The Hunt Continues

The stench of blood was so thick it could not dissipate, clinging to his nasal passages and burrowing into his lungs with every breath.

Crimson blood flowed along the roadside gutters, pooling in low places into dark red puddles. Under the setting sun, they gleamed with an eerie, dim light.

Severed hands and feet, disemboweled corpses—they carpeted the ground. Every step dragged sticky threads of blood from the soles of his shoes, as though he were walking on soaked cotton.

In two hours, he had no idea how many people he had killed.

Halfway through the slaughter, the Brocade Guard and garrison troops broke, wailing for their parents as they fled in every direction.

But the Grandmaster Players serving as military inspectors were even more ruthless than he was. The fleeing soldiers fell in swaths like wheat before a scythe.

Four peak Grandmaster Players had acted at once. Those ordinary soldiers and Brocade Guard probably never understood, even in death, that they would die at the hands of their own people.

Even Wang Xuan was beginning to feel numb.

True Qi circulated rapidly through his body several times, and his exhaustion ebbed away like the tide. His spirits rose once more.

He shook his hand, flinging droplets of blood from his fingertips. They traced several dark red arcs beneath the setting sun.

The four Grandmaster Players serving as military inspectors had not attacked him from beginning to end.

Once the army had been wiped out, they turned and fled in four different directions, moving with astonishing speed.

Wang Xuan did not pursue them. They would clash eventually anyway; there was no need to rush.

"Trying to trap me to death in one city?" He tugged at the corner of his mouth, his expression blank. "Dream on."

He activated his lightness skill and blurred toward the city outskirts. With several movement techniques pushed to their limits, he moved as fast as a pale golden ghost, flashing through the twilight.

The moment he reached the foot of the city wall, a figure blocked his path.

It was one of the four military inspectors who had retreated earlier. He wore coarse clothes, and his face looked as though it had been carved from wood, utterly devoid of life.

Seeing Wang Xuan approach, he raised a hand. A signal flare shot into the sky with a sharp whoosh, exploding into a blinding white light in the dusk, visible for dozens of miles around.

Wang Xuan paused for a moment, then understood. Three chilling auras were rapidly closing in from nearby.

"So this is where you were waiting."

His feet did not slow. Like an arrow loosed from the bowstring, he accelerated, carrying a fierce gale as he charged straight at the Grandmaster blocking his path. Surging True Qi poured into the Blood Blade, making its body hum and tremble as it gave a piercing, tyrannical cry of thirst.

The dullness in the opposing Grandmaster's eyes flickered. True Qi erupted from within him, and invisible force condensed into a field. The air twisted, and shattered stones rose into the air.

Great Shift of Heaven and Earth!

This Divine Art could redirect force, deflect attacks, and unlock the body's potential. At profound levels of mastery, it could make one nearly invincible.

Wang Xuan's palm pressed against the hilt. The Blood Blade flew from its sheath with a ringing cry, and killing intent flooded the air alongside the sudden flash of cold steel.

Divine Blade Slash!

A blue-red blade light, like a sinister and alien full moon, split open the twilight and struck before his opponent in an instant. Its blade intent was cold enough to pierce the bone, like Death's breath against his face.

The last time he had used this move at the fifth level of Grandmaster, he had been unable to break the Indestructible Diamond Divine Skill. But now, with peak Grandmaster cultivation and Divine Blade Slash at its limit, a single swing darkened heaven and earth, as though even the wind had been cleaved apart.

The skin on the Grandmaster's face caved in beneath the pressure of the blade intent, and his breathing stagnated.

The force field of Great Shift of Heaven and Earth spun madly, trying to deflect and shift the strike away.

Invisible power coiled around the blade's edge like countless hands shoving at once, trying to alter the trajectory of the blade light.

But it was all futile.

The intent of Divine Blade Slash was like karma itself. The instant it locked on, the outcome had already been decided. No matter how he redirected force or shed power, he could not escape the fate of this strike.

The blade light passed through soundlessly, accompanied only by the faintest whistle of something cutting through the air.

The Grandmaster froze in place, eyes wide with shock. A thin line of blood emerged from the center of his forehead and extended straight downward, passing through his brow, nose, lips, and chin before splitting all the way to his chest.

Wang Xuan reacted quickly, extending his left hand as the Energy Absorption Technique erupted at full force.

