Encirclement

"Master!"

"How could this happen..."

"Master is dead!?"

The sudden impact left the several disciples beside Bai Yang dumbfounded, terror filling every one of their faces.

Even the Core Forming senior disciple was no exception.

"Gu Jinlai, you... you actually..."

He pointed at Gu Jinlai, but his voice trembled uncontrollably.

"I don't know what you're talking about! Who's Gu Jinlai? I'm not him. Don't talk nonsense."

Gu Jinlai flatly denied it, but then he thought of something. His gaze swept toward the remaining disciples, and he asked coldly, "Who kicked my disciple and injured him?"

"..."

The atmosphere froze.

Didn't you just say you weren't Gu Jinlai?

He did not need them to answer.

At his question, several disciples could not help glancing toward one of their number.

It was Wu Tong, who was at the peak of Gang Condensing.

Sensing Gu Jinlai's gaze lock onto him, Wu Tong's heart and liver trembled. He put on a show of strength to hide his fear, roaring to vent it, "Gu Jinlai... reinforcements from the Heavenly Herb Pavilion are on their way. If you flee now, there's still a chance of survival. Once..."

"Boom!"

Before he could finish, power erupted beneath Gu Jinlai's feet, and the ground where he stood suddenly sank.

The floor cracked. In an instant, countless clouds of dust and fragments of stone shook loose and floated upward. In the next moment, the erupting force churned them into powder, turning them to dust that scattered in every direction.

With that burst of acceleration, Gu Jinlai lunged forward in a savage assault. Killing Intent soared around him, making him resemble a terrifying demonic beast as he charged toward Wu Tong beneath suffocating pressure.

That terrifying aura instantly drove this direct disciple of Bai Yang, a Heavenly Herb Pavilion disciple at the peak of Gang Condensing, into a desperate roar.

"No!"

His gang qi erupted, and he slashed out with his sword with all his strength, ripping forth a fierce sword ray.

But as Gu Jinlai brought his sword down, the sword ray was like a sniper's bullet striking glass. It shattered instantly, exploding in every direction. The thousand-jin heavy sword continued forward with unstoppable force, smashing into his sword, breaking it, and driving the remaining violent power into his body...

First, the wrist holding the sword, then the entire arm. By the time the heavy sword cleaved down, half his body had been shattered.

Like a watermelon struck by a giant hammer.

Blood sprayed everywhere.

"Junior Brother!"

"Run! Run!"

"Why did we have to provoke this devil when we were doing just fine!?"

Seeing this, the remaining disciples' minds collapsed. They could hold out no longer and fled in every direction, screaming in terror.

But at that moment, three groups appeared simultaneously from the darkness ahead. Each group had more than a dozen people. Even the weakest were at the Qi Refining stage, while several were at Core Forming.

"He dares run wild in our Heavenly Herb Pavilion? Hasn't he even bothered to find out where he is?"

"Surround him! Since he dares to make trouble in our Heavenly Herb Pavilion, whether he's a Spirit Refining True Person or even a Spirit Transformation Great True Person, there's only one road for him today—death!"

"Attack!"

The people from the Heavenly Herb Pavilion came roaring in, their momentum like a rainbow.

Compared with the Black Tortoise Sect and Dragon Sparrow Manor, the Heavenly Herb Pavilion had fewer top experts.

But as a force centered on alchemy, its wealth and connections were beyond anything the others could match.

With abundant funds and a self-sufficient supply of pills, the Heavenly Herb Pavilion possessed numerous Qi Refining, Gang Condensing, and Core Forming experts. More than thirty Core Forming experts usually guarded the sect, a number matching the combined strength of a whole city such as Lingxiao City or Sunset City, not to mention the hundreds of Gang Condensing and Qi Refining cultivators...

It was no empty boast to say they could surround and kill even a Spirit Transformation expert, let alone a Spirit Refining one.

Seeing more than forty people from the two groups arrive, the few who had been about to flee in panic immediately felt as though they had found their backbone again.

"Reinforcements are here! Our reinforcements are here!"

"Hold him down! Avenge Master!"

"He came to kill people in our Heavenly Herb Pavilion! Blood must pay for blood!"

Their fighting spirit reignited. They once more unleashed their movement techniques, unwilling to confront Gu Jinlai head-on and only seeking to hold him back for a moment or two.

Gu Jinlai swept his gaze around.

The three groups came killing from three directions, sealing off his escape routes.

But that was not what caught his attention. It was...

Red light!

One of the three groups was dominated by yellow and pale-red lights. Another was similar, with a single bright-red glow. But the third had three bright-red glows, burning in the night like blazing candle flames, impossible to miss.

"Ha-ha-ha!"

