Chapter 1 The Sword Saint's Dilemma

The Sword Saint's words were filled with confusion and sorrow, which anyone could hear. Of the four great nations and the four great swordsmen, he was now the only one left without a country or a home.

No matter how glorious the path of the sword was, it ultimately seemed a bit lonely.

Bai Li Xianglan wasn't here to chat with the Sword Saint. Her gaze passed over the Sword Saint and the blind man, lingering slightly on the carriage.

She said:

"I would trouble the Sword Saint to hand over the child to me so I can take him back."

The Sword Saint leaned to the side, one leg dangling beneath the carriage, and said:

"You know I won't agree."

He had worked so hard to bring this child so far, only to hand him over halfway?

"He is a child of my Qian Kingdom."

The Sword Saint laughed when he heard this.

He said:

"Heh heh, then do you take your mother's surname?"

Bai Li Xianglan nodded and said:

"My elder brother and I do indeed follow our mother's surname."

"........." The Sword Saint was speechless.

The Bai Li family was such a large clan; recruiting a son-in-law to their household was a trivial matter.

The Sword Saint shook his head, rendered somewhat speechless by Bai Li Xianglan's reply. He could only point behind him.

He said:

"Fine, go ask the child's father. If his father doesn't object, I'll hand the child over to you immediately."

Go ahead, ask Tian Wu Jing, and while you're at it, ask the Jingnan Army if they agree.

Bai Li Xianglan drew her sword.

"You're going to draw your sword against me?" the Sword Saint asked, amused.

If her elder brother were here, the two of them would be qualified to exchange blows, but Bai Li Xianglan was, after all, not Bai Li Jian.

"Yes."

"If your brother came, that would be more like it. If I were to beat you up right now, wouldn't I become a laughingstock?"

To be as famous as her brother, yet defeat his little sister; it was really embarrassing to bully the younger generation.

"Escorting the offspring of an enemy, willingly becoming a dog of the Yan people despite being a Jin native, Sword Saint, you are already a joke."

The blind man secretly made a heart sign in his mind.

This girl's ability to stab with words was truly admirable.

It was fortunate that she was Bai Li Jian's sister, a member of the Bai Li family; otherwise, she definitely wouldn't have lived this long and would have been beaten to death very early on.

The Sword Saint wasn't angry, but nodded and said:

"Yes, I'm already a joke."

Bai Li Xianglan began to walk forward.

The Sword Saint said to himself:

"Since I'm already a joke anyway, I'm not afraid of others laughing a little more."

As Bai Li Xianglan approached,

The Sword Saint's eyes suddenly narrowed, and three illusory sword qi shadows immediately appeared in front of him, rushing straight towards Bai Li Xianglan.

Bai Li Xianglan's sword danced, breaking through all three sword qi with three strikes, and still had the strength to continue forward, thrusting her sword towards the Sword Saint sitting in front of the carriage.

Facing this fierce sword, the Sword Saint didn't retreat but advanced, his figure lunging forward, his right hand extending two fingers forward.

Seeing this, Bai Li Xianglan tapped the ground with her toes, and her whole body retreated backward. At the position where she had been standing, three streaks of sword qi suddenly shot out of the ground, splitting the ground and rising straight up.

If she had been careless or even half a step slower, she would have been cut into three pieces.

"Sword Saint, would you use such methods against me?"

The Sword Saint scratched his head, his figure drifting back, and sat back on the carriage, saying:

"Alas, I've learned bad habits from Tian Wu Jing."

Before, fighting was fighting, comparing whose sword was faster, comparing whose sword was sharper. But since being defeated by Tian Wu Jing, the Sword Saint had begun to ponder things beyond the sword.

It wasn't really the Sword Saint's intention to be like this, but as a swordsman who had been defeated in a one-on-one duel by a military man, the Sword Saint couldn't help but feel resentful and think about it.

After pondering it over and over again, he had figured out some things, and even began to feel that Tian Wu Jing's approach of integrating calculations and strategies into martial arts was truly somewhat wonderful.

Bai Li Xianglan didn't step forward again, but instead held her sword horizontally, and the long sword emitted a trembling sound.

In an instant, more than thirty figures stood up from the surrounding mud. No one knew how long these people had been hiding in the mud, and they should all be proficient in the art of concealing their aura. Even the blind man hadn't been able to detect them beforehand.

Of course, there was also the reason that the blind man's "radar" couldn't be turned on all the time. That thing consumed too much power, and if it was kept on all the time, he would turn into a dried corpse in no time.

And since the Sword Saint was sitting next to him, the blind man naturally began to slack off.

More than thirty Silver Armor Guard experts appeared, surrounding the carriage from afar. After appearing, these thirty-odd people all revealed a surge of aura belonging to experts.

At the worst, they were sixth-rank experts, and there were even not a few fourth-rank experts among them.

It was no exaggeration to say that the Silver Armor Guard had really gone all out this time, and most of their experts had gathered here.

And this was Jin territory, where the Yan people's Secret Spy Department's control over this place was not tight enough. At the same time, the person in charge of the Secret Spy Department here had just died recently. It was not surprising that this group of Silver Armor Guard experts had come here from thousands of miles away without attracting any reaction from the relevant authorities.

