Before Andy could adjust his approach, a streak of yellow light flew toward him. In an instant, it expanded into a deep yellow barrier seven or eight meters across, enclosing Andy and his Dark Raven Shield within.
This deep yellow barrier was similar in color to Andy's own Earth Armor protective light—both were earth-attribute defensive barriers. But its defensive power was on an entirely different level. It was an Earth Prison Talisman—a high-grade Qi Refinement talisman.
Earth Prison Talismans were typically used to temporarily trap spirit beasts. Anything caught inside could not break free of the barrier until the talisman's power was fully exhausted, making the Earth Prison Talisman the most defensively powerful of all Qi Refinement talismans. The trade-off was that anyone on the outside who wanted to attack the person inside also had to break through the barrier first.
The dark-faced man and the young woman had done this many times before. The moment she was almost ready with the devastating Jade Mountain Seal, he had thrown the Earth Prison Talisman to lock Andy in place for the kill.
With the talisman deployed, the dark-faced man recalled his Gold Thread Spear and stood back at his ease, watching Andy with a "you're already dead" smile on his face.
He knew the Jade Mountain Seal's power was more than enough to crush Andy in a single blow. But the weapon had a weakness—besides its enormous spiritual power consumption, it was sluggish and difficult to aim. If Andy weren't pinned down, he could simply sidestep when the seal came crashing down. And the young woman's spiritual power wouldn't allow her to attempt more than one strike. It had to be a sure kill.
Their coordination was flawless. Though the young woman's face was white as paper, her spiritual power nearly drained, the Jade Mountain Seal had swollen to a monstrous ten meters on each side and was now drifting slowly toward the space directly above Andy's head.
Andy's heart was hammering. Cold sweat trickled down his spine, and for one terrible instant, the thought flashed through his mind that this was where he would die. In that crisis, his mind raced. He recalled the Dark Raven Shield to press flat against his body, and from within his sleeve drew a thick stack of talismans, lips moving rapidly as he activated them.
The Jade Mountain Seal hung ten-odd meters directly above him. It paused for the briefest instant—then plummeted with a shrieking wind.
Two thunderous explosions. Through a storm of fire and flying dust, a dark-glowing figure was hurled out of the blast zone.
In the split second before the seal fell, Andy had unleashed over a dozen Flame Serpent Talismans at once, shattering the Earth Prison barrier. The explosion's concussive force blasted him clear just as the Jade Mountain Seal came crashing down behind him with another earth-shaking impact, driving a crater over a meter deep into the solid rock.
If Andy had been two or three seconds slower, he would have been reduced to pulp.
Even so, without the Dark Raven Shield absorbing the brunt of it, the shockwave from his own dozen-plus Flame Serpent Talismans alone would have left him critically wounded.
Andy dragged himself to his feet, battered but expressionless. His eyes were ice-cold.
The dark-faced man and the young woman stared at each other. The Jade Mountain Seal's full-force strike had failed to finish him. A flicker of fear passed between them.
These two had worked together long enough that a single look was all they needed. The young woman pointed at the massive seal, and it began shrinking rapidly, returning to its palm-sized form in the space of a breath before flying back to her hand. They were going to retrieve their artifacts and run.
Andy let out a silent, cold laugh. Against enemies who had nearly killed him, he was not about to let them leave. And he already had an idea of how to deal with them.
The young woman might have the highest cultivation of the three, but she had also expended the most spiritual power. Right now, she was actually the weakest.
Shielded behind the Dark Raven Shield, Andy sprinted toward her. With the Hundred-Plume Boots, he closed twenty or thirty meters in a single breath, then flung out a Flame Serpent Talisman with a flick of his wrist.
A flash of red, and the talisman became a flame serpent over a meter long, tongue of fire flickering, streaking toward the young woman. She was too drained to even raise a defensive spell. She ignored the serpent entirely and bolted toward the dark-faced man, who deftly maneuvered a golden shield to cover them both.
Seeing the two standing side by side, Andy's lips curved into a faint, strange smile.
The flame serpent struck the golden shield's barrier with a bang. The golden light flickered briefly, then stabilized as the serpent burst into scattered sparks and vanished.
But right behind the serpent, a streak of yellow light shot forward and expanded in a flash into a deep yellow barrier seven or eight meters across, trapping the dark-faced man and the young woman together inside.
An Earth Prison Talisman—this time, Andy's own. He had purchased this single precious talisman at considerable expense from Liuyun Market. He hadn't expected to use it like this, turning their own tactic against them.
The two trapped cultivators stared at each other in dismay. The young woman's first thought was: Does he happen to have something like the Jade Mountain Seal too?
She quickly received her answer. Andy was already pulling out an even thicker stack of talismans, murmuring incantations under his breath.
The two were frantic now. They whipped out their artifacts and launched them at the barrier in a frenzy—gold spear and jade seal hammering against the deep yellow light. The barrier shuddered and flickered under the onslaught but showed no sign of cracking. By then, Andy had already released every last one of the thirty-odd talismans in his hands.
More than thirty flame serpents, each two or three cun thick, converged on the Earth Prison barrier at once. It was the last thing either of them ever saw. After the roar of fire and the thunderous blast faded, all that remained were two incomplete, charred bodies and two artifacts lying on the ground.
The combined force of thirty-plus Flame Serpent Talismans had shattered the Earth Prison barrier in an instant, and the remaining power had killed both cultivators outright.
Even in death, neither understood how their opponent could possibly have held so many offensive talismans—their total value rivaling that of a fine upper-grade artifact. Using single-use talismans this extravagantly was something even the core disciples of major cultivation families couldn't afford.
From the dark-faced man's initial ambush to Andy's lethal counterattack, the entire battle had lasted barely a minute or two—but it had produced several massive explosions. Afraid the noise might draw other cultivators, Andy didn't dare linger. He quickly stripped the storage pouches from both corpses, scooped up the jade seal and gold spear from the ground, then reduced both bodies to ash with a pair of casual fireballs.
After brushing off the signs of combat and stowing all his artifacts in his storage pouch, Andy took off at a dead sprint heading west. With the Hundred-Plume Boots, his speed was no less than a fine horse's, and in just over two hours he had covered more than a hundred li, clearing the Liuyun range entirely.
What Andy didn't know was that the disappearance of these two sent shockwaves through the Qi Refinement cultivators of the Liuyun range. Word spread through the market that the notorious "White Cloud Duo"—husband and wife—had vanished from the cultivation world, and were almost certainly dead. But no confirmed report ever emerged as to who had killed them. Most speculated that the pair must have provoked some low-key Foundation Establishment senior and been quietly erased. After all, given their strength and their fearsome reputation, if they had merely encountered high-stage Qi Refinement cultivators, they might have been outmatched—but surely at least one of them would have escaped alive.