The cold wind blew up the thick black hair, which looked like a snake behind Gu Mingxin. Her red eyes under the messy bangs reflected the ice-blue light in front of her that was approaching rapidly.
The temperature in the already extremely cold desert seemed to have dropped several degrees at this time, making Gu Mingxin tighten her shoulders two inches.
Seeing the way Ye Anping's sister rushed over on her sword, it was obvious that she was not here to talk to her.
When she first met Ye Anping in Heavenly Gate City , this girl left a much deeper impression on her than Feng Yu Die.
The two sword marks carved on her shoulders still hurt.
It was the first time she had been beaten by a Sword cultivator of a lower level than her, and all she could do was defend herself with no way to fight back.
Even though the disciples of the Justice Division and Ye Anping were helping that girl, she was not someone like Feng Yu Die, who relied on her talent to suppress others.
Whether it was immortal or demonic cultivators, there was one fact that did not change:
Those cultivators with average spiritual roots who could stand shoulder to shoulder with the geniuses were much more powerful than those with heavenly spiritual roots who were blessed with luck.
Such was Ye Anping's younger sister.
Although Xue'e had said before that her spiritual roots seemed a little special, the corresponding special qualifications were extremely difficult to cultivate, and could not compare to Feng Yu Die or her own spiritual roots that could conjure the energy of Heavens.
Gu Mingxin felt inexplicably overwhelmed by the excitement. Now that Ye Anping was not around, she really wanted to fight this amber-eyed girl to see who would win, but...
"Mingxin, I know you want to fight with her, but she seems to be very important to Ye Anping. If you hurt her, he will..."
"..."
"There's also He Jiming. If anything goes wrong, he will become cannon fodder..."
Xue'e persuasion made Gu Mingxin temper down her excitement. Now it was not the time to get carried away. Her primary task was to bring He Jiming back to the Heavenly Demon Sect alive.
Pei Lianxue was only two miles away from her, but Gu Mingxin still did not summon her spiritual sword. After taking a deep breath, she expanded her voice solemnly. "Hiss-- wait!!!"
The sound wave carrying the bloodied aura spread for miles.
Pei Lianxue, who was rapidly approaching on her flying sword, heard this shout and recalled what her brother had said. Thinking it might be a trap, she instantly stopped about a thousand feet away from Gu Mingxin.
She flipped the silver sword in her right hand, placing it along her right forearm. At the same time, she took out her small notebook with her left hand and flipped through the pages with her spiritual energy, glancing at it from the corner of her eye.
"What?"
Gu Mingxin saw that she had stopped and heaved a sigh of relief. She looked sideways at He Jiming, who was standing still, and signaled him with her eyes not to say a word. Then, she asked, "We've met a few times, but I still don't know your name..."
"Um... Liang Xiaoxue..."
?
Gu Mingxin was speechless, feeling that whether it was Ye Anping or this girl, they were too casual with the fake names, but she did not expose her. She replied, "Then, Miss Liang, can you let us pass? If you and I fight, we won't be able to determine the winner in a short time. Why fight to the death with me now?"
Pei Lianxue's face was expressionless, and after pondering for a little while, it seemed like she really didn't need to fight with Gu Minxin. After all, her brother hadn't asked her to do that.
Even the matter of coming here with Patriarch Ye to look for the Second Idiot was entirely her own decision.
But...
Gu Mingxin once tried to kill her brother. When he was in the Cold Country , her brother was buried in the ground...
For this reason alone, Gu Mingxin deserved to die!
Pei Lianxue glanced at the notebook in her left hand and read the notes she had written down.
"Miss Gu, you've been alone since you were young. I feel that you're so pitiful. No one loves you, and no one talks to you. Although you wholeheartedly want to help the Heavenly Demon Sect gain benefits, in the end, you've been falsely accused of colluding with immortal cultivators. Even your adopted father never trusted you."
"..."
"Ha. Ha. Ha. You are so pitiful... and pathetic... like a tamed puppy. The Heavenly Demon Sect Patriarch gave you a few bones, and you started wagging your tail..."
"?"
