After Qing Yan the Demon Frog left, Huo Ru Yan’s gaze turned towards the crowd trapped within the array. Her eyes instantly turned blood-red, a clear sign that the urge to feed on blood had risen.
Whoosh!
In the next instant, Huo Ru Yan moved and charged straight through the array barrier.
“Brother Lin, save me!”
Ge Jiuwei shouted desperately at Lin Xiao.
“Spare him.”
Lin Xiao pointed at Ge Jiuwei.
Huo Ru Yan nodded slightly. She extended both palms outward, and several small blood-coloured vortices suddenly spun to life in her hands.
Puff!
Puff!
Puff!
…
The fleeing crowd was abruptly seized by an invisible force. Their blood vessels ruptured, and streams of blood poured from their bodies, flying through the air towards Huo Ru Yan’s palms.
“Ah! Ah! Ah!”
Screams rose one after another. No matter how they struggled or fled, they could not escape that mysterious power.
In mere moments, everyone outside the Saint-Slaying Array but within the outer barrier, except for Ge Jiuwei, had turned into desiccated corpses and collapsed to the ground.
Ge Jiuwei’s face was filled with terror.
Too terrifying. Truly too terrifying. If he had not been fortunate enough to know Lin Xiao, he would now be a dry corpse like the rest.
Inside the Saint-Slaying Array, the survivors trembled in fear.
They had thought that charging in here would mean dying first at the hands of the one who had slain four Martial Saints.
Who could have imagined that those outside would perish before them?
And now, it would soon be their turn.
Despair and horror filled their faces. Four Martial Saints had died here; they knew they had no chance of survival, not even by begging.
They utterly lacked the strength to resist.
“We cannot die as dry corpses. The Jiang family will avenge us!”
The Jiang family’s half-step Martial Saint was decisive. He drew his sword and slit his own throat.
Several others followed suit and drew their blades, though the rest lacked such resolve.
Whoosh!
At that moment, Huo Ru Yan swept into the inner array. She extended her palms again. Even from the freshly dead, whose blood had not yet fully drained, crimson streams rose into the air and surged towards her hands.
Huo Ru Yan’s eyes were filled with killing intent yet remained utterly calm, as though she could sense any slightest movement or change around her.
Even Lin Xiao felt a chill. It was fortunate she was a friend. As an enemy, she would be a fearsome opponent.
After absorbing all the blood, Huo Ru Yan licked her lips as if sated, her eyes returning from crimson to normal. A sweet, triumphant smile appeared on her face, as though she were showing off to Lin Xiao that she could now fully control herself.
“Good thing that when we meet again, you have not become a mindless female demon.”
Lin Xiao smiled at Huo Ru Yan.
“If I had not met you back then, I probably would be a mindless female demon now.”
Huo Ru Yan replied with a smile.
Lin Xiao nodded, then turned to the corpses nearby. “Time to divide the spoils!”
With that, his spiritual force surged, drawing storage rings flying towards him one by one.
In addition, he collected the bodies of the four Martial Saints.
Jiang You’s skeletal frame was still intact; he could refine it into a combat skeleton.
The other three, however, had been bisected by him.
Lin Xiao silently regretted it. Why had he not stabbed them to death instead of chopping them in half?
If he had stabbed them, he could have refined three more combat skeletons. That would have been four powerful fighters! Alas, in the heat of the moment, he had not thought of it.
Still, his sword was a broken one; piercing a Martial Saint to death would not have been easy. No wonder his first instinct had been to cleave them.
…
Thousands upon thousands of li away, Array Saint Mu Bosang came to a stop, his body covered in blood from the beating he had taken.
“This Demon Frog’s combat strength is truly fearsome, especially that weapon in his hand…” Mu Bosang said with lingering shock. “Who would have thought this Blood Demon Physique, so young, would be so cunning? She deceived Ying Yi, deceived me, and even roped in a Demon Saint behind my back. And on top of that, there appeared a youth with Martial Saint-level battle power…”
“Against the Blood Demon Physique plus the Demon Frog, I would surely lose. Once the array dissipated and that youth joined in, I might even have fallen there. Good thing I fled quickly!”
Mu Bosang broke out in cold sweat, still feeling the aftershock.
“What a pity. Those two items were tokens of the Heaven-Swallowing Spirit Emperor. They might hold the secret to becoming an Emperor.”
Unwillingness appeared on Mu Bosang’s face. “They absolutely cannot fall into their hands!”
“However, if the various powers learned those two items were the Heaven-Swallowing Spirit Emperor’s tokens, they would not reach me either…” “The matter of the Heaven-Swallowing Spirit Emperor’s tokens must never be revealed.”
Wisdom gleamed in Mu Bosang’s eyes. “But spreading word that they killed four Martial Saints… that can be done.”
With that, he swallowed a pill. An array activated on his body, and his figure flashed as he sped towards the horizon.
…
Back at Lin Xiao’s location, the two arrays dissipated. Ge Jiuwei collected all the storage rings from the outer crowd and presented them respectfully.
Seeing Ge Jiuwei’s attitude, Huo Ru Yan asked Lin Xiao about him. Upon learning he was only a temporary companion, not a true friend and not well understood, she assigned Ge Jiuwei to the Blood Sect group, forcibly inducting him into the sect under an elder’s supervision.
After destroying the corpses and erasing all traces on the spot, Huo Ru Yan led Lin Xiao and the Blood Sect members away from the area, quietly flying ten thousand li to a more concealed location.
This was one of the Blood Sect’s secret strongholds.
Huo Ru Yan and Lin Xiao divided the spoils. These people, especially the four Martial Saints, possessed enormous wealth.
However, such wealth was of little use to Huo Ru Yan, now at the Martial Saint realm.
She handed most of it to the Blood Sect elders for distribution.
For Lin Xiao, several seventh-grade high-level pills for breaking through cultivation were quite valuable.
He could use them to assault his Yuan Force cultivation.
Besides that, there was the most important item: the Jiang family’s supreme treasure, the God-Beating Bamboo.
As Lin Xiao pondered the God-Beating Bamboo, Huo Ru Yan spoke. “The supreme treasures of great clans all have special measures. The moment they detect the item has fallen into other hands, the clan can recall it at any time. We cannot keep this God-Beating Bamboo, or it will expose our position later.”
“There is such a mechanism?”
Lin Xiao was astonished.
No wonder an elder dared to carry it out.
This was a clan-suppressing treasure. Even carried by a first-layer Martial Saint, without such a recall mechanism, other overlord forces would surely mobilise their own treasures and strongest experts to seize it covertly.
But with a mechanism allowing recall if taken, other forces would not risk major conflict.
So that was why Jiang You had dared to bring the treasure out.
“Is there no way to break it?”
Lin Xiao asked unwillingly.
This was a great clan’s suppressing treasure. To give it up like this would be far too regrettable.
Having seized it, how could there be any reason to return it?
Even if he could not use it himself, selling it to another force would fetch an astronomical price.
