Thud!

The talon blade entered Tang Jie’s body, digging out a hole in Tang Jie’s chest. A golden light erupted from the talon, and his chest exploded. Tang Jie was flung away with a large hole in his chest, the bones visible. It was even possible to see his heart beating.

Gu Changqing heartily laughed as he stood up.

His face had been badly wounded by Tang Jie and was no longer handsome and graceful. One of his eyes had even been blinded.

But he felt no pain at all, and his face brimmed with excitement.

The smile on his face made it seem even more savage and terrifying.

“You… It was on purpose…” Tang Jie stared at Gu Changqing in disbelief.

“Of course. Did you really think you had me in the palm of your hand?” Gu Changqing grunted.

He took a pill and swallowed it, after which he strode over to Tang Jie and stomped on him.

Tang Jie moaned and weakly struggled, but even with his body refined by the Parting Classic, the ferocity of the Golden Eagle Talon wasn’t something he could recover from quickly. As he lay limp on the ground, Gu Changqing unleashed his Icesoul Radiance into his body, freezing all his organs.

Only now did he discover that Gu Changqing’s Icesoul Radiance was much fiercer than before.

“You planned this all from the start?” Tang Jie trembled as he looked at Gu Changqing.

“To be more specific, it was from when Gu Bai died,” Gu Changqing replied. “When I realized that you were already prepared, I understood that it would be basically impossible to get the location of the Martial Mirror out of you. Thus, I decided to follow your plan and see what you did. Once you believed that you were on the verge of success, you would naturally spit out the location of the Martial Mirror. I have waited far too long for this day!”

Gu Changqing loudly laughed. “I must admit that your plan was pretty good. You managed to basically wipe out everyone in the Hawk Hall.”

“You knew that they would die and intentionally let them die all to deceive me?” Tang Jie angrily roared.

Gu Changqing grunted and applied pressure to his foot, causing Tang Jie to vomit blood. “What do you understand? For the sake of greater success, what do small sacrifices matter? So long as we can get back the Martial Mirror, with the resources left behind by the Martial Lord, we could easily set up one hundred Hawk Halls, so why worry about such minor trifles? And if I did not go so far, how could I make you so sure of your success?”

“Then were Zhao Xinguo and the others faking it as well?”

“Them? Those idiots were easily incited by just a few words from you and actually betrayed me. While I could have warned them, I had to ultimately give up on them so that you wouldn’t raise your guard. To make you take the bait, I even destroyed my Ink Falcon Wings. Otherwise, do you think that I, half a step from Cognitive Creation, would be so heavily injured by these fellows who are only in Hundred Refinement? Although your plan was decent, its greatest problem was that you’re too weak! So weak that no matter what plan you had, I could break it with brute strength. Even if I only had ten percent of my strength left, I would need only a finger to squish you to death!”

Gu Changqing once more started laughing.

At Southpoint Mountain, he had initially been fooled by Tang Jie, but he quickly realized what was going on.

But in order to have Tang Jie believe that he had taken the bait, he had decided to keep up the act.

Now that his plan had succeeded and he had finally tricked the location of the Martial Mirror out of Tang Jie, he was excited. He was still badly injured, and as he laughed in elation, he stimulated his injuries. He felt his body ache all over, and there was even the vague sensation of a needle jabbed into his body that made him put a hand on his chest.

He looked again at Tang Jie, a savage gleam in his eyes. “Do you have any last words? This is your last chance to speak.”

Tang Jie panted and answered, “Alright, since that’s the case, let me die an understanding ghost. I would like to know who Fierce Ape is.”

Gu Changqing chuckled. “There’s no harm in telling you. Fierce Ape is a spy that my Hawk Hall went to great lengths to raise, and it is one that I am reluctant to mobilize. This person is…”

He was just about to say the name when he suddenly realized that something was wrong.

Why was this scene so similar to when Tang Jie had had a foot on him just moments ago?

Gu Changqing didn’t like this feeling, so he shook his head. “Forget it. I’ll just have you die an ignorant ghost.”

