Ambush

Not long after, a figure flashed out from one side of the dense forest—a cultivator clad in black leather armor.

This cultivator had a horse face. After emerging, he was exceedingly cautious, looking back with every step and constantly scanning his surroundings. He seemed to be gripping some kind of magic artifact in his hand, evidently prepared to deal with a sudden attack.

Almost instantly, this extremely cautious horse-faced cultivator spotted the black toad that had been blasted over beside the pool by a Fireball Talisman. He stopped, his eyes flickering as no one knew what he was thinking.

Holding his breath as he hid in the tree, Wei Suo secretly swept the horse-faced cultivator with the Qi Gazing Technique. He discovered that this horse-faced cultivator was also at the Fifth Level of Sea of Consciousness Realm, one level above him.

Since he had been unable to find Tie Ce's people, Wei Suo had simply made a huge commotion here. But he still could not tell whether this horse-faced cultivator belonged to Tie Ce or to the yellow-robed cultivator's group.

"Come out. Do you think I can't see you just because you're hiding there?" The horse-faced cultivator suddenly snorted coldly.

Wei Suo was startled, thinking this horse-faced cultivator possessed some astonishing technique that could see through an Invisibility Talisman. Damn it, you were bluffing your father! You don't look like a good person anyway. But immediately afterward, Wei Suo cursed through gritted teeth. Though the horse-faced cultivator looked cold and arrogant, his gaze was still sweeping wildly around, never once looking toward Wei Suo's hiding place.

With a soft sound, another person emerged from the forest opposite the horse-faced cultivator. He made a gesture at him, signaling that he should not be nervous—it was one of their own.

Damn it, this horse-face really isn't a good person!

What chilled Wei Suo's heart was that the person who had appeared was none other than the Purple Robe Old Daoist at the Circulation Realm First Level whom he had seen at the northern city market!

"Blackwater Poison Toad." The Purple Robe Old Daoist swept a cold gaze over the black toad sprawled on the ground and snorted. "It should be that brat. Only a low-level cultivator like him would make such a grand fuss with talismans just to deal with a third-grade demon beast."

The horse-faced cultivator nodded. "Senior Zi Xiao, that brat wants to ruin our great undertaking. We must properly deal with him. He can't have gotten far. We can split up and drag him out."

"Go search outside immediately." The Purple Robe Old Daoist said coldly, "I'll search around here, lest that brat be cunning and, hoping Tie Ce's people will arrive, secretly slip back here."

Damn it! Hearing the Purple Robe Old Daoist say this, Wei Suo inwardly cried bitterly.

He had no desire to risk fighting a Circulation Realm cultivator. But the duration of the Invisibility Talisman on him was limited. If the Purple Robe Old Daoist did not leave, then once the talisman's effect wore off, the old daoist would certainly discover him.

After hesitating slightly, Wei Suo held his breath and silently took the Sun Scorching Treasure Talisman, the Five Elements Copper Ring, and the Yin Charm Blade into his hands.

The horse-faced cultivator nodded and was just about to leave.

"Who's there?!"

At that moment, a cold gleam flashed through the Purple Robe Old Daoist's eyes as he looked toward Wei Suo's position.

"Ah!"

Yet the Purple Robe Old Daoist and the horse-faced cultivator screamed almost simultaneously. A blaze of light countless times more dazzling than the midday sun instantly enveloped them. Their eyes felt as though needles had pierced them, and they could not open them at all.

At the same time that the Purple Robe Old Daoist and horse-faced cultivator screamed, involuntarily shut their eyes, and shed streaming tears, a copper ring suddenly dropped from above and slipped around the Purple Robe Old Daoist's body. It abruptly tightened, binding both his hands and feet fast.

Whoosh!

A violent gale suddenly swept through the forest around the entire pool. More than a dozen terrifying black skulls and a streak of black light all crashed into the Purple Robe Old Daoist amid the gale. A dragon and a tiger abruptly rose in radiance from his purple daoist robe, blocking all the terrifying black skulls formed of black qi. But the streak of black light flashed past and severed the Purple Robe Old Daoist's entire head, blood spurting high from his neck.

Screech!

But at the exact moment the Purple Robe Old Daoist's head was cut off, a streak of white light also struck the place where Wei Suo had been. Every tree trunk in that area was ground to pieces, and the entire tree was cut cleanly into two.

"Senior Zi Xiao!"

As the horse-faced cultivator shrieked, unable to open his eyes under the piercing glare, he activated a green light shield that enveloped him.

But almost at the same time, a mass of white icy mist descended not far above his head. The chill radiating from the white icy mist instantly froze a layer of solid ice across the nearby pool. Cracking explosions rang out continuously. The green light shield within the white icy mist remained intact, but the intense cold still stiffened the horse-faced cultivator.

In that brief stiffening, the whoo-whoo gale sounded again. A surging mass of black skulls and a streak of black light burst forth, smashing through his green light shield with a pop.

An expression of utter terror appeared on the horse-faced cultivator's face. But before he could make any sound, the exploding black qi and the passing black light instantly sliced him full of holes.

"Damn!" Still shrouded by the power of the Invisibility Talisman, Wei Suo stood beneath the tree that had been severed in two, drenched in cold sweat as he swallowed a Qi Replenishing Pill.

