Golden Bell Shield, Iron Shirt
Gao Yunyi was clearing out monsters,
killing his way from the front courtyard to the back, then from the left courtyard back to the right.
Like a merciless, efficient lawn mower, he cleanly and swiftly cleared away the weeds in the compound.
[Experience +5] [Experience +5] [Obtained: Azure Mystic Sword crafting blueprint.] [Experience +5] [Experience +5]
Notifications for experience and items kept popping up, but Gao Yunyi seemed not to see them.
His face was like a tranquil lake, without the slightest ripple.
He had gone mad with killing.
More than a hundred quest monsters were gathered together, filling his minimap with red dots. He had no time to spare for other thoughts.
His mind was filled with experience, experience, experience.
The courtyard walls on all sides were high and sturdy, and the gang members couldn't climb over them anytime soon.
As for those who tried to escape through the back gate or use ladders to climb the walls, Gao Yunyi simply sent a blast of Blazing Sun Sword Qi their way.
As a result, his mana bar was nearly empty. But so what? Compared with all that experience, no amount of mana was too much to spend.
So Gao Yunyi decisively swallowed a Spirit-Gathering Pill.
Not one of them could withstand a single exchange with him. Every move was an instant kill. It was satisfying, but after killing so many, he had grown somewhat numb and bored.
As he killed more and more people, a faint bloody mist seemed to gather around him, lending an eerie quality to the Nine Heavens Flowing Cloud Immortal Robe, which should have looked sacred and otherworldly.
Just as Gao Yunyi was killing until heaven and earth went dark, a shrill, piercing crane cry suddenly came from the sky.
The cry was filled with anger and urgency.
His tranquil eyes were like a lake into which a pebble had fallen, sending a slight ripple across the surface.
He slowly looked in the direction of the cry and saw a furtive figure stealthily pulling back the door bolt, trying to slip out through the main gate.
Gao Yunyi smiled.
The fellow was quite bold, actually knowing to do the opposite of what was expected.
Strangely enough, Gao Yunyi hadn't noticed him at all.
Almost there,
almost there.
Once I pull back this bolt, I can open the gate and escape with my life.
Sha Pingwei trembled all over with tension, blood rushing through him. The light bolt now felt impossibly heavy in his hands.
Creak—
The bolt moved slowly with a faint sound, but to his ears it was like the booming of bells and drums, sending his heart straight into his throat.
But just as he was about to pull open the gate with both hands, the hairs on his back suddenly stood on end, and a bone-deep chill swept through his body.
It was as if a pair of eyes were watching him from behind, carrying an immense terror.
The immortal...
has noticed me.
Sha Pingwei's head buzzed as if with a thunderclap, and that intense, indescribable sense of danger had reached its peak.
"No... I can't die yet."
Under the force of his desperate will to live, courage burst forth within him, allowing him to wrench himself free of the immense fear in his heart.
He quickly pulled open the gate and charged outside without hesitation.
Outside,
people stretched as far as the eye could see.
It was as though everyone in Dingzhou City had squeezed into this small southern district.
The streets and alleys, upstairs and downstairs, were packed with a dark mass of people.
Yet, strangely, within a hundred meters of the Canglang Gang's headquarters, the area was a vacuum. Not a single person dared set foot there.
But Sha Pingwei could no longer care about any of that. He only wanted to get away and escape into the crowd outside. Perhaps then the immortal wouldn't find him.
Whoosh—
Just as he rushed out of the gate, a deafening, ringing sound tore through the air behind him, accompanied by an intensely scorching wave of heat.
Sha Pingwei's body and mind trembled violently.
He knew what it was, and he had witnessed the terrifying power of that move with his own eyes.
The immortal had noticed him and wanted to kill him.
But he didn't want to die, and he couldn't die.
"Ah..."
Sha Pingwei let out a hysterical roar. He refused to sit and wait for death; he would stake his life on one desperate attempt to win himself a sliver of hope.
Even if it was an immortal who wanted his life.
He abruptly turned around, planted his feet, sank his shoulders, and lowered his palms to his sides, shouting at the top of his lungs.
"Golden Bell Shield, Iron Shirt!"
With a ripping sound, his upper garment suddenly burst to pieces, revealing a powerful body covered in saber and sword scars.
But his skin was not the usual yellow, black, or white of an ordinary person. It had the color and texture of raw iron, like metal and stone.
Sha Pingwei stood as unmoving as a mountain, towering like a peak and still as a deep pool, attempting to withstand an immortal's sword with a mortal body.
Boom—
The sharp, violently powerful crimson Sword Qi destroyed the sturdy gate, plowed through the flagstones, and tore through the still air before passing by Sha Pingwei's shoulder.
One could only say that Sha Pingwei's luck was extraordinarily good. His turn had happened to take him out of the direct path of the Blazing Sun Sword Qi's deadly strike.
But even though it had only grazed past him, the violently powerful Sword Qi still blasted his entire arm into a bloody mist, which then vanished under the terrifying heat.
The powerful shock wave lifted Sha Pingwei's entire body and sent him flying backward like a sandbag. He skidded more than ten meters across the ground before collapsing.
Just as the distant onlookers thought Sha Pingwei was certain to die, he struggled to sit up and violently spat out several mouthfuls of stagnant blood.
His entire arm had been severed at the shoulder, and the surrounding skin was charred black.
It was impossible to tell whether the Blazing Sun Sword Qi had a limited range and had lost much of its power by the time it struck him, or whether the Golden Bell Shield and Iron Shirt he practiced really had an extraordinary effect.
In any case, Sha Pingwei hadn't died. He had survived a strike from the immortal.
"I'm not dead. I'm still alive, hahaha..."
Sha Pingwei's mouth was full of blood. His injuries made him feel as though his entire skeleton had fallen apart, and the pain at his shoulder was unbearable, like gangrene clinging to the bone.
But in the end, he had survived.
Clutching his severed arm, Sha Pingwei staggered to his feet. His hair was disheveled, his face deathly pale, and his body covered in blood. His expression had twisted into something hideous from the pain.
He looked like an evil spirit that had just crawled out of hell.
He looked toward the crowd ahead and saw a familiar figure.
It was his backer, the Canglang Gang's patron: Lord Left Thousand Commander, a Principal Fifth Rank official of Dingzhou City's Thousand Commander Office.
"Lord Left... Lord Left..."
At the sight of his backer, Sha Pingwei felt as though he had found his anchor. His eyes lit up, and his heart filled with wild joy.
The Left Thousand Commander, who was leading his troops to maintain order, turned pale with fright when he saw Sha Pingwei staggering toward him.
In broad daylight, with countless eyes watching,
and right under the immortal's nose.
Once Sha Pingwei came to him, it would be conclusive proof that he and Sha Pingwei had been involved in illicit dealings.
What would his superiors think of him then? What would his colleagues think? What would the people think? And what would the immortal think?
Even if he jumped into the Yellow River, he wouldn't be able to wash himself clean.
"Don't come over here!!!"
The Left Thousand Commander roared inwardly, but outwardly he pretended not to know Sha Pingwei.
"Lord Left... Lord Left... save me... please save me..."
But Sha Pingwei showed no intention of giving up. How could he willingly let go of the lifeline he had finally managed to grasp?
Yet just as the Left Thousand Commander's face grew paler and the looks people around him gave him grew increasingly strange,
rumble—
A sudden bolt from the blue crashed down from the sky, striking Sha Pingwei squarely.
Thud—
A charred, rigid corpse fell heavily to the ground, falling heavily before tens of thousands of eyes.