Three Saber Strikes

Langya had encountered countless experts over the years, but this was the first time he had faced someone so difficult to deal with.

Liu Wuxie could find the weakness in every move he made and counter it with ease. The longer Langya fought, the more alarmed he became, as though he had seen a ghost. His spiked club swept outward with a fierce whistle, whipping up a layer of shattered stones with a sonic howl.

"First move, Blood Prison Firmament!"

The short saber slashed down, plunging heaven and earth into an ocean of Saber Qi that formed an enormous blood prison. Trapped inside, Langya could find no way out. A thick, bloody smell spread in every direction.

That single strike stunned everyone present. Their eyes nearly popped out, and jaws dropped all over the ground.

Langya charged left and right but could find no exit. Razor-sharp Saber Qi tore through his defenses, leaving numerous wounds across his body, blood streaming from them. Tian Qihong's expression grew increasingly ugly.

"Sweep Away a Thousand Armies!"

Langya unleashed his strongest move. The muscles in his arms bulged one after another, and his strength soared. It appeared to be a cultivation method that stimulated his physical body, allowing him to increase his strength briefly, though its drawbacks were also obvious.

The distance between them abruptly closed. Liu Wuxie's right eye gradually changed, allowing him to see every shift in the principles and every trajectory of the air's movement with perfect clarity.

From the very beginning, he had stood in an invincible position.

Boom!

The short saber struck the spiked club, sending endless sparks flying in all directions. The resulting shock wave swept across the surroundings, flinging the weaker guards away.

Then!

Langya stumbled backward, his feet desperately working to keep him from falling. He retreated dozens of steps, leaving dozens of footprints in the ground.

Like a withered leaf, Liu Wuxie drifted lightly into the distance. His feet barely brushed the ground, like a dragonfly skimming water, before he steadied himself. Their superiority and inferiority were immediately apparent.

"That's impossible!"

Tian Qihong shrieked. Their first exchange had actually ended evenly. Unable to accept this outcome, he believed Langya had deliberately held back.

"Langya, you took a million gold coins from our two households! If you dare secretly hold back, do you believe our households won't wipe out your Langya Mercenary Corps?"

Wan Yiyun stepped forward. He represented the Wan Household in this battle, and this mission absolutely could not fail. Wan Zhuoran was his grandson. After Liu Wuxie had slapped his face last time, he had volunteered to fight this time and seize the Xu Household's mineral vein.

Questioned by both men, Langya's expression turned frighteningly dark, but he could offer no explanation. He could hardly tell them that the youth before him was like a ferocious beast, nowhere near as simple as he appeared.

"If either of you dares say another word, I'll kill you first."

Langya bared his chilling fangs. He had endured enough of the two of them along the way. He was a dignified Spirit Cleansing Realm cultivator, yet Xiantian Realm cultivators were ordering him around. It was utterly beneath his status.

Wan Yiyun hastily shut his mouth, not daring to speak again. If Langya turned against them, it would certainly be disastrous for their two households.

"We can shut up, but since you took the gold, shouldn't you get to work? Kill this brat quickly. Time is short. We don't want a long night to breed more nightmares."

Tian Qihong had only one demand: kill Liu Wuxie and Xu Yishan, and finish the battle quickly.

"Langya, are you regretting it?"

A cold smile appeared at the corner of Liu Wuxie's mouth. He raised his short saber again, his imposing presence even stronger this time. He had said he would kill his opponent within three moves, and one had already passed.

"Hmph!"

Langya snorted without answering, but his expression had already betrayed him. If this deal succeeded, he would be set for life. If it failed, he would be doomed beyond redemption.

Gripping his spiked club, he swept it toward Liu Wuxie's legs at an extremely tricky angle. Years of walking the edge between life and death had allowed him to develop a murderous set of club techniques. Every swing seemed to shatter stone and startle the heavens, producing thunderous rumbles.

"Is this really our young master-in-law? Isn't he far too powerful?"

The guards' attitudes kept changing. No one present could last a single exchange against Langya. Even Xu Yishan would only be going to his death.

"What exactly has happened in Canglan City these past few months? The Tian Household and Wan Household want to destroy our Xu Household."

Discussion broke out as they speculated about what had happened in Canglan City over the past few months.

Sand flew and stones rolled as Langya unleashed his strongest blow. A layer of pale golden power enveloped his entire body. Like a wild beast, he let out a low growl.

"This is bad! That's wolf transformation!"

Deacon Hu cried out in alarm. Langya had grown up among wolves and possessed some of their abilities. By awakening his bloodline and undergoing wolf transformation, he could greatly increase his strength and use some of the wolves' methods.

Langya was at his most terrifying after wolf transformation. Sharp fangs protruded from his mouth, and a layer of golden fur covered his body. Only a wolf king could grow golden fur.

Liu Wuxie frowned. After wolf transformation, Langya's strength had roughly doubled, making him comparable to the seventh level of the Spirit Cleansing Realm. Relying on the Ghost Pupil Technique to slow his movements would certainly not be enough to win.

Unless he could advance to the innate fifth stage realm. The True Qi condensed by the Grand Desolation Dantian was dozens of times greater than that of ordinary people, and the purity of his True Qi was already no lower than that of the Spirit Cleansing Realm.

Yet even if it was no lower, there was still a gap. The two could not be lumped together.

The simplest example was that Xiantian Realm True Qi was like water, while Spirit Cleansing Realm True Qi was comparable to fractured stone. Were the two comparable? Liu Wuxie relied on his abundant True Qi to wash away that fractured stone.

His short saber rose toward the sky. An unparalleled imposing presence erupted as though shattering the heavens. His robes billowed without wind, and True Qi spilled outward. Everyone forgot to breathe, not daring to blink for fear of missing something.

