After the two had put some distance between themselves and the battlefield, Chen Lin stopped retreating and dodging, instead swinging his sword head-on against the lean man.
"Clang, clang, clang~"
After a round of fierce exchanges, Chen Lin's arms gradually went numb. His current strength still fell somewhat short of a late-stage Martial Master's.
"Kid, your strength is only at the mid-stage Martial Master level. Looks like you're destined to die beneath my blade tonight!"
The lean man sneered viciously, his saber swings growing ever swifter.
Chen Lin's gaze remained calm. As he continuously dodged with movement techniques at the level of Entering the Hall and Reaching the Inner Chamber, the Cold Moon Flying Daggers he had deliberately left on the ground suddenly rose into the air.
As they shot toward the lean man, Chen Lin also attached his spiritual sense to the man's saber.
"Not good, you're—"
The lean man had only just sensed that something was wrong when the Cold Moon Flying Daggers pierced through his neck, abdomen, and heart.
"Urgh... urgh..."
The lean man clutched his neck and heart, staring wide-eyed at Chen Lin with utter disbelief before falling silent.
[Slaughter Points +10]
Chen Lin frowned as he looked at the Slaughter Points gain floating in his mind, sinking into thought.
"Ah! You dog, how despicable!"
Just as Chen Lin was wondering why killing someone at the same cultivation realm earned more Slaughter Points than killing a demonic beast, a scream instantly yanked him back to reality.
Following the sound, Chen Lin saw Wu Fan's face twisted with fury. One hand clutched the flying dagger lodged in his chest, while his other arm had vanished without a trace.
His opponent was brandishing a saber, cutting huge slabs of flesh from Wu Fan's body one slice at a time. The sight was exceptionally bloody.
"Courting death!"
Seeing this, Chen Lin roared and immediately thrust his sword toward the man.
"Haha, another rookie rushing over to die!"
Seeing Chen Lin pounce toward him, the man grinned maniacally.
He Yanjun and the others, who were fighting their own opponents, saw Wu Fan's miserable state and were so enraged their eyes nearly split. While continuing their attacks, they also moved toward Wu Fan's position.
They hoped to save Wu Fan, the team's living treasure.
Unlike the others, who were entangled by enemies and slow to provide support, Chen Lin had no enemy tying him down and was much faster.
To avoid injuring Wu Fan, Chen Lin used his spiritual sense to control the enemy's saber. Then, with a flash of dark light, a Cold Moon Flying Dagger pierced through the saber-wielding martial artist's neck from the side. Blood gushed out ceaselessly as if it cost nothing.
"Urgh..."
The man clutched his neck, his eyes filled with astonishment. Before he could make another move, Chen Lin chopped off his head with a single stroke. Even Wu Fan, his teammate, could not help feeling secretly alarmed by such ruthless methods.
"Old Tian!"
The moment he saw his teammate die, Duan Hengyuan roared. His figure flashed, and he directly swung his saber at Chen Lin.
"A Lin, watch out!" He Yanjun warned Chen Lin while swinging his long-handled saber at Duan Hengyuan, hoping to force him to defend himself and abandon his attack on Chen Lin.
Yet faced with He Yanjun's fierce strike, Duan Hengyuan ignored it completely. His saber showed no intention of turning back to defend, clearly revealing how deeply he hated Chen Lin.
The explosive boom of tearing air displayed Duan Hengyuan's towering fury.
Before the blade even arrived, Chen Lin already felt an enormous danger rushing straight at him.
Facing the hate-filled strike of a Martial Grandmaster-level martial artist, Chen Lin did not dare be the slightest bit careless. As his body instinctively raised his sword to block, he poured all his spiritual sense into the treasured sword in his hand. The instant the sword swung out, enlightenment struck him, and he used the offensive techniques of Divine Firmament Swordplay.
"Clang~"
Blade and sword collided!
The scene of Chen Lin being cleaved to death or sent flying did not appear before everyone's eyes.
Instead, in everyone's eyes, after Chen Lin and Duan Hengyuan exchanged a blow, both of them involuntarily staggered several steps back.
Duan Hengyuan stared at Chen Lin in disbelief, his eyes full of incredulity.
