Chapter 66: Nine Cloud Piercing Arrows
"Senior Brother Lin Yi…you…you…"
With their own eyes, the four of them watched him easily take care of all the Blood Saber Sect disciples that they had fought with much difficulty. They were completely shocked and dumbfounded by his prowess, only managing to blurt out three words after a long time: "That's so incredible!"
The four of them had been placed in a miserable state when they were attacked by the Blood Saber Sect disciples. However, Lin Yi had taken care of all those disciples with great ease, as if he was slaughtering mere chickens and dogs. The Blood Saber Sect disciples were nothing but small fry when facing Lin Yi! On the other hand, they had suffered numerous wounds all over their bodies fighting these small fry.
With a simple comparison, the four of them were disheartened. What difference was there between them and the Blood Saber Sect disciples? They were all small fry.
"Senior Brother Lin Yi, I finally understand that demonic cult members are not as easy to deal with as we thought. All of them have rich fighting experience and have gone through multiple battles of life and death. They are certainly not weak and defenseless vermin which can be easily taken care of as the rumors say."
The first person among them to recover was the youngest Little Nun Yiqian. After experiencing a battle of life and death, she had grown much, and her formerly childish-looking face had become much more mature.
"Senior Brother Lin Yi, I discovered that my sword art is still far from achieving mastery, and there's plenty of room for improvement. If not for the battle of life and death I just experienced, I might not have realized that ever." The little nun said calmly before smiling happily at Lin Yi: "Senior Brother Lin Yi, let's look for more demonic cult members to fight with. I feel that fighting with my life on the line will allow me to improve much faster."
Lin Yi looked at the little nun in surprise. He truly never expected the fragile looking little nun to possess such a great amount of mental fortitude.
Any other normal girl, even if she was a female hero of Jianghu, would surely require a much longer period of recovery to regain a normal mental state after experiencing a battle of life and death for the first time.
Little Nun Yiqian actually managed to recover immediately and even realized that battles of life and death were greatly beneficial for improving one's skills.
Looking at the bloodstains all over her white garb resembling plum blossoms and the slightly blackened bloodstains on her young and tender face, a heroic aura emanated from her.
This little nun cannot be underestimated, and she is someone worth nurturing, thought Lin Yi.
"That's right, Senior Brother Lin Yi. Fighting intense battles with demonic cult members will allow us to improve our skills immensely. Just after one battle, I have already felt a huge difference in my sword art. My senior brothers who left the sect before me were right, sword arts are arts of killing and every move is used for killing, not for looking good. I used to look down on that explanation, thinking that sword arts could only be considered high quality if they looked good, and that simple and ordinary-looking moves were bad. Today, I have thoroughly realized how wrong I was all along." Yun Taizi added.
Seeing the little nun recover so quickly, the other three also forced themselves to put on a strong front even though they were still feeling terrible.
In fact, they all greatly desired to persuade everyone to return to the city to get a good rest. But in front of the little nun who was doing much better than them, they were too embarrassed to say it. Instead, they could only agree with her suggestion to look for more demonic cult members immediately.
As Lin Yi looked at their contradicting behavior, he found it funny.
For their sake, Lin Yi declined: "There's no need to continue any further since the four of you are already injured. Let's go back to the city and get your wounds treated first."
Yun Taizi, Lu Buping, and Mo Yu revealed a grateful look, and only the little nun looked gloomy and unhappy.
Lin Yi smiled and said to the little nun: "Junior Sister Yiqian, there's no need to put your life on the line to improve your skills. Remember, haste makes waste. You should go back and properly digest what you learned from the battle today. Besides, your Senior Brother has already run out of arrows, and I need to go back to replenish them."
The little nun glanced at the quiver on Lin Yi's back and only saw three violet arrows. Lin Yi indeed needed to replenish his arrows. Thus she could only reluctantly nod her head and agree to return.
Lin Yi mounted his horse with a smile and waved to the rest: "Let's return."
As the other four mounted their horses, Lu Buping suddenly thought of something and asked curiously: "Oh right, Senior Brother Lin Yi, what happened to Blood Raiment Prince? How did you get away from him?"
As these words were said, Yiqian, Yun Taizi, and Mo Yu all looked curiously at Lin Yi. They also wondered where the terrifying Blood Raiment Prince went.
Even if Senior Brother Lin Yi managed to shake him off somehow, he could still come back to where the Blood Saber Sect disciples were. However, Senior Brother Lin Yi looked relaxed and calm, seemingly not bothered at all whether Blood Raiment Prince would come back to this place. What was going on? The four of them were filled with curiosity.
As he heard the questions, Lin Yi said indifferently: "I did not shake him off."
The four of them grew tense.
"He has been slain by me." Lin Yi continued his reply calmly.
"Ah!"
