Sneak Attack

Chu Zhiyuan narrowed his eyes slightly.

Moonlight lay like frost, spilling across the surging great river.

Several Painted Barges were speeding away, fleeing this stretch of water.

When martial arts masters fought, especially in a battle that shook heaven and earth like this, it was most dangerous. One careless moment, and innocent fish caught in the crossfire would lose their lives.

After the several Painted Barges departed, only that one remained, gently rocking.

Bang bang bang bang...

The thunderous explosions rang without end.

Columns of water shot up from the surging river, rising straight into the night sky.

After hanging in the air, the water columns fell back down, becoming a localized downpour that pelted the Painted Barge with crackling blows and made it sway even more violently.

The lanterns rocked along with it, their light wavering and flickering as though it might go out at any moment.

Chu Zhiyuan turned to look at Mr. Zhu and the other two.

Mr. Zhu raised the Jade Flute to his lips and breathed out softly, yet the Jade Flute made no sound at all.

Yet Chu Zhiyuan vaguely sensed an inexplicable aura welling up around them, spreading outward into the distance.

Like a rising tide.

Chu Zhiyuan scrutinized this strange power.

It had initially been only a single mass, but as it spread forward, it grew thinner and thinner while covering an ever larger area.

In the end, it expanded into a circle roughly two hundred square meters wide, like a round carpet flying levelly toward the four people battling over the river.

Under the moonlight, the four of them constantly rose and fell through the air, yet never touched the river's surface.

The pull of gravity and the binding force of heaven and earth had become faint upon them.

It was