Inches above the ground within the courtyard, a thin, barely visible layer of Grand White Gold Essence energy was hovering around.
Night breeze passed above the rooftop as a few chimes were sounded by the passing wind.
Wu Qi’s body was twisting in a very odd manner, as if he was made of water. From head to toe, all his bones and joints were vibrating at a miraculous frequency. His body was filled with tremendous strength, just like a tightly squeezed spring. He seemed like he could leap out and unleash a deadly strike anytime.
About a hundred feet in front of them, four men in black were standing quietly in the shadows. It was so dark that they could be barely seen. No sound of breathing or heartbeat could be heard. They gave off no signs of being normal humans, as if they were four foul ghosts who had just escaped from the depths of hell, staring at Wu Qi and Lu Chengfeng with a killing intent.
Suddenly, Lu Chengfeng let out a laugh and said, "Do the four of you know that by killing me, it will be a provocation to the Lu Family? The eldest son of the Lu Family happens to be killed in Little Meng City. Even if I am not welcome in my own family, they will go all out for revenge for the dignity of the family!"
An elusive sound came from the direction of four men in black. Wu Qi couldn’t figure out which man was doing the talking. Apparently, these assassins had cultivated with a different kind of skill, since their behaviors were so weird that they would send a shiver down one’s spine.
"Killing you is the only way to let our master escape from all the punishments. The new General of Little Meng City revolted with his army, robbing the coffer room and wreaking havoc in the city. The Mayor, Yi Yan, took on the tense situation calmly, and under his command, peace finally returned. Although there were great losses in the coffer room, his orders saved the day, and thus, no punishment would be given to him!"
Lu Chengfeng spread both his arms, turned to Wu Qi and smiled, "Listen to this, listen to what he just said! What did I tell you just now? Are we the biggest suspects? They simply want to kill us and put all the blame on us! But this plot is really thick, I wonder who came out with this idea?"
The voice sounded again, "It was young master Yi Yan’s idea."
Pausing for a second, the voice spoke again, "That’s it, enough is enough. If not because the young master himself asked us to explain this to you before killing you, we wouldn’t bother to speak a word to you! Lu Chengfeng, Wu Qi, both of you must die today!"
Before the last word was said, a shadowy figure suddenly moved, producing a sharp slicing noise. Before Wu Qi could see the man’s movement, he had crossed more than hundred feet of distance and was merely thirty feet away from Wu Qi and Lu Chengfeng.
Suddenly, the sound of metal vibrating resounded within the air, and a palm-sized, crescent-shaped dagger appeared out of nowhere. It was as thin as a silk cloth and reflected the bright light of the moon. In the blink of an eye, this dagger had approached the man, carrying a razor sharp cold breeze with it as it tried to break into this man’s body by spinning extremely fast.
A one-foot long dagger, looking like a snake’s tooth, appeared in the left hand of the shadowy figure. It was a pitch black dagger, emitting faded dark green embers under the light of the moon. It was definitely covered with poison. With a sway of his hand, the dagger merely hit the crescent-shaped dagger before it impaled his body.
With a crystal clear clanging sound, the snake tooth dagger split into two pieces and the crescent-shaped dagger formed by Grand White Gold Essence energy impaled his body while spinning fast, coming out from the other side of his body. Wu Qi could hear the sound of bones breaking and meat being chopped by the dagger. When it came out from the body, a stream of blood, mixed with tiny chunks of body tissue shot at least a few feet away.
Judging from the path of the dagger, the man’s heart should have suffered from serious injury. But, this shadowy figure didn’t make any sound. He just continued his course and thrust his dagger out towards Lu Chengfeng. With a faded green light on his right hand, he grabbed out at Lu Chengfeng’s neck.
Lu Chengfeng screamed out in terror, "He is not dead yet?"
Lu Chengfeng swung his soft metal sword and splashed a bright green light. He thrust it forward with a swooshing sound. The sword hit right onto the dagger of the shadowy man and shattered it, continuing its course and impaling into his neck. With a push and slice movement, Lu Chengfeng had cut the man’s neck half open.
Even after suffering from such severe injuries, the shadowy figure still sprinted like a mad tiger towards Lu Chengfeng, striking out with both his hands and generating a muffled swooshing sound. One hand was striking toward Lu Chengfeng’s throat while the other targeted his heart.
