‘Damn it, what kind of monster is this?’
She hastily took out more spirit tools from her storage pouch and flung them at the attacker.
This time, the black-robed figure finally reacted. Faced with her attacks, he chose to dodge left and right.
It seemed this enemy was also made of flesh and blood, and would still fear powerful attacks.
The reason he didn’t dodge her flying knives earlier was simply because their damage was too low.
Now, every attack she threw had the power of a peak Lingwang realm cultivator, so the opponent had to dodge.
This black-robed figure was naturally Hua Jian, who had been watching from the sidelines.
Upon discovering that someone was trying to escape, she immediately came over to block them.
This was a precious one-on-one opportunity.
The opponent was a late Lingwang realm expert, and she could use this chance to gauge her own strength and see how she compared to such experts.
The flying knives the opponent casually tossed weren’t very threatening.
She took two hits on purpose because blocking them would have slowed her down and lost her the advantage.
Ever since she learned her physique was extraordinary, Hua Jian’s fighting style had been changing.
Now, she had learned to use her physique to gain maximum advantage.
She could fully take attacks that ordinary cultivators couldn’t, even if they were penetrating wounds—they’d just shave off a sliver of her health.
Compared to that sliver of health, a more advantageous position was what mattered.
But when facing an attack that the opponent put real force into, Hua Jian didn’t dare be overconfident.
A peak Lingwang realm attack gave her a slight sense of crisis.
If it hit her, it would probably shred her clothes and send her flying hundreds or thousands of meters.
Her Spirit Shield probably couldn’t block such an attack either.
Although Hua Jian didn’t think it could kill her, she wasn’t stupid—why would she tank such a big move?
Endure small blows, flee from big ones—Hua Jian understood this principle well.
Boom!
The spot she had just landed on was blasted into a huge gap by the violent spiritual power.
Hua Jian flipped a few times and landed on a nearby eaves, clicking her tongue at how lavish these cultivators were.
“Are you unable to fight without spirit tools?”
She made that remark for a reason. Her enemy currently had five spirit tools orbiting her—two defensive and three offensive, and the offensive ones were all one-use high-power spirit tools.
Although the opponent was caught off guard by Hua Jian, years of combat experience allowed her to quickly adjust.
After a few exchanges, she stabilized the situation and began a counterattack.
This demonic cultivator realized that Hua Jian seemed to lack a similar reserve of spirit tools, which reassured her.
It seemed this little sneak attacker wasn’t that strong. Feeling her aura carefully, she wasn’t even at mid Lingwang realm.
‘Huh? With this strength, isn’t she the little mouse that was let into the resource point not long ago?’
Thinking this, the demonic cultivator’s mindset became even more stable.
‘A little mouse dares to ambush me? Watch me crush this arrogant little mouse for justice!’
“Hmph, I was originally going to let you live, but since you’re asking for trouble, don’t blame me!”
The demonic cultivator snorted coldly, but didn’t use the one-use spirit tools floating behind her; instead, she used her own power to unleash a spirit technique at Hua Jian.
After all, these spirit tools were limited—using one meant losing one.
She didn’t want to waste such precious treasures on a little mouse like Hua Jian.
In terms of strength, she was at late Lingwang realm; in terms of experience, she believed she had more than Hua Jian.
If she still had to rely on spirit tools to win, where would she put her face?
This demonic cultivator seemed to specialize in the path of yin souls.
Every attack carried a wailing sound of ghosts, and the color was a gloomy green that made one feel uneasy.
Hua Jian dodged several attacks, but was forced to cut through the last one with her sword.
Unexpectedly, the demonic cultivator’s attack was extremely bizarre.
As soon as it touched her Ling Sword, it stuck to the sword and began spreading toward her body.
Within the gloomy green spiritual power, translucent outlines seemed to split off, letting out piercing laughter to disrupt Hua Jian’s cognition.
‘Resentful spirits? This demonic cultivator’s methods are indeed impressive.’ Hua Jian sighed inwardly.
She reached out her left hand and lightly wiped the Ling Sword, erasing the sticky green spiritual power.
Seeing Hua Jian directly touch her spiritual power with her hand, the demonic cultivator almost laughed out loud.
