This immediately made the Crimson Blood Wolf turn its head. It saw a tall figure standing not far away.
"H-Human?" The three cultivators hiding twenty to thirty meters away had also seen the newcomer. Their faces showed a trace of astonishment. He was a black-clothed young man in his twenties.
The disturbance from his running had sounded like a giant beast charging across the land. Could it really have been made by a human?
The newcomer was naturally Tang Jie!
"Thankfully, I made it in time." Tang Jie had come rushing all the way here. When he saw Tie Niu hanging from a tree in the distance, he let out a slight sigh of relief.
Tang Jie had hurried over at his fastest speed, and Red Maple Forest was not very far from Maple Forest Town. At least Tie Niu had not yet been harmed.
"I'll deal with this monster first!"
Tang Jie looked at the Crimson Blood Wolf, his expression icy. He decided to eliminate it first!
"Facing a monster barehanded? Is he a cultivator or a martial artist?"
The three cultivators secretly watching the scene all frowned inwardly. Not a trace of aura leaked from Tang Jie as he faced the Crimson Blood Wolf, and they could not sense any fluctuations of magical power. But if he was a martial artist, facing a monster with his bare hands was undoubtedly courting death!
Of course, even if a first-rate martial artist had a weapon, facing the Crimson Blood Wolf with it was no different from facing it without one. Either way, he would die!
The three cultivators remained still, preparing to watch how things unfolded. They hoped the Crimson Blood Wolf would quickly kill Tang Jie and then eat Tie Niu. Otherwise, if too much time passed, the medicine's effects would wear off.
"Whooo!"
The murderous glint in the Crimson Blood Wolf's eyes grew increasingly intense. At last, it let out a wolf howl that shook the leaves of the maple trees. Its body shot toward Tang Jie like an arrow. As its enormous frame moved, a fierce, baleful Killing Intent swept over them, capable of filling people with fear and stripping them of all ability to resist!
"C-Careful..." Seeing this from where he hung in the tree, Tie Niu grew frantic.
Monsters were creatures that were extremely difficult for humans to defeat. Even cultivators who faced high-level monsters were frequently killed!
The Crimson Blood Wolf was fast, but Tang Jie was faster!
Whoosh!
Tang Jie's body seemed to rip through the air by force, giving the impression that he had arrived before he had even set out. In an instant, he appeared before the Crimson Blood Wolf and drove a fist straight forward.
Boom!
When that punch struck, it seemed to break through the sound barrier, producing a sonic boom!
"Crack, crack, crack!"
The Crimson Blood Wolf, pouncing forward, had no room to dodge at all. Tang Jie's punch struck it squarely in the head. Amid the dull explosion came the sound of breaking bones. Its skull, harder than steel, rapidly twisted and deformed, caving inward, while its enormous one-ton body was sent flying backward!
Bang!
The Crimson Blood Wolf's huge body flew more than ten meters, rolling several times across the ground before finally coming to a stop.
By then, the Crimson Blood Wolf's head had already been twisted and crushed inward, as though it had been struck by a ten-thousand-jin iron hammer. It had died before it could even let out a scream!
Although Tang Jie's Iron Cutting Saber had shattered in his earlier battle with the monsters, killing this kind of monster was still effortless for him.
"Just in time to replenish my food..." Tang Jie thought. As a monster, the Crimson Blood Wolf was excellent food for a martial artist like him.
"Come out!"
Tang Jie's cold eyes flashed like lightning. He suddenly looked toward the thicket on his right and shouted coldly.
Pure Yang Qi had accumulated within Tang Jie's body, and he had cultivated the Dragon-Elephant Prajna Art to the eleventh layer. His physique was formidable. What this brought him was not merely superhuman strength and speed—his hearing and eyesight were astonishingly sharp as well!
When Tang Jie had just punched the Crimson Blood Wolf to death, he had clearly heard a faint sound from the nearby thicket. Thus, he immediately determined that someone was hiding there.
