Eight hundred miles outside the Lingxiao Sect in The Central Continent, Wind-Rending Gorge.

  Astral winds cut like blades between the dark red cliffs.

  Boom!

  An Iron-backed Wind Ape, massive as a bull and plated with cyan stone armor, let out a frenzied roar. Its giant arms, wrapped in swirling cyclones, smashed heavily into the ground. Shattered rock sprayed outward like crossbow bolts.

  "Fatty Xu! Roll out of my way and don't block my formation!"

  The girl in red, Su Wan, shouted sharply. With a flip of her pale wrist, the Flowing Cloud Silk shot out like a silver snake, transforming into a thirty-foot flaming whip. It lashed viciously against the beast's stone armor. With a loud crack, a corner of the armor shattered, but the strike failed to damage its core.

  Deep within the gorge, behind a massive boulder, a perfectly round figure was frantically rummaging through a storage bag.

  Xu Nan was sweating profusely, looking exactly like a terrified quail.

  "Coming, coming! Incredible moves, Senior Sister Su! You're like a fairy descending to earth!" he screamed, his face a mask of absolute cowardice.

  But in the shadows where no one could see, Xu Nan's eyes were cold as ice.

  The abacus in his mind clattered furiously: Gorge wind speed is thirty feet per second, south-westerly shift. Su Wan's Resurgent Fire whip is striking upwind; thermal output has depreciated by thirty percent, hemorrhaging True Qi. The Wind Ape has a pre-existing injury on its left hind leg; its landing trajectory will inevitably skew right... His gaze swept to the youth in black holding the front line. Senior Brother Yan's stance can only absorb two more critical hits before total default.

  Enraged by the Resurgent Fire, the Wind Ape figured out that the heavy-sword-wielding man was too tough a bone to chew. Ignoring Yan Zheng entirely, it kicked off the cliff wall. Blurring into a cyan phantom, it breached the defensive line, diving straight for Su Wan, who was currently defenseless and trying to catch her breath.

  "Senior Sister Su, watch out!"

  Xu Nan let out a voice-cracking shriek. Feigning a total collapse of his legs, he threw himself forward on all fours, frantically tossing out two yellow papers in his "panic."

  One was the Heavy Earth Talisman he had repaired with his own True Qi. The other was the absolute cheapest Fire Oil Talisman.

  To an outsider, he was just throwing trash blindly.

  Then, a miracle happened.

  The Heavy Earth Talisman slapped perfectly onto the ground beneath Yan Zheng's feet. Yan Zheng's stance, previously destabilized by the astral winds, instantly locked down like an ancient, deep-rooted tree. A gravitational multiplier anchored him immovably to the rock.

  Simultaneously, the Fire Oil Talisman shattered at the exact apex of the Wind Ape's jump. Thick, viscous fire oil splashed flawlessly across the beast's face.

  Leveraging the absolute stability of his grounded stance, Yan Zheng swung his edgeless heavy sword upward, launching a violent, half-moon arc of sword qi. Blinded by the oil and losing its balance mid-air, the Wind Ape crashed directly into the blade.

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  Slash! The heavy sword severed the Wind Ape's right arm.

  "Senior Sister Su, light it up!" Xu Nan roared until his throat went hoarse.

  Su Wan flicked her fingers, dropping a single spark of Resurgent Fire. Coated in oil, the Wind Ape instantly became a massive fireball. It shrieked and rolled in agony before finally going still. The stench of charred flesh permeated the howling wind.

  The battlefield fell silent.

  Yan Zheng dropped to one knee, using his heavy sword to prop himself up. The kinetic shock from that head-on collision had split the webbing of his hands. Residual Demonic Aura had bypassed his Defensive Astral Qi and invaded his internal organs.

  Xu Nan's sharp eyes noticed Su Wan staring fixedly at Yan Zheng’s mangled back. The pupils in her arrogant, aristocratic eyes contracted violently. Xu Nan knew her clan's unspoken rule—treating lower-tier servants as disposable meat shields—was cracking in the face of Yan Zheng’s kamikaze defense.

