Chapter 1429: Already Invincible

Sensing Lu Ye's fierce killing intent, Zhou Yuchuan frowned and ultimately chose to retreat. The moment his figure vanished, his face was filled with helplessness. Not only had he exhausted himself to unleash the power of the short spear, leaving him with little combat ability at the moment, but Lu Ye himself was also listed on the Contribution Ranking. Zhou Yuchuan naturally wouldn't underestimate him simply because he was only at the mid-stage cultivation level.

Before disappearing, Zhou Yuchuan sent a voice transmission.

Lu Ye gathered spiritual power in his legs, and his pursuit speed significantly increased. This was a small trick he had inadvertently discovered while traveling in and out of Qingyun Mountain. A cultivator's spiritual power had many wondrous uses: concentrated in the eyes, it could reveal things normally invisible; gathered in the legs, it allowed for faster running; applied to blades and swords, it made weapons more lethal.

The forest terrain was complex, filled with trees so large it would take several people to embrace them. The person fleeing ahead was naturally not as familiar with the terrain as Lu Ye, and the distance between them was steadily closing.

When Lu Ye finally got a clear look at the person's back, all his doubts were suddenly resolved. He knew who was orchestrating all of this. This discovery surprised him, because, in his opinion, he had no grievances with the other party and had only interacted with them once!

"Roar!" A snow-white figure suddenly darted out from ahead, blocking the person's path. It was Big Hu!

Terrified by Big Hu, the person let out a scream, and without thinking, launched a spirit talisman they had already prepared. The talisman transformed into a crescent-shaped slash in mid-air, heading straight for Big Hu.

Big Hu hastily dodged, the crescent slash passing so close it almost grazed its body. It cut through the trunk of a large tree behind it, demonstrating the talisman's penetrating power.

With the attack failing, the person looked even more panicked, fumbling nervously for something in their storage bag.

A tiny figure had already silently climbed onto her back, emitting a piercing shriek. Lu Ye saw the person's body slump, as if burdened by a heavy weight, and their movements also paused for a moment. This reminded Lu Ye of his first encounter with Yiyi and Big Hu in the cave, where he had been ambushed by Yiyi in just the same way.

With that delay, Lu Ye had already rushed to her side, bringing his sword down.

A flash of gleaming sword light, and an arm flew off, blood gushing. The pain made her shriek. Although she came from a rogue cultivator background, her outstanding figure and appearance had quickly caught the attention of the Heavenly Secret Merchant Alliance shortly after she entered the Spirit Creek Battlefield, and she was recruited into the Alliance. She had never fought anyone since then, let alone sustained such severe injuries. It would not be an exaggeration to say she was a hothouse flower. Most people in the Alliance were of this type. They didn't need to fight others, nor did they face the hardships and dangers of sect disciples training on the battlefield. Their only concern was to conduct their business well.

Big Hu lunged, knocking her to the ground, its fearsome maw roaring, the stench of blood wafting towards her face, nearly making her faint from fright. Even more terrifying was the sound of footsteps approaching from the side. She turned her head to look, seeing Lu Ye, his sharp sword angled towards the ground, blood still dripping from the blade, walking towards her step by step.

When he was close, Lu Ye looked down at her and said flatly, "Liu Ruyin!" This woman was none other than the person he had first transacted with at the Heavenly Secret Merchant Alliance.

"Don't kill me, please don't kill me!" Liu Ruyin's makeup was smudged from crying, as she pleaded incessantly.

Lu Ye lowered his gaze and said, "Who instructed you?"

"No one instructed me, I was just possessed by greed, tempted by money..." Under immense terror, Liu Ruyin naturally blurted out everything, rambling on about the entire sequence of events without waiting for Lu Ye to ask further questions.

"Is that so?" Lu Ye raised the sharp sword high in his hand.

Sensing Lu Ye's killing intent, Liu Ruyin shrieked, "Don't kill me, I'll give you anything you want!"

The long sword descended. Big Hu timely dodged away. The spiritual power-infused blade sliced across Liu Ruyin's fair, slender neck. A point of yellow light flew out from the back of Liu Ruyin's pale hand, and darted into Lu Ye's right hand.

The headless corpse twitched, with blood gushing like a fountain from its neck, only stopping after a considerable time. Yiyi watched from the side. Being in this guy's hands, it was just luck. This guy isn't someone easy to talk to.

Lu Ye bent down, took the storage bag from Liu Ruyin's waist, and then ran his hands over her body. This was certainly not to take advantage of her, but because he wanted to check if she had any hidden storage bags on her. He himself had hidden storage bags on his person. Projecting his own habits onto others, he thought others might also have them. Unfortunately, Liu Ruyin didn't have this habit. After all, she was with the Merchant Alliance; she didn't need to fight others, nor did she need to take risks outdoors. Keeping her storage bag openly on her was perfectly safe for her.

Liu Ruyin's storage bag was already open. Lu Ye quickly checked it, finding some useful items.

"Dispose of the body," Lu Ye instructed.

"Huh?" Yiyi looked at him with an incredulous expression, as if saying, "Are you kidding me?"

Lu Ye then took out a bottle from Liu Ruyin's storage bag, and tossed it in his hand.

"Alright!" Yiyi eagerly agreed, winked at Big Hu, and quickly got to work.

Lu Ye returned to where he had killed the pale-faced cultivator earlier, picking up his storage bag, as well as the pale-faced cultivator's weapon.

About half an hour later, in the cave where he was staying, Lu Ye sat cross-legged, bare-chested, applying healing pills to his wounds. He had few healing pills left; after using two this time, he only had four remaining.

Reflecting on today's battle, Lu Ye didn't feel complacent about killing a Spirit Creek Layer Three cultivator, but rather was introspecting. Conflicts among lower-level cultivators primarily involved close-quarters combat. It could be said that most lower-level cultivators followed the path of weapon cultivation, because their cultivation was not high enough and their training time was short. Lower-level cultivators had neither the time nor the energy to delve into intricate spells. Only when their strength grew would their future path gradually become clear.

This fight with the pale-faced cultivator exposed a serious problem: he lacked any combat skills. This was understandable; he had only truly begun cultivating less than three months ago. During this period, he had been focused solely on improving his cultivation, leaving no spare energy to refine combat techniques. Ultimately, he was able to kill the pale-faced cultivator by leveraging Big Hu's momentum, catching the opponent off guard.

But as for skills, he didn't know how to improve them. Without proper guidance from a teacher, it would undoubtedly be impossible to figure it out on his own.

Then there was the weapon issue. He hadn't felt much about it before. The long sword in his hand was one left behind by Steward Yang after his death. He had used this sword to kill Zhou Cheng previously, but the fight with Zhou Cheng was over in an instant. Only today, after a life-or-death struggle with the pale-faced man, did he truly notice something: his compatibility with this long sword was severely mismatched. The sword felt awkward no matter how he wielded it. Swords emphasized agility and technique, but he just chopped and hacked with his long sword, completely failing to utilize its advantages.

Pondering this, Lu Ye put his clothes back on, and picked up the long sword by his feet for a closer inspection. The blade had many nicks, all caused by his hacking. Especially a chip about one-third of the way down the blade, which was almost the size of a grain of rice. Such a chip was very serious for a long sword. It was already unusable.

He then picked up the pale-faced man's long saber, stood up and swung it a few times, his eyebrows raising.