He used the most courteous and polite tone to say the most sarcastic words.

Behind Wei Yuan came a *puchi* sound, followed by suppressed laughter. Hu Mei, the most cheerful of them all, held her milk tea and was red in the face from trying not to laugh. Su Yu'er, on the other hand, felt that something was amiss. No matter how one answered the yao fox's question, it would consume one's luck.

The wild fox spirit's expression froze, and before she could even feel shock or anger, she suddenly felt her body turn chillingly cold.

Then, she saw with horror that behind the seemingly ordinary young man, a vast expanse of gloomy aura was unfolding. It was luck, invisible to the naked eye, but on such a scale that it was not the noble azure and purple, but a dark, oppressive mass, vast and boundless, rolling in and making her feel as if she couldn't breathe.

Wei Yuan stepped forward, holding his sword with the blade against the ground, and said:

"I think you look like a demon too."

In the black cloud, shadowy figures seemed to be striding along, with the faint sound of banners fluttering.

The fox girl's heart trembled.

Even those spirits who disdained human teachings and only knew how to kill in the wild suddenly thought of a poem.

Black clouds press down on the city, threatening to destroy it.

An invisible tiger slowly stepped forward.

Then, after those words fell, it suddenly roared and pounced on the fox girl. Her face turned pale, and with a cry of panic, she subconsciously turned to flee. She had just seen that this tiger had pounced out of something the young man held in his arms—a token.

A tiger tally, from the military strategists.

The fox girl was struck by the tiger's baleful aura and fell to the ground with a scream.

Suddenly, she felt regret in her heart.

Her attempt to coax a compliment was only meant to make Wei Yuan answer once.

Whether he answered that she looked like a human or not, it would consume his luck. If he said she looked like a human, then she would gain another benefit. If he said she didn't look like a human, she wouldn't lose anything. Her own body happened to have a jumble of different human luck, which was affecting her cultivation. She could take this opportunity to consume some of that luck, offsetting the backlash of failing to coax a compliment. It was a clever deal that she couldn't lose, no matter what.

But who knew she would run into a military strategist?

Coaxing a compliment was a trick in itself, and it was most afraid of encountering the baleful aura of military strategists. Since ancient times, no monster who tried to coax a compliment from a great military general had ever ended well.

In the blink of an eye, the luck she had spent a hundred years accumulating directly collapsed and scattered like fleeing refugees before an army's advance.

Then came her cultivation. Three hundred years of cultivation was like filling a pond, nurturing a lotus flower in it, carefully waiting for it to bloom. Now, her feeling was as if the pond had been smashed to pieces, the lotus flower torn apart, and even the roots, stems, and leaves had been shredded to dust.

Three hundred years of cultivation almost instantly dissipated.

The fox girl fell to the ground, her body trembling and curled up.

Her slender hands turned into claws, and her lithe body shrank to less than half its original size.

Long yellow fur grew on her body, and her delicate oval face was elongated, finally turning into a fox face. She kept vomiting blood. Only the yao fox who tried to coax a compliment had vaguely seen the previous phenomenon; others had no way of knowing. Su Yu'er was shocked, then looked at Wei Yuan, feeling vaguely familiar with the fox girl's miserable state.

Wei Yuan thought for a moment and said,

"It's probably because she walks the path of evil, and the luck on her body is too much and too mixed."

"As a result, she reached the limit of what she could bear and suffered a backlash."

The fox girl on the ground almost coughed up blood in anger.

With her cunning, she could bear the luck of ten more people. Her heart was filled with madness and fear as she gritted her teeth and hissed,

"Come out, kill them! Kill them all!"

Several figures suddenly flew out from the forest, heading straight for the three girls behind Wei Yuan. A cunning rabbit has three burrows, and a cunning fox is no less. Wei Yuan understood in an instant that with this fox demon's cultivation, her actions were deliberately leaving clues, obviously to play the long game. Not only did she poison them, but she also hid ambush soldiers in the forest. Truly cunning.

He swung the sword in his hand, and the sword energy was like frost.

With several crisp clangs, the attacking shadows were immediately repelled, revealing their figures in mid-air. One was an old rat, ashen-gray and two meters tall, its fur standing on end like steel needles. Another was a black wolf, its claws like daggers, yet it was still clutching two daggers in its hands.

Although they were called daggers, they were large enough to be ordinary longswords, given its size.

The last one was a praying mantis demon.

It wielded six knives, rolling like a snowball towards Wei Yuan.

Wei Yuan's Eight-Sided Han Sword crashed into the cluster of knives, and with just one sword, he forced the six knives into a near-impenetrable defense. The mantis demon used all its skills, but couldn't get close, let alone hurt the three Qingqiu fox girls behind him. But at that moment, the wolf demon and the rat spirit also pounced.

The three Su Yu'er were injured, and even if they勉强entered the fray, they would only be a hindrance.

Wei Yuan gradually felt the pressure.

Not from his swordsmanship.

His swordsmanship was truly honed. If these three demons were to surround and kill him alone, they would not be able to hurt him at all. Within three feet of his sword, whoever came would die. But Wei Yuan had to protect the three girls behind him, and although his swordsmanship was superb, the blade was only three feet long, which felt slightly insufficient.

Suddenly, the ground bulged, creating a pit.

Then, a black shadow shot out of the ground, attacking the three of Su Yu'er.

It was a short man transformed from a mole, who was best at burrowing.

The three girls desperately drew their protective ring blades, trying to block the demon, but they were still somewhat lacking. A sword light flashed from the side, forcing the mole to retreat, or risk being beheaded on the spot. But he didn't care, just grinned slyly and licked his short sword.

A small stream of blood flowed down the sword.

Hu Mei stared blankly at the Sili Xiaowei blocking in front of them.

