"Gaoqi, stay here,"
Though both the Carefree Sect and Great Sage Hall had suffered heavy losses fighting each other, Jiang Chen's instincts told him something felt off about the whole situation.
Having suddenly arrived in an unfamiliar place, every corner of this limestone cave emanated a strange, unsettling energy. He had no choice but to keep his guard up.
Lin Feng and Feng Wanjian, however, weren't about to second-guess anything. They strode forward toward those four figures, blades drawn and ready to finish the job.
Feng Wanjian marched straight up to Xu Gang with a sinister grin. "Xu Gang, you beast! You broke your promise and brought an Earth Yuan Realm fighter, and now retribution's here!"
With that, he swung his blade at Xu Gang's neck.
Jiang Chen didn't stop them. What interested him far more was that rare Spiritual Medicine.
But the instant Feng Wanjian's blade came down, Jiang Chen sensed something wrong. He halted mid-step, about to retreat.
Almost in the same instant, Feng Wanjian let out a scream and collapsed straight to the ground.
Behind him, the Carefree Sect disciple who had been lying in a pool of blood rose to his feet with a sinister smirk—there wasn't a trace of injury on him.
At nearly the same moment, Lin Feng, who had already closed in on Yue Pan, was beheaded in a flash of blade light.
And Yue Pan, who had looked deathly pale moments ago, sprang to his feet full of vigor.
Boom, boom, boom!
Xu Gang's side moved in response as well. The massive boulders piled on him like small hills hurtled toward Jiang Chen with terrifying force.
Another Carefree Sect disciple leaped up and drew his bow. An arrow transformed into a streak of light, shooting straight at Jiang Chen.
In the blink of an eye, Feng Wanjian had been ambushed and struck down, Lin Feng cleaved in two.
And the four who had appeared on the brink of death had all recovered full strength, surrounding Jiang Chen at the four corners.
Fortunately, Jiang Chen had been on guard from the start.
When the boulders crashed toward him and the arrow pierced the air, he gave a soft snort and rubbed his hands together. Layer upon layer of primordial magnetic storms immediately sealed off the space around him.
Boom!
The boulders smashed into the primordial magnetic storms and exploded on impact!
The arrow, blazing like a shooting star, vanished without a trace as it was swallowed by the magnetic storms.
Jiang Chen's eyes turned cold as he swept his gaze in all four directions.
"So the four of you have been in cahoots?" Jiang Chen said with a cold smile, looking at the four fighters.
This was something even he hadn't anticipated. The Carefree Sect and Great Sage Hall members—who should have been sniping at each other—had actually formed an alliance and gone so far as to fake their own deaths to set up this trap.
"Boy, state your name!" Yue Pan sneered. "No one dies under my blade without a name to go on."
The two Carefree Sect disciples' eyes flickered, their gazes dripping with killing intent.
Jiang Chen regarded the pair with an unhurried expression. "You'd make deals with tigers—aren't you afraid of doing all the work only for the Great Sage Hall to reap the rewards?"
A triangular-eyed disciple from the Carefree Sect scoffed. "That's our business. No need for you to worry about it."
Xu Gang of the Great Sage Hall barked, "Boy, don't try to sow discord."
Jiang Chen smiled faintly. "Would I need to?"
But with his companions surrounded, Mu Gaoqi knew he couldn't just stand by.
"Gaoqi, fall back." Though Jiang Chen's back was turned to Mu Gaoqi, he spoke as though he had eyes behind his head, stopping the younger man's impulse.
Xu Gang smiled lazily. "Mu Gaoqi, with what little you've got, if you want to come down and die together, we won't mind sending you along."
Mu Gaoqi rarely lost his temper, but even a rabbit would bite when pushed to the limit. "Xu Gang, don't push too far! The other three sects have already been wiped out—what more do you want?"
Xu Gang snorted, fixing his stare on Jiang Chen. "Mu Gaoqi, you're quite something. I have no idea where you dug up this backwoods fighter—he's been hiding his strength the whole time, nearly fooling us all."
The two groups from the Great Sage Hall and the Carefree Sect had set aside their grudges to join forces against Jiang Chen's group because they'd realized he was the greatest threat of all.
That was precisely why they'd buried the hatchet and staged this elaborate ruse.
It was just a shame that Lin Feng and Feng Wanjian had survived the lava lake only to fall here.
Yue Pan brandished his war blade. "Enough talk. The fact that this kid escaped from a boiling lava lake means he's no ordinary fighter. The four of us go in together—if we don't kill him, none of us rest easy."
The four fighters moved with clear mutual understanding.
Mu Gaoqi shouted, "Watch out for the Carefree Sect's poisons!"
Jiang Chen had long known what the Carefree Sect specialized in without Mu Gaoqi's warning. But using poison in front of him was like showing off an axe in front of Lu Ban—the master carpenter. In his previous life, he'd been playing with poisons before the Carefree Sect had even been founded.
Xu Gang and Yue Pan, both disciples of the Great Sage Hall, excelled in close-quarters combat with terrifying fighting prowess.
The Carefree Sect disciples, on the other hand, specialized in ranged attacks, deploying all manner of exotic poisons and strange miasmas from the shadows.
If not for the Heaven and Earth Oath they'd sworn—each party forbidden from attacking the other before their common enemies were eliminated—Yue Pan and Xu Gang would never have been comfortable enough to turn their backs on the two Carefree Sect fighters.
Two figures surged forward with the force of a sandstorm, closing in on Jiang Chen from both sides—one ahead, one behind.
Yue Pan's fighting style was fierce and domineering; Xu Gang's was powerful and imposing. The two operated on nearly identical principles.
But with their coordination and practiced combination techniques—clearly honed through countless battles—their joint assault far exceeded the sum of their individual strengths.
Meanwhile, the two Carefree Sect fighters—one with a bow, the other wielding poisoned darts—kept up a relentless barrage of hidden projectiles, sealing off every escape route to complement the frontal assault of Yue Pan and Xu Gang.