes, and a soft, unconscious smile touched her lips. “Be careful, husband. That strain is incredibly fragile. If you intend to transplant it, it requires a constant, daily infusion of either pure ghost energy or refined soul power. If you miss a feeding, it will wither and die within three days.”

The word “husband” slipped out with flawless, practiced ease.

A few paces away, Wu Hongxiao paused mid-toss with an Evil Soul Crystal. Her eyes darted rapidly between Li Youci and Zhou Kai, the gears visibly turning in her head until the realization finally clicked.

She stepped up behind Zhou Kai and jabbed the butt of her spear into his lower back—hard enough to get his attention, but soft enough not to bruise.

She tipped her head back and let out a roaring, utterly delighted laugh. “Well, I’ll be damned! Here I was thinking the pampered Young Miss was just tagging along for the combat experience. Turns out we’re all playing for the same team! You sly bastard, Zhou Kai! You’ve been keeping some massive secrets under wraps!”

Shen Hanyi did not join the banter. Her gaze swept past the trio, locking onto Du Chuyao. Her eyes were as sharp and unforgiving as a drawn blade.

“Fairy Du,” Shen Hanyi said, her voice dropping the temperature in the cavern. “Your Spirit Ying Sacred Body and Jade Soul Golden Pupils are undeniably miraculous. My husband’s retinue is not lacking in elite talent.”

She paused, the ice in her tone hardening. “However. I was under the impression that Fairy Du was publicly and officially engaged to the Holy Son of your Sect, Dong Cheng. The entire cultivation world knows of this arrangement. So… what exactly is the nature of your current involvement here?”

Du Chuyao met the Sword Immortal’s hostile scrutiny without blinking. Her expression remained a mask of perfect aristocratic calm. “Sword Fairy, that political arrangement was dictated by the Sect elders. It has absolutely nothing to do with me.”

It was a perfectly noncommittal, politically bulletproof answer.

Li Youci let out a soft, mocking chuckle. She strolled over to Shen Hanyi, intimately looping her arm through the Sword Immortal’s, but her gaze remained fixed on Du Chuyao with absolute zero warmth.

“Is that so?” Li Youci purred. “So, let me get this straight. Your engagement to Dong Cheng is fully active and unresolved, yet you are intimately entangling yourself with my husband. If Dong Cheng were to discover this little arrangement, wouldn’t you be placing my husband squarely in the crosshairs of a Nascent Soul Sect?”

Zhou Kai tuned out the escalating turf war. His mind was already rapidly dissecting the tactical implications of the conversation.

Dong Cheng. Golden Core, seventh layer. Wielder of the Three Thousand Brilliant Flames.

Rather than sitting around waiting for the inevitable confrontation when the cuckolded Holy Son eventually found out, it made infinitely more tactical sense to seize the initiative.

He’s currently operating inside Calamity Abyss Valley, Zhou Kai mused. If I can bait him into a trap, I can cripple him. Put him in a coma that requires a solid three to five years of Secluded Cultivation to heal.

His eyes sharpened with cold, lethal focus.

His face remained a neutral mask, but a razor-thin thread of Divine Sense slipped quietly into Li Youci’s Consciousness Sea.

Youci, regarding our mutual problem with Dong Cheng… I have a tactical proposal.

The group pressed deeper into the subterranean network, the environment growing increasingly hostile.

Along the route, newly spawned fiendish demons and vicious ghosts occasionally lunged from the churning mist. These low-level entities lacked physical cohesion and basic intelligence; most of them were pulverized by the group’s ambient Mana fluctuations before they could even close to melee range.

But as the tunnel sloped downward, the caliber of the hostiles spiked violently.

The narrow passage abruptly widened, spilling them out into a massive underground basin. Several towering, oppressive auras instantly locked onto them, physically blocking their advance.

Holding the center of the basin was a massive fiendish demon standing three zhang tall. Its hulking frame was plated in thick, overlapping black scales, and it was currently throwing its head back in a deafening, chest-beating roar.

