The Fretful Human World, Only You and Me (Final)

The wind howled past his ears as Qin Yi, wrapped in a slightly oversized fur cloak, flew backward through the air. His gaze swept over the charging slender figure before settling on the entire battlefield.

As Ruan Su charged forward, she suddenly exerted force backward and hurled him toward Nie Junyue on the outskirts.

Qin Yi was willing to trust her instincts,

But why?

To internal martial artists, the most terrifying thing about cultivators was the bizarre killing methods brought by their paths. Just as Qin Yi had instantly killed Fan You and Shang Jin earlier, being caught off guard or making a single mistake meant death in an instant.

Mr. Wei's severed hand and Luo Liuyi's death had both happened that way.

Yet Ruan Su had told him to flee immediately. Had he overlooked some crucial information?

The second round of battle erupted. With withered yellow leaves drifting everywhere, the woods became dim and chaotic. Someone swung a soft iron whip, driving it forward like a snake and tightly wrapping it around Fu Ming's wrist. Someone leaped between tree trunks and fired poisoned sleeve arrows. Mr. Wei, his robes fluttering, directly pinched leaves into darts, punching two holes through the falling leaves as he aimed only at the middle-aged man in blue at the center of the vortex.

With Nie Junyue's assistance, Qin Yi landed steadily and stared unblinkingly at the chaotic center of the battlefield.

"Alas..."

Amid the dim flashes of blades and swords, a sudden sigh pierced through all the chaos with startling clarity and entered everyone's ears.

At the center of the swirling leaves, Fu Ming casually raised a hand and rubbed his head. His deep voice carried a trace of lazy impatience.

"...This is why I don't want to deal with you martial artists."

In the blink of an eye, a murky blue glow ignited in Fu Ming's eyes. In an instant, the temperature in the forest began plummeting, and thin white frost formed along the edges of the falling dead leaves.

The next instant, a heart-rending scream exploded from a tree trunk to one side. The waist and abdomen of the young man wielding the soft iron whip were severed without warning, his intestines and organs spilling continuously to the ground. Then came Peng Jun several yards away. The burly man holding a ring-pommel saber did not even manage to raise his weapon to block before he was pierced by that invisible blade, blood seeping from both his chest and back.

Bloodstained frost-covered leaves continued falling silently. The battle had seemingly become a one-sided slaughter.

Qin Yi saw through the technique. There had been no fundamental change; Fu Ming had simply raised the intensity of his control over that invisible blade to a level that sent chills down one's spine.

The countless falling leaves were like a moving maze capable of revealing the invisible blade, while Fu Ming controlled it with precision through the gaps between every leaf, forcibly avoiding every collision until it touched the bodies of the Immortal Guest House retainers.

The information in Qin Yi's mind rapidly clicked into place.

This was good news,

As long as he looked at it the other way around.

Fu Ming did not dare reveal the trajectory of the invisible blade. He was nowhere near as powerful as he appeared—at the very least, not powerful enough to be impossible to kill.

But Ruan Su was right.

These retainers of the old proprietor were not dead servants. Facing the unknown, facing the inexplicable deaths of their comrades, the wavering and fear in their hearts would pile atop one another.

At this moment, Qin Yi could already see bewilderment, even terror, on several retainers' faces. Their morale was likely only one person away from complete collapse.

Mr. Wei.

As long as Immortal Guest House's strongest fighter died, these retainers' morale would likely collapse in an instant.

Qin Yi cast one final glance at the charging girl. There was no sorrow, no gratitude, and not the slightest urge to stay behind and share life and death with her. The cold thoughts in his mind had already made a ruthless but correct judgment for him.

Everything had to place his survival first.

Qin Yi turned back toward Nie Junyue, whose face was grave at his side. Before he could speak, a scorching heat suddenly came from his chest.

The jade pendant was heating up.

Before he had time to inspect it,

Clang!!!!

A shrill clash of metal suddenly rang out, cutting off his words.

The girl seemed to understand that Mr. Wei could not be allowed to die. To steady morale, she had not listened to Qin Yi. Her afterimage closed directly upon Fu Ming, and she slashed horizontally.

Fu Ming had raised his sword to block first, but when he felt the force transmitted through the blade, his brows involuntarily knotted together. He lowered his eyes at the thin girl before him.

He could not deflect the force.

This girl's physical abilities had surged again out of nowhere.

For the first time since the battle began, Fu Ming moved. He retreated more than a yard, his sword light slicing apart scattered leaves as he steadied himself and spoke.

"You Calamity Seed..."

Ruan Su answered him with a spinning whip kick that instantly arrived before him.

