Chapter 1399: Silent Guidance

The words were shouted in the secret code the brothers often used, intelligible only to Weng Xing.

Weng Xing gritted his teeth, "But…" He was unwilling to give up! Besides, Xue Zongwu's clone surely had a time limit; if they could just hold on…

"Get out of here!" Weng Su shouted, launching a powerful attack that was actually a feint, urging his brother to flee.

Xue Zongwu's cultivation was far stronger than they had anticipated. If they didn't leave now, both brothers would die here.

As their resolve faltered and their fighting spirit waned, Xue Zongwu immediately sensed it. "Flank them! They're trying to escape!"

Weng Su couldn't help but curse. That man, Xue, was more cunning than a ghost; Qian Yu had been absolutely right. If only his preparations had been more thorough, more meticulous.

Weng Xing always followed his lead, and despite his immense reluctance, he prepared to retreat. However, just as he hurled a fire pellet at Xue Zongwu, the latter seized the opening and attacked his right flank.

Weng Xing barely dodged, only to see the crouching beast on his opponent's armor suddenly lift its head and spew a burst of searing flames at him! The crouching beast had remained motionless on Xue Zongwu's shoulder the entire time, not even blinking, its body shimmering with a silvery-white luster. It had looked like nothing more than an ornament.

It was… alive?

This fire was white with a hint of blue, unlike ordinary golden-red flames, and its temperature was ten times hotter. The two were so close, less than three feet apart, that Weng Xing had no chance to dodge. In a moment of desperation, he raised his arm to shield his face. The stream of white fire struck his arm.

Initially, he felt no heat; instead, it was chilling, like leaning against a bluestone slab in the dead of winter. But the next instant, pain surged over him like a tidal wave! An ordinary person would have been rolling on the ground in agony, but Weng Xing merely grunted, took two steps back, and tried to extinguish the flames. However, this fire ignited upon contact. When he tried to pat it down with his left hand, the flames spread to that hand; when he pressed it against the ground, the ground also caught fire.

Weng Su cried out in alarm, "Second Brother!"

"I'm fine!" Weng Xing replied in their secret code. "Get out of here!"

Only then did Xue Zongwu speak, "Who sent you? Confess honestly. Otherwise, in a moment, I'll tear out your tendons and flay you alive, leaving you begging for death!"

"Your father!" Weng Xing laughed loudly through the pain. "Ah… Your crimes are so numerous, even your own father couldn't bear it, so he entrusted us to take your wretched life!"

A very faint red glow also shimmered around his body. This wasn't primal energy, but a magical artifact protecting its master. Thanks to this precious item, he hadn't been reduced to a skeleton. But the white fire continued to burn slowly on him, inflicting intense pain every single second. Few people could truly endure the agony of being burned alive.

Xue Zongwu let out a soft chuckle, his eyes glinting with menace. He had confirmed that these two fanatics were no match for him. Remembering the premonition he had experienced a few days prior, his heart actually settled. If his ominous and uneasy feelings were indeed tied to these two, then all he needed to do was eliminate them quickly. It wasn't as terrifying as he had initially imagined.

"Since you love to talk back so much, when I flay you, I'll make sure to go slower, and even slower!" With Weng Xing injured, Xue Zongwu's combat pressure significantly decreased, allowing him to utter a coherent, lengthy sentence.

"Go!" Though scorched by the flames, Weng Xing's mind paradoxically grew calm. He casually tossed two spherical objects and turned to flee. The two spheres were about the size of pigeon eggs, completely black, with small barbs on their surface. They hurtled towards Xue Zongwu. He instinctively thought to bat them away, but then a thought flashed through his mind, and he dodged them instead. The two spheres spun rapidly. Weng Xing's throwing arm was skillful; even if Xue Zongwu didn't intercept them, they were designed to collide with each other.

With a deafening bang, there was another explosion! But this time, the explosion's range was very small, just a bit louder than a firecracker. Everyone present, including Xue Zongwu, already knew these two were fanatics for explosions, so they kept their distance from anything they threw. Yet the effect it triggered was astonishing: the pervasive dense smoke was ignited, exploding like gas.

Xue Zongwu had no time to ponder why the flames from his crouching beast couldn't ignite the green smoke, but the opponents' black spheres could. He raised his shield in front of him and was immediately propelled two *zhang* (approximately 6.6 meters) by the immense concussive force. From a distance, another mushroom cloud rose into the night sky above the area.

Seizing this opportunity, the Weng brothers swiftly turned and fled. They had dared to infiltrate Xiaotao Mountain Villa to assassinate Xue Zongwu, and they had long since planned their escape route. As the saying goes, "As long as the green hills remain, there's no fear of lacking firewood." Regardless of whether the assassination succeeded, as long as they escaped, they would have the chance to prepare for their next strike.

But just as they were about to head west, a voice whispered in Weng Su's ear: "Go north."

The voice was so close, right by his ear, that Weng Su froze in his tracks. "Who's there!"

When he stopped, his younger brother Weng Xing also halted.

"What is it? What's wrong?"

"Someone sent me a message!" Weng Su looked left and right, then, seeing no one, he lifted his leg to move again. "Who's there!"

The sudden voice spoke again: "There are pursuers in the east, west, and south, all waiting for you. Xue Zongwu also has scouts in the sky. If you don't want to die, go north!"

This time, Weng Su paid extra attention to the source of the voice and finally spotted a tiny spider clinging to his lapel! The spider was pure black and smaller than a grain of rice. The night was dark, and the villa grounds were full of trees, so he had no idea when this tiny creature had landed on him. Had the spider not waved its forelegs at him, he might not have even noticed it.

Weng Xing asked anxiously, "What's going on?"

Weng Su's mind, however, was in turmoil. Was this new voice friend or foe? The voice claimed there were ambushes and pursuers in the other three directions; should he trust it? Yet, along their original retreat route, there were indeed restless voices and the glow of approaching torches. Xue Zongwu's tactical deployment was far more sophisticated than theirs. The pursuers behind them were also closing in. Xue Zongwu was prepared, and explosions would hardly injure him again. After being thrown backward and landing, he immediately sprang up and pursued the brothers with incredible speed.

Where should they escape? In this critical moment, Weng Su had to make a decision.

He would risk it! He gritted his teeth, stomped his foot, and declared, "North!"

Weng Xing was stunned. "Brother?"

They had pre-planned two retreat routes. Their primary choice was south because the panicked guests in the villa would instinctively flee in the direction where no explosions had occurred. They simply needed to shed their night suits and masks, blend into the crowd of distinguished guests, and they could quickly leave the villa. Xiaotao Mountain Villa was, after all, merely an ordinary estate, not a fortified city pass, so it couldn't bar so many guests from escaping. Going north was their fallback option.

"Don't ask, just go north!" Weng Su pivoted on his heel and charged northward.

Transmitting a message by seemingly using a spider was no ordinary divine ability. If this mysterious voice truly intended to harm him, it wouldn't have needed to speak at all, as Xue Zongwu's pursuit and encirclement were already faster than the brothers had anticipated. No matter which direction they chose to flee, they had no room for error.

There was no wall to the north because the northern end was simply a sheer cliff, the highest point in the entire villa grounds.