Chapter 107: Going All Out

These deep mountain forests are truly dangerous at night. One slip-up and a Xiaoyang shows up... This battle can’t drag on. After getting what we came for, we’ll need to pull out as fast as possible. Who knows what else might come crawling out, and my Banishing Demons and Warding Off Evil can’t hold back anything a full major realm above me... Ding Songyan watched the nearly four-meter-tall Xiaoyang slamming its club against the ground and snapping trees, leaving Pan Yunzhou without any room to strike back. He didn’t even dare to parry; he could only constantly dodge.

Ding Songyan braced his toe and kicked up a small pebble.

It flew out and struck the Xiaoyang’s massive body.

It couldn’t do any damage, little more than tickling the Xiaoyang.

The Xiaoyang reacted, turning sideways and fixing Ding Songyan with a fierce glare.

Ding Songyan, seeing this, broke into a brilliant smile.

The Xiaoyang saw it and smiled back in a dopey way.

When it smiled, its grotesquely long lips flipped upward, covering its eyes and forehead.

According to the Secret Classic of Mountains and Seas, if a Xiaoyang saw a person smile, it would smile too—its lips flipping up to cover its forehead!

In that instant, the Xiaoyang’s eyes were blocked by its own upturned lips, blinding it.

An opening! Pan Yunzhou had wandered the jianghu for many years. Despite being quite frightened, he instinctively swung his saber.

The saber light blazed in an instant, like a dying sun flinging out its last light and heat.

Riding the momentum of a leap upward, the blazing saber light fell upon the Xiaoyang’s neck.

The Sun Moon Divine Saber’s Dusk on a Terminus.

Flesh tore in an instant. Hot red blood erupted outward. The Xiaoyang let out a shriek, dropped its enormous club, clutched at its half-severed neck, and turned to flee.

Though fierce by nature, it had the wild instincts to match. When its life was in grave danger, it would either erupt in a frenzy or flee in panic. Badly wounded, it chose the latter.

With every step it took, a little more of its life slipped away. After running 80 to 120 meters, it finally toppled like a crumbling pillar and crashed to the ground, never to rise again.

At the front gate of the mountain god temple, Xie Fengchao had already sensed the Xiaoyang’s arrival. His heart tightened. He resolved to hold nothing back and finish the fight in the shortest time possible.

Cao Yue was already striding toward Xing Chang, his right hand balled into a fist, a blue-black sheen around it as he drove it toward Xing Chang’s face.

BANG!

Xing Chang of the Headless brought his broadaxe down hard, as though cleaving through empty space itself.

The axe struck the surface of Cao Yue’s fist but could not advance even a fraction. Its own edge rapidly dissolved under the corrosion of that blue-black sheen.

The Heaven-Shattering True Qi that Xing Chang channeled through his axe met the same fate, vanishing in an instant as if ice had been tossed into a furnace.

Yet even without true qi to back it, Xing Chang’s physical strength was immense. That single axe blow brought Cao Yue’s savage charge to an abrupt halt, stopping the bandit leader dead in his tracks.

Swish! A throwing knife split the night air, fast as a shooting star, aimed straight for Cao Yue’s eyes.

Cao Yue didn’t dodge. He merely lowered his left eyelid.

The throwing knife struck as if hitting solid metal, and with a clang it lost all force and drifted to the ground.

Cao Yue’s expression was vicious. He unleashed a barrage of fists like swinging hammers, forcing Xing Chang to meet each one with his broadaxe head-on. To do anything else would leave Xie Fengchao, positioned diagonally behind Xing Chang, fully exposed.

Boom! Boom! Boom! With each block, a little more of Xing Chang’s axe dissolved. After blocking ten or so blows, the broadaxe was riddled through, dissolved all over. The bandit leader was wholly unaffected by the Heaven-Shattering True Qi, dissolving away everything except raw physical force.

Thud!

Cao Yue struck again. Xing Chang’s broadaxe could bear no more—it shattered with a crack into countless fragments, leaving behind only a short iron rod.

A dart flickering with a blue-green sheen came flying in fast and struck Cao Yue in the left ribs, but could not pierce his skin.

Seeing this, Xing Chang showed no sign of backing down. The two eyes on his chest opened wide, and he swung the short iron rod ferociously at Cao Yue.

Every blow had its true qi dissolved away, but the raw Heaven-Shattering force always managed to stagger Cao Yue briefly, his body quivering slightly.

Deep inside the ruined temple, Ding Songyan had leapt in through the window.

Zheng Zhuxi’s fast sword and Lu Guangqing’s fast saber were still clashing with a constant ring of metal.

After watching for a few breaths, Ding Songyan gave what seemed like a casual kick with his right foot, sending a small pebble rolling at an unhurried pace toward the heart of the saber-and-sword battle.

After a relentless storm of attacks that left no room to breathe, Lu Guangqing’s saber momentum had faltered and he needed a moment to recover. Zheng Zhuxi’s fast sword, meanwhile, seemed to have no end.

The instant Lu Guangqing’s fast saber slowed by a single beat, the girl keenly sensed her opening.

Autumnwater flashed to life. Sword light surged magnificent and vast, threading together the scattered candle glow and firelight hanging in the air, and bore toward Lu Guangqing’s throat with unstoppable force.

Kindling Passes to Candle—its momentum had reached its peak.

With no regard for his dignity, Lu Guangqing crouched and threw himself to the side to avoid the strike.

As long as he kept the fight going, her pestilence would break out before long. Then he could win however he pleased.

Suddenly, Lu Guangqing stepped on a small pebble that had no business being there. His footing slipped; he lurched backward and failed to throw himself clear in time.

