Mu Ling frowned, unable to understand where the unease in his heart came from.
Chu Xisheng was still a hundred feet away, fleeing in disarray as Zhuo Baiyun and the others chased and intercepted him, circling the Dream Character Stele as he fought on the move.
His footwork had indeed become swifter, lighter, and more effortless, and his saber techniques were fiercer and more domineering, stirring wind and thunder and forcing the surrounding Ninth Rank martial cultivators to stay ten feet away.
Yet his movements had grown stiffer. His face was flushed, and sweat poured from him.
Mu Ling guessed that Chu Xisheng had temporarily burned his vital essence to unleash his latent potential.
Though Chu Xisheng was a powerful fighter, he was clearly afflicted with an illness, and his endurance should have been far below that of an ordinary person.
He probably would not last much longer.
Within fifty breaths at most, he would die beneath the swords of Zhuo Baiyun and the others.
Farther away, Zhou Liangchen and the Zhou Clan members were in even greater peril.
Their formation had been torn beyond recognition under the assault of dozens of Ninth Rank martial cultivators.
Zhou Liangchen wielded his sword with domineering force, fighting ten men alone, and had already cut down four.
Yet he could not reverse the imminent collapse of the Zhou Clan members' formation. They would soon be dismembered.
This must have been his imagination, fretting over gains and losses on the brink of success and thinking too much.
Still, as a precaution, Mu Ling walked over to a patch of ground nearby and found two bone beads, each about the size of a human fist, their ghastly white surfaces covered in Pill Talismans and Jade Registers.
Chu Xisheng had long since sliced Mu Ling's pack