Life Hanging by a Thread

"Eight-star Dou Practitioner."

Slowly exhaling a breath of stale air, Xiao Yan hid behind a tree, murder lurking in his eyes as hesitation filled his face.

The gap between him and an Eight-star Dou Practitioner was simply far too vast.

Before this, the limit he had estimated in his heart had only been a Six-star Dou Practitioner. Yet the difference between six stars and eight was far from an ordinary two-star gap. It marked the divide between mid-level and High-level Dou Practitioners.

Xiao Yan had no grasp at all of a High-level Dou Practitioner's strength. Reason told him that retreating now was absolutely the wisest choice.

The Purple Light in his eyes deepened. The youth tried several times to step back, yet he could never fully make up his mind.

His expression shifted, and the bloodstained face of the youth suddenly twisted with ferocity.

"Let's risk it! With the power of the Soul Skill, as long as I turn that Great Chieftain into an idiot, can this young master really lose to a few leftover grunts with Dou Qi?"

The thought flashed through his mind, and he no longer hesitated. He swiftly mobilized the Soul Force in his mind and poured all of it into the purple radiance.

After injecting a full three-quarters of his Soul Force, Xiao Yan's gaze had grown somewhat unfocused. He forcibly suppressed the agitation in his heart and fixed his eyes on the back of the burly man's head.

Three, two, one.

After silently counting to three, an extremely faint purple gleam flashed. In an instant, it shot into the burly man's head and pierced straight into the most vulnerable depths of his soul.

"Argh!!!"

An endless agony, as though his entire brain had been pierced by something sharp, flooded the burly man's consciousness. He fell directly to the ground, while the aura around him erupted wildly as if he had gone mad. Threads of Dou Qi seeped across the surface of his skin, turning into gauzy ribbons of Dou Qi.

His aura surged and weakened unpredictably. Clearly, he had overdrawn his foundation and was driving all the Dou Qi in his body at any cost.

"Trash, get out here!"

He let out a low, incomparably shrill roar. His eyes were bloodshot, and the fine blood vessels in his left eye even burst open, blood instantly filling the entire socket and trickling down like a stream.

This bizarre sight instantly terrified the surrounding subordinates out of their wits. Their earlier grinning expressions had long since turned into boundless fear.

"Great Chieftain!"

"Great Chieftain, what's wrong with you—"

"Damn it, can't you see we're under attack?!"

The Great Chieftain flew into a rage and cursed, "Quick, drag that bastard out! His first strike failed, so he has no strength left to follow up!"

One of the Bandits forcibly suppressed the fear in his heart. Knowing that his chance to earn merit had come, he chimed in, "The Great Chieftain is right! If he still hasn't shown himself, he must have no strength left. There's no need for us to fear him!"

"Drag out that sneak-attacking bastard and avenge the Great Chieftain!"

Hearing this, the Bandits who had been running around like headless flies seemed to find a backbone. They formed groups of two or three and headed toward the forest to investigate.

What terrified them once again was that the first few Bandits who entered the forest did not even have time to make a sound before they fell silent.

The next moment, Xiao Yan's blood-soaked figure slowly appeared in the Bandits' sight. Blood speckled his exceedingly youthful face, making him look particularly frightening.

He had been overconfident.

Although Soul Piercing Strike was immensely powerful, it had not turned his opponent into an idiot as he had imagined. Instead, it had driven the man into a frenzied rampage.

Xiao Yan secretly circulated the Dou Qi within his body. He had recovered a little from the earlier expenditure, but the emptiness of his Soul Force meant that his control over the Dou Qi in his body could no longer reach its former level.

Regret was useless now. All he could do was fight to the death.

The thought flashed through his mind as Xiao Yan said coldly, "I heard you were looking for me?"

The Great Chieftain, originally shocked and furious, suddenly burst into wild laughter. His face twisted as he said, "So you're just a One-star Dou Zhe little bastard. You're courting death!"

Although he did not know what method the other party had used to deal him such a heavy blow, the other party's face was incomparably pale. Clearly, he no longer had the ability to use it again.

A mere One-star Dou Zhe—he could kill him with a flip of his hand!

"Get the hell out of my way! I'm killing him myself!"

The Great Chieftain let out a low roar, forcibly driving the out-of-control Dou Qi within him as he charged forward with violent fluctuations.

