"She didn"t want to come," Lu Li replied coldly, scorn dripping from her voice. "After staying in Nine-Tailed Fox Sect for over a year, she seems to have softened. That"s why she doesn"t want to partic.i.p.ate in the elimination of Nine-Tailed Fox Sect."

"I know how she feels," Ling Yu Mei whispered, her tone gentle and understanding. "She must have developed strong ties to the people here."

Even so, Yin Jing Jing could not go against the decision of her father, and the sect leaders of the Seven Valley Sects. Now that they had decided to destroy Nine-Tailed Fox Sect, nothing Yin Jing Jing said would sway them, and she was lucky they didn"t force her to kill her former Nine-Tailed Sect comrades. That would have truly broken her heart.

"Is there a need to kill everyone like this?" Ling Yu Xuan was horrified when she saw a Dark Fiend Valley Sect martial artist cut down a fleeing civilian. "A lot of the people here are not martial artists. They are just ordinary people. Can"t we let them go?"

"They are part of Nine-Tailed Fox Sect. Therefore they must die." Lu Li was as indifferent as ever. "That was the order from the Martial Arts Alliance."

"The royal family won"t stand for this. If they find out, they will send the Imperial Guard to subdue the Martial Arts Alliance."

Ling Yu Mei looked grim, but Lu Li merely laughed mockingly.

"The Imperial Guard? Do they really think they"re a match for the Martial Arts Alliance? All the stronger warriors are from the martial arts sects. The Imperial Guard comprises of ordinary soldiers. They will be wiped out if they try to take us on."

That wasn"t very accurate. The Imperial Guard trained its soldiers in various martial arts, and many experts and masters in the orthodox sects were former Imperial Guardsmen who had retired or quit the military, hoping to look for better pastures or careers. They were definitely more than a match for the Martial Arts Alliance, though admittedly, Lu Li had a point. If the Imperial Guard clashed with the Martial Arts Alliance, both sides would suffer grievous casualties. It was entirely possible that the royal family would not want to risk that.

However, they could not allow the Martial Arts Alliance to run rampant within their empire and do whatever they wanted and killed whoever they wanted, or their reputation and integrity would be suspect, and the morale of civilians elsewhere would fall. Riots would ensue, especially if they didn"t handle this matter competently.

Ling Yu Mei knew this all too well, but she kept quiet when Lu Li scoffed at her worries. She could only look away slightly and knitted her fingers anxiously.

"I really hope we will be all right," she murmured to herself and closed her eyes. "One day the Martial Arts Alliance might decide that we"re no longer necessary and try to destroy us like they are doing to the Nine-Tailed Fox Sect right now."

She recalled the few people she had met, which included me for some reason. I didn"t know why, but it probably had something to do with me helping them meet up with Elder Tie and convincing him to forge their Spirit Artifacts for them.

"Huh? Isn"t that Fei Wu?"

Ling Yu Xuan suddenly shouted in excitement and pointed downward. The other two girls followed the direction of her gaze and caught sight of my figure hurrying along the street, trying to keep to the shadows but failing to because of all the bright fires that both immolated the surrounding buildings and illuminated the district as clearly as it would have been during daytime. I glanced up and waved at them, my gla.s.ses having spotted them a few seconds ago.

Ling Yu Mei was stunned when she saw me, recognizing me. I had no idea how she did that all the way up in the skysc.r.a.per, not when she wasn"t wearing the same gla.s.ses with hi-tech functionalies as I was. Well, she probably conveniently spotted me for dramatic effect, I guess? Because screw logic for plot device.

Doubt filled her eyes, in any case, and she was undoubtedly wondering why someone of my status was wandering around an enemy-held district on my own. I couldn"t tell her it was because I didn"t fit into Da Ge"s car. Now that I thought about it, I should have hitched a ride by clinging onto the top of the car or risk suffocation by hiding in the boot, but neither of those options were practical, to be honest.

"Fei Wu? He"s Fei Wu?" The temperature of Lu Li"s voice dropped several dozen degrees. "So he"s the Fei Wu who refused me entry into the main Nine-Tailed Fox Sect grounds, not allowing me to take even a single step inside?"

"Um…yeah, seems like him…" Ling Yu Xuan replied cautiously.

