As Lian tried to run, a shot whistled frighteningly close to his arm, which he barely evaded by taking a sharp turn. The arrow flew past him, striking the ground ahead. It instantly crushed and exploded, sending dust and sand boiling up into the sky.
"Damn, no matter how fast I run, he is always behind me… I have to find a way to evade him or I will die, I need to find a way to lose him" Lian thought, taking a sharp turn towards a rocky terrain.
"You have quite the legs on you, don't you? Have you no shame as a martial artist?" Xianshun spoke, nocking another arrow.
"Are you retarded? Do you take me for an idiot? You clearly have a higher cultivation than me. If I stay to fight, what chance do I have of winning against you?" Lian retorted, taking a quick turn toward a dense, bushy area.
His words clearly made Xian shun angry because his attacks began to intensify, swifter that the last and more frequently.
As Lian ran, arrows kept coming, forcing him to turn and shift with each attack.
"It feels like he is leading the path I should take," Lian thought to himself as he whipped around one more corner.
Then, finally, he found himself at an impasse. There was no more ground—he was now at the edge of a high cliff, so tall that the trees below looked blurry, almost like grains of sand.
"Hahaha… you have no more space to run to," Xianshun spoke, stepping into view, his step slow and his bow raised.
"What will you do now? It's time to choose: die by my arrow, or jump—you might just have a chance to survive…" Xianshun spoke, laughing horridly.
In that moment, Lian Xing felt his heart pounding loudly in his head. His thoughts were running rampant in search of a solution. He knew one thing for sure: either solution led to death. If he was going to die, he was going to die with a fight.
He stood still and closed his eyes, concentrating all his Qi into his feet. "If I use all my Qi to attack him with swift speed, I might have a chance to surprise him."
"Hahaha! What, you choose to die by my arrow? What a coward! You're afraid to risk your life. You might have had a chance to live if you had jumped."
"No… you are lying. You were going to shoot me down as I jumped. There is no way you were going to give me a chance to live," Lian spoke, stretching his two right fingers and pouring some Qi into them.
"Aren't you clever… hehehehe," Xianshun responded, instantly releasing his arrow.
During that moment of conversation, Lian was gathering his Qi using the Sutra cultivation method. It might have been due to that method that he felt everything slow down. Xianshun's arrow felt slower than any of his previous ones. With that heartbeat, Lian dashed. His whole body felt like it was going to tear apart.
Crack!
Just like a flash of lightning, he found himself in front of Xianshun. His two fingers, heavily covered with Qi, flew straight into Xianshun's eye, stabbing him.
"How…!?" Xianshun stammered as he fell to the ground, knees first.
Xianshun breathed his last, dying and cursing one final time.
"F*ck! I got killed by a brat that hasn't even broken through the Foundation Realm!"
"Damn it… I drained all my Qi. I might die soon as well," Lian thought as he collapsed next to Xianshun. What's more, the attack had shattered his left arm; his fingers bent in a way they were not supposed to.
He felt everything go blurry as he began to lose consciousness. "Son, this is the end, ha… I am about to die. I achieved nothing in my life… I guess it's only fair, I am a failure." Lian thought as he glanced at Xianshun.
"No… I will never die before my revenge…" Lian gritted his teeth as he dragged his right hand toward Xianshun's body.
"I bet he has some Qi pills somewhere on him…" Lian used his working arm and dragged himself over to Xianshun's side. There, he saw something glimmer: a golden ring. Lian quickly took it off the archer's hand and slipped it onto his own.
"Ha… ha… ha… it's a storage ring. He might—" Lian lost consciousness for a short while, then suddenly woke up.
"If I fall asleep now, I will die…" he spoke, biting his lip, forcing himself awake. He squeezed the last of his Qi and activated the storage ring.
"Found it…" he murmured, producing a white vial.
"I am not sure if this is it or not, but I have no choice…" Lian thought, consuming the pill inside the white vial.