Green-Armored General

The swordsman with high cheekbones and narrow eyes was originally named Chen Yi'an. Born into a scholarly household, as his name itself showed.

But now he was the leader of the Six Ghosts of Hejian, the "Hanging-Horn Ghost," and one of his brothers had died.

He had to kill him. Chen Yi'an thought. Not only because he had killed Fourth Brother, but also because he could not see through him.

If the other party truly was one of those youths from a Grotto Heaven or a school, ignorant of worldly affairs, Chen had plenty of ways to deal with him. Those people were indeed immortals, skilled in immortal arts, but after all, they knew nothing of human ways. With a mere roll of his eyes, he could coax them until their hearts blossomed with joy.

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But this brat...

He had considered turning an enemy into a friend. But only for an instant. Who knew where this brat had sprung from? His mind was frighteningly quick. If Chen played games of false courtesy with him, who knew who would end up playing whom.

Since that was the case, he could only kill him.

After killing him, he would burn his clothes and dismember his body. In such dense woods, it would quickly be devoured. Then he would cut up the others' corpses as well and scatter them around the area. No matter how brilliant their methods, they would never trace that brat's whereabouts.

He could only blame the brat for being too clever, for coming from too fine a background, yet being too weak.

It was rare indeed for someone to be so weak.

Chen Yi'an felt a faint heat rising through his body. Actually, that youth...

Was rather handsome...

Those disciples of the Grotto Heaven School stood high above everyone else, and he had to coax and serve them like an Attendant. Hmph. Would they ever have imagined that one of them would be trapped in that ruined temple by him?

When the time came, when he was trampled beneath his feet...

Mm... when he was pinned beneath him, would he still be able to act so proud? Hm? How proud would he be then?

By the time he thought of this, he was only four or five steps from the door.

Such a short distance could be crossed in the blink of an eye if he gathered his qi and pounced. But that brat had struck too viciously before and was far too scheming. He had to proceed with caution.

There was something strange about these woods. It seemed to be haunted.

They had called themselves the Six Ghosts of Hejian for years; it was not as though they had never seen ghosts. Though they had been startled earlier, they were not overly worried. For one thing, he had seen "immortals." For another, he knew that some ghosts could not harm people and could only frighten them. That female ghost from before had vanished in smoke beneath a single thrust of his sword, proving she was merely putting on a show.

They had killed people beyond counting, yet they feared ghosts? What a joke.

He took another step and saw Li Yunxin emerge from the temple with his hands behind his back.

He wore white robes. While fleeing through the forest, his sleeves had been torn by branches. But now, the strips of white cloth hanging from his cuffs drifted in the night wind, lending him an even more otherworldly air.

Li Yunxin held a sheet of paper between his fingers, and the swordsman frowned slightly.

Of course he had heard of painters. Thinking it over carefully now... could this brat be a painter?

When he and his brothers had robbed households and plundered travelers in the past, he had never had the patience to figure out how many realms painters possessed or what abilities they had. He only knew that painters capable of conjuring phantoms were figures ordinary people rarely saw—kept by high officials and nobles, who hoped they would produce more paintings to prolong their lives.

This youth was so young, yet his abilities were already so formidable.

All the more... he could not be allowed to live.

What a pity. A brilliant painter. But no matter how brilliant... they were only phantoms, mere tricks.

How could they compare with the Daoists and swordsmen of the Grotto Heaven School?

Just then, he heard the youth speak. "Take another step forward, and I won't be polite."

Chen Yi'an sneered inwardly. That trick no longer worked on him.

At that moment, he pushed the inner strength throughout his body to its peak. He could even hear the grass beneath his feet bending as he stepped. He was utterly unafraid of whatever tricks the youth might try again.

He saw clearly that the youth exhaled when he spoke and cast a shadow when he walked. He was a True Person. That female ghost earlier might have been something the youth had conjured to frighten them, but so long as one did not panic, it could always be told apart.

"Die. I'll make it quick."

He flicked the slender sword in his hand. The thin blade, only a finger wide, hummed.

Like the flickering tongue of a silver serpent, it darted and withdrew. "Strike!"

This sword strike was swift and vicious. Even Qiao Duanhong from the escort agency would not have been able to evade it. He believed this youth was certainly dead.

However...

He missed.

The swordsman was startled!

The youth's body suddenly became far more agile. At a bizarre angle, he evaded the strike, then retreated another step and called out, "I'm going to cast a spell now!"

There was no way an ordinary person could have made that evasive movement—at least not with the strength of an ordinary youth.

In that flash of lightning and spark of flint, the swordsman could spare no more attention. He could tell that the youth had struggled somewhat to evade that last strike. His strength was now spent; there was no way he could dodge a second sword.

With a flick of his wrist, the silver gleam curled back like a swimming snake and again shot straight for Li Yunxin's throat.

In that instant, he saw the youth finally shake open the paper clenched in his hand. A flash of azure light swept past, and the swordsman discovered that a dark green figure had suddenly appeared between him and the youth.

At a glance, the swordsman found the figure strange. It was a general clad in green armor, holding a pale green broadsword and wearing an unusual helmet—densely embedded with green gemstones, making it look like a fly.

What sort of person dressed like that?

But the swordsman understood that this was merely an illusion. He absolutely could not let it distract him and give that brat an opening!

He immediately gathered his focus, ignored the sword descending from the phantom swordsman, and still intended to pierce through the illusion and stab Li Yunxin in the throat!

But with a wet splurt.

The swordsman Chen Yi'an's head soared into the sky!

The green-armored general's broadsword had almost seemed to be something the swordsman himself had crashed into.

This was not a phantom. It was a tangible entity, manifested by an expert of the Transformation Realm!

After slaying the swordsman Chen Yi'an and becoming stained with the hot blood of the living, the green-armored general's form suddenly blurred. He sheathed his sword, turned to Li Yunxin, and nodded solemnly. "My sword is your sword!"

Then he turned into a scatter of light and vanished.

The headless corpse of Chen Yi'an, the eldest of the Six Ghosts of Hejian, collapsed to the ground.

Li Yunxin let out a long breath.

It still could not last long...

His Qi Sea had been sealed, leaving him unable to use spiritual power, so he had let the cat demon possess him. The cat demon's spirit body supplied him with a trace of spiritual power, barely enough to reach the realm of "making the unreal real."

But the cat demon's spiritual power was weak, after all, and it was not his own. Once the thing he had summoned killed only one person, the living man's hot blood and yang energy washed over it, and it scattered away.

The cat demon, however, could not feel the thrill of that instant between life and death. In its strange, affected voice, it asked, "Ah, oh, dead. Ha, what was that? Hm? That green general, what was it, hm?"

Li Yunxin sighed. There was a touch of nostalgia and melancholy in his voice. But the cat demon certainly would not understand—

"Him... he was called Yi. Yi, the Unparalleled Sword Saint."

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