Chapter 18: Slaying the Heretic Cultivator

About half an hour later, Yun Xiaoxiao's room door was opened silently.

A scholar-clad person lightly landed before the window; looking closely at this scholar, his blue robe fluttered, his folding fan swayed gently, and an air of refined ease appeared on him.

He gazed at Yun Xiaoxiao's lovable face as she slept, and a sinister smile suddenly appeared on his face.

He flicked his wide sleeve lightly, and without making a sound, a sheet of pink mist drifted toward Yun Xiaoxiao.

Soon after, Su Chen watched the scholar carrying Yun Xiaoxiao away, and his eyes showed the expected expression: "Indeed, he is a cultivator."

He did not dare to linger, quietly following behind the scholar, keeping a distance behind him.

He did not dare to follow too closely, fearing the other's spiritual sense would automatically detect him.

After following for more than an hour, the scholar finally stopped in a secluded small courtyard.

However, after Su Chen entered the courtyard, he could not find the scholar's trace.

Su Chen frowned tightly, carefully using his spiritual sense and eyes simultaneously to search for suspicious spots.

At that moment, Su Chen's expression suddenly changed, and a sense of danger rose from his heart.

In the next instant, a chilling aura rose from behind him; without hesitation, he did a forward roll, and that chilling aura brushed past his head, narrowly avoiding the attack.

And after Su Chen's forward roll, he immediately turned his head. Behind him, the scholar held a red short blade, grinning ferociously as he viciously stabbed at the half-crouching Su Chen.

"Die!"

Su Chen had no time to dodge; he flung out a long sword from his sleeve — the very mediocre flying sword that Ma Zhicheng gave him when he became his disciple.

The flying sword was grasped in his hand, barely blocking above his head.

Accompanied by a clang of metal, after several crack sounds, the flying sword immediately showed a fine crack.

Su Chen's expression changed; he silently cursed the trash, and a fireball instantly appeared in his hand, blasting toward the scholar within arm's reach.

At the instant the fireball appeared, the scholar's expression changed drastically; he stared in astonishment at Su Chen and blurted, "Instant cast? You actually don't chant a spell or form hand seals?"

While he was speaking, he quickly dodged to the side. At the moment the scholar retreated and planted his feet, he sacrificed the blood blade into the air, and with his control, a massive surge of spiritual power suddenly rose upon the blood-red short blade.

Su Chen had no intention of answering him; after all, in his previous life he cultivated a fire-attribute technique, and many minor fire spells were already second nature, able to be activated with a mere thought.

Su Chen no longer waited for the delayed support of Yun Xiaoxiao; he had just probed with his spiritual sense, and the scholar's cultivation had already reached the sixth layer of Qi Condensation.

He held the long sword that was about to shatter, and a sword qi suddenly began to condense through the sword in his hand.

This was done deliberately by Su Chen; even without the sword, he could release the sword qi already condensed within his body, but that would be too shocking, and he could not explain how he could condense sword qi out of thin air.

At the moment Su Chen's sword qi condensed, the scholar's expression changed repeatedly; his composure vanished, replaced by shock and disbelief.

If seeing Su Chen cast an instant fireball was surprising, since it could be achieved through constant practice, but when he saw Su Chen's sword qi, his heart was overwhelmed by a surge of astonishment.

He let out a startled roar: "Sword qi, who exactly are you? How could someone at the Qi Condensation phase condense sword qi?"

At this moment, the scholar had lost his earlier refined demeanor; his eyes widened, bloodshot, his killing intent filled his body, his hand movements did not cease, and his spiritual power poured even faster into the blood blade in the air.

Su Chen naturally would not answer him; at the moment his sword qi finished condensing, as he swung,

a milky-white arc of sword qi instantly approached the scholar's front.

Seeing this, the scholar let out an unwilling roar; the broken blood blade had not yet been fully activated, unable to exert its full power.

He pointed helplessly; the red broken blade spun rapidly and collided with the milky-white sword qi.

At the instant the red broken blade and white sword light touched in midair, the red light seemed to have met its nemesis and instantly began to wane.

Then the sword light swept across the red blood blade; the sword light dimmed slightly, but in an instant it struck the red shield before the scholar.

That red shield looked considerably thicker than an ordinary five-element barrier, but as the sword light sliced it, with a "shrip" sound, it was torn in half.

"Pfft,"

the sword light also imprinted on his chest in the scholar's horrified gaze, forming an arc-shaped wound, bringing forth a thick blood mist.

"Thud,"

The scholar fell straight backward, his face a mix of hatred, bewilderment, and terror, and then fell silent.

Su Chen let out a slight breath, about to move forward, when he suddenly sensed someone probing him; his spiritual sense extended in that direction to investigate.

After repeatedly probing the vicinity several times, Su Chen's eyes showed doubt; he found nothing, and that feeling came and went quickly.

Su Chen shook his head and gave a self-deprecating smile: "Looks like it was just an illusion!"

Just as Su Chen grabbed the broken blade, a petite figure emerged from beneath the ground in the courtyard.

It was Yun Xiaoxiao; she planted her feet, looked at Su Chen somewhat bewildered, and asked, "Senior Brother Su, what exactly happened?"

Su Chen turned his back to where Yun Xiaoxiao appeared, quickly tossing the broken blade, now split in two, into the System Space; he was not greedy for this already broken blade, but rather did not want to explain too much about killing the scholar.

Su Chen turned his head, gave a slight smile: "Junior Sister Yun, why didn't you follow the plan? Kill him while I held him."

A hint of guilt appeared on Yun Xiaoxiao's delicate jade-like visage: "While I was hiding, he sprayed a pink mist at me, and then I fainted."

Su Chen nodded slightly, no longer dwelling on this topic, and began to explain how to kill the scholar.

In Su Chen's words, he took the opportunity to sneak-attack the scholar; the scholar only managed to activate a blood-colored shield before being fortuitously killed by him.

Yun Xiaoxiao looked at Su Chen doubtfully, said nothing, but pointed to the cave behind her and said, "They are down below."

Su Chen looked at the white-glowing cave entrance, roughly guessed what she meant, nodded, and rummaged through the scholar's corpse.

A blood-colored jade slip was grasped in his hand; Su Chen had no time to examine it, and instead placed it into his storage bag.

Then Su Chen followed Yun Xiaoxiao into the cave entrance.

At the moment they entered the cave entrance, a chilling gust rushed toward him; Su Chen followed Yun Xiaoxiao's steps, extending his spiritual sense outward, vigilant of his surroundings.

Soon Yun Xiaoxiao stopped; Su Chen's footsteps halted, he looked at the scene before him, and his expression changed dramatically.