Victory, Then the Spoils

One hour.

Two hours.

Three hours.

A full ten hours later.

The sun overhead had long since lost its brightness.

Night was drawing near.

Blood had already pooled around Che Xianwei.

His once fairly ruddy complexion had long turned deathly pale from excessive blood loss.

Ling Wuyuan still sat quietly atop the tree branch.

Over those ten hours,

the only thing he had done was gather a pile of hard stones into his basket, tossing one toward Che Xianwei every so often.

Though those stones could not inflict much damage on Che Xianwei, they were more than enough for simple harassment.

After all, Che Xianwei, covered in wounds, was now riddled from head to toe with vulnerable points.

Once those wounds were struck by stones, they would not merely cause searing pain—they would also worsen and fester.

One had to know,

stones hurled at full force by Ling Wuyuan, whose single-arm strength neared three thousand jin, could practically be called some kind of heavy bullet...

Thus, Che Xianwei was quite troubled by the stones that came flying at him from time to time. Every movement he made to intercept them caused his wounds intense pain, making him bare his teeth despite himself.

Another two hours passed.

Night had fallen.

By now, Ling Wuyuan could clearly sense that Che Xianwei was having increasing difficulty dealing with the stones he threw.

More than ten hours of continuous bloodletting.

Though the bleeding had not been fast, at least half the blood in Che Xianwei's body had drained away.

If he had not been a cultivator with astonishing vitality, Che Xianwei would have bled to death long ago.

However,

even a cultivator could only endure such a bloodletting tactic for so long.

Now,

Che Xianwei could very clearly feel an irresistible wave of dizziness washing over him.

His upper and lower eyelids no longer obeyed him.

His vision darkened from time to time...

He knew he could not hold on much longer.

He was about to fall into an uncontrollable faint.

And a hundred meters away, in the darkness of night, beneath the bright moonlight, he could still see Ling Wuyuan's incomparably calm eyes with perfect clarity...

He's still watching me...

Though utterly unwilling, he could do nothing about the situation.

Another two hours passed.

Since an hour ago, the stones Ling Wuyuan threw had stopped drawing any response.

Che Xianwei was like a corpse, allowing the stones that tore through the air to strike him. Even when they smashed his head bloody, he gave no reaction at all.

Watching this scene,

Ling Wuyuan casually weighed the last stone in his basket.

His figure then shifted slightly, and he leaped straight down from the tree branch more than twenty meters high, landing on the grass.

Then, he set down the basket that somewhat hindered his movements.

After taking a deep breath, he kept his left leg still and stepped forward with his right, assuming the most forceful stance possible.

He aimed at Che Xianwei in the distance and hurled the last stone in his hand with all his strength!

The next moment,

amid a shriek through the air,

Bang—

With a deafening boom,

the stone struck Che Xianwei's eye socket with unerring accuracy, sending him flying hard before he collapsed to the ground.

As Che Xianwei flew backward, Ling Wuyuan could even vaguely see his eyeball explosively burst inside its socket.

Yet from beginning to end, Che Xianwei had not moved a single bit.

As though he truly had already become a corpse.

Watching this scene,

after a moment of silence,

Ling Wuyuan slowly drew the long sword at his waist. Then he casually tossed aside its long, somewhat cumbersome scabbard and walked toward Che Xianwei step by step.

For a time,

only Ling Wuyuan's footsteps could be heard.

Even the cries of birds and insects gradually fell silent.

Under the bright moonlight, cold swordlight flickered, drawing ever closer to Che Xianwei...

When less than two meters, roughly a meter and a half, remained between them,

without the slightest hesitation,

Ling Wuyuan swung the long sword in his hand with all his strength.

A full-force downward slash!

His talent ability also rose to fivefold acceleration.

At that instant, the sword's afterimage was like a flash of lightning!

If it struck, Che Xianwei would undoubtedly be cleaved in two!

At that very instant, Che Xianwei, who had long lain sprawled like a corpse, reacted at extreme speed. He flipped over and sprang upright.

He likewise slashed out with the long saber in his hand, swift as lightning!

From below upward, it met Ling Wuyuan's long sword.

It was even a fraction faster than Ling Wuyuan's sword!

Vaguely, Ling Wuyuan could see a faint layer of airflow on the saber's edge, making its blade appear even more unstoppable in its sharpness!

The next moment,

like a hot knife slicing through butter,

the long saber in Che Xianwei's hand, wrapped in that strange airflow, effortlessly cut straight through Ling Wuyuan's fine sword, a blade capable of cutting gold and severing jade.

Yet at this moment, there was no joy whatsoever on Che Xianwei's face or in his heart.

Because at some moment before this, Ling Wuyuan had already released his sword in advance. At a speed even Che Xianwei could barely see, he twisted his body and changed his stance, ducking down to Che Xianwei's lower front. Using the momentum from that twist, he drew a dagger from his sleeve, viciously stabbed it into Che Xianwei's navel, then, as his body rose at high speed, continuously drew that sharp dagger upward...

Tenfold acceleration.

At that instant,

at the very moment Che Xianwei's long saber severed Ling Wuyuan's sword,

Che Xianwei clearly felt his abdomen and chest being forcibly carved open...

The next moment,

Ling Wuyuan's sword, broken into two pieces, fell to the ground.

The long saber in Che Xianwei's hand also dropped to the ground.

Ling Wuyuan, meanwhile, retreated two meters away.

"...I didn't fool you at all?"

After opening his mouth, Che Xianwei, blind in one eye, remarked with some difficulty.

After slowly nodding, Ling Wuyuan answered frankly,

"Yes, not at all."

"After all, why would a corpse still be gripping a long saber?"

"Or rather, as long as you're still holding a weapon, I'll assume you aren't dead."

Hearing that, Che Xianwei could only helplessly resign himself to his fate.

"Is that so..."

He had considered whether he should let go of his weapon while playing dead.

But that would have made it far too easy to play dead and end up truly dead, so he had not dared do it.

He could only hope that under the moonlight, Ling Wuyuan had not observed closely enough.

However,

judging from the result, he had clearly overthought it.

At last,

he forced himself to draw on his final breath and asked,

"Since you knew I was playing dead, why did you choose to come over?"

"Wouldn't it have been better to keep dragging it out?"

"After all, you and I both know that if we dragged it out a little longer, I really would have been dragged to death."

Faced with this question,

"The reason..."

After thinking for a moment, Ling Wuyuan answered truthfully,

"Probably because you were putting so much effort into pretending."

"Besides, I wanted to test just how much ability a stronger person on the verge of death still had. I also wanted to experience the feeling of life and death being decided in a single instant..."

"Of course, there's one more reason. When hunting precious prey far stronger than yourself, it really does feel better to get close and deliver the final blow..."

After hearing that,

Che Xianwei's expression froze.

Then,

as if enlightenment had dawned on him, he gave a low laugh.

He could not help but sigh,

"Is that so..."

"Truly... the young are to be feared..."

"I only just managed to break through to this realm between life and death..."

As he spoke,

with the final word of his lament and unwillingness leaving his lips,

the wounds on his body could no longer be held back.

Amid the sound of blood gushing out,

Che Xianwei, whose abdomen had been sliced open from bottom to top by a wound roughly fifty centimeters long, finally died completely.

His body, which had only barely remained standing, toppled stiffly onto the soft grass.

Breathing in the scent of blood that filled the air, Ling Wuyuan gave the dagger a light shake and flick, flinging every trace of blood from its blade.

He looked at the beautiful moon overhead, then at the corpses around him, and smiled as he murmured to himself,

"Victory, then the spoils."

"This trip really was a bountiful harvest~"