A mountain wind swept through, rustling the leaves and sending them scattering to the ground.

Yang Fangyu glanced at the surrounding demons.

Not a single one of them was weak.

To say nothing of the Tiger-headed Demon and the Soul Chasing Tower Lord.

It was a situation with almost no chance of survival.

Zhu Wu’s face had turned green. An assembly of this strength would be enough to take on a Prefect, yet it was being used to corner just a few of them. It was a clear case of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

But his gaze quickly hardened with vicious resolve.

He might be a coward, but he knew full well that in a situation like this, survival meant fighting with everything he had.

Yang Fangyu gritted his teeth. "Brothers, every man for himself!"

Wielding his long saber in a wild frenzy, he charged in one direction.

The others were just as fast, bolting in different directions almost simultaneously. If they stayed and let themselves be surrounded, they would all be wiped out.

As for who would live, that would come down to luck.

With a single slash, Bai Yuan forced a Lion Demon back, then used the Night Wanderer Step to break through the encirclement.

He glanced behind him.

The Soul Chasing Tower Lord was in hot pursuit, along with two Soul-Chasing Tower Assassins.

His heart couldn’t help but sink.

In truth, though there seemed to be many enemies, the only real threats were the Soul Chasing Tower Lord and that Tiger-headed Demon.

Once targeted by that man and demon, the chances of death would be high.

Bai Yuan pushed his Night Wanderer Step to its absolute limit, fleeing through the woods.

He remained calm, using a Demon Hunter’s awareness of the terrain to shake the three pursuers behind him.

While each obstacle had a negligible effect on the three, over time the two Soul-Chasing Tower Assassins gradually fell behind, a gap of a hundred zhang opening between them and the Soul Chasing Tower Lord.

The Soul Chasing Tower Lord suddenly narrowed his eyes.

He watched as Bai Yuan, who had been sprinting in a straight line, abruptly changed direction, carving an arc through the mountain forest.

At incredible speed, Bai Yuan closed in on the two Assassins trailing behind the Lord.

The brilliant gleam of a saber flashed across the eyelids of the two Soul-Chasing Tower Assassins. The strike was so fast they couldn’t even see how Bai Yuan had drawn his blade.

Reinforcement Points +1245

Reinforcement Points +1431

Two heads rolled to the ground.

Even in death, the two Assassins never knew how the blade had killed them.

In that instant, the Soul Chasing Tower Lord appeared before Bai Yuan, and a dagger so sharp it seemed it could slice through anything flew toward him.

Bai Yuan met the dagger with a slash of his saber.

CLANG! The dagger and saber collided, sending the smaller blade spinning away to the side.

But then a bizarre scene unfolded. The dagger suddenly froze in mid-air before shooting toward Bai Yuan once again.

Bai Yuan threw his head back, executing a perfect iron bridge maneuver to narrowly dodge the impossibly unpredictable strike.

’It’s projected energy!’

He saw through the trick in a single glance.

There were no threads attached to the dagger. Or rather, the Soul Chasing Tower Lord’s invisible projected energy was the thread.

It was the first time Bai Yuan had ever seen such a profound application of projected energy.

The Soul Chasing Tower Lord had used projected energy to achieve an effect akin to Sword Control, making his attacks impossible to defend against.

’They say the Soul-Chasing Tower’s methods are unpredictable. It’s really true!’

The Lord twisted two fingers on his right hand, and the dagger in mid-air struck at Bai Yuan once more, now wielded like a throwing knife.

He sized up the young Sect Leader of the Divine Mansion Sect with great interest.

This was already their second clash.

Last time, Bai Yuan had used the Firearms Team to trap him.

This time, he’d had the audacity to ignore the pursuit and kill someone right under his nose.

He had to admit, Bai Yuan certainly had some nerve.

But the more nerve a Martial Artist had, the more he wanted to kill them.

Bai Yuan was indeed a genius, able to fight him at such a young age. But the Jianghu didn’t care about the strong bullying the weak, and today, he would use his years of experience to crush Bai Yuan.

