A breeze brushed past. Leaves rustled in the woods behind, and in the open sky at the edge of the clearing, three figures stood in midair atop flying swords.
Fu Yan looked at the senior brother and junior sister of the Zilan Sect trading lines like a rehearsed duo, and couldn’t help finding it a bit funny. She let them twist right and wrong however they pleased.
“Hurry up and hand over my junior sister’s Ice Spirit Three-Leaf Flower.”
Seeing that a mere early Opening stage cultivator like Fu Yan dared to completely ignore him, Liu Chuanhan was naturally enraged.
Fu Yan’s expression didn’t change at all. She casually shrugged, then finally lifted her eyes to the youth in front of her. He wore a purple brocade sect robe. His already ordinary face was twisted with killing intent, making him look even uglier.
Fu Yan thought, she was obviously the one who’d been schemed against, yet this guy was angrier than she was.
“Are you done talking?”
Her tone turned cold in an instant. She had looked indifferent a moment ago, but now her gaze sharpened as she continued,
“Playing bandit while pretending to be noble—this is how disciples of your Zilan Sect conduct themselves? I suppose I’ve learned something today.”
“You’re talking nonsense!”
Behind him, Xu Yan flushed scarlet, a hint of shame in her anger, but she still bit down stubbornly,
“You clearly stole my Ice Spirit Three-Leaf Flower. Hurry up and give it back!”
“You mean that Ice Spirit Three-Leaf Flower…”
Fu Yan finally put on a look of sudden realization. She then patted her own stomach and smiled innocently at Xu Yan.
“Obviously, I already ate it.”
“You—!”
Xu Yan was instantly furious to the point of losing control. She cultivated a water-attribute movement technique; with the Ice Spirit Three-Leaf Flower, she would be much closer to breaking through to mid Opening stage. No wonder she was livid.
Liu Chuanhan had no intention of sparring with words any longer. He raised his sword and pointed it at Fu Yan, speaking to Xu Yan,
“Junior sister, don’t waste words on her. Since she dared steal from us, she’ll have to pay the price.”
As soon as he finished, the two of them charged straight at Fu Yan.
Fu Yan had only recently broken through, but her aura was already solid and steady. She was nothing like that weakling flower thief back in Black Spring Town. Facing the two, she felt no fear at all.
What she needed right now was a real, all-out battle to further hone her strength.
She wasn’t confident she could kill a mid Opening stage cultivator like Liu Chuanhan, but if she wanted to retreat intact, that wouldn’t be a problem.
In a flash, Fu Yan lifted the Linglong Broken Sword and met them head-on. With a clear clang, the two swords collided with tremendous force.
“A mere broken sword. You’re courting death.”
When Liu Chuanhan got a good look at the sword in Fu Yan’s hand, he let out a cold laugh.
Fu Yan didn’t care about his mockery. As they locked blades, she quickly realized just how much stronger a mid Opening stage cultivator was compared to early stage. At that moment, Xu Yan attacked from behind as well, leaving her no time to think.
Fu Yan snapped into motion, bending backward in a deep arch.
Her whole body slipped under Liu Chuanhan’s sword force, brushing past it. Her sudden retreat almost caused the two Zilan disciples to crash into each other head-on.
“So slippery!”
Xu Yan glared at Fu Yan, furious and flustered.
Liu Chuanhan looked at Fu Yan with utter disdain. He suddenly said to Xu Yan,
“She’s just an early Opening stage nobody. No need for you to step in, junior sister. Leave her to me.”
Then he struck again.
If his first attack had only been probing, this time Liu Chuanhan unleashed seventy to eighty percent of his strength. He poured true essence into his sword, and a razor-sharp sword wind chopped straight toward Fu Yan.
Its momentum was as if it would cleave open the very sky.
Mid Opening stage really was no joke. Hearing the wind howl by her ears, Fu Yan didn’t dare hesitate. She gripped the Linglong Broken Sword and charged forward to meet him.
The two swords clashed, shrieking in the air.
Fu Yan had expected to be overwhelmed. Both her true essence and physical strength were inferior to Liu Chuanhan’s. She hadn’t thought they would actually be evenly matched in that exchange.
Realizing this, her heart leapt.
So the Linglong Broken Sword really wasn’t an ordinary weapon.
Liu Chuanhan was clearly surprised as well, but he quickly pulled back. In the next instant, his figure flickered, and he appeared behind Fu Yan.
He gave a low shout.
“I didn’t expect that broken sword of yours to be so formidable. But in front of true strength, it’s all meaningless. Try this move!”
As his voice fell, a deafening crack of thunder echoed across the clear sky. Fu Yan spun around at once, only to see that the lightning was actually surging from Liu Chuanhan’s blade.
“Thunder-Shocking Sword!”
A moment later, she felt countless threads of violent lightning intent surging toward her. Even the air seemed to turn into countless sword edges, all stabbing straight at her.
The sword strike came in with overwhelming force. Fu Yan didn’t dare be careless. She reversed her grip on the Linglong Broken Sword, fingers tightening around the hilt, and unleashed the strongest sword technique she knew.
The body’s original owner had only been a very ordinary outer sect disciple, and the sword arts she’d learned were all simple basics, with no powerful killing moves. In a fight like this, she was clearly at a disadvantage.
