212: They escaped.

His head buzzed, and his mind went momentarily blank; the promise his Junior Sister had just made about "helping to hold the line" still echoed in his ears.

He stood dazed for a full three seconds before the realization finally hit him.

He had actually been abandoned as a pawn by that wretched couple.

A bone-chilling cold suddenly surged up his spine.

He didn't even see when that Demoness had appeared behind him; he only felt his lower back being struck violently, as if by a red-hot iron rod, followed by a crisp "crack" as his spine seemed to snap halfway through.

The scene before him suddenly twisted as Senior Brother Zhao was sent flying by a massive force like a ragdoll, crashing heavily into the bluestone cliff behind him and causing loose stones to rattle down.

A sweetness rose in his throat, and hot, metallic blood poured from the corner of his mouth, blurring his vision.

The Demoness hadn't expected that two of her "cooked ducks" would actually fly away.

Her fury at this moment was self-evident.

Through his blurred vision, he saw her bird claws stomp the ground as her wings suddenly unfurled. Several feathers shimmering with a ghostly green light shot out from her wings, striking directly at Senior Brother Zhao's neck like a Cultivator's Flying Sword.

"Swoosh—!"

Just as the feathers were less than three inches from his throat, a dull thud of crushing bluestone suddenly came from the west.

A figure instantly swept in front of him.

Li Pingan clenched his right fist and swung forward, the sound of breaking wind like muffled thunder echoing through the air.

"Bang!"

The moment the fist-wind collided with the feathers, the green-lit feathers exploded into fine downy scraps, instantly defeated.

The Demoness's pupils shrank; she clearly hadn't expected someone to suddenly disrupt her plans.

Could it be that she wouldn't be able to kill a single person today?

Her rage intensifying, she violently flapped her wings, and dozens of half-foot-long pale green wind blades were generated out of thin air, skimming across the ground as fast as lightning.

Aside from their innate Divine Ability, the weapons the bird-type Yao Race excelled at using most were their own sharp claws, beaks, or wings.

Rumors said the Kunpeng clan excelled at devouring all things; opening their massive beaks could trigger a "Void Vortex," which could swallow millions of troops and mountains at its smallest, or consume stellar fragments and immortal Realm warships at its largest—everything swallowed would be ground to dust within the Chaos Space in its belly.

Meanwhile, the innate Divine Ability of the Divine Phoenix Clan was to breathe out red-gold flames interwoven with "Nirvana Dao patterns," capable of incinerating all things.

Facing the wind blades, Li Pingan did not retreat but instead advanced.

"Boom!"

He shot out like an arrow from a bow, his arms protecting his front. After taking three wind blades head-on, he instantly closed in on the Demoness, his right leg sweeping out like a steel whip. The air exploded from the kick as it bore down on the Demoness's chest.

The Demoness sensed something was wrong; her intuition told her not to take the hit directly, so she hurriedly flapped her wings to retreat, narrowly avoiding the strike.

Looking up, she realized that the three previous wind blades had only left faint white marks on this dark-skinned man's body; it was practically painless.

Finally, a look of gravity appeared on her face.

"Are you also from that Chusheng Sect?"

"Chusheng Sect?"

Li Pingan looked puzzled! He had never heard of this Sect.

Ignoring his injuries, Senior Brother Zhao behind him hurriedly pleaded, "Thank you for your help, Senior! This Junior is a Disciple of the Chusheng Sect!"

The Demoness narrowed her eyes. "As I thought, you're all animals; you all deserve to die!"

She flapped her wings again, and more than ten wind blades wove into a net, targeting Li Pingan's vital points. Simultaneously, her body turned into a blur, moving so fast she left afterimages as she attacked Li Pingan from behind.

"Clang!"

A crisp sound like metal clashing rang out as Li Pingan's left arm swung back, his elbow accurately striking the Demoness's claws.

With his current Physical Body strength, he could completely ignore these kinds of wind blades.

In the path of Martial Dao, what one relied on most was every inch of flesh and skin they had personally tempered; this was far more reassuring than any technique or Divine Ability.

