Fan Sheng gave a cold laugh. “You ambushed me for no reason, and now you’re spouting this nonsense?”

As he spoke, he brought his axe down on a wooden pillar.

“Come down here and die!”

The pillar snapped at once, brittle under his hand as if it were no more than straw.

This bastard is even stronger than Meng Shan, and his combat skill and bearing far surpasses Meng Shan’s as well.

Where had such a monster come from? No—not one, but two monsters. And why did they just so happen to be staying in the curse master’s room?

He Lingchuan sighed. “Were you reinforcements hired by Zhongsun Mou, or are you with Cen Boqing’s lot?”

They had made such a racket that the people in the inn could hardly sleep through it. From the servants to the guests, everyone poked their heads out to look, and then, at the sight before them, fled in panic.

Only the innkeeper stood in the doorway, bowing to the two men and the bear with a miserable expression. “Sirs, please, have mercy. Spare my livelihood!”

Fan Sheng’s response was another swing of the axe, chopping through a second pillar.

With both supports broken, the beam above could no longer hold. It crashed down with a thunderous boom.

He Lingchuan was nimble enough that the instant Fan Sheng raised his axe, he slipped back out through the hole in the roof.

His target was the room Fan Sheng had come out of.

The wall had already been smashed open by the giant bear, leaving a gaping hole. He Lingchuan stepped through it in one stride, pulled out the mirror, and swept it across the room. “Find clues. Hurry!”

The room was dark, with no lamp lit; the only light came from outside.

Besides the bed, there was only a square table and two round stools. The tabletop was bare, except for a few scattered fragments.

But an environment like this posed no problem for the Soul-Stealing Mirror.

“There are two drops of blood on the chair,” the mirror said the instant it was swept across the room. “There used to be some on the table too, but someone wiped them off. Hey, not this chair, the one opposite!”

“You mind being a little clearer?” He Lingchuan snapped back. But out of the corner of his eye, he caught movement.

Turning his head, he saw Fan Sheng had leaped up after him.

He Lingchuan had no choice but to crack the chair in half and toss it into his storage ring.

At that very moment, fire erupted from beneath his feet and from all four corners of the room.

The flames were a strange dark violet, burning with terrifying speed. Whatever they touched ignited instantly, as though drenched in some accelerant.

In the space of two breaths, the whole room was ablaze.

Damn it!

In the end, he had still fallen into the enemy’s trap.

Cursing under his breath, He Lingchuan spun to make his escape, but the mirror suddenly shouted again, “And those fragments too, you can’t leave them behind!”

“Can’t you say everything at once for once in your miserable life?” He Lingchuan snarled. He fished out a leather sack, the same one that had once held roast chicken, and swept his arm across the table, sending all the broken wooden fragments into it.

That single extra motion cost him.

Fan Sheng arrived just then, and at the same moment, the fire in the room flared violently, dark violet flames roaring outward in every direction.

Sensing the viciousness of the fire, Fan Sheng had no desire to meet it head-on, taking two steps back.

He saw He Lingchuan’s silhouette darting through the flames, neither writhing nor screaming.

Fan Sheng’s brow furrowed.

He Lingchuan stuffed the leather sack into his storage ring and burst out through the other side of the room.

Fan Sheng pursued him like his shadow.

He was not as agile as He Lingchuan, but his speed was still considerable. With his left hand, he hurled an axe straight for the back of He Lingchuan’s neck.

To the onlookers, all they saw was a streak through the air.

Who knew how many heads that flying axe had already claimed?

He Lingchuan did not even turn around. He simply flung something backward, and with a clang, it struck the axe.

The axe was knocked aside, spun once, then flew back of its own accord toward its master.

Only then did Fan Sheng see clearly that the thing that had batted his axe away was a heart-protecting mirror. As it spun several times in midair, it suddenly cast out several blinding rays of reflected light straight into his eyes.

Fan Sheng immediately threw up an arm to shield his eyes.

At that moment, a brown figure sprang up from the ground, followed by a tiger’s roar that exploded through the night and shook the soul.

Jiao Yu had arrived.

Caught in midair and unable to change direction easily, Fan Sheng simply raised his axe and chopped straight at its forehead.

