76: Chapter 76 The Fight Between the Snipe and the Clam

Jiang Yan watched everything clearly from behind a dwarf pine.

His gaze shifted back and forth between the two men, his fingers unconsciously rubbing the edge of his cloak.

Both of them looked like Loose Cultivators.

Cultivators from a Sect would not wear such poor quality robes.

Cultivators from the Righteous Path rarely used low-class methods like poison powder; first, they felt it was too shameful, and second, the Sect had plenty of proper Magical Artifacts far better than this.

More importantly, Sect Cultivators would not kill each other in the wilderness to such an extent over a mere Vermilion Fruit.

These two were fighting to kill with every move, leaving absolutely no room for mercy.

Only Loose Cultivators would bet their lives for a spiritual fruit—because this might be the only chance they would have in their entire lives to turn their fortunes around.

Loose Cultivators. With no Sect backing them, no one would investigate even if they died.

His gaze finally landed on the dusty Storage Pouch at Liu Yuan's waist.

Vermilion Fruit.

These two words rolled repeatedly in his mind.

A Heaven And Earth Treasure that could be consumed directly to increase cultivation.

A single one could allow a Qi Refining Cultivator to advance one level in cultivation.

It was abnormal for something of this level to appear on the outskirts of the Manghuang Mountains.

It was likely something that had grown by chance in some mountain stream rich with Spiritual Qi, and Liu Yuan had just gotten lucky enough to stumble upon it.

"Liu Yuan! I will give you one last chance!"

Chen Feng was furious from the chase. The phantom image of the chain on his feet had faded to just a thin layer of golden light, and his speed had clearly increased.

He thrust his Flying Sword forward, and the pale cyan Sword Qi stretched into a thin line in the air, piercing straight at Liu Yuan's back.

The whistling sound of the sword was sharp and piercing.

Liu Yuan heard it. He knew he could not dodge this sword strike.

He had been running since entering the valley, his spiritual power was mostly exhausted, his speed using the Wind Control Technique was getting slower and slower, and his legs felt as heavy as lead.

The sound of the Flying Sword tearing through the air from behind was getting closer, and he could even feel the chill of the wind-attribute Spiritual Qi on the sword tip inching closer to the back of his neck.

So, he turned around abruptly.

He pulled a vermilion fruit the size of a baby's fist from his Storage Pouch with his left hand and held it high in front of him.

"Stop! I will give it to you!"

The voice was roared out. His throat was already hoarse, and by the end of the roar, his voice cracked, with a sobbing tone in the tail of the sound.

Chen Feng's Flying Sword stopped abruptly in mid-air.

The sword tip was less than three feet from Liu Yuan's chest, and the Sword Qi pierced a shallow indentation into the robe on Liu Yuan's chest, causing the fabric to sink inward.

Liu Yuan gasped for air. His chest heaved violently, his Wind Control Technique had stopped, his feet landed on the gravel ground, his knees buckled slightly, and he almost failed to stand steady.

He held the Vermilion Fruit high, his arm trembling, and the veins on the back of his hand bulging one by one.

"Here! Take the item! Let me go!"

The Vermilion Fruit was dazzlingly red in the sunlight.

The fruit skin was smooth as a mirror, with a faint crimson halo flowing on its surface.

The halo was not static but flowing slowly, as if a pool of molten ruby liquid was sealed beneath the fruit skin.

Beneath the fruit skin, one could vaguely see juice flowing slowly like magma, and every drop contained fire-attribute Spiritual Qi so rich it was almost tangible.

From a distance of several dozen steps, Jiang Yan could smell an extremely rich fruity fragrance.

The fragrance did not drift over; it slammed into him.

It was like a red-hot iron brand suddenly seared into his nasal cavity, rushing straight from his nose to his crown, and then pouring from his throat into his lungs.

The dark purple vortex in his Dantian automatically accelerated for an instant upon smelling this fragrance, like a sleeping beast that had suddenly caught the scent of blood.

