Lu Tianyi had originally intended to take Yan Chihuo's blow head-on. Who would have thought that he had merely put on an act before darting away? Yan Chihuo's divine abilities and Magic Treasures all struck at the Nine-Headed Bird.
Caught completely off guard, the Nine-Headed Bird was instantly smashed into a pulp. Almost at the same moment, a layer of green fire ignited over Lu Tianyi's body. With a puff, a green jade talisman flew out from him, landed on the ground, and dissolved into specks of green light. The green fire around his body vanished as well.
At that moment, a green shadow flew out from the Nine-Headed Bird's corpse. Within it was a tiny Nine-Headed Bird only several inches long—its soul.
Yan Chihuo was both startled and delighted. With a backward grasp through the air, he seized the Nine-Headed Bird's soul, then flashed over to Snow Fairy's side. Turning his head, he said to Lu Tianyi, "Fellow Daoist, quite the means you have there. That Calamity-Transforming Talisman is a rare treasure indeed."
Given the Nine-Headed Bird's strength, even if Yan Chihuo transformed into three heads and six arms, he might not have been able to defeat it. But it had assumed that Lu Tianyi would block this attack for it. Never in its wildest dreams had it imagined Lu Tianyi would sell it out, and so Yan Chihuo slew it in a single strike.
Yet before it died, it had used the connection between their souls to make Lu Tianyi's soul scatter and spirit dissipate. Lu Tianyi, however, had used the Calamity-Transforming Talisman to ward off this disaster.
Though Lu Tianyi had saved Yan Chihuo, Yan Chihuo did not consider the man necessarily trustworthy. He remained on guard, and the expression on his face did not relax in