In mid-air, the white jade flying sword made a circle, then flashed and disappeared, drilling into the purple mansion between Ji Yuan's eyebrows, and continued to roam in the lake of sword energy.
Xu Qiqi and Jiang He walked over quickly. After hesitating for a moment, at Ji Yuan's signal, they gently helped him up from the ground.
"In the wooden building..."
He looked up, then swallowed back his half-finished words.
Outside the wooden building, guards and servants stood, their gazes complexly fixed on a spot where Zhao Wuhen had stood in life.
Seeing this, Ji Yuan and the other two exchanged glances, having secretly prepared for a desperate fight.
Although the three of them had joined forces earlier and finally defeated Zhao Wuhen, who was in the second realm of martial arts, with the white jade flying sword, they had exhausted all their strength.
Now Ji Yuan was suffering from internal injuries and could not move temporarily. Although Xu Qiqi and Jiang He had considerable combat power, if they had to face more than twenty martial artists, the weakest of whom were in the early stage of the flesh and blood realm, and several in the middle stage of the flesh and blood realm, they would still be outnumbered and eventually defeated.
The most important point was that after forcefully using 'Yuan Bao' and 'Xiao Bai' twice, he was no longer able to command them.
However, there was no other way. After all, neither of them was a treasure that a cultivator in the Enlightenment realm could casually wield. Otherwise, let alone twenty martial artists in the flesh and blood realm, even those in the bone and muscle realm would be no match.
"Jiang He, I have two ranked talismans in my possession. Take them later and inflict as much damage as possible on the enemy."
Ji Yuan said with a wry smile, then instructed in a deep voice.
Upon hearing this, Jiang He nodded, but he did not take the talismans from Ji Yuan's embrace for the moment, only drawing the long sword from his back.
The young man naturally knew the preciousness and power of a ranked talisman, but precisely because of this, he would never take out the ranked talisman until they were in a desperate situation.
A moment later, the martial artists, having collected themselves, looked at the three of them one after another and slowly walked towards them in a tense atmosphere.
When they were about a foot and a half away, the five leading servants stopped, their eyes full of anger as they stared intently at the three.
They were all martial artists in the middle stage of the flesh and blood realm and trusted confidantes of Zhao Wuhen who had roamed the martial world with him. Some had followed him for over thirty years, others for over ten years. Each of them had received great kindness from the old man.
Otherwise, they would not have followed him and committed such a grave act of bloodshed.
"You... all deserve to die!"
One of the servants, who was younger but actually in his thirties, gritted his teeth and said.
Hearing this, Ji Yuan and the others sneered in their hearts. Otherwise, they would have surrendered without resistance and waited to be killed by Zhao Wuhen and become sacrifices for his soul possession of Zhao Yuebai?
In this world, there was no such principle that only others could kill, and those to be killed were not allowed to fight back!
However, although there was mockery in their eyes, none of them spoke, as if they disdained to argue with these people.
As for Xu Qiqi and Jiang He, they were silently mobilizing the vital energy within their bodies, ready to fight at any moment.
But at this moment, the five servants' eyes widened, and two of them couldn't help but spurt out several mouthfuls of blood.
They either looked down at the blades piercing their chests or turned their heads back in disbelief, their gazes falling on familiar faces that were now filled with frost and coldness.
As if concerned that these servants would not die thoroughly, several guards delivered a few more palms, completely extinguishing all life force within their bodies.
In an instant, five corpses, which were rapidly growing cold, fell straight into the blood and mud. To their death, they died with their eyes wide open, as if they couldn't understand why they had been stabbed in the back by their own people.
"You?"
Seeing that these guards had so decisively killed several servants, Ji Yuan's brows furrowed slightly.
He had never expected this scene, nor did he understand why they had done so. If it were just one or two people, it would have been understandable. But the choice made by more than a dozen guards was astonishingly consistent.
Moreover, after taking action, each of them showed a look of relief. Even two or three young men in their early twenties had their minds collapse on the spot, directly sitting in the blood and mud, holding their heads and weeping.
"Zhao... Zhao Wuhen's initial words were indeed not false in any way, but he did not tell you about the subsequent events."
A burly middle-aged man walked up to the three of them alone. Seeing the vigilance in their eyes, he stopped about half a zhang away.
Although this distance, for cultivators, was not even a complete finger snap, it was enough to make people feel a little at ease and was a gesture of sincerity.
After stopping, the middle-aged man paused for a moment, then said, "The subsequent events, whether it was sending out human blood sacrifices or deceiving you with the truth, were not of much consequence to us."
He spoke impassively, relating some events, and clarified that these guards had been forced by force. They had also resisted, and the reason they were not directly beaten to death, or even just lightly injured, was that Zhao Wuhen might need these people later.