He was just about to strike when Tang Jie sighed. “What a pity… Well, forget it. Let me ask you another question. Don’t you feel a slight pain at your heart?”

Gu Changqing froze, but just when he was about to speak, he felt a sharp jab of pain at his heart.

It was so intense that he was momentarily stripped of all his strength and made to stagger back several steps.

He tore off the Godhead Armor with his right hand, revealing a golden light at his chest.

“What is this?” Gu Changqing yelped.

There was another flash from his heart, and there was another pulse of intense pain. It had clearly penetrated into his heart.

If he hadn’t been at Nine Revolutions and tempered his organs, he would have already been dead.

But if he left it there and let it puncture his heart full of holes, even if he was at Nine Revolutions, he would still die.

He reacted quickly, thrusting his finger at several points on his chest and circulating spiritual energy in an attempt to force out that golden light.

But while this golden light was impeded by his spiritual energy, it was made of some strange material that resisted his attempts to push it out. On the contrary, his attempts only intensified the pain.

Gu Changqing was stunned and angrily glared at Tang Jie. “What did you do to my body?”

Tang Jie coughed blood and laughed. “You’re right. At my level, I can’t take on a Nine Revolutions expert yet. Putting aside the fact that my spiritual energy is suppressed, even if I could use all my strength and had the Heartbreak Saber, I still wouldn’t be able to beat you. No matter how I planned things out, I have no means of getting around the strength threshold. Unless… unless my opponent was willing to be killed by me.”

Gu Changqing felt like he had dropped into an ice house as he recalled that palm that Tang Jie had thrust at his left shoulder.

If that palm from Tang Jie had been lethal, he would have definitely blocked it, but since that palm hadn’t been lethal, he had taken the blow in order to make Tang Jie believe.

There was no doubt that Tang Jie had hidden something in that palm thrust.

With his level of strength, if he had been on guard from the very beginning, then even if Tang Jie had managed to plant anything in his body, he would have been able to immediately force it out. But in order to get the Martial Mirror’s location, he had let Tang Jie do as he pleased, giving him more than enough time for the scheme to unfold…

Gu Changqing was both alarmed and angered by this thought.

He was shocked not merely by Tang Jie’s trap, but also that Tang Jie had planned this. “You… you already knew… You planned this all from the start?”

The words that Tang Jie had said not one minute ago once more came out from Gu Changqing’s mouth.

Tang Jie chuckled. “I can’t say that I’ve been planning it for long. It’s just that in order for a plan to be perfectly executed, you have to account for all the possibilities, and all the possibilities I’ve thought of have far surpassed all that has transpired. Your behavior is simply one of those countless possibilities… To tell the truth, this is the possibility I most anticipated. In this way, no matter how obvious my traps were, you would happily escape into this place. In this aspect, I was truly making a gamble, but rather than gambling that you were dumb, I was gambling that you had at least some brains. My only concern was that Zhao Xinguo and the others were acting with you. Fortunately, you were the only actor here, and the rest were real idiots. If you had even one ally here, that needle wouldn’t be able to do much to you… Your strength is actually far beyond my expectations. I initially thought that the moment the needle pierced through your heart would be the moment of your death, but to my surprise, you’re still alive. Truly, the Nine Revolutions body is incredible.”

“Impossible!” Gu Changqing madly howled.

He could not believe that Tang Jie had actually seen through his plan.

To get Tang Jie’s trust, he had sacrificed the majority of the Hawk Hall and even let those spies be dragged in. He had not imagined that Tang Jie had anticipated all of this.

Tang Jie shook his head. “Nothing is impossible. Actually, you aren’t the first to play this game, but you’re the one who’s played out your role so realistically, so gruesomely… I suppose you don’t know what it means when I say to watch more TV shows.”

“You can’t kill me!” Gu Changqing roared. He once more thrust his finger at several points on his chest, spiritual energy entering his body. He was now mobilizing all of his strength to resist the golden needle.

