Immortal Treasure

"Stop!"

The masked leader pointed his sword at him. "Witch God Cultist?"

"Amitabha!"

The sharp-mouthed monk pressed his palms together. "Benefactors, do not speak nonsense. This poor monk is a monk of Golden Bell Temple."

"A monk? Then why were you running around in such a panic?!"

The masked man shouted coldly, "Cut the crap. With that face of yours, who could you fool? Die!"

There was no more nonsense.

All four attacked at once.

The monk did not hesitate either. At some point, he had quietly put on a pair of iron-wire-wrapped gloves. He met the blades head-on, and sparks flew in every direction, the sound like iron being hammered.

"That monk and the masked leader are both Bone Tempering Martial Artists!"

Chen Sanshi could tell that their strength had clearly surpassed the scope of Blood Tempering martial artists. Both were Bone Tempering experts.

The sharp-mouthed monk in particular looked thin and weak, but once he truly started fighting, he was ferocious beyond measure, his presence like a tiger of Second Mountain.

Other than the masked leader, the rest were no match for him at all.

Within a few exchanges, they were all wounded. Holding their swords, they no longer dared approach and could only provide cover from afar.

The masked leader and the monk fell into a bitter battle.

Just as they were locked in an inseparable struggle, another figure appeared soundlessly and launched a surprise attack from behind.

He was, astonishingly, another Bone Tempering Martial Artist.

Two against one; the monk was finally beginning to falter.

"Slash—"

The masked leader found an opening and cut into the monk's shoulder.

The blade did not sever the entire arm as expected. Instead, after splitting the bone, it became lodged halfway through, unable to cut all the way through.

So this was Bone Tempering?

Bones were actually so hard that even blades struggled to cut through them?

Even my Two-stone bow probably couldn't directly kill a Bone Tempering Martial Artist.

It looks like getting a ten-stone bow is imperative.

Chen Sanshi continued watching the battle.

Any fight between people of a higher realm than his was useful for gaining experience.

On the battlefield, the situation gradually became clear.

In the end, two fists could not beat four hands. After taking that sword strike, the monk's disadvantage rapidly grew. Even the Blood Tempering martial artists who had only dared watch from afar came forward, searching for chances to finish him off.

"Slash, slash, slash—"

The sound of sharp edges tearing through cloth rang out one after another.

The fake monk looked as though someone had splashed him all over with red paint. His bones were hard to sever, but no one knew how many pieces of flesh had been sliced away. Some still clung to his body, dangling without falling, swaying as if about to drop at any moment. It was a terrifying sight.

Finally, the masked leader found an opening and drove his sword into the Witch God Cultist's carotid artery.

Blood sprayed like a fountain. He fell stiffly backward, dying with his eyes still open.

"Search him!"

The masked men quickly rifled through the corpse, but found nothing.

"There's nothing. The immortal treasure isn't on him!"

"Young Master of the Academy, do you think we should go up the mountain?"

"The item has most likely already fallen into Xiang Tingchun's hands."

"Let's go. We came to pick up scraps in the first place. If we can't, then forget it. If Xiang Tingchun catches us, we're finished. Looks like we'll have to pay a steep price."

"Take the body and withdraw!"

Listening to their conversation, Chen Sanshi confirmed his suspicions.

The masked men were Liang Zhan and that old servant!

This Young Master of the Academy was rumored to spend his days frequenting brothels, yet his cultivation had not fallen behind in the slightest. At twenty-five or twenty-six, even assuming he had practiced martial arts for ten years, reaching Bone Tempering in Poyang County still counted as absolutely top-tier.

"If I want to kill him, I still need to increase my strength."

Chen Sanshi had not forgotten that the man surnamed Liang had once come knocking. If Wang Zhi had not been there, it might not have cost him his life, but he certainly would not have had an easy time.

The feeling of being at another's mercy was truly unbearable.

He did not linger and returned the way he had come.

"Did Xiang Tingchun really get the immortal treasure?"

