Kill Until They Tremble, West Peak Sky-Piercer

"Keep up, hurry! That guy is somewhere nearby!"

"Be careful, everyone. Don't rush in once you find him—call for reinforcements immediately."

"The Second Boss is on his way, so don't—"

Pfft!

Before the bandit could finish speaking, a sudden slash swept across his throat, and blood blossomed into the air.

Li Yan held his saber inverted in one hand while casually spinning a pickaxe between the fingers of the other, looking utterly relaxed.

"Heh, it really is hard on you lot, throwing yourselves at death one after another. Thanks."

The moment the surrounding Fierce Wind Bandits saw Li Yan clearly, their expressions changed drastically. "It's that guy! We found—"

Pfft!

Before he could finish, Li Yan flashed to his side, and the pickaxe mercilessly punched through the crown of his head.

Not far away, Shangguan Xiyun hid in a tree, carefully parting the branches as she cautiously observed the scene below.

"Sigh, this again..."

This was the third day since they had left the Nine Desolations Mountain Range. Over the past two days, the Fierce Wind Bandits had relied on their numbers and extensive experience in the mountains and forests to easily track down the two, who had absolutely no experience in hiding their tracks.

Shangguan Xiyun had originally wanted Li Yan to take her and break through the encirclement quickly, but Li Yan's actions had exceeded everyone's expectations.

Kill!

No matter how many Fierce Wind Bandits he encountered, he had only one word for them: kill!

No matter how many came, he left not a single survivor.

In just two days, Li Yan had wiped out three waves of pursuers. Every wave had numbered at least thirty men; nearly a hundred people had all met violent deaths.

This filled Shangguan Xiyun with fear. She was from the Shangguan Family and had long been accustomed to conflicts in the martial world. She had seen more than her share of life-and-death struggles.

But killing nearly a hundred people in such a short time—such murderousness was simply unimaginable.

Yet how could Shangguan Xiyun have known that Li Yan was not doing it for some damned bloodlust at all? He was merely reclaiming the Attribute Points that belonged to him.

And the Attribute Points dropped by these people's strength had happened to let Li Yan break through to the Body Tempering Ninth Layer.

Not only that, Li Yan had also discovered something different.

Although Shangguan Xiyun did not practice martial arts, she had been born into a martial family and naturally knew something about the martial path.

From talking with her, Li Yan learned that once one reached the ninth level of Body Tempering, one had to begin cultivating a technique and condense true qi, or it would be difficult to advance further.

Yet Li Yan was surprised to discover that killing people and picking up Attribute Points lay completely outside that restriction. The three attributes before him had already exceeded a hundred points, yet he could still keep improving by collecting Attribute Points.

That piqued Li Yan's interest.

Could higher base attributes grant him even greater improvements after he began cultivating a technique?

"Argh!"

As the last man was cut down, Li Yan swiftly searched the bodies. Along with the Attribute Points, he found some loose silver as well.

"Hey, come down. Their Second Boss is on his way, you know~"

Li Yan called up at Shangguan Xiyun in the tree.

After climbing down, Shangguan Xiyun said helplessly, "I have a feeling that if you and I went our separate ways right now, those people would stop looking for me just to focus on killing you."

Li Yan merely smiled at that, packed up his things, and turned to leave.

Not long after the two departed, more Fierce Wind Bandits arrived. When they saw their comrades' corpses scattered across the ground, every one of them was furious and alarmed.

Including those who had died here, they had lost more than a tenth of their men in only a few days. It truly frightened them.

But they did not dare show it, because the Fierce Wind Bandits' Second Boss, Yuan Feipeng, had arrived with them.

Yuan Feipeng looked at the corpses littering the ground, his teeth grinding with a creak.

"Damn it! Damn it, damn it, damn it!"

With an enraged roar, Yuan Feipeng raised a hand and clawed at a huge tree. In the next instant, the tree, so thick it took three men to encircle it, was sliced into four pieces and crashed to the ground.

"Enough. Call everyone back."

"B-But, Second Boss..."

One man had just opened his mouth when he met Yuan Feipeng's killing intent-filled gaze.

"Yes... We'll see to it immediately."

For the next two days, Li Yan and Shangguan Xiyun did not encounter another Fierce Wind Bandit, which even Shangguan Xiyun found strange.

"How odd. It's been two days, yet we haven't seen a single Fierce Wind Bandit."

"It's not strange. So many of them have died; they've understood one thing."

"What?"

"No matter how many useless people they send, they're only coming to die. I won't go easy on them just because I've killed a lot."

Shangguan Xiyun stared at Li Yan in shock. She had never expected this fellow to be thinking that way.

Kill until the other side was afraid—was that his way of breaking the deadlock?

Was that something an ordinary person could even think of?

No, this guy was not normal at all!

Though she could not understand it, Shangguan Xiyun still felt fortunate. What he had done had indeed kept them safe.

"Hey, hey, you don't actually think we're safe now, do you?"

"Huh? Aren't we?"

"Heh, after losing so many people, how could they possibly let us go just like that?"

"If I'm not mistaken, they'll be waiting for us somewhere we're certain to pass through."

"Somewhere we're certain to pass through... Ah!"

Shangguan Xiyun cried out in alarm. To reach Dongjiang City, there really was one place they absolutely could not avoid.

"West Peak Sky-Piercer!"

West Peak Sky-Piercer was an extremely deep gorge, with its two sides separated by a hundred zhang and connected only by an iron-chain suspension bridge.

Unless one possessed sufficiently formidable lightness skill, the iron-chain bridge was the only way across.

Two more days passed, and Li Yan and Shangguan Xiyun arrived at West Peak Sky-Piercer.

Once they crossed this place, Dongjiang City would be within reach.

Yet at the head of the iron-chain bridge, one man waited silently, with several Fierce Wind Bandits beside him.

When Yuan Feipeng saw Li Yan and Shangguan Xiyun arrive, he could not help but sneer.

"Is that so? Dongjiang City is ahead, right? No matter how slow the Shangguan Family is, they should know by now that their daughter is being hunted."

"Do you think you'll still have a chance to leave once the Shangguan Family arrives?"

Li Yan sneered as well. Their eyes met, and the killing intent around them provoked one another.

Clearly, the hatred between them could not be reconciled. It was a fight to the death.

"Fine, then I'd like to see how someone in the Body Tempering Realm plans to contend against someone in the Qi Condensation Realm!"

As he spoke, Yuan Feipeng stepped forward, seemingly surrounded by an invisible aura.

In an instant, Li Yan felt the powerful pressure coming from his opponent. This was the pressure of the Qi Condensation Realm.

Once one entered the Qi Condensation Realm, the qi and blood within the body transformed into true qi. With true qi enhancing them, the formidable physique cultivated in the Body Tempering Realm became exceedingly fragile.

"Hey, hey, hey, can you really handle this? He looks really strong."

Shangguan Xiyun clutched Li Yan's sleeve, looking extremely nervous.

"Don't worry. I haven't received my payment yet, so I won't die just like this."

"Besides, I want to see whether the gap between realms truly cannot be crossed."

With that, Li Yan drew his saber and walked toward Yuan Feipeng step by step.