This man was truly powerful, and his brain also moved quickly.

The golden needle that Tang Jie had refined using the Weapon Mantra was sharp and indestructible, and spiritual energy was essentially incapable of budging it. But at this moment, Gu Changqing was no longer using spiritual energy on the golden needle. Instead, he was using his flesh and muscles to slowly push out the golden needle.

Tang Jie was flabbergasted by what he was seeing.

But he still shook his head and said, “This is the difference in strength. Even this plot couldn’t kill you. It seems I’ll have to go all-out.”

Grabbing hold of a tree, he managed to stagger to his feet.

Gu Changqing circulated energy to force out the needle as he snarled, “With just you? You can’t stop me!”

Tang Jie was so injured that he could barely stand. Stopping Gu Changqing was impossible.

Tang Jie coldly said, “I can’t stop you right now, but you seem to have forgotten why I had you go into the Cloud Marsh.”

“What?” Gu Changqing was shaken.

At this moment, a figure flew out in a green flash of light!

It was none other than Yiyi!

Before Tang Jie had even been captured, Yiyi had set off to this place with the little tiger.

She had planted green roses in almost every region of the marsh. She was mentally connected to them, so no matter where Tang Jie was in the marsh, she would be able to discover him and quickly make her way toward him.

Tang Jie had wasted so much time talking with Gu Changqing precisely to buy time for Yiyi’s arrival.

“Big Brother!”

The moment Yiyi appeared, she rushed into Tang Jie’s bosom and gave him a big kiss.

A little tiger ran out behind her, but his legs were too short to keep up, so he could only howl.

“A sprite? A tiger fiend? So these were your trump cards.” Gu Changqing laughed when he saw these two. “And here I thought you had laid some sort of trap here. You were relying on them?”

He could tell with one glance that these two fellows put together were still extremely weak. Even when he focused entirely on forcing out the golden needle, he was still confident that he could take care of these two.

He would only need to devote a tiny bit of strength to get the job done.

Tang Jie laughed. “Their strength naturally isn’t enough, but they aren’t here to help me fight… They’re delivering goods.”

“Big Brother, here!” Yiyi stuffed the formation diagram into Tang Jie’s hand.

When he saw that formation diagram, Gu Changqing paled. He recognized what that was.

Tang Jie laughed as he opened the formation diagram, and he was immediately engulfed by a crimson mist.

Tang Jie howled within the bloody mist as blood energy surged into his body, turning him completely red. The wound on his chest began to heal, and even his severed arm began to grow back.

“Spirit Blood Rebirth!” Gu Changqing shouted. “That was the formation you prepared?”

Spirit Blood Rebirth was a rare recovery-type formation. While it couldn’t bring back the dead, it boasted formidable restorative power. No matter how severe the injuries, so long as the target wasn’t dead, the formation could heal them.

But this formation had too many restrictions. Firstly, it required large amounts of the user’s own blood. Secondly, it could only be used once. Thirdly, it could only be maintained for one month. After one month, if the formation were not used, the energy in the blood within the formation would run out and be wasted.

But in certain unique circumstances, this formation still had some value.

…Such as now.

Through the Spirit Blood Rebirth Formation, Tang Jie’s injuries were rapidly healed.

His body possessed its own incredible recovery capabilities, and when combined with the Spirit Blood Rebirth Formation, the effects became even more obvious. The severed arm grew back inch by inch, and at an astonishing speed, Tang Jie was healed.

Standing within the rebirth formation, Tang Jie callously spoke.

“What’s so strange about this? I never hoped that you people would leave me in a presentable state. In your hands, I might not die, but I would at least be crippled. But so long as I still had a sliver of hope, I would naturally make some plans… I misjudged your strength, but I didn’t misjudge your character!”

Tang Jie pointed his newly regrown arm at Gu Changqing.

“I said before… your greatest mistake is that you didn’t cherish the lives of your subordinates. If you had valued them more, then even if you had one extra person at your side, you might have been able to avoid this loss!”