Hong Ying sensed people approaching nearby. Zhao Xiaowan unclasped the cloak from her shoulders and draped it over the Dark Bridge Cannon. Instantly, the entire cannon blended completely into the snow, rendering it entirely imperceptible to ordinary eyes.
The cloak counted as a spiritual item, though not quite a dharma treasure; it was a curtain crafted together by Zhao Xiaowan and Honglian using the remnant spirituality of Rong Sijiao.
Retaining the innate traits of a Color Cultivator, the fabric could dye itself like a chameleon. Light and shadow layered across it, forming varied depths and angles across different spots until it mirrored the texture of snowflakes with lifelike precision. With the Dark Bridge Cannon hidden, it was time to deal with the enemy.
Possessing sharp senses, Hong Ying knew someone was drawing near from the mouth of the valley and prepared to head out and deal with them. Zhao Xiaowan stopped her. "Don't underestimate the enemy. I'll go with you."
Arriving at the valley mouth, Hong Ying judged from the footsteps that there were more than thirty people outside.
To Hong Ying, this was child's play. She was just about to go out and handle the lot of them when Zhao Xiaowan waved her hands repeatedly, signaling for her to stay put at the valley entrance. Sure enough, there were over thirty people outside—thirty-eight three-headed people in total.
These three-headed soldiers lingered at the entrance for a long time, never once stepping into the valley.
This was their standard doctrine. They deduced people were inside, and suspected an ambush was likely in place. Under such circumstances, they would never set foot inside. It was a tactical rule—meant strictly to be executed, never altered.
A squad leader among the three-headed soldiers used his left head to shout toward the valley, "Whoever is inside, come out immediately and return with us to the Garrison Office for interrogation!"
Every syllable had been drilled into him. The point of these words was not communication, but distracting the enemy—ideally provoking anger to lure them into foolish mistakes.
Hearing this, Hong Ying felt her fury surge. She had no concept of what the Garrison Office was, but the word "interrogation" struck a sore nerve. Zhao Xiaowan gripped Hong Ying's arm, holding her firmly in place. The more agitated Hong Ying grew, the tighter Zhao Xiaowan held on.
The squad shouted for over ten minutes without receiving an answer. Then, a low, rasping chant drifted into the valley from outside.
"The Garrison Office possesses law. The Garrison Office possesses rules. The Garrison Office is the pillar of Puluo Province. Obey the Garrison Office's command and be a sinless person..."
Hong Ying had no idea what they were chanting, but the words left her mind utterly unsettled. What right did this Garrison Office have to decide who was guilty and who was sinless? One moment, she longed to charge out and fight to the death; the next, she felt that winning or losing didn't matter at all.
If they lost, she would just take Xiaowan and run. If they couldn't run, dying alongside Xiaowan wouldn't leave any regrets in this life. In the span of a single breath, anger, hatred, despair, resignation, and relief—dozens of conflicting emotions—all rushed into Hong Ying's head.
It was fortunate they were in the valley, and fortunate Hong Ying was right beside Zhao Xiaowan. Had she gone out to slaughter them, there was no telling what she might have done; overwhelmed by dark thoughts, she might even have slit her own throat.
Zhao Xiaowan was hardly affected. She had methods to counter techniques of this kind.
From the continuous chanting, Zhao Xiaowan had already identified three techniques at play.
The first was a Virtue Cultivator technique: Seeing Virtue and Aspiring to Match It, deliberately suppressing their will to fight.
The second was a Mind Cultivator technique: Rampant Extraneous Thoughts, scrambling their focus.
The third was a Sound Cultivator technique: Hundred Sounds, Hundred Devourings, inflicting real physical harm upon them.
Using three techniques in unison, with such precision and flawless coordination—truth be told, even Zhao Xiaowan had never witnessed such a display. But never having seen it did not mean she could not counter it.
"Girl, having stayed away from the battlefield for so long, your warfare has grown rusty." Xiaowan stroked Hong Ying's palm. Hong Ying looked at her and saw Zhao Xiaowan's lips curl slightly as her throat subtly vibrated.
Zhao Xiaowan was making a sound, yet no ordinary person could hear it. Even Hong Ying heard nothing; the frequency lay far beyond the range of her hearing. Moreover, the sound was directional: Hong Ying was unaffected, as were the thirty-eight three-headed soldiers lingering at the valley mouth.
