There really were no more

Strategist Ji stared at Li Yan, who had fallen to the ground and rolled over to face him, and laughed sinisterly. "Heh heh, did you think you could escape? Whatever you did, this was always how you would end up."

Seeing Li Yan's silence and cold gaze, he pondered briefly before continuing, "But I don't understand. How did you discover that I meant to harm you? And how did you manage to escape Hong Linying?"

Li Yan stared at him, dragging one leg. Blood was now pouring from it, and in just those few moments, it had run down his trouser leg and stained the ground red. With difficulty, he braced himself against the tree trunk beside him and slowly struggled to his feet. The tattered hem of his black robe was soaked with a dark patch of blood.

He bared his gleaming white teeth and grinned at Strategist Ji. "Heh heh, of course it was the handwriting my senior brother left behind that told me. Why wouldn't Marshal Hong let me go? His target is you, not me!"

Strategist Ji froze. For a moment, he failed to grasp what he had heard. He sensed something wrong with Li Yan's words, but could not immediately work out what it was.

In that instant of distraction, Li Yan suddenly slammed his palm against the tree supporting him and growled, "Then let's die together!"

Strategist Ji's mind was still lingering over Li Yan's last remark. Suddenly, he saw Li Yan's face twist savagely as his palm struck the trunk. Before he could understand what Li Yan intended, a vicious rush of air rose behind his head. This is bad! He had never imagined that Li Yan would have another ambush waiting here. This place was a full li from the previous trap. The possibility had never crossed his mind.

With no time to turn around, spiritual light blazed across his body, and both hands swept behind him repeatedly. Immediately afterward came a crash, followed by two wet thuds, then a muffled groan. Some birds that had only just settled back onto the treetops were startled into flight again, scattering elsewhere across the night sky. ??

After striking the trunk, Li Yan used the force to roll aside once more. A jumble of crashing sounds and a heavy groan reached his ears. When he rolled over and lifted his head again, what he saw chilled his heart.

Strategist Ji looked thoroughly bedraggled, even pitiful. His black robe had been slashed in more than a dozen places, and two hard, sharp wooden spikes, each about as thick as a finger, had pierced his left arm. Curled black strands clung to their tips—the tendons from inside his body. Yet what chilled Li Yan's heart was that Strategist Ji was still very much alive. His chest rose and fell as he fixed Li Yan with a man-eating glare. His shiny, purplish-black face twitched from time to time as he advanced toward Li Yan, step by step.

"You're good. Very good indeed. To think you could scheme against me again and again." He spoke each word deliberately as he walked. Blood sprayed from his elbow in several thin streams. Behind him lay a scatter of wood chips and broken branches. The seven or eight densely spiked wooden rows that had hurtled toward him had been sliced to pieces by the wind blades he had thrown behind himself. But he had only managed to protect the back of his heart and his head, not shatter everything. Two sharp wooden spikes had still pierced his left arm in an instant, dragging out the tendons within. Whether the bones had been injured was uncertain, but at the very least, he would have difficulty using his left hand for now. Even after it healed, his present magical power might not be enough to restore it completely.

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This was a trap hunters commonly used to catch large demon beasts, called a "spiked wooden rack." Hard branches were whittled into wooden spikes, their bases as thick as an adult's finger and their tips sharpened into pointed cones. These spikes were then driven into a thick log, forming something like a spiked club. Seven or eight such clubs were bound together in a large wooden frame suspended between two trees. One end of a twisted rope held a bent tree trunk under tension, while the other was fastened somewhere with a slipknot. When an outside force touched the rope, the knot would come undone instantly, sending the spiked rack hurtling forward with a howl. With its broad surface, powerful force, and tremendous momentum, it could usually strike anything within two or three zhang ahead of it. But it had one weakness: to keep its path clear and increase its momentum, it was generally suspended a foot or two above the ground. A small animal only needed to flatten itself against the earth, and the rack would whistle over its head.