A deafening sword roar rang out as dust billowed everywhere. After a gust of wind swept it away, Fu Yan’s figure was finally revealed.
She had barely managed to receive Liu Chuanhan’s strike, and it had taken everything she had.
Her gray hair ribbon was long gone. Jet-black hair spilled down her back like a waterfall, whipping in the wind. Fu Yan was only managing to stay upright by propping herself up with the Linglong Broken Sword. Blood slowly trickled from the corner of her lips.
High above, Liu Chuanhan looked down at her sorry state and sneered.
“Overestimating yourself. An early Opening stage ant dares to clash with me head-on?”
Xu Yan, who had been watching from behind the whole time, was also slightly shocked. She hadn’t expected Fu Yan to actually block Senior Brother Liu’s Thunder-Shocking Sword.
Having often sparred with Liu Chuanhan, Xu Yan knew exactly how terrifying that strike was. With her own early Opening stage cultivation, she couldn’t even take half the force of that sword.
Even if Liu Chuanhan hadn’t gone all out, he had at least used eighty percent of his strength. No wonder she was so astonished.
Fu Yan herself hadn’t expected that using everything she had would only be enough to block a single sword strike from Liu Chuanhan.
So killing across realms… that really was something only monstrous geniuses could pull off.
Since she’d already tested her limits, there was no reason to keep fighting. Without a second thought, Fu Yan’s figure blurred as she turned to flee.
She realized this was the third time she’d had to run for her life. For a moment, she didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.
“Trying to run? Not that easy!”
Sensing her intent, Liu Chuanhan had no intention of letting her go. He gave a cold snort and flashed in front of her, blocking her path.
Fu Yan tried to pivot and change direction, but Liu Chuanhan clearly wouldn’t give her the chance. His hands moved rapidly, forming seals. His sword suddenly began spinning wildly in the air.
“Go!”
He barked the word.
Just as Fu Yan was about to turn and retreat, a suffocating sense of death crashed over her. It was a feeling she’d never had—not when fleeing from the flower thief, nor from the Bloodthirsty Ice Wolf.
It was as if, in the next second, she would be sliced cleanly in half.
Her pupils shrank. Reflected in them was a sword shadow barreling toward her like a falling star, unstoppable and merciless. Its speed left no room for reaction at all.
Fu Yan refused to accept dying like this.
She didn’t want to die. She wanted to live.
Perhaps it was that raw terror of death, but in the next instant, she suddenly thrust her hand out and traced a half-circle in the air, pouring every drop of her true essence into the Linglong Broken Sword.
The sword at her side seemed to sense her state of mind. It began to tremble violently. For a heartbeat, Fu Yan felt as though she had merged with the blade itself.
She charged straight at the incoming sword shadow.
It all happened too fast. By the time Liu Chuanhan realized what was going on, he saw his own sword shadow being shredded into fragments by that broken sword. The very next heartbeat, those fragments reversed course and shot toward him.
He had no time to react.
He could only watch as Fu Yan’s sword pierced through his protective true essence and then straight through his chest.
With horror still frozen on his face, Liu Chuanhan slowly toppled backward.
His aura vanished completely.
Xu Yan, stunned by how abruptly everything had happened, stared blankly at her senior brother’s corpse. For a while, she even forgot about Fu Yan still on the ground.
Fu Yan wasn’t about to let the opportunity slip by.
In a flicker, she flashed forward. Gripping the Linglong Broken Sword, she appeared right in front of Xu Yan. Without a shred of hesitation, she drove the sword straight through.
In the span of a breath, another figure fell.
Silence returned to the clearing.
Only now did Fu Yan finally come back to herself. She stood there dazed, hardly able to believe she had actually killed two people.
It was her first time taking lives. Her emotions naturally churned violently, but at the same time, she understood clearly: this was a world where martial strength ruled. If she didn’t kill, others would come to kill her.
With that thought, some of the weight in her chest finally eased.
As for that last sword strike, she still felt somewhat dazed. She didn’t understand how she had managed to unleash something so powerful.
“So the fear of death really is terrifying… but it also forced out my greatest potential,” she thought to herself.
The commotion from their battle had not been small. Someone would probably come investigate soon. Killing two inner sect disciples of a major sect was no trivial matter. If word reached the Zilan Sect, Fu Yan really would be in deep trouble.
At that point, even Shui Ling Sect might not be able—or willing—to protect her.
Thinking of this, Fu Yan didn’t dare linger. She quickly stripped the storage spirit rings from Liu Chuanhan and Xu Yan, then stepped onto her sword and flew away from the scene.
Her guess proved right. Not long after she left, two figures rushed over, landing beside the bodies. They stared at the corpses on the ground, surprise flickering across their faces.
“Zilan Sect inner disciples… killed. Who could have done this?”
One of them crouched down, as if discovering something. He examined the wound on Liu Chuanhan’s chest carefully. After a long moment, he looked up, eyes full of disbelief.
“Killed with a single sword strike. The attacker’s cultivation definitely can’t be below late Opening stage.”
“Unbelievable… that was a Heart-Penetrating Sword.”
“If the killer really is only at the Opening stage and has already comprehended a Heart-Penetrating Sword, then it seems someone in the Minbei Region is about to rise.”
