With a plan in place, the two of them set about finding the right moment.
Those expressionless disciples of the Fantian Sect seemed to be empowered by a mysterious force. If they all came rushing in at once, it would be difficult to handle. So, they had to seize the opportune moment to grab her carefully.
In Ranran's little waist pouch, was stuffed full with the new talismans made by Elder Jiu.
When he was abducted and ended up in Wei Jiu's hands, although he had suffered some torment, it also had a benefit — his skill in drawing talismans had greatly advanced.
In addition, now that Elder Jiu knew his little friend Ranran was his old friend Mu Qingge, naturally, he generously gave her many top-notch talismans as a gift.
So, after the two of them and the White Tiger applied the invisibility talismans, suppressed their true qi, and adjusted their aura, they went up the cliff. After they emerged, they looked around and found that there weren't many disciples of the Fantian Sect around. Most of them were gathered at the mountaintop, still constructing the Heavenly-Defying Tower.
Mu Ranwu seemed to have gone to the mountaintop as well, so they followed her and arrived at the top of the mountain.
When they approached the black bone tower, both Su Yi Shui and Ranran both felt a chilling aura.
Even the Gengjin White tiger, felt uncomfortable, and the fur on its neck bristled.
Ranran comforted the tiger by stroking its fur and then looked at Mu Ranwu standing below the tower.
Due to the scars on her face, Mu Ranwu always covered her face with a light veil. When she looked at the bone tower, she would occasionally touch her face with her hand.
Ranran felt that perhaps this sister from her previous life wanted to turn back time to restore her appearance before it was ruined?
Just as Mu Ranwu turned around to prepare to go down the mountain and check on the intruders, she suddenly felt a gust of wind attacking her.
With a start, Mu Ranwu wanted to shout out, but her acupoints were sealed, and she couldn't move at all. Then she was quickly lifted and brought to a cave below the cliff.
When Ranran and Su Yi Shui dispelled the invisibility talisman to reveal themselves, Mu Ranwu didn't panic. She just chuckled coldly twice, "So it's you two who had intruded. I already guessed you were up to no good…"
Ranran didn't want to waste words with her and immediately slapped a Truth-telling Talisman on Mu Ranwu's forehead. "Let me ask you, what does the Fantian Sect want to achieve by building this black tower?"
Mu Ranwu didn't show any struggle on her face. It seemed that even without the talisman, she was also willing to answer this question. "What? Can't you already figure this out? The existence of this Heaven-Defying Tower is to defy fate, reverse time, and resolve the regrets of life!"
Ranran frowned. "Such an insane idea. Wouldn't this cause chaos in the Three Realms?"
Mu Ranwu laughed loudly after hearing this. "What's wrong with chaos? This world is originally unfair in many ways. For those unfairly treated by heaven, don't they need a chance to start over? Sister, guess what I would do if I could start over from scratch?"
Ranran said coldly, "Whose idea is this? Who is the mastermind behind the Fantian Sect?"
Mu Ranwu smiled and said, "He is a being beyond gods, the only saint in this world. As long as you follow him, you can obtain true immortality! How about it, sister? Why don't you consider joining the Fantian Sect?"
But when Ranran pressed further about the identity of that person, Mu Ranwu couldn't explain clearly. It seemed she truly didn't know the person's name and background. She only said that the person always wore a mask and was the one who single-handedly revived the Fantian Sect, which had already disappeared from the world.
Su Yi Shui looked at Mu Ranwu's arrogant demeanor and said coldly, "It seems like you're not at all worried about your current situation."
Mu Ranwu laughed, "Since time is about to reverse, both you and I will live one more time. So, is the present moment still important? Su Yi Shui, don't you also have many regrets? My elder sister acted on her own back then, changing your fate as an emperor. You were supposed to be the emperor of a generation, enjoying honors that countless people would envy, and few would exchange for immortalty. As long as you are willing to follow the Fantian god, you can also return to the past with your memories intact and make up for various regrets!"
As she spoke, Mu Ranwu's eyes were fervent, and her words were quite enticing. Xue Ranran couldn't help but look at Su Yi Shui, worried that he might be swayed by this madwoman.
However, Su Yi Shui replied coldly, "Only the incompetent would hope for time reversal. I have always moved forward and never looked back."