"He noticed us?"
The three cultivators in the thicket exchanged glances, all feeling somewhat helpless. Tang Jie's punch had killed a Crimson Blood Wolf, and the sight had shocked them beyond control, causing them to accidentally make a faint noise. They had not expected Tang Jie to detect even that.
The three of them immediately walked out of the thicket.
"They're cultivators."
Tang Jie swept his eyes over them and immediately determined that the three were cultivators. Their clothes and appearance were different from ordinary people's. Moreover, Tang Jie had already encountered quite a few cultivators. Cultivators generally possessed a unique bearing, and with careful observation, it was possible to identify them.
"Fellow Daoist... The three of us are disciples of Mystic Spirit Peak. May I ask whether you are from the Body Refining Sect?" The man wearing a black hood among the three cupped his hands and asked with a humble expression.
"The Body Refining Sect?" Tang Jie was slightly taken aback. He realized that the three had mistaken him for a Body Cultivator among the cultivators!
Tang Jie had previously learned a little about cultivators from Bai Fenghua. He knew that cultivators were divided into different schools, such as Pill Cultivators, sword cultivators, and Body Cultivators.
The Body Refining Sect—judging by its name, it should be a sect of Body Cultivators.
Seeing Tang Jie kill a peak first-rank monster with his bare fist, the three people from Mystic Spirit Peak naturally assumed that he was a Body Cultivator!
Body Cultivators were rare. Within the Great Xia Dynasty, there was only one sect of Body Cultivators: the Body Refining Sect. This sect had few disciples, but because its resources were concentrated, every disciple it nurtured was an elite. The three of them were merely ordinary disciples of Mystic Spirit Peak, none of them having even reached Qi Refining Perfection. Naturally, they were extremely respectful upon meeting a Body Cultivator from the Body Refining Sect.
"I'm no Body Cultivator." Tang Jie shook his head. Then his gaze turned cold. "Were you the ones who hurt my friend?"
Tang Jie had not forgotten what the apprentice at the clinic had said. Someone had cut off one of Tie Niu's arms and used him as bait. It seemed they had done so to lure the Crimson Blood Wolf out, and the culprits were, without a doubt, the three people before him!
Under Tang Jie's icy gaze, the three cultivators' hearts trembled. The hooded man's eyes shifted, and he smiled. "Brother, you've misunderstood. The three of us only arrived recently. Earlier, we saw this brother hanging from the tree while being watched by the Crimson Blood Wolf. We stayed nearby because we wanted to find a chance to rescue him. We never intended to harm him."
Hearing this from where he hung in the tree, Tie Niu nearly fainted from rage. These three had clearly cut off his arm and hung him up to lure out the Crimson Blood Wolf, yet now they claimed they had wanted to save him from the monster?
"As expected, you cultivators have grown accustomed to looking down on everyone. You used a living person's life to lure a monster. Today, all of you... must die!" Tang Jie noticed Tie Niu's intense emotional reaction and spoke with murderous intent.
Tie Niu had carried him back to Maple Forest Town from the mountains, and he was upright and kind by nature. Tang Jie regarded him as a friend. Yet these three cultivators had used him as bait to lure a monster?
"Attack!"
Seeing that the matter could no longer be settled peacefully, the hooded man shouted and struck first.
Whoosh!
The hooded man raised his hand, and a long green arrow shot out, gleaming with azure light as it flew straight toward Tang Jie's face.
The green arrow was incredibly fast and difficult for the naked eye to follow. Wrapped in azure light, it radiated a sharpness capable of effortlessly piercing even a one-foot-thick steel plate!
Yet in Tang Jie's eyes, its speed was far too slow!
When the arrow drew near, Tang Jie suddenly thrust out his palm and easily caught the green arrow, stopping it in its tracks!
"What?"
The hooded man's expression changed drastically. He repeatedly activated his spells, but the green arrow only trembled violently, utterly unable to break free from Tang Jie's palm!
Before you continue