On the rough road that was surrounded by thicket on both sides, a lone figure with a sword could be seen walking steadily. This was none other than Mu Chen, who decided to travel on his foot to the Mu Family Estate.

"At this rate, it will be night before I reach home." Mu Chen was exasperated. He had been walking for several hours now without a break, but he had barely covered little over half the distance. And it was almost evening.

The path he was walking on was the same that was used by carriages. It wasn't anything fancy, only the trees had been cleared to facilitate the traveling of carriages. Mu Chen had hoped there would be someone else traveling in the same direction, and maybe hitch a ride. Unfortunately, he wasn't so lucky.

"Maybe I should have taken a shortcut." He could have greatly reduced the travel time if he had just cut his path through the forest. Other than normal animals, there were no dangerous beasts within this area, so it was safe for even normal humans.

"A water stream!" The gurgling sound of water suddenly sounded like heavenly music in Mu Chen's ears and he scurried towards the location where the sound was coming.

Mu Chen's throat was already parched from hours of walking. He had forgotten to bring a bag of water with him. So aside from the time when he was with Liu Fengying, he hadn't drunk any water or other drinks. So when he saw there was water, he was delighted.

After having his fill of water, Mu Chen let out a contented sigh as he sat on a boulder to get some rest. He took out the small parcel of sweets that he bought for his sister and unwrapped it.

"Ah...Xue'er! You will just have to forgive this Big Brother of yours-but he wants to eat something now." Mu Chen muttered with some guilty conscience as he picked up a strawberry flavored tart that was one of Xue'er favorites.

Mu Chen's appetite had always been excellent since he had begun his intense training. It was already a few hours since his last meal and he was hungry.

As he chewed on the tart, Mu Chen leaned against the tree behind, trying to relax and enjoy the treat. But instead, he began to feel uneasy. That sense of uneasiness kept on increasing making it impossible for him to relax.

"Did I miss something?" Mu Chen questioned himself as he began to ruminate on the day's events. Today's turn of events was indeed weird. If not for him accidentally coming to the city, he may have never known about the secret realm and the Envoy arriving.

"Fengying's message-it was never delivered to me…If I hadn't run into Fengying and known about the event…I would've stayed in the dark?"

Mu Chen recalled the events that had happened in the morning.

"If Xue'er was taken away by Elder Mu Wan today, I would have been too busy trying to get her out of trouble...I wouldn't have bothered to care about what was happening in the city?"

"Say...if the Envoy had really selected the candidates today like everyone assumed he would-wouldn't I have missed a great opportunity?"

"It's almost as if…someone from Family didn't even want to give me an opportunity to find a cure for my current condition!"

"Who could be so sinister?" Mu Chen's eyes became cold as he finally pieced the clues together. He could tolerate people slandering him or causing petty troubles for him because of desiring his status in the Family. This was because he knew the current him really had no qualifications to have that status. He was just exploiting the Family's rules and regulations to maintain it. Even he himself felt it was shameless, but he could only thicken his face for the sake of his little sister.

There was no guarantee that he would indeed find a treasure to heal his spirit root in the secret realm. But the fact that someone was trying to bereft him of even the slightest possibility, infuriated him. What was even more intolerable was that, that person was from the Mu Family.

The sense of unease became increasingly high. 

Mu Chen recalled the killing intent he had felt. Could it be, it was also someone from the Mu Family? Was it the same person? Wait! Killing intent, huh?

Mu Chen's head suddenly became extremely clear and he became incredibly alert. His left hand grasped the scabbard of his sword and flicked his thumb against the guard pushing the sword out of the scabbard a bit. Simultaneously, his right hand dropped the piece of half-eaten pastry, as he moved it to grasp the hilt of the sword.

Mu Chen jumped on his feet while drawing out his sword.

Swooosh!!

Almost at the same time, there was a sound of something cutting through the air. 

Clang!!

Mu Chen's own sword cut through through the air as well and hit something deflecting it. But the force behind it knocked him back a few steps.

"That speed of reaction...isn't bad." A muffled sound carrying a hint of praise reached Mu Chen's ears. It was as if someone was beside him, speaking directly into his ear.

"...but that's your limit...as a mortal." The voice sneered.

"Who?" Mu Chen asked as he took a look around his surroundings. He had already regained his balance. But his heart was beating fast and the blood pumped through his veins and his breath quickened.

A cultivator! The one who had just sneak attacked, was a cultivator!

"Dead person...need not know...my identity." The sound once again floated into Mu Chen's ears. It felt as if it was near, sometimes it felt as if it was from away.

Mu Chen understood this was just the opponent trying to confuse his senses. He could not rely on his hearing to locate his opponent.

Mu Chen took a deep breath to calm himself as he began to quickly think of countermeasures. Panicking would only get him killed faster. 

"There is also no need to hide your identity from a dead person." Mu Chen retorted. 

