Lu Xian’er had tracked the person carrying the treasure to a small mortal town near Absolute Sword Valley.
When she rushed over, the target hadn’t moved at all, as if they were deliberately waiting for her.
On her left was the legendary Absolute Sword Valley.
As Lu Xian’er entered the small town, she was met with an eerie silence.
What greeted her eyes was blood and corpses. Regardless of age or gender, bodies were scattered throughout the town. The stench of blood was thick and nauseating.
She walked down the main road, her gaze sweeping over the corpses.
All of them were freshly killed. Many had been pierced through the heart by some unknown force while going about their everyday tasks. Some had expressions of pure terror. Others looked utterly confused, as if they had no idea what had just happened.
Death hung heavy over the entire town.
When Lu Xian’er reached the center of the town, a shadow slowly emerged atop a nearby rooftop behind her.
A black-clad man rested a blood-red scythe on his shoulder, smiling at her. “As expected of the Young Mistress. You’ve really got guts, coming here alone?”
Lu Xian’er ignored him. Her eyes quietly fell on a nearby home.
It belonged to a family of three. The woman of the house had been sewing her husband’s coat on the bed. Her husband had just returned from work, holding a freshly roasted duck and a box of rouge. Their young daughter had run to the door, excitedly welcoming him home.
But that warmth had been forever erased.
Now, only the mother’s corpse lay on the bed. The father and daughter had been pierced through together at the doorway, the father shielding his child.
The two bodies lay in a pool of blood beside the roasted duck and rouge. Nearby, a few leftover sticks of candied hawthorn remained unsold.
Lu Xian’er stared at the scene for a long time before turning to the black-clad man and asking coldly, “You killed all these mortals?”
“That’s right. It was me.”
“Why?”
“Well, to welcome your arrival, of course,” the man replied with a twisted smile, not hiding the truth at all. Then he added with a frown, “Though I have to say, killing mortals is boring. It’s like squashing ants—no challenge at all. Only their dying screams were mildly entertaining. What about you, Young Mistress—did you enjoy them?”
Lu Xian’er wasn’t provoked. She stared at him coldly and asked, “Don’t bother trying to anger me. Do you really have the item?”
“Of course. You’re after this, aren’t you?” Follow the newest chapters on novelping.com.
The man smirked and pulled out a black box, even opening it to show her a glimpse of its contents before tucking it back into his robes. He looked at her and sneered, “So, is Joyous Harmony Valley planning to rob someone else’s treasure now? Quite bold for a so-called righteous sect.”
Lu Xian’er stared at him and spoke calmly, “Yan Bei. Demonic rogue cultivator. Emperor Realm peak cultivation. Known for slaughtering entire clans for cultivation techniques and artifacts. Killed tens of thousands of innocents. And now with today’s massacre added to your name… you dare call yourself human?”
Yan Bei shook his head and sighed. “Tsk tsk, you did your homework.”
“But don’t they say, ‘Put down your blade and find redemption’? Aren’t you planning to give me a chance?”
All the while, his eyes were fixed on Lu Xian’er. If she so much as let her guard down, he would strike immediately.
“There is a chance.”
Lu Xian’er raised her sword and pointed it at him. Sword Qi surged around her, cold and sharp. “Hand over the item, and I’ll leave your corpse intact.”
Yan Bei snorted. “Leave my corpse intact? You?”
“A pampered little Young Mistress like you probably doesn’t even know how to kill.”
Over the years, few battle rumors had spread about Lu Xian’er. Naturally, Yan Bei assumed she was a sheltered girl with high cultivation but no real-world experience—nowhere near his level, someone who’d bathed in blood and survived mountains of corpses.
But the moment his words ended, Lu Xian’er’s sword flashed horizontally—an icy white arc slicing through the air and instantly severing his left hand!
If not for his years of killing instinct, which made him instinctively dodge at full force, it would’ve been his head rolling.
Lu Xian’er looked at him indifferently. “I didn’t quite catch that. Mind repeating yourself?”
“You…” Yan Bei’s face darkened. All arrogance gone.
Staring at his severed arm, he finally realized she wasn’t what he’d imagined. Her strength had completely caught him off guard.
Lu Xian’er said flatly, “If you’ve laid traps, use them now. Otherwise, I’ll take your head within two strikes.”
She didn’t believe someone like him would wait for her out in the open without preparing an ambush.
Sure enough, madness flashed across Yan Bei’s face.
“Alright then—let me show you!”
He raised his scythe and roared, “Bloodfiend Eightfold Array!”
At his shout, countless runes appeared on the ground, forming a massive formation that engulfed the entire town!
All the blood from the corpses and the streets began flowing into the formation, fueling it like nutrients.
Crimson waves of blood surged toward Yan Bei, and his aura skyrocketed—he directly broke through into the Dao Condensation Realm!
Swinging his blood-red scythe, Yan Bei grinned menacingly at Lu Xian’er. “Now the real fight begins!”
…
On a cliffside, Bai Xiaoxue stood staring at the gorge in front of her—said to have been split open by a single sword strike.
“So this is Absolute Sword Valley… It’s truly magnificent.”
The gorge stretched for over fifty kilometers, and was at least a thousand meters deep. It was impossible to see the bottom.
Bai Xiaoxue couldn’t even imagine how terrifying the strength must’ve been to carve out such a mark with a single sword!
Even after a thousand years, she could still sense traces of ultimate sword intent lingering within the valley.
“This is what sword intent feels like…”
She closed her eyes, trying to attune to the ancient sword intent that drifted from within the gorge.
Although her comprehension wasn’t that great, she had the advantage of a 999-fold boost.
Before long, she really did begin to sense something.
But it was faint—so faint that when she tried to grasp it, it became blurry and unclear again.
Eventually, Bai Xiaoxue opened her eyes, her face filled with frustration. “Ugh, this is way too vague…”
She felt that if someone who had truly mastered sword intent could keep displaying it in front of her, she might be able to comprehend it fully in no time.
The problem was, where could she find a powerful sword cultivator who had already grasped sword intent?
Just as she was feeling frustrated, a series of explosive sounds nearby caught her attention.
“Hm? Is that… fighting?”
Bai Xiaoxue blinked and curiously walked to the other side of the cliff.
From there, she could overlook a nearby town.
At this very moment, a fierce and intense battle was raging in the skies above it—a clash that could only be described as a peak-level showdown!