Pursuers

Shangguan Hongyue clutched the Array-Piercing Talisman tightly in her hand, her eyes filled with panic and helplessness. She instinctively looked toward the only senior present.

"Senior, the Seventy-Three Hanging Sword Array, guarded by three duty officers at the Ninth Layer of Dao Master and one elder at the Dao Venerable realm, has been broken. What should we do next?"

"Should we go to support the Seventy-Three Hanging Sword Array?"

Little did she know, hearing this made Chen Xian even more panicked inside, but he also knew that the more critical the moment, the less he could let his "senior" persona crack!

He slowly raised his head, gazing up at the sky. The autumn night wind blew past, stirring his gray-white hair, and he let out a long, desolate sigh filled with endless melancholy.

"Alas... This old man is old."

Shangguan Hongyue's heart clenched, unsure what the senior meant by those words.

"If it were the past, this old man would have taken you, girl, to charge into the Blood Demon Sect and slaughter them until the sky went dark!"

"Unfortunately..."

Chen Xian paused, glancing at the visibly stirred Shangguan Hongyue: "Now I am old and frail, my strength less than a tenth of what it was. We must prioritize caution."

Shangguan Hongyue nodded. Though she wanted to rush to the Seventy-Three Hanging Sword Array, she knew her own strength was insufficient, and the senior seemed reluctant to act.

"So, girl, take him, and we'll return to the sect first!"

Chen Xian was well aware that supporting that Seventy-Three Hanging Sword Array was out of the question. Even Lin Xiaoyan, a master at the Sixth Layer of Sword Master, had been beaten half to death, meaning the pursuers behind them were definitely not something he and Shangguan Hongyue could handle.

We can't just feed ourselves to the enemy.

The top priority was to get into the Profound Cloud Sword Sect as fast as possible.

Survival first!

"Alright! Senior... let's go now!"

Shangguan Hongyue, infected by Chen Xian's calm demeanor, fully steadied herself, knowing she had to report this to the sect first.

She stored the heavy sword on the ground into her mustard pouch, hoisted the severely injured Lin Xiaoyan onto her back, and with a single hand gesture, a flying sword floated before her.

"Again!" Chen Xian's old face twisted into a bitter gourd.

Shangguan Hongyue didn't rush to step onto the flying sword. Instead, she formed hand seals with one hand and muttered a string of gibberish incantations.

The flying sword, only three fingers wide, instantly expanded to nearly two and a half meters long and a meter wide, like a door plank.

"There's this trick too?" Chen Xian's heart eased a little.

At least this was more secure than stepping onto a sword only a palm's width wide.

She first placed Lin Xiaoyan on it, then grabbed Chen Xian and hauled him up.

"Senior, I'll need to focus all my energy on controlling the sword. Please take care of Senior Brother Lin!"

Chen Xian nodded. He saw Shangguan Hongyue pop a pill into her mouth.

"Law enforcement! Make way!"

"Constable Wang is here!"

"Constable Wang, the person who fell from the sky is up ahead, and then two more flew over!"

The crowd stirred as a middle-aged man in a deep blue constable uniform, a long saber at his waist, pushed through.

Before he could get a clear look at the pit, he saw an "iron door plank" carrying three people fly into the sky, speeding away amid the crowd's gasps.

"So cultivators really exist in this world!"

Constable Wang's pupils shook violently. He recalled the story his hundred-year-old great-great-grandfather had told his great-grandfather, which his great-grandfather told his grandfather, which his grandfather told him.

But that old man on the door plank—didn't he look like the sugar-coated hawthorn seller, Grandpa Chen?

Before he could think it through, three streaks of blood-red light suddenly appeared in the opposite direction from where the cultivators had fled.

The blood-red streaks were incredibly fast. In just a few blinks, they crashed heavily onto the square.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

The blue stone square, already cratered, gained three more pits.

Many people, including Constable Wang, were knocked down by the shockwave.

But Constable Wang was a martial artist in his prime, quick to react. He sprang up with a carp-like flip, his hand already on the saber at his waist.

"Three more cultivators?"

Constable Wang squinted, stepping forward two paces to try and see the three figures in the dust.

A thick, stench of blood and rot hit him, and he held his breath.

As the dust slowly cleared, his eyes flew wide open. With a "clang!" he drew his long saber and shouted, "Everyone, fall back!"

The three who had landed had fangs and horns! Or rather, they weren't human at all—they were some kind of humanoid monsters!

But these three monsters could actually speak human language.

"Xue Hong, the Array-Piercing Talisman you forged was too slow at piercing the array."

"Letting that brat escape means the elder will definitely punish us."

"Big brother, do we still pursue?"

"..."

The three strange beings conversed as if no one else was around, seemingly unconcerned by the circle of mortals surrounding them.

After a moment of silence, the white-faced, bull-nosed freak with a pair of golden horns at the lead spoke up:

"Forget it. This place is too close to the Profound Cloud Sword Sect. If we run into one of their elders rushing over, all three of us will be finished here."

The other two freaks nodded in unison.

Then their gazes fell together on Constable Wang, who stood with his blade drawn.

Constable Wang's scalp crawled, but seeing the commoners still filing away behind him, he steeled himself and faced off against the three freaks.

"Who are you people?"

The three ignored his demand, instead breaking into eerie smiles.

"Hehehe... This mortal has some nerve, not running at the sight of us Blood Demons."

"Big brother, there are quite a few mortals here. How about we brothers replenish our blood rations?"

The speaker was a Blood Demon with a single silver horn on his forehead, his purple face covered in gnarled blood veins, a truly horrifying sight.

The golden-horned Blood Demon looked tempted, but after glancing at the sky, he hesitated and shook his head: "Forget it. The Hanging Sword Array here hasn't been broken yet. If we act, we risk being detected by the array spirit."

"Big brother is right. If that crappy Array-Piercing Talisman of yours, Xue Hong, fails, we'll all die in the Hanging Sword Array."

The ram-horned, green-faced Blood Demon, who had been silent until now, rumbled his support.

"Fine!" The silver-horned Xue Hong shrugged, a look of regret on his face.

He stared balefully at the blade-wielding mortal before him, extending a forked tongue to lick his lips: "Such a rich scent of blood and qi. What a pity."

"Let's go. This is just a mortal town. We need to hurry back to the Seventy-Three Hanging Sword Array. There are still several cities of millions of mortals waiting for us to hunt."

The golden-horned Blood Demon patted his shoulder.

Then three streaks of blood light shot into the sky, quickly vanishing in the direction they had come from.

"Clang!"

The long blade slipped from his hand. Constable Wang's legs gave out, and he collapsed to the ground, feeling his clothes soaked through, his whole body drenched in sweat.

He knew he had just narrowly escaped death.

A few bold commoners who hadn't fled far rushed over to help him up once the blood light had completely disappeared from the sky.

"Constable Wang, are you alright?"

"Wang Wei! Wang Wei! What's wrong with you?"

Held up by his arms, Constable Wang stared blankly, his eyes unfocused. He just kept muttering under his breath:

"The times are changing. The times are changing..."