The movements of his hand grew faster, and the flying dagger in the air began to faintly whistle as it cut through the air.

Bai Yuan brandished his long saber, precisely blocking every strike from the flying dagger.

He frowned slightly.

He had, of course, brought the Firearms Team this time as well, but they hadn’t appeared. They were clearly being held up by the Soul-Chasing Tower’s people.

Unnoticed, the distance between him and the Soul Chasing Tower Lord had closed to a single zhang.

In the next instant, dark bluish-black spots appeared on Bai Yuan’s exposed arms. He abandoned his saber and lunged at the Lord, striking with his palm.

The Lord was a veteran of countless battles; he had already sensed Bai Yuan’s intentions.

With a cold snort, he met Bai Yuan’s attack with a palm strike of his own.

Their palms collided in mid-air. Bai Yuan let out a muffled grunt as the Soul Chasing Tower Lord’s strike sent him flying back ten meters, where he crashed into a tree as thick as a man’s wrist.

’Poison!’ The thought flashed through both Bai Yuan’s and the Lord’s minds simultaneously.

"To think I’d run into a fellow practitioner."

Bai Yuan hadn’t expected this Soul Chasing Tower Lord to use poison as well.

The only difference was that, unlike his own toad venom, the Lord had hidden Poison Needles between his fingers.

The Lord also stared at his own palm in disbelief.

He had anticipated that Bai Yuan’s palm strike would be tricky, but he never imagined his poison would be so potent.

Even though his body had been trained through special means to be nearly immune to all poisons, he still couldn’t suppress Bai Yuan’s toxin.

Bai Yuan wiped the blood trickling from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, a ruthless glint in his eyes.

"I’m going to cut you down today!"

He had tested poisons on his own body for a century; there were few in the world with a higher poison resistance than him.

Today, he would see who would succumb to the poison and die first: him or this Soul Chasing Tower Lord.

Just as Bai Yuan was about to raise his saber and charge the Lord, a familiar voice sounded from behind him.

"Nephew Bai, I’m here to help you."

It was Jiang Changping!

Jiang Changping had appeared behind the Soul Chasing Tower Lord at some unknown point, and he brought his saber down in a heavy, powerful chop.

At that critical moment, a red glow flashed between the Soul Chasing Tower Lord’s brows. His speed suddenly increased severalfold, and his figure moved like a phantom, dodging Jiang Changping’s strike and darting toward the forest.

Bai Yuan reacted instantly, flicking a firearm from his sleeve.

BANG!

The bullet grazed the Soul Chasing Tower Lord’s cheek, conveniently knocking off the black cloth masking his face.

The Lord’s speed was too great for Bai Yuan to get a clear look at her face, but he could distinctly make out one thing: the infamous Soul Chasing Tower Lord of Ling Province was actually a woman!

He was just about to give chase with his saber.

A large hand rested on his right shoulder.

"Don’t bother chasing. She used a Secret Technique, you won’t catch her. Deal with the poison first."

Jiang Changping spoke calmly. He could tell at a glance that Bai Yuan was severely poisoned.

He had been about to offer help in neutralizing the poison, but then he saw Bai Yuan take out a self-refined Antitoxic Pill from his robes. Bai Yuan tossed three pills into his mouth and, in no time, was bouncing around as if nothing had ever been wrong.

He was inwardly astonished.

’The Soul Chasing Tower Lord’s poison is terrifying, yet Bai Yuan recovered so quickly.’

Although Jiang Changping hadn’t witnessed the entire fight between Bai Yuan and the Soul Chasing Tower Lord, he had seen Bai Yuan give the Lord a very hard time.

He had to admit that he had truly underestimated the strength of this disciple of Dong Wanjun.

Before, he had only thought of him as a talented young man. He never imagined that Bai Yuan had, without him realizing, grown to a level that commanded his respect.

