Chapter 423: Surrounded and Slain

At those words, the assembled Heaven-Human experts of the Yellow Spring Tribe all nodded, preparing to strike with thunderous force and bring the blind man down once and for all.

"Wait."

But just then, a young voice suddenly came from the far end of the street, interrupting the Yellow Spring guardian and his assembled Heaven-Human experts.

"Before you take his life, this young master would like to know who sent him to kill me."

At those words, the middle-aged man hovering in the air turned to look. There, at the end of the street, an opulent palanquin carried by eight bearers had appeared.

"Young Master, this place is dangerous. Should anything happen to you, we would be unable to account for it to the Holy Lord."

The middle-aged man called out in warning, but the magnificent palanquin showed no sign of stopping at all, continuing its unhurried approach toward the guesthouse.

At this point, the blind man slowly turned his head to face the direction from which the palanquin was approaching, and spoke evenly, "So you must be Young Master Jinchuan."

"That I am."

The young voice came from within the palanquin, "If you can tell this young master who sent you, I will promise to leave your body whole."

At those words, the blind man gave a small shake of his head, "There's no need for that. But if you want to know who's after your life, I can tell you."

At this point, the middle-aged man hovering in the air looked down, his eyes fixed hard on the blind man below, killing intent impossible to suppress.

The man's target was Young Master Jinchuan, yet his own son had been killed for no reason at all in the process, something he found completely unbearable.

"Strike."

The middle-aged man let out a sudden roar, his figure vanishing from the air. The crescent-moon blade in his hand erupted with blinding edge, transforming into a ten-zhang sky-splitting blade shadow that cut straight down at the blind man below.

Seeing this, the assembled Heaven-Human experts of the Yellow Spring Tribe exchanged a glance, hesitated only briefly, and then struck together alongside the middle-aged man.

In an instant, the true qi of heaven and earth throughout the surrounding sky churned and boiled, a terrifying martial killing intent pressing down like a collapsing mountain.

The street beneath the blind man caved in and split apart in every direction, yet the blind man, facing the combined assault of a Yellow Spring guardian and over a dozen Heaven-Human experts alone, still faced only toward the direction of the magnificent palanquin and asked at an unhurried pace, "Do you remember the He family tavern in Bianjiang City, half a year ago?"

The moment those words fell, the blind man, sunk into the collapsed crater, suddenly shot upward from the ground.

With a sweep of the bamboo staff in his hand, a hazy, shadowy blade light, deceptively slow yet impossibly fast, cut upward and severed the ten-zhang curtain of blade light the middle-aged man had brought crashing down.

The seal of martial pressure laid down by over a dozen Heaven-Human experts was cut through, leaving a breach, and in the next instant the blind man's figure vanished entirely from everyone's sight.

At the sight, the assembled Yellow Spring Tribe experts, the middle-aged man included, all furrowed their brows and immediately bound the entire surrounding space with their true qi, searching desperately for the blind man's position.

At the same time, Young Master Jinchuan, who had been lounging lazily within the eight-bearer palanquin, suddenly sat up straight.

He could feel a thread of killing intent that sent chills through his entire body, locked onto him without fail.

At that moment, he felt as though he were being watched by the most venomous of serpents, as though death could claim him at any moment.

"The He family tavern?"

Young Master Jinchuan strained to recall the name the blind man had spoken, and very quickly something came back to him.

Half a year ago, he had indeed visited Bianjiang City, and he remembered visiting a tavern that had been quite well known locally at the time.

The tavern's wine had lived up to its reputation, but more memorably, the tavern owner's daughter had been remarkably beautiful, something that stuck vividly in his mind even now.

With that thought, Young Master Jinchuan, still within the palanquin, seemed to grasp something, "So you're avenging that tavern."

He shook his head, his eyes scanning the surroundings through the palanquin's curtains, "But if I remember correctly, I killed everyone in that tavern. There shouldn't have been any survivors."

"How do you know about this? And who sent you to kill me?"

The moment Young Master Jinchuan's question left his mouth, the blind man's figure reappeared from the air.

"There he is."

The middle-aged man and the assembled Yellow Spring experts immediately sensed the blind man's location and without the slightest hesitation struck toward him.

But just then, one of the Yellow Spring Tribe's Heaven-Human experts suddenly changed expression sharply, instinctively looking down to find a blood-soaked bamboo staff protruding from his left chest, having pierced clean through his heart's meridians.

Without him sensing it in the slightest, the blind man had somehow shifted in an instant and appeared right behind him.

"You're courting death."

At the sight, the middle-aged man's fury became uncontainable.

The blind man, his eyes still completely lifeless, simply pulled the bamboo staff back, letting the dying expert's body fall from the air. He then turned to face the direction of the eight-bearer palanquin and gave a nod, "Good. Since you've admitted it, that means I have the right person."

But before the blind man's words had fully settled, the middle-aged man's blade flashed through the air like lightning and cut him cleanly in two.

Yet the middle-aged man's expression remained deeply grim. The blind man's slain body slowly dissolved in the air, clearly nothing more than a phantom double.

At that moment, another panicked cry rang out from one of the Yellow Spring experts. Everyone snapped their heads around to see the blind man once again pulling his bamboo staff from behind another expert's back.

Yet another expert had fallen to the blind man's hand.

"Protect the Young Master, deploy the Nine Star Yellow Spring Formation."

The middle-aged man shouted in a heavy voice. Having witnessed the blind man's ghostly, untraceable method of killing, he no longer dared underestimate him in the slightest, immediately ordering the assembled martial experts to gather together and deploy a formation, to prevent themselves from being picked off one by one.

At those words, the assembled Yellow Spring experts dared waste no further time, immediately shifting in an instant to surround the airspace where the eight-bearer palanquin carrying Young Master Jinchuan sat.

In an instant, surging true qi rose from within every one of their bodies, true qi transforming into elemental essence and condensing into stars blazing like miniature suns.

The stars connected to one another, forming within the void great rivers of churning yellow spring energy that flowed end to end, winding in a nine-fold loop, encompassing the entire surrounding void within them and sealing it as solidly as iron.

The middle-aged man stood atop his crescent-moon blade, hovering above the Nine Star Yellow Spring Formation, sweeping his eyes around in every direction, searching for the blind man's vanished figure.

"Looking for me?"

Suddenly, the blind man's voice sounded right at the middle-aged man's ear.

The middle-aged man immediately reached backward with a reverse strike, true qi surging into his palm in an instant, erupting with terrifying force that shook the void with a resounding boom.

Even so, his palm was pierced clean through by a bamboo staff reaching out from behind him.