A week later, on a full moonlit night, the group was trekking through another forest, this one closer to Cui Shi. They believed that if they walked through the entire night, they would be able to reach the city gate.

With this motivation, they continued walking, even though it was nighttime and there was only the moonlight to illuminate their path. The forest was quiet, and they could only hear their own footsteps and the subtle whistle of the wind.

The whole group walked quietly, immersed in their own thoughts and attentively observing their surroundings. The closer they got to the city, the tenser they became, whether from anticipation or apprehension of encountering some group of cultivators.

Then, Hu Tao, who had been leading the way until then, suddenly stopped. Everyone stopped simultaneously, looking at their leader with confusion.

"Are you hearing that?" Hu Tao asked, but before any of them could respond, he continued, "Honestly, I've always liked the sound of the wind, especially at night. It gives me a mysterious feeling of peace and calm...

Sometimes, when I look at the night sky, I remember the past. All the hardships I've gone through in my life, and even the good times we've shared. I always remember when I met each of you, watching your progress, and even when Long Ming became as strong as me... I still remember that day.

I confess I felt a little envious; after all, he's still young, and with not even a third of my effort and experience, he's already reached a level as high as mine. And then, there are those even more talented than you, Long Ming, the young masters of noble families, and even those from great clans. In fact, no matter how hard I try, even all the days I spent training relentlessly, and even the heinous things I had to do... none of it matters, because in the end, I'm not talented, and there are thousands of people capable of accomplishing twice as much as I ever thought possible."

"What do you mean by that, Hu Tao?" Long Ming asked, tense, stepping in front of Lin Fei.

"...I mean that sometimes you need to do something, even if you don't want to. Believe me, it will hurt me more than you can imagine," then, suddenly, Hu Tao turned and took a step toward Yong Gan. Before Yong Gan could react, he felt immense pain coming from his chest and, with eyes full of astonishment and horror, realized a blade piercing where his heart used to be.

"How dare you!?" Jin Mei, Long Ming, and Lin Fei ran toward Hu Tao, their weapons in hand and indescribable hatred emanating from their eyes.

"Please, don't resist," Hu Tao looked melancholically at them before removing his sword from Yong Gan's lifeless body and attacking Jin Mei.

Jin Mei's halberd clashed with Hu Tao's sword, and to her utter disbelief, it was cut in half by the blade without offering the slightest resistance.

The traitor continued to run toward Jin Mei, looking at her with the indifference of someone who doesn't care about anyone's life. Hu Tao aimed his sword at Jin Mei's neck and coldly beheaded her.

Soon after, Hu Tao looked toward Long Ming and Lin Fei and spoke persuasively, "just give up, boy. I'm much stronger than you, don't make this any harder."

Long Ming ignored Hu Tao's comment and looked at Lin Fei before saying, "run."

"I would never do that, Min—"

"Please."

Lin Fei realized that Long Ming's voice was trembling, and he had struggled to express those words. Lin Fei had already heard Long Ming's motivations for leaving his village over the years, and she understood how concerned he was for her safety. Long Ming's reaction to the situation was a clear example of this; he was nervous, very nervous, about the possibility of her getting hurt, or even dying. She realized that Long Ming wouldn't be able to fight properly in that emotional state, and if he continued to worry about her during the fight, they wouldn't be able to face Hu Tao properly.

With a sigh, she decided to flee the place, running as fast as she could to reach the city and ask for help from someone. Over the years, she had met and befriended many cultivators, so she hoped that some of them would accept her help in facing Hu Tao.

"Survive," she could only say these words before running toward the city. At that moment, she could only hope that he would hold out until reinforcements arrived.

Hu Tao didn't care about Lin Fei's escape and let her leave the place without any obstruction. Before any of the three could understand the reason for this, 'swoosh', an arrow swiftly flew toward Lin Fei's foot, almost hitting her.

"Escape is futile, you should have realized that by now. But you're cornered, there are archers everywhere, they won't let you escape. And don't think killing me will be enough, because they will kill you anyway. Please, just accept your death, don't make it harder for me," Hu Tao spoke with an apparently dejected expression, but showed no hesitation, and his determination to kill them was obvious.

"Is this the work of the Li clan? That's why they were so confident in hiring us, and why you allowed me to read the manual," Long Ming stated, realizing that from the beginning he was determined to kill them.

"That's right. Young Master Li was very generous; he even granted me several resources to reach the half-step stage of the Qi Gathering realm. And when I deliver this manual and sword, he assured me that he will grant me a manual to reach the initial stage of the Qi Gathering realm!" Hu Tao spoke joyfully and boastfully, as if extremely proud of this achievement.

Long Ming remained silent, trying to think of a way to escape, along with Lin Fei. When Hu Tao easily killed Yong Gan, Long Ming had already understood that there was no way he could win, and now, he understood that perhaps even fleeing would be an impossible task.

Subtly, Long Ming took another rune from his bag and ran toward Hu Tao. With the discovery that he was cornered, Long Ming became extremely calm and cold, carefully analyzing all his possibilities and formulating a strategy to win.

There was no more hesitation in his movements, only the determination to overcome this challenge.

Hu Tao seemed disappointed with Long Ming's attitude and also advanced, his sword in hand, determined to kill all his companions.

In less than a second, they collided, with Hu Tao trying to cut him in half, and Long Ming narrowly dodging his lethal attack. Then, Long Ming took a small lateral jump, going to Hu Tao's left side, and spinning his Twinblade toward his enemy's arm.

