Assassination

By the banks of the Qin River.

Chuliang brought Liu Xiaoyu to the meeting place agreed upon in the letter, but there was no sign of any elder sister. Instead, only a figure in fine clothes stood there.

"Young Marquis?"

Chuliang was not surprised. He had already suspected that the letter might have been written by someone from the Ding Mountain Marquis Household.

Seeing Chuliang and Liu Xiaoyu approaching, the Young Marquis suddenly let a vicious smile creep across his lips. "You came..."

His tone was clenched with teeth, and in his eyes there shone a repressed fury, bright with the excitement of finally being able to vent it after so long. "There have been few people in my life who could make me hate them so much. You..."

What a murderous air.

Seeing the undisguised hostility around him, Chuliang knew his anger toward him was finally about to burst forth, so he raised a finger.

Purging Evil Spell.

If it was going to explode sooner or later, then let it explode later. First, let's get the matter cleared up.

While the Forgiveness Spell still had uses left, he cast it on the Young Marquis again. It was quite a coincidence: ever since he had obtained this spell, aside from the first time when he had tested its effect, every other use had been on the Young Marquis.

He could be called the foremost victim under the Forgiveness Spell.

A green halo appeared out of nowhere above the Young Marquis's head. He had been speaking menacingly with overwhelming arrogance when he suddenly froze.

His anger severed from the connection once more.

"You... ah-ba ah-ba..."

The abrupt change made the Young Marquis's words die on his lips once again, and then they vanished.

That familiar feeling.

Looking at Chuliang before him, he suddenly felt that this man's actions also seemed reasonable from his own standpoint. And since he had already decided today to kill him, when a man is about to die, why should he bother quarreling with him?

Exactly.

The Purging Evil Spell only dispelled the viciousness in a person's heart; it had little effect on the killing intent that had already been born.

After all, the Young Marquis's desire to kill Chuliang did not arise entirely from anger. More crucially, he had discovered that Liu Xiaoyu posed a threat to the Ding Mountain Marquis Household!

Seeing the look in Xia An's eyes suddenly grow calm, Chuliang asked, "Young Marquis, since you wrote the letter to summon us, do you know where Miss Xiaoyu's elder sister is now?"

"Heh..." The Young Marquis shook his head and smiled before answering calmly, "I don't know. If I did, I would have killed her first."

Under the spell's influence, his mind was extremely serene. Faced with these two soon-to-be-dead people, he did not mind letting them die with understanding.

"Why did you want to kill my sister?" Liu Xiaoyu grew anxious at once upon hearing this and stepped forward to demand an answer.

"I originally tricked her back to the marquis's estate and had no intention of killing her. Who knew she was so foolish and overheard the secrets of our house? I wanted to sell her to the Eastern Domain, but who could have known she was a demon? She actually escaped. I could not allow the marquis household's secrets to be exposed..."

Xia An answered without reservation, then looked at Chuliang. "You should never have gotten involved in this. If the disciples of Mount Shu were to find her, would the Ding Mountain Marquis Household not be plunged into utter ruin? So today, I can only summon the two of you here and kill you."

He actually wanted to kill them, something beyond Chuliang's expectations.

Yet after hearing these words, though he was surprised in his heart, he did not show the slightest panic. Instead, taking advantage of the Purging Evil Spell's effects still being at their peak, he quickly asked, "What secret does your Ding Mountain Marquis Household possess that must be guarded so desperately?"

At an inconspicuous place, his right hand moved ever so slightly.

There was a soft crack, faint and brittle.

"Nothing more than the business of selling women from the Southern Domain to the Eastern Domain," the Young Marquis said lightly. After answering, he added, "Now that I've told you everything, you may go on your way."

Without the Purging Evil Spell's effect, he would not have wasted a single word; he would have struck directly. Thanks to the spell dissolving his anger, he had patiently explained all this.

But the original plan would not change.

The moment his words fell, Liu Xiaoyu became a little frightened and turned to look at Chuliang. With that glance, it seemed she saw something terribly dreadful.

Terror instantly surfaced in her pupils!

Chuliang caught the change in her eyes, and almost at the same moment, the Red Name Slaying Sword also gave a faint stir.

In a flash, his mind understood.

Danger!

In an instant, a sheet of azure light wrapped around him!

...

It turned out that at the very moment the Young Marquis finished speaking, a black-sleeved arm had appeared out of nowhere behind Chuliang, a short blade with a pitch-black edge held in its hand.

