The table came hurtling over, howling like a dragon’s cry and a tiger’s roar.

The force behind it was simply staggering!

In that moment, it wasn’t the short masked man or the Evil Arhat Dao Zhen who were the most shocked.

It was Cheng Jimo and his two companions.

They had been here, coordinating attacks and laying intricate traps.

And the fight had been going splendidly.

They never imagined a hidden expert was lurking in the tea house!

The masked man saw the table’s ferocious approach. He felt as if the surrounding air had been sucked dry, and for a moment, it was like being trapped in a mire. His heart skipped a beat.

’Ye Jingshuang definitely doesn’t have this level of skill!’

’Otherwise, things that night might not have gone so smoothly.’

Just then, a Crescent Shovel came slicing through the wind.

It slammed viciously into the table.

The two forces collided with a thunderous BOOM. Wood splinters flew everywhere as the Crescent Shovel, humming incessantly, shot toward the heavens.

The Evil Arhat Dao Zhen descended from the air, snatching the Crescent Shovel in his grasp.

He roared furiously:

"I shall send you to meet the Buddha!!!"

He spun the Crescent Shovel, channeling the might of a mountain into it. Like a falling star, he plunged straight toward the tea house.

Inside the tea house, from the moment the masked man had thrown his hidden weapon, Ye Jingshuang knew. The Evil Arhat and his accomplice had discovered them long ago.

They had only pretended not to know, feigning ignorance to create an opportunity for a sneak attack.

Jiang Ran, however, looked up. Although his view was blocked by the tea stall’s roof, he could still feel the ferocious momentum of the Evil Arhat’s approach.

Letting out a soft breath, Jiang Ran’s hand slowly closed around the hilt of his saber.

His gaze lifted slightly. The next moment, before Ye Jingshuang could even notice, a flash of saber light suddenly shot up, breaking through the tea house roof and into the sky.

There was no ring of steel, only silence.

By the time the Evil Arhat Dao Zhen even perceived the attack, the flash of light had already struck his Crescent Shovel.

VMMMM!!!

Only then did the ear-splitting ring of the blade reverberate outward.

Gang Qi surged in all directions as flashes of the blade cut across the sky.

The entire roof of the tea stall was torn apart by these two forces, shattering in an instant.

Everyone present paled.

They scrambled back, terrified of being caught in the shockwave.

Just then, a figure leaving a trail of afterimages soared into the sky, holding a saber in one hand. With a flick of the blade, he went for the Evil Arhat Dao Zhen’s head.

Having just blocked that mid-air strike, the Evil Arhat Dao Zhen’s arm was numb, his inner vitality in turmoil.

Before he could even recover, the flash of the blade was already upon him.

He could only grit his teeth and swing his Crescent Shovel to defend himself.

For a moment, an incessant CLANGING filled the air. In the blink of an eye, the two figures had taken their fight from the sky to the ground.

Watching them fight, Cheng Jimo and the others thought, ’If you only heard the noise, you’d think this was an incredibly fierce battle.’

But in reality, though they were trading blows, every strike from the young saber-wielder forced the hulking Monk to use his full strength to defend.

Every time the saber blade and the Crescent Shovel clashed, Dao Zhen’s entire body would tremble violently.

His originally large, Cyan-Black face was now entirely Chi-red, a clear sign that he was pushing his strength to its absolute limit.

For some reason, however, the young man seemed unwilling to deal a fatal blow, always holding back slightly with each swing of his blade.

Otherwise, the hulking Monk would have been dead long ago.

Strangely, in the ensuing exchange, the hulking Monk showed none of the earth-shattering might from his earlier attack. It was bizarre.

What they didn’t know was... Jiang Ran had previously poisoned Zhang Dongxuan’s corpse in the ruined temple.

After the Evil Arhat was poisoned, he couldn’t force the poison out and could only sever his own arm to stop it from spreading.

He had wrapped the stump in his Monk’s robe, which was then soaked by the night rain. He had barely rested, using his Lightweight Technique continuously in his pursuit, and the wound had long since festered.

The Evil Arhat’s face wasn’t originally Cyan-Black.

In truth, he was now grievously ill.

Otherwise, based on his previous assessment that Jiang Ran was "nothing special," he would never have been so roundabout with his attack. The moment he confirmed Jiang Ran and Ye Jingshuang’s location, he would have attacked them head-on, let alone needing the masked man to launch a sneak attack first.

He never thought that even after resorting to a sneak attack, he would still fail to capture them.

Instead, he had fallen into this predicament of taking a constant beating.

The masked man who had been with the Evil Arhat, seeing the situation, surprisingly didn’t go forward to help him.

Instead, he spun around and was the first to charge toward the person who had been fighting Cheng Jimo just now.

With a thrust of his palm, he aimed straight for the heart.

That man was startled. ’This masked man is so murderous! His own partner is about to be beaten to death, and he still wants to kill someone else first?’

He immediately moved to block, but the masked man’s attack was shadowy and erratic, his moves bizarre and illogical.

He threw a punch but couldn’t even touch the masked man’s sleeve. Instead, the man closed the distance in a single move and reached his chest.

The masked man’s five fingers were like a knife. He twisted and pulled. Looking down, he expected to see the man’s heart, but to his surprise, he had only grabbed a piece of cloth.

He froze. Looking back, he saw a patch of clothing missing from the man’s chest, revealing a gleaming piece of Soft Armor.

Cheng Jimo was drawn by the commotion. He turned his head just in time to see this and finally understood why his Flying Feather Needles had been useless earlier—the man was wearing protective Soft Armor.

He couldn’t help but spit out a single word: "Despicable."

In that moment of hesitation, the masked man leaped up and attacked again.

The man’s fist techniques were formidable, but they were the kind for wide, powerful, direct attacks. In contrast, the masked man’s moves were erratic, suddenly appearing on the left, then abruptly on the right.

He was exhausted just trying to keep up. In a mere two or three exchanges, both of his arms were already dripping with blood.

’I’m afraid I’ll be dead in three more moves.’

At this moment, he looked towards Cheng Jimo and roared angrily:

"He’s ruthless and vicious! After I’m dead, he’ll definitely kill you!!"

"So you can talk," Cheng Jimo snorted, though he had to admit the man had a point.

Just as he was about to speak, a young woman appeared, longsword in hand. A torrent of sword light surged toward the masked man as she called out:

"Ye Jingshuang of the Liuyun Sword Sect, requesting aid from our friend of the Thousand Feather Sect!"

"The Liuyun Sword Sect!? Her surname is Ye?"

Upon hearing the three words "Liuyun Sword Sect," Cheng Jimo’s spirits lifted. "In that case, I must help!"

As his voice fell, he jabbed Geng Zhaoxing’s pressure points with his finger, casually tossed him aside, and with a shift of his feet, charged into the fray.

The masked man saw Ye Jingshuang, Cheng Jimo, and the man in the Soft Armor all gathered together.

His brow furrowed deeply.

’This is trouble...’

He stole a glance at the Evil Arhat Dao Zhen.

He saw him, like a lone duckweed adrift in a sea of saber light...

Even for someone as ruthless as the masked man, his heart couldn’t help but clench. He knew he shouldn’t, but a thought still surfaced:

’A quick death would be a mercy!’

But the masked man didn’t know that Jiang Ran had already entered a state of selfless oblivion.

...

...