Ethereal Pursuit

Woo~~

A fierce gale swept in. Just as Wei Wuwei thought his eyes were about to be ruined, a figure in coarse gray cloth suddenly appeared before him, attacking the man in night clothes with both hands and feet.

"Slap slap slap!!!! Bang bang bang!!!"

Having witnessed the earlier fighting, Ji Yuan no longer dared to underestimate martial arts practitioners. As the saying goes, the jianghu is treacherous—those nine young heroes he'd met before were truly greenhorns!

He had no intention of using swordsmanship, and had no blade on hand, so he resorted to the fist, foot, and claw techniques from the Iron Punishment Battle Post.

Straight punches, hooking hands, sweeping legs, knee strikes, arm swings, kicks... each move came like a storm, dense and unbroken!

No one saw where the gray-clothed man with tied-back hair had emerged. The black-clothed figure had been handling Wei Wuwei with just one hand's finger techniques earlier, but now, using both hands to parry, he could barely keep up, his eyes struggling to follow.

In just a few breaths, the black-clothed figure's arms were already numb. Beneath his clothes, many spots on his fingers, palms, and arms were swollen and red, held together only by true qi.

'What kind of monster is this!!'

The black-clothed figure could only defend, unable to counterattack. Every collision felt like striking an iron pillar—painful and accompanied by massive recoil. In mere breaths, his protective true qi seemed on the verge of being shaken apart.

'His footwork is off! That's it, his movement technique is worse than mine!'

Ji Yuan's mind stirred. His spiritual energy shifted, and his body, which had just thrown a punch, moved like a spirit snake, vanishing before the black-clothed figure's eyes. As the other's heart pounded wildly, Ji Yuan appeared at his side.

The black-clothed figure reacted swiftly, swinging a palm blade with his left hand to force Ji Yuan back, but in an instant, he felt his arm seized.

Ji Yuan's five fingers closed together and stabbed into the man's left armpit.

A "crack" sounded, and the black-clothed figure winced in pain as his left shoulder hunched up.

At the same time, Ji Yuan's hand formed an eagle's claw, dragging from the shoulder down to the wrist, then twisting and locking.

"Crackle... crackle... crackle..."

Three sharp bone sounds, and the left arm went limp in agony. From the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of gray beneath his feet.

"Bang! Crack..."

His left leg was already dislocated. Before he could react, Ji Yuan seemed to shift shapes and change positions, appearing on the right.

"Crack~ Crack~"

From wrist to shoulder, the right arm was completely dislocated...

At this moment, Ji Yuan, feeling he had finally subdued the black-clothed figure, was both excited and tense. He grabbed the man's hair, lifting him to face the other expert—who hadn't had time to come to the rescue and couldn't intervene anyway—and the remaining bandits.

"Heh... ugh heh..."

The black-clothed expert Ji Yuan held was in great pain, breathing carefully while sweating coldly. Every inhale and exhale brought intense suffering, as if he were being tortured.

For a moment, the scene fell into an eerie silence. Everyone stared at the sudden mysterious expert.

A coarse gray cloth robe, simple tied-back hair, a dark patch on his face like a deep birthmark covering half of it—his expression seemed blank, yet it gave off a killing intent.

The impression of this man boiled down to three words—very dangerous!

After a long pause, the other black-clothed figure finally spoke, his voice thick with wariness.

"Iron! Punishment! Art! Such fierce and sharp attacks, such heavy hands! Which government master might you be?"

In truth, everyone present, including Wei Wuwei, was afraid. This man's strikes were brutal—in just a few breaths, he had crippled a once-inscrutable expert.

Given such an attack, Wei Wuwei, uncertain of the man's intentions, didn't even dare breathe loudly.

"Hoo..."

Ji Yuan let out a long, quiet breath, finally calming the excitement of his first real fight. It confirmed his thoughts: though he had only practiced martial arts for a few months, his spiritual energy body tempering, which replaced true qi circulation, combined with his decent comprehension talent, meant his martial arts were far from weak.

'Or rather, very strong!'

This thought wasn't baseless—it came from the experience of the earlier exchange, from the other man's wary words, and from the tense breaths and rapid heartbeats around him.

His strikes might have been a bit heavy, but the black-clothed figure was no saint either.

That display of martial arts naturally led them to mistake him for a government expert—in fact, Ji Yuan had deliberately steered them toward that conclusion.

