The six of them instinctively turned their gazes toward Xu Xian.
Looking at the cracking stone walls and the ceiling that shed debris from time to time, Xu Xian gritted his teeth and said, "Listen to Xiao Ning. We're getting out first."
"Alright."
"Little Grand-Uncle, there are too many children. We can't carry them all!"
Xu Xian furrowed his brows and made a split-second decision. "Stack them up. If you can't stack them, wrap them up or hang them. Anything is better than leaving them here to be buried alive."
"Understood."
"Let's do it."
The seven of them began gathering the children from the ground.
Three thousand female infants covered the entire floor.
They piled them onto their swords. When those were full, they used dharma treasures to wrap the rest. Between carrying them in their arms and using the power of their core formation to hold them in place with spiritual energy, they barely managed to bring all the children with them.
"Move!"
They departed amidst the chaos.
With the little book spirit guiding the way, Xu Xian led the charge at the front, while Wait followed the group with its own sentience.
'Master, we have a bit of trouble. Someone is coming.'
Xu Xian synchronized his vision.
Several foundation establishment and two core formation cultivators were approaching. Looking back at the group behind him, he felt his head throb with a massive headache.
Among them, only Xu Xian was at the foundation establishment stage, and only he had never learned object-control divine abilities. Naturally, he was the only one whose body wasn't draped with children held by spiritual energy.
He shoved the two babies he was holding into the arms of the one-armed Song Qingshu.
He warned the group, "In a moment, don't worry about anything. I'll carve out a path, and you just follow behind me and charge out."
"Little Grand-Uncle, can you handle it?"
"I have to handle it, even if I can't!"
"Please be careful."
Xu Xian nodded.
Given the current situation, there was no time for sentimentality.
From his storage bag, Xu Xian pulled out a low-grade spirit weapon he had just looted from the dead core formation cultivator. It was a saber; he weighed it in his hand.
A sword could slash, and a saber could stab. It was all the same to him; it would work.
"Time to risk it."
He accelerated, rushing toward the approaching auras. The immortal sword Wait continued to follow behind the group, carrying the infants.
In this underground grotto, there was naturally more than one passage. They were of all sizes and intricately interconnected. However, in their current situation, their life-bound swords had been expanded to carry more infants. Each sword was wider than a carriage—especially Xu Xian's Wait, which had grown over ten meters long like a mountain-splitting giant sword. They could only take the main passage.
"Quick, keep up!"
"Be careful, don't walk into an ambush..."
A blurred shadow flickered past, and one of the approaching reinforcements shouted, "Someone's here! Watch out!"
Quicker than words could tell, Xu Xian drew his blade. A green lotus bloomed alongside his strike, radiating a dazzling azure light.
"Argh!"
Unfortunately, the saber in his hand was not Wait. It couldn't pierce the opponent's protective spiritual energy and failed to deliver the expected fatal blow. Fortunately, the passage was narrow, and the explosion of sword qi was powerful enough to blast through the air, knocking several people back.
Xu Xian intentionally revealed his face, not forgetting to mock them. "A bunch of trash! If you have the guts, come kill me!"
Though none of them had seen Xu Xian before, his foundation establishment cultivation, his youthful appearance, and that azure sword qi gave them their answer.
After all, they had been searching for Xu Xian for an entire day and night, driven to exhaustion. They had long since wanted to skin him alive and pull out his tendons. Now that he had delivered himself to their doorstep, they weren't about to let him go. They swarmed forward.
"It's him!"
"We finally found you!"
"You little brat from the Wendao Sword Sect, let's see where you run this time!"
"Get him!"
Xu Xian rampaged forward, charging toward the cave exit. He didn't stay to fight. He certainly couldn't win a direct confrontation, and if they accidentally collapsed the passage, they would all be buried. While cultivators wouldn't fear that—they could just tunnel their way out—those infants would have no chance of survival.
What he needed to do now was lure out everyone—both those already inside and those still outside.
In the dim passage, bonfires burned on the walls, crackling as the wind howled through. Xu Xian was attacked from both front and back. Even with the enhancement of the Pupil of Insight, he couldn't dodge every attack. Wounds multiplied on his body, and he looked quite battered. Fortunately, most of the people inside were at the foundation establishment stage; even if Xu Xian took their hits head-on, his life wasn't in danger.
After all, his sword body had been tempered repeatedly in the Sword Mound for four full months. It was no exaggeration to say his physical body was tougher than ordinary spirit artifacts.
"Block him!"
"A bunch of useless trash!"
"Elder, this kid is too tough! My blade broke against his head, but he's perfectly fine!"
"Is he even human? He's a total beast!"
"Don't panic! An inescapable net has been set up outside. He can't run!"
Soon, Xu Xian reached the cave entrance, where the moonlight shone brightly. The surface of the pool at the exit shimmered under the light. Ignoring everything else, the little book spirit had already flown out ahead of him, sharing the surrounding information with Xu Xian.
In the calm, moonlit bamboo forest, six core formation cultivators and several foundation establishment ones were lying in wait, ready to strike the moment he emerged.
One of them was the same person who had escaped heavily injured earlier. Clearly, they had received information from him and chose to ambush them here. After all, the seven disciples of the Wendao Sword Sect weren't weak; in a direct battle, the enemies might not necessarily have the advantage.
Xu Xian realized the situation. No wonder there were only two core formation cultivators in the cave while the rest were foundation establishment; those people were just pawns.
Xu Xian's mind raced as he did the math. Setting aside the two old Nascent Soul beasts currently tangled with Nangong Ning and Ruan Zhong, they now had to face eight core formation cultivators and dozens of foundation establishment ones. If Nangong Ning and Ruan Zhong could successfully suppress those two old beasts—even if they ended up wounded—they might still be able to escape tonight.
'There's a chance!'
Xu Xian never thought of giving up. Even though he was covered in wounds, his confidence soared. He took a pill and swallowed it. He reached out and grabbed a foundation establishment cultivator, seizing him by the neck. With a forceful squeeze of his fingers, a bone-chilling crack echoed as the man screamed in agony.
With a powerful throw, he hurled the body out of the cave. Then, with a stomp of his foot, Xu Xian flew out himself, staying low to the ground and hiding behind the corpse.
"He's out!"
"Strike!"
Such a simple obscuration technique might fool foundation establishment cultivators, but it couldn't escape the eyes of the core formation experts. They swarmed him, their killing moves pouring down like a curtain of rain.
"Crap!"
Blocked in front, pursued from behind, surrounded on all sides—every path was a dead end.
"Rat who can't stand the light, let's see how you escape this time!"
A sudden boom shook the area. Bamboo snapped, leaves shattered, and the water from the deep pool was sent splashing a hundred meters into the air.
Inside the cave, Wait grew restless, nearly shaking the infants off its surface. The remaining six disciples looked on with grim expressions. In the Wendao Sword Sect, if a master encountered fatal danger, their life-bound sword would become restless regardless of its grade. The immortal sword's reaction made the situation clear.
"This is bad. Little Grand-Uncle is in danger!"
"Hurry!"
"Charge out!"
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