This was not meant to mock Mu Ranwu but was his sincere words, even though he had forgotten his past with Mu Qingge due to the Soul-Cleansing Talisman.
Despite the hardships along the way, he seemed to have lost many things he originally wanted but gained many unexpected ones.
Therefore, Su Yi Shui only wanted to move forward and didn't want to change any single thing about the present through time reversal.
Hearing Su Yi Shui's words, Mu Ranwu sighed regretfully, "Stubborn as ever! But you didn't expect that since you've come to Kongshan, you won't be able to leave, right? The bones needed to build the Spiritual Tower are missing a few pieces, so since you're here, leave behind your bones as construction materials for the tower!"
Before she finished speaking, Mu Ranwu suddenly broke free from the previous restraint, swung her sword towards Su Yi Shui's face.
In just over a month of not seeing each other, Mu Ranwu's strength seemed to have improved significantly. When she wielded her sword, her previous techniques from Xishan were no longer recognizable. It seemed she had learned new sword skills, each move precise and vicious, and the spiritual power she emitted carried a strange aura.
It looked very similar to the techniques of those expressionless Fantian Sect members.
Xue Ranran also stepped forward, and the two of them clashed with Mu Ranwu.
After they engaged, Xue Ranran was also greatly surprised because Mu Ranwu had become much stronger than before, almost like a different person.
Mu Ranwu also noticed this and couldn't help but laugh aloud, "I have already sacrificed all my spiritual energy to the Fantian Master, in exchange for supreme power bestowed by the Master. Sister, do you always think that I should be grateful to you for 'bestowing' everything on me? Including inheriting your spiritual power? Well, now everything I have on me has nothing to do with you!"
She said this with a smug look. Did these two still see her as that inept underling, a nobody? Did they really think she was only here because of her lack of skills?
She wanted to catch them off guard and shatter the arrogance on the faces of these two cultivation geniuses, make them regret for not taking her seriously!
Thinking like this, Mu Ranwu became even more ruthless in her moves.
The only requirement to officially join the Fantian Sect was to sacrifice one's cultivation and receive a new life. So Mu Ranwu had been hesitant.
But after the incident in Qiongqi Village, where she was humiliated, and her self-esteem crushed, she no longer hesitated. She finally gritted her teeth and sacrificed her spiritual power.
The Fantian Master indeed did not deceive her. Although she lost her spiritual energy, what she gained was ten times more powerful than before.
Now, she could easily fight against these two, feeling no strain at all. This feeling of turning the tables was indescribably exhilarating.
For a moment, she accelerated her sword strikes against the two, and the spiritual power she wielded became stronger and stronger.
Although this game of cat and mouse was enjoyable, what she wanted to see the most was her sword piercing through the bodies of these two!
Just then, a huge tiger leaped out unexpectedly, almost biting Mu Ranwu's arm.
Startled, Mu Ranwu took a step back, finally realizing that the giant tiger was the Gengjin white tiger.
However, its current size was even larger than twenty years ago before it was injured. Its eyes gleamed with a cold golden light, as if it was about to ascend to immortality.
Mu Ranwu was quite frightened by the sudden appearance of the white tiger. She had feared this white tiger even twenty years ago, and now that it had grown even larger, it made her panic in spite of herself.
In her retreating steps, she accidentally stepped into thin air and fell off the cliff. As she fell, she realized that even if the white tiger was larger, with her current abilities, she could easily twist off its head.
The abilities gained so effortlessly sometimes made it hard for her to remember they were her own. By the time Mu Ranwu snapped out of her reverie, she had missed her chance.
When she turned herself around and jumped back onto the cliff, those two and the tiger seemed to have applied invisibility talismans again and disappeared.
Mu Ranwu gnashed her teeth in frustration, but the Heaven-Defying Tower would soon be completed. Once the four towers were built and connected, the reversal of fate was imminent!
By then, she would want to go back to before she came to Xishan.
She remembered that Mu Qingge had thought about sending her, a young and frail girl, to be fostered by a farming family while she herself planned to sell herself to a wealthy household as a maidservant to support her. She had cried and refused to separate from her sister, and it just so happened that they encountered their master from Xishan, who then took them in as disciples.
*If she could go back to that time, she would absolutely not cry and let her sister become a maidservant while she would quietly wait for their master from Xishan to pass by.
This time, she would go up the mountain alone, learn cultivation, undergo trials at Tianmai Mountain, follow the path her sister had taken, become famous, and achieve greatness as a powerful cultivator.
