Chapter 25

Outside the cave.

Liu Dayan and the four of them carefully surrounded the cave entrance from the left and right sides.

Liu Dayan stopped his steps and gestured for the two subordinates opposite to attack.

The two people opposite immediately swung their blades to hack into the cave.

"Clang"

The steel blades hacked onto the stone wall at the cave entrance, splashing up sparks one by one.

Just as they were withdrawing their blades, Hou Dengyun moved. He was like a swift black leopard, stabbing his blade into the chest of the person on the left.

Immediately after, he withdrew his Dharma blade and took advantage of the momentum to hack toward the person on the right.

"Ah"

"Ah"

Two screams rang out one after another.

The two people who had attacked the cave entrance fell down immediately.

However, at the same time the two fell, Liu Dayan also moved.

A silver-white cold light flashed, and Hou Dengyun's right hand fell off at the wrist.

"Ah"

Fresh blood sprayed from Hou Dengyun's right hand.

He was shivering with pain. It was just that the situation was critical now, so he had to endure the heart-piercing pain and dodge the Dharma blade swung by Liu Dayan with a donkey roll.

Liu Dayan had succeeded in his attack and was even more unforgiving.

He rushed into the cave entrance, swung his sword, and continued to kill toward Hou Dengyun.

Hou Dengyun rolled on the ground to narrowly dodge, and conveniently picked up a gleaming Dharma blade from the ground.

Ping ping pang pang.

The sound of blades and swords clashing rang out incessantly.

Seeing the two fighting endlessly, Zhang Xingyu thought to himself, this is the time.

If not now, when?

He tried hard to suppress his urgent mood and carefully approached the stone table beside him.

On the stone table were placed four Dharma weapons, and there was his opportunity to escape.

To prevent making any sound, to avoid attracting the attention of the two, he even slowed his breathing by half.

For a distance of four or five meters, he actually spent five or six minutes.

Tiptoeing to the side of the table, he opened his mouth and bit the hilt of a Dharma sword.

He stepped back gently two steps and slowly dragged the Dharma sword out of the scabbard.

Following closely, he leaned his hands behind his back against the blade edge and pulled back and forth gently.

After a moment, the rope tying his hands was cut off by the sharp blade edge.

Zhang Xingyu let out a long breath.

This first step of escaping was finally successfully achieved.

Next, it depended on how to escape from the cave entrance.

At the cave entrance, Liu Dayan was fighting Hou Dengyun one-on-one. Although the two had no time to attend to anything else, wanting to escape quietly without disturbing them was, in one word, difficult! In two words, very difficult! In five words, as difficult as ascending to heaven!

Since he couldn't leave for the time being, he had to find a place to hide.

Zhang Xingyu grabbed a Dharma sword from the ground and hid silently in a shadow inside the mountain cave.

At the same time, the fighting at the cave entrance also reached a critical moment.

Liu Dayan's Dharma sword was sharp and had already hacked the steel blade in Hou Dengyun's hand into a saw.

Liu Dayan pressed step by step, and Hou Dengyun kept retreating.

"Crack!"

Liu Dayan swung his sword again, and with one sword, he chopped the steel blade in Hou Dengyun's hand into two pieces.

"Go to hell!"

Liu Dayan chased after him with a grim smile.

"If we die, we die together!"

A look of determination appeared on Hou Dengyun's face.

When Liu Dayan's Dharma sword stabbed over, he actually didn't dodge or avoid, but instead lunged toward the Dharma sword.

The Dharma sword pierced through his abdomen, and his broken blade also tore Liu Dayan's clothes.

"Haha, wanting to trade your life for mine, you're dreaming!"

Liu Dayan smiled grimly and stabbed his sword toward Hou Dengyun again.

"Is it about to end?" Hou Dengyun closed his eyes unwillingly.

At this moment, all the great cause of cultivation, all the revenge and hatred, all became bubbles in the water.

"Ah!"

A scream rang out.

Hou Dengyun thought it strange. He clearly hadn't screamed.

He opened his eyes wide and only then discovered that Liu Dayan's chest had already been pierced by a silver-white longsword.

It was Zhang Xingyu who had struck with the sword.