However, the more than one hundred three-headed soldiers lying in ambush along the slope outside were severely afflicted. Their chants fell into disarray, their techniques clashed, and many began bleeding from the ears and leaking pus from their eyes, their heads throbbing as if splitting open.
The moment they began chanting, Zhao Xiaowan had locked onto their positions.
Having smoothly disrupted the ambushers' interference, it was now safe for Hong Ying to step out.
Halfway up the slope, a three-headed battalion commander was still urging his men, "Hold your positions! Synchronize the techniques! Use the will and spirit of our Sinless Army to crush the enemy's counterattack!"
Before his words finished, Hong Ying flickered directly into their formation.
She hadn't marched out through the valley entrance; she had phased straight through the solid rock, passing right through the mountain. This was the pinnacle application of Unimpeded Passage. More than two hundred three-headed soldiers scrambled into formation to retaliate, but they were given no chance.
Hong Ying unleashed Treading Ten Thousand Rivers with a single stomp. The entire hillside gave way in a massive landslide, burying over two hundred three-headed soldiers beneath earth and stone. Having not executed a technique of this magnitude in ages, she had exerted too much force and felt a dizzy spell wash over her.
Yet this was Xiaowan's command: strike with full strength, finish the battle in the shortest possible time, and never let it devolve into a stalemate.
Down below, the thirty-eight three-headed soldiers were stunned by the sudden collapse of the mountainside. The squad leader was torn between fighting and rescuing his comrades. In that moment of hesitation, he lost his only chance to act.
A dense fog billowed up around them, swallowing the valley, the slope, and even the path beneath their feet. The squad leader kept his composure, realizing the enemy intended to blind them.
Facing extreme danger, he immediately ordered the execution of their first tactical plan.
When confronting formidable foes, the three-headed soldiers' primary protocol was the simplest and most efficient: deploy their Disrupters to neutralize the enemy's techniques. Disrupters functioned similarly to Mind Cultivators; among the thirty-eight soldiers, twenty-one had at least one head specialized as a Disrupter.
These Disrupter heads did not control the body, worry about the broader battlefield, or engage in offense and defense; they devoted themselves purely to preparing techniques. Their activations were swift and potent. The only problem was that Zhao Xiaowan gave them no time at all.
The dense vapor was not merely meant to block their vision. Its temperature skyrocketed in an instant, and within the superheated steam, all thirty-eight soldiers were scalded to death. It occurred so fast that the squad leader never even understood how he had fallen.
Hong Ying cheered for Xiaowan. Without wasting a single moment, Zhao Xiaowan hurried back to the Boundary and pulled the cloak off the Dark Bridge Cannon. Now she had another use for it.
"Yingying, clear the battlefield!"
The two cleaned up the corpses of the fallen soldiers, and turned any who were still breathing into corpses as well. Bodies were easy to handle, but what about the collapsed hillside?
That fell to Honglian's handiwork. She had imbued the camouflage cloak with a special technique. Xiaowan and Hong Ying grasped opposite corners and pulled gently; the fabric stretched smoothly along the direction of their pull. Before long, it had lengthened to over a hundred meters, yet when Xiaowan tested it, its texture remained as durable as ever.
Hong Ying reached the slope and brandished her spear. Using Treading Flat Ground, she cleared the fallen timber and loose rubble smooth. Xiaowan took to the air, draping the expanded cloak over the scarred mountain face. Instantly, the fabric shifted colors.
First came a blanket of snow as the base, followed swiftly by several protruding boulders, and finally dense thickets of mountain woods. When the cold wind blew, the rippling cloth looked just like branches swaying in the breeze—a lifelike winter landscape.
Hong Ying marveled, "Xiaowan, I truly admire you. Consuming a single Color Cultivator allowed you to make such an incredible piece. No wonder Brother Seven was so worried you might go hungry."
Zhao Xiaowan smiled proudly. "This has nothing to do with my skill. My husband simply dotes on me."
The two returned to the Boundary and resumed their watch. Hong Ying murmured softly, "It's been so long since I fought a real battle. My leg has a bit of a cramp."
Xiaowan chuckled, crouching down. "Let me knead it for you."
Hong Ying flushed with embarrassment, the tip of her spear turning bright red. "Don't bother, it's nothing. Your hands are so soft... How about I massage you instead...?"
"Impudent wench, who said you could touch me?" Xiaowan pinched Hong Ying playfully, then turned back to inspect the Dark Bridge Cannon.
Looking across the Boundary into the distance, Hong Ying said, "I just hope Brother Seven returns soon. The danger hasn't passed; more will come before long."