Its eyes were pools of blank, scarlet rage—completely devoid of higher reasoning, driven solely by the primal instinct to rip living flesh apart. The demonic energy radiating from it was so dense it warped the air, projecting an Aura Pressure on par with a mid-stage Golden Core cultivator.

Flanking the behemoth were two vicious ghosts, both radiating early-stage Golden Core power. Their translucent bodies flickered in and out of the black fog, and the passive Yin wind bleeding from them felt like icy needles scraping across exposed skin.

“I’ve got the vanguard,” Zhou Kai ordered, stepping past the women. The Chaotic Sky Hammer hummed in his grip, vibrating in tune with his surging battle intent.

“I need to establish a baseline. I want to see if I can genuinely trade blows with a mid-stage Golden Core entity in pure melee.” He cracked his neck. “And I need to pressure-test my Spirit Insects.”

Shen Hanyi’s delicate brows pinched together. “Its demonic energy reservoir is massive. Do not get careless.”

Zhou Kai threw her a confident grin over his shoulder. “Relax. I know my limits.”

He vanished.

The Five Emperors Prison Suppression Sutra roared to life. Amplified by the Heavenly Sutra, his heart hammered against his ribs like a siege engine. The power of the Red Emperor violently ignited his Vitality, flooding his muscles and bones with explosive, exponentially scaling kinetic energy!

The fiendish demon tracked his blur. With a deafening roar, it threw a punch. Its fist—the size of a boulder and wrapped in suffocating demonic energy—plummeted straight down toward Zhou Kai’s skull.

The strike was obscenely fast. The sheer atmospheric displacement of the punch triggered a sonic boom before the fist even connected. The kinetic force alone was enough to instantly pulp a standard Golden Core cultivator.

Zhou Kai didn’t bother dodging. He planted his feet and swung his hammer up to meet the falling meteor.

The powers of the Five Elements coiled around the head of the Chaotic Sky Hammer, projecting a swirling phantom of a starlit galaxy as the iron collided with the demonic fist.

CLANG!

The apocalyptic metallic shriek nearly ruptured their eardrums. A catastrophic shockwave detonated from the point of impact, violently peeling a layer of solid rock off the basin floor.

Zhou Kai felt a terrifying, mountainous force travel down the haft of the hammer. The webbing between his thumb and forefinger screamed in protest, and his entire right arm instantly went dead numb. He was thrown backward, his boots skidding across the stone for three heavy paces before he finally arrested his momentum.

But the demon fared worse.

The concussive force of the hammer strike shattered the heavy black scales running up its entire arm. Black blood geysered from the fissures, and the three-zhang behemoth was actually knocked off balance, staggering backward under the sheer kinetic weight of the blow.

In a pure contest of raw, physical strength, Zhou Kai had won the first exchange!

“ROOAARR!”

Enraged by the pain, the demon went completely berserk. It unhinged its jaw, vomiting a torrential blast of highly concentrated demonic energy. The acidic miasma was incredibly lethal—designed to rot physical flesh and rapidly corrode the spiritual integrity of Dharma Treasures.

Zhou Kai didn’t retreat. He triggered Dragon Roaming the Void. His physical form dissolved into an afterimage right as the acidic blast washed over him. His True Body flickered into existence like a ghost, appearing directly on the demon’s exposed flank.

Now. “Swarm!” he roared.

Bzzzzzzzzzz!

A massive, suffocating black cloud erupted from his sleeves. Tens of thousands of Split-Back Katydids poured into the basin, instantly engulfing the giant demon and the two flanking ghosts.

Clang-clang-clang-clang!

The cavern echoed with the sound of a violent hailstorm hammering against sheet metal. Dense showers of sparks erupted across the demon’s scaly hide.

The behemoth possessed terrifying strength, but it lacked intelligence, had zero concept of defensive spells, and carried no Dharma Treasures. Its sole defense was its physical body, which was supposedly harder than refined iron.

It held up. The mid-stage demon’s physiology was absurdly durable. The Katydids’ mandibles and hammer-legs gouged thousands of dents into its scales, but failed to breach the armor.

The two early-stage ghosts, however, were not so lucky. They lacked physical density. The relentless, kinetic bombardment of the swarm battered their ethereal forms, causing them to flicker violently as their auras plummeted.

