Ge Goufei's eyes were ruined.
Blinded and shrieking, he rolled on the ground like a wounded beast, sanity completely shattered. His commands dissolved into incoherent howls.
"Why are you still guarding those women and children?!" he screamed.
"Come here! All of you—come here and kill this bastard! Kill him!"
The last dozen bandits stationed around the hostages hesitated only a heartbeat. Seeing their leader writhing in agony, they drew their blades and charged toward Li Daoxuan.
In an instant, Li Daoxuan was attacked from the front and rear at once.
Blades flashed.
Steel whistled.
He leapt, twisted, staggered—dodging some strikes, absorbing others.
Dual-thread operation.
Now.
A blade slammed into his side with a dull thwack. Li Daoxuan grunted, stabbed backward with his sword—
—and simultaneously switched consciousness.
"Move. Now."
The Puppet Dao Xuan Tianzun whispered urgently among the women and children.
His awareness snapped back.
Thwack! Another strike. A chunk of silicone skin was sliced away.
He countered with a sweeping slash—
—and switched again.
"Hide. Inside a house."
Back again.
Li Daoxuan lunged forward, vaulting over a dry well in a single stride—
—and switched threads once more.
"The stone house."
That was enough.
The women finally understood.
Their eyes snapped toward the same place at once.
The village chief's house.
Houxia Village's wealthiest household—built of stone, not mud or wood. Thick walls. Narrow entrances. The strongest structure in the entire village.
The sturdiest woman sprang to her feet and ran.
The others followed, grabbing their children, dragging the weak, sprinting with everything they had left.
A bandit guarding the hostages spun around in confusion.
"Wait—what?! Why are they running? Weren't their legs bound?!"
One bandit turned to chase—
And Li Daoxuan roared.
"HEY!"
He lowered his shoulder and charged.
The bandit never even had time to scream. Li Daoxuan slammed into his back like a charging bull.
Boom!
Blood sprayed as the man flew forward and crashed into the dirt, unmoving.
The women and children scrambled into the stone house just as Li Daoxuan arrived behind them.
He stopped.
No more running.
He planted his feet at the doorway, arms spreading slightly—blocking the entrance alone.
Only then did the bandits finally understand.
All that frantic running.
All those loops around the village.
He had never been fleeing.
He had been pulling them away.
Buying time.
Now he stood there—alone at the door.
One man.
One pass.
"Damn it… isn't he too arrogant?"
"What kind of stupid tactic is this?"
"Does he really think one man can stop all of us?"
"Kill him!"
This time, they discarded their sabers.
They picked up spears.
Long spears—meant for formation fighting.
The bandits spread out, forming a rough semicircle before him.
Then—
"Heave!"
Dozens of spears thrust forward at once.
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
Li Daoxuan was skewered.
He didn't dodge.
He didn't retreat.
Spears punched into his body from every direction, his frame riddled with holes.
And yet—
He stood.
Seizing the moment when the spear shafts were fully extended, he swung his sword.
Crack! Crack!
Spear shafts snapped.
One after another.
The bandits froze.
"I stabbed him—I felt it sink in!"
"I hit bone!"
"Why is his bone so hard?!"
Li Daoxuan smiled faintly.
He said nothing.
He grabbed the broken spear shafts embedded in his body and calmly pulled them out, tossing them back into the stone house.
Inside, several women picked them up instinctively, gripping the broken weapons with trembling hands.
Fear.
Awe.
And something dangerously close to excitement.
That lone figure at the doorway—riddled with wounds, unmoving, unyielding—
Handsome.
Terrifyingly handsome.
Suspension bridge effect: activated.
To several young women in Houjia Village, Li Daoxuan became—at that moment—the greatest man in the world.
"Kill him!"
"Why won't he die?!"
"Clang!"
A blade slashed across Li Daoxuan's arm, tearing away a massive strip of flesh.
Something silver gleamed beneath.
"…Why does it look like metal?"
"…Iron?"
The bandits stared.
Under torn flesh, a metallic arm structure was exposed—cold, unyielding, unmistakably inhuman.
Shock piled upon shock.
Li Daoxuan chuckled lightly.
"Oh, that?" he said casually.
"When I was young, roaming the jianghu, I lost an arm. Had a prosthetic made. Are you afraid of that?"
The bandits' minds blanked.
"What… is he?"
"Charge! Hack him to death!"
They surged again.
Then someone shouted—
"The windows! Go through the windows! Kill the women!"
Several bandits rushed the stone house windows.
Too late.
Inside, the women had already barricaded everything—cabinets, tables, beds, even a heavy stone mill pushed into place.
Blades hacked uselessly at wooden frames.
No breakthrough.
No screams.
Outside the village—
Zijing Liang received urgent news.
"Boss! Zhang Fengyi is moving! She's leading her troops straight toward Houjia Village!"
Zijing Liang laughed aloud.
"Excellent! Order the army to move. Let her enter first. Once Ge Goufei's men engage her, we close the net."
He sneered.
"She has hostages to worry about. She won't break free quickly."
The bandit army began to shift.
Zhang Fengyi was already running at full speed.
A thousand White Pole Soldiers sprinted like madmen, armor clattering, spears clenched tight.
Two li.
Barely ten minutes—pushed to their absolute limit.
"We're here!"
"That's Houjia Village!"
Zhang Fengyi's voice trembled.
"Hurry! Hurry!"
Her phoenix eyes brimmed with tears.
He's held out too long…
I'm afraid…
Then she charged into the village.
And froze.
Li Daoxuan was still standing.
At the doorway.
But he barely looked human anymore.
Silicone skin shredded.
Iron arm exposed.
Metal plating visible across chest and legs.
Half man.
Half machine.
The bandits surrounding him trembled, faces pale, eyes filled with terror—as if trapped fighting a monster.
And yet, they could not retreat.
They were already too deep.