"He"s on the hit list!" Lu Li sucked in a deep breath, uncharacteristically enthusiastic. Frosty qi was spilling out of her blue eyes. "I"m going to kill him!"

Honestly, why was the Martial Arts Alliance trying to kill me? I was just an insignificant person who showed some promise. Normally the more sensible thing to do was try and recruit me into some compliant sect in the Martial Arts Alliance and make use of my potential instead of…you know, killing me for no reason other than because I was the protagonist and the story strived on conflict. Not unless they already knew my relationship to the Heaven and Earth Sect, but given how I didn"t see any official declaration or condemnation of me learning demonic martial arts techniques on the Internet or the news, I highly doubted that.

In any case, Lu Li showed no hesitation. She drew her sword and suddenly jumped down from the top of the skysc.r.a.per. Which would normally be suicide, but being a martial artist in a xianxia setting, she was capable of qigong and could thus defy gravity and fly. In any case, she landed right in front of me, carving a crater in the concrete ground.

"Oh!" Instead of being shocked by her abrupt appearance, I clapped my hands sarcastically. "Cla.s.sic superhero landing! Impressive!"

Meanwhile, high above, the Ling Sisters were thrown into turmoil at the sudden turn of events. They glanced at each other uncertainly.

"What should we do?" Ling Yu Xuan asked. "Fei Wu not only helped us with our request for a Nine-Tailed Fox Sect elder to forge customized Spirit Armaments for us, he also saved our cousin, Qing Zhu. It doesn"t feel right if we help Lu Li kill him."

Ling Yu Mei was similarly distressed, and extremely reluctant to take part in this wanton, cold-blooded murder.

"This person is the benefactor of Cousin Qing Zhu and helped us. It will be difficult for me to fight him." Ling Yu Mei took a deep breath and finally spoke up. Ling Yu Xuan nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, that"s right. Although we don"t know him very well, I strongly believe that he"s a good person. Let"s just watch for now."

This the two sisters merely spectated from the top of the skysc.r.a.per instead of jumping down in a suicidal manner like their senior.

"Are you Fei Wu? Fei Wu of Nine-Tailed Fox Sect?" Lu Li stomped from the crater toward me and blocked my way, though given my footwork techniques, I could easily go around her and escape. Especially now that I was free of the burden of carrying Tang Qi Hong around, which meant that I could move a lot faster than before. But for some reason, seeing Lu Li p.i.s.sed me off, so I hung around and nodded. She watched me with an icy expression. "Have we met each other in the past before?"

"We sure did." I rolled my eyes. "Have you already forgotten the incident when you ran into me on your way to the Nine-Tailed Fox Sect entrance?"

"Have I killed any of your relatives?" Lu Li demanded, ignoring me.

"Um…no?"

"Then I want to know why you specifically ordered your fellow Blood Blades to bar me from taking even a single step into Nine-Tailed Fox Sect!" Lu Li shrieked.

I gaped at her for a moment, not believing how shameless, arrogant and self-centered she was. Shaking my head, I gestured toward her.

"Because you insulted me and slandered me. come on, don"t tell me you"ve totally forgotten how you called me a lowly trash and accused me of stalking the Ling Sisters even though I had never met them before. Though, come to think of it…" I paused for a moment and frowned. "You did pretend to have a short memory and "forgot" about your insults and accusations just mere seconds after I barred you from the sect. I suspect you"re doing this on purpose, though."

"Good! Very good!" Lu Li was laughing for some reason, which made me wary rather than amused. I could actually feel the temperature plummet around her, and being a user of ice techniques, that was saying something. "You are right! I did all that! But you deserve it, you lowly trash! You f.u.c.king stalker!"

The deadly blade of her sword glowed with frosty light as she channeled her qi into it, gripping the hilt tightly.

"Oh boy."

I sighed and pushed my gla.s.ses up my nose in resignation. It seemed that this b.i.t.c.h had gone mad. No matter what I said, she would insist that she was in the right, and that I deserved to be abused. Well, I begged to differ, but resorting to a shouting match wasn"t the pinnacle of maturity. In any case, Lu Li seemed more interested in settling our differences through more physical, violent means than the exchange of harsh language.

c.o.c.king my head to the side to relax the stiff muscles of my neck, I studied Lu Li while my gla.s.ses gave off incomprehensible readings and charts regarding her qi, body temperature, heart rate and other irrelevant values that were of no value to my current situation. Then I raised my head and glanced in the direction of Ling Yu Mei and Ling Yu Xuan.

