Deng Yaozu flinched a little from being caught off-guard by Yang Qing's question. Despite Yang Qing not explicitly saying who he was asking about, she instantly knew from the question.
She could feel a calm vastness as she looked at Yang Qing's apathetic gaze that was trained on her.
The green-blue iris made her feel like she was being smothered by the full weight of the ocean while the orange-yellow iris made her feel like she had been transported to the surface of the sun, as for the white-flamed pupils, she felt an intrinsic fear that she couldn't quite explain when she saw them.
Just a stare alone made her feel so insignificant. Ever since she broke through to the core formation realm, she had been one of the rising talents of the Ice Emerald Sect in the past century.
In less than 30 years she had managed to reach the quasi palace stage and was well on her way to reach the palace realm. This had created a certain level of confidence within her to the point while she did respect her seniors who were already in the palace realm, she wasn't afraid of them.
She respected them as fellow sect members but didn't have that deep veneration that came from cultivation-based suppression where those in the core formation realm would feel a deep sense of awe towards those in the palace realm.
She never experienced that sense of suppression or pressure from them, and also to her, she always figured it was only a matter of time before she reached the palace realm herself. There was nothing to venerate or fear from them.
But now...she felt a sense of insignificance beneath Yang Qing's gaze that she had never felt before like all it would take for Yang Qing to get rid of her was a mere word or a flick of his fingers, and she would cease to exist.
Not even her sect master made her feel that way. The only other person that made her feel like that was...
When her thoughts reached this far, she thought of the trump card of the Ice Emerald Sect, the real reason they had been able to rapidly improve in the past thousands of years. That unfathomable elder, who was an endless pool of cultivation knowledge.
To date not once had she ever failed to answer one of the millions of cultivation doubts Deng Yaozu had posed over the years. Her answers were always simple, yet profound. A simple response would leave Deng Yaozu harvesting its fruits for months on end.
If there was one person in the whole sect that she deeply respected, it was her, which was why she didn't even hesitate to hunt down her junior sister whom they were close as sisters, and forcefully bring her back to the sect along with her daughter.
For a fraction of a moment, a look of pity flashed in her eyes as she thought of her junior sister before her thoughts went back to the unfathomable elder within the Wisteria tree.
She only discovered about her when she broke through to the core formation realm, and at the time she was only introduced as the guardian elder of the sect, who had been with the sect for over 5,000 years and the past three sect masters, including the current one had been her personal disciple, while the bulk of the core elders were her pupils and she was the reason the sect managed to produce palace realm cultivators.
However, her identity was to be kept a secret, which was why she had never heard of her prior to the first contact she made when she became a core formation expert, and from that moment forth, her life had taken a massive change. Her outlook on cultivation had been redefined and expanded thanks to that elder's insights.
Deng Yaozu couldn't help but well up with pride when she thought of the breadth of wisdom and abilities of that elder.
"With the elder's help, we might be able to get through this..." Deng Yaozu thought as she used that as an anchor to repress her fears forcefully.
She coldly stared at Yang Qing as she said,
"I don't know what you are talking about.."
"Is that so..."
Yang Qing couldn't help but sigh inwardly. Even though it was for a fraction of a second, he noticed the subtle change in Deng Yaozu's eyes when he asked about Ma Yuan's wife.
He could only assume the worst. The moment the sect's protection array fell, he scanned the entirety of it with his palace sense. He did manage to find Ma Yuan's daughter in one of the buildings meant for new disciples, however, when it came to her mother, she was nowhere to be found.
He could only assume she was at the one place in the whole sect that had shielded itself from his palace sense, which was the area where the Wisteria tree was located. There was a shielding in the area, that even his spiritual sense couldn't penetrate.
So either Ma Yuan's wife was dead or she was there, and if she was there, based on Deng Yaozu's guilty look, Yang Qing could only assume the worst.
"Seniors, Dai Chen, Qingge, I'll leave their founder to you, I'll handle the rest.." said Yang Qing as his gaze lingered on the Wisteria tree for a brief moment.
"Even here you're still slacking off and leaving the heavy lifting to us.." said Dai Chen as he smiled wryly.
"Well, you did ask me to be shameless after all..." answered Yang Qing as he rubbed his nose.
While he would be facing nine opponents, his match-up was considered easier in comparison to what was in the Wisteria tree.
They could all detect a threatening element coming from it, which could only mean one thing. A powerful cultivator was hidden there, and the Wisteria tree wasn't simple either.
Yang Qing felt two conflicting emotions when he looked at it. One was complete revulsion while the other was sympathy and sorrow.
Dai Chen and the rest had their work cut out for them, and Yang Qing felt a tad bit embarrassed for throwing the biggest problem on them.
"I'll have to finish this quickly.." muttered Yang Qing.
For the rest to act freely he would have to clear the field of every other element that might potentially add more variables to the later fight, and those elders could be counted as one of those variables.
A cool breeze filled the area which prompted the elders and the sect master of the Ice Emerald Sect to look above them.
The sun was already shining on the horizon but above their sect grounds other than the temperature dipping with the cool breeze spread about, there was a gentle darkness enveloping the place with Yang Qing at its epicenter.
His gold-colored palace robes gently fluttered with the wind as a backdrop of what seemed to be a gigantic green ocean appeared behind him.
Slowly the gentle night filled with the ocean breeze filled the place and Yang Qing's silhouette seemed to disappear into the background as two moons appeared in his place.
Grand lunar gaze: Frozen capsule
Before the elders and the sect master could register what was happening, there was a sudden flash of white light and the ground beneath them froze over along with the members of the sect who had been knocked unconscious earlier.
"Guo Mei, Zhilan help Yaozu and Lao Shan! We need them to execute the array!!" sect master Zhao Ju hurriedly yelled as she charged towards Yang Qing's location.
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