They gasped in surprise and looked at Lin Yi in shock.
This news was even more shocking than witnessing Lin Yi kill the nine Blood Saber Sect disciples with ease.
"Did I hear wrongly? Blood Raiment Prince has been slain…slain by Senior Brother Lin Yi?
"Isn't this too incredible?"
"I can't believe that the notorious top genius of Blood Saber Sect was killed just like that!"
"Senior Brother Lin Yi, we know how strong you are, but aren't you too strong? Even Blood Raiment Prince has been slain by you, who else in the demonic cults can still be a match for you?"
As they cried out in disbelief, the expressions on their faces were more and more exaggerated.
The most exaggerated one had to be Songshan's Lu Buping. He was the one among the four of them who knew Blood Raiment Prince best.
Blood Raiment Prince was considered a great killer devil in the hunting grounds outside Lanzhou City.
How many talents from the righteous sects had fallen to his blood saber?
How many others hated and feared him?
It could be said that when they realized that they encountered Blood Raiment Prince earlier on, Lu Buping's heart had nearly jumped out and he fell into despair thinking that he was going to die here.
But such a prominent devil had been slain!
Senior Brother Lin Yi was too scary!
They were shocked, but they did not doubt that Blood Raiment Prince was indeed killed. There was no reason to suspect Senior Brother Lin Yi of telling a lie.
Besides, they also recalled that the Senior Brother Lin Yi smiling gently before them was not as kind-hearted as he looked.
Deadly Celestial Sword. That was his nickname in Jianghu.
Would a kind-hearted person receive a title that was full of killing intent?
Yiqian looked at Lin Yi's back. Sitting on the white horse in his white attire, he appeared graceful and extraordinary. The light killing aura remaining from the bloody battle added to his charm, and she was dazed for a moment staring at him.
Only when she was lagging behind by a sizeable distance did she come to her senses with a blush and hurriedly urged her horse to close the distance. Her fair and tender face combined with some blackened blood spots and the faint red blush of her cheeks made her look cute in a sinister way.
All of a sudden, there was a shrill cry coming from the direction of Lanzhou city, followed by an explosion of thick red smoke in the sky.
An arrow could be seen piercing through the sky, leaving a bright red trajectory where it passed.
Nine such arrows were fired, and nine bright red paths lingered in the skies above Lanzhou City for a period of time.
It's a Cloud Piercing Arrow, Nine Cloud Piercing Arrows signifies that something great has occurred in Lanzhou City!" Yiqian cried out as she saw what happened.
Lu Buping, Yun Taizi, and Mo Yu all changed into a solemn expression and gasped: "Looking at this situation, there must be great numbers of demonic cult members attacking. We need to return immediately! It is extremely unsafe outside the city now!"
Even the usually nonchalant Lin Yi looked serious.
Upon seeing a Cloud Piercing Arrow, a great army would come in response.
This was not a joke but a fact. Cloud Piercing Arrows served the sole purpose of declaring emergencies. Firing such arrows signified that a swift armed response was required.
One arrow was sufficient to put people on the alert.
Three arrows demanded a serious approach to whatever was happening.
Nine arrows represented the direst of emergencies, and the entire city was now on maximum alert.
"Could it be that the demonic cults are starting to move?" Lin Yi frowned and shook his head.
He remembered that in the game, the large-scale invasion of the demonic cults and the era of chaos in Jianghu had started from a great ambush conducted by the demonic cults on the Five Mountain Sword Sects. It had nothing to do with Lanzhou City.
There was still some time before the ambush happened, so what was happening right now? Lin Yi had no answer.
However, he guessed that this was definitely a sinister plot devised by the demonic cults. It was also easy to deduce who were the targets of the plot.
Lanzhou had the highest concentration of talents from the righteous faction. In fact, if not for the unique location of Lanzhou City, such that it became the hunting grounds of talents from both factions, it wouldn't have become an important location, not to mention attracting the attention of the demonic cults.
Wars in Great Jianghu were not about taking over cities, they were about attacking and defending sect territories and assets. All the branches and headquarters of each sect were the targets in such wars.
However, since there were no such locations in Lanzhou City, the demonic cults' plot must be targetting all the talents of the righteous faction currently stationed in Lanzhou City.
As for the scale of this plot, Lin Yi could not easily determine it without further information.
The five of them immediately rushed back to Lanzhou City at the fastest speed possible.
……
In the direction of the Western Region a hundred li away from Lanzhou City, there was a valley.
Flags displaying the logos of various demonic cults and sects were placed everywhere in this location.
If someone from the righteous faction saw them, they would realize that all the sects stationed in this valley were the most prominent sects among the demonic cults.
Ming Cult, Mount White Camel Villa, Changle Sect, Five Poisons Cult, Xingxiu Sect, Blood Saber Sect…