The swordsmen of the Pi family, thinking that Li Mo was about to escape with Yun Ruoyan, were shocked to find Li Mo suddenly doubling back and attacking them instead. Leading them was the boisterous Pi Huo, whose temper was second only to Pi Yan. When Li Mo’s foot struck his chest, he fell off his spiritual sword.

“Pi Huo!” Pi Qiu dove down toward Pi Huo’s falling body.

Pi Huo’s sword morphed into a beam of light and shot toward its master, but Li Mo had already jumped off from it and kicked another swordsman off his sword. When he next jumped, the remaining swordsmen immediately steered clear of Li Mo.

Just as it looked as though Li Mo would fall, a slab of ice appeared from underneath his feet, which he used to boost himself up again. He repeated the process, proving that, even without his spiritual sword, Li Mo was able to prevent his body from falling.

“He doesn’t have a spiritual sword!” Pi Qiu hollered. “He won’t be able to escape if we surround him and attack!”

Following Pi Qiu’s command, all the swordsmen attacked Li Mo at once, the exact outcome Li Mo was hoping for. Although he had lost his spiritual sword, his cultivation was more than sufficient to allow him to stay aloft. However, with his attention split from having to conjure up icy slabs, it would be difficult for him to make the first move and attack.

As the swordsmen gathered around him, ready to unleash attacks of their own, Li Mo extended both his arms and manifested hundreds of icicles in a sphere surrounding him. They gleamed and glinted in the sunlight, so sharp and icy cold that the swordsmen could feel the potency of the attack from where they stood.

With a wave of his hand, Li Mo sent the icicles spearing through the swordsmen, generating a flurry of screams and howls. In the blink of an eye, two swordsmen fell from their swords. One of the swords began chasing its fallen master, but the other remained stationary—one of the fallen swordsmen had been speared through the chest, and he had perished instantly. His spiritual sword was now ownerless and free to claim, and the green glow that had been keeping it afloat slowly began to dissipate. Once it vanished, the sword would fall.

Just then, Li Mo stepped on that ownerless sword. It trembled, seemed to struggle, but soon glowed brightly in green once more, clearly having decided to accept the powerful Li Mo as its new master.

Pi Qiu and Pi Huo cursed, but before they could even blink, Li Mo had sped forward and kicked them both off their swords.

“Is this all there is to you otherworlders?” Li Mo’s foot tapped his newly acquired sword as he prepared to leave.

“Save us, please!” a cultivator suddenly called out from below, and Li Mo looked down. The pillar of light separating the cultivators from the seven delegations had vanished, and the other families’ swordsmen rushed into the crowd of helpless cultivators.

The swordsmen of the delegations were all at least ninth-rank blademasters, and those cultivators from the lower realms were generally no more than eighth rank. These swordsmen, brandishing their weapons and with chains and handcuffs hanging on their waist, were like wolves among sheep.

The air sparked with the crackling and sizzling of flames, the frost of ice; the ground was a thicket of vines pitted with clods of earth. Through the commotion, Li Mo could see that Lin Qingchen, Guan Ruliu, and Zong Yang had all been taken by swordsmen from the Feng family.

With Li Mo’s current cultivation, it wouldn’t have been impossible to save them all, but breaking the barrier had consumed much of his current reserves of spiritual energy, and he didn’t know whether he would be able to bring them all away safely even after rescuing them.

“Young man, please wait.” Just as Li Mo was about to leave, the deep voice of a middle-aged man called out to him. Li Mo stilled, then turned back to find a man with a multicolored sword hovering behind him.

Li Mo’s eyes narrowed: he hadn’t discovered the man’s presence at all!

“May I assist you, Elder?” Judging that the man’s cultivation must have been above his own, Li Mo’s tone was far removed from his earlier arrogance.

“It’s rare that the lower realms would produce as talented a cultivator as you, especially considering your age,” the man continued mildly. “But on the Mingyuan continent, talented though you might be, you’ll find that it’s unwise to face certain forces alone. If you join the Feng household, we’re willing to grant protection to you and yours.”

“Thank you for the advice, Elder.” Li Mo’s tone was as cool as ever. “As used to solitude as I am, however, I’m afraid I must decline.”

Li Mo turned to leave, but a beam of spiritual energy flashed past him and sealed up the hole he had broken in the barrier. He had no choice but to turn back, shooting an icy glare at the other man.