Three more crescent-shaped daggers appeared within the Grand White Gold Dagger array. The spinning daggers thrust toward the shadowy figure while glowing brightly. In the next second, all of them had deeply impaled into his back. One of the daggers hit right onto the man’s backbone, making its way through and destroying everything. The man’s backbone was broken into pieces by the strike.
Shockingly, this shadowy figure didn’t even make a sound out of pain. A shivering, cruel glow could be seen flickering in his eyes. Resolutely, both his arms continued their course toward Lu Chengfeng. When the palms were only a few feet away from him, the powerful force sent forth a fierce wind that caused Lu Chengfeng to feel pain on his face.
Lu Chengfeng watched helplessly as both palms approached, he didn’t know what to do as he had no experience in fighting a real battle with anybody. His sword had become a mere decoration.
Wu Qi extended his hand and grabbed onto Lu Chengfeng’s back, pulling him in his direction and placing Chengfeng behind his body. With a cold snort, he unleashed a large amount of cold energy from his palms, forming it into two whirlpools with innate water energy and weaving it into a thick barrier in front of his body.
As the palms hit the barrier, it was as if two hills had fallen into a deep lake. Wu Qi's body trembled. The best way to describe this attack was that it was like a powerful canon. Although he had unleashed layers of barriers made up by numerous whirlpools to defend himself and weaken the force of the attack, he was still hit by the shockwaves, which made all his internal organ tremble.
"Arooo!"
The sound of a wolf howling came out from the shadowy man’s mouth as his body suddenly expanded. Both of his palms had become as big as a cattail left fan [1]. At the center of his palms was a clump of dark black gas. Together with a pungent, stinking smell, they slammed forcefully towards Wu Qi. When it crashed into Wu Qi’s barrier, the whirlpools merely neutralized 60% of the force before they were completely shattered. Then, their palms met physically.
A loud boom rang through the scene and the body of the shadowy figure exploded into a million pieces, chunks of meat and blood, together with a pungent smell, splattering towards Wu Qi and Lu Chengfeng.
Sounds of tidal waves came out from Wu Qi’s arms. With his eyes nearly popping out, Wu Qi unleashed all the strength he had.
The innate energy within both Wu Qi’s arms was pushing forward, wave by wave, endlessly and rapidly. The last 40% of the energy of the shadowy man had consumed eighteen waves of Wu Qi’s energy and finally came to an end. Wu Qi extended both arms sideways, circulating the innate water energy within all over his body. He then burst out a layer of water vapor, covering an area of a few feet around him.
Muffled wet collision sounds never stopped. The faded water vapor was hovering around Wu Qi and Lu Chengfeng, and numerous meat chunks and drops of blood were hitting on this water vapor with a swooshing sound. But they could only penetrate a foot deep before being turned into mist by the water vapor.
Wu Qi raised his head up and let out a loud scream. With an extremely fast speed, he took out a water stone from his sleeve, crazily absorbing the energy within to replenish his losses. After that, the water vapor retracted and flowed back into the meridians in his arms, finishing all the actions in a split second, Wu Qi finally opened his mouth and spit out a stream of blood.
The counter attack of the shadowy figure before his death was too powerful. Even with the innate water energy, which was good at overcoming hardness with softness, the attack still wounded Wu Qi’s lung meridian, forcing him to spit out some blood. But luckily, the innate water energy was specialized in nourishing, and with the replenishment from water stone, those injured meridians had recovered in just the time of a few breaths.
Breathing out a long sigh of relief, Wu Qi asked frightfully, "Who even fights like this?"
The man had his internal organs and backbone shattered and broken by the daggers of the Grand White Gold Essence Energy. His neck was cut halfway by Lu Chengfeng, and his palms had been blown apart by Wu Qi. After all this, this shadowy man still sacrificed himself with a suicide explosion? Judging from all the black colored blood and the meat and bone chunks on the floor, who knew how much poison this shadowy man had in his body?
If not because of Wu Qi’s miraculous skills and his strong cultivation, this assassin alone would have been able to kill Wu Qi and Lu Chengfeng easily.