The clothes on his shoulder had been torn open, and blood was flowing down.

If Wei Yuan hadn't suddenly turned around to help, the three of them would have suffered serious injuries at the very least.

The four demons surrounded Wei Yuan and the three girls from four different directions. Wei Yuan reached out and pressed on the acupoints next to the wound, injecting magic power to seal the wound. It was just a wound, not serious. Even though the Crouching Tiger Stance wasn't known for healing, it could handle it.

However, the stimulation of blood gave him an indescribable feeling.

Sixty battles at Gaixia in a short period of time... sometimes, he wondered if he had really experienced that battle.

"Huff..."

He shook his shoulders, took a deep breath, and the blood stimulated the hidden battlefield aura. It wasn't painful, but there was a strange sense of comfort and exhilaration. He thought for a moment, and with a *铮* sound, he returned the sword to its sheath, plunging it into the ground. Wei Yuan raised his foot and kicked sideways, hitting a tree. With a series of crackling sounds, the tree, only three or five years old, fell down and was caught by Wei Yuan.

The wolf spirit was surprised, then smiled knowingly. "You think your weapon is too short?"

"But without the sword, I can guarantee you'll die even faster."

The man transformed from the mole stared at Wei Yuan, but for some reason, he had clearly left a wound on his opponent, yet now he felt terrified, with an indescribable feeling. The wound had been bandaged, but why was the man's bloody aura even stronger?

He felt a nameless fear and regret.

The wolf spirit, the rat spirit, and the mantis demon exchanged glances and pounced on the youth who had picked up the tree.

Suddenly, the man gripped the tree trunk and swung it violently.

A gust of wind spread out from the tree, like knives cutting it from the inside. Splintered wood flew like scattered rocks. The mantis demon was afraid of being tricked and wielded its six knives, creating a curtain of blades to smash the splinters. Then it saw that the tree in the man's hand had turned into a long spear.

A chill ran through its heart.

The mantis demon retreated violently.

The spear struck through the air, and it was hard to describe the force of that strike. It sent the wolf demon and the rat spirit flying. The four demons were suspicious and uncertain. If the youth wielding the sword had been a troublesome beast, then now, without that sharp coldness, he exuded an indescribable ease.

Wei Yuan held the spear in his hand, the tip against the ground.

He exhaled and lowered his eyes.

Then he frowned.

It didn't feel right.

He had personally witnessed the Overlord's slaughter, and even fought against the Overlord, so he naturally couldn't be unfamiliar with the Overlord's spear techniques. But using them in a similar way now just didn't feel right.

He thought for a moment, then held the end of the spear with his left hand and gripped the body of the spear with his right hand.

Then he adopted a strange stance.

Su Yu'er was surprised and whispered to the two puzzled girls next to her, explaining that most of the martial arts in the Central Plains were transformed from spear techniques. This was the horse stance, a stance for practicing strength, the foundation of all martial arts, but very few martial artists would use the horse stance in a foot battle.

Because it wasn't flexible enough, they had their own fighting stances.

Su Yu'er's status was very high in the entire Qingqiu fox clan, and Hu Mei didn't doubt her. She just quietly said,

"Does that mean that Young Master Wei is better at fighting in a horse stance?"

Su Yu'er couldn't help but want to shake her head.

How could there be a martial artist who used the horse stance to fight in this world? The horse stance was the most basic stance, with two prototypes: one was the *juma* stance used by foot soldiers with long spears to fight against cavalry, and the other was when ancient generals rode horses and thrust out their spears. Rather than saying he was good at the horse stance, it was more believable to say he was good at mounted combat.

Her thoughts paused slightly.

Good at mounted combat?

Su Yu'er looked at Wei Yuan, who kept adjusting his posture as if he was really riding a warhorse, and suddenly felt that she seemed to have overlooked something. It seemed that the ancient books recorded cases of demons who tried to coax compliments suffering backlash and losing all their cultivation. And when she left Qingqiu, the Qingqiu guard seemed to have greeted Wei Yuan and said something, but what was that sentence...?

Why hadn't she paid attention to it before?

And Wei Yuan's horse stance wasn't quite right yet.

Until he adjusted his state, his body rose and fell slightly on the basis of the horse stance, following his breathing and the flow of qi and blood.

Until he really seemed to be riding a horse.

The insights he had vaguely gained when facing the Overlord, and the strong hostility from the Overlord, surfaced in his mind.

Only then did his brow slowly relax.

That was right.

The Sili Xiaowei raised his head, released the spear with his right hand, raised his hand, made a fist, and pointed his thumb down.

He made a provocative gesture towards the demons.

........................................

In a distant mountain, by a distant river.

A woman in a red dress quietly looked into the distance.

In the box next to her, there was a slight tremor. She opened the wooden box, and on the soft golden silk inside, lay an ancient spearhead. There were fine lines on the spear blade, and even though it was well-protected and polished brightly, it still exuded a strong, undeniable bloody scent. At this moment, it kept buzzing, as if wanting to jump out of the spear box and continue fighting.

The woman stroked the spear and said in surprise.

"Killing intent... you sensed Jie's killing aura?"

"But he clearly hasn't returned yet, so is it his former enemy and opponent?"

The spear blade howled.

"Is that so? You want to continue fighting."

The woman stroked the spear blade, but only said, "The era has passed for so long. There are no old friends left in this world. I once thought I couldn't let go of those grudges, but after two thousand years, there's nothing I can't let go of. Even if Jie is still here, he would only want to have a drink with his former friends. The long river is still flowing, and the old friends are still here. He would like that very much."

The woman put the spear back into the box and whispered,

"Let's go."

"It's been decades since we entered the human world."

"Let's go see who that old friend is..."

PS: First update today...