Aque Li, Yaan and a silent man wearing a full black cloak covering his face and body, stood side by side. Behind them were Zue Yin, the other quiet man and the woman who had looked at Yaan’s pockets with greed.

Most people kept their gazes locked on Ghu Lin, as he was like a gust of death. He swept past you, and unknowingly, you were dead. Most of his victims didn’t even understand how they fell.

Even Yaan still didn’t understand how Ghu Lin had managed to stab him in the chest…after all, he had still been wearing his golden armour, yet it was as if the strike had simply stabbed him in the chest whilst ignoring the armour! He was unable to activate the actual abilities of the armour, but he had assumed that its powerful material would protect his body. Before Ghu Lin though, such a thing was seemingly ineffective…

Yaan was forced to take the armour off to treat the wound at that point, but he now placed it back on, despite the wound not being fully treated. Yaan noticed that Ghu Lin narrowed his eyes upon seeing this…clearly, the city lord had warned him about this armour.

But Yaan ignored Ghu Lin right now. Instead, he stared at Nadda. When Nadda stared back, his body trembled and he grit his teeth. He saw the coldness in Yaan’s eyes…but looking beyond that coldness, he saw uncertainty and melancholy.

Before this fight began, there was something Yaan needed to do. Whatever way this went, he needed to do it regardless.

“Nadda…” Yaan started, sighing and looking at the young ghoul complicatedly.

“Yaan…I…my clan, I can’t…I didn’t know…or else I-”

“I know.” Yaan spoke quietly, but then laughed as he reminded Nadda of something. “I mean, it’s not like I acted alone, right?”

“Ah…right…” Nadda blinked and also laughed. Indeed, Nadda couldn’t have been the one to scheme against Yaan, because…Nadda had worked together in Yaan’s scheme. They had schemed and profited together, the only difference was that Nadda was a Ghu Clansman, Yaan was not.

“Nadda, Yaan is the enemy of the Ghu Clan, he-”

“Is he…?” Nadda turned to Ghu Lin slowly and asked, not a trace of fear in his voice. Ghu Lin was his older clansman brother, but he did not outrank him, except perhaps within the confines of this trial.

Before Ghu Lin could retort, Nadda added:

“The report you read didn’t state that we needed to kill, harm or even capture Yaan…it said that he extorted some Ghu Clansmen and schemed against them…but so what? Haven’t we all done the same to one another…?”

“But Yaan is not a clansman, and he schemed against a Grand Elder, not a disciple.” Ghu Lin retorted bluntly. Nadda smiled depressedly. Indeed, that was the case.

“Ghu Lin, you are the leader of this exploration, but you are not my elder…as for that official notice…nowhere in there did it state that we must kill Yaan…Yaan is….”

“What…a friend?” Ghu Lin had a mocking look in his eyes as he stared down at Nadda.

“You’re a demon, Nadda. You don’t have friends. You have no logical reason not to fight here, nor to avoid killing him. If you refuse to battle, I will consider you to have betrayed the group and the clan will exact punishment on you. And…haha…if you choose to protect Yaan, then if I don’t kill you myself, the elders will surely send you into the 7th barren circle.”

Nadda paled further at that and swallowed slightly. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. He turned towards Yaan dazedly, wanting to say something but unable to find the words.

“Nadda.” Yaan finally spoke, drawing everyone’s attention. His gaze was still cold, and as he looked at Nadda, he presented this person, this comrade, this ally of his, with a choice.

“Nadda, I know that you can’t betray your clan, the punishment will be too severe, you might even be killed. And sticking with me is a terrible idea, even I can see that. It’s best if you keep your backing and use them to grow. So, I won’t try to persuade you to join me, but…Nadda, could you sit this one out?”

As Yaan showed an empty smile, Nadda’s long dead heart clenched. He stared at Yaan deeply, before looking at Ghu Lin, the other Ghu Clansmen, everyone else…then back to Yaan.

Even though Yaan’s gaze was as cold and emotionless as ice, Nadda somehow felt that out of everyone here, only Yaan possessed a trace of warmth.

“Don’t fight with me, don’t fight against me…just don’t fight, Nadda. If you just avoid this battle…if you can do that much for me…then I’ll truly consider you a friend.”

Yaan sighed to himself after saying this. He knew that he was asking for a lot…to Ghu Nadda, the Ghu Clan was his entire life. It was all he had known, it was all he had lived. The principals of this demonic clan were the principals they taught to their children. Whilst asking Nadda to ‘do nothing’ might seem a bit lacklustre, Yaan knew that this was already a big decision for Nadda.