Hu Tao hurriedly turned and tried to defend with his sword, but at this moment, Long Ming stopped his movement abruptly and threw a rune toward his face.

Hu Tao casually tossed the rune aside and counterattacked with a vertical slash. Long Ming again took a small step to the side, narrowly dodging, and counterattacked as well. Hu Tao hastily retreated at this moment, completely attentive to Long Ming's actions.

He began to stare at Long Ming with obvious murderous intent before running toward him again. Long Ming also ran toward him, but

when the two were extremely close again, he darted to Hu Tao's side. But this time, he was prepared and turned quickly, but to his surprise, Long Ming wasn't there. Then he looked forward again in time to notice a blade coming toward his neck.

A feint!

This time, Hu Tao didn't bother to retreat, trusting in his superior cultivation, and counterattacked with a vertical slash toward Long Ming's shoulder.

The two seemed poised to cut each other, possibly resulting in possibly serious injuries for both. However, Lin Fei, who had run quickly to them, arrived just in time to parry Hu Tao's blow.

Long Ming seemed about to decapitate Hu Tao, but to his dismay, the blade of his Twinblade was only able to cut an inch deep into the neck before losing all its force. Hu Tao, furious with this result, albeit positive for him, resumed his attack, but this time toward Lin Fei.

Due to her awkward posture from hastily parrying the blow, she couldn't dodge in time to completely avoid the blow, which ended up cutting her.

Long Ming was shocked to see her being cut, but fortunately, it had only been a superficial wound. Recovering quickly, he turned his gaze back to Hu Tao and grabbed another rune from his bag, breaking it with his hands. A powerful light suddenly emanated, this time even more potent than the one he had used to illuminate that cave, blinding everyone.

Long Ming ran toward Lin Fei and grabbed her arm, then began to flee. The archers also were momentarily blinded by the light, and when they regained their vision, they noticed their escape.

Quickly, one of the archers shot an arrow toward the pair, grazing Long Ming's arm.

"Tsk, there must be a way to escape," Long Ming said seriously.

"There's a cave nearby, Ming'er," Lin Fei said, accompanying him and pointing in a direction. At this moment, Long Ming heard footsteps approaching.

"They've already recovered from the temporary blindness," he thought, quite annoyed, then grabbed another rune and threw it toward a tree.

"Bang!"

A loud, piercing sound echoed as the rune shattered into pieces upon colliding with the tree. The archers were momentarily paralyzed by the noise, but in a second, they recovered and resumed running toward them.

The distance between them began to noticeably decrease as Long Ming and Lin Fei continued running toward the cave.

"Arrow!"

An arrow flew toward Lin Fei; she hurriedly stepped back to avoid it, but at this moment, another arrow flew toward her. This time, she simply took a step back to dodge, but two more appeared in her vision.

"How many archers are there?!" she shouted perplexed, swinging her sword gracefully to cut the two arrows. Long Ming also looked back, identifying five archers on two trees nearby and seemed to be more approaching.

At that distance, trying to flee seemed like suicide, so the two decided to confront the quintet of archers head-on. Long Ming rummaged through his bag to try to find another rune, but noticed there were only three runes left useful in that situation.

Without hesitation, he took the two runes and threw them in the two directions where the archers were. The archers seemed to ignore the runes as they simultaneously shot five arrows toward them.

"Boom!"

A resounding noise sounded as two large explosions destroyed the trunks of the two trees where the archers were perched. At the same time, their arrows also flew toward the pair; who tried to dodge hastily while continuing their escape.

The pursuit lasted for a few more minutes as they ran toward the cave. Soon, they could see the cave entrance in the distance, a glimmer of hope passing through the eyes of the two.

"Arrow!"

At this moment, three more arrows flew simultaneously toward them. Long Ming dodged two of them with his weapon, while Lin Fei dodged the other. But at this moment, a fourth arrow appeared before Lin Fei's eyes, and to her astonishment, it was aimed at Long Ming's chest. She hurriedly stood in front of the arrow and caught it with one hand; however, this made her posture awkward, and one of the archers took advantage of this opening to shoot another arrow toward her neck.

She tried to turn her neck to avoid being hit, but she was too slow. A long cut appeared at the tip of her neck, in the sight of Long Ming's shocked gaze.

All these actions didn't take more than three seconds, and even if Long Ming wanted to, he was too far to help her. He tried to clear his mind of unnecessary thoughts and grabbed her by the arm, running as fast as he could toward the cave. At this moment, another arrow flew toward him, but Long Ming ignored it as he dragged Lin Fei into a hug, protecting her with his back and allowing the arrow to hit his shoulder.

Suddenly, the archers stopped shooting more arrows because, at that exact moment, Hu Tao had caught up to them.

The archers' mission was only twofold: to prevent the members of the Feng Gou group from escaping and to ensure that they were killed by Hu Tao. So even if they wanted to continue with their work, they were forced to leave the rest to Hu Tao.

Upon realizing that there were no more arrows flying toward them, Long Ming ran even faster and quickly entered the cave. Upon entering, he looked back in time to notice Hu Tao approaching, and threw the last combat rune he had.

The rune bounced off the ground near the cave entrance and, after it broke, another explosion sounded as several stones began to fall to the ground, obstructing the entrance. Long Ming was aware that closing the only entrance to the cave was practically suicide, but he trusted that he could find some way to escape from there alive; and along with Lin Fei.

After checking that there was no way to release the entrance quickly, Long Ming went to a wall and supported Lin Fei.