Sanhu County was cast far behind them.
After they had raced on for half an hour, a man turned out from the mountain hollow ahead.
He opened his mouth and bellowed.
"This mountain was opened by me, these trees were planted by me. If you want to pass through here, leave behind your toll money!"
The man was broad of build, his curled beard standing stiff as needles beside his cheeks. With a leopard's head and ringed eyes, he stood at the roadside gripping a gigantic axe as large as a door panel, an utterly terrifying sight.
"Hey, fellow, we are disciples of the Celestial Star Sect, passing through this mountain. Please make things convenient for us."
Lu Wu-bing was not a bloodthirsty man.
Nor did he intend to let off a bandit who blocked the road to rob travelers.
He declared his identity only to see how the other party would react.
It was no surprise that someone had intercepted them along the way.
He simply could not tell whether these people had come for him or to stop Princess Ji Wenxiu of Chang Le.
Everything was shrouded in fog.
They did not even know who their enemy was.
That feeling was hardly pleasant.
"What Celestial Star Sect, Terrestrial Star Sect? I don't care what sect you belong to! If you want to cross this mountain, you'll have to ask whether my Peaceful Axe agrees!"
"No need to ask. He is Song Zhong, the Peaceful Axe, one of the vicious bandits of Zhongping Three Mountains.
"This man has slaughtered people until corpses covered the wilderness and committed every evil imaginable. My father once tracked him down, but he escaped several times. He came prepared this time."
Upon hearing him announce his name, Ouyang Lan gave a sharp cry, pressed down on her saddle, and flew off her horse.
Her longsword spread open like a peacock displaying its tail, whistling down in a slash.
"What a spirited little lady. Your grandpa has good fortune today."
Song Zhong, the Peaceful Axe, widened his ringed eyes. His huge axe swept backward, drawing Ouyang Lan and her sword into its arc.
His axe techniques were heavy and grand, opening and closing with great force. Ordinarily, he would not have been difficult to handle.
Yet when the axe-light rose, a vicious wind howled forth, shaking the air all around.
It knocked the longsword in Ouyang Lan's hand slantwise aside, leaving her unable to press her attack for the moment.
Instead, her arm went numb and her movements slowed.
She barely avoided a waist-cleaving blow, and sweat immediately dripped down her face.
"He is actually Fifth Rank."
The moment their weapons met, Ouyang Lan sensed that the immense inner force gathered on his axe was wrong.
This burly brute looked careless and none too clever.
Moreover, the aura he gave off was merely Seventh Rank, Sixth Rank at most...
Yet once they truly fought, his strength surged wildly, and his force was mountain-like.
He had hidden cunning beneath his rough exterior and laid a trap for them.
"Hiss!"
A streak of sword-light had already stabbed toward Song Zhong's eyes.
Without a word, Lu Wu-bing rushed forward with a single stride, launching his attack without warning and thrusting straight at the man's brow.
Seeing the robust brute's muscles knotted all over his body, he worried that Song Zhong had cultivated some sort of body-tempering art. Therefore, he attacked directly at a vulnerable vital point.
He thought that no matter how much this man had trained, he would surely have to dodge a fast sword aimed at his eyes.
Unexpectedly, the Peaceful Axe began spinning like a top, abruptly rising before the crude, brawny man.
The back of the axe lightly struck the blade. As it dragged and hooked, Lu Wu-bing felt searing pain in the web between his thumb and forefinger and nearly lost his grip on his longsword.
The sword edge swept past, carving a thin bloody gash between Song Zhong's brows, but it achieved nothing.
*My sword is still not fast enough... At my current level, the perfected thrusting sword can at most kill ordinary Sixth Rank fighters.
But Fifth Rank experts have already infused inner force into their weapons, shaking the air itself. Attack and defense are one; they are extremely difficult to deal with.
The thought flashed through Lu Wu-bing's mind.
He understood that back at the little shop, had he not been prepared beforehand and attacked while seated, leaving Blood Butterfly unable to dodge, he likely would not have been able to injure him either.
Just like this brawny man before him.
Anxiety rose in his heart. Rather than retreating, he advanced a step, his longsword turning into a rainbow of light as it thrust again.
Even if he could not break through, he had to force the attack. Under no circumstances could he retreat now.
Once the other man fully unleashed that broad-bladed giant axe, he might still be able to attack where the enemy had no choice but to defend, but Senior Sister Xiaolan might not be able to hold him back.
When enemies met on a narrow road, they traded wounds for lives... Against such an expert, he had no choice but to fight.
