The battle raged in the wilderness.
Li Weikun, Li Jiwei, and Chen Shouye stood back-to-back, desperately fending off the attacks of seven disciples from the Celestial Sword Sect.
Li Weikun’s breathing was heavy, and Li Jiwei’s forehead was beaded with sweat.
Chen Shouye was at Blood Refining Perfection and slightly weaker in overall strength. However, having consumed Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures on several occasions, his Horizontal Cultivation was in no way inferior to his master, Li Weikun’s; he just lacked his master’s seasoned experience in combat.
His clothes were instantly slashed dozens of times, but the blades only left shallow marks on his bronze-colored skin.
The three had pushed their Iron Mountain Lean to its absolute limit, sinking their shoulders and dropping their elbows to block the sharp sword blades with their own flesh and blood.
The sound of metal striking stone rang out incessantly with each collision, and new bloody gashes continued to appear on their bodies. Their situation was perilous.
Three against seven—and their opponents were Qi Realm Perfection experts proficient in a Combined Sword Array. Defeat seemed to be only a matter of time.
Chen Li and the other two stood to one side, not intervening immediately.
He held back until he saw a sword tip silently thrusting toward an Empty Gate under Chen Shouye’s ribs from an exceptionally tricky angle. Shouye was fully occupied with parrying an attack from the other side, creating a moment of extreme peril.
Seeing that they were on the verge of defeat, Chen Li turned to Linglong and gave a slight nod.
Linglong, who had been standing attentively by his side, understood immediately.
She flicked her fair hand, and a jade-white silk ribbon shot out, silent yet as swift as lightning.
This White Silk was not for a head-on block; infused with a supple and continuous Inner Strength, it struck later but arrived first, landing with unerring precision on a Swordsman’s wrist.
It didn’t collide forcefully but instead brushed and wrapped around his wrist as gently as a lover’s caress.
The Swordsman felt a strange, viscous, and immense force on his wrist. It wasn’t a fierce impact, but it caused the qi and blood in his arm’s meridians to stagnate, creating an unbearable sour numbness. His thrusting Sword Momentum instantly disintegrated, and his footwork fell into disarray.
"Who’s there?"
the man shouted, utterly horrified.
Linglong didn’t answer. She waved her sleeves, and two lengths of White Silk danced and coiled around her like living spirit snakes.
The White Silk coiled, wrapped, brushed, and redirected. It never clashed head-on with their sharp Longswords, yet it always managed to evade the blades by a hair’s breadth to precisely land on a sword’s flat, a wrist, or even an ankle.
"Pin her down!"
one man roared. His sword light merged with three others as they attempted to overwhelm the sudden intruder with their Combined Sword Array.
Three sharp rays of sword light stabbed toward Linglong from three different angles.
Unflustered, Linglong suddenly flicked the White Silk. Instead of aiming for the men, she sent it wrapping around the middle section of their three thrusting Longswords.
VMMMM!
As the White Silk connected with all three Longswords simultaneously, the blades began to vibrate violently, letting out a sharp hum.
The three men felt a massive, rotating, yet strangely hollow pulling force travel up their blades, making it almost impossible to keep a grip on their hilts.
Seizing the opportunity, Linglong twisted her slender waist. The White Silk coiled upward like lightning, instantly yanking the three Longswords from their hands.
As the Longswords CLATTERED to the ground, the White Silk continued upward, wrapping around the men’s arms and torsos, binding them securely layer by layer.
THUD! THUD! THUD!
Bound tightly by the White Silk, the three men lost their balance and fell to the ground in a pathetic heap. They struggled fiercely, only to find that the seemingly soft silk was tougher than ox tendon.
Seeing this, the remaining four men were both shocked and furious.
"Spirit Realm!"
one of them cried out in horror.
"Signal for backup!"
The woman among the seven shouted, her voice cracking with desperation.
Before her voice had even faded, one of the men reached into his robes, pulled out a bamboo tube as thick as a baby’s arm, bit off the fuse, and hurled it forcefully into the sky.
