A fierce wind cut through the air as Shangguan Qingqing, clad in deep crimson, surged forward with True Qi flowing beneath her feet, her entire figure practically becoming a streaking red afterimage.
Her spirited and pretty face was taut with urgency and cold resolve.
Her throwing knives flew out in a relentless electric stream, and though the True Qi armor condensed on the surface of Sha Wenshan and the other two's bodies continued to deflect them, she kept striking without let-up.
But just then, from beneath the eaves of a nearby shop, a fierce streak of sword light suddenly burst forth.
The young man in white shot out with explosive speed, his gaze ice-cold. The sword edge in his hand thrust out sharply, the blade light condensing into a single white gleam, like the flickering tongue of a viper, sweeping toward Shangguan Qingqing's throat.
Shangguan Qingqing's expression changed in an instant, and she pulled up short, leaning quickly back to dodge the killing strike that had appeared from nowhere.
Then she raised her hand and sent two throwing knives shooting toward the young man in white's face.
The young man in white pulled his sword back to deflect them at once. A jarring clang of tal on tal rang out as the knives were batted away one after the other.
He let out a contemptuous cold laugh, saying, "With your level of ability, you think you can rescue soone from under my father's hands? Stay right here."
As he spoke, his sword technique shifted without hesitation into another form and pressed toward Shangguan Qingqing's vital points without pause.
Shangguan Qingqing's expression was anxious, but she had no choice but to stop her advance and deal with the young man before her for the ti being.
At the sa ti, Sha Wenshan glanced back with an indifferent look, then curled his five fingers into hooks as solid as cast iron. His claw energy tore through the curtain of blade light before him and pressed directly down onto the flat of Qin Hao's broad saber.
Seeing this, Qin Hao's face shifted in sudden alarm, and he quickly channeled his True Qi, trying urgently to wrench the saber free.
Yet he found that the force bearing down from the other man's hand felt like a thousand kilograms of dead weight, and he could not budge it in the slightest.
Then the two middle-aged n closed in and clamped their palms down onto his shoulders.
In an instant, Qin Hao felt the True Qi within his body being suppressed and locked in place, utterly unable to flow no matter how hard he strained to circulate it.
At this, Qin Hao's heart sank. He knew he was powerless, that he had beco fish on a chopping block with nothing left to do but submit to whatever ca next.
"Hand over the other half of the map, and I may spare your junior sister's life."
Sha Wenshan stripped the broad saber from Qin Hao's grip and spoke with terse economy.
Qin Hao furrowed his brow, his gaze drifting toward Shangguan Qingqing in the distance, engaged in combat with the young man in white, and said, "I don't know what you're talking about."
"It seems you want to sample the White Sand Gang's thods of persuasion."
Sha Wenshan narrowed his eyes slightly, then grabbed Qin Hao by the collar and began walking toward a nearby ironsmith's shop.
But just at that mont, a rough voice suddenly rang out across the main street, saying, "Hold on."
Sha Wenshan paused and turned to look in the direction of the voice, only to see a figure in coarse hemp clothing standing quietly on the broken wooden roof beams of a shop on the opposite side.
The coachman's features were unremarkable, and in his hand he held a broken blade.
Sha Wenshan furrowed his brow at the sight, and was just about to speak.
But in the very next mont, the coachman on the rooftop had already swung his blade down.
In an instant, blade light splashed out like a silver urn shattering, and the cascading shards of light enveloped all three of Sha Wenshan's group.
"You're courting death!"
Sha Wenshan's gaze turned cold. He reached out and sealed Qin Hao's acupoints, then tossed him casually to one of his underlings.
Then he and the other two middle-aged n acted in seamless unison, striking out together.
They launched claw shadows and palm prints of terrifying force that broke through the crashing shards of blade light, charging toward the coachman on the roof with murderous intent.
Cao Gaoshan lowered his gaze slightly, then glanced back over his shoulder toward the only open window on the second floor of the inn behind him and said in a low, steady voice, "Sir, watch this."
And in the next mont, the slash of his blade had already been delivered, though not a trace of the motion could be seen.
A deep hum resonated.
In an instant, the entire surrounding air trembled, and the roof tiles that had been shattered by the battle's shockwaves earlier began jumping and bouncing without cease.
A blade shadow roughly one zhang in length rose silently in front of him. The shadow was domineering and fierce. The brilliant blade light split the air and ca thundering down toward the stone-paved street below in the span of a single breath.
The slash was blindingly fast. From the mont the blade shadow appeared to the mont it vanished, Sha Wenshan and the other two had not been able to trace even a sliver of its trajectory.
In that sa instant, the countless claw shadows and palm prints in the air dissolved completely, and the three of them, who had only just leaped into mid-air, ca crashing back down at an even greater speed.
Boom!
All three slamd into the stone-paved street. The terrifying force of the impact shattered the bluestone surface, sending fragnts of stone flying in every direction and dust billowing upward, gouging out a pit half a man's depth in the ground.
Cough, cough...
The sound of violent coughing ca from within the pit, as the three of them lay at the bottom with bright crimson blood seeping continuously from the corners of their mouths.
On each of them was a ghastly, bone-deep gash, for the coachman's slash had co within a hair's breadth of cutting all three of them clean in half.
The three of them wore expressions of horror and agony. They had sustained grievous injuries and no longer had the slightest strength left to resist.
Up on the second floor of the inn, Hu Rui'an, who had watched the whole scene unfold, fixed his gaze on Cao Gaoshan's figure and let a flash of surprise show in his eyes, murmuring in puzzlent, "When did his martial Dao cultivation advance this far? He's practically on the doorstep of the half-step Heaven-Human level."
Wu Shang standing in attendance to one side could not help letting out a word of admiration, saying, "Brother Cao's 'Que Blade Slash' has beco this formidable. Though... I don't think I've ever seen him use that particular strike before."
At this mont, the coachman Cao Gaoshan turned his head back and looked toward Li Musheng at the window. On his weathered, deeply lined face appeared a rare flicker of nervous anticipation, as he said, "Sir, how was that slash of mine?"
"Not even close."
Li Musheng shook his head directly. Cao Gaoshan's expression went montarily blank at that.
But very quickly he straightened up on the broken wooden beams, raised his rough, calloused hands in a respectful bow toward Li Musheng, and said with a face full of contrition, "I'll keep working at it."
The mont those words fell, all three of the others, including Hu Rui'an, wore peculiar expressions and turned simultaneously to look at Li Musheng sitting at the table.
From the mont Cao Gaoshan had volunteered earlier, they had already been puzzled by the nature of the relationship between Li Musheng and the coachman.
And now the puzzlent in their hearts had grown even deeper.
In their estimation, Cao Gaoshan seed to hold Li Musheng in profound respect, yet this respect was clearly not born of the man's status as a prince.
It felt more like the reverence a student holds for a teacher, a desire to earn the other's recognition.
Yet this too made little sense on the surface. Cao Gaoshan was a Martial Dao Grand Master, while Li Musheng, though fond of speaking in grand terms, did not appear to carry even the faintest trace of martial True Qi.
The baffling contradiction between these two facts left Hu Rui'an and the others feeling that the whole thing was rather beyond explanation.
...
At the sa ti, the young man in white caught sight of his father being struck down in a single slash and let out a startled cry, imdiately abandoning his fight with Shangguan Qingqing and rushing toward the pit in the stone street.
Seeing this, Shangguan Qingqing did not seize the mont to pursue and cut him down, but instead moved quickly to find her senior brother Qin Hao.
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