After thinking for a moment, the middle-aged man glanced back at his companions, then turned to Ji Yuan and said in a deep voice, "If you still hold grudges, then come at me alone. Please spare the others!"
Hearing this, Ji Yuan slowly shook his head. He had no intention of pursuing the matter. To put it bluntly, apart from Zhao Wuhen and his confidantes, everyone present was an innocent victim, one by one.
At the same time, he also learned from this middle-aged man what had happened after Zhao Wuhen had led people into the wooden building.
In fact, the matter was not complicated. Zhao Wuhen would throw one person out of the wooden building every hour, letting the evil creatures lurking in the mansion take them as sacrifices.
And these people, who were used as sacrifices, were mostly Zhao family women who would rather die than submit, or those from the second floor of the wooden building and above.
A moment later, supported by Xu Qiqi and Jiang He, Ji Yuan returned to the wooden building and found a clean spot to sit cross-legged.
His internal condition was indeed quite bad. Not only were his internal organs impacted, but his blood and qi were also surging wildly within his body, causing him to endure intense pain almost every moment.
As soon as he sat down, Ji Yuan took out several pills from his sleeve, taking one or two of each and swallowing them all. Only then did he heave a heavy sigh of relief.
Then, he closed his eyes and used the core mental method of the Xuan Tian Dao Jing to mobilize the vital energy within his body and begin to refine the pills he had swallowed.
In just a few breaths, as the medicinal power slowly melted and began to soothe his internal injuries and nourish the damaged areas, he felt his pain greatly reduce.
It was not until an hour later that Ji Yuan stopped circulating the mental method, slowly exhaled a breath of turbid air, and then opened his eyes, waving his sleeve to disperse the turbid air in front of him.
"How is it?"
Xu Qiqi and Jiang He turned around together. For the past hour, they had been guarding Ji Yuan, not allowing anyone to come close.
Hearing this, Ji Yuan nodded slightly. "My internal injuries are still more than half unhealed, but thankfully, they have been suppressed for now. With further rest, there will be no sequelae."
As for the physical injuries, they had basically completely healed, leaving only a shallow mark. Only the gash on his right calf had temporarily stopped bleeding and formed a scab.
Although it no longer hindered his movement, he could not expect to do any strenuous exercise for the time being, as any carelessness might cause the wound to reopen.
"During this time, nothing significant has happened, has it?"
Ji Yuan first looked around the wooden building, then asked the two beside him.
When he was healing, he was so focused that he had almost no awareness of the movements around him, unless they were very loud or life-threatening, which could awaken him from his state.
The two exchanged glances, then shook their heads. During the hour he was healing, the place had been surprisingly peaceful, with no incidents.
Logically speaking, after killing the middle-aged man who had transformed from the evil wind, the evil creature haunting the Zhao family should have been vanquished.
But Ji Yuan and the others knew that it was just a puppet. The real evil creature was still hidden deep within the mansion. The black long saber beside him, temporarily suppressed by the sword energy within his purple mansion, was the best proof.
It was this black long saber, which had flashed from the depths of the mansion, that had repeatedly put Ji Yuan in mortal danger, nearly causing him to perish here.
"What should we do next? Should we wait for Senior Brother here, or go deeper into the mansion to find that evil creature?"
Jiang He asked in a low voice.
However, a hint of expectation flashed in his eyes, suggesting he was not very keen on waiting for his Senior Brother, but rather preferred the idea of them going deeper into the mansion to slay that evil creature with their swords.
But as soon as he said this, he immediately drew a roll of the eyes from Xu Qiqi, who good-naturedly slapped him to make the troublesome Junior Brother behave.
However, Ji Yuan seemed to have truly taken Jiang He's words to heart, and actually looked thoughtful.
This sight almost made Xu Qiqi jump, and she quickly advised, "Don't listen to my Junior Brother's nonsense. He's just a bit reckless and doesn't think before he speaks!"
She was truly afraid that Ji Yuan would listen to Jiang He's words and actually lead them into the mansion to confront that evil creature to the death.
It wasn't that she was afraid of the evil creature, but that their current cultivation level was no different from sending themselves to their deaths!
Ji Yuan had many methods, not only a large number of talismans but also a magic artifact in his hand, not to mention the suspected existence of a natal flying sword.
But even so, after dealing with a mere puppet middle-aged man, Ji Yuan had already exerted almost all his strength, and finally allowed Zhao Wuhen to seize an opportunity to launch a sneak attack, which caused him to be seriously injured on the spot.
However, Ji Yuan shook his head. He pondered seriously, "On the contrary, if we want to survive, perhaps we really need to fight desperately first."