Meanwhile, Su Yueli's right hand gripped Xiaohei's fist blades hidden inside her sleeve, the blood qi in her body already rising to its critical point.
She was waiting.
The moment this Cangyun Sect disciple's fingers touched her storage bag, she would strike instantly.
Her target would be his throat—this strike had to be fatal!
Even if she couldn't kill him, she absolutely had to severely wound him within a single move, crushing his vocal cords and transmission talisman so he couldn't send any distress signals.
Otherwise, if she drew the other cultivators outside the city—especially that unfathomable Seventh Realm old monster—she would have to forfeit her life here today.
For a moment, a dead silence fell over the main road.
The young cultivator's face filled with impatience. He raised his right hand, spiritual energy flickering at his fingertips, as he prepared to grab the old storage bag at Su Yueli's waist.
Right then, his movements suddenly froze.
“Hmm?”
The young cultivator turned his head, staring toward the plains a few miles away.
Within his spiritual perception, a powerful wave of cultivator mana suddenly erupted on the road in the distance.
The aura felt panicked and hurried, as if a loose cultivator who had concealed their cultivation had used a secret treasure and was now fleeing at full speed into the distance.
The young cultivator knit his brows, weighing the pros and cons in his mind.
Elder Han had given strict orders. For the Grand Supreme Elder's life-extending medicine and the dharma-image fragment, they must not let any suspicious cultivator escape.
Although the woman in the blue dress before him was a bit strange, she was ultimately just a mortal with no spiritual energy.
Compared to the cultivator fleeing at full speed in the distance, that side was clearly the real big fish.
If he let the real guest of Room Eight slip away just to search the shabby bags of a few secular martial artists, his head would definitely roll when he returned.
“Court death!”
The young cultivator cursed under his breath. Giving up on inspecting the mortal convoy before him, the light beneath his feet erupted. He transformed into a streak of blue light, soaring into the air and giving chase into the distance.
“Ugh...”
Just like that, the young cultivator departed.
On the rocky road, the Wantong Merchant House's convoy remained dead silent.
Su Yueli stood in place, not daring to let her guard down. No one could tell if this was a trick to catch her off guard.
Only after dozens of breaths had passed and she confirmed that the mana had completely vanished did her tense muscles slowly relax.
The surrounding nine martial artists looked at one another, their foreheads drenched in cold sweat.
Old Man Lin, the manager, wiped the sweat from his face and barked in a low voice, “Don't just stand there, let's go! If that immortal master comes back empty-handed, he might take his anger out on us. Quick, get the carriages moving, full speed ahead!”
After all, the immortal master hadn't told them to wait there. If they didn't leave now, any sudden change might mean they would never be able to leave.
In an instant, horsewhips cracked, and the dozen or so carriages sped forward with the rumbling of wheels, terrified of falling behind.
Along the way, the Fifth Realm martial artist surnamed Zhang deliberately slowed his pace and walked up to Su Yueli's side.
Lowering his voice, he chatted, “Miss Su, you really scared me half to death just now. I know you're a peak Sixth Realm expert and have your pride, but...”
Saying this, he sighed, his eyes filled with frustration. “But in the eyes of cultivators, what are we secular martial artists? If they throw a single spell at us, we're all finished. Survival is what matters most. Next time, you absolutely mustn't be so stubborn.”
Faced with his advice, Su Yueli cupped her hands and smiled. “Brother Zhang is right, I've learned my lesson. It was my first time seeing an immortal, so I was a bit dazed with fear and couldn't think straight.”
She naturally wouldn't explain further. This convoy was merely her shield to get out of the city.
Although the Cangyun Sect had been lured away for now, there were bound to be other scouts nearby.
She planned to follow them for a while, and once night fell completely and they were far from Tianyuan City's surveillance zone, she would leave the group and go her own way.
...
Night fell quickly.
The convoy set up camp by a forest, and the martial artists gathered around a campfire to eat their dry rations.
Su Yueli used the excuse of preferring peace and quiet, sitting alone under an ancient tree a hundred meters away.
This spot was secluded, and no one would disturb her.
She took out her old wine gourd, tilted her head back, and took a sip of the Immortal's Brew.
The strong liquor burned as it went down her throat, and a trace of faint spiritual energy spread within her, soothing the meridians of her newly broken-through Delusion Breaker Rank.
Since that True Spirit Dharma-Image Jade Fragment involved the profound intent of a great divine ability beyond the Tenth Realm, she didn't dare to take it out and examine it now, fearing she might attract passing cultivation powerhouses.
But she had no such worries regarding that cultivation technique manual.
Su Yueli fished out the yellowed, ancient book from her storage bag—the Mountain-Shaking Heaven-Shattering Force.
By the faint moonlight filtering through the gaps in the leaves, she turned to the first page.
Four characters were written upon it: Heaven-Grade High-Rank.
This was already the strongest martial art a mortal could possibly deduce.
Spending those fifty low-grade spirit stones was no different from getting it for free.
The circulation method of this technique was exceptionally overbearing. It required controlling the Ji Dao blood qi within the body to forcefully compress and separate nine layers of blood qi deep within the arm bones and bone marrow.
With every punch, the nine layers of compressed blood qi within the marrow would vibrate continuously within a ten-thousandth of a second, producing a terrifying, ninefold overlapping hidden force.
According to the Martial God's records in the book, once this technique reached minor mastery, a single punch with threefold hidden force could shatter an opponent's internal organs right through a mana shield.
If trained to grand mastery, the ninefold forces would merge into one, capable of directly smashing a cultivator's defensive magic treasure. It was a killer move specifically designed to shatter a cultivator's shield.
However, the requirements for cultivation were far too harsh. If the physical body's meridians could not withstand such compression, the arm would instantly explode into a bloody pulp.
But Su Yueli had just consumed three Divine Vitality Blood-Generating Pills, making her physical body incomparably formidable.
Thinking of this, she did not delay. She immediately closed her eyes and formed hand seals, guiding the surging blood qi in her body along the pathways to condense the first compressed hidden force within the marrow of her right arm.
The process of forcing the blood qi into the crevices of her bones was excruciatingly painful and slow, and her consciousness became entirely immersed in her skeletal pathways.
One layer... two layers...
Before she knew it, in her dazed state, Su Yueli heard the sounds of the martial artists rising in the surrounding camp, along with the shouting of horses.
She opened her eyes; the horizon was already turning a pale blue.
It was dawn... Time had actually flown by so quickly!
Su Yueli stood up and clenched her right fist.
She could clearly feel two dark, terrifying, vibrating forces lying dormant deep within the bones of her right arm.
She was momentarily dumbfounded.
Wait... seriously? She had only contemplated it for a single night, and she had already learned it?
Su Yueli wasn't sure. The feeling was very vague; it felt like she had learned it, yet also like she hadn't.
It was probably because she had just entered the state—her mind said she knew how, but her hands said they hadn't actually struck yet.
After a moment of thought, Su Yueli decided to catch up with the convoy and travel with them for another stretch. In any case, it was already daylight.
Rate on N.U.