The giant demon thrashed wildly, swinging its massive arms like wrecking balls. The sheer velocity of its strikes generated razor-sharp wind shear. With every blind sweep, hundreds of Split-Back Katydids were crushed into paste or ripped apart by the drag.

The ghosts contributed to the massacre, spewing corrosive black mist that melted the insects by the hundreds.

Watching from the flank, Zhou Kai’s eye twitched violently. His heart squeezed in genuine pain.

While the swarm drew aggro, he deployed his elites. Three streaks of emerald light shot silently from the shadows, executing a synchronized strike aimed directly at the micro-fissures in the demon’s throat scales.

One Jade Arm Mantis launched a frontal distraction. The second cloaked itself for a lethal ambush. The third hovered out of range, rapidly crossing its scythes to launch a barrage of highly compressed wind blades.

Clang! Clang! Ssssss—

Amidst the shower of sparks, only the ambushing mantis managed to wedge a scythe between the scales. The wind blades and the frontal assault barely left superficial white scratches on the beast’s thick neck, drawing only a few measly drops of black blood.

To a three-zhang behemoth, the damage didn’t even qualify as a paper cut.

“ROOAARR!”

It wasn’t a roar of pain; it was a roar of insulted pride.

The demon completely abandoned Zhou Kai. Its massive, scarlet palm blotted out the cavern ceiling, crashing down toward the three mantises. The localized Aura Pressure generated by the falling strike instantly locked the three insects in place, paralyzing their evasion protocols.

Zhou Kai’s heart skipped a beat.

He didn’t hesitate. He forcefully yanked on his mental tether, overriding their paralysis. The three Jade Arm Mantises shot backward, missing the crushing impact of the demon’s palm by a fraction of a millimeter before diving safely back into his Spirit Beast Bag.

Even from the safety of the bag, Zhou Kai could feel the primal terror radiating from his pets. A microsecond slower, and the insects he had spent a fortune cultivating would have been reduced to bloody smears on the rock.

Their baseline grade is just too low… Zhou Kai surveyed the battlefield. His Katydid swarm was still frantically throwing itself at the demon, but they were dropping like flies. Every insect crushed was another pile of Spirit Stones burned to ash.

Shen Hanyi stepped forward, her pale hand resting lightly on the hilt of her sword. Her knuckles were stark white.

“Husband. That is enough.”

“Recall!” Zhou Kai barked.

The surviving Katydids broke off their suicidal assault, rolling backward like a retreating black tide and vanishing into his sleeves. The basin floor was carpeted with thousands of crushed insect corpses.

Shen Hanyi advanced.

“Hanyi,” Li Youci called out casually. “Mind your collateral damage. Do not scatter the souls of those two little ghosts.”

Shen Hanyi offered a curt, barely-there nod.

The sword hummed. It wasn’t a deafening roar, but a crystalline, piercing chime that cut through the chaos of the cavern.

The blade cleared the scabbard.

But it wasn’t one sword. It was thirteen.

She held the primary blade. The other twelve manifested as streams of liquid silver light, orbiting her body with the fluid grace of swimming dragons.

“Execute.”

Before the word fully left her lips, the swords vanished.

The twelve silver streaks crossed the basin instantly, weaving together in mid-air at blinding speed. Their brilliance flared, forcibly locking together to construct a massive, silver sword prison etched with profound, glowing runes!

The cage slammed down, perfectly trapping the two ghosts. Millions of microscopic, golden sword threads crisscrossed the interior of the prison, humming with lethal potential energy, but holding their strikes in check.

Trapped within the grid, the two ghosts visibly degraded. Their forms grew terrifyingly thin and transparent, flickering wildly like candles in a hurricane. Yet, the precise, overbearing pressure of the sword cage forced them to maintain their cohesion. They were absolutely paralyzed, locked in place, screaming silently in agony.

With the secondary targets neutralized and prepped for capture, Shen Hanyi finally turned her full attention to the main event.

Deep within her icy, indifferent eyes, a microscopic dark red vortex bloomed. It expanded violently, like a drop of ink in clear water, instantly consuming her entire sclera.