The Sword Saint regretfully touched his waist. With Long Yuan not by his side, he really lacked that sense of composure when fighting.

No matter how strong a person's strength was, he still seemed a bit small in the face of a national machine.

The martial world was, after all, just the martial world. No wonder Tian Wu Jing had always looked down on it.

Bai Li Xianglan once again cupped her fist and said:

"Please, Sword Saint, show some leniency!"

This was the last polite word. If the Sword Saint didn't retreat, then the Silver Armor Guard experts gathered here today would try to leave this Sword Saint behind!

The Sword Saint helplessly stroked the back of his hand and sighed:

"Tell me, is this territory actually yours, Yan people?"

Clearly, it was the territory occupied by the Yan people; clearly, it was the child of your Yan people's Marquis, and yet a group of Qian people had come to snatch him away. The one protecting the child was actually himself, a Jin native.

Did you Yan people have no presence at all in this whole process?

The blind man took out a cigarette from his bosom.

The Sword Saint's eyes lit up and said:

"This is great."

The blind man shook his head and said:

"Too far away."

"So, what do you mean by taking it out?"

"To make you happy."

"I really like you a little bit."

"I..." The blind man was speechless.

"Hahahaha..."

The Sword Saint laughed loudly as he stood on the carriage, his fingertips beginning to bleed.

"I'll see who dares to come up!"

The dripping blood was an attitude, a more resolute attitude than holding Long Yuan in his hand. He was using his essence blood to transform into a sword, using his origin as the blade.

This was a desperate posture from the very beginning.

For a moment, the Qian people Silver Armor Guard experts around him actually had a brief stagnation.

They knew who they were facing now, so they naturally understood how terrifying that person was. Originally, with so many of them, they would probably be able to completely leave him behind if they all attacked together.

But that was in the chaos of battle, in a back-and-forth situation, and it might take the sacrifice of a small half of their experts to succeed. Death was equivalent to a random probability. In order to kill the Sword Saint, people would definitely die. Everyone would try their luck to see who died. But now, it was different.

In the eyes of the blind man, a psychological expert, this was turning the game from Russian roulette into a situation where the first few shots were definitely live rounds. Whoever went up first would definitely die first, and the psychological pressure was completely different. Who would be willing to be the "consumable goods" who were sure to die in the front?

The carriage was moving forward slowly, and the Silver Armor Guards on both sides began to follow. Strangely, no one still dared to go up first.

Bai Li Xianglan was directly in front of the carriage. She noticed the movements of the Silver Armor Guards and knew that these people were also the decision-makers in their own departments. In the final analysis, they had been living good lives for too long and were a bit afraid of death.

After all, it wasn't easy to climb to this position, to cultivate to this level. They were not just worthless lives. It wasn't purely fear of death, but they were still not so willing to step forward to be the fertilizer that filled the pit.

Bai Li Xianglan didn't retreat. In fact, at this time, she even took the initiative to step forward with her sword. She knew that if her side also retreated, then this interception would completely become a joke.

The sword's edge began to whistle. Bai Li Xianglan's sword pointed at the Sword Saint standing on the carriage, and sword qi began to gather!

"Don't think that I will show mercy because of Bai Li Feng. When a swordsman draws his sword, he should be prepared to break with the sword. Your brother should have taught you this."

The Bai Li family's sword emphasized a moment of lightning and flint. When it was truly unleashed, it was a more extreme life-or-death struggle.

The next exchange would be different from the previous tentative greetings.

At that time, Bai Li Xianglan hadn't used her full strength, and the Sword Saint hadn't had any killing intent.

But now,

It belonged to one side's advance without retreat.

Seeing that Bai Li Xianglan was the first to attack, the Silver Armor Guard experts around him finally no longer hesitated and began to collectively pounce towards the carriage.

The Sword Saint's fingertips began to condense blood essence into a sword, and the tyrannical sword qi began to vent. In the distance, faint sounds of muffled thunder began to be heard.

Sword qi was hidden within the wind and thunder. When it was unleashed, it would definitely be a thunderous strike. This was the terrifying aura that the Sword Saint had created with his own origin. This was the Sword Saint's sure-kill situation.

However, at this moment, the blind man, who had originally been driving the carriage, suddenly lifted the car curtain, took the child from Ding Heng's astonished face, and held a dagger in his other hand, pointing it at the child.

The dagger gleamed with blue light, obviously quenched with poison. This dagger was naturally from the hands of the "dwarf" artisans of Shengle City.

The blind man didn't want to die. To be precise, he didn't want to die in this firefight. He and his lord, Zheng Fan, had always cherished their lives. And, most importantly, the blind man saw the logic of the whole thing. There seemed to be a knot, because this was not a "Zhao's Orphan" remake, nor was it a so-called vendetta.

What their side wanted to protect was actually what the other side feared would have an accident even more. So, what was there to panic about?

Without hesitation,

The blind man let out a loud roar:

"Don't move, if you move again, I'll kill him!"

"............" The Sword Saint was speechless.

"............" Bai Li Xianglan was speechless.