Sisters? One's surname is Leng, and the other's is Dongfang..." Chen Nan muttered, watching Leng Feng's retreating figure. "Old man Dongfang is already abnormal enough, and now this cold-blooded guy has appeared..."
This battle instilled a sense of crisis in Chen Nan, making him deeply aware that there is always someone stronger than him.
"The number one among my peers before the age of sixteen, hehe, it's time to wake up from that dream! I wasted four years of my life because of Tantai Xuan, and I'm long past my chance to be number one. Besides, ten thousand years have passed, the world has changed, and things have shifted..."
The world will never lack geniuses, but even geniuses must study hard and persevere, otherwise they will only become ordinary.
Chen Nan's defeat by a slight margin has served as a wake-up call. There are countless geniuses in the world, and he had overestimated himself in the past. Cultivation is a never-ending process, and there are many highly skilled experts among his peers.
He stood there for a while to regulate his breathing, and only stood up after feeling some relief in his chest and abdomen. By then, Leng Feng had long since disappeared, and the edge of the forest was quiet.
Just as Chen Nan was about to leave, he suddenly sensed a dangerous aura; it seemed someone was approaching from the shadows. Although his internal energy had been greatly depleted, his keen senses remained as sharp as ever. The moment the person approached, he sensed an unusual fluctuation.
Without making a sound or being flustered, he picked up the long sword from the ground, and then walked forward while quickly circulating his profound energy to restore his depleted true energy.
Danger seemed to be getting closer, and Chen Nan became somewhat anxious. It was really not a good time for him to fight again.
He stopped and said, "Strange, didn't Leng Feng tell me to wait here and that he would be back soon? Why hasn't he shown up yet?" He mumbled incoherently while working hard to recover his strength.
Three people did indeed appear in the shadows, all three wearing black veils. They were observing Chen Nan from the nearby woods. Upon hearing his whisper, the three, who were about to make a move, immediately stopped, their eyes flashing with doubt.
Chen Nan stopped in an open space that was perfect for his defense, muttering to himself to confuse the three people hiding in the shadows.
After a quarter of an hour, the three people in the forest went from suspicion to anger. They realized they had been tricked; Chen Nan was merely stalling for time to recover his strength.
The three could no longer contain themselves and rushed out. One of them floated in the air while the other two ran rapidly on the ground. In the blink of an eye, they arrived in front of Chen Nan and surrounded him from three directions.
The person floating in the air, whose loose clothes could not conceal her graceful figure, was clearly a female magician with a good figure, but her face was covered by a black veil, making it difficult to see her features.
Chen Nan looked around at the three people and said, "Who are you, and why are you blocking my way?"
"Your life is here to be taken!" The female mage's voice in the air was clear, yet chilling.
The man wielding the spear shouted, "Scumbag, someone has bought your life. You're dead today!"
The man wielding the rapier turned and glared at the man holding the gun, then said to Chen Nan, "Even if you hadn't experienced a major battle just now, you might not be a match for the three of us. Now that you're severely injured, you're even less of a match for us. If you don't want to suffer before you die, you might as well throw down your longsword and give up resisting. That way, we can let you die a quick death."
Chen Nan was genuinely startled. He could sense the extraordinary cultivation levels of the three individuals; each of them had entered the first tier of the cultivation realm. If three experts of this tier were to attack him simultaneously, the situation would be extremely dire.
"I am already a dead man in your eyes. Can you tell me who sent you to kill me?" Judging from their voices, the three men were all very young, seemingly around his age.
The female mage said, "We'll tell you before you die." Then she said to the other two on the ground, "Let's attack together and kill him. We can't give him any more time to recover his strength."
The three of them moved simultaneously. The female mage chanted a spell, and magical elements quickly gathered towards her. Then, she gently waved her wand, and several wind blades slashed towards Chen Nan from the air.
The tall man wielded a spear with the ferocity of a dragon, viciously thrusting it towards Chen Nan's ribs. The slightly shorter man, wielding a slender rapier, moved with lightning speed, striking towards Chen Nan's throat like a venomous snake. Two beams of light, one green and one blue, emanated from the spear and rapier respectively, clearly indicating that the two men practiced Western martial arts.
