Life as a Rogue Cultivator

Chapter 324: The Few Against the Many

He spent another half month shoring things up on Nanjian Island. By then, the Three-Mystery Sword had been fully nurtured and refined. He could summon it at will and dismiss it just as easily, exactly as it should be. Liu Xiaolou was pleased with the result, with one small exception. His flying sword always shot out from down below, which was a lot less stylish than having it emerge from behind the head, over the crown, or even straight from the mouth like others did.Over the course of that month and a half, the sea threw plenty his way. One major storm, five torrential downpours, and nine bouts of towering waves. He used every one of them to temper his sword intent. Now, when he unleashed the Three-Mystery Sword, it carried an extra layer of relentless, never-ending toughness... like it could keep going forever. That was the real beauty of cultivating the Yellow Dragon Sword Art amid roaring winds and crashing seas.

Of course, all of that was secondary. What really mattered was that the flying sword technique had worked. From here on out, it was all about nurturing it, again and again, letting the bond with his life-bound flying sword help condense the true qi in his Qi Sea. With luck, that would push him toward the middle stage of Foundation Establishment.

During this whole stretch, Lin Twin Fish never once showed up. No one from the Southern Sea Sword Sect came to the island either. There were not even any intruders. At last, Liu Xiaolou decided it was time to leave Nanjian Island and start the journey home.

He had been away for more than half a year already. It was time to return to Wulong Mountain.

He dragged the fishing boat back into the water, climbed aboard, and headed out to sea. With a flick of his hand, he sent the Three-Mystery Sword flying and had it transform into a pair of “oars.” With a twist of his sword control technique, he spun it hard, churning the water like a propeller. The small boat curved around Nanjian Island, weaving nimbly through the Ten Thousand Mountains archipelago, and pulled up to shore just before dusk.

He pulled the boat back to where it had originally been moored and left a silver ingot under the canvas awning, roughly ten taels or so, as payment for a month and a half of use. Since advancing in cultivation had left him a bit better off, he figured it was time to start acting like the high-level cultivator he was supposed to be.

He then pressed on through the night and the following day, covering more than two hundred li. By the time darkness fell again, he reached a river. Both banks were lush and overgrown, thick with banyan trees. One after another, their branches hung down and tangled together, broad leaves layered several deep. In the gloom, you couldn't see what lay beyond.

The river ran fast and fierce, but it wasn’t all that wide. Maybe twenty zhang at most. Crossing it would’ve been child’s play for him. Yet Liu Xiaolou lingered on the bank for a long while, staring at the jagged moonlight glittering on the churning water, unable to bring himself to take that step forward.

He slipped into the canopy of one of the massive banyans, nestling deep among the thick leaves and tangled branches, and quietly watched everything on the far bank. It was well past midnight. Even with a bright moon hanging in the sky, there was no obvious sign of danger. Still, an inexplicable unease gnawed at his heart, like a warning he couldn’t quite name. This was the sharp intuition that had come with reaching Foundation Establishment, when his body and spirit began resonating with the Dao of Heaven.

He extended his spiritual sense, sweeping the area within ten zhang. There was no response at all. He then slipped several zhang to the left and sent his spiritual sense out again.

After repeating this process several times, he finally stopped at a bend in the river. His spiritual sense brushed the edge of an area ten zhang ahead and to the right. Three people were hiding in the woods. They were clearly up to no good.

Liu Xiaolou let out a silent, cold laugh. So this is where you were lying in wait. No idea which band of thugs you belong to, but you dare try to rob me? You must have a death wish.

Since they had been detected by his spiritual sense but had no awareness of him in return, there was a ninety percent chance they were not Foundation Establishment cultivators. And even if they were, they would be nowhere near his level.

He scanned his surroundings, then made up his mind. He'd change direction and strike from an unexpected angle.

To his right stood a towering banyan with massive leaves, its branches so thick and heavy that most of them hung out over the river... the perfect spot to make his move.

He drifted down like a feather onto the branches, not rustling a single twig or startling a single bird. Liu Xiaolou was quite pleased with his footwork.

From this perch, he could make out three figures down below, half-hidden in a thick cluster of branches. They were less than six or seven zhang away now. The more Liu Xiaolou studied them, the more certain he became. Not a single one of these guys had reached Foundation Establishment.

The Mysterious True Cord slid out from his wrist, while his right hand hovered over the disk. As for the flying sword he had only recently mastered, there was no need to use it. Against a few petty Qi Refinement thieves, why bother with a flying sword at all?

With a thought, the Cord shot forward like a living snake, threading through the gaps in the branches. In an instant, it looped around the person on the left. The man had no chance to resist and tumbled down from the tree.