This lone arm wielding a blade had emerged without sound or warning, thrusting suddenly out of the air toward Chuliang.

Liu Xiaoyu just happened to turn and look at Chuliang, and only then did she see that arm. Fortunately, Chuliang was sharp enough to discern from the change in Liu Xiaoyu's expression and the faint stir in the Red Name Slaying Sword that he was in danger.

So in the blink of an eye, he had already summoned the Green Leaf magical tool, wrapping himself up like a rice dumpling in an instant.

Sshhhh—

The strike looked unremarkable, its radiance fully restrained, yet like a knife piercing tofu, it easily penetrated Green Leaf's solid defense, the blade sinking all the way in. Then it was withdrawn, bringing blood with it.

After the blade was pulled out, the arm vanished once more into the void.

A black figure appeared behind the Young Marquis and snorted coldly. "To think he didn't die from one strike. His magical tool is somewhat mysterious."

This person was indeed Lord Lu.

The great evil who had once triggered the Red Name Slaying Sword.

And Chuliang opposite had at this point removed the Green Leaf's wrapping and collapsed to the ground, gasping hard for breath.

It could be seen that on the right side of his body was a deep wound. In the blink of an eye, blood had soaked through the grass beneath him, startlingly bright red.

"To escape a single strike beneath Lord Lu's Seven Hidden Killing Body, you can die without regret," the Young Marquis said coldly.

Lord Lu gently wiped the blood from the black blade, looking at Chuliang with a rather playful gaze, like an old cat regarding a rather nimble little mouse.

He had already achieved the Dharma Body of the sixth realm, refining the Dharma Body inheritance of the Seven Slaughters: the Seven Hidden Killing Body.

In the years when the Heavenly Star Divine Church was still glorious, the Seven Slaughters were not among the greatest inheritances within the church, but they were deeply feared by outsiders. For the Seven Slaughters were known as the strongest assassin inheritance!

They excelled at concealment and assassination, impossible to guard against.

The invisible slash from a distance just now had indeed shown the might of the sixth realm. Had it not been for a shred of luck, Chuliang would already have been decapitated.

But beyond luck, one must also possess a treasure capable of blocking a fatal strike from the sixth realm. Otherwise, even with forewarning, it would have been useless.

That Green Leaf magical tool, though it could not be said to have completely blocked the blow... even surviving half of it was rare and precious enough.

"Hah..."

Chuliang gasped laboriously, forcing down the pain in his wound. He first sealed the surrounding blood vessels with true energy, then raised his eyes to look at Liu Xiaoyu, who was standing nearby, frightened half senseless.

"Miss Xiaoyu, after you land, do not move. Wait for me to come find you."

"Huh?" Liu Xiaoyu did not understand a word he was saying.

Then they saw Chuliang flick his fingertips, and another blast of azure light envelop Liu Xiaoyu once more.

This was already her third time being wrapped up like a fish-stuffed rice dumpling.

The Green Leaf magical tool refined by Wen Yulong, after being pierced through by a single strike from a sixth-realm expert, had not been completely destroyed. It had only left behind a gap.

Chuliang lightly pinched a hand seal and silently uttered one word in his heart:

Launch.

Whoosh—

A streak of azure light suddenly shot upward into the sky, racing toward the far horizon!

"Do not let her escape!" the Young Marquis roared.

Behind him, Lord Lu raised a hand, and half of his arm once again vanished into thin air, as though performing the same divine art as before.

But when that void slash was withdrawn, there was no blood upon the blade. His expression darkened. "She got away too fast. My technique actually failed to keep up with that magical tool..."

Clearly, the strike that had hit Chuliang had not caught up with Liu Xiaoyu.

That patch of green leaf had already become a star in the distant heavens. With the true energy Chuliang had just poured in, it would likely have to fly at least several hundred li before falling.

He only hoped Liu Xiaoyu would land safely.

The Young Marquis clearly had not expected that Chuliang would still possess such a means of escape in a moment like this, only to give it to Liu Xiaoyu.

He said in a heavy voice, "Absolutely do not let him leave alive again!"

"Of course he won't get away..." Lord Lu said with a dark face, looking at Chuliang. "Foolish disciple of Mount Shu, I had not expected you to still have such a method... Even less did I expect you to give the hope of survival to another and remain behind to die yourself..."

Chuliang, heavily wounded and slumped on the ground, lifted his head to face the sixth-realm expert whose power utterly dwarfed his own. Then, contrary to their expectations, he suddenly revealed a smile.

He asked with a grin, "Who told you that?"