However, Jiao Yu’s charge was only a feint. Its hind legs had never truly left the ground. With a twist of its body, it shot away again, then let out another furious roar, “The Royal Palace General of Mount Bai is here! Name yourselves!”

At the same time, three hidden weapons shot in from the side, each one carrying violet flame.

That flame could not be smothered out by beating or stamping, and Fan Sheng had no wish to touch it. He raised his axe and knocked them flying.

And then, in front of him, came another flicker of saber light.

He Lingchuan pressed the attack the instant he saw an opening. Leaping high, he brought Fleeting Life crashing down on Fan Sheng’s head.

At last, it was his turn to take the initiative.

With a beckoning motion of his left hand, the heart-protecting mirror flew back into his palm.

His saber force was not as solid as Fan Sheng’s, but now that it had caught traces of the violet flame, its power was enhanced. He followed with seven rapid killing strikes in succession, and the air was instantly filled with firelight and saber qi.

Fan Sheng blocked three of them. Seeing that the fourth was about to land, he suddenly thrust out his chest, sucked in his stomach, drew in a savage breath, and then spat it out.

His whole body shot backward over three meters, moving as fast as a baseball launched from a bat.

What kind of move is that? He Lingchuan paused in surprise. Some toad technique?

In the blink of an eye, the situation had reversed into one man and one tiger pressing Fan Sheng from both sides.

Even while attacking, Jiao Yu still found time to complain to He Lingchuan. “Why didn’t you call me when you went out?”

Earlier, He Lingchuan had left the inn by jumping out the window. The wooden shutters had creaked loudly in the stillness of the night.

But the young man had run too fast, as though he were fleeing for his life, bounding up and down and over everything in sight. Following after him had not been easy.

Suddenly, with a tremendous crash, the front gate of the inn was smashed into the air. The giant bear, Fan Bao, came charging out with a furious roar.

Two against one against my brother? Unacceptable!

So it’s now two against two, eh? He Lingchuan gave a cold laugh. Dream on.

The instant the giant bear burst through the doorway, He Lingchuan tossed something toward the inn entrance. It was only palm-sized, and amid the fire falling in showers from the second floor, it was easy to miss.

But the moment it hit the ground, it transformed into a golden-armored copper man over three meters tall!

The door planks the giant bear had smashed loose landed right at its feet.

Or rather, the golden-armored copper man just happened to land beside them.

Acting on He Lingchuan’s command, it bent down, grabbed the two fallen door planks, overlapped them, and struck a golf-swinging pose.

Whether the pose was technically correct, He Lingchuan had no idea. He had never had the chance to learn.

But the effect was excellent.

The heavy planks were made of old elm wood. After twenty years of wind and rain, they were still solid. The golden-armored copper man swung them like a club and connected squarely with the giant bear’s massive rear.

Bang!

Everyone watching heard it loud and clear. The bear, which weighed over a metric ton, was sent rolling like a giant gourd, tumbling straight into the burning room beneath.

That part of the inn had already nearly burned to a crisp. After being smashed by something that huge, it collapsed from top to bottom.

The two door planks in the copper man’s hands also snapped cleanly in half, having fulfilled their life’s purpose.

“Fan Bao!” Fan Sheng’s expression changed.

The answer was an enraged bear’s roar.

This time, the giant bear charged back out even faster as its whole body was on fire.

Apparently, that tremendous blow had done it less harm than the violet flames. The giant bear rolled again and again on the ground, but it did little good.

By contrast, He Lingchuan had just run back and forth through those same flames without the least difficulty. The violet flame seemed to have no interest in him at all.

Fan Sheng took one look and realized that the young man probably possessed a fire-warding magical artifact of very high grade.

He Lingchuan, naturally, was not about to waste such a fine opportunity. He rushed in and struck with several rapid slashes.

The tiger coordinated from the side.

Fan Sheng truly was formidable. Even while fighting one man and one tiger at the same time, and with his thoughts still on the giant bear’s injuries, he did not lose ground in the slightest. He could even spare breath to call to his companion, “Fan Bao, come here!”

The giant bear rolled twice more, realized the flames could not be smothered, and simply charged straight toward Fan Sheng.

The golden-armored copper man immediately moved to intercept it.

