Sun looked at Yun Qiang's lifeless body, his eyes streaming with tears.
"No..." Desperate whispers started coming out of his mouth.
"No..."
He couldn't believe it. Yun Qiang, companion of misfortunes, his friend, his captain. He was dead.
He tightened the grip on his spear.
"No..."
Sadness gave way to rage as he looked at the man in front of him.
"Tian Lao!"
He let out an enraged scream gathering his strength, bravely charging against his worst enemy. With every step he took, his momentum grew, his speed hastened, his strength increased. Sun put everything he had in this charge. His rage, his desperation, his frustration.
His emotion had a clear target. Tian Lao.
The man in leather let out a surprised sound before trying to stop him. However, it was too late. Sun was too fast, his speed nearing that of a Foundation Realm cultivator.
A crazed smile bloomed on Sun's lips as he continued his advance, nearing Tian Lao's face.
"Ahhhh!"
A deafening scream echoed on the battlefield as Sun pushed his body to his limits, putting every ounce of strength he had left into this strike.
Clank.
The agonising sound of screeching metal filled the battlefield as Sun and Tian Lao's weapons collided. For a second, neither weapon moved. However, the faces of their wielders said everything.
A burning rage had taken over Sun, while coldness and indifference were written all over Tian Lao.
For a second, everyone's eyes were on them. Some looked on with hope, while others watched with morbid curiosity.
Sun gritted his teeth, pushing all his remaining strength into his trembling arms. Even if he wouldn't survive, he wanted to at least injure his opponent.
Tian Lao slowly pushed forward, his expression remaining cold as ice.
Sun's arms trembled violently as the pressure increased. His spear began to bend under the force.
Crack!
Sun's eyes widened as his balance suddenly disappeared. He fell forward, while Tian Lao's sword continued its relentless advance.
Within a few breaths, Sun found himself on the ground. His broken spear lay beside him, while a deep cut ran across his cheek, sending waves of pain through his face.
He looked up.
Tian Lao was still advancing, completely unfazed by Sun's resistance. It was as if he had merely swatted away a fly.
His head turned towards his remaining companions. He didn't just fail Yun Qiang, he had also failed them.
"I'm sorry..."
Sun closed his eyes. Tears still streamed down his face, making the cut on his cheek burn.
"I'm sorry..."
Suddenly, his body started shivering, and a sense of cold spread over his body.
Is this death?
"What?!" Tian Lao's surprised voice reached his ear.
Sun snapped his eyes open.
A few meters from him, Tian Lao had stopped in his tracks. In one hand, he held his sword, while the other one was empty.
Yun Qiang wasn't getting dragged anymore. Instead, he stood in front of Tian Lao.
Suddenly, Tian Lao thrust his blade forward.
"Even if you aren't dead, you will be soon!"
His voice was filled with rage and killing intent. His blade shined with a sharp aura as it left behind afterimages.
Sun knew what this was. It was the second level of Qi mastery. Tian Lao was being serious!
"No...."
An ancient voice seemed to come out of Yun Qiang's mouth as he stood still, only letting his arm come down in a smooth and steady motion.
The moment his arm came down completely, a deafening roar filled the battlefield before a blinding lightning came down from the sky, hitting Tian Lao. Killing him on the spot.
Sun looked at the scene with both awe and shock.
The entire process had taken less than a second and had resulted in the death of both Tian Lao and his subordinates.
For a second he was petrified. To put it simply, this was absurd.
He knew Yun Qiang's strength, and he simply wasn't capable of this.
He slowly stood up, hesitantly walking closer to his friend.
"Yun Qiang, how—"
He stopped mid-sentence. Yun Qiang had turned around, his eyes were ice-cold and gave off an extremely threatening vibe, forcing him to take a few seconds to calm his turbulent breath.
"H-How did you do it?" His speech stuttered. Even when looking down, he could feel Yun Qiang's piercing gaze on him.
There was a moment of silence. Everyone around them had the same question in mind, even if they didn't dare to ask.
However, Yun Qiang didn't have any intention to respond and instead started ordering them around. His voice sounding extremely commanding and authoritative, like an emperor proclaiming a decree to his officials.
"Sun. Cut off their heads, and bring me their space rings."
"Everyone else, start digging a hole at the edge of the Array. The hole must be at least three meters deep and one meter wide."
There was a moment of silence. Their situation had changed too fast, leaving them unable to instantly adapt.
"Now."
When these words fell, time seemed to restart as everyone started moving again, hurriedly following their captain's orders.
Sun was the only one standing still.
Only when Yun Qiang's gaze finally moved away from Sun did he relax and start cutting off their enemies' heads while looting their belongings.
The entire process was extremely smooth and didn't take more than a few minutes. However, Sun couldn't help but double-check everyone before coming back to Yun Qiang with the loot.
