Sudden Change

"Lead the way. As long as we can leave this mountain forest safely, I promise I won't kill you."

Cang Yinyue swung herself onto the mule-horse and motioned for Yu Changlu, his arms hanging limp, to head down the mountain path ahead.

Yu Changlu did not resist. He immediately staggered to the front, his arms swaying.

He knew full well that he had no choice. In this situation, the only way to survive was to swallow his pride and endure until the alliance's experts came to his rescue.

So long as Cang Yinyue did not kill him, he had no problem doing whatever she asked for now.

Li Musheng watched it all without saying anything. He reached out and patted the mule-horse's back, urging it to follow at a leisurely pace.

As for Cang Yinyue's misunderstanding, he had no need to throw a punch in her face, blast this whole region until mountains collapsed and earth split apart, and make her open those big Karaz eyes wide to see just how badass a Martial Dao peak expert like him really was!

There was no need. Having reached his level, he had long since passed the age of competing for superiority.

Now, he only wished to roam the world and seek an opportunity to transcend the Martial Dao. Great Li's Shangyang City would be his first stop.

The long stretch of road that followed was fairly peaceful. They encountered no more people from the Bloodbath Alliance, nor did they see any traces of fighting along the way.

Yet Yu Changlu's expression was somewhat abnormal.

After the bald brute sent out the signal, he had immediately brought his men to ambush the nearby mountain paths.

However, Meng Shan and Yuan Mei had been far too formidable. Yu Changlu lost several men without managing to stop them, and they had instead escaped.

Nor was he skilled in lightness kung fu, so he could only remain behind to continue guarding the mountain road.

By all rights, after so much time had passed, the Bloodbath Alliance's experts should have spotted the signal and hurried over, just as he had.

Yet all along the way, he had not seen a single Bloodbath Alliance expert—not even one lowly lackey from the alliance.

"Could something have happened within the alliance? Did those people from the Yin Mountain Sect and Flame Dove City come charging in?"

Yu Changlu lowered his head as he walked the rugged mountain path, his brows knitted tightly as he pondered.

He completely failed to notice a blood-soaked hand reaching out from the waist-high wild grass by the roadside, suddenly grabbing his ankle with a fierce clutch.

In an instant, Yu Changlu's eyelid twitched. Though his hand tendons had been severed and less than one-tenth of his skill remained, he was not so panicked.

He immediately stomped down, shaking off the hand gripping him. Then he sidestepped, explosive force bursting from his leg as he sent a heavy kick into the grass.

Bang!

With a dull crack of shattering bones, a figure was kicked flying by Yu Changlu. It flipped several times in midair before finally tumbling onto the mountain road.

Once Yu Changlu saw the figure's face clearly, he froze.

He discovered that the person who had grabbed his foot was actually the bald brute.

Yu Changlu had encountered the man before. He had clearly gone after Meng Shan and the other two, so why was he hiding in the roadside grass?

"What happened?"

Yu Changlu rushed to the man's side at once, his arms swinging. But after that kick, the bald brute had more air leaving than entering. He was clearly on the verge of death.

At that moment, Cang Yinyue urged her mule-horse forward and frowned as she swept her gaze over the bald brute on the ground.

His condition could not have been more miserable. His eyes had been gouged out, blood flowed from all seven orifices, and his entire body was an eerie bluish-black—the unmistakable sign of potent poison.

"Tell me, who injured you like this?"

Yu Changlu leaned close to the bald brute and urgently questioned him. Yet the bald brute merely struggled to open his mouth. In the end, he could not utter a single word before his legs kicked out and he breathed his last.

"If you hadn't kicked him, perhaps he could have said a few words."

Cang Yinyue shook her head, a thoughtful look appearing on her face.

"Judging from the martial arts used, he should have been wounded by a sinister poison claw technique. It doesn't look like their doing, but it's hard to say. Perhaps someone has secretly hidden such a technique up their sleeve."

She had watched Meng Shan and Yuan Mei fight before, so she was rather familiar with their martial arts.

The bald brute's current state did not seem to be the work of those two, but neither could they be completely ruled out.

Li Musheng looked at the bald brute's corpse and thought for a moment, but said nothing. He then turned to Yu Changlu and smiled.

"Let's keep moving. If we run into something like this again, remember to go a little easier. Leave one of your own alive."

At those words, Yu Changlu's face turned green, then white. But he did not dare say anything and could only abandon the bald brute's corpse before continuing along the mountain path.

What they encountered along the way afterward, however, made Yu Changlu's face grow uglier and his heart more frightened.

Almost every short distance along the mountain road, they came upon several corpses.

These corpses had died horribly. Their eyes had either been gouged out or their hearts torn out; all bled from the seven orifices and had been poisoned.

Moreover, without exception, all those killed were from the Bloodbath Alliance. Aside from ordinary disciples, several Innate-level hall masters had also died.

"It must be those bastards from the Yin Mountain Sect. Their martial arts are the most vicious and poisonous!"

Yu Changlu's face darkened like storm clouds, and fear gradually rose in his heart.

Given the current situation, he was afraid the alliance's expert reinforcements would never come.

Even hall masters stronger than him had died such wretched deaths. In his current condition, if he encountered people from the Yin Mountain Sect, he would likely die even worse.

"Young hero, miss, you've both seen the situation now. If we continue forward, we may very well run into those bastards."

Yu Changlu suddenly stopped halfway along the path and tried his utmost to persuade Li Musheng and Cang Yinyue.

"Why don't we turn back now, while there's still time, and return the way we came? I swear on my life that I'll safely send you both out of Chongzhou by another route."

At that moment, Cang Yinyue's expression was not looking very good either. For the first time, hesitation showed in her eyes.

Naturally, she had seen everything they encountered along the way.

Moreover, she saw deeper than Yu Changlu did and understood the problem more clearly.

She realized that these dead members of the Bloodbath Alliance had likely not been ambushed and killed by an opposing force.

From beginning to end, there had only been one killer!

In Cang Yinyue's view, this person was not only ruthless in their methods, but also immensely powerful in the Martial Dao—likely even stronger than she was.

More importantly, the other party was exceptionally skilled in poison arts.

Whether facing Innate experts or ordinary Bloodbath Alliance disciples, the person used poison every time, without exception.

Cang Yinyue had tried examining the poison in the corpses and discovered that this person was not merely killing people, but cultivating poison arts.

The farther along they went, the stronger the poison in the corpses of those killed later became. This also showed from the side that the person's poison arts were continuously growing stronger.