Everyone turned their heads in shock and saw Cai Junyang standing there, pointing his sword at the men in black, with some blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.
Tang Jie was stunned. “Junyang, what are you doing?”
“What am I doing?” Cai Junyang shook his head. “I’m fighting, of course. As a cultivator, I should bravely press forward, fearless of death! How can I be a hero if I shrink back in the face of adversaries and abandon my comrades?”
Tang Jie was speechless.
Cai Junyang swung his sword. “Raging Wave Slash!”
With another swing of his sword, he released a dazzling sword light.
“Junyang, no!” Tang Jie said in a panic.
“Seeking death!” In the distance, Gao Fei raised his hand and thrust it at Cai Junyang, preventing Cai Junyang from swinging his sword anymore.
“Mortal Shedding Realm!” Shu Mingyang shouted from the side.
Gao Fei was using his hand to exert control through spiritual energy, which was a skill only a Spirit Master of the Mortal Shedding Realm could possess. Using the spiritual energy in one’s body to harness the spiritual energy of the world sounded easy, but it involved an essential difference in how one cast.
To put it simply, it was to make every close-range ability a long-range one!
Unexpectedly, Cai Junyang roared, “What does it matter if he’s Mortal Shedding Realm? Aaagh… Break!”
His entire body bulged with muscle, his sword erupted with light, and then, despite Gao Fei’s suppression, it began to move.
Even Gao Fei couldn’t help but be startled.
After all, Cai Junyang was only at the Spirit Spring Tier, but he was resisting the spiritual pressure of the Mortal Shedding Realm. There was simply no comparing their spiritual power, and it was more than just one level that separated them.
But even in these circumstances, he was still able to move, and the strength he unleashed left even Gao Fei shaken.
Gu Changqing muttered, “Fearless in the face of death, brimming with the will to battle, and even seems capable of breakthrough in the middle of battle… Basking Moon Academy really does have many talents. If he survives, he might be able to enter the Dao of the Fearless. A pity…”
He waved his hand, and a man in black turned and charged at Cai Junyang.
Cai Junyang could barely move under Gao Fei’s pressure, so there was no way he could dodge this man’s attack.
The steel saber neared his abdomen.
“Vortex Slash!” someone shouted.
A wind blade exploded out, striking the man in black and forcing him back.
The attacker was none other than Liu Hongyan.
“Hongyan, you?” Shu Mingyang was flabbergasted.
Liu Hongyan chuckled. “Junyang is right. Tang Jie is our schoolmate. Abandoning him and running isn’t something I can do.”
After some hesitation and wavering, Liu Hongyan had decisively made her choice.
To fight alongside Tang Jie!
At this moment, Tang Jie was kicked by a man in black and staggered back several steps. Liu Hongyan rushed up to support him.
At the same time, Cai Junyang broke through Gao Fei’s restraints and rushed to Tang Jie’s side. Gao Fei didn’t try to stop him, allowing the three of them to stand together.
Those men in black were about to keep attacking when Gu Changqing lightly coughed. All of them stopped at once.
Carrying out orders swiftly and decisively!
Gu Changqing casually said, “Such daring! Who else wants to help Tang Jie? I will give you one last chance.”
The others looked at each other, upon which Tang Jie sternly said, “Hurry and get out of here. Godhead Palace is after me, not you guys, so don’t lose your life just for my sake.”
Putting aside these men in black, Mortal Shedding Realm Gao Fei alone was enough to beat all the students working together, and that wasn’t even considering the stronger Gu Changqing and whoever else he might be hiding in the shadows.
The students had no chance of victory in this battle!
After thinking it over, in the end, Yang Zhiyuan stomped his feet and said, “My apologies. Though we are schoolmates and friends, I cannot bring myself to die for you.”
“It’s fine. I don’t blame you,” Tang Jie said, shaking his head as he smiled.
His body was covered in wounds, but his smile was relaxed and carefree.
