Chapter 268: The Sect Disciples Ankle Deep in Mud
“What are you guys doing standing around over there?!”
Iron Dazhi saw that Zhou Yi and the sixteen law enforcement disciples were all looking nervously at the battle occurring between him and Jiang Chen, and not taking any action.
Zhou Yi wanted Iron Dazhi to kill Jiang Chen cleanly and then act swiftly and ruthlessly to take down Jiang manor.
He didn’t think that his senior brother Dazhi of the fifth level spirit realm couldn’t take down Jiang Chen after a few rounds. He was actually slowly being backed into a corner.
When he saw Iron Dazhi roar with some hints of anger, Zhou Yi didn’t dare to move sluggishly. He waved his hand and commanded the disciples, “Come on, look sharp! Go after him!”
Zhou Yi’s nickname was the Sword of Cloud and Wind and he was known for his fast and bizarre sword techniques.
His figure flashed, leaving being ghost shadows in the air, the three foot sword in his hand transforming into a marvelous blur and aiming for Tian Shao standing in the doorframe.
Tian Shao only had the level of training of a first level spirit realm and Zhou Yi greatly outclassed him, being an earth spirit realm genius.
The difference in their strength was incredibly astonishing.
Zhou Yi’s strike was like the clouds and fresh breeze. Its trail was quite bizarre as it traveled in front of Tian Shao in a flash.
Zhou Yi’s objective wasn’t to kill Tian Shao, but just to capture him.
Just as Zhou Yi started rejoicing in his heart, a feeling of alarm suddenly rippled through his heart.
As an earth spirit realm genius, Zhou Yi had weathered hundreds of battles. This kind of forewarning wasn’t an illusion, it was a strong perception honed from the battle lines of life and death.
This perception had saved his life countless numbers of times.
Zhou Yi was already faced with two decisions before the light of the sword had traveled to Tian Shao.
The first was to continue his attack and take down Tian Shao.
The second was to halt his attack and return his sword to protect himself.
He had no time to consider carefully in those crucial moments. His first thought was to save himself due to an instinct that practitioners honed from multiple moments between life and death.
The sword spiraled backwards as layers of spirit power rippled out from it, protecting his vital parts as his feet pushed off, attempting to draw close to Tian Shao as he defended himself.
Clang clang clang clang.
Knife like feathers from the Goldwing Swordbirds buffeted the protective field around him and bounced off.
Each feather was like a life reaping flying dagger as the force behind some thirty feathers completely broke through his protective barrier.
It was a good thing that Zhou Yi’s training was quite extraordinary as he also broke free of the radius of the attack in the instant that his barrier fell.
This harrowing scene made Zhou Yi afraid to take things lightly again.
With his sword protecting his chest, Zhou Yi looked warily at the Goldwing Swordbirds in the air. His heart palpitated as he also felt that he had been extremely lucky.
If he’d gone with his first option just now and continued his attack on Tian Shao, then he’d be shot full of feathers and look like a porcupine by now, dead without a doubt.
Tian Shao’s gaze was ruthless as he smiled faintly and backed into the manor.
Even though Zhou Yi possessed a lot of guts, he didn’t dare to continue his attack. He knew that if he did so, he’d be exposing his back to the Swordbirds.
Once the Swordbirds continued attacking, he’d be in a situation that was even more perilous than the one just now!
The 16 law enforcement disciples were in an even more dire situation than Zhou Yi at the moment. The 24 Swordbirds had surrounded them with the formation, and it was like a shapeless metal wall had caged them no matter how they tried to break out of it.
The Eight Trigram Assimilation Formation had directions to it that coordinated with each other and leveraged each other’s strengths. It looked like there were only three guarding each direction, but it was actually a formation that shared power and strength with every person or beast in the formation.
The 16 disciples were all of the spirit realm. In terms of individual fighting strength, none of those newly ascended spirit rank Swordbirds were their opponents.
But now that the formation had been set up and the mysteries of the formation were fully deployed, the power of those 24 Swordbirds had risen by more than ten times.
In this regard, there was no such thing as individual combat at all.
The most critical thing was that these law enforcement disciples didn’t think that these spirit creatures would actually set up a formation. Who had heard of such a thing before?
They had underestimated their opponents before and thus, they had been caught in the formation almost as soon as battle had engaged, becoming turtles in a jar.
It was a good thing that the Swordbirds weren’t striking fatal blows since Jiang Chen hadn’t given the order to do so.
Otherwise, with the Goldwing Swordbirds’ fierce natures, it wouldn’t be a hard thing to rip the 16 disciples to pieces at all after the formation had been set up.
Zhou Yi became increasingly horrified as he watched. Bystanders observed with the most objective eyes, and how would he not see that although the 16 disciples looked quite ferocious, weren’t able to break free of the spirit creatures’ defense at all.
It was obvious that the Swordbirds weren’t fully exerting themselves. Otherwise, how would they have the spare time to attack him and protect Tian Shao?
“This won’t do. Senior brother Dazhi brought these law enforcement disciples privately. He’ll be unable to explain himself back at the sect if anything happens to them!”
Zhou Yi was a bit panicked. He knew that spirit creatures were violent. Once their bloodthirsty natures were brought out, they wouldn’t be as gentle as they currently were.
Zhou Yi was quite familiar with the strength of the 16 law enforcement disciples.
He knew that they were fighting with all their strength, and that these spirit creatures were just toying with them.
Yes, they were like hunters playing with their food.
