Tang Lici cut open his abdomen and raised his sword, blood scattered along his path, while Liu Yan gripped Chai Xijin and continuously retreated, dodging arrows and weapons shot from afar. With a “clang,” Tang Lici’s sword blocked Dashi’s meteor hammer. “Golden Thread Song’s” sword flower trembled, cutting a wound on Dashi’s hand.

Dashi retreated in pain. “Golden Thread Song” followed like a shadow, clinging to his clothes. In the blink of an eye, it opened another bloody mark on Dashi’s right arm. The third sword thrust upward from the throat in reverse, blood splashing three feet—this was only an instant from when “Golden Thread Song” had blocked the meteor hammer.

Dashi’s eyes widened in fury, his face full of shock, and he fell backward.

Tang Lici’s sword changed thrice in one strike, killing Dashi without pause, and rushed toward where Liu Yan and Chai Xijin were.

Liu Yan retreated step by step, already forced near the fire pit from which Tang Lici had just escaped.

The underground fire in Floating Zero Brow Garden had not completely extinguished. The temperature at the cracked rock layers and dome was extremely high, distorting the surrounding scenery in a very strange way. Before Liu Yan even got close, his hair had already curled and scorched.

Or perhaps precisely because of the high temperature, the handful of long hair strangling Chai Xijin became dry and brittle, suddenly snapping under Chai Xijin’s force. Chai Xijin roared, turned around to lift Liu Yan up, and threw him backward.

Liu Yan was in mid-air, facing countless arrows and blades coming at him.

Chai Xijin retreated again and again, already standing at the edge of the fire pit.

Tang Lici had killed Dashi and was now seven steps away from Liu Yan, more than a zhang away from Chai Xijin. If he struck to save people, Liu Yan would be rescued.

But Chai Xijin, having narrowly escaped death, stood unsteadily…

“Kill Fang Pingzhai!” Liu Yan shouted loudly.

Chai Xijin, suddenly hearing the three words “Fang Pingzhai,” also paused slightly.

Tang Lici lowered his eyes and charged straight toward Chai Xijin.

Blood scattered in mid-air, the same color as his fluttering red robes.

Liu Yan, seeing his unhesitating choice, breathed a sigh of relief. Seeing the many arrows and blades shooting toward him, he felt very calm. He didn’t close his eyes to await death, but watched them shoot toward him one by one.

The whooshing sounds continued. Several long arrows passed by his body—the archers were too far away to wound him.

When the second wave of arrows arrived, those rushing up to kill Liu Yan had already reached him. Zhang Hemo and Dong Hubi, Meng Qinglei and Li Hongchen rushed to Liu Yan together. The four struck out, palm winds and weapons crossing, swift winds howling in the air with imposing aura.

Liu Yan faced Meng Qinglei’s sword.

But golden light flashed before him. An object suddenly appeared with a light buzzing sound, as if a golden udumbara flower had bloomed. Golden threads interwove and flickered, then bounced out in all directions, not only blocking all four people’s palm winds and blades but even the exploding golden threads knocked down some of the surrounding arrows.

Liu Yan was stunned—he had landed safely.

He suddenly turned back. What had exploded before him was the sword from Tang Lici’s hand!

In Liu Yan’s backward glance, in the eyes of Zhang Hemo and Dong Hubi, Meng Qinglei and Li Hongchen, Tang Lici threw his sword with a backhand motion. His figure flashed, fast as a red silk ribbon, directly crashing Chai Xijin down into the fire pit.

Liu Yan cried out loudly, “A’Li!”

Meng Qinglei and the others, whose minds were already confused, were suddenly stunned, unable to believe what they had seen.

Meng Qinglei stopped his hand, looking at the fire pit billowing with thick smoke in confusion.

Dong Hubi’s hands still maintained their striking posture but stood dumbly in place.

“Tang… Young Master Tang?”

Liu Yan staggered toward the fire pit. The temperature was extremely high. With each step he approached the opening, a patch of his hair was scorched, his clothes gradually catching fire. Though there were no visible flames in that place, the temperature was even higher than fire.

Just… just now Tang Lici had crashed Chai Xijin down.

He had thrown his entire body forward, crashing into Chai Xijin’s exposed chest, using his own momentum in the air to crash Chai Xijin down into the fire pit.

Without valuable famous swords or hidden weapons, without shocking strange moves or secret techniques, he was as reckless as a charging deer, sacrificing himself in this way, going down into the fire pit together with Chai Xijin.

Everyone who had been chasing Liu Yan, wanting to kill Liu Yan or Tang Lici for revenge, had seen this crash.

Weapons gradually stopped, bows and arrows paused, a heart full of killing intent suddenly turned to confusion.

Tang Lici claimed to be Chai Xijin’s master, Liu Yan claimed to be Tang Lici’s master. They all claimed to be supreme, establishing the Pleasure House and driving Chai Xijin to kill innocents indiscriminately.

