Chapter 321 - Unseen Battle

First, I want to thank everyone for their opinions and thoughts on how we should overhaul completed novels. We've reviewed nearly 2000 comments across multiple platforms and forum, and while we haven't responded to everything I can promise I HAVE read it all. First, I'm going to briefly go into some of the things which were discussed which may or may not work, because I don't want people to think I ignored anything. I'm putting those in 'spoiler' tags so people who don't care can skip it. Then, we'll talk...

Chapter 321: Unseen Battle

“Xue Hong!”

One of Chen Qiaoqian’s Senior Martial Brothers loudly grieved for her; it seemed they were pair cultivation partners. He waved his hands, immediately shooting a black light toward the woman’s corpse that madly attacked its surroundings in an attempt to find the demon who killed her.

It could be said that the death of this Senior Martial Sister “Xue Hong” was truly unjust. Were it not for her competitive spirit, she wouldn’t have used her treasure talisman and might still be alive.

Before she attempted to activate the talisman treasure, a light muslin defensive magic tool had been hovering at her side. But, in order to hasten the activation of her treasure talisman and cut down magic power consumption, she had retrieved her magic tool— consequently, leaving herself defenseless and her life forfeit.

It is truly unfortunate that this woman was inexperienced and made such an extremely careless mistake.

Her enemies had turned into light cocoons in front of her, and her fellow sect members surrounded her; as a result, she dared to activate this talisman treasure with an easy heart. Who could have predicted that the Ice Demon would emerge from the cocoon half transformed and immediately turn invisible before targeting her.

At that moment, the woman had been in the final moments of activating the treasure talisman and was incapable of immediately stopping; thus, she had fallen prey to the Ice Demon’s malicious scheme.

When Song Meng had activated his spear treasure talisman, he hadn’t employed any defenses either. However, the might of his talisman treasure was comparatively smaller, enabling him to activate it sooner. Otherwise, he might've been targeted by the concealed Ice Demon instead.

Furthermore, it wasn’t just those two that hadn’t set up any defenses, neither had Han Li nor any of the the others bothered to. They naturally wouldn’t waste any magic power to deploy unnecessary defensive magic tools; after all, the light cocoons were targets incapable of striking back.

They immediately set up defensive barriers with their magic tools after Han Li’s reminder, preventing any further sneak attacks. Cold sweat ran down their backs from seeing Xue Hong’s tragic death; her heart was torn from her chest, leaving her to die in a pool of her own blood.

But what was most distressing, was that regardless of what methods they used, none of them were able track down this demon.

They occasionally spotted traces of him, but that demon would again disappear before they could react as if he were constantly changing his location at great speed. The Ice Demon was half transparent and would occasionally flicker in and out of their vision in every direction. Even with specialized autonomous magic tools, they were still unable to find a trace of him as if he had completely disappeared.

Suddenly becoming fearful for their safety, they began looking in every direction; they had actually been completely suppressed without addition action from the Ice Demon.

Only Han Li looked at the present scene with a trace of bewilderment.

Senior Martial Brother Wang who fought alongside Han Li had never seen such a bloody scene before. His currently wore fearful expression with pale complexion.

Her death appeared to be a nightmare. He had originally imagined that this would be the time for him to show off his divine strength and easily wipe out the enemy. But things had turned out entirely different from how he imagined. Not long before, he had even joked about in which manner they could have possibly met their end.

With that thought, he looked at the Senior Martial Brother that was Xue Hong’s pair cultivation partner, causing his face to appear even more unsightly.

Could it be that that the more one feared something would happen, the more likely it was to occur?

It was unknown whether he was feeling guilty about the appearance of the Ice Demon or felt a desire to act from his helplessness.

But as he despondently paced back and forth, a transparent ice-cold claw appeared from behind him from thin air, fiercely stabbing toward his heart.

The small bronze shield that was protecting Senior Martial Brother Wang’s body was completely autonomous. Without waiting for a command, it flashed toward the strike and blocked it.

Dāng. Although the sharp, ice-like claws were blocked by the small bronze shield, it was instantly frozen in a layer of thick frost and bluntly fell to the ground, temporarily becoming useless.

At this moment Senior Martial Brother Wang discovered the astonishing event occurring behind him and felt blood drain from his face. He unconsciously turned around, incessantly looking in every direction, losing his mind to panic.

After seeing there was nothing behind him, he hesitated for a moment before crouching to pick up the small bronze shield. He wanted to thaw it so that he would be able use it once more.

“Quick, dodge!”

The nearby Liu Jing loudly yelled in alarm after seeing his actions.