Regardless of the methods used, there were few in all of Ling Province who could fight the Soul Chasing Tower Lord to such a standstill.

Bai Yuan: "Lord Jiang, why are you here?"

Jiang Changping chuckled. "It was all your master’s idea."

...

「Elsewhere.」

"Damn it!"

Zhu Wu’s eyes were bloodshot. He could feel the strength rapidly draining from his body.

When it came to survival skills, he was actually the worst among the group, but that damned Tiger-headed Demon just had to pick him.

After several exchanges, he had already sustained serious internal injuries.

Before long, he would die at the hands of that Tiger-headed Demon.

Zhu Wu was unreconciled...

He had come to Ling Province to fight for the position of a True Disciple of the Nine Sword Sect, not to throw his life away.

A human-like, mocking sneer appeared on the face of the Tiger-headed Demon trailing closely behind Zhu Wu.

In its eyes, the human before it was already a corpse. It was just pondering the most delicious way to eat him.

To humans, demons are ingredients. To demons, of course, humans are the same.

But in the next instant, its smile vanished.

A gray-robed figure had appeared between it and Zhu Wu.

The Tiger-headed Demon stared intently at the gray-robed man who seemed to have dropped from the sky, its voice filled with disbelief. "Dong Wanjun?"

It had fought against the Northern Garrison Army in the Northern Plains many times; of course it knew Dong Wanjun.

Old Dong glanced at Zhu Wu, then turned his gaze to the Tiger-headed Demon.

A palm-sized wooden stick slid from his sleeve into his palm.

The moment Old Dong gripped the wooden stick, it extended as if a mechanism had been triggered, transforming into a long spear.

The world had almost forgotten that he could wield a weapon.

In fact, back in his earliest days, the spear was the first weapon he ever trained with!

...

"Master."

Bai Yuan followed Jiang Changping to a valley where Old Dong, Yang Fangyu, Zhu Wu, and Lu Yu were already gathered.

’So I was the last one to be rescued.’

After asking Yang Fangyu, he learned that this had all been a setup by Old Dong.

Old Dong had noticed the Tiger-headed Demon crossing the Great Wall into Ling Province long ago and had been secretly tailing it.

Thus, he had seen through the scheme of the Tiger-headed Demon and the Soul Chasing Tower Lord in advance. He decided to play along, using Bai Yuan and the other three as bait to turn the tables on the demon and the woman.

The Tiger-headed Demon had already been turned into Tier Seven Monster Flesh by Old Dong.

The Soul Chasing Tower Lord, however, had escaped, but at a great cost. She would likely need a long time to recover.

The plan had clearly been a great success.

Old Dong had rescued Zhu Wu and Lu Yu.

Jiang Changping, meanwhile, had saved Yang Fangyu first, and then Bai Yuan—though it seemed his help hadn’t really been necessary.

Dong Wanjun said calmly, "Since everyone is fine, let’s head back."

To him, killing a Tier Seven Great Demon was apparently no different from killing a chicken.

Such an air of mastery left Yang Fangyu and the other two filled with longing and admiration.

Bai Yuan said his goodbyes to Yang Fangyu and the others, then trotted after Old Dong, leaving first.

Old Dong: "Not bad."

He already knew that Bai Yuan had faced the Soul Chasing Tower Lord. To emerge unscathed from an encounter with that ruthless woman was indeed quite an achievement.

Bai Yuan: "Master, the Soul Chasing Tower Lord is a woman?"

The scene from the forest flashed through his mind.

He glanced at Old Dong, who showed no surprise at all. Clearly, he had known all along.

Old Dong: "That woman practices the path of Demonic Qi Body Infusion. Be careful, she might self-destruct."

"..."

Bai Yuan recalled the flash of red light between the Soul Chasing Tower Lord’s brows. ’That must have been the Demonic Qi Body Infusion Master was talking about.’

He suddenly felt a surge of relief that he hadn’t fought her to the death.

If even Old Dong said to be careful, then it must be extremely dangerous.