The three attacked from three sides, all three striking with ruthless efficiency, aiming to end Chen Nan's life quickly.
Chen Nan took a deep breath and quickly shifted his position. Several wind blades struck the spot where he had been standing, leaving several terrifying deep trenches in the ground. The two bursts of battle qi also missed their mark, leaving two afterimages in the air.
Chen Nan's current strength was insufficient for a prolonged battle; if the fight continued, his life would be in danger. He gathered the little true energy he had left, preparing for a swift victory.
He leaped into the air with his long sword and slashed fiercely at the mage in mid-air. The dazzling blade light shot straight up, startling the mage into hastily fleeing.
As the blade's energy passed, a strand of hair drifted down from the air, startling the female hairdresser into a cold sweat. She hadn't expected Chen Nan, who had just survived a life-or-death battle, to still be so formidable, the blade's energy narrowly missing her by a hair's breadth.
Chen Nan's attack in mid-air failed, and as he fell, he swung his sword horizontally at the two men on the ground. The blazing sword light swept towards them like tongues of fire. The powerful shockwave startled the two men, who dared not meet the attack head-on and hastily retreated three zhang (approximately 10 meters).
After falling from the sky, Chen Nan used his knife to support himself on the ground, panting heavily, cold sweat sliding down his forehead.
The three masked men cautiously approached again, still shaken by Chen Nan's two fierce strikes. If Chen Nan were to use that same power to fight them, they would likely have to expend considerable effort and might even pay a price.
The female mage in the air said, "Scumbag, stop hiding your strength. I know you still have the strength to fight. Don't try to fool us." As she spoke, she quickly cast a fire spell, and several tongues of fire descended from the sky, attacking Chen Nan.
Of the three, Chen Nan most wanted to kill the female mage. With her constantly attacking from the air, he felt restricted, but he couldn't find a way to stop her for the time being. He quickly moved to dodge the flames, then spun around and charged towards the masked man wielding the spear. His longsword flashed like lightning, slashing down diagonally, creating a fierce gust of wind.
The masked man noticed that Chen Nan's longsword seemed to be emitting much weaker energy this time. He raised his spear to meet it, the tip of which shone with a brilliant green battle aura. With a loud "boom," the sword energy and battle aura collided, and both men were forced back several steps by the impact.
At the same time, the masked man wielding a rapier attacked, his blue battle aura incredibly powerful, whistling through the air. Chen Nan sidestepped, dodging the attack, and then drew his sword to slash back. With a loud clang, sparks flew as the longsword struck the rapier hard, sending the masked man staggering back several steps.
Chen Nan secretly lamented his misfortune; if his sword energy had been just a little stronger, the rapier would have been severed in two. He had no time to think further, as a barrage of ice spears fired by the female mage in the air was already upon him. He hurriedly leaped forward.
The previous exchanges were incredibly fast, happening in the blink of an eye. Then, the forest erupted in a flurry of swordplay as the four clashed, magic, battle aura, and sword energy intertwining.
Chen Nan not only had to deal with the fierce battle aura unleashed by a single shot and a single sword strike, but also had to constantly guard against the sharp magical attacks from the air, making his situation extremely difficult.
At this moment, besides feeling utterly exhausted, he also experienced excruciating pain in his internal organs, as if they were being torn apart. He gritted his teeth, preventing the blood in his mouth from spitting out.
The three masked men could tell he was exhausted, so they attacked even more swiftly, trying to end the fight as quickly as possible.
The female mage's powerful wind blade, which she had been preparing for a long time, struck Chen Nan's longsword. The steel blade broke in two, leaving only the hilt in Chen Nan's hand.
At the same time, a spear and a rapier thrust at him. He dodged left and right, avoiding two bursts of intense battle aura, but he stumbled and fell to the ground. He could no longer hold back, and blood gushed from his mouth.
The three masked men stopped attacking and stared coldly at Chen Nan. The one holding the rapier said, "We gave you a choice before, but you insisted on resisting. In the end, you will be humiliated and die. Heh heh."