The bamboo tube whistled as it soared into the night sky. With a sharp CRACK, it didn’t detonate in a deafening explosion, but instead erupted in an incredibly brilliant ball of light.
In the air, the light quickly stretched and condensed, forming the image of a small sword several feet long. It hung high against the night sky, its dazzling radiance visible for miles around.
Chen Li’s brow furrowed almost imperceptibly. "Finish this quickly. Avoid further complications."
"Yes."
Linglong replied softly and no longer held back.
Her figure flickered like a phantom. She whipped out the two lengths of White Silk again, moving so fast they were just a pair of blurry white afterimages.
Horrified, three of the remaining men desperately swung their swords to parry, weaving a chaotic web of sword light to protect themselves completely.
And yet, the White Silk always managed to slip through impossible gaps in the web of light. A light tap on a pressure point would numb an arm; a quick wrap around a wrist would disarm them.
In the span of just two or three breaths, the three of them met the same fate as their comrades. Bound by the White Silk like rice dumplings, they fell one after another, writhing and struggling in vain.
Only the leader was left. With bloodshot eyes, he roared and poured all his Power into his blade. Achieving Sword and Man Unity, he became a streak of desperate, resolute sword light, stabbing straight for Linglong’s heart in a final, suicidal gambit.
Linglong’s delicate brows furrowed slightly, but she didn’t meet the attack head-on. Her body swayed like a lotus leaf in the wind, easily dodging the fatal blow. Her White Silk then whipped out silently from below, precisely ensnaring his ankle before yanking hard.
BAM!
The immense force threw him off balance, and he slammed heavily to the ground. Before he could even flip over to get up, the White Silk was on him like a shadow, binding him tightly.
In the blink of an eye, all seven Qi Realm Perfection experts had been subdued by two seemingly soft and powerless lengths of White Silk, left incapacitated on the ground.
Li Weikun and his son breathed a sigh of relief, their eyes filled with utter shock as they looked at Linglong.
They wondered where Chen Li had found such a powerful expert.
Just as everyone breathed a sigh of relief and Linglong was about to return to Chen Li’s side, disaster struck.
Without any warning, an arc of Sword Qi—as cold as moonlight and incomparably sharp—suddenly tore through the night, shooting out from the deep shadows of the dense forest behind them.
The Sword Qi arrived without a sound, its speed beyond imagination. The chilling killing intent and frigid Sword Intent it carried instantly locked onto Linglong, making her feel as if she had been plunged into an ice cave, her very blood about to freeze solid.
The Sword Qi was ferocious, its power far beyond the Qi Realm, and it aimed straight for the vital point on her unguarded back.
The color drained from Linglong’s face. She had no time to turn, no time to even think. A sense of fatal crisis compelled her to instinctively push her Lightweight Skill to its absolute limit.
Her body shot forward as she desperately recalled her White Silk, hastily erecting layer after layer of supple defenses behind her.
However, the moonlight-cold sword gleam seemed to ignore these defenses, its speed not diminishing in the slightest.
No matter how Linglong blocked, her efforts were torn to shreds by the terrifying Sword Qi.
Just as the terrifying sword gleam was about to pierce Linglong’s heart,
at the last possible moment,
Chen Li moved.
He didn’t seem to counterattack. In fact, no one even saw how he moved. He simply appeared in front of Linglong.
TSS!
With a soft hiss, just as the moonlight sword gleam was about ten feet from Chen Li, it was like a red-hot iron being plunged into ice water.
The sharp and terrifying sword gleam abruptly disintegrated, dissolving into countless tiny motes of light that silently vanished into the air as if they had never been there at all.
All returned to silence.
Cold moonlight spilled onto the desolate ground, illuminating the chaotic scene and the seven bound Swordsmen.
"Oh?"
A woman’s voice, cold but with a hint of unconcealable surprise, drifted slowly from the depths of the shadows.