Volume Three: Rising Fame Chapter Twenty-Four: The End

Small Green’s reaction was astonishingly quick. She flipped the long blade in her hand and drove it viciously into the ground.

Alas, the assassin had come prepared. Not only did the strike fail to wound him, he seized the blade and yanked hard. A tremendous force surged through it; the weapon was torn from Small Green’s grasp, and she herself was hurled straight toward Li Yu.

“Sir, be careful!”

She could feel a dark shadow clinging close behind her all along. In an instant she understood the assassin’s intent: he meant to use her to disrupt Li Yu’s attack.

The two were already uncomfortably close. Clenching her teeth, Small Green twisted her delicate body and threw herself in front of the dagger thrust out by the assassin, using her own flesh to take that fatal blow.

“Damn it!”

The assassin’s eyes seemed ready to spit fire.

“You are dead today!”

By then Li Yu had already reacted. Seizing the moment of hesitation, he sent a punch flying.

Unfortunately, the assassin’s speed was extremely fast. He simply let go of the dagger and retreated lightly by two steps.

“Both of you, attack together!” the assassin shouted.

Only then did the man in black on the other side come to himself. His face was already wan from the strain of the secret art, but he had not expected that an assassin of the fifth rank had been lurking beside him all this while.

Whose house is this from?

He had no time to think further. The delaying force on both sides was likely nearly finished off by now, and some soldiers of the Azure Sun Army were already breaking through the blockades and surging in from both flanks.

There was no time to waste!

He knew this all too well. If those soldiers got through, then even if he turned his own body into a wall of flesh, he would have no chance left.

“Together!” he roared.

Madness filled his eyes. His aura rose sharply as he once again forced the secret art into motion. With the assassin at his left and right, he charged Li Yu, who was holding Small Green in his arms.

“Sir, do not mind me!” Small Green’s abdomen had already turned an eerie black-red. Her beautiful eyes narrowed, and she directly pulled the dagger free. Black blood gushed out, a shocking sight to behold.

“Their weapons must all be poisoned. I’ll block them for you... wait for reinforcements...”

She had not finished speaking when her body had already gone soft and weak.

“You must not take risks!” She was about to rush forward to meet the enemy, but a hand stopped her.

“Let me!”

Li Yu stepped out in one stride. Spiritual power burst forth from his entire body, colliding head-on with the domain fields of the two fifth-rank experts.

The three of them were all vying for control over the spiritual power within the area.

A fifth rank?

Why is his domain so large?

The two death soldiers were somewhat stunned, but before they could make sense of it, thunderous spiritual power like a stormy sea smashed into them, sending them back two steps.

Li Yu’s expression hardened. He stepped forward.

Using spiritual power to imitate the circulation of blood and qi, he now seemed like a martial cultivator, transformed into a savage beast. Seizing the opening torn between the two domains, he threw a punch at the assassin.

Bang!

The assassin who had emerged from the earth had only enough time to raise his left arm before him. He was sent crashing into the stone wall as if struck by a runaway carriage.

“So you were the one who needed the most attention after all. Too bad your information was wrong!”

The man in black’s eyes nearly split with rage. He drew a dagger with his reverse hand and, taking advantage of the opening after Li Yu’s punch, slashed toward Li Yu’s chest.

“Sir, careful, it’s poisoned!”

The poison spread. Small Green collapsed to the ground, able only to cry out anxiously.

Li Yu did not answer. He shifted slightly, avoiding the dagger, then delivered another simple punch, sending the man in black stumbling back as well.

This time, however, the man in black had been on guard, so the blow did not do much damage.

The assassin on the other side then flew in again, joining the man in black in a pincer attack against Li Yu.

Some of the Azure Sun Army soldiers tried to come to the rescue, but as soon as they reached the outer edge, the two enemies casually dealt with them.

“Fall back! Take her to a safe place!”

Li Yu could not bear to watch these men rush toward him like moths to a flame, sacrificing themselves in vain. Such loss of life meant nothing.

These soldiers were all at the eighth rank. If they were in open ground and riding Azure Ox Beasts, they could slaughter sixth-rank cultivators with minimal losses.

But in such a cramped place, against fifth-rank cultivators, sending soldiers up in small numbers was utterly meaningless.

“Listen to me! All of you retreat. I can handle this myself!” Li Yu said furiously.

A portion of the Azure Sun Army soldiers carried Small Green away to a safe spot, while the rest still charged in without hesitation.

“Don’t let the young master lose focus!” Small Green shouted from the side, and only then did she stop the Azure Sun Army’s advance.

She was somewhat helpless. Clearly Li Yu had had the upper hand just moments before, yet because he had gone to save the Azure Sun Army soldiers rushing in, he had put himself in grave danger, which was why she cried out in haste.

Otherwise, in her view, the best solution was to use human lives to buy time.

Li Yu let out a breath and deliberately lowered the intensity of the shockwaves, so as not to injure the people on either side.

Meanwhile, the hearts of the two fifth-rank cultivators sank deeper and deeper into despair.

Impossible to break through.

The two of them had not expected Li Yu’s domain to be so vast that even with both of them seizing spiritual power at once, he did not fall behind. Much less could they ignore Li Yu’s absurdly refined imitation technique. Its speed and force were so terrifying that if either of them fought him alone, the battle might end in an instant.

Moreover, the man in black’s aura was already beginning to weaken; the secret art was clearly becoming impossible to sustain.

If his strength fell, the two of them would be in even greater peril.

“Fight to the death!”

The two exchanged a look.

The man in black threw himself forward in a frenzy, while the assassin abruptly broke away and headed straight for the fallen Small Green.

“You come back here!”

Li Yu was shocked. He leaped up, landed behind the assassin, and was just about to seize him when the latter revealed a bizarre smile. At some point, a pitch-black dagger had slid from his sleeve into his hand, and he whirled and struck back.

At the same time, the man in black also exerted himself fully, his entire spiritual power transforming into a great sword that stabbed toward Li Yu’s back.

A wolf in front, a tiger behind.

A fatal kill.

With this move, the two had set a trap on the certainty that Li Yu would move to rescue the other side. It was simple, yet extraordinarily effective.

“No way to dodge!”

Li Yu was startled. The sparring within his clan had never included such despicable tactics. Grinding his teeth, he roared, “Die!”

He barely managed to twist aside as a sword of thunder condensed in his hand and swept across the throat of the man before him.

And the attack from behind was already impossible to evade.

The great sword condensed from fire spiritual power easily shattered the thunder shield Li Yu had hastily formed, then pierced into his back.

Blood flew everywhere.

The assassin clutched his throat and fell, his eyes flickering with the relief of mission accomplished and a trace of release.

Li Yu’s back was in the same state. A great deal of blood poured from the wound. He barely managed to turn his head, and the longsword in his hand flashed with thunder as it pierced the man in black’s skull.

The man in black did not dodge.

The secret art had drained him heavily; at this moment he was already spent and unable to move.

“Sir!”

Small Green cried out.

This strange battle had brought all three of them down before her eyes at once.

From afar, the shocking amount of blood pouring from Li Yu’s back filled her with panic. Her eyes reddened, and she shouted at the Azure Sun Army soldiers, who were still standing there in a daze.

“Quickly, go help the young master up!”

“You...”

Before she could finish, her vision was already blurring. The poison could no longer be suppressed, and it broke out within her body.

As she fell heavily to the ground, she saw two figures flash to Li Yu’s side. Only then did she finally relax.