The men in black moved as fast as lightning, their gleaming blades slashing forward.

The auras they emanated revealed they all had a Cultivation at or above the Qi Introduction Fourth Layer!

And further away,

the leader of the men in black erupted with the terrifying pressure of a Qi Introduction Sixth Layer Peak expert!

The terrifying pressure assaulted their very souls,

making the village Patriarchs—who were only at the Qi Introduction Third or Fourth Layer—feel as if they were suffocating!

’It’s over!’

Their hands and feet trembled, and their faces turned deathly pale.

’How could we possibly resist this kind of power?!’

"Run!"

At someone’s desperate shout,

the Patriarchs, who had been on edge for the entire journey, finally snapped.

In an instant, they scattered, fleeing in every direction.

Within the caravan,

seeing the members of the Immortal Families flee, the Mortal Martial Artists at the rear—who had come along to help as guards and handlers—also descended into panicked chaos.

The long column of people collapsed into a full-blown rout.

But at this critical moment,

DING!

A crisp Bell rang out.

An invisible ripple spread forth,

instantly enveloping the area ahead and catching all the men in black within its range.

The men in black, who had been charging forward, froze in mid-air. Their minds went blank, as if they had been brutally clubbed on the back of the head with a heavy iron rod. The Magical Power that had been in Circulation of Qi within their bodies ran rampant, and the spiritual light glowing around them violently dispersed.

Then, one by one, they tumbled out of the air and crashed haphazardly to the ground.

Even the assassins flanking from the sides and their leader—the one at the Qi Introduction Sixth Layer Peak—were caught by the Bell’s chime, their bodies frozen in place.

At that moment,

Shen Changchuan stood holding the Soul-Attracting Bell. He channeled his Magical Power into it, causing it to shimmer with a faint white light.

A single chime from the Soul-Attracting Bell had neutralized nearly all of them.

After a pause that lasted only a breath,

Shen Changchuan raised a hand, palm open, toward their leader—the strongest of the group.

In that instant,

FWOOSH FWOOSH FWOOSH!!!

A volley of crimson Fireballs shot through the air, unleashing a wave of scorching heat as they blasted toward him!

The fearsome heat was so intense it visibly distorted the air!

The assassin leader was only human, after all.

He was not some peerless prodigy, nor was he a Demon Beast like a Gale Falcon.

A peerless prodigy might have been able to endure the Soul-Attracting Bell’s Divine Soul Attack and counter.

A Gale Falcon, after suffering a blow to its Divine Soul, could still rely on its instincts as a Demon Beast to resist.

But the assassin leader clearly could not.

In the span of a single breath,

before he could even regain consciousness,

a volley of five crimson Fireballs was already bearing down on him!

BOOM BOOM BOOM!!!

The Fireballs detonated in succession.

A monstrous firestorm erupted like a tidal wave, instantly engulfing the assassin leader.

The terrifying flames not only incinerated the fallen leaves on the ground,

but even the assassins more than ten meters away were blasted by the intense heat, their hair singed!

A few breaths later,

the roaring inferno subsided, leaving behind smoldering embers on the scorched earth.

As for the assassin leader, he was now nothing more than a charred corpse.

It collapsed to the ground,

utterly lifeless.

Though it takes time to describe,

everything—from the chime of the Soul-Attracting Bell to the assassin leader being blasted to death by five Fireball Techniques—happened in the blink of an eye.

Before the fleeing village Patriarchs could even react,

Shen Changchuan didn’t pause for a moment.

With a wave of his hand,

SWISH SWISH SWISH...

Crescent-shaped, cyan Wind Blades tore through the air. They shot across dozens of meters like lightning, slicing toward the remaining assassins still frozen by the Soul-Attracting Bell.

With the wet, tearing sounds of slicing flesh,

the surrounding assassins were grievously wounded or killed outright by the briefest touch.

Blood and severed limbs flew everywhere.

In the span of just a few breaths, eight or nine assassins had been slain.

Meanwhile,

the remaining assassins, who had been stunned by the Soul-Attracting Bell, began to stir.

They opened their eyes to a gruesome scene of blood and bodies strewn across the ground!

"Agh! There’s a master here! Fall back!"

"Don’t kill me!"

"Run!"

Seeing their leader easily slain and more than half their comrades lost in an instant, the few lucky survivors were terrified out of their wits.

They immediately fought through their splitting headaches and scrambled away, practically tripping over themselves to escape.

They wished their parents had given them two more legs.

Shen Changchuan made no move to pursue them,

letting them go.

As the saying goes, a cornered beast will still fight.

Those fleeing men were at the Qi Introduction Fifth and Fourth Layers.

It wasn’t as if they were completely powerless to fight back.

If he tried to annihilate them, there was no telling if one of them, in a desperate struggle, might pull out some devastating trump card and inflict a heavy loss on him.

’Don’t pursue a desperate foe. Better to play it safe,’ Shen Changchuan thought to himself.

It might have looked easy for him to slay the Qi Introduction Sixth Layer Peak leader and then cut down more than half of the assassins.

But in truth, the credit mostly belonged to the Soul-Attracting Bell he possessed.

The surprise attack with the Soul-Attracting Bell had left his opponents stunned and defenseless for a short period.

Paired with his own instantaneous, Perfection Level Magic, he had managed to achieve such a decisive victory in just a dozen breaths.

If they had fought head-on from the start,

facing so many enemies,

even someone like Shen Changchuan, who had mastered numerous Perfection Level Magic skills, would have had to avoid a direct confrontation.

On this point,

Shen Changchuan had a very clear understanding of his own abilities.

Besides,

that rapid series of attacks had left him with only seventy percent of his Magical Power.

’Better to be cautious.’

Shen Changchuan did not pursue.

The remaining assassins soon vanished into the forest.

The area instantly fell quiet,

leaving behind only the corpses scattered across the ground.

The air suddenly became still.

Behind him, in the long caravan, the Mortal Martial Artists who had panicked during the ambush now stared blankly at the scene.

As Mortal Martial Artists, they had only come along to help with the transport.

When the assassins attacked and the members of the Immortal Families had scattered,

they had been certain they were going to die.

But they never expected that,

in the span of just a dozen breaths, the tables would be completely turned!

That young Upper Immortal had suddenly unleashed his divine power, effortlessly crushing the invaders. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

This roller-coaster-like turn of events left them speechless.

And not far away,

the village Patriarchs who had fled at the very beginning,

upon seeing Shen Changchuan deal with the attackers in short order,

all gasped in shock!

’Wasn’t that assassin leader’s aura at the Qi Introduction Sixth Layer Peak?’

’And weren’t the others at the Qi Introduction Fourth and Fifth Layers?’

’How were they defeated so quickly?!’

’This is simply unimaginable, incomprehensible!’

’Who on earth is that Shen Changchuan? How could he possess such terrifying strength?!’

’Leaping two whole layers of Cultivation Realm to effortlessly slay his foe.’

’Does that mean... the one who personally killed the He Mountain Four Fierce was none other than this young Shen Family disciple right in front of us?!’

However,

soon they had no time to dwell on such thoughts.

Because,

they had realized something.

When the battle had broken out,

they had run away!

They had abandoned the young man from the Shen Family and fled.

Now, they were still in the middle of their retreat,

though their feet had come to an abrupt halt.

At this moment, they didn’t know whether to keep running or turn back.

They looked at each other,

the air of awkwardness

palpable.