Senior Brother, save me!

With a faint smile, Qin Chuan had somehow already drawn the Bright Moon Sword in his hand, as though he had long anticipated this reaction.

Even Yu Ce’s counterattack seemed to have been calculated in advance.

Rolling aside in a clumsy tumble, Qin Chuan hurled out the sword he had been preparing for so long, stabbing backward with all his force!

The blade tip spat moonlight, its radiance flowing like water, sharp to the extreme, as it thrust toward the black streak in a fierce rush.

A ringing note rang out.

The strange sound was met with the same clear chime.

Yu Ce’s speeding figure jolted to a stop, and he staggered back several paces. Blood bloomed across his scarlet chest like lotus flowers, clearly injured by the scattered sword qi.

Seeing this, Qin Chuan laughed aloud and charged in with easy momentum, evidently in far better condition!

Sword force rose again, and a mysterious, unfathomable aura unfolded in his hand. The Bright Moon in his grasp, the silver river and the moon above and below, seemed like a bridge that bore the moon aloft.

Yu Ce’s expression changed. He seemed to have seen the murderous intent hidden within Qin Chuan’s sword will.

“Though I am badly wounded, I am still not someone a mere fifth-level Qi Refiner like you can rival!”

So he said, yet his heart felt heavier than ever. Such sword force was unheard of, as though it linked heaven and earth. With human strength, it summoned the power of the firmament.

Its vastness shook Yu Ce to the core.

It was as if before him stood not one man, but the whole world.

“Wake up!”

He bit the tip of his tongue and forced himself to remain alert.

His hands did not dare slow even a fraction. Finger seals, palm strikes, and fist blows flew out in relentless succession, striking hundreds upon hundreds of times in a single instant!

By the time the sword light of Bright Moon arrived, the phantoms of those finger seals, palm strikes, and fist blows had already merged into one, becoming a seal that crashed forth with devastating force.

Clang!

The two were abruptly thrown apart.

Yu Ce was the worse off. He coughed up a mouthful of dark blood, flecked with fragments of unknown origin.

He stumbled back seven steps in a row. When he raised his head, every hair on his body stood on end, for the cold gleam of the sword was now less than a foot from his brow.

At that instant, there was no time to cast another spell.

His stance had not yet stabilized, and he was powerless to evade.

Yu Ce was after all a veteran of countless battles, and in an instant he understood the situation. His hand shot like lightning to his waist, grasping a jade slip, and he crushed it fiercely.

The situation changed at once.

“Hm!”

Qin Chuan’s eyes widened in surprise. Wisps of luminescent vapor coiled before him, and no matter how he urged his spiritual energy through his hand, the Bright Moon Sword could only pierce half an inch deeper, unable to advance even a hair more.

The man before him showed a murderous gaze, mouth and nose gaping wide as the glowing vapor poured violently into him.

A surge of vitality suddenly rose from within him. This was not recovery, but regeneration.

Broken flesh sloughed away, and in the blink of an eye, tender new muscle and skin had grown back. Bones and sinews crackled and rejoined in a sharp chorus.

While Qin Chuan was still stunned, Yu Ce’s aura had already risen markedly.

“Be proud while you can!”

“You’ve forced me to use the Blood Hand Seal again and again, and even the protector talisman personally bestowed by my master!”

“Give me a little more time, and I’ll return to full strength!”

Qin Chuan naturally refused to accept this. He slashed out several more times, but seeing that he had achieved nothing, he swallowed a handful of pills and, with a darkened face, sheathed the Bright Moon Sword before driving the cyclone within his body to course through his limbs.

Strength exploded forth, and with one leap he was already a zhang away.

Yu Ce hated Qin Chuan to the bone and how could he allow him to escape? He even slowed the absorption of the glowing light, then strode forward in pursuit.

A quarter of an hour passed in the blink of an eye.

“Good. While he is absorbing the glowing light, he cannot easily cast spells. Even a slightly larger movement slows his recovery!”