Apparently they had no intention of intervening. Fine by me. Even though I didn"t know them very well, I held no grudge or feelings of hostility toward them. If they had no intention of hurting me, then I certainly had no plans to touch them.

a.s.sured of that fact, I then focused all my attention on Lu Li. While I did so, I was suddenly aware of the lack of life around us. It appeared that all the people here had been slaughtered. The only remnants were the people from Dark Fiend Vally Sect, or from one of the other six Valley Sects. They were moving forward to surround me, to cut off any route of my escape. Or so they thought, but I could still easily break out of their encirclement.

But I didn"t want to. They had conveniently gathered around for me to eliminate all of them in one fell swoop. I couldn"t have asked for anything better.

"So you"re the ones who purged this area," I remarked, my voice filled with disgust. Lu Li merely sneered as she infused her deadly blade with more of her frosty qi.

"And now you"ll be joining them in h.e.l.l," she vowed.

"Yare yare." I shook my head and sighed. While I initially cut through this route with the belief that I would be saving time through a direct path back to Flame Volcano, it seemed that I would be delayed a little.

Lu Li was going to be a lot of trouble.

Frosty light shimmered from the sword in her hand. Icy air was drifting from her body and clouding the entire area in fog. I could detect the merciless ruthlessness that permeated every square centimeter of the dense fog, which was unfolding murderously toward me.

Evidently Lu Li also practiced ice-based martial arts, and she was an expert at it. I wondered why she was in the Dark Fiend Valley Sect instead of the Snow Valley Sect, or perhaps the Seven Valley Sects all learned the same type of martial arts, which explained their close relationship to each other. And she was pretty powerful.

However, Lu Li was probably on the same level as Tong Xue, Pang Feng and Liang Shao Yang. At most, she was at Liang Shao Yang"s level, no stronger than that. I didn"t know what realm or stage she was, and I didn"t care, and honestly it wouldn"t matter. It was just a rough estimate. There were a lot of other factors that would determine the outcome of a match. Liang Shao Yang, for example, might be superior to her in terms of amount of qi and physical strength, but Lu Li might be better at comprehension of her technqiues and speed.

Thus this whole realm and power levels and stage thing was bulls.h.i.t to begin with. It wasn"t as simple as someone opening x number of natal palaces, or achieving a fixed amount of qi. How do you quantify qi in the first place? And how much qi was equivalent to what stage? And how did that account for other factors, such as one"s physical strength, speed, mastery of one"s individual martial arts or experience?

Regardless, I was confident that I could defeat Lu Li. There was no way she was stronger than Pang Feng, and I had just defeated my friend. Lu Li was obviously a lot less durable and much more fragile than he was. If I could get a couple of hits in, she would be lying in the dirt.

The same could be said for the surrounding Dark Fiend Valley Sect martial artists surrounding me. Even so, I couldn"t underestimate them. Concepts like "weaker" and "stronger" did not solely decide the outcome of a match. Even a weaker martial artist can take a stronger one by surprise and kill him, especially if the latter stupidly underestimated him. All humans died. The only difference was how they died.

"Kill him!" Lu Li shrieked.

"You want to kill me?" I smiled coldly. Even though I had been wounded during the fight with Pang Feng, the immense amount of qi in my body had allowed me to recover somewhat. I had been s.n.a.t.c.hing a few moments of recuperation during my long trek back to Flame Volcano, convalescing whenever I had the chance to do so. As a result, I was almost fully healed by now, an effect that surprised even myself. And I honestly doubted that Lu Li could defeat me if I was at full strength, but even so I was determined not to underestimate her. That didn"t mean I was above taunting her. Psychological warfare was just as important in combat as martial arts. "You don"t have the power to do so."

