Fu Wen took a few minutes, but he managed to kill off a leader of a bandit group called the Yellow Devils. The leader was in the early True King realm, but Fu Wen was still able to kill him.

He flew down from the sky towards the many soldiers of his that were still fighting, and shouted, “Protect the mortals. That’s your primary task. Protect them however you can.”

“Yes, Lord,” the soldiers shouted. Fu Wen then flew over to where Mo An, his wife was fighting and helped her defeat the bandit too.

“Have you figured out why they are attacking us yet?” she asked, wiping the blood off of her face.

“No, maybe the sect leaders had more luck,” he said. Mo An nodded. Then, the two of them flew off to help the others, while trying to find answers to the reason behind this disaster.

* * * * * * *

Wen Cheng was struggling to win his fight against the Silver bandit, but so was the Silver bandit. Neither of them could get an upper hand at each other, nor could escape away either.

The Silver bandit couldn’t leave because he was being attacked by Wen Cheng relentlessly, and Wen Cheng couldn’t leave because he was sure that if he left, the Silver bandit would go attack the sect.

Wen Cheng had tried taunting the Silver bandit into explaining their motive, no matter how much he was taunted, the Silver bandit just smiled and said nothing.

The battle was going nowhere, and Wen Cheng was still worried about that message he had received from Alex.

‘They have already reached the sect. What the hell am I still doing here? I need to go save them,’ he thought. But he couldn’t move. The Silver bandit wouldn’t let him either.

Their bout lasted longer than it was meant to. Wen Cheng was starting to get frustrated from the battle. His worries reached high enough that his will to kill the bandit started increasing in intensity as well.

They clashed and clashed and clashed. The Silver bandit was smiling during the entire time, but slowly, his smiles started to fade away.

‘He’s getting stronger somehow,’ he thought. The clashes were becoming more violent and he was being forced backward a lot.

He was surprised and couldn’t help but wonder what was happening. During one of the clashes, he noticed something.

Every once in a while, a flash of white light would shine from the otherwise red or green flashes of Wen Cheng’s sword.

“No way,” the Silver bandit got scared. “How did he learn it? Dammit, did I help him hone it?”

Wen Cheng himself was surprised. He thought he didn’t have talent. He thought he would never be able to. He was sure that he had already peaked in cultivation and there was no way for him to improve.

But here it was. A white outline in his otherwise mundane-looking sword. Wen Cheng gave a bright smile.

He had acquired Sword Intent.

In the midst of battle, in the midst of danger, in the midst of his will to go protect others, and in the midst of his will to kill the one standing between him and his sect, he had manifested Sword Intent.

The Silver bandit watched in horror. Sword Intent wasn’t easy to come by. Even if it was in the early stage, it would still make Wen Cheng’s attacks stronger by at least a realm. That alone would be enough to defeat him, which would probably lead to his death.

“No, I can’t die here. Screw this mission,” the Silver bandit cried out and tried to run away. But suddenly, in his moment of carelessness, he was attacked from the side.

Something flew right at him and wrapped around him. Wen Cheng was surprised and got ready to fight back, but when he saw what it was, he calmed down.

He recognized the beast that was constricting the Silver bandit’s movements.

“Now you die, bandit,” Wen Cheng said. In an instant, a very intense green slash left his sword as it flew towards the Silver bandit.

“No! Let me go! Let me—”

The Silver bandit’s jaw dropped, while whatever was supposed to be above it was no longer there.

Half of the bandit’s head, along with his signature hair fell off from the sky. The constrictions around the bandit loosened, and his body fell from the sky.

Wen Cheng took quick breaths to calm himself and looked at the beast in front of him with a smile. “So she finally decided to come out, huh?”

* * * * * * *

Black Venom flew away as far as she could away from the sect. “Dammit!” she shouted out loud. “How the hell is there someone who can deal so much mental damage while at the same time not taking much in return? Does he have some supreme artifacts as well?”

She was speaking out loud, and along the way, everyone who tried to come to fight her kept on falling to the ground before they could even reach her.

Her mask was off her face as she no longer needed it anymore. Rather, she needed her voice right now to put everyone in a lull while she ran away.

‘He’s probably not chasing me right now. I should be able to make it out,’ she thought.

She kept flying, moving towards the western side of the city. She had already seen corpses of her men and felt saddened about it, but her survival was more important than any of the others.

“Move away,” she shouted at the people that came to attack her. Without exception, all of them fell to the ground with a large thud.

She flew some more and closer to the city walls when she saw practically no light coming from the city below her.

Something felt wrong. Something was missing. Her eyes widened when she realized what it was. “The fire… it’s all gone?” she asked herself in surprise.

She hadn’t expected them to put out all the fires already. ‘What happened to the fighting. Did they win?’ she thought.

She knew she was getting close to the wall as the chillness in the air increased. It was only this city that was warm, while the rest of the empire was living in winter.

She didn’t understand why not that she cared. She smiled as the air got chillier. The freedom was right around the corner.

However, the more she moved, the more chilly it got. It was getting to the point where it was abnormally cold.

Still, she flew, not minding the cold. Up ahead, she saw a woman flying in the air, alone.

“Move, you bitch!” Black Venom shouted.

The woman turned her head towards her. Once she saw her, she then turned her whole body towards her.

“What?” Black Venom looked at her with a confused expression. “Move!” she shouted once more. That only served to make the woman angrier.

‘What’s going on?’ Black Venom got worried. She instinctively put her hand on her face to check if the mask was perhaps still there. It wasn’t.

The green-robed woman moved forward towards her.

“Get away from me!” Black Venom shouted. She couldn’t tell how strong the woman was. For some reason, the person standing in front of her wasn’t giving auras that a normal cultivator would.

“I SAID MOVE!” she shouted, but that did nothing to the woman. Black Venom was scared at the prospect of the woman perhaps being stronger than her.

Immediately, she brought out her sickle which started glowing yellow without a single second wasted.

“DIE!” she shouted and sent a slash flying towards the woman. However, something incredible happened.

When the slash got closer to the woman, it started slowing down. It got slower and slower, while at the same time getting dimmer and dimmer. In the end, right before it reached the woman, it vanished as it had never existed before.

“What?” Black Venom looked in horror. She didn’t understand what happened. She sent another slash flying and the same thing happened once again.

“Wh-what’s going on?” she freaked out.

Ma Rong was looking at Black Venom with both a curious as well as an angry face. She was angry not because of the words she had said, but rather the clothes she wore.

She was a bandit, and she deserved to be killed. As for curiosity, it stemmed from whatever mental attack she had been doing for the last couple of times. It was similar, yet more frequent than Alex’s Heaven’s Impact. This made her really surprised.

Still, as a bandit, Ma Rong would rather kill her than have her curiosity fulfilled.

Black Venom dashed at her with her sickle in hand and directly hit Ma Rong with the weapon.

However, when it got close to Ma Rong, the color faded, and frost started appearing on the sickle. As she got closer, Black Venom could feel her momentum fade as well.

Her body grew stiffer and the cold was getting to her. When she did reach close to Ma Rong, she was completely frozen.

Without even doing anything, Ma Rong had defeated her. Black Venom tried to move, but her body wouldn’t listen to her. It remained where it was, waiting for Ma Rong to kill her.

“I was quite interested in learning how your mental attacks work, but unfortunately, you will have to die,” Ma Rong said as she brought out a sword of her own and got ready to slash at Black Venom.

Black Venom could see her death approaching, but just then someone else appeared.

“Wait, don’t kill her.”