Wangzhou City.
The lamplight cast Han Yu's pale face in flickering shadows.
Though he had already taken a pill, the aftereffects of burning his essence blood wouldn't fade so quickly.
Still, he forced himself to remain upright and recounted everything that had happened—the encounter including Ye Fan's cold declaration that "the prey has shown itself," Zhan Wuji's ambush, his own desperate strike being blocked by a bizarre sword qi, and his final escape by borrowing the enemy's momentum.
"Impossible!"
A clear voice rang out, laced with disbelief.
Chen Xingcai shot to her feet, her beautiful face filled with shock and stubborn denial.
"Ye Fan is my disciple! I watched him grow step by step into the finest of his generation!"
"I know his temperament—outwardly gentle but inwardly resolute, with an extremely strong sense of belonging to our sect! How could he possibly betray us?!"
Her voice carried a pleading note, her gaze burning into Han Yu as she desperately hoped for a different answer.
Ye Fan was her personal disciple. The bond between master and disciple made it impossible for her to accept such a cruel truth.
Han Yu coughed violently, another trace of blood seeping from the corner of his mouth.
He raised his ice-cold eyes toward Chen Xingcai, his voice even more hoarse and frigid from his injuries and fury.
"I saw it with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears. He helped the Holy Dynasty set the trap and tried to kill me."
"A feigned surrender? What kind of scheme requires a fellow disciple's life as a token of loyalty?!"
Chen Xingcai's face went pale. She staggered back half a step, her lips trembling, but she could no longer find words to refute him.
Xiao Chen had been sitting silently to the side, his fingers unconsciously tapping the table. His handsome brow was deeply furrowed.
After hearing Han Yu's account and Chen Xingcai's objections, he spoke slowly, his voice steady but carrying a barely perceptible weight: "Junior Brother Han saw it himself—it's unlikely to be false. Ye Fan's actions... are indeed full of suspicious points, difficult to explain away."
He paused, his gaze sweeping across the anguished Chen Xingcai and the frost-faced Han Yu before continuing.
"However, when things seem off, there's usually more to the story. If Ye Fan truly defected wholeheartedly, why would the Holy Dynasty still keep him imprisoned?"
"Zhan Wuji's attitude toward him wasn't one of complete trust either... There may be circumstances we're not yet aware of."
Before he could finish, his words were drowned out by the sudden blast of war horns rolling like thunder from beyond the city walls, followed by earth-shaking battle cries!
"Woooo—wooooo—!"
"Kill!! Breach Wangzhou!"
The Holy Dynasty army's assault had begun!
Massive booms rang out in rapid succession—the terrifying sound of siege artifacts slamming into the city's protective grand array.
The entire city of Wangzhou shook violently, dust cascading from the rafters.
"Not good!"
Xiao Chen leapt to his feet, and all debate about Ye Fan was instantly forgotten. The priority now was to hold Wangzhou and preserve one of the Anti-Holy Alliance's last footholds in the Central Plains!
"Junior Brother Jiang is injured, and Junior Brother Hong... still needs time to recover his cultivation! Stay inside the city for now."
Xiao Chen made his decision in an instant, his tone leaving no room for argument. "Everyone else, follow me to the city walls!"
Jiang Che nodded, having no objection to his senior brother's orders.
In the corner, Hong Longxiang clenched his fists even tighter. Looking at his still-frail body, which hadn't even stabilized at the Object-Manipulation Realm, an unprecedented sense of helplessness and humiliation surged through him.
A great battle was imminent, yet he could only be protected as a burden—not even qualified to fight!
"Stay here. If we can't hold the walls, leave immediately and head south." Xiao Chen glanced at them, his gaze calm yet filled with resolve.
"As long as you survive, there's still hope."
With that, he exchanged a look with Chen Xingcai and Han Yu. The three figures blurred instantly, transforming into three streaks of light that shot toward the direction of the battle cries at the city gates.
On the city walls, it was already a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood!
The Holy Dynasty army surged like a black tide, wave after wave crashing against the tottering protective barrier.
Countless cultivators tangled in aerial combat, the radiance of magical treasures interweaving with sprays of blood. Screams, roars, and explosions filled the air without end.
The Anti-Holy Alliance cultivators held on desperately through the advantage of the city defenses and their resolve to fight to the death, but the disparity in strength was vast, and the defensive line was on the verge of collapse.