Although it was obvious that Pei Lianxue was just reading from a notebook, the content was very pointed, and every word accurately hit Gu Mingxin's vulnerabilities.
If the trash words He Jiming said to her before would only make her upset...
Now, the words read by Pei Lianxue made her really angry.
Gu Mingxin's left eye twitched slightly, and her gaze shifted to the small booklet in Pei Lianxue's hand. In the next moment, blood-colored spiritual energy leaked out of her sleeve and condensed into a blood-colored spiritual sword in her right hand.
The night sky covered the moon with clouds and also obscured the pale moonlight shining on Gu Mingxin's face.
Shadows emerged over her red eyes.
Gu Mingxin softly called out a name.
"Ye Anping..."
Pei Lianxue also clenched the hilt of the sword in her right hand and rotated it slightly by thirty degrees, a trace of vigilance present in her amber eyes.
Xue'e, who was beside Gu Mingxin, noticed something was wrong and kept trying to persuade her. "Mingxin! Don't listen to her nonsense. You are not pitiful at all. You still have me! Mingxin, don't be provoked by her. This is a trick. Ye Anping knows how to make you feel uncomfortable. They have colluded! This girl should not know the situation of Golden Fool and White Fool yet. Just tell her! Tell her that you spared the White Fool's life..."
Even though Xue'e tried her best, Gu Mingxin could no longer listen.
"Ye Anping, Ye Anping, Ye Anping..."
"..."
"Ye-- An--"
The last clouds slowly passed by, revealing the bright moon behind them once again. The frost-like moonlight fell on the two people facing each other.
"Ping!!!"
Clang---
There was only the shrill sound of swords.
The red sword's bloody light flashed across the desert, leaving a bloody trail that seemed to split the sky. The cold desert under the moonlight also faded in an instant.
Pei Lianxue calmly raised her sword.
Ding---
The two swords suddenly clashed, causing a strong wind to rise in all directions.
With Gu Mingxin's violent approach, using almost all her strength to strike, Pei Lianxue felt as if the sword in her right hand was pressed down by a force of ten thousand pounds. She immediately felt something was wrong.
Ka---
With a crisp sound of metal cracking, Pei Lianxue's sword fell one step ahead of her arm and, under the blood-colored sword's sharp edge, it broke into two pieces. A fragment grazed her cheek, leaving a bloody mark on her face.
Gu Mingxin stared at her with red eyes filled with killing intent. Seeing that her sword was broken, the corners of her mouth curled up slightly, revealing a hint of ridicule. She twisted the sword in her hand and slashed it toward Pei Lianxue's shoulder.
However, she was now a little surprised. She thought that she would kill this girl with one sword strike.
Until she saw Pei Lianxue's calm expression and unwavering eyes...
Pei Lianxue seemed to know that her sword would break and had already hidden a dagger as long as her forearm in her left sleeve, according to the notes in her little notebook...
Brother said that if she encountered Gu Mingxin without the Snow Jade Spirit Sword , she would need to be prepared for her sword to be broken every time they fought.
Although the dagger was shorter than the sword and not easy to use, just before Gu Mingxin's sword fell on her shoulder, ten spiritual lights instantly struck a point on the blood-colored blade.
Clang--!
Ten sounds of striking iron almost merged into one.
As the spiritual light exploded, the sword in Gu Mingxin's right hand was flicked away, and the dagger in Pei Lianxue's left hand also shattered into pieces after implementing this technique.
Gu Mingxin's eyes were full of disbelief.
But before she could figure it out, ten more icy blue sword energies struck at a point on her neck from different directions.
Pei Lianxue took advantage of the pause and grabbed a spare sword from her storage bag. She had obtained quite a number of swords from killing demonic cultivators before, and her brother had also prepared many more for her. She was afraid that she would encounter Gu Mingxin and run out of swords.
So she had a good stash of swords in her storage bag!
Without a ripple in her amber eyes, Pei Lianxue swung her sword while her peripheral vision swept over He Jiming, who was standing in a daze not far away. Her free left hand moved slightly.
