When Yun Jin said that, everyone around her fell silent, momentarily stunned.
What exactly did she mean?
Yun Jin's brows drew together slightly. She was still thinking it through. If not for the supporting evidence from her past life, she wouldn't have even considered this possibility.
But she remembered.
In her previous life, Yang Yun and his subordinates had perfectly concealed their presence. Some of them were demons. Others had walked the path of demonic cultivation. Yet they moved openly, without raising a single red flag.
If it were only Yang Yun, that would have been one thing. He was the Demon Sovereign. He had his own unique ways of suppressing his aura. It made sense that ordinary cultivators wouldn't notice. That much was within expectations.
But if a truly high-level cultivator had thoroughly probed him, even Yang Yun would have risked exposure. So how did those ordinary demons and corrupted cultivators escape detection?
Something about this was seriously wrong. There had to be some kind of item or technique that allowed them to hide their aura. Yun Jin also remembered the black mist she had extracted from the disciples of Qingxiao Pavilion.
Those five Qingxiao Pavilion disciples had clearly been carrying demon energy within them.
And yet—
Even with so many people around, no one had sensed a single anomaly. Not even the top human experts had picked up on the demonic energy hiding in plain sight. It wasn't until she killed Duan Yiwei and the others that the aura began to leak out. That level of concealment... it was terrifying.
Yun Jin couldn't help but start to doubt.
Had the entire Qingxiao Pavilion already fallen to the demonic path?
Her master and the others had gone to investigate. But could they uncover anything at all?
If these people really had some sort of heaven-defying method of hiding their aura, then chances were, her master's group would return empty-handed.
Qingxiao Pavilion.
Yang Yun.
The demonic path.
Demon clans.
And their completely hidden aura.
All of it wove together into a massive, invisible net. Yun Jin could feel the pressure just thinking about it. If these demon clans truly had a unique way to completely mask their presence—even from top-tier cultivators—then things were about to get very messy.
It could lead to catastrophe.
Then there were the missing loose cultivators.
Previously, only areas without sect protection experienced these disappearances.
That showed those hidden forces were still cautious.
They didn't dare act recklessly.
But recently...
Even nearby areas had started to see loose cultivators vanish.
What did that mean?
It meant those people had started acting without restraint. Most likely, they had already mastered some method of concealing their aura. And without aura to track, their movements became undetectable. Even the Demon-Slaying Alliance would struggle to investigate them.
If this continued to spread...
Who would even know if the person next to them was human or demon?
No one could trust anyone.
Everyone would grow suspicious, second-guessing every word and action. If the whole cultivation world turned into that kind of environment...
Then the demon clans wouldn't even need to lift a finger. The human race would destroy itself from within.
Yun Jin's expression turned grim.
The most urgent task now was to confirm whether they really could hide their aura so perfectly.
And if they could...
How could it be broken?
Yun Jin had a strong feeling.
If this wasn't resolved soon, then Qingxiao Pavilion's investigation would lead nowhere. An esteemed Holy Land, infiltrated by demon clans for years, and not a single person had noticed anything strange. That in itself was the strangest part of all.
Yun Jin kept thinking through the possibilities.
Yue Zhao and the others stayed silent, not daring to interrupt her.
Narrowing her eyes, Yun Jin gave an order to the system.
"System, scan the area within a thousand-mile radius for any Unity-stage or above combat power."
[Deducting 100 high-tier usage points.]
Yun Jin approved it without hesitation.
She had to know.
How far had this situation progressed?
Was Yang Yun already starting to act?
He was supposed to be locked in the penal labor house, completely unable to recover his strength.
Yet somehow, he had moved behind the scenes.
How?
While the system carried out the scan, Yun Jin opened the main quest panel and checked the Luck missions assigned to the male and female leads.
And then...
Her expression shifted.
Yang Yun's Luck remained at 89.
But Ye Danxia—
Her Luck had dropped all the way to 10.
Ten points.
That was no different from an ordinary mortal.
Ye Danxia was a Heavenly spiritual root cultivator. No matter how poorly things went, her Luck shouldn't have plummeted like this.
Usually, mortals had Luck ranging from 1 to 10 points.
Only the most fortunate mortals ever reached 10.
But for cultivators, 10 Luck was the baseline.
In this world, just having a spiritual root was a kind of innate fortune.
No matter how poor the quality, it meant a person had a shot at cultivation. That alone made them far luckier than any noble or official in the mortal world.
Yet now, Ye Danxia—a Heavenly spiritual root holder—had Luck equal to the luckiest mortals?
Something was very wrong.
Had her spiritual root been damaged?
But in the original story, there had never been any sign of that. Ye Danxia had always possessed top-tier talent and cultivated at a peerless pace among her peers.
So how had her Luck fallen this far?
Combined with Yang Yun's stable Luck... Could it be that the male lead had done something to the female lead?
That seemed more than likely.
At that, Yun Jin couldn't help but find the situation a little amusing.
In her past life, those two were the picture of romance, deeply in love and inseparable.
But in this life?
All it took was a few changes to the plot, and now the two were practically tearing each other apart.
No, it wasn't even mutual destruction.
In the original plot, Yang Yun had loved Ye Danxia. That was why he supported her and became her pillar.
But now?
Yun Jin had deliberately cut off the budding affection between them from the start. And with Yang Yun's cunning and ruthlessness, if he wanted to act against Ye Danxia, she wouldn't even have a chance to resist.
This wasn't mutual destruction.
It was Yang Yun crushing her underfoot.
Right now, Ye Danxia's Luck had dropped as low as it could go.
Unless she died, her Luck wouldn't fall any further.
To Yun Jin, Ye Danxia with only 10 Luck points was no longer a threat.
Yang Yun, however—having gathered both their Luck—was now the true problem.
Yun Jin was currently short on Emotional Value. If she could drag down Yang Yun's Luck, she could claim the main quest rewards, which would result in a massive influx of Emotional Value.
Speaking of main quests, Yun Jin suddenly remembered she had two of them ongoing. Things had been so hectic lately, she had almost forgotten.
The first was her "Ascend in One Leap" quest.
The progress on that had just been updated.
It now read:
[Main Quest: Ascend in One Leap.
Current Cultivation: Divine Transformation Peak.
Ascension Progress: 30%.
Rewards available for two stages.]
Back when she was at Golden Core Peak, she had claimed the 10% reward once.
Now she could collect both the 20% and 30% rewards in one go.
Reaching Divine Transformation Peak had only earned her 30% total, so clearly, the real grind was yet to come.
Once she entered the Tribulation and Mahayana stages, perhaps each minor breakthrough would be worth 10%.
But reaching those next stages... the difficulty would likely surpass anything she had experienced before.