The arrival of Xiao Chen and the others was like injecting two powerful stimulants into a crumbling dam.
Xiao Chen drew his sword, summoning the Divine Thunder of the Nine Heavens. A blinding arc of sword light swept across like the wrath of heaven itself, mowing down swathes of Holy Dynasty cultivators like wheat.
Chen Xingcai's figure flickered in and out of sight, her hands weaving through seals as she precisely assassinated the Holy Dynasty's commanders and elites, while simultaneously reinforcing the array nodes on the brink of shattering.
Just as the situation seemed to be stabilizing—
Suddenly, a suffocating, terrifying pressure surged from behind the Holy Dynasty army!
A blood-colored figure descended from the sky!
With every step he took, the void itself seemed to tremble.
The slaughter battle intent radiating from him was like a tangible blood-colored storm, sweeping across the entire battlefield. Countless Anti-Holy Alliance cultivators felt their minds waver, and those with lower cultivation directly coughed blood and collapsed!
Zhan Wuji!
His gaze swept across the chaotic battlefield with supreme arrogance, finally locking onto Xiao Chen, who stood like a pillar in the raging current, channeling lightning to slay his enemies.
"Among these ants, there's at least one worth noticing." Zhan Wuji's voice wasn't loud, yet it clearly overpowered all the chaos of the battlefield, carrying a judgmental tone from on high.
"Your life—I'll take it."
Before the words had even faded, his Heaven-Rending Spear was already raised. He thrust it through the air toward Xiao Chen from a distance!
There was no grandiose display—only an incomparably condensed blood-colored spear radiance that seemed capable of piercing a hole through heaven and earth itself. It ignored the distance of space, appearing instantly before Xiao Chen!
Fast! Brutal! Precise!
Carrying a pure will of destruction and slaughter!
Xiao Chen's pupils shrank as he felt an unprecedented threat of death. But the composure and strength befitting a senior disciple shone through at this moment.
He didn't panic. The sword in his hand let out a ringing dragon's cry, and the thunder power across his body converged frantically.
"Nine Heavens Thunder Strike—Heavenly Tribulation!"
He shifted his sword stance from offense to defense. The tip of his blade drew down boundless lightning, transforming it into a dazzling barrier composed of countless leaping arcs of electricity, positioned before him!
"BOOM—!!!"
The blood-colored spear radiance slammed violently into the thunder barrier!
This time, there was no stalemate!
The terrifying shockwave of energy erupted outward in a ring, hurling every cultivator within several hundred zhang—friend and foe alike—violently through the air!
The sturdy blue stone of the city walls was ripped up layer by layer and pulverized!
As the radiance faded, everyone stared in horror.
Xiao Chen still stood in place, his figure swaying slightly. The sleeve of his sword arm was completely shredded, the web of his hand split open, blood flowing down his arm.
But he had held—he had actually blocked that spear!
Opposite him, Zhan Wuji's figure was likewise completely unmoved. But in those eyes filled with battle intent and contempt, for the first time, a flicker of genuine astonishment appeared... along with a trace of gloomy disbelief.
A draw?!
In this first exchange of direct combat, he had actually fought to a standstill with this lower realm cultivator?!
How was that possible?!
Waves of shock crashed through Zhan Wuji's mind.
He knew full well the power contained in that spear. More importantly, he understood that while his current cultivation was at the Long Life Realm, his perspective, experience, and understanding of the Great Dao's laws—honed from his former status as an upper realm Immortal Venerable—far surpassed any ordinary Long Life Realm cultivator!
This was the overwhelming advantage of looking down from above!
In his mind, killing these so-called "geniuses" of the lower realm should have been an effortless crushing victory.
Even if this Xiao Chen appeared to be the best among them, he absolutely should not have been able to withstand a direct confrontation!
Yet the truth was right before his eyes.
Not only had the man blocked the attack, but he hadn't done so with excessive difficulty.
That pure, vast thunder sword intent, that composed and seasoned response—it was in no way inferior to his own!
An unprecedented sense of humiliation surged within Zhan Wuji.
His full-power strike had actually been matched by a lower realm cultivator of lowly birth, someone who hadn't even been at the Holy Realm before?!
"Very well..." Zhan Wuji's voice grew incomparably cold, and the killing aura around him surged wildly, nearly condensing into substance.
"You're worth me being... slightly more serious."
But Xiao Chen's next words instantly ignited his fury—
"Brother, would it kill you to not act so dramatic?"
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