Awkward

Several black-clad men moved as fast as lightning, their blades cleaving straight toward him.

The auras radiating from them were all actually at the fourth level of the Qi Induction Realm or above!

And farther away, the Leader of the Black-Clad Men erupted with an even more terrifying pressure—peak sixth level of the Qi Induction Realm!

That dreadful pressure drove straight into the heart, making the village heads, who were only at the third or fourth level of the Qi Induction Realm, feel as if they were suffocating!

It was over!

Everyone's hands and feet trembled slightly, their faces deathly pale.

How could they possibly withstand strength like this?!

"Run!"

With no one knowing who shouted, the village heads, who had been on tenterhooks the entire way, finally had the taut string in their hearts snap.

In an instant, they scattered like birds and beasts, fleeing wildly in every direction.

Within the convoy, the mortal martial artists behind them, who had originally come along to lend a hand as coachmen and guards, saw the immortal families fleeing and also fell into panic and chaos.

For a moment, the long convoy actually showed signs of collapsing into a rout.

But at that moment of crisis, Clang!

A crisp bell rang out.

Invisible ripples spread, almost instantly covering the front and enveloping all the black-clad men within.

The black-clad men who had been charging through the air froze mid-flight. Their heads felt as if an iron cudgel had smashed viciously into the backs of their skulls; their consciousness instantly went blank, the magic power cycling through their internal circuits ran wild, and the spiritual light shining from their bodies collapsed with a boom.

Then, one after another, they fell to the ground in a chaotic heap like dumplings dropped into water.

Even the men farther away who had been moving in to surround them from the left and right, as well as the Leader of the Black-Clad Men at the peak of the sixth level of the Qi Induction Realm, were affected by the bell's sound, their figures freezing in place.

At this moment, Shen Changchuan held the Soul-Absorbing Bell in his hand, channeling his magic power to activate it, a faint white spiritual light flickering over its surface.

With a single strike, the Soul-Absorbing Bell had already controlled almost everyone.

After only a breath's pause, Shen Changchuan raised his hand and opened his palm toward the strongest among them, the Leader of the Black-Clad Men.

In an instant, Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!!!

Scarlet fireballs shot through the air one after another, scorching heat sweeping out with a roar as they smashed down at him!

The terrifying heat made even the air twist visibly to the naked eye!

The Leader of the Black-Clad Men was still human in the end.

He was not a peerless prodigy, nor was he a Demon Beast like the Gale Falcon.

A peerless prodigy could withstand the Soul-Absorbing Bell's divine-soul attack and launch a counterattack.

The Gale Falcon, after suffering a blow to its divine soul, could still rely on its instincts as a Demon Beast to resist.

But the Leader of the Black-Clad Men clearly could not.

In the space of a breath, before he could even recover from losing consciousness, five consecutive Crimson Flame Fireballs had already come crashing down toward his head!

Boom, boom, boom!!!

The fireballs exploded one after another.

A heaven-reaching storm of flames swept out in all directions like a flood, swallowing the Leader of the Black-Clad Men in an instant.

The dreadful blaze not only burned the fallen leaves on the ground to ash in the blink of an eye, even the black-clad men more than ten meters away

were enveloped by the intense heat, their hair scorched!

After several breaths, the swelling, explosive flames receded, and the remaining fire slowly burned across the charred earth.

And the Leader of the Black-Clad Men had already been reduced to a charred corpse, crashing down to the ground, without the slightest trace of life left.

All this took a long time to describe, but in reality, from the moment the Soul-Absorbing Bell rang to the instant the Leader of the Black-Clad Men was blasted dead on the spot by five Fireball Techniques, everything had happened in the span of a spark flying off flint.

Before the family heads from the various villages, who were fleeing in every direction, could even react, Shen Changchuan did not stop in the slightest.

With a raised hand and a sweep, Swish, swish, swish.

One after another, half-moon-shaped Cyan Wind Blades tore through the air, crossing spaces of several zhang, even more than ten zhang, as swiftly as lightning, slashing toward the remaining black-clad men frozen in place by the Soul-Absorbing Bell.