Zhao Xiaowan blew warm breath into her palms. "Three-headed soldiers with cultivation are indeed difficult to handle. But if the priming agent works, my husband will gain an enormous asset!"
***
Up on the slopes of Mount Zhouzi, Li Banfeng was gathering the three-headed laborers to head down. Thanks to their rigorous discipline, once Tu Heng relayed the order, ten thousand people assembled in no time.
"Follow me down the mountain," Li Banfeng told them. "No matter what you encounter on the way, just keep running behind me."
A three-headed young man stepped forward, all three heads belonging to a hot-blooded youth. Speaking in turns without precedence, they asked:
"What if we run into the Sinless Army?"
"If we run into them, keep running forward! I'll hold them off!"
"I'm not afraid of them! As long as everyone escapes, giving my life is worth it!"
Tu Heng felt that he too should stay behind to fight and ensure everyone got onto the carriage. Most of the people wanted to flee for their lives, but seeing others volunteer to stay behind gave them a pang of guilt.
They immediately began debating who should remain as a rearguard.
Li Banfeng cut them off sharply: "I'll say this once: follow me down the mountain right now. Don't think about anything else. Wasting a single breath here is throwing away a life!"
None dared argue further or let their minds wander. They followed Li Banfeng down the mountain path. Halfway down, the Rickshaw Man and Lu Qianjiao were waiting by the roadside. The commotion on the eastern slope was growing louder and louder; Li Banfeng didn't know how many enemies the Peddler was engaging, but it was certainly far more than three thousand.
Had reinforcements arrived, or had Mount Zhouzi held far more troops from the very start? There wasn't a second to lose. Li Banfeng called out, "Board the carriage!"
The throng of three-headed people froze.
Board the carriage? Who boards? Was it meant for their leader?
Everyone looked at Tu Heng. Tu Heng shook his heads. "I resolutely refuse to ride. The carriage must be reserved for the elderly and weak."
His subordinates began shouting, "Check the ranks! Who qualifies as elderly or weak?"
Li Banfeng couldn't fathom what was going through Tu Heng's mind. With ten thousand people, how long would it take to inspect them all? "All ten thousand can fit! Stop talking and get in, now!"
The Rickshaw Man patted the shafts. He knew how to work the Haichi old carriage. The shafts trembled, and the carriage doors swung open.
A rich aroma drifted out from within—not of flowers or tea, but of hot food.
What kind of food?
There was steamed rice, millet, cornmeal porridge, potato noodles, and what smelled like mashed yams.
The scents of savory dishes were even more plentiful: stir-fried pork, smoked chicken, roast goose, braised pork knuckle, sweet-and-sour fish... The aroma was intoxicating enough to pull one's gut right out; even Li Banfeng felt tempted to step up and look inside.
The Rickshaw Man signaled Li Banfeng sharply not to look.
But the three-headed people couldn't resist. They hadn't eaten properly in days. These delicacies were luxuries they had never tasted in their lives, delicacies beyond their wildest dreams.
Whoever caught the scent couldn't resist craning their necks to peer inside.
And once they looked, they vanished into the carriage one after another. First one or two, then vast swathes of them.
Everywhere the aroma drifted, heads turned to gaze. In the blink of an eye, the entire crowd of ten thousand had vanished, leaving only a few people staring blankly at Li Banfeng. Tu Heng hadn't gone in yet. Pointing at the carriage, he stammered, "What is this? What are you doing? Where did everyone go?"
Li Banfeng said, "They're all aboard. You get in too..."
"There were ten thousand of us! How could we possibly fit into that carriage?!" Believing he had been tricked, Tu Heng demanded an explanation.
Before Li Banfeng could explain, the Rickshaw Man lifted the shafts, preparing to depart.
Seeing this, Li Banfeng kicked Tu Heng straight into the carriage.
Lu Qianjiao grabbed the remaining three-headed stragglers and tossed them inside. With everyone aboard, the three sprinted down the mountain toward the border. Laden with ten thousand people, the Haichi old carriage had clearly changed; even someone as formidable as the Rickshaw Man found pulling it far heavier than before.
"Listen here, you two," the Rickshaw Man called out. "Once this carriage starts rolling, it cannot stop. If it halts, I might not be able to pull it again." He wasn't being lazy; he was speaking the honest truth. Starting and stopping with ten thousand passengers demanded far too much of him.
Before they had gone far, the Rickshaw Man's brow twitched. "Ambush ahead!"
