Chapter 47 : Chapter 47
Chapter 47: Failed Strike, Is Heaven’s Mandate with the Li Clan?
Chengfeng Pavilion.
It was an unavoidable point along Li Yanzhao’s party’s route back to Qingfeng Valley.
A group of several dozen riders galloped at full speed along the main road.
Once we pass Chengfeng Pavilion, there will only be thirty li left.
Li Yanzhao thought to himself.
“Everyone, pick up the pace!”
Li Yanzhao urged them on with his whip, but the group had already reached the limit of their speed. No matter how much he pressed them, they could not go any faster.
Above Chengfeng Pavilion stood a mysterious figure cloaked from head to toe in black robes. Only his eyes were exposed, and as he looked toward the oncoming riders, they shone with cold killing intent.
“They’ve finally come.”
...
At the same time, Li Yanzhao had also noticed that something was wrong.
He raised a hand, and the several dozen riders behind him came to a hurried stop. Drawing their sabers, they guarded the clan’s new blood in the middle with vigilant caution.
“May I ask who you are? I am Li Yanzhao, Sixth Elder of the Li Clan!”
Li Yanzhao called out loudly with cupped fists.
“The Li Clan? Heh. The ones I came to kill are precisely members of the Li Clan!”
The mysterious figure sneered in a hoarse voice.
Then, a powerful aura crashed straight toward Li Yanzhao and the others.
Facing that immense pressure head-on, Li Yanzhao was horrified. His face darkened as he said, “A Qi-Blood Realm cultivator!”
Though he had long expected that there might be ill-intentioned people lying in wait, he had never imagined that someone would directly send a Qi-Blood Realm cultivator to carry out the ambush. What terrifying resolve. What terrifying boldness.
With his strength, if he faced a Qi-Blood Realm cultivator, there would be no survival.
Even so, he still drew his saber.
At the same time, he shouted to the Li Clan cultivators behind him, “I’ll hold him back. All of you, run!”
“Commendable courage, but that is all it amounts to. Today, I’ll let you understand what it means that beneath the Qi-Blood Realm, all are ants!”
The mysterious man said with disdain.
His body shot forward, attacking Li Yanzhao at astonishing speed.
In the span of a single breath, the mysterious man’s figure appeared right in front of Li Yanzhao. He clenched one hand into a fist and smashed it toward Li Yanzhao’s chest.
Li Yanzhao hastily swung his saber to block, but the tyrannical force of the punch directly shattered his blade and struck his chest with crushing force.
Li Yanzhao’s chest caved in on the spot beneath that violent blow, and his body was sent flying several hundred meters away.
“Pff!”
A mouthful of blood mist sprayed out, and Li Yanzhao’s face instantly turned deathly pale. He struggled to rise, but no longer had the slightest bit of strength left in him.
“A Qi-Blood Realm cultivator truly is overbearing. If it were not for the Blood Spirit Fruit pushing me into Perfection, that punch just now would likely have killed me outright!”
Li Yanzhao was deeply shaken.
When the mysterious man saw that Li Yanzhao had survived one of his punches, he could not help feeling a trace of surprise. But Li Yanzhao had never been his true target today.
Seeing the Li Clan’s new blood fleeing under the protection of the Li Clan cultivators, he immediately gave up on killing Li Yanzhao and instead turned to pursue the Li Clan’s new blood.
Sensing the killing intent behind them, several Li Clan cultivators exchanged glances before turning their horses around.
“Take care of my family for me!”
After shouting that, they charged fearlessly toward the mysterious man with sabers raised.
“And you dare come forward to die as well!”
Seeing that a few mere Body Tempering Realm nobodies actually dared block his path, the mysterious man sneered inwardly.
He flicked out several bursts of finger force, and the Li Clan cultivators tumbled from their horses. Their eyes were wide open, and each of them now bore a gruesome bloody hole in the middle of the forehead.
Though those Li Clan cultivators died, they succeeded in delaying the mysterious man for two breaths.
Several more riders charged forward with the same grim resolve, only to die beneath the mysterious man’s finger force as well.
The rest followed suit, intending to use their own lives to buy a slim chance of survival for the clan’s new blood.
But the mysterious man’s patience had already worn thin. Vast qi-and-blood power erupted from him, forming blood arrows in midair.