He originally didn't want to kill anyone; he originally wanted to just keep hiding in the shadows.

However, Liu Dayan pressed step by step, and the two actually fought to his hiding place.

I originally didn't want to be the fisherman. However, why did you have to force me?

You forced me like this, do you really think I'm made of mud?

"Go to hell!"

Zhang Xingyu stabbed the Dharma sword toward Liu Dayan with all his might. Because he was too nervous, his hands holding the sword were slightly trembling, and the sword that was originally aimed at the chest actually stabbed into Liu Dayan's belly.

"Ah!" Liu Dayan let out a shrill scream.

He couldn't care about killing Hou Dengyun and raised his hand to slash toward Zhang Xingyu.

Zhang Xingyu dodged and took advantage of the momentum to pull out the Dharma sword stuck in Liu Dayan's belly.

"This sword is for Brother Wu Tie." Zhang Xingyu gritted his teeth and stabbed out another sword.

This time, his hand didn't tremble. This sword hit Liu Dayan's left chest squarely. With this sword, he used full force, and the sword tip pierced directly through Liu Dayan's chest.

Two pillars of blood sprayed from Liu Dayan's body, splashing Zhang Xingyu all over.

"Slap!"

Liu Dayan fell to the ground, his body twitched a few times, and then there was no more movement.

"Cough, cough, dead, finally dead."

Hou Dengyun laughed loudly. Fresh blood was gushing from his body, and his smile was exceptionally sorrowful.

After laughing, his pair of rat eyes stared tightly at Zhang Xingyu's eyes, and a bitter smile appeared on his face: "The snipe and the clam fight, the fisherman gains. Kid, I underestimated you."

Speaking to this point, a wisp of fresh blood overflowed from the corner of his mouth. He struggled to stand up, looked up at the sky, and roared: "Damn heaven, why do you want to toy with me like this? Why? Why? Why?"

After questioning the heavens three times in a row, two lines of clear tears flowed silently down the corners of his eyes.

He reached out to wipe the tears from the corners of his eyes and roared loudly at Zhang Xingyu: "Come on, kid, give me a quick death! That miraculous bird egg, and that Spirit-Transferring secret method, are all yours now. Unexpectedly, I racked my brains, but in the end, it was your gain."

Zhang Xingyu nodded and raised the Dharma sword in his hand.

There is a saying that if you don't kill a snake, you will suffer the consequences.

Hou Dengyun was a vicious and cruel person, so he definitely couldn't let him go.

The Dharma sword pierced through the air.

Hou Dengyun's head tilted, and he immediately lost his breath.

"Actually, I really didn't want to be the fisherman. It was you who sought your own death, so you can't blame me. Go well on your way to the Western Heaven! In your next life, be a good person and live a peaceful life."

Zhang Xingyu pulled out the Dharma sword and muttered softly.

Having killed two great enemies, his back was already soaked.

Just at this moment, a wretched figure lunged toward him.

Zhang Xingyu caught a glimpse of an afterimage. He subconsciously threw himself to the ground.

The blade edge grazed his shoulder, taking away a large piece of his clothes.

The person who attacked was none other than Liu San, who had been hiding on the side.

Initially, Liu San saw Zhang Xingyu kill Liu Dayan and Hou Dengyun, and was so scared that he hid at the cave entrance without moving.

Seeing that Zhang Xingyu didn't notice him, and coupled with the fact that wealth moves the heart, he then attacked fiercely.

Fortunately, the light at the cave entrance was strong, and he and Zhang Xingyu had a certain distance, which allowed Zhang Xingyu to luckily escape a disaster.

Zhang Xingyu dodged the attack, climbed up, and swung the Dharma sword to hack toward Liu San.

The Dharma sword hacked onto Liu San's steel blade, cutting a long notch into it.

Liu San saw that the sneak attack failed and turned to run outside.

He belonged to the rat; if one strike didn't succeed, he would flee a thousand miles.

Unfortunately, this time, the direction he fled was a bit wrong.

Zhang Xingyu chased to the cave entrance and discovered that Liu San was floundering in the water pool.

It turned out that the cave entrance was slippery and covered with moss.