If that happened, she would wholeheartedly redeem her sister, find a decent man for her to marry, let her live a good life in the mundane world. By then, she could peacefully watch her sister serve her husband, have children, gradually grow old, and die peacefully.
Perhaps then, she and her sister could get along peacefully, and she wouldn't feel indebted to her sister anymore.
Hadn't her sister also tactfully advised her that if she couldn't bear the hardships of cultivation, she could go down the mountain and get married? Since marriage seemed so good, she could fulfill her sister's wish in this lifetime.
By then, she could thoroughly repair the irreparable sisterly bond and proudly accept the admiration of others.
With such thoughts in mind, Mu Ranwu took a deep breath and turned back to the mountaintop, directing people to continue construction of the tall bone tower.
Meanwhile, Xue Ranran and Su Yi Shui had already arrived at the back mountain of Kongshan. This place was the forbidden area of Kongshan Sect, rumored to be the place where the founding ancestor of the sect had passed into Nirvana. The mortal bodies of the sect's past leaders and elders were also buried here.
As the burial place for Kongshan Sect's elders, this area was deep in the woods, with gurgling streams and breathtaking scenery. However, what Xue Ranran and Su Yi Shui saw when they arrived was toppled gravestones and ruined graves everywhere.
Xue Ranran felt a pang of sadness, and Su Yi Shui also frowned. They walked forward, and the ground was littered with open graves. It seemed that the black bone tower on the mountaintop had used a lot of materials from here.
However, the further they went, the fewer graves there were, and the more dignified the remains in those graves seemed to be.
At the center of the back mountain, there was only one large grave covering several acres of land. The tombstone read "Tomb of Kongshan Sect's Founding Ancestor, Wen Yi An."
Ranran remembered the stories about the sect that Wen Chunhui had told her on the way here and immediately understood that the person buried here was the founding ancestor of Kongshan Sect, Wen Yi An.
Her cultivation back then was not beneath that of the great cultivator Duntian, but in the end, instead of ascending, she chose to pass away and was buried in eternal sleep on this slope facing Tianmai Mountain.
Instead of going to Duntian's side after ascending, she chose to give up and silently watch over the abandoned Tianmai Mountain from afar, maintaining a quiet vigil…
Ranran felt that this Elder Wen Yi An was a very special woman.
The contrast between this tomb and the chaotic graves around it was striking. Surprisingly, this tomb of the founding ancestor was intact and had not been disturbed.
Xue Ranran exclaimed softly and exchanged a glance with Su Yi Shui before hurrying to the tombstone.
Xue Ranran looked around again and whispered, "It's strange. Almost all the graves of Kongshan Sect have been dug up, so why is the tomb of the founding ancestor left untouched? Could it be that her remains are not suitable for building the tower?"
Su Yi Shui also raised an eyebrow slightly, and the two of them speculated for a while. Could it really be that the founding ancestor lacked enough cultivation, or maybe she didn't pass away here on the back mountain but elsewhere, and this tomb doesn't contain her remains?
Xue Ranran boldly approached.
Xue Ranran sniffed the faint herbal scent in the air and suddenly clasped her hands courteously, 'Thank you, Senior, for guiding and assisting me several times.'
Her sense of smell was sharp. She immediately recognized the scent from the fake Medicine immortal she met at Tianmai Mountain.
Later, she encountered the old shepherd by the flower sea and the elder who gave her grass shoes at the foot of Red Flame Mountain, both carried the same scent.
Therefore, she was certain that she had met this masked person at least three times.
The person didn't seem surprised that Ranran recognized him. He simply said, "You're quite clever to recognize me."
Ranran replied, "The herbal scent on you is very distinctive and unforgettable."
It wasn't just the smell of herbs but a mixture of bitterness and sweetness with an indescribable sense of decay, making it memorable to Ranran.
The person said in a low voice, "I once traveled to the lowest level of the Netherworld, carrying the stench of decay from there. I can only cover it up with the scent of herbs…"
Ranran, sensing no hostility from him, tried to probe further, "May I ask if you are the Master of the Fantian Sect?"
The person stood up from in front of the tomb, looked towards the distant silhouette of Tianmai Mountain, and said mildly, "I just exchanged some things with a group of greedy individuals. They come and go freely, and I am not some grand master of a sect. Everyone will take what they need, and we part ways when we've benefited enough."