But first, Strategist Ji had been distracted by Li Yan's words. Unable to understand their meaning, he had been caught off guard while pondering them. Second, he had previously sought immortals deep in the mountains, where there were no hunters—only demon beasts and cultivators. Mortal hunters venturing there would become food in a beast's belly or ghosts beneath a sword long before they could travel far enough to set traps. Third, divine sense was utterly useless against this kind of mechanical contraption. Fourth, he had never imagined that Li Yan could lay successive ambushes in different places. Thus, this formidable martial artist of the mortal world, a cultivator who had already stepped through the doorway of cultivation, had fallen victim to the trap.

Li Yan propped himself up on his elbows, reclining halfway. "Heh heh, what a pity."

"To think a half-grown boy like you could be so full of tricks. Who knows how many more you have? Let your master see them." Strategist Ji stopped two or three paces before Li Yan. Only then did he raise his right hand and swiftly jab several points around his left elbow and arm. The spraying blood immediately stopped.

"This time, there really are no more." Still supporting his upper body, Li Yan had now calmed down. He even chuckled softly.

Strategist Ji glanced around, then focused his eyes and strained his vision to inspect Li Yan's surroundings carefully. Only after a while did he approach again with slow steps. Just as he reached Li Yan, he suddenly moved, his right hand darting out in a dazzling succession of strikes. By the time he stopped, Li Yan had fallen flat on his back.

"Now there really are no more." Standing among the trees, Strategist Ji looked down at Li Yan lying at his feet.

Li Yan said nothing. Only his eyes moved occasionally, and even the wound on his leg had stopped bleeding.

In that instant, Strategist Ji had immobilized Li Yan and also sealed the major acupoints near his leg wound to stop the bleeding. He did not yet want Li Yan to die from excessive blood loss.

Strategist Ji raised his head and looked around again. The thickly growing trees stood scattered at varying distances,

with only strands of clear moonlight filtering through their branches and leaves. Taking Li Yan as the center, he cautiously searched the surrounding area. Only after confirming that there were no other traps did he relax. He glanced at Li Yan on the ground, making certain that he was immobilized and could not escape, then flashed away toward the platform halfway up the mountain.

A few breaths later, he reached the platform where Li Yan had laid the earlier ambush. The enormous rock was gone, leaving only a groove, several waterskins, two short sections of stone pillars as thick as a baby's arm, and a small length of demon beast sinew. He picked up the sinew and examined it, then lifted several waterskins and shook them. After standing there in thought for a while, he strode to the cliff behind the giant pine and glanced down. Beneath the night sky, the darkness seemed bottomless, like the enormous, fang-filled maw of a monster. Even he felt a chill in his heart. His body was currently only somewhat stronger than a mortal's; ultimately, it was still mortal flesh. If he fell, he would end up a heap of pulp or be impaled and torn into pieces by the towering rocks below.

After examining the scene, he had largely understood how Li Yan had arranged the ambush. Although he was no mountain hunter, he had been the prey caught in the trap. Having experienced how it worked, and now seeing these remnants, an old hand of the martial world like him could piece together the broad outline.

After several flickering movements, he vanished from the platform and plunged into the forest at the foot of the mountain.

When Strategist Ji reached a spot not far from where Li Yan lay on his back, a look of pain suddenly crossed his face, and black blood seeped from the corner of his mouth. He hurriedly sat cross-legged and pulled a translucent crystal from inside his robe with his right hand. Slowly closing his eyes, he held the crystal and began regulating his breathing. He had not rested for days, and with the serious injuries he had just suffered, his physical condition was now dire.

More than two hours later, Strategist Ji slowly opened his eyes. By now, his spiritual power had recovered to roughly seventy or eighty percent. Looking at the crystal in his hand, which had turned from translucent to murky, he winced at the expense.