But beyond that, friendship was a two way street. If Yaan wanted Nadda to do something for him, then he also needed to do something for Nadda. So, he didn’t force Nadda to abandon his clan and to fight alongside him. For their relationship to continue, this was the only way forwards.

Nadda didn’t say anything. Instead, he clasped his hands towards Ghu Lin, then walked away at a slow and calm pace. The other Ghu Clansmen showed rare looks of surprise. Nadda had somewhat of a reputation, so for a demonic figure like him to actually choose friendship over benefits…they simply couldn’t understand it.

In fact, many others outside of the Ghu Clan were equally stunned. Aque Li looked down at Yaan, who also looked surprised as Nadda finally passed by all of his compatriots. However, his expression soon returned to normal, and the coldness enveloped his gaze as he turned to Ghu Lin and smiled.

“So, before we do this, I have to at least ask…any chance you’d be willing to wait for 8 hours and then let me enter the 4th trial?” Yaan turned back to Ghu Lin, calling out with a light laugh.

For a moment Ghu Lin paused.

“You will enter the 4th trial?”

“Right.” Yaan nodded.

After a moment of consideration, Ghu Lin shook his head.

“You have too many treasures on you, plus, there are so many people remaining here…”

“In the end, everything else is just a pretext. It all comes down to greed.” Aque Li sighed and shook his head. Yaan also sighed and nodded. It seemed that it was going to be a long night.

Thud, thud, THUD, THUD, BANG, BANG!

Footsteps echoed, before transforming into countless explosive thunderclaps of charging feet. Spells were shot out immediately and treasures flew through the air. The battle resumed seemingly without warning, as if everyone simply knew that they had no choice but to fight on.

Yaan didn’t dive right into the frenzy at all. Instead, he continued consuming expensive recovery medicines, whilst keeping his eyes on the ground and occasionally picking up a spatial ring, or sometimes even the occasional fallen reward!

Unlike when he fought with the Ghu Clan, they had no luxury to cripple their opponents and leave the kills for Yaan. Though, when someone was crippled, they were just left there, giving Yaan a prime target.

He weaved through the crowd, deliberately avoiding Ghu Lin. Out of every enemy out there, only Ghu Lin filled him with dread. Even in his prime condition, Yaan would struggle against that guy, not to mention now…

“Seriously, how are you still fighting?!” Zue Yin cried out after seeing his still charcoal-burned body. His entire arms, shoulders, neck, half of his face, were all completely black. She knew that his body below that armour was in terrible condition too. Pieces of burned flesh chipped off now and then, it truly looked horrendous.

“The burns aren’t the issue.” Yaan shook his head. “It’s this damned poison! Ghu Lin stabbed something through my heart, but even the tree of life tincture has only stabilised it and not detoxified it!”

“Let me look at that!” After Yaan careful dug out some of the black sludge within the wound with a knife. Zue Yin quickly scooped up a drop of the black sludge with her flames, before dropping it onto an expensive looking talisman. The talisman burned from outside to in, until it left a strip of paper in the shape of a rune. When she saw this, her face paled.

“Vital Corrosion Poison! And by the looks of it, you took in about a quarter pound of it! This…” She just stared for a moment, causing Yaan to roll his eyes. He quickly stabbed past her neck, killing a weaker Qi master who targeted her back and bringing her out from her daze.

“Th-thanks…anyway, this poison continually saps away your vitality, making it impossible to recover from injuries! It’s only because of your tree of life tincture That you were able to temporarily pause it’s effect…it’ll negate about 10-15% of the poison after one hour and until then, the poison is subdued by around 90%.

“So then what can I do?!” Yaan yelled out as he continued to slaughter. But, before she could reply, he was separated.

“Hahaha, how lucky that I met-!”

“I’m busy!” Yaan lashed out crazily, overexerting his energies as he used Cutting Typhoon combined with Synchronised Pierce to rapidly kill a 1st Layer Qi Palace realm vampiric race member as well as 3 other True Yuan Qi realm Ghu Clan pawns. A half dozen more pawns were thrust to the floor, again getting in Yaan’s way. He amped up the same Cutting Typhoon movement, sending out went blades of wind, cutting through 7 throats in an instant.

Of course, he grabbed every reward for himself.

After finally finding Zue Yin, he saw her engaged in a dire battle. She was fighting the lazy looking purple haired little girl, a core Ghu Clan member in this trial. It seemed that they had been battling for some time, as both were exhausted, though Zue Yin was clearly worse off. The girl turned to Yaan and slowly reached for him, but his body seemed to blur. In a haze, he arrived before the little girl with his sword tip in her forehead.

