38: Chapter 38 Interception and the Wrath of the Jade Balance Sect

The Imperial Guard felt a chill on his neck and instinctively reached up to touch it, only to find his hand covered in blood. Terror instantly filled his eyes.

"You..."

He barely opened his mouth before he collapsed to the ground, dead.

Just as that Imperial Guard fell, Commander Zhao, standing not far away, changed his expression. He shouted directly at the Imperial Guards beside him: "Fire arrows! Kill her for me!"

The hundred or so Imperial Guards, who had been on high alert for some time, reacted extremely quickly. Almost simultaneously, they drew the crossbows from their waists and fired arrows at the figure in the pavilion.

In an instant, hundreds of bolts completely enveloped the small pavilion.

"Even the heavy military crossbows cannot do anything to this Cult Leader, and you think these little hand crossbows can?" Inside the pavilion, the figure wearing a bamboo hat just sneered.

The long sword in her hand twirled, creating a flash of steel that caused all the incoming crossbow bolts to vanish like clay oxen entering the sea. They lost all their momentum and clattered to the ground one after another.

Before Commander Zhao and his men could react, the figure in the bamboo hat had already vanished!

"Not good!" Commander Zhao's heart raced, and a chill shot straight to the top of his head.

He shouted with almost all his remaining strength: "Quick! Quick! Form a formation! Charge together and kill her!"

As soon as the words left his mouth, he fiercely spurred his horse and bolted in the opposite direction like an arrow released from a bow.

"Want to leave? Unfortunately, I am not the only one who came this time!" The figure in the bamboo hat glanced at the fleeing Commander Zhao before looking away.

Like a butterfly flitting through flowers, she dove straight into the ranks of the Imperial Guards.

Sword light flashed, and wherever it passed, screams rang out incessantly. These Imperial Guards, who were usually considered elite, were as fragile as straw under her sword.

Commander Zhao, who had taken the opportunity to gallop several hundred meters away, couldn't help but look back. Seeing that the opponent was not chasing him, he immediately breathed a sigh of relief.

"Bastard! Who exactly is it?! Who leaked my whereabouts? I have only just left the imperial palace, and I am already ambushed..." Countless thoughts flashed through his mind, but the deeper he guessed, the more horrified he felt.

"I say, my good sir, why are you in such a rush? Where are you hurrying to?"

Just as he was secretly calculating, a soft, feminine voice suddenly sounded in his ear.

Commander Zhao's hair stood on end. Before he could fully recover, he felt a palm on his back—he didn't know when it had been placed there—and then a soft, insidious force penetrated his body!

"Pfft!"

Commander Zhao felt as if he had been struck by a giant hammer. He was involuntarily thrown from his speeding horse and fell heavily onto the official road.

"Who is it?! Hiding your head and showing your tail, come out!"

Commander Zhao endured the excruciating pain of his internal organs being displaced, rolled to his feet, drew the pair of bronze maces from his waist, held them in front of his chest, and watched his front vigilantly.

Just as he set his defensive stance, the soft, insidious force that had invaded his body erupted again. Commander Zhao felt his vision go black, and he had to grit his teeth to keep himself from passing out.

"Sigh! Still want to resist? Unfortunately, once you fall into my hands, you won't have that chance." That same soft, feminine voice sounded behind him again.

Commander Zhao was startled and grabbed the bronze mace in his hand, intending to smash it backward.

But before he could fully turn around, his neck was gently gripped by a cold hand.

"In your next life, be reborn into a good family! It would be best if you were born in Daxia!"

This was the last sentence Commander Zhao heard before he died.

After he fell, a figure was seen standing behind him. This person was none other than Eunuch Wei, who had left Daxia under the arrangements of Xia Jin.

Eunuch Wei bent down and searched the corpse of Commander Zhao. He quickly pulled a military tally and a scroll of imperial edict from his inner pocket.

By this time, the sounds of fighting on the official road had ceased.

The figure in the bamboo hat walked over slowly, carrying a dripping sword.

She casually took off the bamboo hat, revealing a familiar face—it was none other than Su Xuanji.

She glanced at the items in Eunuch Wei's hand, a flash of confusion in her eyes: "Eunuch Wei, what is this...?"

