Above the stone bridge, the metallic grinding of a mechanism engaging was unbearably shrill.
Liu Xiong knelt on one knee in a crevice in the sheer cliff, the dark-red longbow in his hands drawn into a full moon.
Three heavy steel arrows with armor-piercing blood grooves were trained squarely on Su Yu's vital points.
Mortal Realm Eighth Layer, a swift blade in the Liu Family's hand.
At the bottom of the gorge.
Clad in crimson flexible armor, Liu Ying abruptly snapped the reins.
Without even looking back, she raised her left hand high and swept it forcefully down toward the Demon Suppression Guards ahead.
"Out of the valley at full speed! No delays!"
Hooves thundered, and wheels crushed loose stones.
Twenty Demon Suppression Guards followed Liu Ying at a gallop without hesitation, leaving Su Yu and Tang Shan utterly isolated beneath the dark, damp cliffs.
They were all trusted subordinates Liu Ying had carefully selected, and naturally would not disobey her orders.
Tang Shan drew his short saber, his face deathly pale. This was blatant murder.
Su Yu stood where he was, not sparing so much as a glance for Liu Ying's fleeing figure.
The Prison-Suppressing Demon-Subduing Art roared into motion. Violent blood and Qi surged wildly beneath his tough skin, giving off the muffled roar of rivers and tides.
An eardrum-rending shriek came from overhead as three black streaks plunged toward his head in a triangular formation.
Su Yu stomped his left leg forward. The tremendous reaction force shattered the bluestone slab beneath his foot on the spot, sending earth rolling backward.
Extreme-realm Vajra Fist, unleashed.
There were no fancy tricks. Pure bodily might coursed through his entire left arm.
His dark-gold fist met the uppermost heavy steel arrow head-on.
Boom!
Under the pressure of his fist, the steel arrowhead twisted, disintegrated, and exploded into a cloud of fine iron powder.
The black-gold saber in his right hand swept across with the momentum. Carrying astonishing physical kinetic force, the extreme-realm Gale Saber Technique severed the remaining two iron arrows clean through. The broken half-shafts buried themselves deep in the rock walls on either side.
On the stone bridge.
"He actually blocked them!"
A flicker of surprise crossed Liu Xiong's eyes. Then he flung aside his longbow and reached back to draw the double-edged broadswords from his back.
His turbid Mortal Realm Eighth Layer Spiritual Qi boiled over completely.
He leaped, hurtling straight down from the fifty-meter cliff in an airborne killing strike that abandoned all defense.
Su Yu tilted his head up.
The full foundation of his major-accomplishment supreme-grade cultivation art erupted, and muffled thunderclaps burst from deep within his marrow.
Rather than retreat, he advanced. His knees bent slightly, then snapped straight.
Like a heavy cannonball released from its string, he surged upward toward the descending sword edges, drawing his saber against their momentum. The black-gold blade tore through the air, trailing a wave of white air visible to the naked eye.
Pure bodily might collided head-on with Mortal Realm Eighth Layer Spiritual Qi in midair.
There was no stalemate, no evenly matched struggle.
The instant the two poisoned broadswords touched the black-gold blade, they shattered into iron fragments that sprayed across the sky.
"Mortal Realm Seventh Layer? How is that possible?!"
At the instant they exchanged blows, a flicker of surprise crossed Liu Xiong's eyes.
According to the intelligence the Liu Family had given him, Su Yu possessed, at most, the combat strength of the Mortal Realm Fifth Layer.
But now, that intelligence was clearly false. This was far beyond the fifth layer. Liu Xiong could distinctly feel himself being overpowered.
This target's too tough. Retreat first!
With that thought, he turned, preparing to dart away.
But Su Yu would not give him that chance.
As his feet touched the ground, his saber drove straight in, sweeping upward from below.
With the force of crushing rotten wood, it cleaved Liu Xiong bodily in half down the middle. Scalding entrails mixed with black blood sprayed through the air.
The two halves of his ruined body crashed into the mud at the bottom of the valley, twitching as life left them.
An absolute instant kill.
Tang Shan froze several meters away, his mind completely incapable of thought.
That was a top-tier Mortal Realm Eighth Layer death warrior!
