Unsheathed

Du Ying returned his blade to its scabbard as he ordered, "Cross the bridge!"

Right at this moment, an elderly man in the small town on the summit of the Magnificent Peak grabbed onto a young man's shoulder before flying away. There was golden light shimmering over the old man's body like radiant fish scales, presenting a particularly eye-catching spectacle in the night.

"So there really was a Golden Scale Palace cultivator among them," Du Ying remarked.

The box-bearing man behind Du Ying had already sprung through the air as a streak of light. He was a Golden Core Tier cultivator from the imperial preceptor's office of the Great Seal Script Empire, one that was renowned for his combat prowess, and as aforementioned, he was the eldest disciple of the Daoist imperial preceptor.

The Golden Scale Palace cultivator seemed to have been at the Dragon Gate Tier, so the saber-wielding man's cultivation base was superior to his, not to mention his saber was a powerful artifact revered and honored by an entire nation.

As he slashed the saber toward the Golden Scale Palace cultivator from afar, the latter hurriedly made a hand seal, and the shimmering golden Dao robe that he was wearing slid off his body on its own. It remained suspended in place and abruptly expanded drastically to form a golden barrier to oppose the oncoming saber projection, while the old man continued to flee with the young man.

The saber projection sliced the Dao robe into two, and the Golden Core Tier cultivator immediately sped up, catching up to the Golden Scale Palace cultivator in the blink of an eye before thrusting his saber toward the old man's back. The old man desperately tried to hurl the young man forward.

At this point, several Golden Scale Palace talismans had already been plastered to the young man's body, temporarily granting him the ability to fly like a Qi refiner, but the old cultivator knew that this would only be delaying the inevitable. Never had he imagined that the Golden Gate Nation would find the Magnificent Peak and send a Golden Core Tier cultivator from the imperial preceptor's office of the Great Seal Script Nation here.

With a slight flick of the wrist, the saber veered away from its original trajectory, transitioning from a thrust into a slash, and both the old cultivator and the young man were decapitated with a single stroke.

Prior to his death, the old cultivator detonated all of the spiritual energy in his body, hoping to take down the Golden Core Tier cultivator with him, but the latter merely sprang back through the air and watched as the old cultivator and the young man's bodies were blown into smithereens.

All of the spiritual energy within a radius of over a hundred feet was cast into a state of disarray, following which ferocious gusts of wind swept through the air in all directions. As a result, the suspension bridge began to sway violently, and several armored soldiers on the bridge were sent plunging to their deaths.

Thankfully, Du Ying and Zheng Shuizhu were able to drastically increase their body weights through the use of martial arts techniques, thereby stabilizing the bridge.