Chen Lin's eyes were likewise filled with disbelief, but there was also intense delight.
He had not expected that, at that critical moment, he would actually execute Divine Firmament Swordplay. Moreover, with spiritual sense, Divine Firmament Swordplay, and his own strength combined, he had actually been able to withstand Duan Hengyuan's furious strike despite Duan Hengyuan being a late-stage Martial Grandmaster.
Although his arms had gone so numb after blocking that strike that he could barely hold his treasured sword, a mid-stage Martial Master being able to forcibly withstand a late-stage Martial Grandmaster's full-power strike was already terrifying.
"Well done, A Lin!" As He Yanjun swung his long saber at Duan Hengyuan, he could not help praising him.
"Second Brother, Third Brother, Fifth Brother, Sixth Brother, retreat!"
The burly man carrying a bow on his back dodged Zhu Wei's attacks while shouting at his brothers.
There were now seven against five, and Chen Lin's strength was unknown—yet he could contend with a late-stage Martial Grandmaster. No matter how one looked at it, the situation was unfavorable to them.
"Just you wait!" Duan Hengyuan shot Chen Lin a vicious glare. As he swung his saber to force He Yanjun back, his figure flashed several times before vanishing into the night, leaving no trace behind.
Duan Hengyuan's other teammates did the same.
"Don't chase them! It's dark; be careful of an ambush!" Zhu Wei stopped the people who wanted to pursue them, then said calmly, "This place isn't safe. Let's find somewhere to bandage A Fan's wounds first!"
The group stopped and nodded.
A quarter of an hour later, behind a huge boulder, Zhu Wei carefully laid Wu Fan on the ground and shouted anxiously, "Quick! Bring the medicine!"
Seeing this, Wang Ming immediately took out some golden wound medicine from the pack on his back and handed it to Zhu Wei.
He Yanjun poured a dark-red pill from a small porcelain bottle and placed it in Wu Fan's mouth. "Wu Fan, swallow this nourishing pill. You've lost too much blood; you must replenish your qi and blood first."
After Zhu Wei finished bandaging Wu Fan's wounds, the pallor on Wu Fan's face slowly regained a trace of color.
Seeing Wu Fan's complexion gradually grow rosier, Chen Lin secretly let out a sigh of relief.
In these desolate mountains and wild ridges, where no physician could be found, serious injuries were extremely dangerous for martial artists. Wu Fan's severed-arm wound in particular was enormous; one misstep, and he might bleed to death alive.
But when he thought about how a large part of this battle against Duan Hengyuan's team had been caused by the grudge between himself and Duan Hengyuan, Chen Lin felt somewhat guilty.
"Duan Hengyuan!!!" Chen Lin gritted his teeth, his gaze icy as blazing fury burned in his heart.
Taking a deep breath, Chen Lin adjusted his emotions. Half-squatting before Wu Fan, he said with a troubled expression, "Brother Wu, I'm sorry. This is all because of me!"
He Yanjun clearly noticed that something was wrong with Chen Lin's mood. Having roughly guessed Chen Lin's thoughts, he patted Chen Lin and consoled him, "A Lin, don't overthink it. This battle wasn't your responsibility!"
Wu Fan gave Chen Lin a bitter smile. "A Lin, once martial artists like us set foot on the path of cultivation, life and death are no longer ours to control. Besides, I agreed to retaliate against Duan Hengyuan's team as well, so this isn't your fault!"
"A Lin, don't blame yourself too much. This wasn't your fault to begin with. Even without the earlier ambush, once we heard the howl of the Howling Moon Sky Wolf, we would still have clashed with Duan Hengyuan's team! It was something that could not be avoided!" Zhu Wei also spoke up to comfort him.
"A Lin, don't carry everything on your shoulders. I'm alive this time thanks to you—I should be thanking you! As for me..." Wu Fan gave an ugly smile, glanced at his missing left arm, and sighed. "My ambition of becoming a Demon Purifier is probably finished. Still, my right arm remains. I can practice one-handed swordsmanship or one-handed saber techniques. I can't roam the Demonic Beast Territory anymore, but joining an escort agency and escorting goods through human territory will still be more than enough."
Zhu Wei, He Yanjun, Chen Lin, and the others all fell silent at his words.
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