Qin Chuan kept throwing out human-skin disguises, leaving the man behind him exhausted by pursuit and slowing his recovery even further.

If another quarter of an hour passed, he would be able to reach Jade Mat Mountain.

Then he gave a wry smile, not knowing whether the spiritual energy within him was still sufficient. With that thought, he hurriedly took another Qi-Replenishing Pill.

Along the way, he had consumed who knew how many pills. Fortunately, he had prepared enough.

Yu Ce was at the eighth level of Qi Refinement. Though it seemed only three levels above him, the gap between them was the difference between the acquired realm and the opening of the middle dantian. In every respect, Yu Ce was far stronger.

Had the timing not been so perfectly seized, and had he not been grievously wounded already, how could Qin Chuan ever have forced him to crush his protector talisman?

As for Yu Ce, although the situation looked excellent and killing Qin Chuan seemed only a matter of time, he was heartbroken.

That protector talisman was the apple of his eye.

It had been made by his master at the cost of years of life, after years of painstaking refinement and who knew how many heavenly materials and earthly treasures. Even a Core Formation elder could be held off for quite some time by it.

Yet it had been used here. It was like using a cannon to shoot a mosquito.

The killing intent in his heart was self-evident, towering and boundless.

“No matter how you run, it is useless!”

“Give me another stick of incense, and I will be fully restored!”

Qin Chuan paid him no heed at all. Instead, he threw the human-skin disguises even more frequently, one left and one right, keeping his pursuer running himself ragged without rest.

This direction seemed to lead to Jade Mat Mountain.

But Jade Mat Mountain had always remained neutral; it would not save this man!

...

Jade Mat Mountain did not refer to a single mountain, but to an entire range. Within the range, the terrain was no longer level, but consisted mostly of cliffs and sheer escarpments. In the dips between them lay flying waterfalls and cold pools.

In the valleys among the mountains, the scene was truly one of immortals drifting through mist. Everywhere the eye fell were hazy clouds and veils of vapor, unlike the mortal world.

Apart from cultivators and Daoists, ordinary people could not perceive the valley’s mysteries. Most would lose themselves in the naturally formed maze around the outer reaches of the range, or unknowingly emerge back outside it.

Thus it was one of the few gathering places of cultivators in the Azure Mountain Realm.

“Boss Liu, do we need to go deeper?” A young child at the third level of Qi Refinement looked at the increasingly dense fog, fear creeping into his voice.

Liu Fengshan gave the child a sidelong glance and said coolly, “Pearlmoon wood can only be gathered for these few days in early autumn if you want the best quality.”

“These days the moonlight is strongest. What, are you afraid?”

The child seemed to have had his tail stepped on and hurriedly protested, “No, no!”

“With you here, how could I be afraid?”

“Even if those mountain goblin things really came, wouldn’t one spell from you be enough to drive them off, right?”

As he spoke, he sneaked careful glances at Liu Fengshan from the corner of his eye, afraid he might say otherwise.

But what he feared soon came to pass.

“Well, that is not necessarily so. Even if I am at the eighth level of Qi Refinement, I can protect myself with ease, but if I truly have to protect all of you, that will be difficult.”

“Yesterday there were five of us. Squad Leader Li tried to save his men, and in the end he lost them all...”

Liu Fengshan’s voice was not loud, but the three people behind him and the child beside them all went pale.

“So you should raise the swords in your hands! If a pack of mountain goblins really attacks, I may not be able to look after everyone!”

The faces of the group tightened at once. They held their swords across their bodies, yet felt no sense of safety at all.

The five of them followed the route into the mist.

The long night had not yet ended. It should have been pitch-black, but moonlight actually pierced the fog, letting them see within three to five zhang around them, though everything farther away was blurred.

The child had grown up in Jade Mat Mountain. His aptitude and comprehension were both ordinary, but through diligent effort he had reached the third level of Qi Refinement.