In fighting Fan Sheng, He Lingchuan had to focus with all the attention he could muster. He could not afford the slightest mistake. And yet, at the same time, he also had to divide his attention to control the golden-armored copper man and block the giant bear’s advance.

He had done this kind of split-focus fighting before, and had once been quite used to it.

But this time it felt unimaginably difficult.

Dealing with Fan Sheng was more dangerous and far more mentally exhausting. The man was too ruthless, especially those slowing ice crystals carried in the wake of his Whirlwind Axe, which were disgustingly effective.

In the end, He Lingchuan’s focus slipped.

Fan Sheng’s foot slammed into his abdomen, sending him flying back over three meters.

Blood seeped from the corner of He Lingchuan’s mouth.

At once, flaws appeared in the golden-armored copper man’s movements. Spotting the opening, the giant bear slipped around it and lunged to Fan Sheng’s side.

The copper man turned and rushed back immediately.

He Lingchuan could see Fan Sheng meant to help the giant bear extinguish the flames, so he used every trick he had to keep him tied down.

Unable to free a hand, Fan Sheng suddenly heard the giant bear howl in pain, and his killing intent flared.

Up until now, he had only been warming up. He had not even used his true killing moves.

This brat is courting death!

White light suddenly flared all over Fan Sheng’s body, and his pupils even took on a faint blue tint. He brought his twin axes together and barked a single command, “Bind!”

The ice crystals dancing around them obeyed at once. Driven by the force of that motion, they rushed convergently toward He Lingchuan. The instant they struck each other, they fused together. Originally, they had been no bigger than ordinary snowflakes, but as they converged, they condensed into large blocks of solid ice!

In a move that seemed to create something from nothing, ice shackles suddenly clamped around both He Lingchuan’s wrists and both his legs.

He had been moving at high speed. With his movement abruptly impeded, he could not stop himself from stumbling forward.

Fan Sheng was never going to let that chance slip away. He followed his axes in a flash, intent on taking He Lingchuan’s head.

He moved as fast as lightning.

Jiao Yu was horrified. It tried to rush in and save He Lingchuan, but it was already too late.

The gleaming axe edge flashed coldly through the air, and at last it swept across He Lingchuan’s neck.

The people watching around the inn gasped. Some women even screamed and turned away, unable to bear the sight of He Lingchuan losing his head.

But Fan Sheng inwardly cursed.

The strike had felt too light. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

There had been none of the solid resistance of flesh and bone being cut, only the sensation of slicing empty air.

This is bad.

Behind him, in the palm of the golden-armored copper man, He Lingchuan’s figure suddenly appeared.

The young man’s face was hard as stone. He tapped lightly off the copper man’s arm with the tip of his foot and hurled himself with full force toward the back of Fan Sheng’s head, unleashing a short, fast Swallow Strike.

The opponent was too strong. He Lingchuan had been forced to use even his secret substitution technique just to create this opening, and he meant to make it count in a single blow!

The saber flashed like lightning.

This time, it was his turn to take Fan Sheng’s neck.

At the critical instant, however, a flaming black figure suddenly appeared behind Fan Sheng.

The giant bear accelerated in a violent charge, forcing itself between the two of them. At the same time, a layer of bright yellow combat armor surfaced over its body.

This armor had been refined from earth essence combined with the giant bear’s innate ability. It was harder than refined metal and could be summoned and withdrawn at will.

Its timing was perfect.

Using its own body as a shield, it forcibly took the blow meant for Fan Sheng.

The onlookers heard a sharp cracking sound, like a hammer smashing open a walnut.

Where Fleeting Life passed, the armor shattered, flesh split, and a string of blood droplets sprayed into the air.

Roaring in pain, the giant bear slapped Fan Sheng aside hard enough to stagger him. Ignoring its own injury, it spun and lashed out at He Lingchuan with its other paw, which was broader than a winnowing basket.

Each claw on that paw was over thirteen centimeters long, and they too glowed faintly red. If that strike landed on anyone, it would tear open belly and guts unfailingly.

He Lingchuan had no time to withdraw his saber. He could only jerk up his left wrist and barely get the mirror shield in front of his face.

Bang!

He was struck and sent flying over six meters, crashing straight back into the burning inn.