If that flying kick landed solidly, it would likely cost him half his life. The thought flashed through Fu Ming's mind. With no time to dodge or redirect his sword, he could only hold it before himself to block.

Bang!

The blue robe flashed past, leaving an afterimage in the air.

Ruan Su gave Fu Ming no chance to catch his breath, nor any opportunity to keep crushing the retainers' morale. She instantly closed in again.

As Fu Ming flew backward, the metallic collisions of their blades even sent waves of air rolling outward.

Until a certain moment,

That invisible Edict Sword suddenly struck.

Clang!

As her long hair danced, Ruan Su suddenly spun, and the short blade behind her erupted in sparks, illuminating her cold side profile within the dim forest.

At the sight, the laziness vanished from Fu Ming's gaze toward the girl. His casual indifference instantly turned into sinister killing intent.

Calamity Seed.

Such an existence that denied the efforts of cultivators truly should not be allowed to remain in this world!

In the distance,

Nie Junyue watched the battlefield between the two, his eyes filled with shock and uncertainty. His reaction swiftly spread to all the Immortal Guest House retainers.

She had blocked it.

For the first time,

Fu Ming's Edict Sword had been blocked for the first time today!

The retainers' morale, which had nearly been shattered, surged back in an instant. Though they did not know how Ruan Su had done it, she had allowed them to glimpse hope of killing their foe.

Their stiff bodies, as though plunged into an ice pit, began moving once more. Following the two figures racing through the forest, they assisted the girl from the flanks.

Nie Junyue let out a long breath and looked at the boy beside him with a hint of relief after surviving a catastrophe. But when he saw no change whatsoever in Qin Yi's expression, his heart suddenly sank.

"Qin Yi, now..."

"Proprietor."

Qin Yi interrupted him, his gaze locked tightly upon the two figures at the heart of the battlefield.

If he had still retained a sliver of hope for turning the tables just now, then the situation was now utterly clear.

Even though Ruan Su's physical abilities had surged again and she could even block the invisible blade, Fu Ming showed no sign of panic. Even his clothes were not the least bit disheveled. That explained many things. Fu Ming was a Path cultivator on an entirely different level from Fan You and Shang Jin. He still had cards up his sleeve and remained completely at ease. The chill produced when he swung his sword was not mental interference—it had truly lowered the temperature around him. Fu Ming was like a predator with a vile sense of humor, toying with prey on the verge of death.

His best choice now was to leave immediately while Ruan Su had revived the retainers' morale, while Ruan Su and Mr. Wei could still hold the enemy back.

Qin Yi turned around and fixed his unquestionable eyes upon Nie Junyue's hesitation.

"If we stay here, both of us will die."

"..."

Perhaps having heard the boy behind her, the girl attacking like a saber-wielding wild wolf suddenly became even more frenzied. Her face—half peerlessly beautiful as an immortal, half hideously scarred by burns—flashed alternately amid the dancing blades. The rapid clanging of metal accelerated further, stirring a gale that sent rotten leaves whirling into the air.

The coldness in Fu Ming's eyes did not change. His pupils darted rapidly as he methodically dealt with the mad attacks of the surrounding internal martial artists and this Calamity Seed at once.

Until, at a certain moment, the chill on his sword reached a critical point, and the aura around him suddenly exploded upward!

Hummm—

A gale of Sword Qi abruptly spread from him, leaving countless sword marks upon the ground. The retainers standing slightly too close were caught off guard and directly slashed into a bloody mess by the gale!

The girl closest to him bore the brunt of the Sword Qi gale. Yet her reaction was also the fastest. She curled both arms before her face in advance, and the enchanted robe Xiao Yi had given her blocked the vast majority of the slashes, though it was still damaged.

Her sleeves were torn apart. Several wounds so deep that bone could be seen appeared on her fair forearms and abdomen. No blood seeped out, because the wounds had frozen the instant they appeared.

Before she had time to feel pain, Fu Ming's frost-emitting sword was already swinging toward her again. Ruan Su's instincts told her that she had to evade this strike. She could not block it with her saber, or she would be frozen. Yet at that moment, another instinctive thought made her stop where she was.

As long as she did this, Xiao Yi could live.

As long as she did this, Xiao Yi would not abandon her.

In the instant of thought, her body had already made its choice.

The blade spun in her palm as she raised it in a reverse grip. The moment the sword edge collided with her saber, streams of ice crystals spread rapidly from the point of impact along the blade toward Ruan Su's arm, freezing her saber-wielding right arm almost instantly.

