Deep in a mountain valley.
The valley mouth was narrow, the trees towering overhead and the light dim.
The sounds of fighting, clashing weapons, angry shouts, and screams rose and fell without pause.
At the center of the valley.
Six outer-sect disciples of the Azure Cloud Sect stood back to back, huddled tightly together.
Their clothes were torn, their bodies smeared with blood, and their breathing ragged.
Blood kept seeping from their wounds, and they were badly exhausted.
The strongest among the six was a young disciple at the lead, whose cultivation had reached the eighth level of Qi Refining.
The other five were all at the sixth or seventh level of Qi Refining.
All around them.
More than twenty black-clad cultivators had surrounded them in a dense ring.
They all wore black outfits, with faint green ghost-flame patterns embroidered on their cuffs.
Disciples of the Ghost Fire Sect!
Every one of them was at least at the sixth level of Qi Refining.
Three had reached the eighth level, while their leader was at the ninth.
They completely overwhelmed the enemy in strength!
Layer upon layer, they had sealed off every possible escape route.
"Clang!"
A piercing clash of metal rang out.
One Azure Cloud Sect disciple couldn't withstand the assault, and a blade carved a long gash across his arm.
Pain lanced through him, and he staggered.
He gritted his teeth and held his ground, refusing to retreat even half a step.
"Hold on! Everyone, hold on!"
The eighth-level disciple at the lead panted heavily, his chest heaving as he spoke in a hoarse voice.
Cold sweat covered his forehead, and his eyes were full of anxiety, yet he still forced himself to keep everyone's spirits up.
"We've already sent up a signal flare!"
"The sect's enforcers and the elders will be here to support us soon!"
"We only need to hold them off a little longer, and we'll live!"
A young disciple with blood all over his face roared in fury, his eyes full of indignation and rage.
"These Ghost Fire Sect bastards!"
"They've got some nerve!"
"They actually dared to trespass into Azure Cloud Sect territory and ambush our disciples!"
"Do they really think the Azure Cloud Sect has no one to stop them?"
Another disciple gritted his teeth and spat, "Just wait until the elders arrive!"
"Then you scoundrels will die without a burial place!"
Though the Azure Cloud disciples were badly wounded and surrounded,
not one of them had lost their pride or surrendered.
But every one of them knew in their hearts:
their hopes were slim.
The enemy's assault was too fierce, their strength too great.
The six of them had already spent everything they had. They couldn't hold out much longer.
Outside the encirclement.
The black-clad leader of the Ghost Fire Sect wore a sinister expression and a cruel grin.
He was at the ninth level of Qi Refining, his aura ferocious and his gaze ruthless.
He glanced up at the red flare still lingering in the sky and sneered in disdain.
"Reinforcements?"
"Hahaha! How laughable!"
"By the time your sect's people get here, you'll already be six corpses!"
"Since you dared to send up a signal, then you can die even faster!"
"Everyone, attack with all your strength!"
"Finish this quickly! Kill them all!"
"Leave no survivors!"
At his command.
The black-clad cultivators' eyes instantly turned vicious and savage.
They stopped holding back and unleashed all their spiritual power.
Blade light, claw winds, poison arts, dark flames.
All kinds of sinister spells and sharp weapons bore down on the six of them at once.
The assault intensified several times over in an instant.
A storm of attacks completely engulfed the six people at the center of the valley.
"Pfft!"
Another Azure Cloud disciple was struck on the shoulder by dark flames. His flesh charred and smoked, and the pain pierced to the bone.
He grunted, gritted his teeth, and endured it, countering with a sword to drive his attacker back.
The spiritual power within him rapidly dwindled, and sharp pains stabbed through his meridians.
The eighth-level disciple at the lead felt his heart sink to the bottom of the valley.
It was over.
They couldn't hold out.
The gap was too great.
Despair slowly crept into the hearts of all six.
On a branch of a towering tree beside the valley.
Su Yun lightly touched his feet to the branch, hiding himself securely behind the dense leaves.
He had the Breath Concealment Art running at full strength.
His aura was completely smoothed away, as ordinary as the surrounding trees and plants, without the slightest ripple.
