Chaotic Battle

Charge!

As more than a dozen ring-shaped shockwaves swept past, four figures shot out like phantoms from the street behind the wild grass.

Their target was the lakeside factory that had already been blasted flat by the terrifying bombardment.

Seeing someone take the lead in charging, most of the martial wanderers who had been flung away by the explosions sprang to their feet as if nothing had happened and rushed toward the factory buildings leveled by the blasts.

"Who goes there?!"

As the smoke and dust dispersed, a flame barrier at the center of the explosion was on the verge of shattering.

The Room Fire Cult shaman, dressed in sacrificial robes and wreathed in black qi, stared with bloodshot eyes at a figure holding a Spirit-Iron Greatspear as he fell from the sky.

Blood spilled from his mouth. Clearly, sustaining the barrier had drained him heavily.

As for the Room Fire Cult believers inside the factory who had assisted with the sacrifice, aside from several more important members within the barrier, none had survived. All had been torn into bloody mist by the shockwaves and sent skyward together.

"Jiangnan Myriad-House Office, Demon-Suppressing Commandant! I'm here to take your dog life!"

The martial artist wielding the Spirit-Iron Greatspear descended from the sky with overwhelming momentum. His spear cleaved through the waves, striking the tottering flame barrier from above.

The moment his deep, resonant voice rang out, the martial wanderers charging forward all stopped in their tracks. Their faces filled with shock and suspicion as they drew sharp breaths.

A Demon-Suppressing Commandant of the Jiangnan Myriad-House Office was at least a Feathering Realm expert at the "Organ Refinement and Blood Exchange" stage.

For such an expert to appear in the outer city was practically a strike from a higher dimension, enough to make one's heart tremble in terror.

Boom!

The flame barrier exploded beneath the Spirit-Iron Greatspear's blow.

The Room Fire Cult shaman maintaining the barrier spat blood. His face twisted viciously as he said to the surviving greater and lesser priests beside him, "Take two blood pills each! Leave first!"

With that, he drew the runic greatsword from his waist. Blood-colored flames coiled around his body as he leaped up to meet the spearman falling from the sky.

All six greater and lesser priests had suffered serious injuries in the explosion.

Receiving the shaman's order, they did not hesitate. Clutching the pills, they became six speeding streaks of blood and scattered in all directions.

Clang!

The runic greatsword collided with the Spirit-Iron Greatspear, producing a deafening crash.

A fire dragon writhed wildly through the air. One figure plunged from the sky like a falling stone, while the ground seemed to suffer invisible gravity, a clear ravine carved by the greatspear appearing across it.

"We already made three agreements with Household Commander Cen!"

"You are not from the Jiangnan Myriad-House Office!"

"Who exactly are you people?! How dare you make enemies of my Room Fire Cult!"

The Room Fire Cult shaman was smashed into a crater gouged out by the Divine-Fire Flying Crows. He threw back his head and howled, his roar thick with venomous resentment.

Smack!

A Room Fire Cult priest who had only just entered the Spirit-Planting Realm turned to look at the miserable state of the shaman, only for someone to grab his ankle.

Slash!

A blade flashed upward from below, instantly cutting away half his body.

"Pah!" Tang Xi spat out blood and mud as he crawled from the ruins, still carrying half a human corpse in his hand.

"Damn it, Cui Qianji is completely unreliable! He said 12:20—why did he fire a minute early?"

Young Master Tang was filthy and disheveled. The life-saving jade pendant on his chest had already shattered into three pieces.

"Jianhong, are you all right?!"

A burly figure with twin maces strapped to his back came to Tang Xi's side.

Crystalline green light blossomed from his hands as he pressed them against Tang Xi's body. Tang Xi's originally serious internal and external injuries immediately began recovering at a speed visible to the naked eye.

"With a monster like you around, even if I'm reduced to a skeleton, I won't die."

In less than three minutes, Tang Xi had recovered seven or eight tenths of his injuries. He reached out and shoved away the burly man before him. "That's about enough. Fansheng, don't worry about me. Go after the other Room Fire Cult priests. There's something seriously wrong with their pills."

"Got it!" The burly man called Fansheng did not waste a word. He turned and left at once, pursuing a Room Fire Cult priest in another direction.

The moon was dark, the wind high, and the lake wind howled.