Seeing this, Xiao Yan's heart grew incomparably grave. He did not dare be careless in the slightest. With a flip of his palm, a powerful wind pressure swept forth.

"Fire Blowing Palm!"

After one clash, even though Xiao Yan had used a Xuan-tier Dou Technique, he had only barely fought the man to a draw and could not gain even the slightest advantage.

His expression remained unchanged. Knowing that his Soul Force was extremely depleted and that he could no longer use his Dou Qi to its fullest as before, he simply unleashed his strongest technique directly.

"Eight Extremes Collapse!"

Pale yellow Dou Qi appeared over Xiao Yan's right fist as he struck viciously at his opponent's chest from a tricky angle.

The Great Chieftain's left eye was filled with blood, while his only remaining right eye stared fixedly at Xiao Yan, making him look as terrifying as a Fierce Ghost.

After slightly sensing the fluctuations of the Dou Technique, his voice brimmed with killing intent and greed. "Little bastard, you actually possess so many Xuan-tier Dou Techniques. What a pity your strength is too weak!"

His body abruptly halted. The Great Chieftain let out a long howl and finally used a Dou Technique.

"Iron Stone Hammer!"

First palm against palm, then fist against fist. Even when Xiao Yan used the Xuan-tier Advanced Eight Extremes Collapse, he still failed to gain any advantage from his opponent.

A High-level Dou Practitioner's strength truly exceeded his previous expectations. Even severely injured, with his qi vortex in chaos, the man could still unleash such tyrannical power.

Seeing Xiao Yan forced back, the Bandits who had scattered earlier immediately began howling.

"Great Chieftain, kill this little brat!"

The burly man sneered. "Little bastard, how many more times can your Dou Qi sustain your use of Xuan-tier Dou Techniques?"

"Enough to kill you!"

After catching his breath for a moment, Xiao Yan charged straight at the burly man again, forcibly activating Eight Extremes Collapse.

"Bang!"

They clashed once more, but Xiao Yan had already lost the force he possessed earlier. Under the collision, he was sent flying backward.

If one looked within his Dantian, one would discover that the brilliant qi vortex in his body had long become extremely dim. Even its previously frenzied rotation had slowed to a crawl.

Using Xuan-tier Dou Techniques repeatedly had already pushed Xiao Yan, who was still only a One-star Dou Zhe, to his limit.

That he had managed to keep fighting for so long was already nothing short of a miracle.

Seeing Xiao Yan fall to the ground, the distant Bandits immediately revealed mocking smiles, clearly dismissing his earlier words with disdain.

In their eyes, with a full seven-star difference in cultivation, no matter how monstrous Xiao Yan was, there was absolutely no way he could turn things around.

The Great Chieftain wiped away the blood flowing down the left side of his face. His expression carried both venom and mockery.

"Little bastard, even if you ambushed me once, the strength of an Eight-star Dou Practitioner is still far beyond what you can withstand. Hand over your Dou Techniques obediently, and I'll leave you an intact corpse."

"..."

The sudden silence left the Great Chieftain somewhat puzzled. He instinctively darted toward Xiao Yan, only to suddenly discover a strange pale purple gleam emerging from beneath the youth's hair.

"Die!"

That familiar fluctuation made him pale in fright. Terror appeared on his face, and he no longer cared about the Dou Techniques. With a flip of his palm, a huge saber abruptly appeared in his hand, and he hacked down madly.

The cold glint rushing toward him made Xiao Yan's pupils constrict sharply. His planned move was instantly disrupted—

A Storage Ring?!

In the entire Xiao Family, only Xiao Zhan and the First Elder possessed treasures such as Storage Rings.

For a mere High-level Dou Practitioner to possess a Storage Ring, one could only imagine how many resources this group of Bandits had plundered.

His desperate sneak attack had failed. Madness filled Xiao Yan's eyes as he simply abandoned all defense, determined to condense his last remaining Soul Force into Soul Piercing Strike.

Even if he died, he had to take the other party down with him!

"Buzz—"

A faint Buzzing Sound rang out, and the huge saber that had been swinging down suddenly froze in midair.

Xiao Yan looked overhead and saw two slender, jade-white fingers pinching the sharp blade, an utterly incongruous sight.

The Black-skirted Girl, who had appeared at some unknown moment, wore her usual expression as she smiled down at Xiao Yan lying on the ground.

"Third Young Master, the trial is over. You failed."