Volume Two: Blood at the Bodhi Tree, Chapter Four: The Dantian Explodes, and She Da Biao.

At that instant, the sword in his hand moved with effortless grace, sketching a few arcs through the air before his other hand darted into his robes. A cloud of white powder exploded outward.

The tip of the blade then seemed to ignite, as though a fire phoenix were descending from the heavens.

In an instant, more than a dozen burly men clutched their eyes and collapsed.

"You filthy scoundrel!"

Though the man with the crooked face had not been hurt by the powder, the fiery phoenix left him in excruciating distress. And in that very same moment, Xiao Yan's long sword had already flown toward him.

This time, death came.

What the crooked-faced demon had never expected was that he would die beneath the very same sword move that had once killed his master.

Yet in the next instant, his brows drew together, for he noticed that Xiao Yan's expression was not quite right, as if he were struggling to endure some agony.

What was going on?

Even Xiao Yan himself did not know what had happened.

Since arriving in this world, his internal energy had gradually fallen back to the third level. Later, by cultivating the Marrow-Changing Classic, his inner power had advanced by leaps and bounds, yet the dantian in his body had always throbbed faintly with pain.

But now Xiao Yan could no longer spare thought for any of that. Since the sword had already left his hand, it could not be taken back.

A burst of sharp, tearing sounds rang out, as though something had suddenly shattered.

The sword came to a halt in midair and no longer pressed forward, and all of Xiao Yan's inner power vanished in an instant.

It felt exactly like a power outage.

The crooked-faced demon turned pale with fright, staring at Xiao Yan while not daring to move a muscle.

The burly men on the ground and the grinning King of Hell hanging from the tree were likewise fixed upon him without blinking.

Yet in that instant, Xiao Yan had stopped dead, no longer posing the slightest threat.

The crooked-faced demon's instinctive sense of death also vanished at once.

This...

The scene had become, quite awkward indeed.

"Uh... what happened?" Xiao Yan scratched his bald head in embarrassment.

"Your dantian exploded!"

"What the fuck?" Xiao Yan blurted out, ignoring everyone present.

He had never even heard of a dantian exploding. Did they think it was some kind of balloon?

"You're not kidding, are you?" Xiao Yan stared wide-eyed and pressed the question.

"Joking about what? It exploded! It burst!"

"Then that means..." Xiao Yan blinked.

"That means if you don't want to die, run! You're a cripple now!"

Without another word, Xiao Yan turned and ran.

If he didn't run now, then all the bravado would only leave him humiliated.

But how could a perfectly fine dantian just blow up like that?

The merchant and the masked woman were both stunned.

What sort of nonsense was this?

He clearly had the upper hand just moments ago—so why was he running?

The crooked-faced demon was the first to react. Eyes wide, he shouted, "All of you, attack! Kill him! He no longer has any inner power."

Though the crooked-faced demon had never seen such a thing before, he had heard of it. The Heavenly Demon Sect also possessed a similar devilish art that could temporarily raise one's strength, but the effect lasted only a very short time and the price was enormous. After using it once, the person would be ruined. Such people were usually those the Heavenly Demon Sect had trained to be fearless of death, collectively known as Demon Death Soldiers.

"Run!"

Xiao Yan waved and shouted to the bewildered merchant and the masked woman.

The merchant spun around and bolted. Xiao Yan seized the masked woman's hand and ran with her.

They ran for a long while, and only after covering a great distance did the three of them finally stop, panting for breath.

Yet Xiao Yan still felt as though something were missing.

"Did you forget something?" he asked the two of them in confusion.

The merchant shook his head. The masked woman scolded, "You're the one who forgot something."

Xiao Yan carefully checked himself. His hands and feet were all there... and so was his head...

His back...

Where was the person on his back? He had forgotten Bai Li.

Damn it... Bai Li was still lying there on the ground...

Just then, Bai Li, who had been unconscious, happened to open his eyes, sneeze once, and then lapse back into sleep.

