It was too late to say.
Yet it all happened in an instant...
Lu Wu-bing suddenly erupted, his combat strength surging wildly. After killing [Peaceful Axe] Song Zhong in an instant, he turned to face Yin-Yang Monk Deng Yuan.
He came and went like lightning, his sharp sword stabbing in rapid succession.
Ahead, the staff's shadow filled the air. Amid Yin-Yang Monk's mad laughter, the two fought faster and faster.
In Ouyang Lan and Ji Wenxiu's eyes,
they discovered that Lu Wu-bing simply could not break through, like a moth trapped in a net.
He flew with incredible speed and attacked with savage ferocity.
But whenever he approached Yin-Yang Monk, his speed slowed by nearly half.
The opponent's profound inner force blocked him, delaying his sword speed and forcing him to counter each move with another, dodge and change his techniques.
He had actually fallen into a disadvantage.
Ouyang Lan's expression changed drastically. Gritting her teeth, she used Inch Step to flash several times beneath her feet, circling in an arc. Just as Lu Wu-bing retreated again after a fruitless sword strike, she suddenly lunged forward.
This time, she used neither the Thirteen Life-Snatching Swords nor the Celestial Star Sect's advanced signature sword art, the Yaoguang Sword.
Instead, she assumed a strange posture.
She gripped her sword with both hands against her left side, her right shoulder thrust forward. Her right palm curled inward, its five fingers spread wide.
As she neared Yin-Yang Monk, her legs bent like a drawn bow. She lowered herself and slipped past the sweeping blow of the Zen staff.
As her hair drifted apart like clouds, she gave a delicate shout. "Scatter!"
As the clear sound rang through their ears, Yin-Yang Monk Deng Yuan's face was full of disdain. His expression was cruel as he prepared to swing his staff back.
He had already seen through it.
Although this little girl who had joined the battle possessed somewhat higher cultivation and had reached the upper stage of Seventh Rank,
she had so little inner force, and her sword was so slow.
As long as she dared come close, his next strike would turn her into minced flesh.
But just then,
Ouyang Lan held the sword with both hands, pulling her left arm sideways and pushing her right arm outward, exerting force at the same time.
The longsword in her hands suddenly burst into dozens of glittering, shining fragments.
The fragments turned into a torrent.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh...
They shot out like streams of light,
piercing through Yin-Yang Monk's protective Diamond Force.
The moment Ouyang Lan unleashed this move, Yaoguang Scatter, excruciating pain tore through all her meridians. She spat out a mouthful of blood, her legs going weak as she struggled to remain standing.
Gathering all one's strength into a single strike—either the enemy died, or she did.
When her mother had passed down this sword technique, she had said that unless it was a life-or-death moment, it was never to be used.
Once used, it would drain the entire body of strength, leaving no chance to resist.
After Ouyang Lan sent out her sword, she watched the Diamond Force surrounding Yin-Yang Monk's body get pierced like mist. Yet there was no worry or fear in her eyes, only a trace of expectation.
She knew her junior brother would not disappoint her.
And not only did Lu Wu-bing not disappoint her.
Ji Wenxiu did not disappoint her either.
As Ouyang Lan charged forward, she failed to notice that Ji Wenxiu, who had arrived almost at the same time as her, had a delicate porcelain-like little face flushed so red it seemed ready to drip blood.
Heat steamed from her body, and the light and shadows around her warped.
Yet the little girl did not swing her sword forward. Instead, she leaped into the air like a luan phoenix spreading its wings to take flight, her arms opening wide.
At the same time, her little mouth opened, releasing a clear cry.
"Ah!"
It was impossible to imagine how such a huge, crisp cry could emerge from Ji Wenxiu's petite body.
The instant the cry rang out,
all the trees in the forest shuddered together, their leaves rustling loudly.
Birds, insects, and ants all drew in their necks, as if they had encountered some natural predator.