Her spiritual power was different from others; the resentful spirit power condensed within it was enough to confuse ordinary cultivators’ souls.
This was an incredibly powerful ability in battle—who could understand the strength of every move having a control effect?
‘And now, Hua Jian is so arrogant as to directly touch my spiritual power—she must want to die!’
The attack the demonic cultivator had been gathering paused slightly.
She wanted to wait until Hua Jian’s mind was eroded by the resentful spirit power before releasing this attack.
One second, two seconds, three seconds…
The battle seemed to have pressed the pause button.
The demonic cultivator held her charged attack, while Hua Jian floated in the air, ready to dodge.
For a moment, neither made a move.
Finally, Hua Jian couldn’t take it anymore and couldn’t help shouting at the demonic cultivator, “Auntie, if you’re going to attack, just attack. Don’t aim for so long, okay?”
The demonic cultivator suppressed the urge to ask. She felt that asking something like “Why didn’t you get affected?” would be too embarrassing.
It seemed this little mouse really had something going on. No wonder she dared to enter this secret realm with such strength.
But the crushing power of cultivation was still the crushing power of cultivation.
Even if her spiritual power couldn’t affect Hua Jian, the power of her spirit techniques was still not something Hua Jian could withstand.
“Hmph, then try the power of my Soul-Chaining Lock!”
The demonic cultivator turned her wrist, and the green light ball in her palm transformed into a streak of green light that flew out.
It rapidly expanded in midair, turning into a large net of chains burning with eerie green flames.
And Hua Jian was right at the center of the net. If she didn’t dodge, she would definitely be caught.
Of course, Hua Jian wasn’t stupid. She would certainly dodge.
As soon as the net appeared, she began dodging left and right, quickly moving out of its range.
The demonic cultivator also released a large number of instant spirit techniques to try to stop Hua Jian from escaping, but failed.
She could only watch helplessly as Hua Jian left the net’s range and charged toward her.
‘This little mouse is quite slippery, but what use is that? In the face of absolute power, she can’t make any waves.’
At this moment, the demonic cultivator was still very confident. Her cultivation was so much higher than Hua Jian’s—there was no way she would lose.
‘Hua Jian might escape once, but not forever. No matter how agile, there will eventually be a flaw. As time goes on and her condition declines, I’m sure I’ll catch this little mouse.’
With this thought, she continued attacking, compressing Hua Jian’s mobility, but didn’t realize that Hua Jian seemed to be getting closer and closer.
When Hua Jian leaped high to dodge her spirit technique and aimed her sword at the demonic cultivator’s body, the demonic cultivator only then realized how dangerous the distance between them had become.
Swish!
Hua Jian hurled the Ling Sword with force in midair. The demonic cultivator didn’t hesitate for a second, immediately unleashing an attack and retreating.
She wasn’t careless enough to think her protective spirit tool could block this thrown Ling Sword.
‘This opponent is very strong. She must be a genius from some major demonic sect. How could a genius’s spirit tool be weak?’
But she wanted to run; Hua Jian wouldn’t give her that chance.
Just as she intended to retreat, the ambushing wooden arrows that had been silent for a long time appeared behind her again.
This time, the wooden arrows almost completely sealed off her escape route. It was hard to imagine what kind of setup could produce such a dense net of fire.
Of course, Hua Jian’s wooden arrows were very different from ordinary arrows.
They were more like bullets made of wood, about the thickness and length of an index finger.
A single such “wooden arrow” might seem insignificant, but when a bunch of them attacked a person, the scene was quite beautiful.
And this demonic cultivator had already experienced the pain of Hua Jian’s special bullets. She didn’t dare underestimate these arrows falling like rain.
Caught in a dilemma, she could only pour all her spiritual power into her protective spirit tool, then face the arrow rain while dodging Hua Jian’s flying sword.
She thought there wouldn’t be too many armor-piercing arrows among these, and the wooden sword thrown by Hua Jian must be the biggest armor-piercing arrow.
No matter how she thought about it, she felt it was better to dodge the wooden sword and withstand the arrow rain.
Things went as she thought. There weren’t many special arrows in the rain.