Chen Nan spat out the blood and foam from his mouth and said, "I'm about to die. Now you can tell me who sent you to kill me, right?"
The female mage in the air said coldly, "We will tell you the moment we cut off your head."
Chen Nan gave a bitter laugh. He staggered to his feet and said coldly, "You forced me to this. Even if I die today, I will take you down with me."
After saying that, he threw away the broken sword, let out a low roar, and then struck all the acupoints on his body with both hands. The sounds of "bang bang" were incessant as he continuously spat out blood, and blood mist filled the air in front of him, staining his entire body with a faint red.
This is a domineering technique from Chen Nan's family's secret martial arts, involving striking acupoints and meridians to temporarily unleash the body's potential. However, the greater the benefit, the greater the harm. While it can temporarily increase one's power, it can lead to death in severe cases, or at least injury and severe damage to one's vital energy. Today, forced into a desperate situation, he has no other choice but to fight for his life.
Seeing Chen Nan's strange movements, the three masked men sensed something was wrong. They rushed forward and launched another fierce attack.
Just then, Chen Nan moved as well. This time, his movements were as fast as a ghost, many times faster than before. He charged at the man with the gun, and instead of dodging the rainbow-like battle aura, he raised his fist to meet it. A burst of intense light appeared in front of his fist, instantly shattering the battle aura.
His right fist slammed heavily into the spear, breaking it in two. The masked man was jolted back, spitting out a mouthful of blood that soaked through his black veil.
Chen Nan used a domineering technique to forcefully gather his power, making him even more powerful than usual. However, this shock aggravated his internal injuries, and he coughed up two more mouthfuls of blood.
The masked man wielding a rapier arrived in a flash, his blue battle aura striking Chen Nan's back. At the same time, the female mage's fierce magical attack also arrived from the sky, powerful arcs of electricity emitting terrifying sounds.
Chen Nan quickly dodged to the side, avoiding the two men's attacks. Then he bent down and picked up a crescent-shaped scimitar that Leng Feng had dropped, and hurled it at the mage in the air with lightning speed.
The scimitar gleamed with a chilling light, as eerie and terrifying as the scythe of death. The female mage couldn't dodge in time; the scimitar pierced her left shoulder, blood splattering everywhere. She screamed and plummeted from the sky, instantly losing consciousness.
Chen Nan's sudden display of strength was too astonishing. The other two masked men exchanged glances, both showing expressions of horror. They hesitated for a moment, then stepped forward again. Although they were afraid, they didn't want to miss this opportunity.
Chen Nan knew that even if he survived this time, his cultivation would likely be damaged. He looked at the two masked men, a cruel smile on his face, and charged forward with his bare hands.
The three clashed again, the arena dazzling with light. The two masked men raised their skills to the extreme, resisting the barrage of attacks from Chen Nan.
Although Chen Nan coughed up blood from time to time during this process, his skill seemed to be getting stronger and stronger, and he quickly shattered the broken spears and thin daggers in the hands of the two masked men.
He was covered in blood, his hair disheveled, looking like a demon from hell. A chill ran down the spines of the two masked men. They knew the assassination attempt had failed. If they continued fighting, although they might exhaust Chen Nan to death or severely wound him, they would likely lose their lives as well.
The two exchanged a glance, then quickly retreated to the female mage, where they dragged her away and ran swiftly into the distance.
Chen Nan pursued relentlessly, with only one thought in his mind: kill!
But after running a dozen meters, the power he had generated by injuring himself began to dissipate. He felt dizzy and collapsed to the ground with a thud.
The three masked men were in a hurry to escape and did not notice that Chen Nan had already collapsed to the ground, missing the best opportunity to kill him.
The poignant sunset clouds seemed to bathe the edge of the forest in a faint red hue. Chen Nan lay motionless on the ground, completely unconscious, his body utterly weak.
At this moment, an old man with white hair and a youthful face, exuding an air of otherworldly wisdom, emerged from the forest—it was none other than the old monster. He walked up to Chen Nan, helped him up, and placed his right palm on his back.