He looked down over the entire valley.
His divine sense instantly spread out, carefully sweeping across the surrounding woods, cliffs, and hidden corners.
There were no ambushes.
No backup forces.
No concealed experts.
Every enemy on the scene was under his control.
More than twenty Ghost Fire Sect disciples.
The strongest among them was at the ninth level of Qi Refining.
All the rest were at the sixth, seventh, or eighth level.
Su Yun sneered inwardly.
Trash.
A rabble of nobodies.
He'd heard of the Ghost Fire Sect. It was an old Devil Dao sect in Spirit Province.
They were ruthless and domineering, and had long operated on the fringes between the righteous and demonic paths.
Their overall foundation and sect size were almost on par with the Azure Cloud Sect's.
The two sects had always been at odds. Their disciples fought, clashed, and ambushed one another in secret, year after year.
But Su Yun hadn't expected the Ghost Fire Sect disciples to be so bold.
They'd dared to come straight into Azure Cloud Sect territory and surround its disciples.
Inside the valley.
The battle had already reached the brink of collapse.
The six Azure Cloud Sect disciples were already at the end of their strength.
At first, the six had relied on a simple encirclement defense formation to barely hold on.
Now, the formation's spiritual power was completely drained.
Its glow dimmed, its markings shattered, and it collapsed entirely.
Without the formation's protection, the six were instantly exposed to a storm of attacks.
Every one of them was wounded.
Their robes were torn, and blood had soaked into their flesh.
Their breathing was heavy and ragged. Their spiritual power flickered, and even circulating their cultivation techniques had become sluggish.
"Senior Brother... I can't hold on anymore..."
A young outer-sect disciple's voice trembled, despair filling his eyes.
The spiritual power in his dantian was nearly depleted. His meridians stung and went numb, and his hands and feet were starting to weaken.
He was almost too weak to lift his sword.
The eighth-level senior brother at the lead gritted his teeth and kept fighting. His tiger's mouth had split open and bled, and the hand gripping his sword trembled nonstop.
As he watched the black-clad cultivators press in from every direction, his heart turned completely cold.
The reinforcements hadn't arrived.
The formation had collapsed.
It was over.
A sixth-level black-clad cultivator spotted an opening, and a vicious glint flashed in his eyes.
He planted a foot and shot forward.
The black blade in his hand, wreathed in ghostly green flames, stabbed straight toward the back of the exhausted Azure Cloud disciple.
The sneak attack was swift, its angle vicious!
No one could get there in time to help.
That young disciple had even closed his eyes, ready to take the fatal blow head-on.
At that very moment.
The air rippled.
A tiny streak of golden light silently sliced through the air.
It was so fast that the naked eye could catch only a faint blur.
Pfft!
The head of the sneaking black-clad cultivator was instantly pierced by the golden light.
His skull shattered, and blood sprayed everywhere.
His body abruptly froze.
His eyes bulged, and his life ended in an instant.
He crashed straight to the ground.
Killed in a single second!
The entire battlefield fell dead silent!
Everyone fighting froze in place.
The more than twenty Ghost Fire Sect disciples stared in shock and whipped around to look in every direction.
The pupils of the six Azure Cloud disciples, already on the verge of death, suddenly lit up. Their faces transformed from despair to joy!
"Someone intervened!"
"A powerful cultivator! Reinforcements are here!"
"We're saved! We don't have to die!"
The mood at the bottom of the valley turned on its head in an instant.
The Ghost Fire Sect leader's expression darkened completely.
His sharp gaze swept across the woods, and he shouted in a low voice.
"Who?!"
"Show yourself! Sneaking around and ambushing my Ghost Fire Sect's people!"
"Get out here!"
He quickly sensed the spiritual power lingering in the air.
There was no crushing pressure.
No spiritual pressure unique to a Foundation Establishment cultivator.
Only the faint fluctuations of Qi Refining.
The leader's heart eased, and he instantly let go of most of his wariness.
It wasn't a Foundation Establishment cultivator, just a Qi Refining cultivator.
Daring to interfere in his Ghost Fire Sect's business was practically asking to die!