The formation was breached?

Demonic cultivators had infiltrated the Guardian Formation?

Ji Yida and Hua Qi felt their hearts tremble. Were they truly going to die here?

Han Yu gazed up at the energy barrier overhead, which remained visibly intact. “They are coordinating from the inside and outside!” he warned calmly. “The Saint Blood Perfected One hasn’t entered yet. Only his minions have slipped through!”

Ji Yida and Hua Qi snapped back to reality. Senior Sister Li also forced herself to rally her spirits.

“Right, it’s just a few underlings,” she said, gritting her teeth. “As long as we—”

Before she could finish, a blood-red figure standing atop a flying human skull tore through the air above the Spirit Field Department. Trailing a thick, nauseating stench of blood, the intruder charged toward the four of them with a vicious grin.

“Found you!”

Startled, Senior Sister Li, Ji Yida, and Hua Qi hurriedly unleashed their techniques.

Senior Sister Li launched her shuttle-shaped Magical Artifact, while Ji Yida and Hua Qi, as if by prior agreement, both activated a Wind Blade Talisman.

Three attacks shot toward the blood-red figure simultaneously.

The intruder moved with cunning agility. His body twisted in a bizarre, circular arc, causing all three attacks to miss. Before Senior Sister Li’s shuttle could loop back for a second strike, he waved his hand, releasing a cloud of dark red blood mist.

One look at the mist was enough to tell it was sinister.

“Back!”

Han Yu, Senior Sister Li, Ji Yida, and Hua Qi retreated in unison.

The blood-red figure let out a strange, “Hehe,” laugh. Several Blood Droplets mixed into the mist and shot out with terrifying speed.

Masked by the dense fog, the projectiles were invisible until they breached the perimeter. By then, they were point-blank. Senior Sister Li and Hua Qi dodged frantically, barely escaping.

Ji Yida and Han Yu were instantly pierced through.

Ji Yida howled in pain as a projectile punched through his shoulder blade. Without a second thought, he turned and fled at a full sprint.

Han Yu was struck through the chest. He swayed slightly, then dissolved into a fading shadow.

“Huh?”

The blood-red figure let out a surprised grunt. At that exact moment, a Wind Blade slashed at him from behind.

The intruder swayed, narrowly dodging the attack. He whipped his head around to see the source—a giant crow.

“You dare, you beast—”

Before he could finish his curse, Senior Sister Li’s shuttle artifact had completed its turn and shot straight for his back.

Standing on his flying skull, the cultivator twisted sideways to evade the shuttle. He waved his hand again, summoning another cloud of blood mist to envelop Senior Sister Li’s artifact.

Senior Sister Li’s face went pale. Under the corrosion of the mist, her connection to the Magical Artifact became sluggish and unresponsive.

Whoosh!

Another Wind Blade flew at him.

Is this damn beast never going to stop?

The blood-red figure flew into a rage. He fired a Blood Droplet straight at the large crow. “Die, you vermin!”

Just as the projectile left his hand, chaos erupted from directly beneath him.

A Sharp Gold Technique and a Wind Blade Technique shot upward, followed immediately by a roaring Flame Technique.

The blood-red figure was instantly engulfed by the three spells.

Below, Han Yu revealed his true form, watching tensely. He had activated two Talismans instantly and followed up with a spell of his own, chaining three attacks in the blink of an eye.

“You little bastard!”

The demonic cultivator was in a sorry state. One of his arms and half his shoulder had been sheared off, spraying blood into the air. He teetered on his mount, his blood-red eyes fixed hatefully on Han Yu.

No wonder it was a phantom before. This rat was hiding, waiting to deliver a fatal blow!

“Die!”

He stomped heavily on the flying skull beneath his feet. The skull shrieked, bleeding from all seven orifices, and exploded into a mass of filthy, corrosive blood that cascaded down onto Han Yu like a waterfall.

In an instant, Han Yu was submerged.

Then, the figure in the blood twisted slightly and dissolved into another phantom shadow.

Again?!

Immediately after, another Wind Blade and a Flame Technique slammed into the demonic cultivator. The Wind Blade came from the crow; the Flame Technique came from yet another Han Yu, standing in a different location.

This newly appeared Han Yu had a semi-transparent barrier shimmering in front of him—a Protection Talisman activated in advance.