"Sir, I brought the loot and the heads."
Sun did a small bow before bringing forward the space ring he had found. Now that Yun Qiang was cold and aloof, Sun had changed his demeanour to be that of a normal soldier.
Yun Qiang took the ring, nodding to himself before throwing a small bamboo slip at Sun.
"Look at the second and sixth entry."
The slip was made of green bamboo and had a smooth texture. On it, the words "Wanted List" were written with bold characters.
Sun's eyes widened when he read the second and sixth entries. Yun Qiang and Sun's names were written.
"Sir... I—"
Yun Qiang waved his hand, stopping him from speaking anymore.
"We will talk about your identity later."
He shifted his gaze towards the subordinates that were digging a hole.
"Now. Do you have anything you want to ask me?"
Sun fell silent for a moment. He still wasn't used to Yun Qiang's new oppressing demeanour, making him hesitate when responding to him.
From Yun Qiang's previous reaction, Sun knew he couldn't ask how Yun Qiang killed Tian Lao, nor could he ask if he was still the Yun Qiang he knew.
Sun's gaze fell to the hole that Alivar and the others were digging.
Should I ask about the hole?
He shook his head. Asking about it didn't make sense. Yun Qiang specifically asked for a three-meter-deep hole, and according to their group's digging speed, it wouldn't take them more than a few minutes to finish digging it. He would naturally understand the hole's usefulness then.
So he decided to ask a neutral question that didn't touch on any subjects.
"Do you have any other orders?"
Yun Qiang smiled, seemingly approving of Sun's question.
"Do you know about Arrays?"
"I have only read some basic theory when I was little."
Yun Qiang nodded.
"If anyone asks what happened here, you should tell them that while doing our scouting mission, we encountered Tian Lao and his subordinates."
"They were already injured and were running away from something. Seeing this, we attacked them, triggering the array in the process."
"When you saw this array, you recognized it as the Pact of Fourteen Directions Array. However, you also remembered that the array from the book was extremely powerful and expensive, so you started searching for flaws."
"After a while, you couldn't find any. However, you also remembered that the Pact of Fourteen Directions Array formed a complete sphere, so you ordered the others to dig a hole. And to our surprise, the array didn't continue deep underground, so we dug under it and escaped."
"As for what was chasing Tian Lao, we didn't want to know, so we took their heads, looted them and ran away."
Sun listened to him, his expression becoming more and more surprised as Yun Qiang went on.
"Sir, what if they accuse us of running away from our duty? We still haven't mapped the area."
Yun Qiang didn't seem bothered by this.
"The merit of killing Tian Lao outweighs the crime of not doing our duties. Besides, the Pact of Fourteen Directions Array is a trapping array. Whoever sent us here only wanted to trap Tian Lao here. He doesn't care about a map of the area."
Sun put on a doubtful expression.
"Trapping array?"
"Yes. Normally, anyone can enter and leave the area without activating the array. However, the moment someone is killed inside it, the array activates completely, trapping whoever is inside of it."
Sun unconsciously shifted his gaze towards a thin corpse.
What Yun Qiang said made sense. The barrier didn't form immediately. Instead, it appeared only after Dav died during their retreat. Sun hadn't noticed it before, but now that Yun Qiang explained the array to him, everything started making sense.
"Sun."
Sun jumped up, immediately straightening his back. He hadn't noticed it, but he had stopped talking, leaving them in an awkward silence.
"Yes, Sir!"
"Stop using a spear. You have no talent for it."
Before Sun could respond, Yun Qiang threw Tian Lao's sword toward him.
The moment Sun's hand touched the sword, a wave of knowledge rushed inside his head, forcing him into a vision.
Inside this vision, a man with sharp features and blonde eyes waved his sword in front of a small waterfall.
It was unknown who he was. However, from the man's movements, he could be identified as an extremely powerful cultivator. Each strike was extremely fast and left behind numerous afterimages, making it difficult to track the man's sword.
Then, a series of instructions started forming in Sun's head. The man wasn't talking nor writing, however, it felt as if each strike was meant to teach something to the onlooker. With each strike, a new stance formed in Sun's mind, leaving him with more knowledge than before. This went on for hundreds of strikes until, finally, at the five hundredth strike, the vision started becoming blurrier.
Before completely disappearing, three words formed before Sun's eyes, finally giving a name to what he had learned.
"Nine Tempest Strike."
When the vision ended, a wave of dizziness assaulted Sun, forcing him to lean on his broken spear to maintain his balance.
The whole world seemed to spin before him. The only thing that was still in his view was Yun Qiang.
Yun Qiang was still there, his eyes fixed at the growing hole while his hands were clasped behind his back. His gaze seemed to soften for a second before turning back to coldness.
"If you can master it, look for me."
Then he fell unconscious to the ground.