  "Mother of God! Don't die on me, Senior Brother Yan! If you default now, who's going to reimburse my meal expenses!"

  Xu Nan scrambled over, clumsily slapping medicine onto Yan Zheng's wounds.

  Through the palm pressed against Yan Zheng’s back, he covertly activated The Heavenly Crucible.

  The violent Demonic Aura invading the organs was stealthily siphoned off by over fifty percent. He didn't take it all—leaving a margin of minor injury was necessary to pass the post-mission audit back at the sect.

  However, just as he finished extracting the aura and prepared to stand up and claim credit, his left foot tripped over his right. With a heavy thud, he face-planted straight into the bloody mud. His front teeth smashed against the gravel, the sudden pain bringing tears to his eyes.

  This was the Karmic backlash of utilizing the Crucible. While internally cursing the Heavens for charging such an extortive transaction fee, Xu Nan, his face covered in muddy water, continued his frantic scramble toward Yan Zheng.

  "This is Nine-Revolution Life-Saving Powder I sourced from the black market, valued at ten Low-grade Spirit Stones a packet!" Xu Nan shoved the empty wrapper of the Toxin Clearing Powder into Yan Zheng's hand, his face twisting in financial agony. "Senior Brother Yan, next time you plan to get hurt, give me advance notice so I can procure cheaper herbs!"

  Yan Zheng, feeling his internal qi stabilizing, looked down at the wrapper, then back up at Xu Nan, who looked as devastated as if his own flesh had been sliced off.

  He spoke with a hoarse voice: "The medicine money... I will pay you back."

  Xu Nan froze for a second, then immediately launched into a rapid-fire lecture on compounding interest and predatory loan rates.

  But the instant he lowered his head, every trace of the petty merchant vanished from his eyes.

  Just as Xu Nan was calculating the net profit of this run and preparing to harvest the battlefield assets...

  Drip.

  A drop of freezing liquid landed squarely on the back of his neck.

  Wind-Rending Gorge was perpetually blasted by dry astral winds—where would water come from? It was killing intent, so dense it had physically liquefied.

  He couldn't dodge!

  "Oh my god—!"

  Xu Nan let out a pitch-shifting shriek. His two fat legs gave out entirely, and he flopped backward into the bloody mud in the ugliest way possible.

  Swish!

  An eerie blue, aqueous shadow sliced right across his scalp. In the microsecond their paths crossed, Xu Nan's razor-sharp vision captured a specific detail beneath the assassin's black veil: an old burn scar branded onto a pale neck.

  Missing her strike, the assassin didn't pause.

  Launching forward like a snapping bowstring, she blurred into a blue phantom, diving directly for the face of the unguarded Su Wan.

  Too fast.

  Clang—!

  Yan Zheng rose like an iron wall, blocking Su Wan's front. The edgeless heavy sword brutally intercepted the blue dagger.

  Clang! Clang! Clang!

  In a flash of sparks, the two exchanged three high-impact strikes mid-air. The shockwaves pulverized the surrounding rock.

  Leveraging the heavy sword's recoil, the black-clad assassin touched down gracefully. It only took her three strikes to realize this swordsman's foundation was a bottomless abyss. She didn't stick around. Shooting backward like a wisp of smoke, she melted seamlessly into the gorge's violent winds and shadows, leaving no trace behind.

  Su Wan's red dress fluttered in the wind. Staring at the phantom-like disappearance, her beautiful face paled slightly. She muttered, "Night Owl Assassin...?"

  "Who cares if it's a Night Owl or a White Owl!" Xu Nan scrambled out of the mud, moving with the rapid efficiency of an old farmer harvesting crops before a storm. "Senior Sister Su, stop daydreaming! Pack the cargo and let's go! I'm not staying in this hellhole for another second!"

  The squad rapidly stripped the Wind Ape of its valuable hide and bones. Without looking back, they evacuated Wind-Rending Gorge and headed straight for the Sect.