Lu Wu-bing hardened his heart and cast aside every distracting thought.
He drove all the breath-energy in his body, forcibly launching attack after attack, each sword faster than the last.
In an instant, he thrust seven or eight times.
Clang, clang, clang! Every strike was cleanly blocked by the axe blade.
Ouyang Lan attacked at the same time, yet she too could not break through.
Only then did Ji Wenxiu arrive. She held only a short sword, circling from the side as she waited for an opportunity to strike.
Boom, boom...
The sound of trees collapsing suddenly came from beside them.
From the corner of his eye, Lu Wu-bing saw, deep within the woods beside the mountain path—
A colossal figure ran like a tiger, every step leaving a pit in the earth as it charged toward them.
It was a bald giant.
He dragged a crescent shovel in one hand. His oil-slick face was black on one side and white on the other.
His body leaned forward, his left arm shielding him from the front.
When anything blocked his way, he did not dodge. He simply rammed into it bodily, smashing trees and rocks into pieces.
A half-foot of vital essence faintly rose around him, burning like savage flames. The moment it touched splintered wood or stone, it shattered them into powder.
"Yin-Yang Monk! A Black List expert, Fourth Rank!"
Ouyang Lan's sword flashed like the wind, but she spared a fraction of her attention to glance sideways.
The instant she caught sight of that unmistakable black-and-white face, she cried out in alarm.
"Run! He cannot be fought head-on!"
"We cannot run. Kill the Peaceful Axe first!"
The more dangerous the moment, the calmer Lu Wu-bing became.
His mind seemed to churn with towering waves. He knew this was a situation where nine deaths awaited for every chance of survival.
This Fifth Rank brute was already extremely hard to deal with.
If the Fourth Rank Yin-Yang Monk joined him, the few of them would likely face more ill fortune than good.
Those two possessed profound cultivation. They would run extremely fast as well, and their endurance would surely outlast Lu Wu-bing's group.
Turning to flee would be the most useless choice.
Unfortunately, he had cultivated for too short a time. Before his swordsmanship had reached truly profound heights, he had plunged headfirst into this deadly whirlpool.
Am I going to die?
All the resentment and unfairness of his former life—this life had not yet seen him reach the summit and behold the scenery of this world...
A surge of pent-up resentment and violent fury erupted wildly from his heart.
"Kill..."
Lu Wu-bing's brow throbbed heavily.
A line he had long forgotten suddenly leapt into his heart.
[The benevolent and righteous must not cultivate this art. Devour spirits and consume souls; ten thousand swords return to the sect.]
The cultivation art unfolded like a painted scroll.
[Chengjiang], [Fengfu], [Huagai], and [Shendao]—thirteen acupoints in total—jumped at once, as though a faintly visible meridian emerged.
An invisible, savage aura appeared within his consciousness.
In an instant, his eyes turned blood-red.
The air around him solidified, and even the drifting leaves seemed to come to a halt.
Opposite him, the axe-light, firm and heavy as a mountain, also slowed to a crawl, moving like an old ox pulling a broken cart.
Even Senior Sister Xiaolan beside him, her face filled with anxiety, seemed clumsy and sluggish in her movements.
Ji Wenxiu, petite as a finely crafted porcelain doll... at some unknown moment, threads of red light had begun flickering around her body. Like a blazing furnace consuming her, they revealed a beauty steeped in the sorrow of utter incineration.
She was clearly holding back some sort of ultimate move.
However, judging by her state, even if she unleashed it, she would likely wound herself by three thousand to injure the enemy by eight hundred. It would not be much help.
In the space of a spark flashing off flint.
Time seemed to stretch...
Lu Wu-bing extended his sword.
A strange power seemed to surge anew from every limb and bone.
His body felt as though struck by lightning, faintly numb and tingling.
Amid the pain was an ultimate exhilaration.
The bizarre sensation of that moment could not be described.
Yet the longsword in his hand instantly pierced the air apart, unleashing a thunderous roar.
Boom...
A massive head crowned in loose black hair exploded like a watermelon.
A fist-sized deep hole appeared between Song Zhong's brows, and half his head was blown away.
A strange ripple swept past.
Scarlet blood-qi and faint smoke were swallowed in a single mouthful by Lu Wu-bing.
Blood patterns faintly emerged on his forehead, his eyes scarlet. Throwing back his head with a long howl, he took one step forward and turned into a thin phantom.
Blood flames roiled around him as he shot toward Yin-Yang Monk with a howl.
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