Chapter 543: 543 He is an even more terrifying peerless genius
However, one thing they could confirm, Mu Hanyan was definitely not the playboy trash of legend, but an extraordinary talent even more terrifying than Qu Fengting, and perhaps even more so than Yan Yuchu.
"Someone’s still alive, there are still survivors," exclaimed a group of people who flew in rapidly from the sky with joy.
Soon, they landed on the ground, and leading them was the Holy Sword Master, Duan Tianya.
"You’re not dead, you’re still alive, thank goodness, you’re all still alive..." Upon seeing Mu Hanyan and the others, Duan Tianya spoke with tears streaming down his face.
Feeling the presence of a Divine Beast from within the Barrier, he had already despaired, thinking that all the young swordsmen who took part in the trial had perished. So when he saw that so many were still alive, how could he not be ecstatic?
"Qi Yun, where are the others, where are the rest?" Another instructor dressed in a sword robe grabbed Wu Qiuyun’s hand and asked urgently.
After all, the Wu Family was the second most prominent family in the Nanxi County, so he recognized Wu Qiuyun.
"The others..." Wu Qiuyun, seeing the Barrier open wide, naturally showed his joy, but when it came to the others, his countenance darkened.
Previously deceived by Qu Fengting’s lies, the swordsmen who had tried to rush into the temple numbered over a thousand, but now, less than two hundred were still alive. Thinking of their tragic deaths, even if he had not been close to them, a sense of inexplicable sorrow still weighed on Wu Qiuyun’s heart.
Seeing his hesitant expression, Duan Tianya and the others felt a chill in their hearts.
"We found them, Teacher, over there in that valley, there are still quite a few people alive," exclaimed Duan Tianya’s disciples, who had rushed over.
"How many are there?" Duan Tianya asked eagerly.
"Roughly six or seven hundred," one disciple answered.
"We’ve found them too, quite a few survivors, approximately three to four hundred," another disciple came running to report.
"There are also a few hundred in the forked valley," yet another disciple arrived bringing good news.
...
Once the Barrier was opened, Duan Tianya’s many disciples also entered Exotic Beast Valley, searching for possible survivors, and there were successive reports of survivors being found.
Soon, all the survivors were brought to the fortress that Qu Fengting and others had previously built, and after a count, there were surprisingly more than five thousand who had escaped disaster.
Such a result not only astonished Duan Tianya and the others, but even Mu Hanyan and the other hundred or so swordsmen were astounded.
After inquiring, they learned that after the anomaly in the valley, these young swordsmen had grouped together in small clusters and found places to hide.
Xia Youchen’s sole purpose in summoning the Exotic Beasts with the Contract Technique was to extract the Beast Blood Pearls inside them, so after the initial frenzied slaughter, all the powerful Exotic Beasts were gathered outside the temple. The swordsmen had spent days hiding in trepidation, but without incident; even the ample wound medicine prepared by Duan Tianya and the others had gone unused.
When all was accounted for, out of the more than seven thousand who came for the trial, apart from the thousand-plus swordsmen who initially died at the hands of the Exotic Beasts, the ones who followed Qu Fengting were the ones who suffered the most casualties.
And these were, ironically, the most elite of the swordsmen.
The weak were unscathed, while the strong perished in droves. Thinking of their companions, who had had such promising futures, dying so unjustly, the group of swordsmen around Mu Hanyan despised Qu Fengting to the point of gnashing their teeth with hatred.