While attacking Gu Mingxin with the Leaf Shadow Sword technique with her right hand, she injected her spiritual energy into another sword, shooting it with her left hand toward He Jiming's neck, like a sword arrow.
Ding ding ding---
As Gu Mingxin parried, she glimpsed the sword heading toward He Jiming, and her eyes widened. She quickly turned around and chopped the "off-string sword" with her blade...
Swish---
The sword that was originally aimed at He Jiming's throat almost struck his face under the intervention of Gu Mingxin, cutting off half of his ear.
However, He Jiming did not react at all.
To him, the few moves of attack and defense of Gu Mingxin and Pei Lianxue were just a blink of an eye.
He didn't even understand that Gu Mingxin had saved his life...
Ding ding---
In his eyes, the figures of Gu Mingxin and the immortal cultivator woman were reduced to two afterimages, one red and one blue. Countless half-moon arcs flew across dozens of feet in front of him, exploding into darkness and light.
He Jiming wasn't the only one who was stunned. Ye Ao, who was coming fast from a distance, was also stunned.
This was the first time Ye Ao had seen Pei Lianxue engaged in a real sword fight. It was also the first time he had seen a Core Formation -stage Sword cultivator fight to such an extent.
He was also a Core Formation cultivator, and even one level higher than Pei Lianxue. How could he not catch any move?
"Hiss..."
He took a deep breath seeing the swords' lights meandering two hundred feet in front of him. The sound of breaking iron and the sparks from the swords' collision could be heard and seen almost everywhere in his field of vision.
The right hand that was hanging in front of him, ready to cast a spell, couldn't find its target. There was nothing to land on...
He hesitated for a while, then ignored Pei Lianxue and the other woman as he turned his gaze to the demonic cultivator who was standing dazed in the sword light.
Ye Ao's lips twitched slightly, and he finally formed a spell. In an instant, dark clouds gathered in the sky, and a bolt of lightning transformed into a soaring dragon that came crashing toward He Jiming's head.
However, in the next moment, a blood-red sword light directly chopped off the dragon's head, causing the lightning energy to burst apart in midair.
Boom---
"Huh?"
Ye Ao was shocked. His lightning spell was cut off by the sword?!
Before he could react, a blood-red sword light shot straight at his neck.
Pei Lianxue's shout came from below. "Master Ye! Get out of the way!"
Boom---
A sword flew toward him, intercepting the blood-colored sword light three feet away from his chest. The spiritual sword light exploded, sending Ye Ao flying dozens of feet away before he managed to stabilize himself.
Ye Ao wasn't the only one who heard Pei Lianxue's shout.
Gu Mingxin frowned and glanced at Ye Ao. Ye Anping's father? Why was he only in the Core Formation stage?
Ding ding---
So far, with her sword skills, she continuously blocked every sword light from Pei Lianxue that targeted her vital points.
But when her sword energy heading toward Ye Ao was blocked, Pei Lianxue's amber eyes, which had been emotionless and dull before, suddenly showed a murderous intent that chilled her to the bone.
Gu Mingxin realized that she seemed to have angered this girl.
But at the same time, she was puzzled. Could it be that this girl had not used her full strength just now?
A feeling of fear surged into her heart, but in the next moment, her fighting spirit prevailed.
This was the first time Gu Mingxin had encountered such a terrifying Sword cultivator in all her life. She was much more impressive than that silvery fool, Feng Yu Die.
"Hehe hahahaha--!! Ye Anping!!!"
Pei Lianxue's eyes widened slightly as she clenched the sword in her hand, her teeth gritted. She took a deep breath and shouted angrily. "Don't shout his name!!"
The sword in her hand suddenly emitted a faint spiritual light, and it was instantly covered by ice crystals. She silently looked at Gu Mingxin and, after dodging her sword once, she twisted her body and struck vertically.
Swish---
An ice-blue sword light swept across heaven and earth, carving a blue ice line on the desert below. The remnant clouds that happened to pass by were frozen into lumps of ice stone that fell down with a loud bang.
At the same time, the right hand holding the blood-colored sword appeared in front of Gu Mingxin's eyes.
She didn't even see what happened clearly, and it took her a moment to realize that her hand was actually cut off by that girl.