Her sword intent remained impossibly sharp, but it was now laced with a heavy, terrifyingly dark demonic nature. The two opposing energies—the pristine immortal sharpness and the chaotic demonic malice—erupted from her body, flooding the entire basin!

The fiendish demon didn’t care. It charged, crashing toward Shen Hanyi with the momentum of a falling mountain!

Facing down a demonic fist capable of shattering bedrock, Shen Hanyi didn’t retreat a single inch. She flickered forward, moving like a phantom slipping through the night, meeting the behemoth head-on.

She didn’t block.

With a microscopic flick of her wrist, she traced a flawless, elegant arc with her blade, silently slicing toward the demon’s forearm.

There was no dramatic metallic clash. Just the wet, heavy sound of a razor easily parting thick leather.

The demon’s roar choked off, mutating into a brief, confused hiss of agony.

For the first time since its creation, the pure, mindless killing intent in its scarlet eyes was fractured by a completely alien emotion.

Absolute terror.

Its massive, tree-trunk of an arm had been severed cleanly at the elbow. The amputation was as smooth as a polished mirror. To make matters worse, tendrils of gold-red sword energy clung to the stump like ravenous maggots, violently shredding the demon’s regenerative energy and making it impossible to reattach the limb.

Having crippled the beast in a single, effortless stroke, Shen Hanyi didn’t pause to admire her work. She transformed into a blur of gold-red lightning, utilizing the demon’s massive bulk as cover while she systematically dismantled it at point-blank range.

Watching her glide through the combat zone with the terrifying grace of a lethal dancer, Zhou Kai turned to Li Youci, who was leaning casually against the cavern wall.

“I don’t get it,” Zhou Kai admitted, his brow furrowed in genuine frustration. “A decent chunk of my Katydids have already evolved to the late second-stage. Factor in the buffs from the Heavenly Sutra, and their combat output should be brushing the ceiling of the third-stage. As a unified swarm, the compounding force should be catastrophic. So why did two basic charge cycles result in a near wipeout?”

He crossed his arms. “The Spirit Feeding Precious Record explicitly states that insect swarm tactics are highly viable.”

The entire doctrine of swarm combat relied on absolute fearlessness and leveraging overwhelming numbers to crush superior quality. But his swarm was acting like highly expensive cannon fodder. They hit hard, but they died instantly.

Li Youci scoffed, looking at him with mild pity. “Your swarm lacks awakened intelligence. They possess exactly zero tactical awareness. All they know how to do is charge blindly forward and bite. Practically speaking, what is the difference between your bugs and that brainless ape currently getting dissected by Hanyi?”

She tapped a finger against her temple. “Insect cultivation requires ‘nurturing,’ yes, but it equally demands ‘control.’ You’ve mastered the art of being a very wealthy feeder. You haven’t even cracked the primer on actual swarm command. Of course they look like trash to you.”

“Command?” Zhou Kai argued, a spark of annoyance flaring. “What do you think I was doing out there? I gave the attack order.”

“No,” Li Youci said flatly. She pushed off the wall and stepped up beside him. “What you did out there doesn’t qualify as ‘command.’ You opened a cage and yelled at your dogs to bite someone. That is amateur hour.”

She pointed toward the battlefield. “True insect control is a highly complex logistical Formation. It utilizes Divine Sense as the neural network and Mana as the structural scaffolding!”

She gestured toward Shen Hanyi, who was currently carving the demon into ribbons. “Look at Hanyi. Why do you think those twelve auxiliary swords move with the precision of her own fingers? Why can they instantly interlock to form an inescapable cage? Because she isn’t just throwing swords—she’s operating a Sword Formation!”

Li Youci turned back to Zhou Kai, a challenging smirk on her lips. “Now… apply that logic to your bugs. Imagine taking your tens of thousands of Katydids and mentally linking them into a unified Formation. Imagine networking them together to form the physical structure of a massive, mountain-cleaving battleaxe, or a sky-piercing spear.

“Do you really think a focused, armored Formation like that would shatter as easily as the disorganized, scattered mess you just threw at that demon?”