“Huh?” But by the time he realized what was going on, the crisp sound of his protective water-attribute barrier shattering caused him to feel a heart chilling wind down his back.

“Damn it!” At almost the same time Senior Martial Brother Wang realized what was going to happen, the Ice Demon had already left concealment to make a fatal strike.

In this instant, Senior Martial Brother Wang’s mind grew blank, filled with only the scene of Senior Martial Sister Xue Hong’s tragic death.

‘I truly didn’t think that it would be my turn so quickly!’

This was the only thought that occupied his mind.

But suddenly, his vision became hazy and he felt his body become light. His entire body flew as if he were a cloud being carried by the wind, hearing sounds of wind and thunder underneath him along with a loud, furious yell of surprise.

Soon after, his two legs met the hard ground and someone was standing before him with absolute calm.

“Senior Martial Brother Wang, are you alright?”

While not knowing whether he was alive or dead, he heard a familiar voice full of deep concern.

Upon hearing the familiar voice, he blankly turned his head and saw Liu Jing looking at him with worry.

Seeing his face, Senior Martial Brother Wang realized that he was alive and unharmed. With unconcealed happiness, he gratefully said, “Senior Martial Brother Liu, were you the one who saved me?”

Senior Martial Brother was frightened from his own voice. From his coarse voice, it could be clearly be seen that he had been truly shaken from the moment before.

When Liu Jing heard this, he revealed an awkward, embarrassed appearance and said, “I am quite ashamed to say Junior Martial Brother’s survival wasn’t my doing. Junior Martial Brother Han had acted a moment ago to save you and is currently fighting that demon! Sigh, I actually wasn’t completely convinced by your earlier words earlier that Junior Martial Brother Han had killed over ten Foundation Establishment cultivators due to his young age. But now my perspective has been broadened; Junior Martial Brother Han’s strength is truly unfathomable!”

“Junior Martial Brother Han?” When Senior Martial Brother Wang heard this, he was shocked.

He clearly remembered that Han Li had been over fifteen meters away from him. How was be able to make it in time?

With that thought, Senior Martial Brother Wang hastily turned his head toward the sounds of battle. What he saw left him dumbstruck.

The location where he was attacked was now completely empty. However, he could hear the clangs of a fierce battle along with snarls and cries of injury. Furthermore, he could see sword Qi and sharp streaks of light flying out of nowhere and strike the nearby terrain, leaving countless deep and shallow grooves.

After a long moment, Senior Martial Brother Wang finally came to his senses.

As he thought to ask something about that astonishing scene, a violent wind suddenly blew at that location. A shining, translucent white silhouette appeared, followed by a strange figure that shot forth to attack it, leaving Senior Martial Brother Wang breathless.

The silhouette attacking the half-transformed Blood Servant appeared even more demonic than his target. His entire body was as transparent as clear crystal.

“Impossible! How are you able to see through my invisibility!? How are you able to match my speed!?”

The demon’s sparkling face was full of furious surprise and even held a trace of fear.

However, after those words left his mouth, he let out a bestial snarl and fiercely pounced forward, his body disappearing from sight once more.

The sound of battle stopped for a moment and Han Li’s cold snort could be heard amongst the silence. The sounds then resumed, becoming even fiercer and were no longer confined to their original location. The sounds began to appear from every direction, causing the others, who could only hear the battle, to retreat with blanched faces.

The pair cultivation partner of the dead female cultivator was the same and could only helplessly fall back. He feared he would unknowingly become tangled in Han Li’s fight with the demon and die without knowing how.

They all knew in their hearts that they were unable to intervene in this unseen battle.

“Quickly, look at the ground!” Song Meng shouted out in alarm.

When the others heard this, they couldn’t help but lower their heads and look. What they saw overwhelmed them with shock.

At some unknown time, a layer of thick clear ice had condensed onto the ground. Underneath the moonlight, it appeared flawlessly smooth.

“This demon is quite crafty. He actually transformed the ground and put Junior Martial Brother Han in a disadvantage!” Song Meng anxiously said with worry.

“That doesn’t seem to be the case. Although I don’t know what movement technique Han Li is using, we were all unable to discover any trace of him, and from what we’ve heard, it doesn’t seem that Han Li is at a disadvantage. It is clear that the icy ground doesn’t have much of an effect on him. However, the transformed demon’s craftiness truly caught us by surprise, unexpectedly causing one of our sect members to lose her life. I am truly to blame for this!” Liu Jing unhurriedly said this after a moment of silence.

After hearing this and seeing Liu Jing’s solemn expression, the others didn’t know how to console him.

However, these people didn’t know that the Junior Martial Brother Han they spoke of was loudly scolding them in his heart as he fought with the Ice Demon.

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