Chen Feng's eyes stared blankly.

The Flying Sword hovered in the air, trembling slightly, its tip constantly locked onto Liu Yuan's throat.

But his eyeballs were nailed to the Vermilion Fruit and could not be pulled away; his Adam's apple rolled up and down several times, and his dry, cracked lips moved unconsciously.

He descended from his flying state and stood firmly on the gravel ground.

He reached out his hand toward Liu Yuan, palm facing upward.

"Place it slowly on the ground. Retreat ten steps."

His voice was very low, and every word was enunciated clearly.

Liu Yuan hunched his back and placed the Vermilion Fruit on the ground. His movements were deliberately very slow, as if he were trying his best to suppress the shaking of his hands.

From bending down to placing the fruit to straightening his body back up, every movement was as slow as walking underwater.

Beads of sweat from his forehead dripped onto the gravel, creating small, dark spots that were dried by the sun in the blink of an eye.

The Vermilion Fruit lay quietly on the dusty gravel. The red light flickered on and off, like a heart that had been dug out and was still beating weakly.

Liu Yuan began to retreat.

One step. Two steps. Three steps.

When he retreated to the fourth step, his hand slid a dark cyan wood spike Talisman from his sleeve.

Spiritual power was silently injected from his fingertips, and the Talisman paper burned silently in his palm—it was the same type of Talisman that had just struck Chen Feng's left cheek.

The moment the wood spike shot out from his palm, a sharp sound of breaking air exploded in the air.

The dark cyan wood spike, as thick as a thumb, flew at an extremely fast speed straight toward Chen Feng's face.

But Chen Feng had suffered a loss once, so he had been guarding against him from beginning to end.

The moment the wood spike shot out from Liu Yuan's palm, Chen Feng's Flying Sword moved simultaneously.

The pale cyan Sword Qi turned in a sharp arc in the air.

It was not to block the wood spike, but to bypass it directly and slash at Liu Yuan.

The arc the sword light drew in the air was incredibly beautiful; it was an instinctive reaction honed through countless real battles—the best defense is to let the enemy die first.

While the Flying Sword severed the wood spike at the waist, the sword tip had already reached three inches in front of Liu Yuan's throat.

Fragments of the wood spike flew past Chen Feng's right shoulder, tearing his robes and leaving a few shallow bloody scratches, with beads of blood seeping out from the tears.

Liu Yuan dodged to the side.

But he was too tired. His spiritual power was bottomed out, his legs were weak, and his dodging movement was more than half a beat too slow.

The Flying Sword pierced through his left chest.

The sword tip entered from his left chest and pierced through his back.

The pale cyan sword body was covered in blood, which flowed down the spine of the sword and dripped onto the gravel, making a faint hissing sound.

Liu Yuan looked down at the narrow, long sword hole in his chest.

His lips moved, but he didn't say anything. His body collapsed softly onto the gravel ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.

Chen Feng was also badly injured.

The moment he used his Flying Sword to kill Liu Yuan just now, the phantom image of the chain on his feet suddenly erupted as he exerted his full power to cast the spell.

This was the final injection of spiritual power from Liu Yuan before his death—even though the brat was dying, he had still used his last breath to pour a stream of spiritual power into the binding spell.

The pale golden phantom chain expanded violently, suddenly changing from a faint, ethereal image into a blinding gold.

The chain, like an enraged living snake, coiled upward from his ankle, and every link of the chain tightened simultaneously.

The sound of bones shattering was clearly audible.

Crack. Crack. Crack.

Chen Feng's right leg was twisted into three pieces from below the knee.

Bone shards pierced through his flesh and poked out, ghastly white, and bone marrow mixed with blood gushed out from the break.

Intense pain exploded from his ankle, rushing up along his spine into his skull, and he let out a scream that did not sound human.

The scream echoed back and forth in the valley, startling a flock of unknown birds in the distant forest.