“Brother Tian, that big oaf’s challenging you!” Lie Yun exclaimed, her voice equal parts mocking and disdainful, as though she were telling him a joke.

They actually have teleportation scrolls?! Pi Batian thought to himself, glancing at the scroll in Lan Ying’s hands. As far as he knew, about a millennium ago, the demonic dragon clan and silver dragon clan had a great war over the control of the high-grade Jiyuan continent. After the demonic dragons suffered a disastrous defeat at the hand of the silver dragons, they were expelled to the low-grade realms. 

Subsequently, the silver dragon clans made use of the groundhogs populating the lower realms to exterminate all the demonic dragons. Along with their downfall came the disappearance of the advanced cultivation arts.

He hadn’t expected that these groundhogs, barely of note at all to him, would both be able to construct a teleportation array as well as inscribe rather high-quality teleportation scrolls.

His interest sufficiently piqued, Pi Batian kept his red handkerchief in his robes. “It’s time for the finale of the show. I have a banquet coming up at night, and it wouldn’t do to miss it,” he murmured almost to himself.

Only then did he finally step forward.

“Brother Tian, be careful not to hurt Pi Yang!” Lie Yun instructed.

Meanwhile, Yun Ruoyan and Zhuo Yifeng had finally killed the ninth-rank blademaster they were fighting, striking lethal wounds on his body at almost the same time.

As they each pulled out their spiritual swords, the swordsman’s body crumpled to the ground.

“Master Qin, come back!” the two of them shouted at Qin Feng, who was clutching his sword as he walked toward Pi Batian. He had tossed his teleportation scroll aside.

With Qin Feng’s ninth-rank blademaster cultivation, going against Pi Batian’s second-rank sword saint cultivation was nothing less than walking to his death! Pi Batian was slowly walking toward Qin Feng as well.

“Pi Batian, you’d better stop, or I’ll kill your brother!” Zhuo Yifeng called out. With the bowstring taut against his neck, Pi Yang’s face had turned a garish purple.

“Brother, save me!” Pi Yang croaked out, and Pi Batian finally stopped moving.

“Pi Batian, you had no intention of exchanging hostages at all!” Yun Ruoyan remarked angrily.

“Why should I give any of you lowly groundhogs anything?” Pi Batian replied coolly. “You’re nothing more than corpses to my eyes. To trade with the dead would be the height of idiocy.”

Zhuo Yifeng snorted. “Before we become corpses, it looks like your brother will become one first!” He pulled the bowstring even tighter around Pi Yang’s neck, causing his veins to throb. It looked as though he would suffocate at any moment.

“You’d best stop,” Pi Batian replied, his voice calm and even despite his brother’s panicked expression. “There are many ways to die. If you let my brother go now, I’ll let you die a quick and painless death, but if you don’t, you’ll wish you were dead.”

“Zhuo Yifeng, loosen up!” Yun Ruoyan shouted, noticing that Pi Yang’s eyes were bulging and his fingers scrabbling against Zhuo Yifeng’s bowstring.

Zhuo Yifeng finally relented. Pi Yang gasped for breath and turned to Yun Ruoyan, a look of gratitude on his face. Yun Ruoyan only glanced at him coolly before facing Pi Batian once more.

Although Pi Batian had stopped, Qin Feng hadn’t.

When Li Mo saw Qin Feng’s grief, he couldn’t help feeling a little anxious. He encased his arms in thick, glacial ice, then tried to smash in the cloud-swallowing glutton’s head. However, it was so sturdy that, despite Li Mo’s best efforts, it was able to shake off his blows with only a momentary hesitation. Then, its eyes turned red and it spat out another flaming breath at him.

Rather than shield himself in ice, Li Mo unsheathed his sword. He blocked the beast’s attack with one arm encased with ice, then struck at the heart of the flames with his other. The beast’s howl instantly drew everyone’s attention: the flames quickly dispersed, leaving Li Mo’s arm totally within the pitch-black beast’s maw.

From appearances alone, it seemed as though the beast had bitten Li Mo’s arm off, but when Li Mo slowly extracted his arm from the beast’s maw, the crowd saw that Li Mo’ sblade was dripping with blood.

The beast hadn’t died, but it slowly retreated, spitting out mouthfuls of flame and blood as it did so. Clearly, Li Mo had given it a serious injury.

“Pi Lie, return,” Pi Batian called out to his beast, who transformed back into the size of a hound and fled through the portal.

Instead of giving chase, Li Mo dashed toward Qin Feng. A sudden crack sounded in mid-air, and a flash of light, like a bolt of lightning, flew toward Li Mo. Li Mo had to drop to the ground to evade the attack. He glanced at Pi Batian and noticed a long, red whip in his hand, and the flash of light just now had been from his whip.