Su Yi Shui, who had been observing him, spoke coldly, "So may I ask, why do you command those people to attack various sects, collect the bones of powerful cultivators to build these bone towers? What is your purpose?"
The man continued in a distant tone "The name 'Heaven-Defying Tower' itself is the answer, isn't it? I want to defy the heavens, turn back time, and repeat the past. The deceased will be reborn."
Ranran continued to probe, "The one you want to be reborn… is it the person in the grave right now?"
The man took a few steps back, looking down at the tomb, "The person lying here is someone I once wronged. But she should have already reincarnated by now, living a new life. Why would I disturb her peace?"
Upon hearing this, a sudden thought flashed through Ranran's mind, something she had never considered before…
Thinking of this, she suddenly asked, "May I ask, do you know the powerful cultivator Duntian?"
The man sneered, "He's long dead. Why do you ask about him?"
With that, he ignored the two intruders in the mountain and turned to leave. But at that moment, Ranran started humming the tune she had learned on Tianmai Mountain.
Her melodious voice echoed in this chaotic graveyard, carrying a hint of indescribable bitterness and desolation.
The man, who had intended to leave, suddenly stopped in his tracks upon hearing Ranran's singing. Gradually, his shoulders began to shake, and he turned around abruptly, his voice hoarse, "Stop singing!"
His shout carried an oppressive qi, rushing straight towards Ranran, who was singing softly.
Where the shockwave passed, dust and stones flew, demonstrating its astonishing force!
By the side, Su Yi Shui immediately raised a spiritual shield to block the man's attack, but the immense force caused intense pain to Su Yi Shui's entire body, almost as if his meridians were about to tear apart.
He could barely withstand it, was not because of his profound cultivation but because the man, in his anger, had clearly held back.
"I know the purpose of your visit here. But now you should understand that with your strength, you're just ants trying to shake a tree," said the man.
Xue Ranran tightly held Su Yi Shui's hand, as she stared intently at the man, and said with certainty "You… could you be the powerful cultivator who should have passed away…Duntian?"
The man, upon hearing this, calmly said, "You are indeed very clever. Not only does your singing resemble Yao'er's, but your intelligence is also similar…"
Duntian's wife was named Rong Yao, so by saying this, he tacitly confirmed Ranran's statement, admitting that he was indeed Duntian.
During the great battle between Duntian and the Demon King, Duntian ascended to become an immortal due to his choice to abandon his wife and child in the fight.
However, in the endless years that followed, he was immersed in the pain of losing his loved ones. If he was Duntian, then the intention behind building this Heaven-Defying Tower was clear — he wanted to turn back time, to make a different choice before his battle with the Demon King.
Such an insane idea, coming from an immortal?
If Ranran had not verified it herself, she really couldn't believe it?
"You… just because of a regretful choice from years ago, you went to such lengths, opened the Netherworld privately, released demons, attacked orthodox sects, openly defying the heavenly laws… Have you forgotten that you're an immortal, a divine being who should protect all living beings?"
Upon hearing Ranran's accusations, the man laughed bitterly and then slowly took off his mask…
When Ranran saw the man's face, she couldn't help but gasp again in shock.
Duntian's original appearance should have been very handsome, and one could still vaguely discern his former features from the left side of his face. However, the skin on the right side of his face had already decayed, revealing raw flesh, making him look like a corpse. It was no wonder he masked the herbal scent. Without it, his rotten odor would be difficult to conceal.
At that moment, Duntian chuckled coldly, "Little girl, do you still see me as an immortal? What's the point of telling someone who's already fallen into darkness about what they can or cannot do? Isn't that ridiculous?"
Ranran pulled Su Yi Shui and took several steps back.
Duntian had once ascended as an immortal but had fallen into the demonic path as an immortal.
He had fallen into darkness, but was hundreds of times more frightening than a mortal becoming a demon.
Because Duntian was once a god, but he fell from the immortal path into the demonic path, such a scenario was unheard of to Ranran.
If a person fell into darkness, they could still be subdued. But what about a former immortal who had fallen into darkness? What kind of a dangerous and terrifying existence could they be?
At that moment, thunder rumbled again above Kongshan, and in an instant, thunderclouds gathered, and the calamity of a thousand tribulations was about to strike again.