A stream of True Qi resembling a blood dragon was forcibly torn from the wound. It arced through the air and burrowed into Wang Xuan's palm.

The Grandmaster Player's eyes instantly lost their light. His body swayed, then split in two with a wet crack. Before the severed corpse could hit the ground, it shriveled and withered at a visible speed, turning into flakes of ash that scattered on the wind. Only an empty set of clothes drifted to the ground.

"Blocking me? You think you're worthy?"

Wang Xuan sheathed his blade. Without even looking at the three auras closing in behind him, he tapped the ground with his toes and turned into an afterimage, charging beyond Yuhang City's borders in the blink of an eye.

By the time he vanished over the horizon, the other three military inspector Grandmasters had landed atop the city wall. They looked at the clothes on the ground and the bottomless blade mark carved into the bluestone bricks. The lingering blade intent in its cracks pricked at their throats like needles, making it hard to breathe.

None of the three spoke. Their eyes were lifeless. One of them took a carrier pigeon from his robes and casually tossed it into the sky.

The pigeon flapped its wings and flew away.

Clearly, they had prepared in advance for the possibility that the interception would fail.

Rumble.

The ground trembled faintly.

Wang Xuan sat by the roadside beside a bonfire. A roasted pheasant, browned and crisp, rested over the flames. Grease dripped into the fire and crackled.

He tore off a drumstick and slowly chewed it. True Qi circulated faintly within him, and wisps of black vapor seeped from the pores of his skin, only to be vaporized clean by the scorching True Qi the instant they emerged.

It had already been five days since he had fought his way out of Yuhang City.

Over those five days, he had deliberately burrowed deep into uninhabited mountain forests, avoiding towns and official roads. He had thought that would be enough to shake off his pursuers.

But he had still underestimated the Royal Clan's methods. Whether it was wild rabbits, pheasants, or wild fruit he found, even mountain spring water, he would always be poisoned after eating or drinking them.

It was not the sort of lethal poison that killed instantly, but a chronic toxin that slowly corroded his meridians and wore down his True Qi. By the time he noticed, the poison had already seeped into him.

It was as if, wherever he went, someone had poisoned the way ahead of time and waited for him to eat.

"Fucking underhanded." Wang Xuan cursed, tossing the remaining chicken bones in his hand into the fire.

Fortunately, his cultivation was no longer what it had once been.

The newly acquired Nine Yang Divine Skill, Great Shift of Heaven and Earth, and Wedding Dress Divine Art had all been pushed to One-Click Max.

Nine-Yang True Qi was supremely yang and unyielding, specifically countering yin, cold, and evil poisons. Great Shift of Heaven and Earth unlocked the body's potential and greatly improved its resistance to toxins. The True Qi of the Wedding Dress Divine Art was tyrannical, like a red-hot branding iron, able to refine any poison clean.

With several Divine Arts taking turns crushing them, very few poisons in the martial arts world could affect him.

As for those clearly bizarre poisons beyond the level of the martial arts world, whenever he approached or was about to come into contact with them, his heart would inexplicably skip a beat, giving him a sense of dread.

At first, he had been puzzled. Later, he realized that it was the "Mind-Absorbing Origin Return" trait of the Arhat Demon-Subduing Divine Skill at work. Once distracting thoughts were banished, his mind became astonishingly alert, and his perception of the outside world surpassed even divine intent, allowing it to trigger certain intangible warnings.

Thanks to that, he had avoided several suspicious pools and thickets of wild fruit.

"So these past few days haven't been too bad."

Wang Xuan clapped his hands and stood, looking into the distance.

Dust billowed in the distance. A squad of light cavalry led the way, with even more figures faintly visible behind them. Their banners snapped in the wind.

There were more and more scouts, impossible to shake off like flies. The pressure of being surrounded from all sides was like a slowly tightening net, making him increasingly irritated.

"I can't keep dragging this out."

He let out a breath and made up his mind. Since all of Great Ming had fallen into the Royal Clan's hands, with their people everywhere from towns and checkpoints to ports, he might as well go overseas.

The vast sea was boundless. Let's see how you chase me there.

"Speed up. Kill our way out."

Wang Xuan stomped out the bonfire and shot toward the coast. Behind him, the scouts from that light cavalry squad had already discovered his trail. Horns wailed across the open plains.