Raise Your Sword After Taking a Step Back to Kill

"Could the Demonic Beasts be hiding in the Purgatory Demon Sect's base?"

Su Nanxing froze for a moment, then nodded forcefully. "Master is right."

"After all, we belong to the same sect. We can't just stand by and watch them be harmed by Demonic Beasts. We should go save them."

"Master is right."

"Demonic Beasts are formidable. This trip will certainly be dangerous, but if we prepare properly, we may not be unable to retreat unscathed."

"Everything Master says is right."

"Time waits for no one. Let's go!"

Two hours later.

The night deepened, and Changjun City, lively throughout the day, sank into silence.

Dressed in black and wearing a Demonic Beast mask, Gu Jinlai and Su Nanxing silently made their way toward the Purgatory Sect's base.

"I have some minor conflicts with several of the Purgatory Sect's higher-ups. For their sake, wearing masks can effectively prevent them from feeling ashamed when we save them, then flying into a rage out of humiliation."

"Master is right."

"Demonic Beasts are powerful. To deal with them, we must give it our all and fight with our lives on the line. We cannot hold back. Besides, in this pitch-black darkness, friend and foe are hard to distinguish. A single misstep and accidental injury will be unavoidable."

"Master is right."

"It is said that Demonic Beasts possess the power to beguile the heart. Fang Cai's Karma is crimson as blood; he may already have been corrupted by Demonic Beasts. Once we enter the Purgatory Sect's base, I'll test him first. If that causes a commotion, draw Zhou Yunyi's attention for me."

Gu Jinlai continued his instructions.

Su Nanxing nodded. "Whatever Master says, I'll do."

After their brief exchange, the Purgatory Sect's base was already close at hand.

Looking at the high walls and sprawling compound before them, he said, "If Zhou Yunyi appears, retreat along the route we discussed beforehand and rendezvous."

"I shall obey Master's orders."

Su Nanxing replied gravely.

As the elder stationed in Changjun City, Gu Jinlai's familiarity with the Purgatory Sect and Changjun City was beyond anything Zhou Yunyi could match.

The older a man grew, the more timid he became.

Gu Jinlai had deliberately set up a decoy formation along their retreat route. He doubted Zhou Yunyi would dare pursue them there.

If Zhou Yunyi truly chased them into the trap the two had laid, then with Gu Jinlai and Su Nanxing joining forces and fighting Zhou Yunyi, whose blood and vitality had both waned, to the death, it remained to be seen who would be the deer and who the hunter.

The two slipped in under cover of night.

Gu Jinlai knew the branch's defenses like the back of his hand. In less than half an hour, he had arrived outside the courtyard where Fang Cai lived.

His disciples guarded the courtyard, their defenses tight and their arrangement orderly.

After observing for a while, Gu Jinlai found no way in.

After a moment of silence, Gu Jinlai narrowed his eyes at the two disciples patrolling toward him.

The next instant, he drew his sword.

The sword emerged without a sound.

Two streaks of Sword Qi stirred not a ripple in the air as they pierced straight through the throats of the two Qi Refining disciples.

His figure flashed forward.

Before the two disciples could fall, he caught their bodies and dragged them into the grass.

Then he flipped his hand, producing a crossbow.

He set the crossbow before the door, fitted it with a gear, aimed it at the entrance, and hid himself to one side.

Afterward, he took out a pebble and tossed it into the distance, producing a faint sound.

"Who's there!?"

Fang Cai inside the room immediately became alert and rushed to the doorway to watch and listen.

Whoosh!

The gear reached its mark, and the crossbow bolt shot forth, streaking toward the doorway.

"Gu Jinlai!?"

The moment he was attacked, Fang Cai gave a shrill howl without hesitation. "Guards!"

The sword in his hand flashed like cold light, striking the incoming bolt with lightning speed.

Yet at the instant he struck the bolt, Sword Aura tore through the air!

One bright and one dark, the two streaks of Sword Qi carried piercingly cold radiance as they tore apart the doors and windows, stabbing toward Fang Cai with the force of thunder.

"I've been waiting for you!"

Fang Cai burst into laughter. The sword that had knocked aside the crossbow bolt swept out with electric speed. Gang Qi erupted, and though he struck later, he arrived first, slashing into the Sword Aura Gu Jinlai had unleashed.

For a moment, the air trembled.

The wooden doors and windows shattered with a boom under the collision of Gang force, exploding into splinters. The entire house shook violently, dust raining down as though it might collapse at any moment.

Even as he blocked Gu Jinlai's strike, auras surged outside Fang Cai's courtyard.

Hong Shan, along with more than thirty True Qi Realm and Gang Condensing experts, rapidly closed in, forming a net cast over heaven and earth.