There was no spiritual energy here, so he could only rely on this crystal to recover. The previous sect leader of the Immortal-Seeking Lineage had left it to him, saying, "If you can someday set foot upon the path of immortality, this crystal will surely lend you a helping hand." All these years, although he had entered that path, he had never been willing to use it. Today, he had been forced to do so under these circumstances.

This was a spirit stone of the cultivation world. It contained spiritual energy and could aid one's cultivation. Strategist Ji had learned all this from the elders of his sect. Their sect possessed only this single crystal, which had been passed down for more than a dozen generations.

He could have returned to the inner valley of his residence and recovered using the spiritual energy drifting from the pool. But he had already exhausted nearly half the spiritual energy in his body by forcibly using the Wind Blade Art. At his present cultivation level, he could ordinarily unleash eleven or twelve wind blades if he exerted himself fully. Yet while dealing with Li Yan, severing the huge rock attached to his foot, and breaking through the spiked wooden rack, he had released a full six wind blades. Carrying Li Yan another seventy or eighty li along mountain paths would have been utterly impossible. Just as

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he returned from the cliff, the fire poison within his body had flared up. If he did not suppress it, he would surely die before Li Yan. The half of his spiritual power that remained was no longer enough to restrain the fire poison, so in desperation, he had been forced to use this precious treasure of his sect.

He stared blankly at the murky spirit stone in his hand for a while, then tucked it back inside his robe.

Raising his right hand, he pressed hard against his left elbow and upper arm in turn. Two sharp hisses sounded, and he gave another muffled groan. The two finger-thick wooden spikes shot from his flesh and flew deep into the distance, trailing strings of blood droplets. His right hand swiftly jabbed the wounds again, stopping the blood pouring out. Looking at the black tendons dangling or hanging severed outside his left arm, he could not help frowning.

Then he rose and darted swiftly through the forest, his figure flickering repeatedly. Half a tea's time later, he reappeared in the same spot. Looking at Li Yan, whose eyes were shut as he lay on the ground, Strategist Ji flicked a finger of his right hand. A thread of force shot out and entered Li Yan's head.

"I know you're not asleep. I no longer care how you discovered my intentions. Whether you knew or not, the outcome is the same. I simply never expected a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old boy like you to be so vicious. Every one of your schemes was a fine way to stab someone in the dark. I truly underestimated my own disciple." Strategist Ji stared at Li Yan, hatred flashing in his eyes.

His original plan had been to forcibly suppress his fire poison for another half year or more. By then, Li Yan would probably have reached at least the middle phase of the first level of the Qi Condensation Stage, giving him a better than even chance of breaking through to the fourth level. But now, not only had the timing been brought forward, Li Yan's magical power still fell far short of his minimum requirement, and he himself had suffered damage to his very foundation. The heavy expenditure of spiritual power had already caused the fire poison inside him to flare up, and his vitality had been greatly depleted as well. Yet he now had no other choice. He could slowly replenish his vitality, but could Li Yan possibly wait another half year for him? Could the fire poison that had already erupted return to its previous state?

At the thought, Strategist Ji's heart filled with bitter fury. Years of planning had ended like this, all because of this boy.

"Am I vicious? Aren't you trying to trade my life for yours?" After a moment, Li Yan suddenly spoke from the ground in a strained voice.

"Oh? So you do know. I really would like to find out how you learned of it, but I no longer wish to waste time. With that temperament of yours, you could keep doggedly kicking over the waterskins and spilling water onto the demon beast sinew, even when I myself could see no flaw. If I weren't afflicted with this deadly poison, I truly would take you as a genuine disciple."

A flicker of surprise crossed Li Yan's eyes as he lay on the ground. He would not have found it strange if Strategist Ji had worked out how the trap was arranged after inspecting the platform. But that he could deduce Li Yan had kicked over the waterskins many times was rather unexpected.

"Oh, you even worked that out. You really are impressive, Master," Li Yan said mildly. At the same time, he thought, You still haven't noticed the other problem.