He truly didn’t blame him. After all, shrinking back in the face of death was normal.
Li Yijing wanted to say something, but Yang Zhiyuan pulled him, and the two walked out together.
With these two gone, the only two who had yet to make their choice were Shu Mingyang and Ping Jingyue.
Everyone looked at these two.
Shu Mingyang sighed. “Actually, I really want to leave. I have my own ambitions and don’t want to die. But now that Junyang has gone crazy and Hongyan has gone dumb, if I leave, I’ll probably cast a shadow on my heart for the rest of my life…”
He walked up to the three, standing alongside Tang Jie as he pulled out a stack of talismans.
Ping Jingyue took in a deep breath, but without a word, she walked over and stood next to the four.
Tang Jie sighed at this. “Why are you guys doing this to yourselves?”
He really didn’t want to have everyone follow him into these muddy waters.
Cai Junyang laughed. “As a student of Basking Moon, I can kill or be killed, and I can run away when facing a powerful foe, but I don’t have a habit of abandoning my comrades. As this is the situation we find ourselves in, we have to fight. It’s better to die a heroic death than to drag out an ignoble existence.”
Liu Hongyan pouted. “You’ve taken all the good words for yourself. Let’s just fight. There’s no point in being indecisive!”
She began to form her strongest spell with her hands, the Flying Moon Blade Art. While she spoke casually, when facing a powerful foe, Liu Hongyan still fully prepared herself.
Tang Jie felt his heart heat up as he laughed. “Alright, then we might as well fight to our hearts’ content!”
“Fight to our hearts’ content!” the others shouted in unison.
Gu Changqing coldly snorted. “Fight to your hearts’ content? Do you have the ability to say those words? All you have is heroic ambition, but you have none of the heroic strength to back it up, so all you do is make a joke of yourself…”
His body suddenly vanished as he charged at the group of five.
He was dealing with them personally!
Cai Junyang roared, swinging his sword at Gu Changqing and unleashing a wave of molten fire.
Gu Changqing grunted, “Don’t know your own strength!”
These words were like a sudden explosion in their minds, and Cai Junyang was the first to be struck. The shock threw his breathing into disarray and prevented him from casting a spell.
At the same time, Liu Hongyan and Tang Jie threw out the Flying Moon Blade and the Energy Needle.
Gu Changqing accelerated, leaving a blur on the ground and easily dodging these two attacks. He charged at the five, moving up to Liu Hongyan’s side and sending her flying with a thrust of his palm.
Ping Jingyue shouted as she fired a ball of lightning from her palm. At the same time, Shu Mingyang raised a talisman from which lightning shot out.
“Palm Lightning!”
“Lightning talisman!”
Two bolts of lightning shot at Gu Changqing, but Gu Changqing simply snatched with his hand like it was an eagle claw. The two bolts of lightning struck his palm, fusing into a beam of lightning, and then Gu Changqing closed his hand, balling up the lightning in his hand.
The lightning continued to pulse in his hand, refusing to scatter. It was as if Gu Changqing had caught two lightning snakes, a frightening sight.
“Bringing form to spirit?” Shu Mingyang blurted out. “You’re already at Nine Revolutions?”
The Mortal Shedding Realm had three periods: Hundred Refinement, Nine Revolutions, and Cognitive Creation.
Someone who had entered Nine Revolutions had spiritually refined all nine of the human body’s weak points: the heart, the liver, the spleen, the stomach, the kidneys, the lungs, the intestines, the gall bladder, and the head. It was the comprehensive strengthening of the organs that came after the strengthening of the bones and flesh in the Hundred Refinement Period. At this time, the cultivator could be considered to have fused flesh and spirit.
The most obvious display of this was the ability to substantialize spiritual energy.
These two lightning bolts were spell arts, and they would dissipate once they struck. Only someone at the Nine Revolutions level had the ability to substantialize spiritual energy and could trap an opponent’s spell art in their hand and prevent it from dissipating.