At the exact same moment, Liu Xiaolou flicked the Formation Disk out of his hand. It shot forward and slammed into the trunk of the tree the other two were hiding in. The two remaining thieves were instantly trapped inside the formation.

Liu Xiaolou shot forward, slamming into the bandit bound by the Mysterious True Cord and sealing his Qi Sea.

To figure out what the hell this bastard was plotting and why he’d set up an ambush right here, Liu Xiaolou knew he had to start with the saddlebag. So he reached out to grab the pouch hanging at the man’s waist.

His fingertips hadn’t even grazed it when a violent jolt of alarm slammed into him. Liu Xiaolou instantly let go of the guy, tapped lightly off the ground, and shot backward thirty feet. A pinpoint of golden light streaked straight at his face. It missed by inches, whipped around in a sharp arc, and came stabbing right back toward his head.

He summoned his Glass Shield. Waves of shimmering light washed down and stopped the golden streak cold. Only then did Liu Xiaolou get a clear look at what had come for his throat. It was a goddamn Judge’s Pen.

Almost at the same time, he caught another flash of gold in the corner of his eye, flying in from farther away. A second Judge’s Pen.

There was no doubt about it. Someone at the Foundation Establishment stage was hiding in the distance. The three Qi Refinement cultivators in front of him were nothing more than bait.

These Judge’s Pens looked familiar. Something clicked in Liu Xiaolou’s mind, and he remembered Feng Yuanfa, the Qingyuan Sect Foundation Establishment cultivator he and Feilongzi had taken down together not long ago.

The enemy came rushing in right behind the Judge’s Pen. Liu Xiaolou flicked his eyes over and, sure enough, it was Feng Yuanfa.

Liu Xiaolou let his true qi sink. With a sharp puchi that rang out like a dragon’s cry, the Three-Mystery Sword burst forth along the “dragon path” formed by the Weilu, Huiyin, and pubic bone, and slammed straight into the Judge’s Pen streaking toward him.

This was Liu Xiaolou’s first time fighting with a flying sword, and the very first clash taught him something big. A duel between flying weapons in midair was not just about smashing into each other. The real aim was to follow the opponent’s Guanyuan acupoint and force an entry into their Qi Sea. When two life-bound flying swords clashed, what they were truly fighting over was control of each other’s Qi-Sea pathways. The danger was on a whole different level from what it looked like on the surface.

The Three-Mystery Sword and the Judge’s Pen met and slid past each other in a crisscrossing clash, tearing out a harsh, ear-grating screech. In that brief instant, Liu Xiaolou faintly sensed the rhythm of his opponent’s true qi. It trembled with a subtle sweeping force, free yet commanding... like a master calligrapher, lost in the joy of pouring a lifetime of feeling onto a blank sheet of paper.

Liu Xiaolou’s Three-Mystery Sword was different. Its vibrations rolled out like a dragon’s roar, and five strands of sword light split off, like five dragon whiskers, doing everything they could to wrap around and entangle the opponent’s Judge’s Pen.

Both sides were straining to sense and decipher the other’s vibration pattern, trying to disrupt and slow the path of the enemy’s life-bound weapon so they could locate the channel to the opponent’s Qi sea.

Liu Xiaolou shook off the jitters and cracked his knuckles mentally. He was ready to go a few proper rounds with Feng Yuanfa. The guy had reached Foundation Establishment earlier than he had and was a disciple of a major sect. This was the perfect chance to weigh himself properly, to see what level he had truly reached.

Even if he lost, it honestly would not matter. He had run into four members of the Qingyuan Sect, one Foundation Establishment cultivator and three at the Qi Refinement stage. He was fighting outnumbered. Losing would be easy enough to justify, especially since he had already taken down all three of the Qi Refinement cultivators.

Those thoughts flashed through his mind in a split second. He was just about to drive the Three-Mystery Sword into a second move when a thunderous boom exploded in his ears. The roar rolled along the surface of the river, surging forward and then fading away again. Countless bursts of light shot skyward, and in the next instant, all kinds of magical weapons came flying out from every direction, from the left, the right, the front, the back, from this side of the river and the far side as well.

The magical weapons from both banks clashed furiously in the sky above the river.

The night blazed as bright as day.

Who knew how many cultivators revealed themselves, rushing toward the opposite bank.

“Kill them!”

“Wipe out the Maling bandits and rescue Liang Sheng’s mother!”

"Exterminate the Maling Bandits, rescue Mother Liang!"

“Ten spirit stones for every bandit you kill!”

“Whatever you seize is yours. The sect won’t take a cut!”

At the same time, thunderous shouts answered from the far bank.

“Charge!”

“Protect Liang Sheng’s mother! Drive off the Qingyuan raiders!”

Liu Xiaolou was stunned. How were there this many people hiding here?