Li Banfeng sprinted ahead of the carriage. After several dozen meters, his foot brushed against a hidden mechanism. The foot hadn't landed with full weight, so the trap didn't trip, but Li Banfeng didn't pull back.
Instead, he drove his foot down with force, deliberately triggering it. The ground collapsed, revealing a deep pit.
From both sides of the pit, more than sixty three-headed soldiers waiting in concealment swarmed forward to encircle him.
This was another standard tactic: once the enemy fell into the pit, they would pound him to mince with specialized weapons. Li Banfeng, however, hadn't fallen; he took off straight from the spot and engaged them in combat.
The squad leader looked back and saw a man pulling a rickshaw, skirting right past the trap and racing into the distance. Where had this rickshaw puller come from?
Before the squad leader could make sense of it, a woman dashed into view.
Lu Qianjiao moved to assist Li Banfeng, but he called out, "Sister-in-law, follow the carriage!"
Fearing the Rickshaw Man might abandon the carriage and ruin everything, Lu Qianjiao had no choice but to chase after him, leaving Li Banfeng alone to cover the retreat.
The three-headed soldiers were momentarily torn: should they pursue the carriage or continue fighting the man before them?
Their military doctrine was strictly regulated. When they had to fight, they fought; when they had to retreat, they retreated. Every decision had to be swift and crisp, for hesitation would severely disrupt tactical execution.
This squad leader had been given only one mission: ambush the Peddler.
The Sinless Army had encountered a dangerous individual suspected to be the Peddler on Mount Zhouzi, and ambushes had been laid along every path to prevent him from escaping down the mountain.
This squad of sixty-odd soldiers was merely one of many ambush units. They had not been assigned to intercept or attack carriages, which meant there was no need to perform extraneous duties.
With their mission clarified, their tactics became straightforward: concentrate all forces on the first enemy they met—Li Banfeng.
Their protocol remained unchanged. Ramblers and Brawlers handled suppression and containment, while Savants, Judges, Bullies, and Disrupters bombarded him with techniques. Li Banfeng normally held a degree of counter-advantage over Mind Cultivators, since they struggled to grasp his dominant thought.
Yet the three-headed soldiers' approach was different and far simpler: a pack of Disrupters didn't bother trying to read his mind; they merely generated hordes of meaningless extraneous thoughts. Combined with the mental assaults of the Savants and Judges, Li Banfeng's head felt like a boiling kettle.
"Listen to me, fight if we must, but whatever you do, don't use Dwelling Cultivator techniques. We can't kill them all, and if word gets out that we're a Dwelling Cultivator, we won't have the upper hand in future fights!"
"Use fewer Journey Cultivator techniques too. Ours are far fiercer than other Journey Cultivators'. Use too many and they'll realize we're Li Seven!"
"So what if they know we're Li Seven?"
"If Li Seven runs to Santoucha to steal people, how is he supposed to remain a Balancer?"
"Dwelling techniques are off-limits, Journey techniques are off-limits—then how the hell are we supposed to fight this battle?!"
Voice after voice clamored in his ears. Unable to channel his techniques, Li Banfeng could not even ride the wind or tread the clouds; his body swayed and plummeted to the ground. Worse than hitting the ground was the sudden loss of coordination: under the competing dominance of multiple consciousnesses, he could barely walk straight.
There were only sixty-odd soldiers before him. Even equating dark-energy users to cultivators, they were merely at the Skin stage. Yet organized into an army, they proved this formidable?
A three-headed Brawler closed in with a specialized weapon. It was unadorned, roughly a meter long, resembling a bayonet.
Plain as it looked, it was exceptionally practical—well-weighted and properly balanced. Furthermore, its material was extraordinary; ordinary weapons would have shattered after crossing blades twice, yet this bayonet clashed against Li Banfeng's scythe repeatedly without showing a nick.
The other three-headed soldiers bore weapons uniquely tailored to their respective roles and fighting styles.
Back in the forest, their numbers had been small; Li Banfeng had held the advantage of a surprise attack and had Lu Qianjiao's assistance, so he hadn't noticed their coordination or weaponry.
Now, unable to cast techniques and with his body uncoordinated, the disparity became glaringly obvious.
One soldier swung a heavy blade that proved difficult to parry. Li Banfeng barely dodged it, throwing himself off balance.
Another thrust with a bayonet from an awkward angle that left no room to evade. Li Banfeng raised his scythe to block, but his aim was off, and the blade grazed his arm.
