Gu Qi's expression was cold and arrogant as he watched the three great priestesses struggle in desperation. Their faces were set with the grim resolve of people fighting to the death, yet a faint sneer crept across his lips.
"The old ancestor was right — the human race is a weak and pitiful tribe." With Gu Qi's level of cultivation, he certainly had every right to look down on these three priestesses.
"I don't want to bully women. You three — surrender now. Otherwise, when my Prince loses his temper, your fates will not be pleasant."
The Second Priestess's face turned ashen with fury. She cursed loudly, "Barbarians from beyond the frontier — and you presume to demand our surrender?"
Gu Qi laughed coldly. "You sharp-tongued wretch. Very well — I'll deal with you first."
As he spoke, he charged forward without the slightest hesitation. His body transformed into a blast of fierce wind, shooting straight into the Moon God Sect's formation. He showed absolutely no regard for the defensive array the three priestesses had set up.
Gu Qi was, without question, a man whose extraordinary skill bred extraordinary boldness. Combined with his overwhelming superiority in power, it made him all the more reckless.
The Great Priestess and the others watched Gu Qi slash directly into their midst, their hearts lurching with alarm. But the three priestesses had long trained together in close coordination. In perfect unison, they channeled their weapons and struck at Gu Qi simultaneously.
The three priestesses were all Emperor realm powerhouses, and they had always fought in excellent coordination. Their tactics of joint offense and joint defense were something they had drilled countless times.
In their unified formation, they could hold their own even against opponents as formidable as the Peacock Great Emperor or the Dan Chi Great Emperor.
But against Gu Qi, their trinity formation was clearly not enough.
Three attacks landed on Gu Qi's body, yet around him there seemed to be a strange layer of air currents. The strikes slid right off him, missing entirely.
Gu Qi let out a savage laugh. His bony, skeletal hand had already closed around the Second Priestess's chest.
In the blink of an eye —
The very instant Gu Qi's hand reached the Second Priestess's front, his ear twitched, and his expression shifted. A sudden spike of crisis flared within his heart.
That sense of danger drove him to retreat violently backward on pure instinct.
The next instant, a terrifying streak of arrow light tore through the void, ignoring all spatial laws, and grazed past him by the narrowest of margins.
The murderous intent behind it was so intense that Gu Qi broke into a cold sweat. He could be absolutely certain — had that arrow struck him, it would have had the power to kill him without question.
Even for a powerhouse of Gu Qi's caliber, a flash of genuine fear crossed his arrogant face.
The arrow light swept past Gu Qi's body, but its momentum did not dissipate. It continued onward, piercing through everything in its path.
A row of Gu Nuo barbarian warriors, caught completely off guard, were punched through one after another by the arrow light. More than a dozen fell before its force finally waned.
The light flickered once, and the arrow vanished.
This sudden turn of events left every last member of the Kuman tribe utterly stunned.
Gu Qi was the first to roar, "Protect the Prince!"
He charged to the front, positioning himself before Gu Tianqing. The other personal guards — who moments ago had been surrounding and attacking the Moon God Sect — all abandoned their targets and dropped back around Gu Tianqing, forming an impenetrable ring of protection. The remaining Kuman tribe warriors shouted in unison, "Protect the Prince!"
These barbarian warriors clearly held Gu Tianqing in the highest reverence. Without hesitation, they used their own bodies to erect a human wall around him.
The Moon God Sect, meanwhile, was suddenly left unattended.
The Great Priestess seized the moment at once, transmitting her voice, "Watch for your chance — we retreat outward!"
She took the lead herself, ordering the Second Priestess and Third Priestess to cover the flanks. Wielding her weapon, she carved a path forward.
"Everyone, stay close!" the Great Priestess commanded.
The Moon God Sect was, after all, a first-rate sect. In this moment of escape from certain death, they did not descend into wild euphoria. Instead, they organized their withdrawal with methodical discipline.
Gu Tianqing would naturally not stand by and watch the women of the Moon God Sect escape right under his nose. He snarled, "Stop them!"
The Kuman tribe had sheer numbers on their side. With tens of thousands of warriors, apart from the human wall guarding Gu Tianqing, the rest surged toward the Moon God Sect at the command.
Originally, the Moon God Sect had been surrounded in the central zone, hemmed in by multiple layers of encirclement. Breaking through would have been no simple task.
But now, without a crushing opponent like Gu Qi to contend with, even though the barbarians' human-wave tactics were terrifying, the Great Priestess finally saw a sliver of opportunity.
The Great Priestess's weapon danced wildly in her hands, trailing arcs of snow-white blade light that swirled like leaping fish and coiling dragons. Wherever they swept, Kuman warriors crumbled to the ground.
The barbarians were fierce, but ordinary Kuman fighters simply could not match the cultivation of an Emperor realm powerhouse like the Great Priestess.
Among the Gu Nuo tribe's warriors, only a select few possessed the strength to overwhelm the Great Priestess. The vast majority simply did not have the power to stand against her.
If not for the sheer, suffocating number of enemies, the combined charge of the three priestesses might well have torn the encirclement wide open.
Yet the Gu Nuo warriors were, after all, bred for ferocity. Though the Great Priestess and her companions crashed through their ranks in disarray, leaving heaps of the fallen in their wake, the barbarians' formation never truly broke.
One man fell, and another behind him immediately surged forward to take his place.
It was at that moment that another streak of arrow light flashed through the void.