What was she to do?

This elite Black Jiao squadron had clearly received specialized training. Even with the upper hand completely secured, not one of them grew careless or dropped their guard, giving Ziqing no opening to exploit at all.

Above her stood Jiao Cha, below her stood Mu Fusang. It wasn’t that Ziqing couldn’t handle them individually — the problem was, the moment she turned her focus to fighting either of them directly, this entire ring of Black Jiao scaled warriors would instantly close in and tear her apart.

The devastating power this ring of Black Jiao scales could unleash in an instant far exceeded anything either Mu Fusang or Jiao Cha alone could manage. Ziqing knew that if she was going to break through, it had to start with the Black Jiao’s scaled armor!

Even if it meant taking a hit from Jiao Cha, she couldn’t afford to spare even a fraction of her focus for the full ring of scales.

“Heh heh, Mu Fusang, why not kill her and use her blood to nourish your sacred Fusang tree? What do you say?” Jiao Cha said smugly, a flash of malice crossing his eyes as he prepared to strike.

Mu Fusang remained unmoved, focused solely on blocking Ziqing’s escape route.

Wind blade after wind blade shot out from the strings of Ziqing’s zither — these zither-forged wind blades were far more powerful and forceful than the ones she could produce bare-handed, even more formidable than the ones Xuanyuan Lige himself could produce with his bare hands.

But against the Black Jiao’s scaled armor, the stronger the blade, the more forcefully it rebounded back!

Ziqing should have known this from the very first wind blade she fired.

And yet, she kept firing them, again and again!

“A woman is just a woman — nothing more than this,” Jiao Cha sneered coldly, thrusting both arms forward and launching a volley of scales toward Ziqing, sharp as blades, aimed ruthlessly straight at her abdomen!

Ziqing immediately dodged backward — but that very retreat pushed her closer to the ring of rapidly spinning scales surrounding her.

The triumphant curve of Jiao Cha’s lips grew even wider. He meant to force Ziqing to collide with it herself. Raising his hand, he pinched a thin black scale between his index and middle fingers, taking careful aim at her heart, eyes narrowed, ready to launch it at any moment!

And yet, even now, Ziqing kept firing off wind blade after wind blade, letting each one rebound harmlessly back, seemingly still oblivious to the futility of it all!

“Stupid woman, stupid woman, stupid, stupid woman! Women really are so stupid, so stupid!”

Off in the woods to the right, Baili Weisheng was practically leaping with frustration. Furious as he was, though, his eyes never left Ziqing, both hands gripping a black flying insect in each fist, ready to act at any moment.

On the other side, that silver-haired man in purple robes stood with his brows tightly knit, all ten fingers curled and aimed at Mu Fusang, ready to loose a wind blade at any moment.

He couldn’t understand it either — the wind blades were having absolutely no effect against the Black Jiao’s scales, so why was Ziqing still sticking with the same strategy? At this rate, she really would end up toyed to death by Jiao Cha!

It wasn’t just Baili Weisheng and Xuanyuan Lige who couldn’t understand it — even Mu Fusang, watching from below all along, couldn’t make sense of it either. Judging by this, Han Ziqing didn’t seem nearly as formidable an opponent as he and Jiao Cha had assessed beforehand.

Wind blades — that seemed to be the full extent of her greatest skill!

Arrogant as Jiao Cha was, he too had been watching Ziqing’s performance closely, and finally, no longer bothering with caution, gave a cold command. “Close in!”

The moment he spoke, the rapidly spinning ring of scaled warriors suddenly halted — and before anyone could even blink, closed in at once around Ziqing, trapped at the center!

At that very same instant, Xuanyuan Lige and Baili Weisheng both rose to their feet at once — but at that very same moment, a sharp, grating “clang” rang out, like metal scraping across glass!

What was happening?

Within the closing ring of scales, dense and impenetrable, there was no sign of Ziqing at all!

Could she really have been swallowed up like that, torn apart just like that?

But then, why was there no trace of blood anywhere?

