Boom!
The force unleashed by Fang Yu's Mixed Iron Trident collided thunderously with Qin Jianghe's broken saber.
With a muffled bang.
Qin Jianghe was sent flying backward in an instant, crashing straight through the window and into the main hall of the residence.
"Hey, Qin Jianghe, you really can't take a single blow!"
Fang Yu advanced with his trident raised, sweeping in with the howl of a northern gale passing through.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Countless repeating-crossbow bolts burst forth from the rafters in an unending stream, blanketing Fang Yu at the doorway like rain, like a curtain.
"Mechanisms?!"
Fang Yu cried out softly.
What decent person installed mechanisms in their own living room?!
Though startled, Fang Yu remained unruffled in the face of danger. He whirled the Mixed Iron Trident with one hand like a wheel, producing a rapid series of crisp clanks.
The ground was left strewn with broken arrows and shattered bolts.
Fang Yu swept his gaze around.
The entire hall stood empty.
Where was Qin Jianghe?
At that moment, Ji Chengkong stepped in from outside.
He laughed brightly and said:
"Faction Master Fang, do not be hasty. This residence contains a secret chamber. Qin Jianghe is merely putting up a cornered beast's stubborn resistance."
This secret chamber was where Qin Jianghe cultivated in seclusion and stored the secret manuals and confidential letters sent down from the Raging Tide Main Faction.
Ji Chengkong had overseen its construction back then.
Naturally, he knew how to open it.
Ji Chengkong walked into the side room and moved aside a celadon vase on the side table, revealing a recessed groove beneath it.
He pressed it down directly.
A dull rumble sounded from the wardrobe beside the bed.
With a smile, Ji Chengkong gestured with his hand, indicating that the secret chamber lay behind the wardrobe.
Fang Yu narrowed his eyes and carefully scrutinized Ji Chengkong, wondering whether Ji Chengkong intended to turn the tables and plot against him.
After a long while, he slowly said:
"You open the door."
A trace of anger flashed across Ji Chengkong's face, but he immediately resumed his calm smile and nodded slightly.
"It is only natural that Faction Master Fang has his concerns."
Rustle.
Without another word, Ji Chengkong opened the wardrobe doors.
Sure enough, a rectangular, pitch-black opening was revealed behind them, with a flight of steps extending downward through a dark passageway.
Fang Yu said as before:
"You go down first."
This time, Ji Chengkong hesitated.
There should have been luminous pearls for lighting along both sides of the passageway, but Qin Jianghe had gotten there first and naturally extinguished every source of light.
At this moment, it was utterly pitch-black inside.
If Qin Jianghe erupted from the darkness and struck with his saber.
In such darkness.
He, Ji Chengkong, would inevitably bear the brunt of it. It would be a killing blow with almost no chance of survival.
The best approach was naturally to find cannon fodder to scout the way.
But this was the headquarters of Broken Blade Hall.
Being able to send away the hall's experts and secretly bring Fang Yu, the Yaksha Faction Master, inside had already exhausted every means at his disposal.
Where could he find fresh cannon fodder now?
Clang!
The Mixed Iron Trident swept out sideways.
It was already pressed against Ji Chengkong's neck, its icy touch constantly reminding him of death's threat.
"Move."
Fang Yu gave a chilling chuckle.
Only one phrase echoed through Ji Chengkong's mind.
Seek a tiger's skin with the tiger!
Ji Chengkong clenched the folding fan in his hand and cautiously stepped into the dark secret chamber, still gambling in his heart...
Compared with himself.
Fang Yu, an Acquired Realm expert, was clearly the greater threat.
To capture bandits, first capture their king. If Qin Jianghe made his move, there was an eighty to ninety percent chance he would target Fang Yu first.
That was Ji Chengkong's chance to survive.
Ji Chengkong and Fang Yu's vision was gradually swallowed by the darkness.
Ji Chengkong gathered his power into his eyes, attempting to catch more information, yet it had no obvious effect. All he could see was endless blackness.
They could only rely on feeling their way forward with each step.
Only then could they find the descending stairs.
According to Ji Chengkong's memories, the secret chamber was not large. It extended down only one level and was divided into an outer and inner stone room.
Very quickly.
The two felt their way to the end in the darkness.
Looking back.
They could only see the wardrobe entrance outlined by light and shadow. Before them, they could vaguely make out a stone door.
