7: Chapter 7 All's Fair in War

Deep in the night, the mountainside.

Wang Shouren stood beneath a giant tree, his gaze sweeping across the surrounding bushes. The wind blew through the vegetation, making a rustling sound, but there were no traces of beast activities.

"Just like usual, I must be overthinking things."

It is even better if there are no problems. With the harvest approaching, being a little careful can never be wrong.

"When I go back, I must snatch back the bone given as a reward to Xiaotian. Yelling blindly made me run this trip in vain and also wasted a piece of fine ambergris."

Yet just as he turned and took his first step, his brows suddenly furrowed.

"Twang"

A sharp arrow tore through the air. Before the sound arrived, the arrow was already there.

A streak of black light shot towards Wang Shouren's neck.

"Pfft."

Shattered wood flew horizontally, and the tree crown collapsed with a rumble, startling a flock of roosting birds.

Cold sweat seeped from Wang Shouren's back. If the protective jade pendant just now had been half a beat slower, what would be shattering right now wouldn't be the tree.

"Cowardly rat, hiding your head and showing your tail, come out!"

At the same time as he shouted loudly, a sound transmission Talisman was already quietly grasped in his hand.

"Kid, you're quite alert, but this is where it ends."

Knowing that the sneak attack was useless, the opponent simply stopped hiding their aura.

Four figures appeared, and their positions completely sealed off the path down the mountain.

"Several fellows sneaking into my Family's spirit fields in the middle of the night, aren't you afraid of my Family investigating?"

Wang Shouren said in a deep voice, lightning light already secretly condensing on the fingertips of his left hand.

The brawny man grinned, revealing a mouthful of yellow teeth.

"The Wang Family? I don't know any Wang Family. If you want to blame someone, blame your bad luck for guarding this lousy hilltop all by yourself."

"Alone?" Wang Shouren raised an eyebrow.

Before his voice faded, the four of them did not give him a chance to react and struck almost simultaneously.

Fireballs, arrows, a black-light short axe, and a pale green vine—four attacks blasted in simultaneously from four directions, and the timing and angles of their strikes matched seamlessly.

Wang Shouren had long been prepared to urge the qingfeng sword to block, parrying the short axe chopping from the front and turning to dodge the fireball. However, the arrows and vines cut in from an extremely tricky angle, sealing off his retreat from left and right.

Wang Shouren was greatly startled, "Such fierce coordination."

The protective jade pendant could not be used again in a short time. Taking a blow head-on, his right arm was grazed by an arrow, his sleeve burst open, and his flesh split open into a bloody gash.

With just a single exchange, he was already injured.

What shocked him even more was the fighting style of these four people.

It didn't look like they were fighting individually at all, but rather cooperating with each other. Clearly, the brawny man's cultivation was not much different from his, and he was even slightly inferior, yet right now he was actually suppressing Wang Shouren and beating him, leaving Wang Shouren to defend passively.

"Bang, bang, swoosh."

With a lightning spell forcing open the four people's encirclement and taking a fierce axe Qi slash from the brawny man, Wang Shouren chanted incantations and rapidly fled toward the top of the mountain while a sense of alarm surged heavily in his heart.

"This should be a combined attack Formation. Even my Family does not have combined attack methods, how could four Loose Cultivators have them?"

If anyone said there were no shadows of the Ning Family behind this, Wang Shouren wouldn't believe it even if beaten to death.

"Damn it, if I had known earlier, I would have prepared more Talismans."

During the battle just now, he was suppressed by the four people on the mountainside, almost sealing off the path down the mountain, and Wang Shouren could only focus on defense.

Golden Light Talismans, Fireball Talismans, and Shield Armor Talismans were almost completely depleted.

Only now did he realize the benefits of having many methods. If he knew Five Elements escape techniques or had an Earth Escape Talisman, he wouldn't be in such a sorry state.

"Catch him, don't let him run!"

"Don't worry, Big Brother, he can't run. This kid is panicking and running up the mountain; he definitely can't escape."

Seeing the thatched cottage at the top of the mountain within sight, Wang Shouren glanced back and suddenly spoke.

"Hold on, the four of you. No matter how much the person behind you is offering, my Family is willing to pay double. If the four of you are willing to reveal the person behind you, the Family can even gift each of you a Medium Grade Magical Artifact."

When these words were spoken, the four people instantly stopped their attacks and looked at each other.

Greed was seen in each other's eyes.

"Big Brother, can this kid afford to pull out a Medium Grade Magical Artifact?"

