Amid the ruins of the Cai Family estate, the clansmen who had survived by sheer luck watched their Old Ancestor retreat into the distance, their faces deathly pale and their eyes full of disbelief.
Just moments ago, they had raised their cups at the banquet to congratulate him on reaching the sixth turn and taking control of Mu Province. Now, in the blink of an eye, he had abandoned them to flee for his life without so much as looking back.
Someone slumped to the ground and murmured:
"The Old Ancestor... he ran away?"
Some stood livid, their fists clenched, unable to find anything to say. Others had already begun creeping toward the edge of the estate, preparing to escape the ruins amid the chaos.
Cai Yang remained quietly hidden behind the half-collapsed stone pillar. His gaze lingered for a moment on the ink-black figure retreating into the distance, then he slipped silently in another direction and vanished into the shadows of the ruins.
Seeing that the Cai Family Old Ancestor was about to escape, Li Xiao had no time to think. He stamped hard against a broken wall and sprang into the air, raising his bow with his left hand and nocking an arrow with his right in one seamless motion.
He drew the Po Jun Bow into a full moon. Azure wind-and-lightning radiance gathered around the arrowhead, like a flickering spark in the night sky.
Without the slightest hesitation, he released the bowstring.
The arrow tore through the air with a deep dragon's cry, turning into a streak of azure light that shot toward the Cai Family Old Ancestor's back.
Through his uninterrupted practice over the past several days, Li Xiao had already formed the complete claw-shaped trajectory of the Four Symbols Sun-Shooting Arrow Method's Azure Dragon Arrow.