When the black-clothed figure had mentioned the "Sword Intent Scroll," Ji Yuan's mind stirred, and he felt it was very likely the calligraphy scroll at his home.

After all, Lord Lu, a tiger spirit who never left Niu Kui Mountain, had no way to obtain such calligraphy imbued with martial sword intent—he must have acquired it recently.

Now, this group had also targeted the Wei family's Blue Jade. Moreover, the later-arriving black-clothed figure clearly seemed to belong to the same faction as the so-called Thirteen Bandits of Yan, and both black-clothed figures held higher status than the bandits. When the two appeared, the bandits' auras shifted with surprise, indicating they hadn't known the black-clothed figures were following—an intelligence mismatch.

This inevitably made Ji Yuan, an outsider, instinctively suspect some kind of organized conspiracy.

Though movies and novels from his past life had taught him that getting involved in such matters was troublesome, it was a different story if these people's targets were the Sword Intent Scroll and the Blue Jade.

Ji Yuan lowered his voice, using spiritual energy to employ the true qi voice alteration trick from the Iron Punishment Battle Post. His throat vibrated slightly, and when he spoke, his voice was hoarse and low but full of vigor.

"Patriarch Wei, do these people have a grudge against your Wei family?"

Wei Wuwei jolted, then realized he was being addressed. He could only assume the newcomer was a friend, not a foe. Still, he reasoned, the Iron Punishment Art couldn't be faked—a government master who had trained it to such a level must be an iron constable, one who tolerated no petty evildoers disrupting the social order.

"Thank you for the rescue, sir. My Wei family has no enmity with these people. We have always cultivated good karma. If there were some irreconcilable feud, I, as the patriarch, would certainly know!"

With that, Wei Wuwei steeled himself. Since the matter of the Blue Jade was already known to interested parties, he decided to share his suspicions with Ji Yuan.

"Moreover, few know of my Wei family's heirloom Blue Jade. These people demanded it outright—they came prepared. The earlier Sword Intent Scroll incident at the Fan family in Dingyuan Prefecture was also the work of the Thirteen Bandits. I suspect they have other plans!"

"Mm, let's subdue them first."

As Ji Yuan's words fell, the other Black-Clothed Figure and the remaining bandits felt a sudden alarm in their hearts.

The next moment, this Mysterious Government Expert shifted from stillness to motion, in an instant flashing before the Black-Clothed Figure, his fist and claw striking out once more.

Seeing Ji Yuan make his move, Wei Wuwei did not idle either, joining the two guards in attacking the remaining Yan Bandits.

Only when facing Ji Yuan directly did the other Black-Clothed Figure realize the immense pressure; after just a few breaths of exchange, he already felt he could not hold on.

While using every means to fend off the assault, his feet kept retreating to escape, and both arms ached so badly it hindered his defense.

"Sir, do you truly intend to wipe us out? Do you not wish to ascend further—wealth, honor, high office, and a fat salary..."

Seeing Ji Yuan completely ignore him, the Black-Clothed Figure shouted urgently in desperation.

"Sir, do you not wish to look down upon the world, do you not wish to become an immortal?"

At this, Ji Yuan not only failed to slow his attack but instead shifted into a bizarre move, turning his right arm into a blade to execute the saber technique from the Iron Punishment Battle Post. The Black-Clothed Figure felt the distance he had just escaped close in an instant, as a hand blade struck faster than his reaction, piercing through his block and landing right in the middle of his chest.

"Bam!"

The Black-Clothed Figure's body was sent flying, only for Ji Yuan to grab his foot midair.

"Heh!"

Like swinging a club, the Black-Clothed Figure was slammed "Bam!" into the ground, left with only the strength to twitch.

On the other side, Wei Wuwei and the two guards had just finished their fight, with the remaining four bandits all having their major acupoints sealed.

"Become an immortal? You think such nonsense can deceive me?"

Ji Yuan looked coldly at the Black-Clothed Figure on the ground.

"Heh... heh... Immortal Traces are Ethereal... but, but not without a trace... legend says Zuo Kuangtu has already broken through martial arts to enter the Dao. You, you ask this Wei Wuwei... the Blue Jade of the Wei family... heh... its origin is, is not ordinary..."

The Black-Clothed Figure endured the pain wracking his body, speaking in broken fragments, hoping desperately that what he had waited years for would finally come to pass—it would be too bitter to fall here at the last step!