"Thank you for the compliment, Fellow Daoist." Gu Changhuan's smile did not reach his eyes.

Seeing Black Fiend die so miserably, Zhao Pin'er wept until her voice cracked and faded.

Cloud Fiend's face turned as dark as ink.

He took an ocher flag from his Storage Bag. Black Fiend had died before he could finish preparing his secret art. He would have to fight head-on. The Soil Element Flag was a high-grade first-tier artifact he had bought at great expense. It cast earth spells within a certain range and had helped him kill countless enemies.

He whipped the flag through the air, sending several massive earth spikes hurtling toward Gu Changhuan.

Gu Changhuan cast the Light Body Technique to barely sidestep the barrage. Before he could catch his breath, another volley of earth spikes came crashing down upon him.

As he dodged the onslaught, Gu Changhuan kept glancing toward Zhao Pin'er. It was not out of sudden softness or lingering affection; he had commanded Mo Lin to kill her, and the spirit beast had vanished into the shadows a while ago. Why had it not struck yet?

Mo Lin was skilled at hiding itself, coming and going without a trace. Even its master could not keep track of it.

Zhao Pin'er lay on the ground, watching Gu Changhuan dodge and scramble with vicious delight. She had no idea Mo Lin was watching from hiding, ready to kill her.

"Smash him! Smash him to pieces!"

She kept repeating it, almost delirious.

Mo Lin materialized without warning beside her. Before she even registered its presence, it sank its fangs straight into her fair neck.

Mo Lin was venomous, of course.

Only after Mo Lin had slipped away did Zhao Pin'er realize she had been bitten. She touched her neck.

Her palm came away slick with warm, black blood.

"Sec... second... brother..."

She tried to cry out, but she had already tossed her Storage Bag to Cloud Fiend, leaving her with no Detoxification Pill to save herself.

Black blood began to seep from her eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.

Her voice turned hoarse as she clawed her way across the dirt toward Cloud Fiend, but Mo Lin's poison robbed her of her senses before she could reach him.

Seeing that Zhao Pin'er had ceased breathing, Gu Changhuan raised his voice.

"Fellow Daoist, haven't you noticed my Spirit Beast is missing?"

Cloud Fiend went cold. Come to think of it, the snake had disappeared even before Black Fiend died!

No! Third Sister!

He jerked his head toward Zhao Pin'er, but he was already too late.

Cloud Fiend cried out in grief at the blood running from her eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. Her death seemed to hurt him far more than Black Fiend's.

Mo Lin darted out again like black lightning, trying to strike Cloud Fiend as it had Zhao Pin'er.

Cloud Fiend, however, possessed a far higher cultivation realm than Zhao Pin'er. The moment the black shadow flickered into view, he reacted with practiced speed, drawing a spiritual sword to slash viciously at the beast.

Mo Lin dodged with fluid grace, darted back to Gu Changhuan's side, and slid straight into the Spirit Beast Pouch.

Gu Changhuan stared in disbelief. Mo Lin only picked on those weaker than itself!

"Brat, I swear I'll kill you today!"

With a snarl, Cloud Fiend retrieved a foul-smelling black pill from his Storage Bag and jammed it into his mouth.

"A Boiling Blood Pill. This could be trouble." Gu Changhuan recognized it and frowned. The measures he had prepared would not work against it.

This really was a headache.

A Boiling Blood Pill was a low-grade second-tier medicine. It increased a Qi Condensation cultivator's Spiritual Power by a third and briefly brought their strength close to Foundation Establishment. The price was severe: afterward, their cultivation would drop by one layer, and damage to their meridians would ruin their prospects of further advancement. They would hurt themselves almost as badly as their enemy.

Gu Shixin had been watching from hiding the whole time. When Cloud Fiend took the Boiling Blood Pill, she could barely restrain herself.

She had been on the verge of leaping out to assist when she noticed that although Gu Changhuan was frowning, his expression held no trace of panic.

Did her nephew still have something in reserve?

She stayed where she was, a talisman ready in hand. At the first sign of trouble, she would go out and help Gu Changhuan kill Cloud Fiend.

Cloud Fiend felt his Spiritual Power surge by more than thirty percent after swallowing the Pill. Power roiled within him, and he roared,

"Die!"

The Soil Element Flag blazed with light. A dense barrage of earth spikes hurtled at Gu Changhuan, while more huge spikes burst from the ground, leaving him nowhere to dodge.

Seeing the danger, Gu Changhuan tossed a mirror above his head.

It was the Haotian Mirror, a First-Tier High Grade Magical Artifact with marvelous utility. It could project a strong defense and pin a Qi Condensation cultivator in place for several seconds. Yet against Cloud Fiend's enhanced state, it would likely hold him for three seconds at most.

He had meant to catch Cloud Fiend with the mirror while the man was distraught. But Mo Lin, apparently carried away after its first bite, had launched another attack and ruined his plan.

The Haotian Mirror blocked one earth spike after another. Holding Azure Cloud in one hand, Gu Changhuan stuck a Divine Movement Talisman on himself and threw two more talismans at the ground beneath Cloud Fiend.

Fortunately, the Spirit-Tempering Disc had made his Spiritual Power exceptionally solid. Otherwise, he could not have controlled two artifacts at once while only at the seventh layer of Qi Condensation.

Cloud Fiend leaped aside the instant he saw the talismans leave Gu Changhuan's hand, but their target was never him-it was the earth beneath his boots.

One was a Quicksand Talisman, the other a Ground-Sinking Talisman. Together, they changed the terrain for dozens of meters around Cloud Fiend.

Cloud Fiend's legs sank into the ground. He waved the Soil Element Flag to free himself, but just then a light enveloped him. To his horror, he could no longer move.

Propelled by the Divine Movement Talisman, Gu Changhuan closed the distance in a blur.

Cloud Fiend channeled every ounce of his surging spiritual power in a frantic struggle, finally shattering the mirror's restraint. But by then, the blade was already upon him.

Cloud Fiend felt pain in his neck. Then the world began to spin, and he seemed to be spinning with it.

With a clean stroke, Gu Changhuan relieved Cloud Fiend of his head, snatched the storage pouch from his belt, and retreated to the bough of a nearby tree.

He took out a Pill to recover. The Haotian Mirror was useful, but it consumed an alarming amount of Spiritual Power, more than twice as much as the Azure Cloud Sword.

An ordinary late-stage Qi Condensation cultivator would have to consider whether they had enough Spiritual Power to use it.

Once he had recovered half his Spiritual Power, Gu Changhuan returned to the battlefield. The fight had transformed what had been a flat, open clearing.

He picked up Black Fiend's Storage Bag, cremated all three bodies, and let the Barbarian Bull Beast out to continue the journey.

The skirmish had cost him precious time; he would likely not reach Nine Perches Market until nightfall.

As they set off, Gu Changhuan noticed the beast was moving noticeably faster than before.

Had the smell of blood made it restless?

What he did not know was that Mo Lin had intimidated the beast inside the Spirit Beast Pouch.

Snakes liked to claim their territory. Until then, Mo Lin had had the pouch to itself and considered the whole place its own. When a large beast with lower cultivation suddenly appeared, it had to teach the intruder its place.

The Barbarian Bull Beast was gentle by nature and no good at fighting. Intimidated by the mutated serpent's aura, it ran all the harder.

Had Gu Changhuan known the reason, he likely would have chuckled at Mo Lin's habit of bullying the weak while dodging the strong.

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