The scene took Li Mu by surprise as well.
“How come there are three more experts in the Great Master Realm suddenly in the city?”
“Didn’t they say the number of the matchless masters of the Great Master Realm in Chang’an is not more than the number of one’s fingers?”
“Whoa, that women in white is surely a troublemaker. How did she piss off three Great Masters at a time?”
“Catch her!” shouted a man chasing after the woman in white.
“Don’t let her get away!”
Upon those words, the dark-armored assassins began flinging their secret weapons and shooting arrows at the woman in white from behind.
Carrying a sword on her back, the woman in white moved briskly like a fairy flying under the moon. With amazing elegance, she dodged all the secret weapons that shot at her. But it appeared that she was injured, for she was not fleeing at a very fast speed and the distance between her and her hunters were narrowing bit by bit.
“Haha, the poison inside her is about to kick in!”
“Under the order of His Honor, we shall capture her alive!”
Wrapped in glittering internal qi, the three black-robed Great Masters were drawing nearer and nearer to their prey.
As Li Mu overheard their conversation, he could not help but raise his brow.
“That woman in white is poisoned?”
“What on earth is happening?”
“Needless to say, she has fretted three matchless masters in the Great Master Realm. I’m afraid this time the trouble she stirred up is really big.”
Nevertheless, considering that the three Great Masters who was hunting her down together did not choose to fight her head-on but dose her, the strength of the woman in white was probably more freaking strong. She ought to be more powerful than Li Mu’s previous assumption, a matchless master of the Great Master Realm at least.
“To rescue her or not?”
Li Mu was a little indecisive.
Certainly, the woman in white had left him a quite good impression when she rose gallantly to injustice and helped out the weak at Grandma Cai’s noodle stalk in Peace County. Since that moment, he knew she was a compassionate and chivalrous woman. Later, she also rooted out Ma San and his scoundrels and gifted Li Mu the Mediation Approach. Although Li Mu had not been qualified to enter the Mediation Realm, he did appreciate the encounter with that woman in white very much.
However, the current problem was that he knew she enjoyed high status at first glance, perhaps she was from the royal family. Once he meddled in and rescued her, it was inevitable that he would get involved in the political struggle of the empire. As a carefree Earth resident, Li Mu found those politicians rather detestable.
But just in the instant that Li Mu was hesitating, a new change occurred.
“Emm…” The sprinting woman in white let out a muffled groan as an arrow hit her shoulder. Scarlet blood began to spread across her white robe. Her paces soon became unsteady and she almost toppled down to the ground.
With great difficulty, she bounced up and tottered towards the stone tower Li Mu was at by accident.
But at this time, the three black-robed Great Master on her tail beat her to spotting Li Mu’s figure on the stone tower.
“She has an accomplice! Be careful, don’t let them escape. Get the two at a time!”
The black-robed Great Master taking the lead made a prompt decision and beckoned his followers.
Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!
Dozens of arrows were fired, zooming straight at Li Mu.
Facing their attack, now Li Mu simply had to meddle in.
He swiftly ducked the shooting arrows and then tore a piece of cloth off from his collar to mask his face before leaping up to the air and bearing upon the attackers.
Li Mu moved as fast as a bolt of lightning.
The second he brushed passed the woman in white, he said in an undertone, “Go! I’ll block them!”
At those words, her gorgeous eyes shining like stars under the veil lifted up by the evening breeze revealed a hint of shock. Apparently, she never expected that a savior would appear out of nowhere to help her through such a sticky spot.
But at the same time, Li Mu had already swooped down on the three black-robed Great Masters in a flash.
“Want to block me? To hell with you!”
The leading black-robed Great Master roared as he launched a punch.
Weird sound like the growl of a vile beast spread out from the air, coupled with wafts of stinky smell that was similar to the odor of a decaying body. The energy of the punch rose up and lunged towards Li Mu like raging torrents.
The leading Great Master was quite confident that his punch could cause grave injury to the one standing in their way.
Even though there were some experts who could fend off his Corrosive Wild Torrent in Chang’an, he believed the guy who jumped into this out of the blue was absolutely not that kind of expert.
However—
“Hum, easy piece.”
Li Mu put his fingers tightly together and flipped his blade-like palm at him.
A jet of silver broadsword light that was as smooth as silk streaked across the sky and cut the stinky punch of that black-robed Great Master in two. The broadsword light did not just stop there but continued to advance and hit the opponent squarely. Growling in pain, the black-robed Great Master was thrown to the air and flew backward with a spill of blood before hitting the ground and beginning to vomit blood. A very deep gash left by a broadsword could be seen distinctly on his chest. It was obvious that he was severely injured.
“What?”
“This can’t be!”
The other two black-robed Great Masters were startled by Li Mu’s blow.
“Could you please inform us of your identity?” asked one of them with a rather grave expression. It was clear that he was holding Li Mu in awe.
Li Mu did a backward somersault and landed back on the stone tower. With his face hiding underneath that cloth except for his eyes, he said in a sort of hoarse and impassive voice, “Just screw off if you don’t want to die.”
He had no intention to tangle with those men.
Because the woman in white was poisoned. She certainly could not go afar and needed his help.
The faces of the three black-robed Great Master all became stern.
Li Mu’s one blow had maimed the most powerful one of them, which astounded and frightened them. What was more dreadful was that they failed to detect any internal qi fluctuation on Li Mu. Hence, from their perspectives, the mysterious man’s strength was unfathomable, very likely to a Natural Expert.