Mr. Wei reacted the fastest. He realized where the invisible blade might be and wanted to stop it, but at that very moment, Fu Ming formed a hand seal.

The instant the Heavenly Dipper Seal Method took shape, a wave of air blasted away the swirling leaves in the forest. The invisible blade instantly froze the ankle of Mr. Wei, who was charging forward.

The invisible blade finally revealed its true form before everyone's eyes.

It was an ice-crystal Edict Sword radiating pressure.

Qin Yi raised a hand to cover his chest, sensing that something was wrong with his condition.

The jade pendant's heat grew ever more scorching.

He had nothing to hesitate over. From the very beginning, when he had picked up Ruan Su, taught her to read and write, taught her to make traps, taught her everything, and bound her with that so-called sibling affection, it had all been for his own survival.

In essence, she was no different from the Calamity Seeds he had once abandoned as sacrificial pawns. The only difference was likely that her limits were higher. She was the only one who had accompanied him through every road of exile, and had spent nearly all the time he had remained conscious in this life beside him.

But that did not change the fact that she was a tool he had found in order to survive. Now that life and death hung in the balance, it was only natural for this tool to serve its purpose.

That was how it was.

Yes, there was no need to hesitate.

She had told him to run.

Then she would definitely be able to do it, even if she had to pave his path with her life.

The setting sun was like blood.

As the boy turned away.

The girl's slender body suddenly pitched forward under the force, and the ice-crystal Edict Blade tore a penetrating wound through her chest.

Fu Ming had not aimed for her head, because he feared she would dodge.

Destroying the heart had the same effect.

He coldly shifted his gaze from the Calamity Seed toward the boy in the distance who was trying to leave.

But soon,

His attention was drawn back to this Calamity Seed.

"Ha..."

The corners of the girl's lips, crimson with blood, suddenly lifted into a smile.

Everything around her began slowing down.

She looked at the man in blue before her, silently twisting her body and tugging with her frozen right arm, pulling his forward-leaning form several inches closer.

Under the girl's gaze, he seemed to finally sense the danger. Belatedly, he tried to release the hand holding his sword, but it was already too late. Her left fist, carrying the sound of tearing air, had already smashed into his abdomen!

She remembered... she remembered Xiao Yi saying that cultivators had a very important organ in their abdomen.

Her fist sank three inches into flesh. Internal force instantly spread, the physical body rebounding against the spirit channels. Fu Ming's eyes instantly reddened with blood as he spat out a great mouthful of blood, his body flying backward. The revealed ice-crystal Edict Sword instantly lost its light, and the falling temperature around them abruptly stopped.

Fallen leaves drifted through the air as patches of sunset light filtered into the woods.

The girl's thin body stood alone where she was. Watching the ice crystals fade from her arm, she gently pressed the wound in her chest, where blood continued to seep out. All the strength in her body was rapidly draining through the penetrating wound, yet her lips curled into a faint smile.

Now that... that bastard should not be able to hurt Xiao Yi.

With that thought,

The girl secretly cast one final glance at his back,

As though she wanted to imprint his appearance into the depths of her soul.

But the boy who should have already turned away and left suddenly stopped, turning back to look at her.

Blankly,

It was a helpless uncertainty she had never seen in his eyes before.

Hehe,

Xiao Yi... really could not make it without her.

But, sorry.

Beneath the slanting rays of the setting sun,

The girl's eyes curved, the smile on her face unchanged.

She raised a hand toward him,

Bright red blood dripped down her snow-white arm,

Her slender index finger and thumb formed a circle, while her other three fingers spread outward.

It was the gesture he had taught her.

I'm leaving now... Xiao Yi.

"..."

Qin Yi stared blankly at Ruan Su.

Leaving...

He watched her turn within his field of vision. He watched her drag her body, hanging by a thread, as she tried to charge at the middle-aged man in blue again—only to fall directly to the ground, never able to rise again.

The jade pendant in his robes had become like a red-hot iron cake, scorching his skin. But Qin Yi no longer had the heart to pay attention to it. He wanted to breathe, wanted to speak, but could not do either. His body's instinct for survival frantically urged him on.

Run...

The Wisdom Seal silently formed.

Blunt-force injuries to the flesh would not sever spirit channels. They would only damage them and affect the speed at which they circulated.

Why was he not leaving...

He did not understand.

Qin Yi realized that his reason could no longer control his body. His body was moving in a way he could not comprehend.

Until a hand chop from behind struck the side of his neck as he walked forward. Darkness gradually swallowed his vision, and even then, he could not understand his own change.

In silence,

The Ritual Compass Disc covering the entire mountain range began converging toward its center...