There was only one possibility under the circumstances, and that was that the spirit creatures hadn’t displayed their fighting capabilities at all!
Zhou Yi then lifted his head to look at Iron Dazhi and Jiang Chen’s battle. The two were matched giving it all and matched evenly.
Although it looked like Jiang Chen’s level of training was far inferior to Iron Dazhi’s, the latter’s Black Dragon Halberd techniques were being deployed to the utmost as they fought, but he was still unable to harm Jiang cCen.
Jiang Chen had fully become one with the blade and he assimilated into that marvelous state of mind with the blade.
This kind of mindset allowed Jiang Chen to seemingly grasp the true essence of the nameless saber, making the “Vast Ocean Current Splitter” method come alive in his hands.
Each stroke was stronger and faster than the previous one.
Zhou Yi’s jaw dropped when he saw this scene.
He didn’t think l that Jiang Chen of the small spirit realm could actually trade blows with his earth spirit realm senior brother. And judging from his posture, he was both attacking and defending, and he wasn’t just spending all his time evading attacks!
This kind of battle strategy indicated that Jiang Chen’s strength was such that he didn’t fear senior brother Dazhi.
Zhou Yi felt that the laws of the world were unraveling between his eyes.
He even started wondering if their little trick to ambush Jiang Chen when Ye Chonglou wasn’t present at the capital was a smart move, or a fool’s decision.
He had to admit at least that they’d underestimated Jiang Chen.
They’d originally thought that the combination of a fifth level spirit realm Iron Dazhi and fourth spirit realm Zhou Yi was enough to make a clean sweep of the Jiang manor given that the old tutor wasn’t present.
Zhou Yi had tragically discovered that as pretty as these thoughts were, they were completely idiotic.
Jiang Chen himself possessed such ferocious fighting abilities that his normally dominating senior brother couldn’t take him down immediately, not to mention those bizarre spirit creatures.
“Is this Jiang Chen truly Ye Chonglou’s true disciple? Can it be that they’d be hiding his strength all along and he’s someone who Ye Chonglou has raised to set against the true disciples of the Precious Tree Sect?” Zhou Yi’s thoughts started wandering along these lines in these moments.
He had also heard of the relationship between Ye Chonglou and the Precious Tree Sect. He knew that the old tutor had once been part of the sect and he had left it.
Although he wasn’t part of it now, the old man still had a certain emotional attachment to the sect.
However, although love was an expression of this attachment, so was a competitive spirit.
It was possible that under these circumstances, Ye Chonglou wanted to raise a genius disciple and compete with the Precious Tree Sect’s geniuses.
Now that the great selection was at hand, Jiang Chen’s gradual reveal and competition for glory also seemed to validate Zhou Yi’s speculations.
“We need to make this quick. That old man may be getting ready to leave the sect now and return to the capital. We’re in for it if he returns!”
As a sect disciple, Zhou Yi could do whatever he wanted in the Skylaurel Kingdom. However, all sect disciples had a fear in their hearts, and that was Ye Chonglou.
The spirit king protector was simply too strong. Apart from the legendary origin realm forefather in the sect, there was no one who could best him.
If that kind of personage grew irate, no one would dare take him to task if he slapped a few disciples to death.
Besides, Ye Chonglou had said very clearly that Jiang Chen was someone under his protection, and someone he was treating as a novel.
Someone at Ye Chonglou’s level didn’t easily express his stance. When he did, each bit of spittle was like a nail, something to not be overlooked.
Zhou Yi had come with Iron Dazhi this time precisely because of the latter.
Iron Dazhi was the direct grandson of the esteemed elder Iron Long, the nephew of Iron Can, and a direct descendent of the Iron family. Add to that his superb potential, that made for a high standing in the Iron family.
He was here to fight against Jiang Chen because he had the Iron family propping him up.
Zhou Yi had wanted to make use of this opportunity to express how utterly loyal he was to the Iron family. This was why he’d come with Iron Dazhi.
However, he hadn’t thought that this time’s operation would be far less successful than he’d anticipated.
It could even be said that they were ankle deep in mud and unable to break free.
If this stalemate continued, they would be in grave trouble once Ye Chonglou returned.
Perhaps, Ye Chonglou would refrain from killing Iron Dazhi out of considerations of face for the Iron family, but what the hell was he, Zhou Yi? Ye Chonglou wouldn’t hesitate in making an example of him with one slap to death.
Besides, those law enforcement disciples were acting with the authority of the law enforcement hall without a warrant. Once this matter blew up, Ye Chonglou would have even more of an excuse to find fault.
If this made it to the sect head, then he would surely make use of this opportunity to suppress the Iron family.
After all, it was only the Xie and Iron family struggling for power in the sect now.
With no warrant and using the law enforcement disciples to use his position to satisfy a personal grudge, even Iron Dazhi would be in for a world of hurt once this crime was handed out.
Zhou Yi felt his scalp tingle with numbness the more he thought about it. He couldn’t continue on like this. They had to either overcome the Jiang manor immediately and slaughter everyone in it so there were no witnesses, or they had to leave as soon as possible before Ye Chonglou returned.
The consequences would be beyond imagining otherwise.
When his thoughts traveled down this path, Zhou Yi didn’t have the inclination to capture Gouyu and Tian Shao at all. The battle outside was raging like a rampaging fire, Iron Dazhi wouldn’t be looking to him for help.
However, none of the 16 disciples could be lost. The ensuing troubles would be great if they lost even a single one!