Even Ouyang Lan, who had just used her ultimate move, and Lu Wu-bing, who had seized the opportunity to strike like lightning, felt searing pain in their eardrums...
It was as though someone were holding sharp needles, testing the limits of what their ears could bear.
For a moment, their minds buzzed, and all sounds around them vanished...
Yin-Yang Monk Deng Yuan, who bore the brunt of it, fared even worse.
Boom...
His head felt as though it had been struck by a great hammer, blood seeping from his ears.
His pair of fierce orange-yellow eyes rolled slightly white...
Clearly, he had been stunned for an instant.
And that instant
was the boundary between life and death.
When Yin-Yang Monk regained his senses and light returned to his eyes, pain flashed through his throat.
"Pfft..."
Sword light passed through his neck.
The first thing he heard when his hearing returned was a faint sound of wind.
No.
It was not the wind.
It was the sound of his own blood spraying out.
"I..."
Yin-Yang Monk could not believe that he would die at the hands of three little brats.
These people looked utterly unremarkable.
Their cultivation was so low that it was beneath notice, like ants that could be slaughtered with a casual stroke.
Yet each of them possessed some bizarre and strange ability.
When they joined forces,
they beat him until he could barely fight back.
Bang...
Yin-Yang Monk, dead with his eyes still open, slowly leaned back and fell as Lu Wu-bing drew out his sword.
The two girls beside Lu Wu-bing, one tall and one short, also swayed and collapsed.
One fell to the left.
The other slumped to the right.
Lu Wu-bing released his sword and caught them both.
From Yin-Yang Monk's body, a wisp of smoke and dust mixed with blood mist was drawn uncontrollably into his open mouth.
He only felt his spirit turn into blazing flames once more.
That murderous, violent intent became a seed, deeply imprinted in his sea of consciousness.
It was as if he had drunk ten full bowls of supreme tonic soup. He wanted release. He wanted to kill...
Even the two women he was supporting beside him
looked like an incomparably sweet feast.
"Damn it... What kind of rotten technique is this?"
Lu Wu-bing endured the torment in his heart and helped the two of them lean against the grass and a tree stump.
He did not bother searching for a clean place. His eyes red, he immediately sat cross-legged on the spot.
Using every ounce of his will,
he suppressed his boiling blood and qi...
He controlled the Dripping Water Force inner energy raging like waves inside his body, crazily battering against the Hand Shaoyin Heart Meridian.
The last shred of reason in his mind still allowed him to recall what Senior Sister Xiaolan had once told him.
The Hand Shaoyin Heart Meridian governed emotions. It could make the heart clear as ice and keep one calm at all times.
Dripping Water Force was the most upright, balanced, and peaceful of arts, and it was exceptionally difficult for it to lead to qi deviation.
As long as inner force remained, external demons would naturally stay far away.
That was the principle.
But Lu Wu-bing discovered that a bucket of water seemed unable to extinguish a fire soaring into the heavens.
His inner force was running out.
Before his eyes, it seemed that he had fallen once more into bloody slaughter.
He recalled the lofty ambitions of his youth in his previous life, then how he had later bowed his back for five pecks of rice, toiling and rushing about day after day for only a few scraps of silver...
Then he thought of the good life he had enjoyed in this life, the life of a wealthy young master that countless people would envy, which had finally scattered like smoke and clouds beneath the Eastern Sea Sword Sect's threats.
A pent-up gloom rose in his heart, yet he could not breathe it out.
"Heaven brings forth all things to nourish man, yet man has nothing with which to repay Heaven. Kill, kill, kill! In this damned world, there is no one who cannot be killed."
"Devour spirits and consume souls, strengthen body and soul, merge all sword arts into one, forge a divine sword that reaches the heavens, and seek immortality through the sword."
"Release my true spiritual form and break free of layer upon layer of shackles. What morality? What law? They are nothing but rules the strong make for the weak. Why should there be any need to obey them?
"The weak are meat for the strong. It has always been so since ancient times, and it will surely remain so in the future..."