Then Tang Lici, before everyone’s eyes, crashed Chai Xijin into the fire pit.

What did this mean?

What… did this mean?

The spider woman was dead, Dashi was killed, Chai Xijin fell into the fire pit—this all happened in an extremely short time. Those with confused minds and severe poisoning lost control. With no more sound-killing to forcibly control them, they began to stir restlessly, about to pursue and devour those who had been poisoned with Nine Heart Pills again.

No matter how impregnable Yang Guihua’s coiling dragon formation was, it couldn’t withstand these people who were like zombies and fierce ghosts. The several heroes of the Central Plains Sword Society at the forefront looked at each other, all showing confusion in their eyes.

The crowd parted. Cheng Yunpao came with great strides holding his sword, Wanyu Yuedan and Miss Hong following closely behind.

They looked at that fire pit.

For a moment, everyone fell silent.

Liu Yan’s entire clothing was on fire. He suddenly laughed once, then laughed again.

“Ha…” he said, “Haha.”

“Master Liu, please step aside. My Biluo Palace has Flying Cloud Cables that might be able to descend into the fire pit to save people.” Wanyu Yuedan’s expression was grave. Though he hadn’t seen how Tang Lici went down, he could guess most of it.

Wanting both to save people and kill enemies.

The task was impossible, yet he insisted on having both.

“Save people?” Liu Yan spoke slowly, “Isn’t Tang Lici deserving of ten thousand deaths, harboring sinister intentions, bestowing favors to seek repayment? Perhaps he deceived someone and killed someone, gaining some tremendous benefit… but don’t you all know? He died like this—isn’t it wonderful?” He shakily stood up, his robe hem catching fire inch by inch, his head full of dry black hair dancing and burning in the hot wind. He seemed about to be roasted into a human jerky, yet he didn’t flee for his life. “Palace Master Wanyu, do you truly want to save him? If you truly wanted to save him, when he went to the war chariot to fight for his life just now, you should have acted instead of standing by and watching.” Liu Yan laughed loudly with full voice, “You—all of you—none of you want to save him. You only want to wait for ‘Young Master Tang’ to save you, wait for him to give his all, wait for him to exhaust all his strength, then wait for him to die—isn’t this wonderful?”

Wanyu Yuedan’s brow moved slightly. For a moment, he neither denied nor acknowledged.

Just then, the fire pit below suddenly emitted several thunderous rumbling sounds, followed by the ground shaking several times.

White smoke suddenly rose from the depths of the fire pit, water vapor and thick smoke bursting forth.

The temperature was dropping.

Some change was occurring in the depths of Floating Zero Brow Garden.

Everyone was stunned. They saw clouds of smoke and dust rising from the fire pit in Floating Zero Brow Garden, as if something was rolling underground. Then it suddenly collapsed, hot steaming water mist spraying from the deep pit.

Miss Hong was also stunned. There was a lake near Floating Zero Brow Garden. Last time when she used the strategy of luring the tiger from the mountain against Yu Konghou, she had used the pretext that there was a river and a lake near Floating Zero Brow Garden, suggesting someone might use the waterway to attack Floating Zero Brow Garden.

Could water really be flooding into Floating Zero Brow Garden? A prophecy fulfilled?

As the water level surged wildly, the ground beneath their feet began to tremble. Cheng Yunpao gathered his qi and shouted, “No good! Landslide!”

With the cry of landslide, the fire pit where Floating Zero Brow Garden was located repeatedly spewed thick smoke and white gas. More and more water filled the pit, extremely hot water vapor steaming up, the ground shaking continuously. With a tremendous crash, the left half of Qihun Mountain’s slope collapsed along with part of Floating Zero Brow Garden, millions of stone fragments following down, smoke and dust rolling in all directions.

In the face of danger, members of the Central Plains Sword Society struck out one after another. Palm winds swept horizontally, pushing the confused garrison troops still rushing toward them into the distance. Then everyone’s figures flew and flipped, various lightness skills and body techniques displayed together, each landing on the half of the mountain that hadn’t collapsed.

Those who were shocked away by the palm winds luckily avoided the collapsing large hole. Most rolled down with the rubble and gravel, suffering only minor scrapes. Those who landed on the mountain top looked down to see half of the mansion swaying precariously. It had originally sunk from the mountain top into the mountain’s belly, relying on mechanical force. The place where it sank was originally a natural cave. The Strange Guest Who Breaks Cities had connected it, supplemented with track chains, so Floating Zero Brow Garden could easily sink into the mountain’s belly. But this cave was originally a water-dissolved cave with underground river channels. Bai Suche’s fire burned Floating Zero Brow Garden, Tang Lici crashed down with Chai Xijin, Floating Zero Brow Garden suffered successive heavy damage, all mechanisms destroyed, falling apart, high temperatures exploding rocks, collapsing downward, finally touching the underground river at the bottom.

After this, with a tremendous crash, underground hot air broke through the rock layers, half of Qihun Mountain collapsed, with landslides and ground fissures.