Chen Jue had covered his face and followed behind three martial wanderers. The three wanderers were in turn relentlessly pursuing a Room Fire Cult priest.

"You bastard! Leave the pills behind, and we'll spare your life!"

"Keep running! Once we catch you, we'll tear you into ten thousand pieces!"

The three martial wanderers were not particularly swift in their movement techniques, but one of them barely knew how to use hidden weapons. Five plum blossom darts flew out in succession. Though every one of them merely grazed their target, they truly did slow the Room Fire Cult priest's steps.

The other two martial wanderers quickly caught up, flanking him left and right. The cold gleam of their weapons crossed, cutting off the heavily wounded Room Fire Cult priest's retreat.

Clang! Clang!

The Room Fire Cult priest's flexible sword sprang from his waist. With one sword splitting into glimmers, he sent a strike to each side, stabbing at the wrist tendons of the two martial wanderers like venomous snakes flicking their tongues.

The two martial wanderers' pupils contracted sharply, and they hurriedly withdrew their swords to block.

Yet the Room Fire Cult priest retreated the instant their weapons met and resumed his frantic flight.

However, the Divine-Fire Flying Crows' shockwaves had already shattered his internal organs. His forced attack just now had finally thrown his qi and blood into disorder. After taking only ten unsteady steps, he could no longer suppress the surging blood in his chest and spat a cloud of blood into the sky.

"A perfect chance!"

Seeing this, the three martial wanderers pressed forward together, surrounding him from three sides. In no more than three moves and five exchanges, they successively stabbed his vital points and forced the Room Fire Cult priest into a certain death trap.

"Seeking death! You forced my hand!"

Seeing death before him, the Room Fire Cult priest no longer held anything back. He took one of his two pills and shoved it into his mouth.

What? Even this roadside trash mini-boss has a second phase?!

Chen Jue, trailing behind them, was dumbfounded. Did these three martial wanderers have something wrong with their heads?

They had just stood there and watched the Room Fire Cult priest swallow a pill?!

After the Room Fire Cult priest swallowed the pill, blood-colored flame qi swiftly emerged over his body, forming a shield as thin as cicada wings.

At the same time, his form underwent a tremendous change. His originally thin body abruptly swelled, turning him into a massive brute with a round potbelly and muscles all over his body.

Even his face changed. His eyes turned ghostly crimson, his nose bridge rose into the shape of a pig's snout, and two ghastly white tusks grew from the canine teeth that split his mouth all the way to his ears.

"That Feathering Pill turns people into monsters?!"

Seeing such severe side effects from the pill, the three martial wanderers immediately began to lose their nerve, their feet unconsciously backing away.

However, it was already too late.

The Room Fire Cult priest was only at the late True Qi stage, yet he had swallowed a pill from the late second realm. The violent energy flooding his body left him no path to survival except to vent it all.

Boom!

The mud pit beneath the Room Fire Cult priest's feet exploded. He shot forward as swiftly as an arrow loosed from the bowstring, charging head-on at the martial wanderer who had thrown the plum blossom darts at him.

Pfft! A spinning plum blossom dart embedded itself directly in the belly of the pig demon the Room Fire Cult priest had become.

Thick blood ran down his stomach and dripped onto the ground. The wound was horrifying.

But the Room Fire Cult priest, now transformed into a demon, had fully embraced his ferocity. He paid no heed to his own injuries or life and death, instead violently chopping out with his sword. The force behind the strike was so great that it turned even the limp flexible sword into a steel ruler that would sooner break than bend.

Slash!

The martial wanderer facing the charge drew the swallow-feather saber from his waist and raised it sideways, intending to block—but he was half a beat too slow.

"Aaaah!" His scream startled the wild ducks by the lake, sending them flying off in flocks.

The flexible sword in the pig-headed monster's hand cleaved from his left eye to his right waist, tearing open a savage wound so deep the bone could be seen. Blood gushed out wildly.

The remaining two martial wanderers fled in terror, one to each side.

As though its brainstem had been destroyed, the pig-headed monster did not know whom to pursue. It looked left and right, freezing in place.

Seeing this, Chen Jue knew it was time for him to enter the stage.

His gaze turned cold as he stepped forward. The true intent of the perfected Six Directions Saber Art spread out like a domain, and the aura around him abruptly changed.