Among the four of them, only the short axe in the brawny man's hand was a Medium Grade Magical Artifact; the rest were Low Grade, and moreover, they belonged to the lowest tier among Low Grade Magical Artifacts.

This was the sorrow of a Loose Cultivator.

Wang Shouren had precisely seen this point, which is why he spoke up.

The conditions could not be described as anything less than tempting, and Wang Shouren was already prepared to bleed heavily.

The leading brawny man struggled for a moment and finally sighed in refusal.

"The Wang Family shields its own shortcomings. If it were ordinary Wang Family members, that would be one thing, but knowing that we attacked Wang Shouren, the Wang Family will absolutely not let us off."

"This…"

"The Ning Family only promised us six hundred Spirit Stones; this deal is at a loss."

The four people's gazes went from shock and greed to regret.

Wang Shouren observed meticulously and secretly cried out that it was bad in his heart.

They were clearly tempted; why did they change their minds again?

"If you few agree, I am willing to swear a Heavenly Dao oath that I will never go back on my word."

"Kid, don't waste your thoughts. If you want to blame someone, blame your name being Wang Shouren!"

The brawny man's sneak attack completely dispelled Wang Shouren's illusions.

Crouching down to dodge the attack and throwing out the last few Low Grade Talisman papers from his Storage Pouch, Wang Shouren complained endlessly to himself.

The four people surrounded Wang Shouren, trapping him firmly in the center, and unexpectedly did not guard their backs in the slightest.

Seeing this, Wang Shouren suddenly shouted toward the mountain, "Third Uncle! Quickly help me kill the bandits!"

This shout used magic power, exploding across the silent mountain forest and startling the four of them into changing their expressions simultaneously.

"What?" The brawny man's movements paused, and he instinctively looked up the mountain, "More than one person?"

That woman also showed panic on her face and transmitted her voice, saying:

"Didn't the Ning Family's intelligence say there is only one junior guarding this place? How is there still a Third Uncle?"

The four of them turned their heads at the same time to look toward the top of the mountain, only to see that the mountain path was empty with swaying tree shadows, where was there even half a person's figure?

"Kid, you actually tricked us. It seems you have reached the end of your rope, hehehe."

The brawny man sneered savagely, and the short axe in his hand chopped over. The remaining three also came back to their senses.

Knowing they had been played, their strikes became even more ruthless.

Wang Shouren reluctantly parried for a few rounds, being forced back another dozen zhang, getting closer and closer to the top of the mountain.

"Four of you, if you retreat now, I can pretend nothing happened. My Third Uncle, Wang Yaowu, associates with Loose Cultivators, perhaps he even knows him."

"Kid, stop stalling for time. The conditions you proposed are indeed very generous, but we brothers are afraid that we'll have the life to take it, but no life to spend it."

"Hah! Go to hell!!!"

"Second Uncle! Quickly help me kill the bandits!" Wang Shouren shouted again.

The skinny man sneered, "Trash, your Second Uncle didn't come either!"

The four of them still turned their heads, confirming once again that Wang Shouren was merely putting on a bluff.

Wang Shouren seized the opportunity to attempt breaking through from the side, but was forced back by the woman manipulating vines.

He panted heavily, sweat already visible on his forehead. The qingfeng sword danced into a curtain of light in front of him, barely protecting the vital points around his body, and the guess in his heart also had an answer.

"It seems they really didn't know that besides me, there is still Shouxin on the mountain."

"Eldest Uncle! Quick—" Wang Shouren shouted once more.

The brawny man burst into loud laughter, his laughter full of disdain, "Kid, you treat us like fools? The eldest son of the Wang Family Patriarch, where would an Eldest Uncle come from? You don't even know how to round out your lies!"

Right at this moment, a golden light suddenly lit up from behind him.

That was a palm-sized small golden sword, which did not know when it had arrived behind the few of them, erupting violently at the very instant when the brawny man's laughter was loudest.

The golden sword light pierced into the brawny man's back, sinking into his flesh, then abruptly dissipated and turned into specks of golden radiance.

The sneer on the brawny man's face had not yet faded as he lowered his head to take a look at the gurgling, bleeding hole in his chest. A vague whimper came from his throat, and he fell backward facing the sky.

"Big Brother!" The skinny man screamed loudly.

"Awooo—" A black shadow darted out from the bushes, silently biting onto the woman's wrist.

Sharp fangs sank into flesh, and the sound of bone cracking was clearly audible.

"Ah! My hand!"

Amidst the death and the shock, electric light suddenly appeared, and a purple electric arc instantly pierced into the center of the woman's brows.