"If one day I fulfill my soaring ambitions, I would dare laugh that Huang Chao was no true man!"
All kinds of thoughts crashed like a breached riverbank, little by little washing away the bottom line of Lu Wu-bing's reason.
Until crisp, pleasant incantations sounded by his ears.
The spell was like clear smoke in a Daoist temple, drifting above the clouds...
It was also like bells in a Buddhist hall, ringing through the distant sky.
In the end, it became a fine, murmuring rain, falling upon his heart.
In his daze, Lu Wu-bing seemed to see a vast fertile plain, green shoots growing and fresh flowers blooming in riotous splendor.
He smelled flowers and saw flowing springs.
He also saw two pale little faces filled with concern.
And a small mouth opening and closing, muttering something.
"What spell is this?"
The violent intent, like an extinguished volcano, was pressed back into the deepest earth beneath heavy layers of ash, rock, and soil.
Lu Wu-bing felt as though his heart had been washed clean. For a moment, the scenery before him became so bright and vivid.
There was no longer the slightest impulse of resentment toward the world or boiling murderous intent.
He had made it through this trial!
Lu Wu-bing understood where the incantation that had sounded by his ears while he had been suffering just now had come from.
"It is the Small Clear Sound Mantra passed down by my aunt."
Ji Wenxiu let out a long breath, a smile blooming across her face.
She had only tried it with a hopeful mindset. Discovering that her spell truly worked, she was overjoyed.
"You know that my Ji family's inherited martial art, Heaven Bearing Phoenix Blood, possesses world-shaking divine might. But what you may not know is that those who cultivate this art receive immense benefits, yet are also trapped by the phoenix blood.
"Even those people in the Lineage have no choice but to admit that this is not phoenix blood at all, but mad blood.
"When Aunt was young, she left the capital and entered Bright Moon Palace as a disciple.
"Though there were many reasons, the most important was that she wished to find a way to suppress the madness of the phoenix blood."
"Then she must have succeeded."
Lu Wu-bing thought of that incantation. He had heard it clearly, yet when he recalled it now, he could not remember a single word.
It was truly rather wondrous.
"No. She merely obtained some incomplete methods. They work, but they cannot eradicate the influence of mad blood.
"Still, I believe in Aunt's intelligence. One day, she will solve it completely."
Whenever Ji Wenxiu spoke of her aunt, the Cold Moon Fairy, her eyes shone.
Clearly, she greatly admired her.
"I'll teach you the Small Clear Sound Mantra. Senior Brother, the desperate technique you use has consequences that are too severe. It twists the heart and damages the spirit, so it is perfectly suited to being suppressed with this spell.
"According to Aunt, any illness that affects the mind can be relieved by this incantation.
"Oh, right. This spell must be paired with a unique breathing method, otherwise it cannot be remembered."
"I'll go search first and see what treasures these two fiends have on them."
Ouyang Lan suddenly said.
"Senior Sister, listen with us. It is only a small formula, and Aunt never warned me not to pass it on to others. The more we learn, the more means we will have when traveling the martial world."
Thinking of Ouyang Lan's resolute willingness to stake her life just now, gathering all her cultivation into one strike, Ji Wenxiu's heart was filled with admiration.
The three of them had gone through life and death together.
Their bond was naturally far from ordinary.
Passing on a technique was really no great matter.
"Fine, I'll learn it too. Not to mention this Clear Sound Mantra—even if Junior Sister Wenxiu taught me that desperate Azure Sky Chant she used earlier, I would dare learn it."
Ouyang Lan smiled radiantly.
"Cough, cough, Senior Sister, you jest. Without Phoenix Blood in your bodies, you cannot learn this sonic art.
"It harms oneself before harming others... Even for me, using it once leaves me seriously injured. The consequences are even worse than forcibly using Yaoguang Scatter."
So that was it.
Lu Wu-bing looked at the two women, who both seemed gravely ill, and understanding dawned on him.
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