The real Mo Chen had already appeared beside the child. With a light tap on the child's forehead, he stowed the child in his Spirit Beast Pouch.
Illusion techniques really were useful. This one, however, had not come from Cloudrain Market, but was the "Shallow Afterimage Illusion" he had learned long ago in the Twin Crane Sect's Scripture Pavilion.
The spell had seemed like chicken ribs—hardly worth eating, yet a shame to throw away. It could only conjure an illusory image of himself, which could not carry anything. He had dusted it off at the last moment to deal with Zhou Ping before, and now it was proving useful again.
Mo Chen had deliberately dragged out their earlier conversation, buying time to replace himself with an image that would draw their attention.
Of course, during that conversation, Mo Chen had noticed something else.
The cultivator farthest away was only at the qi refinement fifth layer.
But now that he had slipped invisibly onto the little mound and taken the hostage, that man was actually the closest...
"You fucking brat! You fooled me with a fake body!"
This time, Mo Chen wasted no words. The Black Gold Flying Sword shot from its sheath, humming and trembling in midair before splitting into three. Three streaks of silver light hurtled toward the three men's faces.
Mo Chen did not even look at the results. He pushed off and flew backward, his toes tapping twice and exploding two splashes across the water.
His target was the gray-robed cultivator a hundred feet behind him.
A hundred feet away, the gray-robed cultivator stood half-hidden among the reeds, a trace of bewilderment still on his face. Then he saw a figure hurtling toward him amid a rush of wind.
"Wha..."
The gray-robed cultivator clearly had not expected