A shaft of moonlight slipped through a gap in the clouds and fell onto Stony Slope.
The man in black who had lured Yi Yang out of the inn stood twenty zhang away, facing him, his foot planted on a blue-gray boulder half a man's height.
The night wind billowed his robes, pressing their hem against his calves.
Yi Yang steadied his footing and watched him with Tiger Roar held across his body, spreading the Mental Power in his mind into the surroundings.
The Golden-Furred Ape in his Spiritual Altar pricked up its ears, rested its forepaws on the edge of his Sea of Consciousness, and rolled its eyes about, surveying the terrain within two hundred zhang for him.
Apart from a few small nocturnal animals, there were no other martial artists' auras.
No ambush. No backup.
This man had come alone.
But learning this did not make Yi Yang relax.
Someone who dared slip alone into an inn guarded by the Pacification Guard, try to kill him in three strikes, then deliberately lure him here after failing would not be relying on hot-blooded courage alone.
He drew his Mental Power back within twenty zhang, locking onto the man's shoulders, waist, legs, and sword-gripping right hand.
He wanted to gauge the man's strength by observing each breath he took and how his Inner Energy flowed through his meridians.
Unfortunately, the man concealed his aura deeply. His exact cultivation realm could not be discerned from the outside.
Yi Yang activated the Concealed Breath Formless Art, sinking the True Astral Force in his meridians into his Qi Sea and leaving only the fluctuations of third inner qi completion.
Without knowing the man's background, he did not want to reveal his strength outright.
A trump card was only a trump card while it