"Cult Leader Su," Eunuch Wei handed over the military tally and the imperial edict with a smile on his face, "Please trouble yourself to quickly take these two items back and present them to the Prince."

Su Xuanji nodded without saying much, only saying: "Farewell."

Before the words had even faded, her figure vanished in the blink of an eye.

Eunuch Wei then slowly turned around, scanning the hundred or so corpses of the Imperial Guards scattered across the official road.

He clapped his hands.

In an instant, dozens of figures dressed in black rushed out from the forests on both sides of the road.

Some of them quickly dragged part of the Imperial Guard corpses deep into the forest to bury them, while others carried out more than twenty corpses that had been prepared in advance from the forest and threw them in a conspicuous place on the official road.

These newly appeared corpses were all dressed in uniform light cyan martial attire.

Eunuch Wei stood with his hands behind his back, watching his men quickly set up the scene, a cold glint flashing in his eyes.

"Hmph, Dayuan... you can be the first stepping stone for our Daxia. You should feel honored."

...

Meanwhile, inside the Yuheng Sect, Sect Master Qiu Changtian looked at a letter in front of him, a flash of killing intent in his eyes.

"The Qingyun Sect has been destroyed, and Young Master Lin Xiao's whereabouts are unknown..."

His gaze swept over the last two sentences of the letter, and the temperature in the entire great hall seemed to drop by a few degrees.

He slowly raised his right hand and gave a gentle wave, and the letter turned into a pile of dust.

"It seems that among these seven kingdoms of the Eastern Region, there really is someone who does not take my Yuheng Sect seriously." Qiu Changtian looked outside the hall, his tone showing neither joy nor anger.

He withdrew his gaze and said indifferently to a Disciple below: "Notify the Third Elder to set off immediately and head to Dayuan."

"Tell him to investigate the truth and find Young Master Lin Xiao. If the culprit is found, execute them immediately!"

"Yes!" The Yuheng Sect Disciple nodded and walked quickly out of the Sect Master's main hall.

...

On the edge of a medicinal field behind the Yuheng Sect, an old man with a thin build and white hair and beard was lying crookedly on a giant rock.

A large wine gourd was tipped over beneath him, and before even getting close, one could smell a rich aroma of wine.

"Hoo... lu..."

The old man had his eyes closed, and bursts of snoring sounded; clearly, he was deep in drunkenness.

"Third Elder, Third Elder." A Yuheng Sect Disciple approached cautiously, stood three feet away, and called out several times, but there was absolutely no response.

"It's over! I've run into the Third Elder when he's drunk again!" The Disciple sighed helplessly. Every time this Third Elder was forcibly woken up after getting drunk, he would scold the person who came to wake him.

If it weren't for the Sect Master's order this time, he would rather have waited until the other party sobered up before coming.

The Disciple gritted his teeth, braced himself, stepped forward, grabbed the other's arm, and shook it hard.

"Third Elder! Wake up! The Sect Master has an urgent matter that requires you to go out!"

"Hmm...?" After shaking for a long time, the Third Elder smacked his lips, opened his eyes with difficulty, and looked at the Yuheng Sect Disciple with an unkind expression. "It's you little brat again? Disturbing my good dream... What did you just say?"

The Disciple quickly stepped back half a step. "Third Elder, the Sect Master has ordered you to set off immediately and go to the Dayuan Kingdom."

"Dayuan?" The Third Elder sat up slowly, grabbed the wine gourd beside him, shook it, found it empty, and tossed it aside.

"What are you going to Dayuan for?" He rubbed his forehead, clearly a bit confused.

"I... I heard it seems that the Qingyun Sect has been destroyed, and Senior Brother Lin Xiao, who went to the Qingyun Sect, has also... disappeared."

"What?!" The Third Elder instantly sobered up. His eyes, which had been slightly intoxicated, instantly became incomparably cold.

He grabbed his wine gourd, and in the next moment, his figure disappeared in front of the Disciple.

"It's the first time I've seen the Third Elder so serious. It seems things have blown up this time!" The Disciple watched the departing back of the other party, a drop of cold sweat involuntarily rolling down his forehead.