“You little bastard, you’re not human—”

The twin strikes arrived simultaneously. The demonic cultivator’s eyes bulged. With a final, gurgling scream, he was pierced through the chest by the returning strike of Senior Sister Li’s flying shuttle.

Even as he died, his gaze remained fixed on Han Yu behind the golden barrier.

This kid!

How is he even more underhanded than a demonic cultivator?

“Junior Brother Han, you…”

Senior Sister Li retrieved her blood-stained artifact, the corner of her eye twitching. She didn’t know what to say.

Phantom Body Technique, Talismans, spells, Beast Taming Technique… was this how they were supposed to be combined?

It felt… indescribable. Effective, certainly, but somehow entirely out of place for an orthodox disciple of Wanchun Valley.

“You’re too sharp!” Hua Qi exclaimed, delighted.

“Ah, right. Junior Brother Han, you’re too sharp!” Senior Sister Li nodded, relieved to have found a polite word for it.

Han Yu nodded silently. He raised a hand and pointed at the corpse.

The large crow swooped down, grabbed the Storage Bag from the corpse’s waist, then let out a startled cry and dropped it immediately.

Han Yu instantly fired a Flame Technique, incinerating both the demonic cultivator’s corpse and the Storage Bag in a ball of fire.

He beckoned the crow back. In the center of its claw—hard enough to split metal—a dot of crimson blood was slowly seeping out. Who knew what kind of trap had been laid on that bag? If a person had reached for it with their bare hand, they would have been severely injured, if not killed.

Fortunately, there were no signs of poison.

“Junior Brother Han… you really are cautious,” Hua Qi said, his mouth hanging open slightly.

Senior Sister Li nodded, impressed. Then she turned her head and saw Ji Yida flying back on his artifact, clutching his shoulder.

Her face darkened immediately. “Ji Yida! You ran fast enough! Leaving us to cover your retreat!”

Ji Yida offered no defense. He looked terrified, his voice trembling. “Run—a stronger one is coming! Everyone at the Medicine Garden has been slaughtered!”

With that, he didn’t even look back, urging his artifact forward to flee once more.

At that moment, Senior Sister Li, Han Yu, and Hua Qi saw it too—a streak of blood-red light sweeping toward them from several miles away. Its momentum was overwhelming, like a crimson rainbow tearing through the sky.

The light swept into a Laborer Disciple’s stone hut. A scream echoed instantly, and a mass of condensed essence blood floated up from the ruins.

One glance was enough. This was not an opponent a Qi Refining cultivator could handle.

Senior Sister Li immediately mounted her flying shuttle. Hua Qi stepped onto his leaf-shaped artifact.

“Split up!”

“Don’t run blindly like Ji Yida, or we’ll all die!”

Senior Sister Li shot away on her shuttle, while Hua Qi chose a different direction.

Once they were gone, Han Yu’s figure split into two. The clones sped off in different directions, while his true form gradually faded from sight.

Thousand Illusions Secret Art: two phantoms for distraction, one concealed body for survival. Perfect for this moment.

The large crow swooped down, grabbed the invisible Han Yu with its claws, and swiftly flew into the dense forest on the far side of the Spirit Field Department.

Han Yu landed on a high branch. He glanced around at his flock of crows before allowing his form to reappear.

He retrieved an Earth Control Talisman and activated it. The earth parted, lifting a clump of shrubs. Han Yu slipped into the soil beneath, burying himself.

Connecting his mind with the large crow, he monitored the surrounding forest through its eyes while ordering the flock to erase any traces of disturbed soil on the ground.

Now, he waited.

If the Guardian Formation was completely destroyed, Han Yu would focus on survival first, then find a way to escape to a new region.

If Wanchun Valley survived, there would be no need to leave.

And if a demonic cultivator actually searched this spot… Han Yu would have no choice but to unleash every hidden card he had and fight to the death.

As he lay thinking in the cold soil, he suddenly sensed a shift through the crow’s vision.

A brilliant, piercing light streaked across the sky, sweeping away the blood-red haze that covered half the heavens.

Immediately following the light came a voice—clear, cold, and resolute—that rang in the ears of even the buried Han Yu.

“Demonic cultivators… you deserve death!”