"What's wrong with all of you?" Xu Yan roared. A gleaming silver saber suddenly appeared in his palm, sweeping into a full moon as he slashed at his surroundings.
Light spilled forth at once, seemingly slow yet astonishingly swift, as though moonlight had congealed upon the water.
The saber was called Crescent Moon, a lower-grade Magic Treasure of the four-jia rank. No one knew who had forged it. All they knew was that Xu Yan called himself a saber wielder and excelled at an ancient saber art called Autumn Wind Quickblade. With this weapon, he was like a tiger given wings.
Relying on this treasured saber, he had won battle after battle even during Qi Refining. He had once challenged someone above his realm, achieving the glorious feat of slaying a newly advanced Foundation Establishment cultivator.
After Foundation Establishment, however, Dharma Power grew steadily with the passing years, accumulated through prolonged cultivation as patiently as water wore down stone.
This meant that cultivation level determined more than half of one's strength. Only someone exceptionally gifted like Li Ling, or someone with extraordinary experiences who had obtained treasures through fortuitous encounters, could come from behind and surpass others.
Xu Yan was actually a cultivator of Li Ling's generation, a youngster not yet seventy this year. He had advanced roughly forty years ago and accumulated a sixty-year cycle's worth of cultivation.
Among the Blood Shark Bandits' many chieftains, aside from the deceased Tenth Chieftain Huo Jiu and Ninth Chieftain Li Du, he was the softest persimmon, easier to handle than the others.
Li Ling's original target should actually have been the even softer Ninth Chieftain Li Du. But that man had fallen during the Black Market's internal fighting, indirectly dying to Copper Stench's Mind-Bewildering effect.
Thus, Li Ling could only change targets