With this move, Gu Changqing had shown that he was at Nine Revolutions or higher. Moreover, the people of the Hawk Hall were not cultivators who only sought higher realms. For them, combat power was more important than cultivation realm, so he was as strong as his cultivation realm implied.
“Ignorant juniors!” Gu Changqing tossed out the two lightning snakes back at their casters, striking them both.
The two of them were instantly paralyzed by their own spell arts and dropped to the ground.
Cai Junyang finally managed to stabilize his breathing, and with a roar, he once more unleashed the Raging Wave Slash.
But to his surprise, as Gu Changqing turned around, his left hand flashed with golden light as if it had been plated in metal, and he slapped his hand at the sword.
Clang! In a ring of clashing metal, Gu Changqing grabbed the sword in midair.
Tang Jie swung his saber at Gu Changqing.
But Gu Changqing ignored the saber, his left hand sliding along the sword in a trail of metal sparks and striking Cai Junyang in the chest with his palm.
Rather than flying out, Cai Junyang froze, and then he vomited blood and dropped limply to the ground.
This one palm strike had broken seven or eight of his ribs.
Gu Changqing raised his left hand over his head, and Tang Jie’s saber struck it right in the palm, creating a splash of sparks.
Gu Changqing grabbed and twisted, breaking off the tip of the saber. With a flick of his fingers, he sent the saber tip at Tang Jie. The power attached to the saber tip blasted a bloody hole in Tang Jie’s body, and Tang Jie flopped to the ground.
With just a few moves, Gu Changqing had defeated all five of the students, and all while using only one hand.
Just as Gu Changqing had said, such heroic phrases and daring were nothing before absolute strength. It was simply the tragedy of the mantis trying to stop a carriage!
With the five students felled by Gu Changqing, the men in black rushed up to capture Tang Jie, placing a saber on his neck to ensure that he wouldn’t move.
Gao Fei walked over and looked at the four people on the ground. He respectfully asked, “Eagle Master, what should we do with these people?”
Gu Changqing looked at Tang Jie, thinking that he would beg for their lives to be spared. To his surprise, Tang Jie said nothing, only stared at Gu Changqing.
Gu Changqing furrowed his brow and finally said, “Forget it. We’ve already started a feud with Basking Moon Academy by kidnapping a student. There’s no need to make this matter worse than it already is. Let the others go and let’s get out of here with Tang Jie.”
He shot out a bolt of air with a flick of his fingers, knocking Tang Jie out.
The men in black hurried away with Tang Jie.
Gu Changqing continued to stand there, pondering something.
Zhao Xinguo emerged from his hiding spot to stand next to Gu Changqing. Smiling, he said, “Eagle Master, congratulations on the completion of your mission!”
“A day without the Martial Mirror in our hands means another day without success,” Gu Changqing indifferently replied. “Moreover…”
“Moreover?”
“Moreover, I feel like this operation went too smoothly.”
Zhao Xinguo immediately laughed. “We were just dealing with a few kids. What sort of problems could we have encountered?”
Gu Changqing shook his head.
This force was enough to deal with a few ordinary kids.
But if Tang Jie was really Tang Jiye, then all that had happened before had not been a coincidence.
How could he underestimate a kid who had thwarted Godhead Palace again and again?
To tell the truth, in this operation to lure out Tang Jie, Gu Changqing’s primary goal had been confirmation, and his secondary goal had been capture. If he could make the confirmation, then whether it was him or not, the operation would be a success. He had been in no rush to capture.
But to his surprise, the operation had gone very smoothly, with both the confirmation and the capture succeeding. There had been no mishaps, and everything had gone exactly as he had planned.
This was precisely why Gu Changqing felt no joy from success. On the contrary, he felt uneasy.
He once more recalled Tang Jie’s cold and callous eyes. There was derision and disdain in those eyes, the sense that everything was under his control…