After seeing his opponents clearly, Gu Jinlai threw back his head and laughed.

"Demons and monsters!"

He did not even choose to retreat. He bent slightly, and in the next instant, power erupted beneath him as he launched himself forward.

As the earth cracked, his body shot forth like a cannonball from the barrel. Instead of retreating, he advanced, carrying a terrifying howl and a hurricane as he charged toward the group with three red lights.

"Wretched fiend, how dare you!"

"You're courting death!"

Seeing this, the Heavenly Herb Pavilion experts shouted furiously. Blades and swords flashed, gang qi burst forth, and all of it descended upon Gu Jinlai.

For a time, sparks flew in every direction.

Sword marks were ripped across his treasured armor. The area that had already been damaged by sword strikes split open under a blow from a Core Forming expert.

But Gu Jinlai ignored these attacks completely. Carrying overwhelming force, he smashed straight toward one of the Core Forming experts and shattered him, man and blade alike, in a single blow.

A mist of blood spread through the air.

Then he suddenly swung his greatsword in a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree sweep. Like an autumn wind sweeping away fallen leaves, the pure, violent force at the sword's edge crushed every blade and sword ray striking toward him.

Of the three disciples nearby, two had their treasured swords broken, blood spilling from their tiger mouths. The third was struck by the sword's body. The immense force drove his weapon back into him, tearing his own body apart as blood sprayed in all directions.

Taking advantage of the opening created by the sweep, Gu Jinlai's gaze locked onto another Core Forming expert.

Then he strode forward...

With one burst of acceleration, power erupted and his body launched forward once more, charging toward the Core Forming expert whose Karma was as red as blood.

"Not good!"

Seeing Gu Jinlai charge into the crowd, relying on his armor and the sharpness of his treasured sword to move through them as though no one were there, this Core Forming expert was already alarmed. Now that Gu Jinlai had fixed his gaze on him and was charging straight at him, he retreated explosively without hesitation.

"Bang!"

Gu Jinlai came crashing down, his sword missing its target. At the same time, another Core Forming expert's furious roar rang beside his ears: "Form a formation! Suppress him! Don't give him a chance to build momentum and charge!"

As he spoke, six sharp swords carrying fierce sword qi slashed toward Gu Jinlai.

The sword qi carried by the blades slammed into Gu Jinlai just as he was about to accelerate again, causing his body to jerk to a halt.

"Kill!"

Seizing this opportunity, even more Gang Condensing and Core Forming experts pounced. Sword qi sharp enough to tear through iron swords shrieked through the air, shaking Gu Jinlai's body, while the treasured swords in the Core Forming experts' hands carried thunderous force as they followed the cracks in his armor and hacked down.

At a glance, every direction was filled with figures, sword shadows, and gang qi.

They had strength in numbers!

More than forty people from the Heavenly Herb Pavilion had come to surround him. With Bai Yang's disciples added in, there were more than fifty.

Among those fifty-plus people were seven or eight Core Forming experts and more than a dozen Gang Condensing experts. With the Qi Refining cultivators circling and harrying him from the outskirts, even a Spirit Refining expert would face certain death if trapped in their midst!

This was the power of numbers!

As powerful as Spirit Refining or Spirit Transformation experts were, they were still flesh and blood. Once trapped in a sea of people and unable to break through, they could only fight until their strength was exhausted and die. And Gu Jinlai was merely at Core Forming!?

"Kill me!?"

Gu Jinlai looked at the people surrounding him.

"You're not enough!"

A portion of his mind projected into the small figure that represented his consciousness in the mental world. A streak of clear light swiftly flowed into the orb he had continued naming Traversing the World.

"Buzz!"

At once, countless profound insights related to this movement technique surged forth, taking his understanding of it to an even higher level.

He had even grasped in advance the explosive art—Four Seas—which, according to reason, should only be mastered at the grand completion stage.

Especially since he was currently in a state of enlightenment, his mind operating at an overclocked speed. He calculated the trajectory for executing a move of Myriad Phenomena Sword Qi.

His true qi boiled. This sword art, which existed only in his mind, manifested a shapeless Green Lotus behind him.

In the next instant, the Green Lotus exploded. Dozens of invisible and shadowless sword rays, astonishing in speed, concealment, penetrating power, and persistence, shrieked as they shot toward every direction.

Before the dozen-plus Qi Refining, Gang Condensing, and Core Forming experts of the Heavenly Herb Pavilion—who believed they had already suppressed Gu Jinlai—could react, the invisible, shadowless sword rays had pierced through their bodies.

A Blood Lotus seemed to bloom within the crowd.

Tragic, gorgeous, and breathtakingly horrifying.