To ambush and kill a Circulation Realm cultivator and a Fifth Level of Sea of Consciousness Realm cultivator in mere moments was already astonishing for a Fourth Level of Sea of Consciousness Realm cultivator.

But Wei Suo had launched his attack while the two were wholly unprepared. After using the Sun Scorching Treasure Talisman and Five Elements Copper Ring to leave the Purple Robe Old Daoist unable to see, with his limbs almost completely bound, if Wei Suo had not been clever enough to leap from the tree at the same time he attacked, he might also have been shredded to pieces by the Purple Robe Old Daoist's dying counterattack.

Because in that instant, as Wei Suo rushed to seize the initiative, he had no time at all to pour True Essence into the Mystic Tortoise Shield or activate the power of his modified magic robe.

Moreover, almost as soon as Wei Suo had used the Sun Scorching Treasure Talisman, the Purple Robe Old Daoist had already sensed it.

Had the Sun Scorching Treasure Talisman been a direct offensive magic artifact rather than a restrictive one, the Purple Robe Old Daoist might truly have blocked it in one stroke. The Purple Robe Old Daoist's robe had actually been able to withstand even the black yin-wind skulls unleashed by the Yin Charm Blade.

That streak of white light from the counterattack had merely been a spell cast by the Purple Robe Old Daoist. But the spell the old daoist had desperately unleashed at death's door had been far too powerful.

Circulation Realm cultivators were indeed terrifying beyond measure.

The defensive light shield activated by that Fifth Level of Sea of Consciousness Realm cultivator had also possessed formidable power. Even a third-grade Profound Ice Talisman had failed to break it. If Wei Suo had not possessed an attack treasure like the Yin Charm Blade, he absolutely would not have been able to kill him so quickly.

Most importantly, with Wei Suo's current cultivation, after using the Yin Charm Blade's fragment twice in succession, nearly all the True Essence in his body had already been exhausted.

After swallowing a Qi Replenishing Pill, Wei Suo did not dare linger in the slightest. He retrieved the Five Elements Copper Ring still wrapped around the Purple Robe Old Daoist, then stripped all the clothing from both the Purple Robe Old Daoist and the horse-faced cultivator, bundled it into a ball, and sped off into the depths of the forest.

Not long after Wei Suo fled from the side of this pool, a gray shadow swept over with a whoosh and came to a stop.

The newcomer was none other than the gray-robed cultivator whose face Wei Suo had not clearly seen, the first person he had watched meet with the yellow-robed cultivator at the northern city market. This gray-robed cultivator was likewise a powerful cultivator at the Circulation Realm First Level.

"How is this possible?!"

Upon clearly seeing the scene before him, the lean gray-robed cultivator—with a pointed chin and an enormous black mole on his left cheek—underwent a drastic change in expression. As if facing a great enemy, he immediately activated a bowl-shaped wooden magic artifact in his hand, producing a bluish-yellow light shield around himself. At the same time, he drew out something around two feet long that resembled a white fishbone and clutched it in his hand, his horrified eyes searching everywhere.

Zi Xiao Sanren, whose strength was no weaker than his own and perhaps even surpassed it, had actually been killed here alongside a Fifth Level of Sea of Consciousness Realm cultivator. They had even been stripped completely naked. Could there be some perverted high-level cultivator in Green Wind Mausoleum besides that low-level cultivator?

Just as this gray-robed man at the Circulation Realm First Level thought this in extreme horror, Wei Suo, after desperately fleeing some distance, plunged headfirst into a filthy-looking tree hollow beneath a dead old tree, one only half a man's height tall.

After rearranging the vines and dead branches over the entrance to the tree hollow, Wei Suo, squeezed into the cramped hollow, began inspecting the belongings of the two cultivators he had just ambush-killed, making as little sound as possible.

"This is the Dragon Tiger Ziwei Robe. It can't be activated together with your magic robe, and its defensive effect should be slightly inferior to your modified magic robe." As soon as Wei Suo lifted the purple robe stripped from the old daoist, the Green Robe Old Man's voice immediately sounded in his ear again.

Wei Suo nodded and began carefully feeling through the Purple Robe Old Daoist's and the horse-faced cultivator's clothing. After some searching, joy flashed through his somewhat tense eyes. He found a black Treasure Pouch in the Purple Robe Old Daoist's clothes, and two Leather Pouches along with several miscellaneous items in the horse-faced cultivator's clothes.

"Damn!"

The Purple Robe Old Daoist's black Treasure Pouch looked different from Wei Suo's, but there was no difference in how it was used. Wei Suo held the black Treasure Pouch, and the instant he sensed what was inside, he nearly bit off his own tongue.

Spirit Stones!

There were many, many Spirit Stones inside!

Besides several hundred Low-grade Spirit Stones, there were also more than seven hundred Mid-grade Spirit Stones and five High-grade Spirit Stones!

More than seven hundred Mid-grade Spirit Stones were equivalent to over seven thousand Low-grade Spirit Stones, while five High-grade Spirit Stones were equivalent to another five hundred Low-grade Spirit Stones. Altogether, the Spirit Stones in this Treasure Pouch alone were worth more than eight thousand Low-grade Spirit Stones!

(You brothers and sisters are mighty! Yesterday's red votes broke 7,000, setting a record! Even if I have to risk my life, I'll keep exploding with three updates every day! Let us become even mightier!)