Chapter 23 – Retreat
At dawn, mist lingered at the mouth of the valley.
An elderly man with half-white hair was leisurely sweeping fallen leaves with a broom.
Suddenly, several black figures darted out from the forest. The leading shadow guard stepped down hard onto the freshly swept pile of leaves.
"Old man!" One of them lifted his mask to reveal a scarred face. "Have you seen an injured youth pass through here?"
The old man was Wu Bo.
He glanced at the shadow guards before looking at the scattered mess of leaves that had taken him half an hour to gather, his voice tinged with heartache. "Young man, do you know it takes this old man half an hour to sweep this spot?"
"Old man! Don't refuse a toast only to drink a forfeit!" One guard immediately drew his blade, but the leader stopped him.
Whether it was an illusion or not, the seemingly ordinary old man before them gave off a faint sense of unfathomable depth.
"Elder—"
The leader produced the Xiao family's command token. "We are here on Xiao family business. Please give us some respect…"
"Xiao family?" Wu Bo chuckled lightly. "What's that?"
"Old man, you're courting death!"
Several long blades were instantly drawn!
"Stand down!"
The leader quickly stopped them. As the only one among these shadow guards who had reached the Tongxuan Realm, he could faintly sense that the old man before them was not someone this group could challenge.
Taking a deep breath, he slowed his tone. "You may disregard our Xiao family, but the fugitive inside is a wanted criminal of the Tianyun Sect. Surely you wouldn't ignore the Tianyun Sect as well?"
Wu Bo picked at his ear. "Tianyun Sect? What backwater sect is that?"
The shadow guards collectively drew in a sharp breath.
Even the leader began to doubt his own judgment.
If not for the abyss-like aura emanating from this old man, he might truly have thought him a clueless country elder.
One guard stammered, "You… you don't even know the Tianyun Sect?"
"Why should I know it?" Wu Bo asked innocently.
The guards exchanged glances. One of them, wearing a mocking grin, said with a sneer, "Elder, you're right—the Tianyun Sect is nothing more than a backwater sect. Their sect master's cultivation isn't high, merely that of a Longevity Realm True Person…"
He deliberately stressed the words "Longevity Realm," waiting to see the old man's expression change in fear.
Wu Bo nodded. "Indeed, not very high."
The shadow guards: "???"
"How about this," Wu Bo said kindly, "go back and tell the Tianyun Sect's master to keep training hard, and never feel inferior just because he is only at the Longevity Realm while being the head of a sect."
"O-Old man, are you insane? Do you know what the Longevity Realm means?"
Wu Bo suddenly set aside his broom. The pressure of a Half-Step Longevity Realm cultivator erupted without warning. "It means… just a bit stronger than me?"
"Boom—"
A vast, ocean-like aura suddenly erupted from Wu Bo's hunched frame. In an instant, the air at the valley entrance seemed to freeze. The shadow guards felt as though a mountain of ten thousand catties pressed against their chests, making it difficult even to breathe.
"T-This is…" Beneath his mask, the shadow guard leader's pupils contracted sharply. To his horror, he realized his legs were trembling uncontrollably.
Wu Bo still wore the same kindly smile, yet a visible vortex of spiritual power swirled around him. Fallen leaves disintegrated into powder within three feet of his body, and the bluestone beneath his feet cracked inch by inch.
"Longevity Realm?!" the leader blurted, his long blade clattering to the ground.
Though he did not fully understand the Longevity Realm, he could tell the old man before him was countless times stronger than their own patriarch at the peak of the Returning Origin Realm.
Wu Bo slowly stroked his beard, each motion increasing the oppressive force around him. By the seventh stroke, the weakest guards had already collapsed to their knees, foreheads pressed to the ground, unable even to lift their heads.
"Now you understand what 'not very high' means, don't you?" Wu Bo asked with a squinting smile, though his voice crashed in their ears like thunder.
The shadow guard leader clung desperately to the last shred of dignity, only to find he couldn't even speak—the terrifying pressure had sealed his throat.
"Remember this," Wu Bo said, lightly stamping his foot, making the whole valley seem to tremble. "Go back and tell your patriarch… say…"
He deliberately drew out his words, watching their pained struggle, but soon found it dull.
"Say that the fallen leaves in this valley are more precious than the so-called face of your Xiao family. If anyone dares to step on them again…"
Before he could finish, all twelve shadow guards had already scrambled away a hundred zhang, leaving only scattered weapons and a few suspicious wet patches on the ground.
Satisfied, Wu Bo withdrew his pressure and returned to being an ordinary, unremarkable old man sweeping leaves. Humming a little tune, he resumed his work as though nothing had happened.
These past few days, his mood had been unusually good—not just because he had left the stifling environment of the Hong family.
More importantly, the knot in his heart had finally been undone, loosening his bottleneck so that he might step into the true Longevity Realm at any time.
And beyond that, he now had the 'Number One on the Heaven Ranking' as his backing.
So this… was what it felt like to hold onto a thick thigh? Wu Bo thought with satisfaction.
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