Under her full defense, even armor-piercing arrows only exploded into wood splinters on her barrier.
As for the ordinary arrows, some couldn’t even get close to her barrier before exploding into debris on the ground.
‘Not that impressive after all.’
The demonic cultivator had just thought this, when the Ling Sword that should have missed suddenly turned in midair and flew toward her again.
‘Sure enough, it wasn’t that simple!’
The demonic cultivator immediately gathered her strength and swung a palm at the incoming Ling Sword.
The almost solid spiritual power collided with the wooden sword.
The sword energy tore through the demonic cultivator’s spiritual power in one go, frightening her into fleeing.
‘Damn it, this Ling Sword is too powerful! This little mouse’s background must be extraordinary!’
When had her spiritual power ever been so easily split?
She suspected that the Ling Sword was not a king-rank spirit tool, but an emperor-rank one!
‘But how could it so easily ignore my attack?’
Stunned by the Ling Sword, she didn’t notice that the remains of the wooden arrows that had shattered on her barrier had undergone a small change.
Tender shoots grew out of the splinters.
The debris hidden on the ground slowly connected, and while the demonic cultivator was entangled with the Ling Sword, a large net was gradually forming underground.
All this happened outside the demonic cultivator’s perception.
She never imagined that the arrows blocked by her barrier could have such a use.
At this moment, she was struggling to deal with the combined attack of the Ling Sword and Hua Jian, completely unable to pay attention to the changes on the ground.
Yes, Hua Jian had also caught up, attacking the demonic cultivator with her flying sword like a knockoff Jianxiu.
The demonic cultivator could clearly feel that Hua Jian’s Sword Control Art was very rusty, nothing compared to a real Jianxiu.
But Hua Jian’s sword was so powerful that her protective barrier had just been cut, leaving a huge gap.
And her counterattacks were blocked by Hua Jian’s Ling Sword, dealing no damage at all.
This demonic cultivator was actually more suited to long-range combat.
She had close-combat spirit techniques, but only a few.
But in the process of grappling with Hua Jian, she had already lost confidence due to Hua Jian’s agile figure.
‘I definitely can’t gain an advantage in close combat. Besides, am I going to compare hardness with that sword with my own hand?’
Seeing that her situation would only get more difficult if she continued, the demonic cultivator finally made a difficult decision.
‘Time to use my one-use spirit tools!’
A small white pennant floating behind her fell into her hand. She reluctantly infused it with spiritual power, then swung it forcefully.
Seeing this, Hua Jian knew the opponent was about to unleash a big move.
She immediately abandoned her original attack and retreated.
“Want to run? Too late! Taste the power of Plunder of Ten Thousand Souls!”
Countless resentful spirits surged out of the white pennant, charging straight at Hua Jian.
Each resentful spirit emitted extremely heavy yin energy, and their howls directly affected a person’s soul, even able to crack the soul of a Lingwang realm cultivator.
‘The killing required to create such a spirit tool must be incalculable.’
Faced with so many resentful spirits, an ordinary person would panic and think about how to escape their pursuit.
Unfortunately, this person had encountered Hua Jian, and Hua Jian was least afraid of these.
“Resentful spirits? Sorry, you’ve chosen the wrong opponent.”
Hua Jian lightly waved her right hand at the resentful spirits charging at her, and colorful illusory flowers bloomed in midair.
The resentful spirits that rushed into the flowers seemed to lose their direction, lingering among the blooms, their bodies gradually fading until they vanished into nothing.
Using the power of the resentful spirits, the illusory flower sea spread rapidly.
This caught the demonic cultivator off guard—she never imagined her own spirit tool would become the enemy’s aid.
‘This was a full-powered peak Lingwang realm attack, with tens of thousands of resentful spirits! How could they be eliminated so easily?’
She didn’t believe it. She wanted to pick up another spirit tool from behind to counterattack, but was interrupted by an unexpected development at her feet.
A huge colorful vine net appeared from beneath her feet. Before she could react, she was already wrapped inside it.
In panic, she aimed the spirit tool already in her hand at the net.
She struck out, and the net did get a gap, but at that moment, the colorful flower sea also reached her side.