Yet in Su Yu's hands, he had been hacked apart head-on like firewood!
An ashen, translucent panel appeared at the edge of Su Yu's vision.
[Slain a Mortal Realm Eighth Layer death warrior. Slaughter Points gained: 80] [Current Slaughter Points: 140]
An ambush in the wilderness would never end with just this one wave.
Without hesitation, Su Yu directed his thoughts straight to the martial arts section.
"Upgrade Wandering Dragon Steps."
[Consumed 140 Slaughter Points.] [Wandering Dragon Steps (Mortal), high grade: minor accomplishment.]
An intensely cool current instantly washed through the meridians in his legs. The muscle fibers in his calves rearranged themselves, and his bones gave off faint cracking sounds.
His entire body's sense of weight diminished greatly.
"Let's go."
Su Yu flicked his wrist, shaking the remaining blood off his blade, and strode toward the gorge's exit.
With Wandering Dragon Steps supporting him, every stride carried him gliding several zhang, his speed soaring.
Tang Shan gritted his teeth and exhausted all his Spiritual Qi just to barely keep up.
Half an hour later, the two rushed out of Black Wind Valley.
Su Yu's expression was grave now. "Something's happened!"
At a bend in the official road, a thick, pungent stench of blood filled the air. Three prison wagons blocked the middle of the road at odd angles.
Mangled limbs littered the ground. Four Demon Suppression Guards had had their throats torn apart and died gruesome deaths.
On the steel prison wagon in the middle, the rune-inscribed chains had snapped into dozens of pieces, and a gap half a meter across had been violently torn through the heavy metal bars.
The broken ends were twisted into bizarre braids. This was unquestionably inhuman strength.
The compartment was empty. That Ghost Shadow Sect remnant had escaped.
Liu Ying stood beside the road with an indifferent expression, seemingly unconcerned about Yue Rao's escape.
Hearing footsteps, she abruptly turned. When her gaze fell on Su Yu's unscathed figure, the corner of her eye twitched violently, but she quickly recovered.
"Squad Leader Su."
Liu Ying's tone was icy.
"This escort mission went wrong, and the high-priority prisoner Yue Rao was seized, all because you abandoned your post."
"Once we return to the city, I'll report everything truthfully. Just wait to rot in prison."
Several trusted Demon Suppression Guards immediately gripped their saber hilts and approached in a semicircle.
Su Yu did not even glance at them, completely ignoring these walking Slaughter Points.
He walked straight to the broken prison wagon and ran a finger over a severed chain. A layer of ghastly white powder coated his fingertip.
There was no lingering Spiritual Qi, only a corpse stench so strong it turned the stomach.
"Get lost."
Su Yu casually swept a hand.
As his blood and Qi surged, the two Demon Suppression Guards blocking his way felt as though heavy hammers had struck their chests. They spat blood and flew backward, crashing into the roadside bushes.
Liu Ying's expression changed drastically, and she immediately shouted.
"Squad Leader Su, are you trying to rebel?"
Su Yu turned, casually took a black iron token from his waist, and tossed it straight to Liu Ying's feet.
Clang.
The crisp metallic sound plunged everyone into deathly silence. It was Lin Xiao's special envoy token.
Seeing the token was equivalent to seeing the official himself, granting full authority to act as circumstances required.
Liu Ying's face instantly flushed the color of pig liver. Her knuckles whitened around her sword, but she no longer dared take even half a step forward.
Although everyone here was her trusted subordinate, they had another identity: Demon Suppression Guards. They did not dare openly defy their commandant's orders, and neither did Liu Ying.
Otherwise, she would have chosen to stay there and deal with Su Yu alongside Liu Xiong.
Ignoring the shock on their faces, Su Yu stepped over the corpses on the ground, his gaze fixing on several deep depressions at the edge of the woods.
They were enormous beast tracks, humanoid in shape, yet fully three times the size of an ordinary person's palm.
"Tang Shan, keep up."
"These things haven't gotten far."
Su Yu's figure flickered as he activated Wandering Dragon Steps, turning into an afterimage that vanished into the dense woods.
Tang Shan glanced at the livid Liu Ying, spat hard, and chased after him with his saber in hand.