The black-clad assassins saw Mo Xuanji pinned dead to the ground. The zither's notes cowed their hearts, the cold gnawed at their bones, and their ranks had fallen into chaos, while morale at the Princess's Residence soared like a rainbow and its experts came out in force. How could they fail to realize the battle was lost?
The instinct to survive instantly overwhelmed all their supposed missions and promises.
"Retreat!"
"Run!"
No one knew who shouted first. The remaining assassins scattered like hornets from a shattered nest, abandoning all formation and coordination as they fled in every direction with their movement arts, wishing their parents had given them two more legs.
Even the exalted Three Sages of Penglai, whose might awed entire regions, now had no fighting spirit left in their eyes. Their identities had been exposed, and their grave crime of attacking the Princess's Residence was now beyond dispute. Princess Taiping's thunderous wrath and merciless reckoning would surely follow!
Their only chance of survival was to flee at once.
If they could send word to their sects or lineages to prepare in advance, perhaps they could preserve a thread of their bloodlines and legacies.
"Split up!"
Blade Saint Baili Ce growled, trying to force Zhao Lanjun back, but her overlapping palm shadows kept him firmly entangled, denying him any chance to escape. On the other side, Fist Saint Wei Lingxiao was likewise trapped by the fierce, domineering palm force of Mu Qinghong's Pagoda Formula, unable to break free.
Only Thousand-Tide Sword Saint Fang Xingzhou, a scion of the Eastern Sea Aristocratic Family whose strength put him slightly ahead of the other two, had cultivated an exceedingly rare secret art of the Daoist Order-One Qi Transforms into Three Pure Ones!
His figure suddenly flickered, and True Qi surged out around