"It's time to end this. Momentum Like a Rainbow!"

The second saber strike combined all seven forms of the Blood Rainbow Saber Technique into a nearly unanswerable blow. Unless a Marrow Cleansing Realm cultivator intervened and forcibly broke it with Marrow Cleansing power, no one could counter it. Xu Yilin had once lost to this move.

His body vanished eerily from where he stood, without warning. Langya's attack struck nothing. His spiked club slammed into the ground with a violent roar. Cracks spread outward like the markings on a tortoise shell, and a large pit more than a meter deep appeared at the center.

His speed reached its limit, impossible to follow with the naked eye. His dazzling footwork left Langya dizzy and disoriented, gradually robbing him of his reason. The greatest drawback of wolf transformation was that his consciousness was assimilated along with it.

Liu Wuxie quietly activated the Ghost Pupil Technique. He dared not unleash its full power for fear of exhausting his soul power. Another hard battle still lay ahead.

Activating just a trace was enough. Langya's body suddenly became transparent, and the movement of every cell appeared before Liu Wuxie. The Ghost Pupil Technique could be called the foremost pupil technique in the Soaring Cloud Immortal Realm. It was truly incomparably formidable.

The short saber traced a strange arc. No one knew how Liu Wuxie had done it. The blade skimmed Langya's arm, raising a spray of blood, and the spiked club flew from his hand and smashed into a nearby house.

"Third move!"

The second move crippled one of Langya's arms, effectively stripping him of his claws and fangs. The third saber strike followed closely behind, one strike flowing into the next in an unbroken succession, giving Langya no chance to breathe.

Under countless watching eyes, the short saber swept across Langya's neck. No blood spilled out. It was a completely unremarkable move.

Liu Wuxie passed close by Langya's body. The two crossed and exchanged positions, as though nothing had happened.

Three moves were over!

Time passed, second by second. Who had won, and who had lost?

"Drip, drip..."

Drops of blood trickled down Langya's neck and fell to the ground, sounding especially piercing in the silent night.

"Your saber is so fast!"

His wolf transformation faded, and a trace of pain appeared on Langya's face. His instincts had told him there would be danger tonight. He had imagined countless possibilities, even that Xu Yilin might be hiding here.

The only thing he had never imagined was dying at the hands of an obscure piece of trash.

Langya had long since heard Liu Wuxie's notorious name.

"You were simply too slow."

Liu Wuxie still wore that harmless smile. At this moment, it seemed like a demon's smile, and everyone who saw it involuntarily shuddered.

Langya's body slowly collapsed. Liu Wuxie did not extract the essence from his body. He did not want to make things too horrifying and have people think he was a demon if word spread. A gag order had already been issued concerning the events at Perching Wind Gorge. They would not speak of it.

"Langya is dead?"

Wan Yiyun muttered, unable to accept this outcome. Langya had been a dignified cultivator at the fifth level of the Spirit Cleansing Realm, one of Canglan City's ten greatest experts.

A flicker of terror crossed Tian Qihong's face. He pointed at Liu Wuxie, unable to speak.

"Y-you... who exactly are you?"

He stammered out the question, unable to conceal the fear in his heart. The Tian Household disciples and Wan Household experts stared at Liu Wuxie as though looking at a monster.

Even the Xu Household guards' emotions could only be described as surging through peaks and valleys.

The guards who had mocked Liu Wuxie felt bitterness in their mouths. An invisible slap had swollen their cheeks.

Xu Yishan stood rooted to the spot, unsure what to do. He had actually forgotten that a formidable enemy stood before them.

"The man who's going to kill you. Are you satisfied with that answer?"

Liu Wuxie scoffed. At a time like this, they were still wondering who he was. As soon as he finished speaking, his body vanished. The opposing side's overall strength far surpassed the Xu Household's. He had to kill as many as possible, as quickly as possible.

Only then could he reduce the Xu Household's casualties. These guards had mocked him, and death would be more than they deserved.

But if they really died, the Xu Household would still have to pay compensation to their families. Too many casualties would be a considerable blow to the Xu Household, and the guards' loyalty would also decline afterward.

What did it mean for a tiger to enter a flock of sheep?

The scene before them illustrated it to perfection. Liu Wuxie plunged into the flock like a fierce tiger. The Wan Household and Tian Household disciples were like feeble sheep, helpless beneath his slaughter.

The Langya Hired Mercenary Corps was still sunk in the news of their commander's death, unable to recover for the moment.

The short saber slashed down, tearing a passage through the air. The two households' disciples were gathered together. Before they could scatter, Liu Wuxie had already charged among them.

Crack...

Crack!

"..."

Blood spurted, and more than a dozen heads flew into the air. Blood stained Liu Wuxie's robes red. After several charges back and forth, a layer of corpses covered the ground.

"Run! Run!"

Only then did Wan Yiyun think of fleeing. Liu Wuxie was too terrifying. He alone could slaughter every last one of them. Wan Yiyun was at the peak Xiantian Realm, yet a single saber strike from Liu Wuxie sent him flying.

"Loose arrows!"

Deacon Hu had been waiting for this moment all along. Leading fifty guards, he held the entrance and occupied favorable terrain.

Arrows came like a dense rain. The disciples from the two households charging toward them barely managed a few steps before being shot dead. The bodies piled ever higher.

"You little bastard, I'll fight you to the death!"

Tian Qihong charged over, intent on perishing together with Liu Wuxie. Spreading his arms, he clung tightly to Liu Wuxie and urged everyone to flee. "Go! I'll hold him back!"

"Where do you think you're going?"

Xu Yishan charged out with his longsword and plunged into the crowd. In the time it took a hare to spring and a falcon to swoop, another group fell. Their courage had already been shattered, leaving them powerless to resist.