Liu San was panicked and happened to step on the moss, falling into the water with a splash.

"Help! I can't swim!"

He floundered while shouting for help loudly.

Zhang Xingyu did not move.

He was not a good person who returned evil with kindness. Furthermore, this person had wanted to harm him just a minute ago.

After a while, the pool water submerged Liu San's head, and the water surface gradually calmed down.

Waiting for another two quarters of an hour, seeing that Liu San did not appear again. That guy had mostly drowned and sunk to the bottom of the pool. Zhang Xingyu thought for a moment, turned around, and entered the cave to check on the situation of the others.

At the cave entrance, Liu Dayan and his several subordinates were already dead beyond dead.

Hou Dengyun had his eyes wide open, clearly dying with grievances.

By the blood pool, Hu Siping had already fallen into a deep coma, and Zhang Xingyu hurriedly stepped forward to bandage him and stop the bleeding.

After bandaging Hu Siping, he turned back to look at Li Dalong and Liu Lvzhu, only to find that their blood had already drained, and they had long since stopped breathing.

Zhang Xingyu frowned.

From childhood to adulthood, he had never seen so many dead people.

The dark red blood pool, a pile of dead people. All of this made Zhang Xingyu feel terrified in his heart.

He forced himself to calm his mind, felt his way out of the mountain cave, and dug a large pit on the open ground beside the water pool with a Dharma blade.

Following closely, he endured the feeling of nausea, first acting as a corpse-looter, and then as a corpse-carrier. It took a full hour or more before he buried all the corpses in the pit.

Looking at the newly added mound of earth, Zhang Xingyu put his hands together and silently recited the "Passing-Over Sutra" he had fabricated: "Dust returns to dust, earth returns to earth, let the departed be at peace, let the living regain liberation. Everyone, go well, may your souls return to your hometown. Amen!"

With all matters finished, he squatted by the water pool and vomited heavily.

Until he had vomited all the acid in his stomach, he washed his face with the icy pool water, and only then did he feel a bit more comfortable.

He returned to the cave to count the harvest of this time.

Excluding the materials contributed by the Red Phoenix birds, Zhang Xingyu also searched out a large amount of items from the bodies of Hou Dengyun, Liu Dayan, and others.

Fifteen thousand in gold notes, three thousand two hundred gold coins, one ancient animal skin scroll, one small golden gourd, one lion jade seal, six Dharma swords and Dharma blades, and several other miscellaneous items.

Other things were fine, but on that animal skin scroll, there were several mysterious patterns drawn, and lines of crooked characters written.

What this animal skin scroll recorded was the Spirit-Transferring Great Method that Hou Dengyun had spoken of.

Zhang Xingyu didn't recognize a single character on the animal skin scroll.

However, this was also not a problem; Hou Dengyun had already solved this problem for him.

In Hou Dengyun's pocket, Zhang Xingyu searched out a piece of white cloth, on which were written several large paragraphs of Nanyue Kingdom characters.

Zhang Xingyu looked at the patterns on the animal skin scroll and compared them with the characters on the white cloth, finally figuring out what this "Spirit-Transferring Great Method" was all about.

It turned out that the so-called Spirit-Transferring Great Method was to transfer the spiritual roots from a spirit beast to a person through a secret method.

The conditions for implementing the Spirit-Transferring Great Method were relatively harsh.

First, it required the spirit beast to voluntarily offer its spiritual roots or be in an unconscious state, thereby ensuring that the spirit beast would not produce resistance.

Second, it required the person receiving the spiritual roots to have an incomparably firm will, not to sink into the various illusions produced during the spirit-transferring process, and to be able to withstand the tearing pain brought to the soul by the spirit-transferring.

Even if the above conditions were met, the probability of a successful spirit-transfer was less than one percent.

And the price of a failed spirit-transfer was the lives of both the spirit beast and the recipient.

Now, the Spirit-Transferring secret method was available, and the unconscious spirit beast (Fire Phoenix bird egg) was also available; the basic conditions for performing the Spirit-Transferring secret method were met.

It was just that the probability of success was truly too low, and the price of failure was truly too great.

Transfer.

Don't transfer.

Zhang Xingyu was conflicted.