Without even moving, I allowed the frosty qi to gush out of my body, which overpowered even Lu Li"s icy technique. My Absolute Zero technique was much more powerful than her pathetic ice technique, and the charging Dark Fiend Valley Sect martial artists were all caught in it and froze to death before they could reach me, their entombed figures becoming statues for a few seconds before they shattered into countless fragments.

"!!!"

Lu Li would have died in the same horrible way if she hadn"t been an ice-based martial artist. As it was, her affinity with the ice element allowed her to withstand my Absolute Zero, but she was stumbling away, ice rapidly spreading across her body.

"You?! How…?"

"What? You can"t accept reality? You can"t imagine that you would ever be defeated by lowly trash like me?" I scoffed as I urst through the fog and kicked her, sending her flying. Lu Li struck the ground, blood spurting from her mouth. The rate at which my Absolute Zero ice was spreading over her body accelerated.

"Kuh!"

Lu Li gripped her sword tighter and it released another thick, icy fog that shrouded her. This time, right after Lu Li"s entire silhouette was enveloped within the fog, ice flowers blasted out from inside the fog, streaking toward me in a lethal fashion.

Each ice flower was meticulously sculpted in exquisite detail, beautiful but deadly. Not only that, but each ice flower possessed a tremendous amount of frost qi. They sped toward me, forcing me to draw my Azure Lotus Sword from Snow Aegis and cut through them. Our frost qi collided violently, but I managed to disperse Lu Li"s aggressive elemental energy.

"Fool!" Lu Li"s voice echoed coldly from somewhere inside the frost, its owner unseen. "Did you really think you can compete against me in ice techniques? Yours is still lacking by a huge margin!"

A barrage of gleaming ice flowers were launched from within the dense fog, transforming into a violent hailstorm that descended murderously upon me.

I chuckled as I saw the sight, almost mesmerized. "You think you"re the only one who can create ice flowers?"

Within the fog, I sensed Lu Li stiffen. Even if I couldn"t see her, I could still track her presence and precise location with Heavenly Flow and Earthly Steps, and mark out her vulnerable spots. Unlike Pang Feng, they were everywhere. It would be but a simple matter for me to defeat her.

But I didn"t want to just defeat Lu Li. I wanted to humiliate her.

Dashing forward, I used Snow Aegis to shield myself from the barrage of ice flowers. I charged right into the fog and thrust my sword at a stunned Lu Li, who never thought I would be able to find her inside her shrouded qi. She tried to deflect my Snow Aegis as I bashed her with my shield, but it was a feint to draw her sword away. While she staggered from the impact, I thrust my sword forward, exploiting an opening.

Credit to Lu Li, her reflexes were amazing. She immediately twisted away to avoid a strike to her vitals, but my Azure Lotus Sword still pierced her shoulder. That was sufficient. Grinning, I yelled at the top of my voice.

"Release Recollection!"

"What the h.e.l.l?!"

Lu Li was screaming as thousands of frost flowers suddenly bloomed, icy lotus that grew all around her, trapping her inside a glacial lake with lotus blossoms sculpted entirely from ice. Her body vanished, encased within the icy, flowery tomb, and I yanked my bloodied Azure Lotus Sword from her, whipping it to send her filthy blood spraying to the side.

"Told ya." I couldn"t help but sound smug as I sheathed my sword. To be honest, I was tempted to kill her, but I knew that the Ling Sisters would intervene and stop me before I could, and I didn"t want to waste time fighting against them.

So I left Lu Li frozen inside the lake of icy lotus flowers and departed the Rainbow Valley Road without any further obstacles in my way.

"Ling Yu Mei! Ling Yu Xuan! Stop him for me!" Lu Li suddenly shrieked from within her frozen coffin.

d.a.m.n, but she sure was tenacious. I reflected that it was only her affinity with ice and her high mastery of frost techniques that allowed her to not only survive but to withstand my Release Recollection technique (another skill I picked up from Master Eugeo…cough). Anyone else in my generation would have died from that. Well, almost anyone else, anyway.

But to think that Lu Li could still retain her consciousness and still issue orders.

