Demonic Qi Surges

Demonic Qi Surges

Duke of Wei's Estate in Jingkang Ward of Gongzhou City.

Top Jianghu Experts from various paths, along with the hastily arrived Hundred Guards of the Martial Rites Division, gathered here. Duke of Wei Li Guoyuan sat in the main seat of the formal hall. After all, holding a high position, his demeanor still seemed quite steady.

With a long beard, he stood up and raised a toast to everyone. "I must heavily rely on all of you these past few days. As long as my little daughter can be kept safe, there will definitely be a generous reward."

A square-faced swordsman dressed in black spoke. "The fiend Young Master Silver Flower has re-emerged in the Jianghu, and Righteous Path Cultivators should all kill him. Am I, the Sword Saint, here for that mere worldly wealth? Upholding justice and slaying demons and exterminating devils is naturally a matter within my generation's duty."

Another middle-aged man wearing official military robes seemed far more enthusiastic, intentionally trying to curry favor with this influential figure currently in the Great Zhou Dynasty. "As the Duke is an Imperial Relatives, this time we are protecting none other than Consort Li's younger sister. How could Zhongxing Du not spare no effort?"

Lu Canghai, whom Gao Xian knew, was also among them. His not-so-severe injuries looked somewhat better. He sat in a chair, hugging his sword and conserving his energy, speaking only a single sentence. "Today, either Young Master Silver Flower dies, or I do."

Everyone stood guard in the formal hall without uttering a word. The hidden sentries of the Martial Rites Division all around were extremely vigilant, ready to issue a signal at the slightest disturbance.

Suddenly, Lu Canghai opened his eyes, his ears twitching. "They're here!"

Scarcely had the words fallen when a fierce battle erupted from a boudoir in the rear courtyard in the distance, only to subside in an instant. Everyone present converged on that rear courtyard simultaneously, and a large number of soldiers emerged as well, tightly surrounding the courtyard.

In the blink of an eye, dozens to nearly a hundred people appeared outside the rear courtyard boudoir. In the distance, a handsome young man holding a folding fan appeared atop the wall, looking one by one at the people who had come to encircle and kill him today.

"Sword Saint Xu Bayuan." His gaze swept across the swordsman in black, who glared back with furious eyes.

"Zhongxing Du, when did you become a running dog of Great Zhou?" Hearing Young Master Silver Flower's words, Zhongxing Du instantly felt a surge of anger, his face turning red.

"And there's another ignorant wretch. You're called Heart Sword Lu Canghai, right? Did you think you could roam unhindered across the realm just because you made the Heavenly Secrets Ranking Sword Ranking once?" With a expressionless face, Lu Canghai tightened his grip on his sword hilt.

"Before coming, this young master had quite a few expectations. To think that those who came would be a mere mob of worthless curs."

With that, Young Master Silver Flower leaped up, seemingly merging as one with the bright moon in the sky.

With peerless lightness skills, he came treading the moon and singing the journey.

Wherever Young Master Silver Flower passed within sight, formless silver flowers fell like illusions.

"Watch out for the fiend's poison!"

Heart Sword Lu Canghai was extremely familiar with this trick, as if he had suffered from it before.

Yet even with advance preparation, the people inside and outside the courtyard still fell in rows, and it was useless for everyone to cover their noses and mouths with wet cloths.

In an instant, the ground was densely packed with lying bodies. Aside a few experts, the rest could not even approach within a radius of several meters of Young Master Silver Flower.

Several Jianghu experts stepped forward to fight a battle to the death.

"Old Demon Silver Flower, go die!" Swords left their scabbards, and blade lights flashed.

A supreme battle of Jianghu guests erupted instantly.

The few supreme Jianghu experts fought until the heavens and earth were turned upside down. Within moments, the Duke of Wei's Estate was littered with corpses everywhere. Among the crowd of experts besieging Young Master Silver Flower, almost everyone carried injuries.

Sword Saint Xu Bayuan struck with a single saber, carrying a saber intent that was tyrannical enough to overawe heaven and earth. Yet the folding fan in Young Master Silver Flower's hand shattered gold and cleaved steel; manufactured from unknown materials, it rawly blocked the encirclement of everyone.