Magnificent sword light swept through the air and was almost upon his face.

He bit down hard. Every thick strand of hair on Lu Guangqing’s red-flushed skin stood on end and shot outward like a sudden downpour, blanketing the sword light and the girl.

He wanted to make Zheng Zhuxi flinch from the threat of grievous injury and abandon the strike.

Zheng Zhuxi’s gaze was resolute. She simply raised her left hand and forearm and covered her face and chest.

The air burst with the sound of rushing arrows. Each thick strand of hair flew like an arrow, striking the sword light again and again, yet unable to slow it in the slightest.

With a wet thud, Autumnwater sank into Lu Guangqing’s eye socket and drove into his skull.

Countless thick, sharp needles struck Zheng Zhuxi as well, all turning to streams of red light and boring into the girl’s skin, bringing a burning pain and the invasion of pestilent poison.

With a thud, Lu Guangqing toppled backward, one eye wide open, the other nothing but a blood-red hollow. What flowed from him was not only blood, but gray-white brain matter.

With his death, the Six Pestilence Qi in the area swiftly dissipated.

Zheng Zhuxi’s head was burning with fever, her vision blurred. Breathing felt like working a bellows. All strength had left her body, save for the arm still holding her sword.

She fell ill suddenly and severely, her body going limp, on the verge of collapse.

At this moment, a hand reached out and steadied her arm.

She turned with effort and saw her junior brother’s clean-cut, fair-looking face.

Zheng Zhuxi wondered if she was so ill that she was hallucinating. Her junior brother’s eyes were completely dark—no pupils, no whites.

In the next moment, she felt Ding Songyan’s other hand press against her back. A dark, shadowy true qi entered her meridians.

This true qi did not conflict with her Candleflame True Qi. The two coexisted in perfect harmony, moving together in swift circulation. Everywhere it passed, it dissolved and absorbed the pestilent poison, drawing it into itself.

It even dissolved a small amount of the Candleflame True Qi itself.

Clang!

The short iron rod in Xing Chang’s hand was dissolved by the Molten Gold True Qi as well, disintegrating the instant it met the fist.

Xing Chang showed not a trace of fear. He raised his bowl-sized fist, ready to hold Cao Yue back with his bare body.

The Headless rather die in combat than retreating!

Xie Fengchao launched another dart.

It was an ordinary dart, flickering with a blue-green sheen.

Yet with its release, Xie Fengchao’s face drained of color in an instant. His forehead was drenched in cold sweat, his body swaying as if about to buckle.

Facing what looked like the same dart as before, Cao Yue still didn’t dodge. He closed in on Xing Chang and drove his fist forward.

The blue-green dart flew in just like its predecessor and struck Cao Yue squarely in the left shoulder.

It failed to pierce even a fraction, yet it hung suspended there in a bizarre way.

Cao Yue froze, his eyes bewildered.

He felt as if he were a small snake suddenly stuffed inside a great elephant.

His dissolution of the "elephant" was far too slow for the "elephant’s" expansion.

Cao Yue’s eyeballs bulged outward. His neck swelled instantly, thick as if he had forcefully swallowed a century-old tree trunk.

BOOM!

Cao Yue exploded from the inside out, blasting into chunks of flesh and blood.

His eyeballs, his teeth, his fingers were sent flying in every direction.

Shattered Star!

Shattered Star was not a hidden weapon. It was true qi, secret arts, and technique.

Any hidden weapon could be a Shattered Star. A Shattered Star could be any hidden weapon.

It was thus the foremost secret art of the Fang and Xie clans’ hidden weapon tradition.

With a crack, a peachwood box flew off Cao Yue’s body and landed on the ground.

Its lid fell aside, exposing a flower within—apricot-yellow with touches of purple, like the arrival of spring.

The flower of the ten-thousand-year luan tree.

Seeing this, Xie Fengchao smiled and collapsed to the ground.

He had spent every last ounce of energy. It would take the better part of a day to recover, and at present he couldn’t even burn his vital essence.

For him, once Shattered Star was deployed, it was either the enemy’s death or his own.

But now he had companions.

As Ding Songyan’s Presence-Absence Myriad Forms Qi finished circulating through all of Zheng Zhuxi’s meridians, the pestilent poison and sickness qi in her body had vanished. But the weakness and feverish headache they had caused would need more time to settle.

Of course, with the pestilence gone, Zheng Zhuxi’s Candleflame True Qi was flowing freely again. If she encountered an emergency, she could still draw her sword and fight, driven by true qi alone.

"I’ll carry you on my back," Ding Songyan said quickly and directly. "Deep mountains are extremely dangerous at night. We already drew a Xiaoyang. Now that we’ve gotten what we came for, we need to get out as soon as possible. Who knows what terrifying things this fighting and these bodies might attract."

Zheng Zhuxi tersely agreed and did not waste time making her junior brother coax her.

She let Ding Songyan hoist her onto his back, supporting her legs. She was too weak to want to say a word, though she couldn’t quite help feeling a little embarrassed.

She was about to sheathe Autumnwater when she heard Ding Songyan say, "There may be more fighting on the way. Don’t be in a rush to sheathe it."

Just as Ding Songyan said this, a terrifying presence suddenly surged from deep in the mountain forest, startling countless birds into flight.

The presence was heading toward the mountain god temple, apparently drawn by something here.

Ding Songyan and Pan Yunzhou’s gazes fell together on the peachwood box lying on the ground—on the flower of the ten-thousand-year luan tree.

Without the peachwood box to contain it, the flower had apparently attracted the notice of something extraordinarily terrifying.

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