Ye Yue Long just left like that.
She never expected that she would actually be spared, even the Taiming Sect probably didn’t expect her to survive.
Based on An Jing’s past behavior, his enemies wouldn’t even be left alive, let alone intact corpses; they would either be chopped into mincemeat or blasted into ashes.
Precisely because of this, the high-ranking members of the Taiming Sect and Ye Yue Long herself thought they might as well stake everything on this one fight. Even if they couldn’t kill An Jing, they would at least test out his last resorts.
Indeed, he had hidden cards. But they couldn’t force them out.
With Chenyinzi monitoring constantly, as long as multiple Manifest Saint True Monarchs didn’t show up, An Jing didn’t need to escape using the Great Void Passage.
Who could have thought that this time An Jing would unexpectedly hold back because of the bizarre reason of ’how interesting, I’ve decided not to kill you’?
Nonetheless, Ye Yue Long’s emotions were extremely complicated after escaping death.
Firstly, she felt despondent and helpless. Though she survived, it was incredibly humiliating—being spared by her enemy’s discretion for fame and fortune. As long as she lived, everyone who saw her would remember her as An Jing’s defeated foe, an underdog who couldn’t even survive a gang attack without being spared.
Even if she returned to the Taiming Sect, as a loser, she would surely be the subject of some gossip. Major conflicts were unlikely, and the sect would likely compensate her. The Taiming Sect wasn’t so corrupt as to suppress a True Transmission disciple fighting on the front lines for the sect.
However, having lost lifespan and Lifebound Golden Qi, she indeed needed some time to make up for these deficiencies, and her cultivation speed would undoubtedly slow down.
But on the other hand, Ye Yue Long also felt an indescribable joy.
"It seems... I really am about to advance to Divine Mandate?"
This wasn’t an illusion. Ye Yue Long sensed it several times, discovering it to be true.
Her original Fate Pattern was the Strange Mandate [You Jiao Master], adept in ceremonies, magic skills, guiding the spirits, and summoning spirits—a natural Daoist Priest and Fengshui Formation Master. Besides this, her martial arts talent wasn’t bad either; though she couldn’t beat An Jing in close combat, she could still put up some resistance.
Through years of cultivation in the Taiming Sect and fighting on the Northern Ice Field and against the Heavenly Demons, her Fate Pattern had actually grown to a considerable level.
It was precisely because of this that she could perceive that the battle with An Jing surprisingly allowed her to make further progress, pushing her already-stalled Fate Pattern to advance once again!
"If nothing goes wrong, this time when I return to report to the sect, I’m very likely to advance to Divine Mandate... quietly, without any phenomena or Human Tribulation."
Thinking this, the black-haired, green-eyed girl turned her head and looked in An Jing’s direction with a complex mood: "Fighting him has already met all the conditions for ’Merit’ and ’Human Tribulation’."
"Is it true? Fighting An Jing actually yielded such a huge reward!?"
In fact, it was more than that. Through fighting with An Jing, Ye Yue Long also became aware of the flaws and deficiencies in her combat style, but compared to the advancement in Divine Mandate, those seemed rather insignificant.
At this point, the only thing that truly troubled Ye Yue Long was one:
"Should I tell Master and the sect about my advancement to Divine Mandate... or not?"
Although she knew that the other side spared her life to leave her in a state of inner turmoil, Ye Yue Long couldn’t help but think this for a moment.
The past sect wasn’t ... Master treated her very well, and was willing to consume resources to save and help her—fighting the Great Heavenly Demons on the icefield was indeed her battle, but it was also Master who intercepted the major Heavenly Demons.
If that was the case, why was this time different with An Jing?
What kind of power did An Jing possess to drive the sect’s elders this crazy?
Or... has the sect recently had some major plans that made Master unwilling or unable to expend resources?
She couldn’t figure it out. Although Ye Yue Long was a True Transmission disciple, she hadn’t yet achieved the Divine Repository, which allowed participation in high-level sect meetings.
She didn’t know many details, so she couldn’t deduce the truth.
Getting more and more frustrated as she thought about it, Ye Yue Long sighed deeply and then hesitantly made a decision: "Never mind, there’s no way to explain the origin of the Divine Mandate for now... I’ll observe for a while."
An Jing, too, was now turning his head to look in Ye Yue Long’s direction.
"Grandmaster’s intervention this time must have consumed a lot."
Although he had appeared extremely arrogant just moments ago, he wasn’t a fool; his posture was one thing, his real thoughts were another: "In contrast, the Manifest Saints of the Taiming Sect managed to intervene by consuming Ye Yue Long’s life essence, so their expenditure was a bit smaller."
"On the surface, it looks like Ye Yue Long lost, and the Taiming Sect’s True Person didn’t achieve their goal, but in reality, this is depleting the Bright Mirror Sect’s power through me bit by bit."
"After this fight with Chen Mie True Lord, Grandmaster will definitely be exhausted for a while... Unlike the battle on Broken Blade Mountain with the Heavenly Demons, there’s no Heavenly Dao to recover this time."
"To these True Persons and True Lords of the Taiming Sect, a small fry like me with enormous potential isn’t much of a threat in the short term and won’t cause much loss... On the other hand, if they can deplete the power of old peak True Lords like Chenyinzi, even at the cost of one or two True Transmission disciples, it is entirely worth it."
"Interesting, it seems the Taiming Sect has plans for our Bright Mirror Sect in the near future."
Bowing his head in thought, An Jing suddenly raised his hand. Behind him, seven Sword Boxes spread out like a peacock displaying its tail—then, these Sword Boxes fired simultaneously, unleashing Sword Qi to push back a sneak attack from the Da Chen Divine Weapon.