"Glib!" The voice said after a pause. "But you won't survive..." 

Think! Think! Mu Chen screamed inwardly.

There was another swooshing sound and the flying sword attacked Mu Chen once again. But he was already ready and deflected the sword once again and noticed the direction where the sword disappeared. He glanced at his own sword and realized something.

His opponent didn't use any magical technique. He only used a flying sword. The sword itself was also very ordinary, otherwise Mu Chen's own sword would have been destroyed in the previous attack. The opponent didn't even use any martial technique behind his sword. What did this mean? The person was afraid to leave behind evidence that could be traced back. His opponent wasn't using his full strength. This was his opportunity.

Mu Chen gripped his sword tightly with both of his hands and slowly made his way deeper into the forest, using the trees as cover. Flying swords needed open space to pick up momentum. The trees could provide cover.

His assailant seemed to have noticed Mu Chen's intention. The flying sword attacked once again, but Mu Chen was able to deflect it again. The strength behind the attack was even weaker than before, as if it was made in haste.

"With this level of attack, you will never be able to kill me." Mu Chen sneered and ran deeper into the forest, sheathing his sword.

Even if the assailant was a cultivator who hadn't even shown himself, Mu Chen had already noticed a few details from their confrontation.

A cultivator had to use his divine sense to control the flying sword. But a cultivator couldn't extend his divine sense indefinitely. The intensity of the divine sense would weaken as the distance increased. So the farther the cultivator was from his flying sword, the weaker his control over it, and the longer it took to accumulate spiritual energy for an attack. So the actual range that a cultivator could effectively control the flying sword for combat was lower than the range of his divine sense.

Considering the delay between the attacks, the assailant was using the sword beyond the effective range. Meaning it was also near the limit of his divine sense.

Mu Chen didn't know the reason why the assailant was so sloppy. If it was him, he would not make such a basic mistake. But this was something he could take advantage of. The trees could also help block the cultivator's divine sense to some extent. He could escape, if he managed to get out of range of his opponent's divine sense.

So Mu Chen ran with everything he had. He used the stones and boulders or the roots of the trees as much as possible to avoid leaving behind any tracks.

Mu Chen didn't have any unrealistic expectations of winning a fight against a cultivator he knew very little about, in a life and death duel.

If it was just a Spirit Gathering cultivator or even a Spirit Condensation, Mu Chen could have taken the risk of trying to get closer and fight with everything he had. However, he couldn't be sure that the opponent wasn't a Sea Expansion Boundary realm expert or higher.

A Sea Expansion Boundary realm expert was likely someone who was over hundreds of years. At least, Mu Chen hadn't heard of any geniuses in their province, who had stepped into this realm before under a hundred years of age. Liu Fengying, Zhou Mei, and others of the recent generation had such an opportunity, but that was still in the future. Moreover, such a genius would disdain to assassinate someone like him.

If the assailant was someone from the older generation who had been practicing for over a hundred years, it was likely that he had already finished tempering his bones and muscles. Mu Chen could not get an advantage even if he tried to force melee combat.

So he ran. As long as he reached the Mu Family territory, he would be safe.

Unfortunately, expectations do not always meet reality. And the reality was that even though Mu Chen managed to use the terrain to his advantage, his speed was just too slow.

"Brat, you really thought you could escape just like that?" Mu Chen heard a voice behind him. Unlike before, it wasn't transmitted into his ears using sound technique.

Mu Chen glanced back and saw a masked figure in black clothes jumping from one branch to another at leisure. The distance between them was gradually decreasing. The thick forest barely provided any obstruction to him.

"Damn! A movement technique!" Mu Chen cursed and stopped running because he realized it was futile. Although his opponent was reluctant to use his techniques on him, he could still use movement techniques without any worry, so outrunning him was just a pipe dream. Running more would instead only exhaust him faster.

"Oh? Hey, why did you stop running? Geez...you are no fun!" The masked assailant quickly covered the distance between them. But seeing Mu Chen stop, he also jumped down and stood several feet away from him.

"Who are you? And why do you want to kill me? I don't think there is any enmity between us?" Mu Chen asked. His voice was calm. 

"Boy...shouldn't you stop asking such questions and think about how to escape?" The masked assailant didn't answer Mu Chen's question.

"Would that be of any use?" Mu Chen asked. It was as if he was talking to a passerby, not to someone who was about to kill him.

"Haha...honestly? No! If not because I had become impatient due to hours of waiting-you wouldn't even have made it this far." The masked assailant shook his head. He wasn't in a hurry to kill Mu Chen. In his opinion, Mu Chen was just a fly trapped in a jar. He could never escape.

Mu Chen didn't say anything more. Both he and the masked assailant just stared at each other.

Darkness began to shroud the pair of adversaries who faced each other, as the sun set beyond the horizon. Within the forest, it was even darker. The orange light that fell on the trees cast eerie shadows.