"Someone's missing, damn it!" Xiao Yan shouted when he realized it.

The other two were startled into looking at each other. Only after thinking for a moment did they remember that Xiao Yan had indeed been carrying someone earlier.

But while the two of them were still processing this, Xiao Yan had already turned and sprinted back.

"Hey, have you gone mad? You'll be killed if you go back!" the merchant shouted.

Xiao Yan ignored him, not even turning his head, and waved as he ran. "You two keep running. I'm going back..."

"Little master... are you an idiot? ...Sigh..." The merchant stamped his foot.

The masked woman shook her head as well, let out a soft sigh, and then ran back after Xiao Yan.

"You... are all of you mad?" The merchant shook his head and ultimately turned to flee on his own.

...

The masked woman's brows were tightly knitted as she watched the little monk's figure ahead of her, her emotions complicated.

From the moment the monk had appeared, she had noticed the lecherous look in his eyes, and from then on she had already felt disgust. Later, when the monk groped her chest twice, she had already wanted to kill that lustful thief.

And yet the little monk had turned around and run without the slightest hesitation, which changed her impression of him somewhat.

She had seen too much of human cruelty, and yet she had truly never seen someone willing to risk life and death for a friend.

At that moment, more than a dozen burly men were working together to try to free the grinning King of Hell from the tree, only to find that he was wedged in far too tightly.

Seeing Xiao Yan panting as he ran back, the crooked-faced demon blinked in confusion, then unconsciously took a step backward.

"Hm? You..."

Years of wandering the martial world had taught him that anything abnormal was bound to be suspicious.

And besides, the strength Xiao Yan had just displayed had been no small matter.

"What are you coming back for?"

The dozen-odd burly men asked in unison, braced for battle.

Xiao Yan said nothing. He hoisted Bai Li from the ground and turned to run again.

Only then did the others realize what was happening.

"Stop him!"

The burly men finally rushed after him with their blades drawn.

But this rescue attempt had been far too dangerous after all. A dozen men swarmed in at once, and their sabers were already at Xiao Yan's throat in an instant.

Xiao Yan frowned inwardly and murmured under his breath, "Power bank, get ready!"

Though his dantian had exploded, he still had a power bank. That was why he dared to turn back.

But with the dantian gone, he did not know whether the power bank could still recharge in the future. So unless it was truly a matter of life and death, he would not dare use it recklessly.

"Hmph... What audacity, to dare come back!"

The crooked-faced demon gave a cold smile. This time he was certain that there was not the slightest fluctuation of inner power within Xiao Yan.

Die!

At the very brink of danger—

A ringing sound!

The next moment, sparks flew, and all the sabers of the dozen burly men were blocked.

"This... what domineering blade technique..." The crooked-faced demon felt a sharp pain in the web of his hand. Looking closely, he saw a butcher's knife about half a meter long before his eyes.

A breeze swept by, and the girl's veil lifted, revealing a face of breathtaking beauty.

Xiao Yan happened to be nearest to the girl at that moment, so close they were almost touching. Seeing her face, he forgot all about the power bank and stood stunned in a daze.

Her beauty carried a touch of otherworldly purity: fair skin, a high nose bridge, and cherry-red lips.

"Run!"

The woman kicked Xiao Yan away and shouted at him.

"You... who are you?" The crooked-faced demon frowned at the giant blade before him.

He had heard rumors of martial artists carrying nine slaughtering knives of varying sizes upon their person, but this was not at all what the tales had described.

The woman pressed the blade down, and the dozen-odd burly men were forced back several steps at once.

"My surname is She, my name is Dabiao!"

She Qianqian spoke little, her tone cool and clipped.

"She Dabiao? And you're a woman?"

In truth, the crooked-faced demon had already been suspicious at first sight of the knives on her person. He had simply never imagined that the infamous She Dabiao, whose name struck fear across the martial world, would be a woman.

"That's right. If you refuse to accept it, come and fight!"

She Qianqian's voice was soft and brief, yet it carried an unmistakably cool, aloof edge.