"What are you lot just standing around for?"
Tie Dazhi saw that Zhou Yi and the sixteen enforcement disciples were all watching his fight with Jiang Chen with tense expressions, making no move whatsoever.
Zhou Yi had been hoping Tie Dazhi would swiftly dispatch Jiang Chen, then tear through the Jiang residence like a hot knife through butter.
He never expected that Senior Brother Dazhi, a fifth-level Spirit Realm cultivator, would fail to take down Jiang Chen after several exchanges, instead seeming to have gotten the worse of it.
Hearing Tie Dazhi's sharp rebuke and sensing the anger behind it, Zhou Yi didn't dare hesitate. He waved his hand and ordered the enforcement disciples: "Sharpen up — attack!"
Zhou Yi was nicknamed the Wind-and-Cloud Sword, renowned for his swift, eerie movement techniques and swordplay.
His figure flickered, leaving an afterimage in the air as the three-foot green blade in his hand traced a peculiar arc, thrusting toward Tian Shao inside the doorway.
Tian Shao was only at the first level of the Spirit Realm, while Zhou Yi was a genius of the fourth level — the Earth Spirit Realm. The gap in their strength was staggering.
Zhou Yi's sword moved like mist and clouds, like a breeze, its trajectory bizarre and unpredictable. In a flash it had closed to within arm's reach of Tian Shao.
This strike wasn't meant to kill Tian Shao — Zhou Yi intended to capture him.
Just as secret delight bubbled up in his heart, a sudden warning flare ignited in his mind.
As an Earth Spirit Realm genius, Zhou Yi had been through countless battles. Such a premonition could never be a mere illusion — it was a razor-sharp instinct honed on the razor's edge between life and death.
That instinct had saved his life on more occasions than he could count.
Before the sword light even touched Tian Shao, Zhou Yi already faced two choices.
First, press the attack and strike Tian Shao down.
Second, halt his offensive and pull the sword back to protect himself.
In the space of a heartbeat, there was no time for deliberation. The survival instinct forged between life and death made his first impulse one of self-preservation.
The sword reversed its arc as Wind-and-Cloud Qi erupted outward in layer after layer of spiritual force, shielding every vital point. At the same time, he pushed off with his toes, attempting to close on Tian Shao once more even while defending.
Clang, clang, clang, clang!
Feather after feather — gleaming like thrown blades — slammed into the barrier of Zhou Yi's Wind-and-Cloud Qi and were repelled.
Each tail feather struck like a lethal throwing knife, and the combined force of twenty or thirty feathers battered straight through his protective aura.
Fortunately, Zhou Yi's movement techniques were exceptional. At the very instant his Wind-and-Cloud Qi shattered, his body twisted free of the kill zone.
This heart-stopping scene left Zhou Yi with no inclination to let his guard down again.
He held the Wind-and-Cloud Sword before his chest, eyes locked warily on the Golden-Winged Sword Birds circling overhead, his heart still racing with lingering fear — and no small measure of relief.
If he had committed a moment's error and continued his attack on Tian Shao, he would now be riddled with feathers like a pincushion, nothing more than a lifeless corpse.
Tian Shao's gaze was cold and indifferent as he offered a thin, detached smile and retreated back inside.
Even with all his nerve, Zhou Yi no longer dared to charge in recklessly. He understood that pressing forward would mean turning his back on those Golden-Winged Sword Birds.
If the birds launched another assault while he was exposed, the situation would be far more dire than before.
Those sixteen enforcement disciples were having an even harder time of it. Surrounded by twenty or thirty Golden-Winged Sword Birds within the formation, no matter how they charged, an invisible wall of iron and bronze seemed to hold them fast.
The Spirit-Gathering Formation of the Eight Desolations. The formation contained eight gates, each resonating with and lending strength to the others. At first glance, it appeared that three Golden-Winged Sword Birds guarded each gate. In truth, the formation generated an interconnected field of power in which all twenty-four birds operated as one.
All sixteen enforcement disciples were Spirit Realm cultivators. In terms of individual combat power, even Spirit Grade Golden-Winged Sword Birds were no match for them.
But now that the formation was active and the full mystery of the Spirit-Gathering Formation of the Eight Desolations had been unleashed, the power of these twenty-four Golden-Winged Sword Birds had increased tenfold or more.
At that point, the notion of individual combat became meaningless.
Most critically, these enforcement disciples had never imagined that Spirit Birds could combine into a combat formation — it was simply unheard of.
Because they had underestimated their opponents from the very start, they had been trapped by the formation almost instantly, reduced to turtles in a jar.
Fortunately, without orders from Jiang Chen, the Golden-Winged Sword Birds had yet to strike killing blows.
Otherwise, given their fierce temperament, once the formation was fully engaged, shredding sixteen enforcement disciples would be child's play.
The more Zhou Yi observed, the more alarmed he became. From his vantage point as a bystander, he could see all too clearly that although the sixteen enforcement disciples looked aggressive and imposing, they were utterly incapable of breaking through the birds' defense.
Evidently, the birds were still holding back, not exerting a fraction of their full strength. Otherwise, how could they have had the spare capacity to hurl tail feathers at Zhou Yi in order to protect Tian Shao?
"No good — these enforcement disciples were brought here privately by Senior Brother Dazhi. If something were to happen to them, there'd be no way to explain it back at the sect!"
Zhou Yi was starting to panic. He knew how ferocious Spirit Birds could be. Once their bloodlust was aroused and they flew into a rage, they would be nothing like the controlled creatures they were now.
Zhou Yi was intimately familiar with the strength of these sixteen enforcement disciples. He knew they were already fighting at their limit, yet from the look of it, the birds were playing with them.
Yes — the way a hunter toys with its prey.
Under these circumstances, there could be only one explanation: the birds' combat power had barely been scratched.
Zhou Yi raised his gaze to check on the battle between Tie Dazhi and Jiang Chen. The two were locked in a furious stalemate, neither able to gain the upper hand.