Brothers, charge

The newcomer wore a robe of azure, emanating an edge so sharp it seemed capable of severing all things. He was none other than Ye Guying, the Swordhowl Peak Master.

His gaze swept over the two men, and his brow lifted almost imperceptibly.

“A mid-stage Saint King?”

Ye Guying’s voice rang out.

“Senior Brother Shi, this gift of yours truly is not bad. When the Sect Master sent word, I had not even finished my sword practice, yet I was the first to arrive.”

His tone was calm, yet it carried the unmistakable thrill of encountering worthy prey. To him, the gray-robed Saint King did not seem like an enemy, but rather an excellent whetstone delivered right to his door—perfect for tempering his sword edge.

Seeing that only Ye Guying had emerged, the gray-robed Saint King felt somewhat relieved. That relief was quickly followed by the indignation of being toyed with.

He carefully sensed Ye Guying’s aura and confirmed that he was merely at the late stage of the Saint Realm.

He let out a cold sneer. “I thought you had some extraordinary trump card hidden away. So it is only a late-stage Saint Realm sword cultivator.”

“Today, I shall let you understand just what an insurmountable chasm lies between a Saint and a Saint King!”

The moment his words fell, an incomparably condensed gray finger-light shot forth. It seemed to devour all light, moving soundlessly and faster than thought as it stabbed toward Ye Guying’s glabella!

This strike was born of genuine fury, containing true Saint King laws. It was far beyond the earlier probing attack against the spatial barrier.

Ye Guying’s pupils contracted slightly. At the very last instant, the ancient sword in his arms—still sheathed—lifted by a single inch.

An utterly sharp sword intent, as though capable of slicing open space itself, collided head-on within that tiny distance against the heavy, decaying gray Saint King law. The two forces annihilated one another!

“Screech…”

The void between them was torn apart by the clash of those two extreme powers, splitting into several fine black cracks!

Ye Guying did not move, but the ground beneath his feet silently crumbled into dust. The ancient sword in his arms gave off a deep hum.

The gray-robed Saint King, however, swayed slightly, astonishment flashing through his eyes.

Though he had not used his full strength in that strike, it should still have been enough to severely wound—or even kill—an ordinary peak-stage Saint!

Yet this sword cultivator had blocked it using nothing more than sword intent and a sword that had not even left its sheath?!

“Good! What an excellent sword cultivator! I truly underestimated you! But if you think this is enough to keep me here, you are still dreaming!”

“Indeed, this is somewhat troublesome,” Ye Guying said slowly.

At the instant his words fell, several powerful and familiar Saint Realm auras were rushing toward them from afar.

Facing the Saint King’s mockery, Ye Guying’s expression remained unchanged.

“If one of me is not enough…”

He paused, then said slowly beneath the puzzled gazes of the other two:

“Then we’ll bring a few more.”

“Whoosh!” “Whoosh!”

Before his words had fully faded, the void to the left rippled. A middle-aged man in a long robe patterned with pill inscriptions appeared silently. He possessed a gentle bearing—Li Muran, the Pill Cauldron Peak Master.

“Senior Brother Ye, your assessment of ‘somewhat troublesome’ has made me quite eager.”

Li Muran smiled, but his eyes swept over the gray-robed Saint as though he were a rare and precious medicinal ingredient.

Almost at the same time, a breeze stirred to the right, and a figure seemed to materialize from thin air—the Cloudflight Peak Master.

Shortly afterward, two more figures appeared behind them: the masters of Mountguard Peak and Sunsetglow Peak.

The gray-robed Saint King’s expression finally changed completely.

Another four Saints! And judging by their auras, none of them had only recently entered this realm. Every one of them gave him a faint sense of danger.

There was definitely something wrong with the Green Mystics Sect!

Before he could react—

“Boom!” “Boom!” “Boom!” “Boom!”...

One overwhelmingly powerful Saintly aura after another erupted without warning from every direction, like dormant volcanoes bursting into life!

Figures emerged one after another: white-haired elders with wise eyes; excited middle-aged men eager for battle; broad, steady men with deep, restrained auras...

One... five... ten... twenty...

A full forty-three!

Including the six peak masters who had appeared first—Shi Wanshan, Ye Guying, and the others—there were forty-eight figures in total, each radiating immense Saintly might.

Like a net cast across heaven and earth, they surrounded the two men layer upon layer, leaving no path of escape!

Forty-eight Saints!