Yet having never experienced battle, he held the long sword in his hands with a tremor.

Crack.

A crisp snap sounded suddenly, and his heart leapt. Just as panic rose in him, he realized it was only a branch underfoot that had broken.

His mind relaxed a little. Good, not a mountain goblin...

!!!

Two black shadows suddenly darted toward them at high speed!

Ah!

The child jumped in fright. His nerves had been taut to the limit, and his reaction was extremely quick. His hand jolted, and sword blossoms flew out without the slightest pattern. In mere moments, he had exhausted all the spiritual energy in his body!

Qin Chuan gave a start. Just as he was about to resist the sword light before him, he raised a hand and only then realized that it had slid down along both sides of his body and cut into the grass and trees beside him.

He had merely sidestepped, barely avoiding the frontal sword light.

“Senior Brother, it’s me!”

“That thief is chasing me!”

His reaction was exceedingly swift. Facing Liu Fengshan, whose aura was strongest, he cried out “Senior Brother” at once.

...

Qin Chuan’s face was smeared with red and yellow stains of unknown origin. Since visibility was already poor, he was even harder to make out now.

Liu Fengshan did not know what had happened. Though he did not recognize Qin Chuan, his gaze remained fixed and pressing on Yu Ce.

“Who are you?”

As he spoke, he lifted a hand, and a dragon of earth over a zhang long rose from the ground, roaring menacingly at Yu Ce.

Yu Ce’s expression changed several times. He looked uncertainly at Qin Chuan, but did not dare raise the black longbow in his hand even slightly.

He had already sensed that the cultivator who could summon an earth dragon with a wave of the hand was at the eighth level of Qi Refinement.

And although he had completely absorbed the glowing light, without a quiet place to refine it, he had only recovered seventy to eighty percent by now.

Add to that Qin Chuan, a man so skilled in calculation, and with the odds against him, victory was unlikely.

He gave a cold snort, then raised the longbow in his hand and aimed it at the child with the lowest cultivation. Drawing three bows in succession, three arrows to each bow, he loosed nine arrows in a single instant!

Whoosh.

Whoosh, whoosh!

“Careful!”

Qin Chuan and Liu Fengshan cried out together.

Under Liu Fengshan’s control, the earth dragon twisted its body, instantly spanning left and right as it blocked the child’s front.

But Qin Chuan moved even faster. Sword light flashed ceaselessly in his hand, and only three humming notes were heard. Three overwhelming sword energies swept out, perfectly crossing the arrows’ inevitable path and knocking down every one of them.

Seeing this, Yu Ce did not dare contend for even a moment longer. He put away the longbow, twisted his body, and disappeared into the thick fog.

In the blink of an eye, the child was drenched in cold sweat, collapsed onto the ground, and panted furiously.

Seeing this, Liu Fengshan naturally could not leave a step. The earth dragon roared once more and resumed guarding the sides, though this time it stared fixedly at Qin Chuan.

“And who are you?”

Only after a breath had passed did he frown and ask.

The earth dragon on the left side looked even more ferocious, and with a vicious sweep of its tail, it split a poplar tree so thick it took two arms to encircle it cleanly at the waist.

“This...”

Qin Chuan let out a bitter smile.

His hasty little trick, devised only to shake off Yu Ce, had finally brought bitter consequences.

This man was also a shrewd one. By now he must have realized he had been used.

Though his tone was calm and cool, Qin Chuan knew that one wrong word from him would bring a thunderous strike.

After a brief silence, Qin Chuan slapped his storage pouch, took out a wine gourd, knocked off the lid, and drank deeply twice. The fierce scent of alcohol exploded directly into the moonlit night.

Even the child, seeing the clear liquor staining Qin Chuan’s clothes, felt a faint daze wash over him.

Qin Chuan then tossed the remaining half-gourd in an elegant arc, and it landed steadily in Liu Fengshan’s hand.