She at first believed she had just about evaded it, until the weight behind the sword tip alone travelled into her head, fracturing her skull.

BOOOM!

Zue Yin engulfed the girl in flames from behind, stabbing out with a sword which transformed into a dragon and swallowing her whole. Yaan ignored these flames, rushing in and enduring the painful burns. As expected, the girl was doing all she could do dispel the flames, so she noticed Yaan too late. Slipping his blade through the flames like it was nothing, his Agile Sword Arts cleanly slit her throat.

As her blood flowed out, Yaan’s eyes became wide. That smell…that blood…

Before he knew what he was doing, he sunk his teeth into the young girl’s throat. She was still alive, struggling and thrashing out. She even pulled out a dagger and thrust down into Yaan’s back, but Zue Yin luckily caught it, then broke her arm before sending a chain of flames into her blood vessels.

As the blood boiled, it seemed to erupt more crazily from her throat, allowing Yaan to drain her blood within mere seconds.

He suddenly stood up and stumbled, dazed and unsure about what had just happened. As Zue Yin tried to ignore his bizarre actions and quickly checked his condition, she froze.

“How is she still alive?!” She cried out as the young purple hair girl stood up. Her face was pale and she was clearly dizzy, but-

CHI!

Yaan took the chance to stab through her heart.

SWUCHI!

He decapitated her head for good measure. Of course, he stole her spatial ring. On a battlefield, such a practise was common.

After killing one of the strongest Ghu Clansmen, many on the Ghu Clan side stared in trepidation. Moral was being crushed, as their 2nd or 3rd strongest had been slain!

Yaan ignored all of this. He grabbed Zue Yin’s shoulders, half-shouting at her:

“How can I cure this damned poison?!”

“W-well, somehow, drinking that girl’s blood helped…” She stuttered, flustered by the sudden close contact.

Yaan paused and blinked, then his eyes shone as he had an idea.

“Vitality…no, the source of vitality is needed; blood essence!” He only now understood why he had the sudden urge to drink that girl’s blood; she possessed tremendous vitality, which helped him to recover somewhat!

He dove back into the battlefield, but stuck to the weaker opponents this time. At the same time, he continually searched through his various loots, trying to find something, anything that could help to cure this poison! The poison had spread throughout his body, and it worked by subduing, then destroying vitality. Consuming vitality could temporarily repair and restore the damage, but a permanent fix required a source of vitality; blood essence.

Yaan was still unable to look through normal spatial rings. He groaned at what he was about to do, but he handed them all over to a stunned Zue Yin.

“Find me anything with blood essence or powerful vitality! The stronger the better, don’t worry about it being too strong!”

“I’m busy too you know?!”

Still, she did as he asked. Within minutes, Yaan had swallowed dozens of pills, tinctures, natural materials and so on, all in an attempt to restore his injuries, to regenerate the damage caused by the poison, to remove the poison and to restore his innate vitality. Unfortunately, all he really achieved was stalling for time.

And yet, in this time, Zue Yin gave him nothing! When he finally lost his patience and turned to her, she presented him with a pill. However, she looked a bit sheepish…

“Put this pill into the hole in your heart that was corroded by the poison…it will suck the poison all out…”

“But I just healed that hole over!” Yaan cried out.

“Yeah…sorry…”

“Tch, fine!”

In the end, he didn’t have the time to hesitate. Following her instructions, Yaan quickly pulled the golden armour off, jammed the pill in through the hole in his chest, ramming his finger into his chest and pushing the pill all the way into his heart. Zue Yin paled on seeing this, turning away since she felt nauseated and didn’t want to watch anymore.

Finally, the pill was within his heart.

SWOOSH!

Yaan collapsed to his knees. The instant he fell down, Ghu Lin materialised from seemingly nowhere, stabbing out at Yaan’s throat.

BANG!

However, Ghu Lin’s dagger was met with an assault from two sides; a fire dragon from Zue Yin and a water serpent from Aque Li.

As for Yaan, he was caught up in their explosion and sent flying miserably through the air. He managed to steady himself from above though, and for a moment, he spotted something. Well, he spotted everything since he could now see the entire battlefield…but he saw Ghu Lin…he saw Ghu Lin vanish into someone’s shadow!

Now, Yaan could exploit this and try to attack Ghu Lin. He could try to kill him, ambush him, or maim him…but he didn’t.

In the first place, Yaan had had enough of this battle a long time ago.

“Ghu Lin, we know that you’re hiding in Ghu Clansmen shadows! If you don’t want to face an all out assault against each of your potential hiding places, then get out here so that we can re-discuss this matter!”