“Mr, that woman is a target of the royal family. I suggest you not intervening in this case. Otherwise, even if you are a Natural Expert, you will find yourself in trouble,” said the injured black-robed Great Master through gritted teeth. He had a hooknose and thin lips, looking rather mean and malicious. At the moment, he was directing his internal qi to heal the injury.
He was the leader of their group of three.
“Hah hah hah hah…” Li Mu changed his voice with the skill of Muscle Changing and Bone Transforming. Now, his voice sounded like the rasping of two ores. He cackled as if he were a villain and snapped, “The royal family, huh? What do they think they are…? Will you screw off or not? If you don’t fu*k off, don’t blame me for being ruthless!” Those words came out quite imposingly.
The three black-robed Great Masters and the dozen dark-armored experts behind them all seemed undecided.
Tonight, the trap they set up was just about to capture the target. If they succeeded, it would go down in their file as a great contribution. But unexpectedly, a man popped out and stopped them when they were halfway through arresting the target. Now, should they just give it up? They were only one step away from success. If they went back with this news, the emperor would definitely fly into a rage.
“Second brother, third brother, go up! Pin him down!”
Finally, the injured black-robed Great Master made up his mind.
The two black-robed Great Master on his flanks instantly cast their power and dashed towards Li Mu like two fired arrows.
At the same time, the injured leader forced himself to overcome the pain and led the dark-armored experts round the stone tower to continue to hunt down that woman in white.
Li Mu’s mind was racing. He knew he could not reserve his power anymore under such a circumstance.
Anyway, judging by their operation style, they were not decent men.
“Hah hah hah hah… If so, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Li Mu felt he had been obsessed with playing the bad guy. After letting out a fit of high-pitched creepy laughs, he pressed a hand on the tip of the stone tower while activated the Heart Heavenly Shoot. Next second, sharp whooshes broke the silent night as the tiles on the roof of the stone tower fractured into the size of a pebble and stormed at the two black-robed Great Masters with the force not less than shooting arrows.
Meanwhile, Li Mu also leaped up to the air and cupped his fists before stretching them out.
The fist seal roared like a dragon, the fist energy blazed like a jet of lightning, and the fist power fell down like a mountain.
Boom! Boom!
The second his fists touched the two black-robed Great Master, they were sent flying backward.
But the two had prepared for the blow. They secretly pushed themselves backward and flew out by taking advantage of the counter-force so as to neutralize the impact of the punch. Surely, they did not get any serious injury, but they still felt the internal qi was surging and the blood was raging as if out of their control. The force of that punch overwhelmed them as if a star had fallen upon them. Its power could topple the mountains and overturn the seas, which was totally unstoppable.
“How mighty he is!”
“Who could have launched such a forceful punch?”
The two were astonished within. Now, they did not dare to be careless at all. They cast their best moves and lunged at Li Mu from different directions, but they no longer attempted to fight the hard way. Instead, they decided to only badger him. As long as Li Mu was stuck here with no chance to go and rescue that woman in white, their task was completed.
But how could Li Mu fail to notice their little trick?
He threw out a string of detrimental attacks to bombard the two black-robed Great Masters.
They retreated in defeat again and again, whereas they still managed to hover around Li Mu and tussle with him.
“The pair of them are the best of the Great Masters. They are experienced in battling and have endless moves. Well, this is not a martial arts competition. They can keep ducking my attacks like this. This way, I hardly have an opportunity to get rid of them quickly. To finish them off, perhaps I will need to wait until we have exchanged more than a hundred moves…”
At that thought, Li Mu was quite flustered.
From the corner of his eye, he saw that woman in white was about a thousand meters away. She was trudging shakily. It was evident that the poison started working and she could hold it together not for long. However, the leader of the three black-robed Great Master with his men was just about to catch her.
“I must save her first.”
Li Mu executed the body-lighting skill and sped in the direction of the woman in white as fast as a flash of lightning.
The two Great Master also tried to hold him back with all the means.
This was the hardest battle Li Mu had ever had.
“Third Eye, open up!”
He concentrated his spiritual force between his brows. The Third Eye opened and instantly released a jet of light and fell on the two black-robed Great Master. With a quick glance through the Third Eye, Li Mu detected all their ways and motion methods of their internal qi.
That felt like watching his opponents with a radio-wave penetration instrument.
Streaks of light grey energy flow were circulating along designated routes, where the secrets of the martial arts they practiced lay. To put it into perspective, what Li Mu observed was similar to the circuit diagram he had studied in physic class in junior high. The different amount of energy the grey flows carried represented the varied strong and weak spots in their bodies.
In particular, those dim light spots were the fatal weak points of the Cultivation Method of the two black-robed Great Masters.
“Drop dead!”
After learning all their internal qi patterns through the Third Eye, Li Mu turned on the Heart Heavenly Shoot again and flung a palm against a tree in front of him.
Swish swish swish swish!
Under the effect of the power, innumerable yellow and green leaves instantly dropped off from the branches and turned into sharp arrows. With unparalleled momentum, those leaf arrows that were as sharp as iron broadswords darted at the two black-robed Great Masters like a downpour.
The two plucked all their internal qi to form a protective cover. They had driven their cultivation to the utmost in order to take this blow.
Those leave arrows drowned him in no time.
The massive force tipped them off their balance, resulting in disordered internal qi and unsteady blood circulation.
Sure enough, the Heart Heavenly Shoot was indeed the top mental cultivation method Guo Yuqing taught Li Mu. Even though he had not been able to produce internal qi by far, the power he could trigger with that move was already intimidating.
However, that was still not enough to kill his opponents at once.
After all, they were two matchless masters in the Great Master Realm.
But Li Mu had already anticipated that.
In fact, he had saved the real killing move for the next strike.