Meanwhile, back in the underground palace, Zhi Guan and Liu Bao Ru ran toward the group on patrol.

Turning the corner and seeing them ahead, Zhi Guan raised his arm and waved. “It’s the righteous faction! There are eight of them and we lost two people almost instantly!”

Liu Bao Ru glanced at him before looking ahead and frowning. “My senior martial brother is also injured. We barely got away.”

“Fuck!” One of the demonic practitioners cursed and rushed straight past them.

Another one rushed over as well but stopped next to them, glancing at Zhi Guan’s injury that could be seen. “How bad is it? Can you lead the way? We have to get them before they get away. Otherwise, we might not find them in time.”

The other two people in the group had also caught up by now and one immediately followed the first disciple without waiting for their response. They were clearly hoping to catch the intruders before they could sneak in from somewhere else and disrupt the upcoming plan.

Zhi Guan gave a grunt but furrowed his brows. “It should be. Just give me a moment.” He opened his spatial bag and took out a pill while his gaze followed the two disciples who had rushed ahead. Seeing that they were almost out of the door, he directly dropped the jade bottle, pulled out his sword, and slit the throat of the person next to him.

The disciple fell down while the remaining one stared at him with his mouth open, too shocked to react.

Liu Bao Ru used the chance to attack as well and then rushed after the two disciples who had run ahead, not wanting to waste any time. Not even mentioning that she still intended to save Mu Qing, they couldn’t let these two sound any type of alarm either.

Zhi Guan grabbed the pill bottle, stuffed it back into his spatial bag for later use, and then followed after her.

So far, the two of them had been incredibly lucky. Unfortunately, life wouldn’t always give you positive surprises only. Just as Liu Bao Ru had almost caught up to the two disciples, an explosion sounded further into the palace.

All four people flinched slightly and the two in front turned around. As a result, they saw that behind them was one of the unknown disciples who had just approached them, then the one who was supposed to be injured, and behind … well, they couldn’t see the bodies as their line of sight was obstructed by the two people running toward them but with the explosion just now, they felt a lot more vigilant.

One of them had already drawn his weapon to confront the people from the righteous side he thought he’d meet outside and now immediately went into a defensive stance. Maybe he was wrong but his intuition told him that something was wrong.

Liu Bao Ru silently sighed to herself. Then, she pulled out her sword and attacked. Anyway, she had been wondering how Zhi Guan always managed to pretend to be a demonic practitioner. Clearly, she knew him as an upright person. How were his acting skills so good that he could deceive people who should be suspicious by nature? Compared to such strategies, she actually felt better about solving this matter purely based on sword skills.

Zhi Guan caught up to them a moment later and with both fights turning into a one-versus-one, they managed to win against the two demonic practitioners after a while. They didn’t make it out of the fight without injuries though.

Zhi Guan looked at Liu Bao Ru’s shoulder which had a new cut and hummed. “Song Yu Zheng and his friends should be the strongest among this batch but all of them are elite disciples. If not for the fact that our levels are higher, I’m afraid this wouldn’t have worked out as easily.”

Zhi Guan was of an older generation than Liu Bao Ru and many of those elite disciples of the demonic faction so it wasn’t surprising that his level and experience were higher. In fact, both were so high that his Master and the Sect Master had hinted or outright asked several times that he start taking in disciples. It was just that he had never wanted to do so. In his mind, his junior martial brothers were still young so he should focus on protecting them. Also, he felt that he had barely touched upon the way of the sword. Until the day he was able to truly teach it to others, many more years would pass. That was his conviction.

Anyway, few people in the younger generation or even his own could compare. This was mostly due to the fact that he had always been pursuing sword arts, hardly taking a rest between missions apart from when his junior martial brothers needed him at the sect. In short, his hard work had paid off and in a situation like the one they were currently in, he was able to take advantage of that.

Liu Bao Ru had a similar personality as he did and also had extensive experience. The gap between her and these disciples wasn’t quite as big though. Still, small injuries like this wouldn’t hinder her. “It’ll accumulate over time but as long as we don’t run into a larger group, we should be fine. Facing that Song Yu Zheng’s group though …”

Zhi Guan furrowed his brows and nodded. “Yes, it’ll be difficult.” They had no other choice though.

He glanced at the two disciples lying on the ground and then motioned for Liu Bao Ru to follow him. “That explosion sounded as if it might have come from the main hall. Let’s go and check. Otherwise, I’m afraid we might be too late.”

Liu Bao Ru nodded and grasped her sword tighter. They had to but … this was also dangerous. Don’t even mention that group of three, there was a certain chance the other disciples would go to check out what had happened. Then, they really wouldn’t make it out of here.