Decaying World

"Kill!!"

In the next second, Bai Feihan took a step forward, shattering the roof tiles, and swooped down like a great bird. A long, slender, curved blade suddenly appeared in his hand, carrying a saber light covered in Internal Force, carving out a massive silver full moon in mid-air as it slashed toward Lin Hui.

At the same time, the bald man at the rear cast his fishing net, instantly covering a range of over ten meters and locking down most of the directions Lin Hui could use to maneuver or dodge. The fishing net glimmered with white light, illuminating the surrounding snow.

This bald man was also an expert at the Perfection of Internal Force!

Not only that, but the other gray-robed man deployed his movement technique, soaring into the air like a giant bird. He circled and pounced toward Lin Hui from another angle, sealing off all avenues of escape from a third direction.

With the three of them combining their strength, they locked down Lin Hui's position in an instant, anticipating the vast majority of directions he might dodge toward.

And finally, directly in front, Yao Huan roared in anger. Mustering all her Internal Force, she cleaved out a snow-white wall of saber light, more than three meters high and four meters wide, crushing down toward Lin Hui.

With this, all directions for evasion were blocked. Lin Hui's group of five was sealed in the center, like turtles in a jar.

The wind blew, and snow fell, but at this moment, the fragmented snow was whipped into a chaotic flurry by the fierce winds from all four sides.

It was as if the wind and snow suddenly stopped. Lin Hui held his sword, sensing the powerful offensives rushing in from all sides. He couldn't predict the intensity of all the attacks, nor did he have the time to target each offensive one by one and analyze its weaknesses. After all, he hadn't undergone that kind of cultivation.

But it didn't matter. To kill, a single instant is enough.

Clang!

In a flash, a circular sword trace appeared around him.

Strangely, the sword trace was swung out ahead of time, before the surrounding attacks even arrived. It was as if it wasn't unleashed to counter the four great offensives at all, but merely swung for the sake of swinging a sword.

Did he give up? Or was it a misjudgment? Was he too panicked and made a mistake?

"Temple Master of Clear Wind Temple, is this all you amount to! Faced with life and death, you too are helpless!"

"Not good, Ah-Huan, look out!!" Suddenly, Bai Feihan's expression changed drastically. Realizing what was happening, he forcibly twisted his saber light, lunging toward the direction of his disciple.

Just now, without realizing it, their attention had been attracted by that strange sword trace, causing the movements of their offensive to involuntarily slow down for a split second.

If they were ordinary people, it would have been fine; a split second wouldn't delay anything. But at their level, a split second of hesitation was enough to decide life and death in an exchange!

Pu-chi!

In a trance, Bai Feihan saw Lin Hui's figure appear beside his disciple as if skipping through space. He saw the other's lips move slightly, as if saying something.

Then.

Yao Huan's tall, sturdy body—person and saber alike, along with the wall of saber light she had slashed out—was split diagonally apart from the middle.

Whoosh!

A terrifying sword trace suddenly split open on Yao Huan's body, slicing her neatly into two sections from her left shoulder to her right waist.

"Ahhhhh!! You seek death!!!" Bai Feihan's entire body's Qi and blood exploded with a boom.

He had nurtured her for many years, finally raising a Head Disciple in the Internal Force Realm, waiting for someone to uphold the sect's facade when he became old and frail in the future. With Yao Huan's aptitude, in another twenty years, she would definitely have reached the Perfection of Internal Force, and by then, he could have enjoyed his twilight years in peace.

But everything, everything was destroyed right here and now, on the snowy ground less than ten meters away from him.

The fishing net missed. Their encirclement and blockade—all of it missed. And the outcome was that in a single encounter, Yao Huan of the Internal Force Realm was dismembered by a single sword strike.

Blood scattered, dyeing the whiteness with spots of red cherry blossoms. Immediately, the red cherry blossoms connected into a patch, slowly melting like red earth.

"My sword is perfect. My movement technique is so, and I am so."

Lin Hui easily left behind an afterimage, dodging the follow-up pursuit of the three men. In the next instant, he flashed and vanished, reappearing on a nearby roof.

"Flawless, unblemished. The result of swinging a perfect, flawless sword must also be perfect and flawless."

He pointed his sword tip diagonally at the ground, looking at the three men who were already crouching by the corpse to check the situation.

"Wouldn't you agree?"

"Agree? Your mother!!! Fuck! I'm going to kill you!!" Bai Feihan stood up violently, the white light of Internal Force on his body burning like flames, jumping violently.

"Old Bai!"

"Wait, Old Bai!!" The other two wanted to pull him back, but it was already too late.

Bai Feihan seemed to have erupted with some kind of secret art. Veins bulged all over his skin, and his muscles swelled abnormally, pulsating. The hand gripping the saber looked overly congested with blood, taking on an eerie purple hue.

Though his anger was great, he was very clear about the terror of that sword strike just now. Logically speaking, they had inquired beforehand; although Lin Hui's sword was fast, against Yao Huan, who focused on defense in the Internal Force Realm, he shouldn't have been able to break her defense in a short time.

That was why they had Yao Huan block him from the front. Yes, they didn't seek merit, only to avoid fault—just a simple block. She only needed to block him for a split second, and everything would have been settled.

But what no one expected was that the four of them—four Internal Force experts, two of whom were at the Perfection of Internal Force—actually got distracted in front of that strange sword trace!

In such a life-and-death battle, they actually got distracted!?

This was simply unimaginable! If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes and experienced it personally, Bai Feihan simply couldn't imagine how such a sword technique could exist in the world!

When experts exchanged blows, a split second of distraction was enough to determine victory, defeat, life, and death. And so, Yao Huan was gone. A battle they thought was foolproof had ushered in the most tragic result.

"Die!!"

Bai Feihan's speed surged, his strength surged. With speed at least fifty percent faster than before, he rushed in front of Lin Hui and slashed upward from below. The saber light sliced open the eaves, cleaving toward Lin Hui's right foot.

But it only slashed apart an afterimage.

Lin Hui's speed actually increased yet again at this moment. He merely took a slight step to the left, precisely avoiding the enraged Bai Feihan's slash. The snow-bright full moon saber light flew less than a meter from his side, slowly dissipating after slicing through a large swath of wind and snow.

Lin Hui took another step, precisely avoiding another white saber shadow. One on the roof, one on the ground—as if performing a coordinated drill, Lin Hui precisely avoided every saber strike, every offensive.