Battle intent blazed in their eyes. Like a pack of wolves that had gone hungry for far too long, they stared at the two intruders as though they were chunks of fat that had wandered into their territory.

The entire sealed space was flooded and compressed by the auras of those forty-eight Saints. The air had grown as thick as mercury, and even spiritual energy was nearly frozen solid!

“No... Impossible. Impossible—!!!”

The purple-robed Saint’s legs gave way beneath him. He had completely panicked.

“Xuan Province is nothing but a tiny backwater! The Green Mystics Sect is merely a bottom-tier sect—how can it possibly have so many Saints?!

Yun Canghai personally told me that the strongest person in your Green Mystics Sect was only at the Celestial Being Realm!”

“Who exactly are you people, hiding yourselves within such a puny sect as the Green Mystics Sect?!”

“Who are we?”

Shi Wanshan dug at his ear and flashed a wide grin.

“We’re just ordinary peak masters and elders of the Green Mystics Sect.”

“As for why we’re Saints...” He shrugged. “Maybe we worked a little harder than most, and happened to have decent luck?”

“Bullshit!” The purple-robed Saint’s mentality utterly collapsed, and he blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

“Ordinary peak masters and elders? All Saints? Who the hell are you trying to fool?!”

“Yun Canghai said it himself! He said the highest cultivation level was only the Celestial Being Realm—the Celestial Being Realm!!!”

He repeated the intelligence in despair, as if invoking it again and again could somehow deny the reality before his eyes—a reality that had overturned everything he knew.

An amiable-looking elder in azure robes standing at the outer perimeter stroked his beard and smiled gently.

“As for Pavilion Master Yun... you can listen to what he says, but how can you possibly believe all of it?”

“Pfft—!”

The purple-robed Saint, overcome by fury and shock, spat out a mouthful of blood. His aura instantly weakened.

He stared at the forty-eight unmistakably real Saintly auras surrounding him. The vast Saintly might they exuded—some profound and mighty, some razor-sharp, some ethereal, some heavy and immovable—could not possibly be faked!

Dazed, he muttered to himself, his body trembling like a sieve beneath the crushing weight of his terror and disbelief.

“Tiny Xuan Province... a land no bigger than the palm of one’s hand. My Grand Mysterious Sacred Land rules dozens of provinces across the Eastern Region, with boundless territory and countless subordinate factions. After tens of thousands of years of accumulation, we have no more than a hundred Saints in total, both known and hidden—and they remain in seclusion year-round.”

“This is just the lowest-ranking sect in some tiny province! How could it possibly have so many Saints?! Their numbers are practically on par with a holy land’s reserve of Saints!”

“Yun Canghai misled me! The Myriad Law Pavilion misled me! What kind of monster is this Azure Profound Sect?!”

At that moment, the absurd and terrifying sight before him shattered his entire worldview into dust.

He hated Shi Wanshan—but even more than that, he hated Yun Canghai of the Myriad Law Pavilion, who had given him such fatally incorrect intelligence!

The gray-robed Saint King could no longer maintain his composure, either.

Fine beads of sweat covered his forehead, and his body trembled uncontrollably.

Even if most of the dozens before him were only early- or mid-stage Saints, their combined strength—together with the several peak masters who were clearly late-stage Saints...

He was a mid-stage Saint King, yet even he felt his scalp go numb as a chill shot straight up his spine!

This was a dead end! A true, hopeless predicament with no chance of survival!

“Before absolute strength, all tricks are futile!”

The words now thundered through his mind like the most vicious mockery.

Looking at the excited gazes around him, as though they were staring at prey, his throat went dry. The countless regrets in his heart ultimately condensed into a single, despairing sigh:

“Damn it... Why did I have to covet that battle armor? I never should have waded into this mess!”

Just then, a voice brimming with barely restrained excitement rang out from somewhere, instantly igniting the entire scene:

“Brothers!”

“We’ve waited so long—the punching bags have finally delivered themselves to our door!”

“What are we waiting for?”

“Get them!!!”

“BOOM!!!”

Before the voice had even faded, the forty-eight Saint peak masters and elders of the Azure Profound Sect, who had long been unable to hold themselves back, surged forward like a burst dam—or a pack of sharks catching the scent of blood—radiating overwhelming battle intent.

From every direction, they pounced upon the two lone figures at the center of the formation, their faces ashen with despair!

A brutal, utterly one-sided...

Saint-level beatdown had begun.

I’ve finally finished today’s three chapters. I checked, and I still owe everyone two more. I’ll do my best and see if I can get them written today.