Qin Jianghe was nowhere to be seen.
Fang Yu carefully listened to determine his position, but even in the darkness, he could not hear the slightest sound—not even the other man's breathing.
"Open it."
Fang Yu urged Ji Chengkong.
Ji Chengkong fumbled around until he found the seam between the two doors. Pushing with both hands, he heard a heavy rumble.
The stone door slowly shifted.
Until it was fully open, wide enough for one person to pass through.
Ji Chengkong did not wait for Fang Yu to urge him again. He gripped his folding fan in one hand, circulated his inner force, and focused himself in readiness.
This was the final stone chamber.
Qin Jianghe could only be here.
Ji Chengkong and Fang Yu entered the stone chamber one after the other when a sharp rush of wind suddenly surged up from the darkness.
Both Ji Chengkong and Fang Yu were instantly alarmed.
Ji Chengkong suddenly felt an icy edge skim past his scalp and shoot straight toward Fang Yu's face behind him.
Clang!
Fang Yu's ears twitched slightly. With only a hair's breadth to spare, he raised his iron trident to block it. Bang! His hair crown was cleaved apart by the saber.
His hair instantly fell loose in disarray.
"Qin Jianghe, sneaking around in the shadows!"
Fang Yu instantly caught Qin Jianghe's blurred figure in the darkness. He raised the Mixed Iron Trident, and with a clang...
Barely blocked the saber strike that followed close behind.
Qin Jianghe sighed inwardly.
In the end, he was still injured.
If his strength had recovered to the Acquired Realm, with Fang Yu in the light and himself erupting from the shadows, that strike would already have grievously wounded him.
Though it was a pity.
Qin Jianghe would not give up such an excellent chance to press his advantage. If he could not use the terrain to narrow the gap between himself and Fang Yu.
The longer this dragged on.
The more apparent his defeat would become.
It sounded like a long tale.
But Qin Jianghe and Fang Yu had exchanged blows in only the time it took for sparks to fly from flint, seizing Fang Yu's disadvantage before he had adapted to the pitch-black surroundings.
The broken saber slashed in succession, at times domineering and majestic, at times free and unrestrained. Its variations were intricate and exceptionally fierce.
The Golden Saber Art and Free Will Saber Art were used in alternation, the saber moves resembling the Milky Way pouring down from the Ninth Heaven—endless, without beginning or end.
Even Fang Yu, an old opponent who had fought Qin Jianghe many times, still could not adapt to those seemingly infinite variations in saber techniques.
He retreated step by step through the darkness. In an instant, his plain scholar's robes had been slashed to pieces, streaked with bloody gashes.
But Qin Jianghe knew this was not enough.
Fang Yu was battle-hardened.
He guarded the vital points of his body tightly. Though he looked miserable now, his actual combat strength remained undiminished, while Qin Jianghe himself...
Qin Jianghe could already feel a faint pain in his abdomen.
The wound that had only just healed.
Seemed to show signs of splitting open again.
Not to mention that Ji Chengkong was still watching like a tiger from the side.
Yet, no matter what.
Qin Jianghe absolutely could not give up the advantage of this terrain. Otherwise, he would have no way to contend with Fang Yu at all.
Ji Chengkong currently had his body pressed against the stone wall of the inner chamber, his heart trembling with lingering fear.
If Qin Jianghe's earlier saber strike had been aimed at him.
He would already have been separated from his head.
Ji Chengkong steadied himself and listened to the constant clanging of metal against metal in the darkness.
By the sparks that occasionally flashed up, two shadows twisting, leaping, and darting gradually took shape in his eyes.
The one wielding the saber was Qin Jianghe.
His fierce assault of rapid slashes was already showing signs of decline, gradually being turned back by Fang Yu as Fang Yu adapted.
If Fang Yu were not wary that Qin Jianghe might still have some hidden move left in the secret chamber, he would likely have reversed the momentum with an all-out assault already.
But Ji Chengkong knew.
This secret chamber was Qin Jianghe's training room. When it had been built, no hidden openings for mechanisms had been left behind.
He gripped his folding fan.
With a surge of inner force, the fan ribs erupted with rows of sharp spikes in a ringing clang.
He fixed his eyes on Qin Jianghe's silhouette, gathering force as he waited to strike. He would bury Qin Jianghe here!