“Rash youngsters have to be dealt with firmly.” The middle-aged man’s mild-mannered air had vanished as though it were a dream, and such a strong aura emanated from his body that even Li Mo was shocked.

He spread his arms wide and mimicked the icicle technique Li Mo had used earlier. Li Mo rapidly defended with a wall of ice in front of him, only to see the man bring his arms together. The countless icicles that had been conjured clumped together to form one gigantic cone of ice, pointing straight at Li Mo.

“Young man, have you seen this extension of your technique?” He smiled. “I’ll let you off as long as you’re able to handle this next blow.”

The man shoved, and the gigantic icicle shot at Li Mo’s shield. As shards of ice whizzed past his face, Li Mo sent the last of his spiritual energy to reinforce the shield.

“Oh? Not bad!” The man added another burst of spiritual energy to the icicle.

Blood instantly trickled out of Li Mo’s lip. He had already expended a significant fraction of spiritual energy while fighting the Pi swordsmen and blowing a hole in the barrier. Now that he was facing a cultivator leagues above his own, his reserves were quickly being emptied. If he were to continue drawing spiritual energy from his body, his spiritual vortex would undoubtedly be unable to support his body any longer.

Seeing that Li Mo was at his limits, the man added another tiny shred of spiritual energy. Li Mo spat out a mouthful of blood, the shield in front of him dissipated, and the icicle pushed inexorably closer to his body.

Li Mo shut his eyes.

However, millimeters before impact, the icicle likewise vanished.

Li Mo’s consciousness wavered, and he fell from his spiritual sword. The man waved a hand, conjuring a gust of wind that brought his body to rest by the feet of the Feng delegation.

By then, the hundreds of cultivators from the lower realms had all been caught. Chained and manacled, they glanced at the unconscious Li Mo in despair, and some of the students from Kongming Academy even began to cry.

They had known that the otherworld would be a place of great danger and opportunity, but it beggared their belief to ever imagine that they would be enslaved almost as soon as they had arrived. Even the strongest among them, Li Mo, had been captured!

“Feng Bo, you’re as skilled as ever,” Pi Yang praised, stepping out from his family’s delegation.

“You flatter me, Young Master Pi,” the man replied. “Unfortunately, the girl got away.” He noted that Pi Yang seemed uncommonly interested in the girl.

Pi Yang rubbed at his nose. “Let her be.”

“In that case, we’ll be leaving now,” Feng Mian announced, then made to leave. Two of his swordsmen stepped forward and began carrying Li Mo away.

“Hold it!” Pi Yang called out. “This man has made an enemy of the Pi household, and I’ve already claimed him!”

“Yes,” Feng Mian replied, smiling, “but you failed to capture him. We didn’t contest your claim.”

Pi Yang sputtered.

“Let’s go!” Feng Mian deliberately raised his voice.

Pi Yang gritted his teeth. “I’ll hand over the rights to a spirit crystal vein for this man!”

Feng Mian turned back in shock. “You mean it?”

“Naturally,” Pi Yang replied. “But I want her as well.” He pointed at Lin Qingchen.

Pi Yang had noticed Lin Qingchen talking to Yun Ruoyan in the past, and he could guess that there was some sort of relationship between them. He firmly believed that, as long as he had Li Mo and Lin Qingchen in his hands, that Yun Ruoyan would find him sooner or later.

“Deal!” Feng Mian announced.

Li Mo’s sword brought Yun Ruoyan all the way to a small forest by the foot of some mountain range. Yun Ruoyan stayed put while waiting for Li Mo to catch up to her, but after four hours, as the skies gradually grew dark, her hope began to slip away.

The glow of Li Mo’s sword suddenly dimmed, and Yun Ruoyan’s expression turned severe. The fact that the glow had dimmed indicated that the sword’s master was no longer able to provide the sword with sufficient spiritual energy. If the glow vanished entirely, that would indicate that its master had perished.

“Don’t vanish, don’t vanish, please don’t vanish…” Yun Ruoyan’s hands clenched into fists as she stared at the sword. The glow steadily became dimmer and dimmer, but just as it flickered, about to vanish entirely, it stabilized.

The pale green glow covered the sword like a veil, and the engraving of a dragon suddenly appeared on the blade itself...