Amid dull puchi, puchi sounds of flesh and blood being ripped apart, the black-clad men all around could almost be said to be wounded if grazed, dead if touched.

Blood and severed limbs flew everywhere.

In just a few breaths, eight or nine black-clad men had been cut down on the spot.

And during this time, the others who had originally been suppressed and controlled by the Soul-Absorbing Bell also barely recovered.

The moment they opened their eyes, they saw the blood-soaked scene before them, corpses strewn across the ground!

"Ah! There's an expert! Fall back, quick!"

"Don't kill me!"

"Run!"

Their leader had been easily slain, and in a short time, more than half their companions had been lost.

Such a terrifying sight scared the remaining black-clad men who had luckily survived until their livers and guts split with fear.

At once, they endured the feeling of their heads splitting apart with pain, scrambling and crawling as they bolted into the distance.

They wished their parents had given them two more legs.

Shen Changchuan did not attack in pursuit either, letting them leave.

As the saying went, even a cornered beast would still fight.

Among those fleeing were people at the fifth level of the Qi Induction Realm and the fourth level of the Qi Induction Realm.

It was not as though they had absolutely no power to resist.

If he insisted on wiping them out, and in their death throes they pulled out some great killing weapon that made him suffer a huge loss, no one could say for certain that it would not happen.

"Do not pursue desperate bandits. Stability comes first."

Shen Changchuan thought inwardly.

Do not be fooled by how easily he had slain that Leader of the Black-Clad Men at the peak of the sixth level of the Qi Induction Realm, then gone on to cut down more than half of the black-clad men on the spot.

In reality, most of the credit lay with the Soul-Absorbing Bell he had mastered.

By suddenly activating the Soul-Absorbing Bell to attack, he had forced the enemy into a brief stalemate in which they had no power to resist, then combined that with the perfect-level spells he could cast instantly, which was how he had produced such a tremendous result in just over ten breaths.

If he had faced them head-on from the very beginning, against so many enemies, even Shen Changchuan, who had mastered numerous perfect-level spells, would have had no choice but to avoid their sharp edge for the time being.

On this point, Shen Changchuan had a very clear understanding of himself.

What was more, the consecutive bursts of power in such a short time had already left him with only seventy percent of his mana.

Best to be as steady as possible.

Shen Changchuan did not pursue.

The remaining black-clad men soon fled into the mountain forest, their figures vanishing from sight.

The surroundings were emptied in an instant, leaving only the scattered corpses on the ground ahead.

The air suddenly fell silent.

In the long merchant caravan behind him, the mortal martial artists who had been panicked and at a loss after the attack all stared blankly at everything before their eyes.

These mortal martial artists had originally come to help with the transport and lend a hand.

Earlier, when those black-clad men came killing in and the immortals scattered in every direction, they had thought they were dead for sure.

In the end, they had never expected

that in just a dozen breaths or so, the situation would be completely reversed!

That young exalted immortal suddenly displayed divine might, effortlessly crushing all the enemies who had come to attack.

This enormous, roller-coaster-like reversal left them speechless for a moment.

And not far away, the clan heads from the various villages, who had fled right from the start, saw the scene of Shen Changchuan dispatching the incoming enemies in a few quick moves, and almost all of them sucked in a breath of cold air!

Wasn't the aura the leading Leader of the Black-Clad Men had unleashed at the peak of the sixth level of the Qi Induction Realm?

And the other black-clad men who had rushed up were all at the fourth or fifth level of the Qi Induction Realm, too.

How had they suddenly dropped to their knees so quickly?!

This was simply unimaginable, impossible to understand!

Just who was Shen Changchuan? How could he possess such terrifying strength?!

He had crossed two whole levels of cultivation and easily slain his enemy.

In that case, the one who had personally struck down the Four Evils of He Mountain back then—wasn't it precisely this young disciple of the Shen Clan standing before them?!

However, they soon had no attention left to think about that.

Because

they realized something.

That was, when the battle had broken out, they had run!

They had abandoned that Shen Clan youth and fled first.

Now, they were still halfway through their escape, and though their footsteps had forcibly stopped, at this moment, they did not know whether they should keep running or go back.

They looked at one another, the air thick with awkwardness, plain for all to see.