Following that, a palm strike hit the Sword Saint's chest, blasting him crashing into a building and instantly reducing it to a shambles.

Turning back with a single fan strike, he directly parried Lu Canghai's sword, then kicked him flying, sending him crashing through the wall behind him until it collapsed.

Several people besieged Young Master Silver Flower with inconceivable speed, yet the outcome was decided in an extremely swift space of time.

Several people were either dead or injured, and at that moment, a commotion also erupted in a neighboring courtyard in the distance.

Lu Canghai and Sword Saint Xu Bayuan immediately changed expressions. "Not good!"

Just as the words finished, four men dressed like clowns carried a bridal sedan chair, skimming away from the distance like flying as they headed toward the western district of the city.

Seeing that he had succeeded, Young Master Silver Flower had no intention of dragging things out. Repelling the crowd, he left right behind them.

The tightly closed ward gates could not block Jianghu guests. In the darkness, figure after figure flashed through the air, leaping several meters at a time, fluttering and carefree like catkins drifting in the wind.

At the very front were the Four Ghosts of Silver Flower Palace carrying the sedan chair, inside of which sat a woman like a maiden awaiting marriage—precisely the Duke of Wei's second daughter, Li Rong'er.

Young Master Silver Flower stayed not far behind the bridal sedan chair to cover the rear, appearing as though victory was in his grasp, and it seemed there were further arrangements outside the city.

Even though they had long since switched her with a decoy in secret and deployed heavy troops, this Young Master Silver Flower seemed to have seen through everything all along, easily piercing through their deployment. Young Master Silver Flower used himself as a decoy, making a feint to the east while attacking the west so that the four ghosts could accurately seize the Duke of Wei's second daughter.

Just as legends described, Li Rong'er had towering cloud-like hair buns pinned with a golden pearl hairpin, and her plain wide-sleeved ruqun could not conceal her proudly undulating breasts, with a fur coat draped over the outside, giving birth spontaneously to an air of nobility.

Her appearance was exquisite and beautiful, her jade neck white, slender, and graceful, with distinct collarbones and a lithe figure.

It involuntarily made one's gaze slide from her face to her jade neck, then travel all the way down along her pretty collarbones to her slender waist that seemed graspable by a single hand.

Her outward appearance was secondary; the crucial point was her temperament—that classical quality, gorgeous yet refined, which modern people could never attain no matter how much they relied on plastic surgery, makeup, and maintenance.

Yet at this moment, Li Rong'er's face was full of terror, but her entire body was restrained so that not even a single finger could move. Thinking back to the rumors she had heard in the past about this demon, her inner fear of Young Master Silver Flower grew even more intense.

Legend had it that every time this fiend abducted a woman, he would control them with mysterious Western Region poison. It was said that once infected with this poison, the agony upon the poison's outbreak was unbearable, yet partaking of it again felt like ascending to the celestial realm.

Even a Divine Maiden Saintess could ultimately only resign herself to depravity, willingly letting Old Demon Silver Flower toy with her. This kind of method caused heaven knows how many women in the world to tremble in fear.

Behind them chased the injured Sword Saint, Lu Canghai, and Zhongxing Du, along with numerous Jianghu heroes, refusing to give up as if willing to risk their very lives to leave this fiend behind.

From this perspective, these three were true righteous heroes, willing to risk their lives to kill Young Master Silver Flower, the demon bringing disaster to the Jianghu.

Young Master Silver Flower was also somewhat injured. With three top experts fighting to the death, he did not dare linger in Gongzhou City after capturing his target, heading straight toward the city wall, which was already visible in the distance.

"My lightness skill is number one under heaven. How could you few small fry hope to keep me?"

Young Master Silver Flower looked back and mocked the defeated foes who were desperately pursuing him, yet as he turned his head back, he suddenly froze.

Standing atop the city wall in the moonlight was a single figure in plain Daoist robes, possessing a pair of eyes that illuminated the night sky.