High above, surveying it all from a distance, Jiao Cha’s brow furrowed tightly, staring at the pile of Black Jiao warriors bunched together. By all rights, Han Ziqing should have been reduced to fragments by now — by all rights, the ground below should have been a mess of blood and mangled flesh.

And yet, why could he see nothing of the sort?

Suddenly!

The clustered pile of Black Jiao warriors collapsed apart with a resounding thud — already nothing more than a heap of corpses!

And amid the scattering bodies falling in disarray, a dark figure suddenly shot upward — none other than Ziqing herself!

Entirely unscathed, one hand cradling her zither, the other tucked behind her back, she came straight for the Black Jiao!

Jiao Cha stood frozen in disbelief. What he was witnessing now left him utterly caught off guard — he never would have imagined Han Ziqing could actually break free of his golden wheel formation of Black Jiao, let alone guess by what means she’d managed to shatter through the Black Jiao’s impregnable ring of scales and slaughter over a dozen of his elite Black Jiao warriors without a single survivor!

And she still held nothing but that same zither in her hand!

In that moment, Jiao Cha’s mind went completely blank, with no idea how to counter Han Ziqing at all.

Instinctively, he chose to flee — but how could Ziqing possibly give him that chance?

“You want my life? I can give it to you. Only… I wonder whether you’ll have a life left to take it with!” Ziqing sneered coldly, appearing before Jiao Cha in an instant.

Jiao Cha was no pushover either. Both hands, scales flipped fully inverted, swung out at Ziqing from left and right at once.

Ziqing suddenly went perfectly still, a cold, wicked smile curving at her lips.

Jiao Cha faltered for a split second, then, overcome with fury, indignation, and humiliation all at once, threw caution to the wind and struck twice in quick succession, both fists aimed savagely at Ziqing’s head.

In that lightning-fast instant, a single shadow flashed by, too quick for anyone to make out exactly what had happened!

All that could be heard was a startled cry from Jiao Cha, followed instantly by a spray of blood, and at the very same moment, a black thorny vine violently yanked Jiao Cha down and away from Ziqing!

Ziqing spun around sharply, narrowing her eyes at Mu Fusang, who had just intervened — one hand cradling her zither, the other gripping a dagger.

That dagger, catching the sunlight, gleamed even more brilliantly, more radiantly, than any Black Jiao scale on the battlefield!

That dagger was none other than Flowing Light — the very one Jun Beiyue had given her!

Back on the cliffs of the Innocent Ravine, this very dagger had once deflected Xuanyuan Lige’s wind blade — and deflected it back with doubled force at that.

The very moment Ziqing’s first wind blade had been deflected off the Black Jiao’s scales, she’d immediately thought of Flowing Light, the blade she’d always been reluctant to use.

This was the true unbreakable weapon. Jun Beiyue had once joked that this very dagger could pierce straight through his own heart — so what couldn’t it pierce?

Just now, she’d merely feigned helplessness, letting Jiao Cha grow complacent and careless!

What Jun Beiyue had said as a joke had also been the plain truth — this was a weapon that could break through anything, no matter how unbreakable.

However terrifyingly hard the Black Jiao’s scaled armor was, Ziqing had gambled and won. That single slash just now had been nothing more than one sweeping arc, and with it, she’d killed dozens of them in a single stroke — a formidable weapon paired with her own formidable close-combat skill, and in the end, the result hadn’t really been so remarkable after all.

Jiao Cha, saved by Mu Fusang, had blood pouring endlessly from both arms — had Mu Fusang not intervened in time, both arms would surely have been severed clean off by now.

“It’s that — it’s that dagger!”

Jiao Cha cried out, finally understanding how Han Ziqing had managed to break through the Black Jiao’s golden wheel formation. The dagger in her hand was terrifyingly sharp — capable of cutting straight through Jiaoren scales and wounding him.

“How does it feel? If you like it, I can give you another slash,” Ziqing said coldly.

“You wretch!” Jiao Cha, humiliated beyond measure, shouted, “Mu Fusang, kill her — I’ll help you!”