Once the power had been gathered to its peak, dozens of blood arrows shot forth with lightning speed.
Just as everyone was about to be wiped out by that devastating strike,
two furious voices exploded through the forest like thunder.
“Villain, how dare you!”
Two figures whose auras surged straight into the heavens appeared before the mysterious man. Joining forces, they used Qi-Blood Manifestation to form shields and blocked the deadly blood arrows!
The appearance of those two made the mysterious man’s face change drastically.
Without the slightest hesitation, he turned and fled.
The instant those two had appeared, the mysterious man knew that his assassination plan had failed.
Facing two cultivators of the same realm, no matter how confident he was, he would never dare claim that he could fight one against two. If he was even slightly careless, he might well leave his life behind here.
Seeing the mysterious man fleeing in panic, the Second Elder was about to give chase when the Grand Elder beside him held him back.
The Grand Elder shook his head. “Don’t pursue him. He is determined to flee, and we won’t catch him. The most urgent matter right now is to protect the new blood and return to the clan. We cannot let our clansmen die in vain.”
Looking at the many corpses on the ground, the Second Elder’s expression was filled with grief and fury. These were all fine sons of the Li Clan!
“Where is the Sixth Elder?”
The Grand Elder asked the surviving Li Clan cultivators behind him.
That cultivator replied sorrowfully, “The Sixth Elder stayed behind alone to buy us time. We do not know whether he is dead or alive.”
The Grand Elder’s and Second Elder’s expressions both changed drastically.
“Hurry and find him. If he lives, we bring him back alive. If he is dead, we bring back his body!”
“Yes!”
Not long afterward, the barely breathing Li Yanzhao was carried back.
Only after seeing that the new blood still remained alive did his vision go black and he faint.
Seeing that Li Yanzhao still had a breath left in him, the two elders finally let out sighs of relief.
If they had lost an elder, and a young elder at that, the blow to the Li Clan would have been far too great.
“Gather the bodies of our clansmen. Bring them home with us.”
The Grand Elder said with a sorrowful sigh in his eyes.
“Yes, Grand Elder.”
The surviving Li Clan cultivators, their eyes red, tied the bodies of their fallen brothers to themselves and carried them in silence.
“Let us go home.”
...
...
Within the Baibo Song Clan,
the anxious Song Clan elders finally welcomed the return of Family Head Song Tianbo.
Song Tianbo removed the cloth covering his face, and under the expectant gazes of the crowd,
said bitterly, “I failed.”
“What?”
Several elders turned pale with shock.
To be safe, even the Family Head himself, a Qi-Blood Realm cultivator, had personally gone to carry out the attack, yet he had still failed to deal with Li Yanzhao? Could it be that the Li Clan had hidden a Qi-Blood Realm cultivator within the group?
“I was very nearly successful, but then two Qi-Blood Realm cultivators from the Li Clan arrived and saved them. Left with no choice, I could only withdraw first. Otherwise, I fear I myself would have been left there.”
Song Tianbo explained, and the others immediately understood.
“Family Head, was your identity exposed?”
The Song Clan’s Grand Elder hurriedly asked.
Song Tianbo shook his head. “I never exchanged blows with them directly, and I also concealed myself. They should not have recognized me.”
“That’s good.”
The elders all let out quiet sighs of relief in unison. In truth, they were not yet prepared to begin a full-scale war with the Li Clan.
But the very next sentence from Song Tianbo made them all look as though they had just lost their own parents.
“I have more bad news for you. After Li Xingge and Li Xuantong, the Li Clan’s Second Elder has also advanced into the Qi-Blood Realm.”
“This time, it was the two of them together who forced me back.”
“The Li Clan now has three Qi-Blood Realm cultivators in a single family.”
The moment those words were spoken, the Song Clan’s Grand Elder collapsed into his chair and gave a bitter smile. “How thinly heaven has favored my Song Clan.”
With cultivation at half a step into the Qi-Blood Realm, he had attempted to break through the Qi-Blood barrier three times in succession, and failed each time. In this life, there was little hope left for him to ever advance into the Qi-Blood Realm.
As for the other Song Clan elders, they too were filled with gloom.
Could it be that Heaven’s Mandate truly rested with the Qingfeng Li Clan?