Nine Nether Dragon Emperor

He glanced behind him, and seeing that Ning Xuan hadn’t followed, he said, pulling off his face mask to wipe the sweat from his forehead.

Just as he lowered the mask, his body went rigid as if he’d been hit with a Binding Spell, freezing him to the spot. His eyes bulged, wide as saucers.

Ning Xuan was standing right there in front of him, in the flesh!

THUD!

His body went limp and he collapsed to his knees before Ning Xuan. "Don’t kill me," he stammered. "I was forced to do it."

"I remember you. You were standing behind that fellow from the Yu Heng Realm, Zhang Yuan."

The man nodded repeatedly. "Yes, yes, that’s me! It was Zhang Yuan who ordered me to attack. He said if I didn’t agree, not only would I die, but he would also go to the Yu Heng Realm and kill my family."

Ning Xuan nodded. "I believe you."

Overjoyed, the man thanked him and scrambled to crawl away. But just then, Ning Xuan’s voice rang out.

"Who said you could leave?"

The man froze, utterly dumbfounded.

"Brother Ning... didn’t you say I could go?" Not sensing any killing intent from Ning Xuan, he grew a little bolder.

"He told you to attack me, and you came because you were afraid he’d kill you? So you figured I was just an easy target, is that it?"

At Ning Xuan’s words, the man jumped in fright. "I wouldn’t dare! Brother Ning, your cultivation is profound and unfathomable; I’m no match for you. How about... how about I go kill Zhang Yuan for you?"

He couldn’t be sure what Ning Xuan was really thinking. Yet after Ning Xuan’s earlier display at the banquet, he didn’t dare let his guard down for a second.

Ning Xuan countered, "And aren’t you afraid he’ll kill your entire family?"

The man stiffened. He would never dare to make a move on Zhang Yuan; he had only said that as a ploy to escape.

Now that his bluff had been called, desperation turned to fury.

BOOM!

He threw both fists forward with all his might! As a representative of the Yu Heng Realm at the Star Domain conference, his strength was naturally immense. As he unleashed his full power, his fists shattered the void like paper. The attack struck with the force of a thunderclap, aimed straight for Ning Xuan’s dantian!

But Ning Xuan simply stood his ground and met the attack with a single palm strike.

It descended with the force of a falling mountain.

BANG!

Ning Xuan’s palm smashed the man’s head down into his neck! His fists stopped dead, a mere three inches from Ning Xuan’s dantian. That tiny gap became a chasm he could never cross.

"Honestly, why be so reckless? I never said I was going to kill you."

As the headless corpse toppled over, Ning Xuan couldn’t help but sigh.

"Ah, Ning Xuan, save me!"

Suddenly, Cheng Dabao’s cry for help echoed from nearby. Without a second thought, Ning Xuan vanished. The next moment, he reappeared just in time to see a man in black snatching Cheng Dabao away.

After a moment of shock, Ning Xuan turned and walked away.

Further ahead, where Cheng Dabao had been taken, two figures hiding in the shadows were left dumbfounded.

"What’s going on?! Why did he just leave?"

"Don’t ask me, how should I know?!"

"He gave that girl the cold shoulder back in the hall. Could it be he really doesn’t care if she lives or dies?"

"I have a bad feeling he noticed something was off."

"That’s impossible, right? Third Brother’s tricks have never been discovered before!"

"He’s leaving. Big Brother, what do we do?"

The two men in the shadows watched Ning Xuan walk further and further away, momentarily at a loss. But in that moment of hesitation, Ning Xuan disappeared from sight.

"Damn it! We should have just kidnapped the real one!" one of the men cursed as he emerged from the shadows, furious and exasperated. "Third Brother, come on out! That bastard Ning Xuan is gone!"

At his call, Third Brother appeared, holding a woman who looked identical to Cheng Dabao. The three men stared at the woman, but even after a long look, they couldn’t see anything amiss.

"This shouldn’t be possible! Forget only seeing her from behind—even if that bastard Ning Xuan had seen her face, he shouldn’t have noticed a thing as long as she didn’t speak!"

"Exactly! And Third Brother’s imitation of her voice was perfect. There’s no way he could have known!"

"How in the world did he do it?" All three of them were completely mystified.

"Want to know?" a voice suddenly asked.

"Of course we do—" the three started to reply, but immediately realized something was wrong.

Just as they were about to react—CRACK!—Ning Xuan had already snapped the necks of two of them.

"Don’t come any closer! Don’t move! One more step and I’ll strangle her!" The last of them, Third Brother, went pale, his voice trembling. His hand tightened around the woman’s neck.

"She helped you this much, and you still want to kill her? You people really have no conscience," Ning Xuan remarked dryly, remaining perfectly still.

The woman looked at Ning Xuan, her eyes full of pleading.

"Why don’t you let her go? You’re a powerful expert, after all. Threatening a weak woman... if word of this got out—"

"Shut up!" Before Ning Xuan could finish, the man interrupted him. "You want me to let her go? Fine! Seal your own cultivation!"

"Are you drunk or just stupid?" Ning Xuan’s question left him stunned. "We’re strangers. Why should I save her?"

As he spoke, the man’s pupils contracted.

WHOOSH!

A beam of light shot from Ning Xuan’s eyes.

PFFT!

A bloody hole appeared on the man’s forehead. Ning Xuan had struck with the speed of lightning.

The woman’s body went limp as she fell toward Ning Xuan.

But she was met by another streak of light!

PFFT!

It shot straight through her throat. The woman collapsed to her knees, clutching the wound as she looked up, her eyes wide with disbelief. Meanwhile, the long fingernails on her other hand were retracting, each one shimmering with a faint blue light—the gleam of a deadly poison.

"You... how did you... know...?" the woman struggled to ask, desperate for the truth.

"Want to know?" Ning Xuan asked.

The woman looked at him with a sliver of hope.

"But now, I don’t feel like telling you." Ning Xuan shrugged and turned to leave.

Behind him, the woman spurted a mouthful of blood. She collapsed face-first, dying with her eyes wide in indignation.

Without lingering, Ning Xuan departed. The incident served as a reminder that someone might genuinely try to harm Cheng Dabao.

And sure enough, when he reached the spot where he had parted ways with Cheng Dabao and You Ruo, they were gone. There were clear signs of a struggle at the scene.

Ning Xuan quickly began to follow the trail.

「At the same time」

Deep in a dense forest, Cheng Dabao and You Ruo stood back to back, warily scanning their surroundings. Not far from them, the man named Wang Ao was also frowning, his gaze as sharp as a hawk. He scanned the area and bellowed, "What kind of heroes attack women and skulk in the shadows? Come out and fight me honorably!"

Naturally, there was no response.

But a moment later, a hand snaked out along the ground and, in an instant, seized Cheng Dabao’s ankle.

She screamed in fright.

The moment Wang Ao glanced in her direction, a beam of light tore through the night sky, aimed straight for his forehead!

THWACK!

Wang Ao blocked the fatal strike, but the sheer force of it made his blood churn, and he coughed up a mouthful of it.