Seeing this from not far away, Ye Hao praised, "It seems I shouldn't try to spar with Senior Brother until I've had a Breakthrough to the Nascent Soul Realm."

The Demoness wanted to retreat, but the dark-skinned man turned and closed the distance.

His left hand gripped the base of her right wing, and his right hand formed a fist. Using the rotational force of his body, he smashed it violently into her ribs.

"Puff—!"

The Demoness was sent flying by the punch, crashing into the bluestone cliff and shaking down a large amount of debris. She spat out a mouthful of blood, and feathers from her wings fell away; she was clearly heavily injured.

Li Pingan flexed his wrists, his joints making a "crack-crack" sound, as if he was getting into the fight.

His expression no longer held its usual simple-mindedness, but had become... somewhat excited?

Clutching her ribs and watching the approaching Li Pingan, the Demoness's mind raced.

"Since I can't leave, I'll take some of you with me!"

She suddenly shrieked, flapping her wings despite the intense pain, and shot several feathers toward the dozen or so Foundation Establishment Cultivators nearby.

This move was useless against Li Pingan, but it was a catastrophe for these Foundation Establishment ants.

"Senior Brother, I'll save them, don't worry about it!"

Ye Hao's figure vanished from the spot, several Talismans in his hand igniting spontaneously. Bursts of spiritual light erupted, intercepting all the feathers.

The Demoness wasn't surprised; when Li Pingan joined the fray, she had already sensed another person watching from the shadows.

A palm-sized bronze feather whistle suddenly appeared before her; it was the earth-rank magic treasure, the Wind-Splitting Whistle, a trophy she had taken from a Golden Core Cultivator.

The moment Spiritual Qi was injected, a cloud of green mist exploded from the whistle. Within the mist, more than ten afterimages identical to her appeared, flapping their wings and flying off in different directions, making it impossible to tell the real from the fake.

This earth-rank magic treasure was not an offensive item; it was only suitable for escaping over long distances.

Li Pingan moved instantly, shattering five afterimages in a flash, but he couldn't find the Demoness's true body.

The bird-type Yao Race was naturally extremely fast; even when heavily injured, they were far beyond what an ordinary Cultivator could match.

As the green mist dissipated, Senior Brother Zhao confirmed he had survived and finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Slumped on the ground, he immediately took two white healing Medicinal Pills from his storage ring and swallowed them.

The pills dissolved as soon as they touched his throat, and a gentle spiritual power flowed down, slightly easing the intense pain from his broken spine.

Several of his fellow Disciples hurried over to help him up.

"I am Zhao Xu. Thank you, Seniors, for saving us! If not for you, I would surely have died today!"

Though his arms were being supported, Zhao Xu still tried his best to cup his fists in a respectful salute.

Li Pingan waved his hand, his gaze falling on Zhao Xu's blood-stained robes, his tone steady.

"No need for such formalities. What exactly is that Demoness's origin? Why is she hurting people here?"

Hearing this, Zhao Xu's expression darkened. "I don't know where she came from either; I only know her cultivation base is profound and her methods are ruthless.

Recently, seven or eight of my fellow Disciples have died at her hands..."

"This time, I intended to team up with my Junior Sister and Junior Brother to eliminate the demon, but I didn't expect this beast to be so cunning as to suppress her own Realm."

At this point, he remembered the scene of being betrayed by those two, and his expression became somewhat awkward.

He stiffly changed the subject: "By the way, I haven't asked for your names yet, Seniors?"

Ye Hao bent down to pick up a feather from the ground, twirling it in his hand.

"The two of us are from the Dao Seeking Sect. As for our names, it was just a small favor; Fellow Daoist, there's no need to worry about it."

"Dao Seeking Sect?"

Zhao Xu whispered the name twice, but had no impression of it in his mind. He asked again:

"Are you two Seniors perhaps Cultivators from another continent?"

The dark-skinned man's skills were certainly not ordinary; a Sect that could produce such a Prodigy would never be obscure.

The other person's Spiritual Qi fluctuations were not at all weaker than his own, and more impressively, both of them looked so young.

As long as nothing went wrong on their path of cultivation, they would surely become great figures like the Tower Master of the Demon Suppressing Tower in the future.