Lu Chengfeng, who was still suffering from the shock, shouted, "They are assassins, they had been preparing themselves for this all their lives! Wu Qi, be extremely careful!"
While shouting angrily, Lu Chengfeng was forming some seals with his hands and pushing these seals in the direction of the three pillars. He was adjusting the power of the Grand White Gold Dagger Array to the maximum. Before all this happened, he was tried to save the energy stones used by the array and therefore only set the power level to 30%. The consequence was that the shadowy man had made it all the way up to their noses and still had the ability to fight.
After witnessing the terrifying abilities of these assassins, Lu Chengfeng dared not to attempt to save energy stones. Without even having to think twice, he immediately adjusted the array to its maximum output.
At the corner of the courtyard, three shadowy figures were hiding in the shadows and staring in their direction. After almost fifteen minutes of silence, the elusive voice spoke again, "An array? No wonder we felt agitated when we came here. That’s why we let Number Four probe you guys first. We never expected that the eldest son of the Lu Family was a cultivator!"
Lu Chengfeng just kept sneering. After experiencing what had happened just now, he had begun to feel braver; his fighting spirit was rising with each passing second. He raised the sword up high, injecting his energy into it and making the soft sword became straight like an arrow.
"Since I was born, there have been countless people who tried to kill me. Hey, let’s see if you guys will succeed today!"
A feeling of sour hatefulness radiated from Lu Chengfeng’s body. Wu Qi threw a curious look at him and nodded his head slowly. Just a single assassin had made both of them go all out to defend themselves, and there were still three more assassins in front of them, trying to look for the best time to strike. If Lu Chengfeng didn’t man up and fight for his own life, Wu Qi really had no confidence in protecting his own life either.
Judging from the performance of the first assassin, Wu Qi started to doubt the power of this Grand White Gold Dagger Array. Of course, the complete version of this array should have a mighty power, but Wu Qi had no confidence in Lu Chengfeng, who was a half-boiled array practitioner.
While having some messy thoughts in his mind, the three shadowy figures leaped forward at the same time, striking like poisonous snakes. Wu Qi clearly saw when these three men moved, they fed themselves a red pill at the same time. The next second, all of them had their energy increase by at least ten times.
That must be a forbidden pill which could stimulate one’s potential. With the sudden ten times increase in energy, these three assassins had decided to attack with all they had. Ten times the strength, even though Wu Qi had strengthened his meridians twice, he did not dare to try and endure such a sudden energy surge. How could these ordinary assassins have the capability to withstand it?
In a split second, the three shadowy figures had entered the Grand White Gold Dagger Array.
More than three hundred daggers emerged from nowhere, and the thin layer of Grand White Gold Essence energy inches above ground had completely disappeared. All of the energy was concentrated in these daggers. With the sound of numerous daggers thrusting forward while spinning, these daggers had locked down their targets and began to strike.
Right at this moment, the power of this Grand White Gold Dagger Array had increased exponentially. Compared to the previous round of attack with just three or four daggers, its power had increased by more than a hundred times.
Before Wu Qi and Lu Chengfeng could attack, the three assassins, who had taken a forbidden pill and had their strength increased by ten times, had been chopped into a million tiny pieces. A few hundred daggers continued flying around for some time, only to slowly dissolve into nothingness.
Staring at the scene in front of him, with chunks of meat and bones flying around, Wu Qi was startled. In an incredibly blunt and straightforward manner, he had finally understood how powerful an array could be. He began to have a great deal of interest in this, and thought to himself that he should start gathering the materials required to make an array. He decided to be like Lu Chengfeng, learning this from the most basic array.
He was merely on the first step of a thousand mile journey to becoming a Master Thief.
Some cracking sound came from those three pillars, as the energy stones fitted on them had their energy used up and turned to ashes.
Lu Chengfeng sprinted toward the pillars while groaning and sighing. He grabbed the pillars and put them back in his bag.
"What a waste! What a waste! It is so difficult to find energy stones nowadays!"
Wu Qi gazed at the sad Lu Chengfeng, then he let out a cough.
"Young master, please tell me more about these assassins. They are simply too terrifying!"
Notes:
[1] Cattail left fan – See the image here: http://prntscr.com/bn3cpy
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