Chapter 97 : Chapter 97

Chapter 97. Siege

At a certain moment, Fulan felt a pulling force that caused her mind to blank out for an instant. When her awareness returned, the first thing she sensed was light.

Sunlight spilled across a stone-paved road. Around her stretched slightly disordered streets, and quite a few strangely dressed people were standing nearby, watching her.

They wore leather clothing. Although the fabric colors were mostly gray, yellow, and brown, several oddly colored stones were embedded into their garments as decoration, making them appear far more refined.

Fulan glanced to the side and realized that only those people were surrounding her. Not only was Welinte nowhere to be seen, but there was also not a single Spirit Realm explorer nearby.

“Who is she?”

“She looks like an outsider.”

“An outsider? Did you notify the guards?”

Fulan had just finished organizing her thoughts when a sudden commotion erupted within the crowd before she could react.

The crowd parted, forming an opening as several people dressed noticeably differently walked forward.

Their clothing was covered with a layer of spikes, each one crafted from polished stones and distributed across their chests and arms.

Strangely, the material of their clothes still appeared to be fabric, as if they wore no actual armor.

They carried weapons in their hands. The size of those weapons was clearly much larger than anything Fulan had seen in the Material Realm. She could feel the immense weight carried by the wide head of the axe.

Fulan instinctively tried to draw her longsword, but after feeling around twice, she suddenly remembered that bringing weapons into the Spirit Realm required special preparation.

Unfortunately, she had never managed to find the relevant technique in the City of Apprentices.

Even Teacher Yiqi had to send his weapon somewhere else for special processing before having it returned, which was extremely troublesome.

As a result, her longsword had not been brought into the Spirit Realm. The only weapon she currently possessed was a purple short blade.

Fulan drew the short blade directly from her waist with her left hand, while her right hand firmly gripped the book, making sure it would not fall if a fight broke out.

Fulan believed she was merely taking a defensive stance. The other side, however, did not see it that way. One of the leaders spoke sternly.

“Outsider, put down your weapon!”

Fulan obviously could not lower her weapon immediately. In her understanding, even if both sides eventually resolved things peacefully, there would usually be several rounds of tension before she could put down her weapon to demonstrate goodwill.

From her perspective, her goal was to save this city. Naturally, that meant she and the people of this city were not mortal enemies.

“I cannot put down my weapon.”

As she spoke, she even waved it slightly, indicating that she absolutely would not lower it for now.

But something she did not expect happened. The other party sneered.

“Then do not bother putting it down. Attack. Do not kill her—capture her alive.”

Immediately afterward, the man lifted his axe, raised it above his head, and charged directly toward her.

Fulan was completely baffled. Why were they attacking immediately? Should not both sides confront each other for a while before eventually reconciling? Why did the fight start without any back-and-forth at all?

Since the other side had already launched an attack, Fulan had no choice but to prepare for battle.

She tightened her grip on the dagger and blocked the incoming axe strike midway through its descent.

The purple blade locked directly against the axe, preventing it from moving downward even slightly.

The attacker’s body, still carried forward by inertia, abruptly halted as he barely managed to maintain his balance.

Feeling the force behind the clash, Fulan realized she had almost failed to block it. The opponent’s strength was far greater than she had expected.

“Is this trial really this difficult? Why does even a random soldier have such immense strength?” Fulan wondered inwardly.

Behind the attacker, she also noticed five or six others in the same uniform rushing past. Clearly, these guards were merely ordinary soldiers, not elite fighters or anything of that sort.

Although the size of the weapon had placed her at a disadvantage, the opponent’s raw strength was considerable. Even with her Physique, she could barely block it. What would the other Spirit Realm explorers do?

From her observations, most of the explorers had Physique far lower than hers. Only a few could match her current level, and even those only exceeded her by a small margin.

She dared to say that if those explorers lacked powerful Combat Techniques, many of them would not even be able to defeat a single soldier.

However, Fulan suppressed those thoughts. She was still in the middle of combat and needed to focus.

Meanwhile, her opponent was even more shocked that Fulan had blocked his massive axe with nothing more than a small dagger.

“That is impossible! I drank the Divine Water. Why is her strength still greater than mine?”

Because of his disbelief, he failed to take any further action and instead mechanically continued applying pressure on the axe.

Fulan stepped forward with a slight sidestep. The opposing force suddenly vanished, and her purple short blade slipped free as she advanced from the side. The axe, driven by inertia, continued downward and could not respond.

Fulan glanced at the man’s neck and decided not to finish him with the dagger. What if the two sides eventually reconciled? Killing someone now would only make things harder to explain later.

Instead, she drove her left elbow forward. The short blade pointed downward as her wrist moved to chest level, and she slammed her elbow into the man’s face with explosive force.

Still gripping his weapon tightly, the man stumbled backward several steps from the blow but managed to keep his balance. He lifted one hand to touch the place where he had been struck.

Fulan, however, was replaying the feeling of the hit in her mind. Something seemed wrong.

“That was too hard. How does he have such tough skin?!”

Normally, if that blow had landed on someone with nothing but great strength, the person would likely have collapsed on the spot. Their skull might even have been deformed.

But just now, Fulan felt as though she had struck a piece of wood. Looking at the place she had hit, she saw only a small bruise. It did not appear to have caused real damage.

“How is it?” another enemy stepped forward to support the man who had been struck.

“I am fine. Let us attack together. Her strength is a little unusual,” the man said after regaining his composure. He gripped his weapon again, clearly preparing to continue the fight.

“We could talk about this,” Fulan suggested.

“Talk about what? Put down your weapon first!” the enemy shouted back as he rushed forward once again to attack.

Fulan frowned. Judging from their attitude, they had no intention of communicating.

She scanned the surroundings and decided not to waste any more time. Another guard dressed the same way had noticed the situation and was pushing his way through the crowd.

“I should go find Welinte. There is no point wasting time with these people.”

Fulan understood that if she stayed here any longer, it would only be a waste of time. More enemies might continue arriving.

She activated the Breathing Method and Mental Power, dramatically enhancing her physical abilities.

However, because she was in the Spirit Realm, she did not dare to apply the full enhancement of Mental Power. Even so, after the boost, her Physique reached approximately 5.5.

By the time another guard pushed through the crowd to the front, he saw only a single scene.

Three of his comrades were lying on the ground, groaning in pain.

There was no sign of anyone else.