Joy Turns to Sorrow

Crack...

The faint snapping sound was hard to notice, but the sensation at his toes as he retreated half a step made the burly man's contemptuous expression suddenly freeze.

"Die!"

Chu Mu leaped high into the air, completely disregarding the fatal opening he would expose after jumping.

Borrowing the momentum of his descent, he hacked down fiercely once more.

With Chu Mu's strength, even when he put all his power into a slash, it normally would have been difficult to pose much of a threat to the burly man before him.

But now, this slash had plainly become the final straw that broke the camel's back.

The sound of cracking grew clearer. The white snow on the ground collapsed, and one of the burly man's feet had stepped squarely onto the pit.

"No!"

The burly man roared unwillingly, but as the blade came down, the surging force instantly sent the already unbalanced man tumbling completely out of control into the pit.

The sharpened bamboo spikes within it—the deadly trap that should have claimed the Patrol Inspector's life—now posed a fatal threat to the burly man instead.

Thud! Accompanied by a muffled impact, the sharp bamboo spikes instantly pierced several holes. Blood-and-flesh-stained tips thrust out, pinning the burly man into the pit like several long nails.

The fury in his eyes visibly dimmed. Fresh blood relentlessly seeped from his mouth, making him look hideous and glaringly gruesome.

The life that had still been so vibrant moments ago had, in that instant, clearly stepped toward its end.

Chu Mu's face flushed red as he stood beside the pit, gasping heavily.

"Die!"

Just as Chu Mu was celebrating his escape from danger, a sudden roar made his heart, which had only just relaxed, instantly tighten to its limit!

In the pit, the burly man, already counting down toward death, suddenly let out a roar as though returning to the light.

Immediately afterward, a flash of blade suddenly appeared. The blood-stained long saber shot toward Chu Mu like an arrow released from its bowstring.

The previous second, he had still been celebrating his survival; the next... the scales of life and death appeared once more! It had happened far too suddenly and completely exceeded his expectations. Chu Mu did not even have time to raise his saber and block it, managing only to shift his body slightly.

Then, a heart-piercing, wrenching pain instantly spread from his abdomen throughout his entire body, enveloping Chu Mu completely. "Hrk..."

The heart-piercing pain twisted Chu Mu's face at once. He staggered several steps and nearly collapsed straight to the ground.

"Mu Ge'er!"

Xu Yuan ran over frantically and caught Chu Mu in his arms.

"Hiss..."

Only then did Chu Mu have the strength to look toward his abdomen. The Patrol Inspector Armor on one side had already been split open, and a glaring crimson flow seeped out like a spring.

When he shifted his gaze, he saw the long saber the burly man had thrown in his final counterattack lying on the ground beside the pit, already stained with blood.

"Tear me off a piece of cloth!"

Supported by Xu Yuan, Chu Mu staggered over and collapsed beneath a tree before speaking with some difficulty.

"Okay... okay..."

Xu Yuan was clearly at a loss. He hastily lifted his clothing and armor, tore off a piece of cloth from his garments, and immediately moved to bandage Chu Mu.

"I'll do it myself!"

Chu Mu gritted his teeth. The bitter winter cold pierced to the bone, yet sweat dripped down like rain. He snatched the strip of cloth from Xu Yuan's hand, wrapped it around his body once, and temporarily bandaged the wound that would not stop bleeding.

The wound was tugged whenever he moved his limbs, making the heart-piercing pain even more intense and nearly causing Chu Mu to grind his teeth to pieces.

"Mu-ge, the wound is here. It probably didn't hit anything vital."

Xu Yuan endured his fear and observed for quite a while before looking toward Chu Mu and speaking.

Chu Mu lowered his head and looked again. He was not familiar with the human body's structure and did not dare say for certain whether the wound had struck anything vital.

But there was no doubt that the injury was severe.

At least a cut more than ten centimeters long had opened across his stomach, and his intestines were visible.

If the Patrol Inspector Armor had not possessed some defensive power, that one slash probably would have taken his life outright!

"Now I've really got the full set!"

Chu Mu grimaced. Since entering the mountains, he had undergone one real battle after another. His mentality and saber technique had both received ample tempering and improvement.

The only thing he had been lacking was getting wounded.

This time, he had truly completed the set.

"Am I going to kick the bucket in these mountains?"

Looking at the strip of cloth already soaked crimson, Chu Mu could not help but panic.

Blood seeping from the cloth even dripped onto the ground along the armor. The patch beneath him had already been dyed completely red.

The bleeding was severe, though not yet fatal...

But here in the remote mountains and ancient forests, with heavy snow sealing off the mountain, if they delayed even a little...

Not to mention, the battle before them was not yet over, and the victor was still unknown...

Chu Mu swept his gaze around. The scene he saw reassured him considerably.

Being forced into a desperate counterattack and ending up in a stalemate was already the greatest failure. Now, it was not merely a stalemate—the Patrol Inspectors had even begun their counterattack.

Seeing this, Chu Mu felt somewhat relieved.

His gaze shifted, and then, as if he had seen something, his pupils suddenly contracted.

"Xu Yuan, you..."

Before Chu Mu could finish speaking, he saw Xu Yuan raise and bring down his saber, directly hacking into the neck of the unconscious White-Haired Old Man.

After several hacks, a blood-drenched head was hanging from Xu Yuan's hand.

"Mu Ge'er, what's wrong?"

Xu Yuan looked at Chu Mu in confusion and raised the dripping head. "Mu Ge'er, I cut off the head for you. Wait a moment—I'll go cut off the other one in the pit for you too..."

Chu Mu opened and closed his mouth, but when the words reached his lips, he did not know how to say them.

"Mu Ge'er, you don't know this, but that old fellow wasn't completely dead yet. When he opened his eyes, he scared the life out of me..."

Before long, Xu Yuan carried two heads over to Chu Mu's side and spoke in a carefree manner.

After saying this, he placed the two heads beside Chu Mu, then suddenly changed the subject. "Mu Ge'er, how do you feel? Are you all right?"

"For now, I'm still all right..."

Chu Mu shook his head and glanced at the White-Haired Old Man's head, its eyes still wide open. He could not help sighing inwardly.

Things had already come to this. Naturally, Chu Mu could not say anything more.

At this moment, his injuries also left him no room for needless words.

Perhaps because he had lost too much blood, Chu Mu clearly felt somewhat weak. His body, which had been surging with blood and qi from the fighting, had already grown cold, and even his mind had begun to turn hazy.

"Kill!"

"Don't let them escape!"

"Catch up to them!"

The increasingly chaotic shouts from the forest rang out clearly, plainly signaling the battle's changing situation.

Sitting collapsed at the edge of the battlefield, Chu Mu clearly saw figures fleeing in all directions through the Dense Forest.

The failure of the final desperate counterattack had undoubtedly exhausted the last of the Qili Village Villagers' power to resist. Those remaining were clearly only the old, weak, women, and children who had no strength left to fight.

And now, those fleeing in all directions were evidently mostly these people.

As for why they had not fled earlier and had instead remained here, it did not seem difficult to understand.

If this final counterattack failed, then even if they fled, how far could a group of old, weak, women, and children get in these vast Deep Mountains?