Fortunately, if it was just the Ling sisters, I could just easily avoid them with footwork techniques and I doubted they would be able to catch up with me. If it had been earlier, when I was still carrying Tang Qi Hong around, I would be at a ma.s.sive disadvantage and slowed down by my burden (I disliked the word, but I couldn"t think of a better alternative). Now that I handed Tang Qi Hong off to Zi Xiao Ji and her bodyguards, I could move freely and swiftly. There was nothing to hold me back from escaping the Ling Sisters. I had also mercilessly eliminated all the other Dark Fiend Valley Sect disciples in the vicinity, which Ni Cang Tian completely forgot about in the original story when Qin Lie fought Lu Li (I found it hard to believe that the Seven Fiends Valley pract.i.tioners just continued to hide in the buildings and let Qin Lie go after he trapped Lu Li with his Geocentric Magnetism technique and Lu Li resorted to asking only the Ling Sisters to help while forgetting that she practically had an entire army in the area under her command and only called them with a b.l.o.o.d.y horn after she lost – did they not notice that a vicious fight was taking place right in the district they were cleaning out and had to be summoned by a horn? No way), so I didn"t have to worry about pursuers as well. And because I had read Spirit Realm, I knew how the Ling sisters would react.

Atop the skysc.r.a.per, Ling Yu Mei and Ling Yu Xuan exchanged glances. They both looked very helpless, and they decided to just obey for now, jumping down from the skysc.r.a.per and landing in front of me to block my path.

"I"m extremely sorry, but we cannot let you go." Ling Yu Mei looked very apologetic and guilty, and she conjured a stream of water.

Ling Yu Mei nodded briefly as she summoned a series of fire that hovered around her like will"o wisps. She also looked awkward and uncomfortable as she whispered softly. "I don"t dare to ignore Senior Lu"s orders, so I can only stop you. Sorry."

"It"s not your fault." I waved the sisters" apologies away. "You"re only doing as you"re told. I would have done the same in a similar situation."

"Hurry!" Lu Li shrieked impatiently. I could sense her trying to fight her way out of the ice that ruthlessly encased her, but it would hold for a long while. Even so, I couldn"t dither here for too long. Even if Lu Li didn"t break out of the ice in time, she could still call for reinforcements (though I doubt her smartphone would work inside the ice) and if Shi Jing Yun returned, I would be in a world of hurt. Even I wouldn"t be able to escape that guy, not with my current skills.

Ling Yu Mei seemed to have realized the same thing too, judging from the slight shift in her expression when she heard Lu Li"s order. She chewed on her lip for a second before seeming to come to a decision.

"Sis, block him!" Ling Yu Mei instructed, even as her eyes blinked continuously. She suspiciously seemed to be sending some kind of message to Ling Yu Xuan.

Fortunately, both sisters seemed to be thinking the same thing. Their relationship had to be really deep if they could practically read each other"s minds. Even I wouldn"t be able to do that with my brother, and I briefly wondered what trials the two sisters must have gone through to achieve that kind of near-telepathic connection. In any case, Ling Yu Xuan understood immediately the instant she saw Ling Yu Mei"s eyes, and she nodded.

Then all of her fireb.a.l.l.s suddenly launched themselves at me.

I blocked them effortlessly with Snow Aegis, but it was a feint. Both sisters were now charging headlong at me for some reason, water and fire circling their respective hands. I was amused, and readied to use a footwork technique to evade them, extremely confident that neither of them would be able to touch me.

However, I noticed that neither of them was emitting any killing intent at all, and having read the original book, I was aware of their plans. So I smiled slightly and remained where I was, not budging even an inch.

As I suspected, right before the two sisters reached me, they suddenly split up and rushed past me, one going past my right and the other going past my left, and continued straight on behind me.

They had gone past me on purpose.

"d.a.m.n it! He dodged us!" Ling Yu Xuan shouted dramatically as she hurriedly turned her head around.

"Don"t let him escape!" Ling Yu Mei yelled as a perfect follow-up that would convince Lu Li that her sister was telling the truth.

I glanced back and nodded my thanks to the two sisters, and then disappeared from Rainbow Valley Road without any hesitation, using my footwork techniques to beat the h.e.l.l out of there.

Behind me, Ling Yu Mei and Ling Yu Xuan put on a performance, acting as if they were pursuing me relentlessly.

Further behind us, in the distance, Lu Li was still trapped within the icy flowery tomb, unable to break free from her confinement.