"Mingxin!!"
Gu Mingxin took a deep breath and did not have the time to listen to Xue'e shouting. She grabbed her right hand in the air with her left and immediately blocked the sword right in front of her neck.
Ding---
Sparks flew from the blade as Pei Lianxue blocked the spirit sword that was swinging toward her neck. Without stopping, she grabbed another sword that she had ready, preparing to cut off her left arm from another direction.
However, at this very moment, a huge black shadow caught her attention.
A huge black python broke out of the yellow sand about a hundred feet below, opened its mouth, and rushed toward her and Gu Mingxin.
Pei Lianxue frowned slightly and whip-kicked Gu Mingxin in the abdomen, then grabbed another sword, and gritted her teeth---
"Hah--!"
The ice-blue sword energy turned into an arc and swept straight at the python's head. When it touched its head, it instantly encased the slippery black python in a layer of ice, freezing it into a giant ice sculpture.
Seeing this, Xue'e, who had called Ah Mang from above, widened her eyes. "Ah?!"
However, in just a moment, that layer of ice was shattered by the black python from the inside as it continued to rush toward Pei Lianxue.
Seeing that she couldn't block it anymore, Pei Lianxue sneered slightly and rushed down. She poured all the remaining dozens of swords in her storage bag into the snake's mouth, then stepped on one of the swords and used the momentum to twist her body, brushing past the snake's body.
Pei Lianxue, who was now free-falling upside down in the air, twisted to look back at the black python. She made a hand seal in front of her chest and whispered. "Break!"
Almost instantly, countless sword lights extended from the black python's nearly thousand-foot-long body.
The black python howled and twisted several times, then drew a parabola in the sky and burrowed into the yellow sand before fleeing to the west.
Pei Lianxue watched the waves on the yellow sand and suddenly realized that this was the method of luring the tiger away from the mountain. She quickly turned her head to look at Gu Mingxin, who she had just kicked away.
Only to see that both Gu Mingxin and He Jiming were gone.
She could only see a blood-colored spiritual light flying further and further away from her...
Watching Gu Mingxin run away, Pei Lianxue touched her storage bag and found that she had run out of swords. She puffed up her cheeks and protested. "Woo..."
Then, she suddenly remembered Patriarch Ye, who had just been blown away, and hurriedly turned to look for him.
Seeing that he was hovering about three hundred feet away, protecting his body with his spiritual energy, Pei Lianxue breathed a sigh of relief. She walked over, sized him up to see if he was injured, and asked, "Patriarch Ye, are you injured?"
"...Oh." Ye Ao came back to his senses and nodded in a daze. Then, he looked at the two huge pits drilled by the black python into the yellow sand and the ice line left by Pei Lianxue on the desert dunes. He swallowed. "I'm fine, but little Pei, you..."
"I'm fine."
"Oh... well, then..."
"Brother said, ' Don't corner a desperate enemy ,' so I won't chase after them..."
"Oh... oh..."
Ye Ao wiped the cold sweat on his forehead and suddenly felt a little ashamed. What kind of girl did his precious son raise?
But looking at Pei Lianxue's inexpressive face, he also calmed down a little.
This was his son's wife! What was he, the father-in-law afraid of?
"Hiss--" Ye Ao took a deep breath and turned around to look at the 880,000 spirit stones circling in the distance. He put on his imposing manner and stroked his beard. "Then, you should go back on the crane's back to gather your energy and rest. I'll help you look for Miss Feng."
"Well... Eh?"
Pei Lianxue nodded, then suddenly, as if she saw something, her eyes lit up, and she rushed down.
"Ah? Little Pei... where are you going?"
Just as Ye Ao was wondering, he saw Pei Lianxue land on a dune, kneel on the ground, and dig into the sand. She pulled out a severed hand and flew back with it.
"Master Ye, look, I chopped off Gu Mingxin's hand."
"..."
"I'm going to show it to my brother later..."
Ye Ao looked at Pei Lianxue holding a right hand, nodded hesitantly, and then took her back to the crane in the distance as they continued to fly forward in search of Feng Yu Die and the others.