Li Mo, Yun Ruoyan, and Zhuo Yifeng all focused on the whip. Pi Batian cracked it again; this time, his target was the man walking steadfastly toward him, Qin Feng.

Qin Feng raised the broadsword in his hand and tried to swing it down at Pi Batian.

“Qin Feng, stop!” Li Mo shouted, but it was too late. The moment the broadsword in his hands made contact with Pi Batian’s red whip, it was knocked away. With a flick of his wrist, Pi Batian then tangled Qin Feng up.

“Master Qin!” Yun Ruoyan and Zhuo Yifeng both shouted simultaneously. Yun Ruoyan strode forward with her Scarlet Eye, but Pi Batian, whose whip had already trapped Qin Feng, somehow managed to make a copy of it that snapped at Yun Ruoyan’s head.

Yun Ruoyan wouldn’t have been able to dodge the attack at such close range, but she didn’t feel any shred of pain—because, right as it was about to hit her, Li Mo had rushed forward and took the blow for her.

The moment that whip hit Li Mo, the ice on his arm cracked, and his arm was instantly flayed open.

“Li Mo!” 

“I’m alright,” Li Mo replied, grimacing. “I’m not a match for this person, so we have to leave immediately.”

“Then what about Master Qin?” Yun Ruoyan asked. He was still tangled up by Pi Batian’s whip.

“We can’t die trying to save him,” Li Mo replied. “Tell Zhuo Yifeng to tear his scroll. We’re leaving!”

Yun Ruoyan knew that, despite the fact that they still had Pi Yang as a hostage, they wouldn’t be able to rescue Master Qin. Leaving was the only rational strategy.

“Zhuo Yifeng, we’re going to leave!” Yun Ruoyan shouted. Zhuo Yifeng frowned at Yun Ruoyan, and it was obvious that he was very reluctant to do so. He still had Pi Yang in his hands, and he thought that it was worth a gamble.

“Zhuo Yifeng, listen to me!” She thought that Li Mo was about to give up on Qin Feng, but Li Mo suddenly said to Pi Batian, “We can let your brother go, but you can’t kill Qin Feng. In half a year’s time, I’ll find you in the Mingyuan continent, and I’ll rescue Qin Feng from your hands then!”

As Li Mo spoke, he tore his teleportation scroll apart. Yun Ruoyan and Zhuo Yifeng mirrored his actions, and the three of them were all engulfed by a beam of white light.

“What insolence,” Pi Batian murmured, looking at them. “If you want to court death so badly, I’ll do as you wish. No harm killing him then, along with all of you.”

“You fool!” Pi Yang shouted toward Yun Ruoyan. Zhuo Yifeng had kicked him aside, and he lay on the ground. “If you dare come back, you’ll die for sure!”

Their vision became obscured by the blinding white light, shining brighter and brighter. By the time the motes of light vanished, Yun Ruoyan and the others were back in the southern tower.

They were surrounded by the sixteen students, and the first elder was right there with them.

“Master Mo, where’s Master Qin?”

“And where’s Master Lan? I was the last to leave, so I saw her! Where are they?”

Yun Ruoyan and Zhuo Yifeng didn’t know how to respond to their questions, and they both hung their heads in shame. 

“Master Lan is dead, and Master Qin was captured,” Li Mo replied, his voice weary.

“What happened?”

“Master Lan’s dead, and Master Qin…! Those damned outworlders, we can’t forgive them!” 

“We’ll definitely rescue Master Qin,” Zhuo Yifeng promised. “And we’ll kill that Pi Batian!”

Yun Ruoyan clutched Li Mo’s arm. She could see that half his robes were drenched in fresh blood, and his face was unusually pale.

“First Elder,” Yun Ruoyan shouted, “Li Mo’s hurt!”

The first elder rushed over, sending the gathered students away. “Have these students take some of the empty rooms in the central college for now,” he told Zhuo Yifeng.

Zhuo Yifeng nodded, glanced briefly at Yun Ruoyan’s troubled and anxious expression, then left with the gathered crowd. She was so focused on Li Mo that she didn’t notice his gaze.

“First Elder, how’s Li Mo?” Yun Ruoyan asked.

The first elder frowned as he took Li Mo’s pulse, his face severe. “The wound itself isn’t anything difficult to deal with, but the spiritual energy of the man who hurt Li Mo is particularly domineering. Although Li Mo managed to block most of the attack, his body’s currently being ravaged by that foreign spiritual energy, and—”

Before the first elder could finish, Li Mo spat out a mouthful of blood.