So long as Fang Cai could hold Gu Jinlai back for a moment, the net would close. With the strength of two Core Forming experts and thirty-odd Qi Refining and Gang Condensing masters, Gu Jinlai, who had fallen from the Spirit Refining Realm, would find it impossible to escape even with wings.

Yet the true terror of the Formless Sword Qi had never been the Sword Aura displayed openly, like a crimson lotus of purgatory.

It was the concealed Sword Qi accompanying that Sword Aura.

Like the sigh of a wandering ghost, that Sword Qi swept silently toward Fang Cai.

Even a powerhouse like Zhang Buyi had struggled to detect it in broad daylight, much less now, in the pitch-black night.

Fang Cai, trying to entangle Gu Jinlai and prevent his escape, did not abruptly realize something was wrong until his protective True Qi was sliced apart and his inner armor ripped open.

"Something's wrong..."

Sshk!

Blood suddenly burst forth.

The Core Forming Protector widened his eyes, helplessly watching the arm holding his sword—and his body—separate from one another, flying away amid a spray of blood after the arm had shattered Gu Jinlai's Blood Lotus Sword Aura.

"My arm..."

Gu Jinlai's sword edge quivered.

Sword Aura appeared once more.

This time, Fang Cai finally noticed something.

Around the Sword Aura Gu Jinlai had unleashed, there was still Sword Qi.

Formless, traceless Sword Qi, impossible to discern with the naked eye.

He knew that Sword Qi existed, but he simply could not "see" how much of it there was.

He could not even see it clearly.

How...

could he block it?

"Gu Jinlai, stop! How dare you slaughter a fellow sect member!?"

"How can you fabricate accusations and slander an innocent man like this?"

Gu Jinlai said with his eyes wide open, "I'm not Gu Jinlai."

With that, he gave Fang Cai no chance to respond. The Sword Aura came slashing down, as though the air itself had been pierced through by immense force, its friction against the atmosphere producing a shrill scream.

The Sword Aura mixed with the turbulent air, creating a small hurricane and providing the Formless Sword Qi with another layer of cover.

Fang Cai, who had lost an arm, endured the pain and retreated explosively, wanting to smash through a window from another direction and rush out of the house.

But before he could break the window, his right foot, in the midst of his retreat, seemed to sweep across something.

Suddenly...

It was severed cleanly at the knee.

Then came his left foot.

With both feet gone, his body pitched forward briefly under the force of inertia, lost its balance, and crashed toward the ground.

"I..."

Looking at his severed right hand, his missing legs, the miserable torrents of blood, and the Formless Sword Qi whose location and origin he could not determine at all, Fang Cai's eyes finally filled with uncontrollable terror.

"Spare me... Elder Gu, spare me..."

"I said, you've mistaken me for someone else."

Gu Jinlai said.

He held his sword pointed at Fang Cai. "Still, as a passerby, I'm curious enough to ask: what... were you after?"

"I..."

Fang Cai looked at Gu Jinlai with a face full of pain.

What had he been after?

He had merely thought Gu Jinlai was about to be finished. He had wanted to make use of him one last time, show his face a little, and demonstrate his loyalty to Sect Master Lin.

Naturally, he could not say that. Instead, he begged in terror, "Elder Gu, I know I was wrong..."

Sshk!

Sword light tore through the air.

Before Fang Cai could finish speaking, the fierce Sword Aura blasted through the air with a shriek and smashed his head apart, bringing the countless words he had racked his brains to organize to an abrupt end.

"Forget it. I don't want to hear it."

"Gu Jinlai, you insolent bastard!"

At that moment, an enraged roar came from the direction of the courtyard where he had originally lived.

It was accompanied by Su Nanxing's erupting Gang Qi.

"Since Elder Zhou Yunyi is here, Demonic Beasts surely won't dare attack the Purgatory Demon Sect. I should take my leave as well."

Gu Jinlai strode forward. True Qi erupted as his figure shot into the air, clearing the high wall in an instant and charging out of the compound.

"Stop him!"

Hong Shan's furious shout came from behind.

A nearby Gang Condensing disciple obeyed and charged forward fearlessly.

But before he could intercept Gu Jinlai, his head exploded as though struck by a sniper rifle bullet.

Another disciple vaguely "saw" a streak of Sword Qi—formless and traceless, like a ghost—and his scalp went numb.

Then, seeing that Protector Fang Cai had gone from being attacked to dying in merely three breaths, the disciple involuntarily halted.

The moment his movement slowed, a gap appeared in the net cast over heaven and earth.

Gu Jinlai's figure flashed through the air, easily breaking out of the encirclement. Relying on his familiarity with the compound's layout, he soon vanished from the sight of the dozens of disciples.