Chen Sanshi found it regrettable.

But he always felt that something was not right.

Thinking it over carefully, Witch God Cultists mingling among the common people was not actually a good way to escape.

The army had already arrived. Even if they truly were ordinary citizens, their ancestral records would be investigated eighteen generations back before they were verified and released.

Rather than trying to slip through the net, they seemed more like they were drawing attention away.

If not for Chen Sanshi, in such chaos, no one would have noticed the fake monk—not when he could even hear a branch snapping dozens of meters away.

But there had been nothing on him either.

Had he hidden it?

Chen Sanshi could not help recalling how he had obtained the Exquisite Jade Box.

With a try-it-and-see attitude, he searched along the path he had come from, but found no signs that the earth had been dug up.

"Am I overthinking this?"

"Wait."

A birdcall above his head drew his attention to a pine tree whose bark showed fresh signs of having been stripped away.

Chen Sanshi immediately climbed up and found a fist-sized tree hollow at the highest part of the trunk.

"There's a snake!"

His eyes and hands moved swiftly. He grabbed the snake by the head and yanked it out.

It was a venomous green snake.

Looking into the hollow again, there was nothing else.

However, there were bloodstains on the snake's lower jaw, as though it had been torn open before. Some of its scales were missing as well.

"Could it be..."

Chen Sanshi did not hesitate. He pried open the snake's upper and lower jaws with both hands, pulled them apart, and tore the whole snake in two. A piece of emerald-green jade immediately appeared before his eyes—the Jade Key recorded in the Book of Great Sheng!

"Stuffing the item into a snake's belly—now that's something!"

He could not help admiring the man's wild imagination.

Even if the snake had been marked, there was no guarantee they would find it later.

It seemed the Witch God Cult would rather lose the item than let it fall into anyone else's hands.

It had to be said, this method was indeed effective.

If it had been any ordinary person, they could never have found such minute traces.

Yet it had encountered him.

Chen Sanshi put away the jade, then tore out the snake's gallbladder.

This green snake was not worth much, but even a mosquito's leg was meat.

After finishing everything, he tossed the snake's corpse back into the tree hollow. Before long, other animals would follow the scent of blood and eat it clean.

"Looks like Commander Xiang's trip will be for nothing."

When Chen Sanshi returned to the foot of the mountain, the chaos had yet to end.

The Witch God Cultists put up a cornered beast's last resistance. Later, the remaining two or three simply used ordinary citizens as human shields and fled in every direction.

Sure enough, they had been covering for the fake monk.

After the fake monk left, the Witch God Cultists began looking for ways to save their own lives.

The men from the garrison had also scattered in pursuit. Their forces were spread thin, and no one had the attention to spare for Chen Sanshi's movements.

It was not until dusk that they captured the last Witch God Cultist and began clearing the battlefield.

As for casualties, three garrison officers and soldiers had died, while two were wounded.

Of the dead, only one was a Warrior Recruit. The rest were ordinary recruits.

But they had killed seven Witch God Cultists and captured one alive, all of them Blood Tempering martial artists.

There truly was strength in numbers.

After all, they had one Banner Commander and five Squad Leaders. If the situation had not been so chaotic, preventing the archers from being of much use, they could have suffered even fewer casualties.

"I killed one Blood Tempering master and one at minor attainment. That should be enough to trade for a few bowls of Blood Replenishing Soup."

Chen Sanshi calculated silently.

The men under him also returned one after another. There were no casualties, and together they had killed two more.

"All right, stop clinging to me!"

Zhu Tong impatiently shoved Xu Wencai away. "It's all over. Look at how scared stiff you are!"

"Pew—"

The signal arrow sounded again.

The three hundred garrison troops were ordered to assemble before Golden Bell Temple.

Xiang Tingchun, his clothes stained with blood, slowly emerged from the temple gates. His Seedling Saber had snapped, and blood stained the corner of his mouth. Only the head clutched in his hand proclaimed that he had won this battle.