A third lunged from behind with a simple, direct thrust, immediately followed by several others striking in unison. Every move was crisp and economical. Li Banfeng tried to dodge, but his feet refused to obey; he tried to parry, but his hands wouldn't respond.
Fortunately, the Tang dao sprang up to deflect the assault. Watching Li Banfeng's state, even the sword grew frantic; ever since reaching the fifth layer of the Skin stage, Li Banfeng had never been reduced to such a pathetic state. The Disrupters kept pumping distractions into his mind—their standard doctrine was to press an advantage to the absolute end.
Li Banfeng's skull felt ready to burst. Relying on their concise, efficient assault, the three-headed soldiers were steadily driving him to the brink.
After several exchanges, both the Tang dao and the scythe struggled to hold the line. The glove, the clock pendulum, the liquor gourd, the Judge's Brush, and the old teapot scrambled to shield him, and even the music box hovered into the air to deflect blades.
With his mind in chaos, Li Banfeng had become a liability to his own treasures; in their scramble to protect him, they found no opening to strike back. The only one that managed to retaliate was the projector, which flew aloft and sucked one of the three-headed soldiers into its film canister.
This was its unique Withering technique. Swallowing a living three-headed man left the projector utterly exhausted; in its current state, it could only execute the move once. Hovering in midair, it looked down upon the soldiers' pure, pragmatic tactics, then watched Li Banfeng's state deteriorate further.
Just moments ago, Li Banfeng's left and right hands had tangled together into a knot.
Yet he seemed unbothered, staring at his hands and curiously playing cat's cradle with himself.
His footwork grew even more erratic, yet beneath the disorder lay a strange rhythm, as though he were dancing an awkward jig. Another volley of bayonets stabbed forward, piercing his shoulders and thighs until blood flowed freely.
Droplets of blood fell to the ground one after another; Li Banfeng was nearing his limit.
The projector was genuinely terrified. In all the time it had followed Li Banfeng, it had never seen an enemy with such unified discipline, nor had it ever seen Li Banfeng incapable of countering basic combat maneuvers.
"Director Seven, you're in no condition to fight!"
The glove shouted into his ear, "Master, retreat! We can't fight like this!"
"It truly isn't working, but retreat is out of the question!"
Li Banfeng hadn't opened his mouth, yet the glove heard someone speak.
*Who was that?*
The glove looked toward the sound. A three-headed soldier collapsed, his heart gouged out. Standing beside him was a shadow wielding a shovel. The shadow had emerged!
"Master, you've unleashed your technique!" Seeing the shadow appear, the glove was overjoyed.
*Thump!*
A dull impact sounded nearby. Another shadow executed Sever the Path to Forge a Way, smashing through a soldier's chest and plucking out his heart. It called out to the glove, "Glovey, get me a weapon! How am I supposed to fight barehanded?!"
A second shadow! That was a wonderful sign!
"We've got plenty of weapons!" The glove tossed a short blade to it.
The shadow caught the blade, only for another voice to grumble, "Didn't I tell you not to use Journey Cultivator techniques? Are you that eager for people to know who you are?"
The glove turned: a third shadow.
"So what if they know? Kill them all and leave no survivors, and nobody will know!" A fourth shadow stepped forth.
"Well said! Leave no survivors!" Two more shadows surged out from the left, barreling forward with Headstrong Course. That made six shadows in total.
"Even if we leave survivors, who cares? We'll just drag them home!" This voice belonged not to a shadow, but to Li Banfeng himself.
With the shadows released, the extraneous thoughts had been cast out, and Li Banfeng's body regained its coordination. He burst into roaring laughter, a glowing halo rippling beneath his feet.
A Dwelling Cultivator's boundary! Director Seven had used Close the Doors and Bar the Gates!
Li Banfeng rarely cast this technique before onlookers, for doing so revealed his pathway. If a survivor escaped, his secrets would be exposed.
Yet today, his scrambled thoughts had shed all hesitation. A Journey Cultivator's speed combined with a Dwelling boundary's lethal edge was devastating. Li Banfeng circled the ranks twice, and over a dozen soldiers dropped to the ground.
"Come on! Charge! Come one, die one; come two, I'll take the pair!"
Just as Li Banfeng hit his stride, the radiant halo abruptly vanished.
The glove gasped, "Master, the technique stopped working!"
The three-headed soldiers quickly reformed their ranks, encircling Li Banfeng and his shadows. The Literati Cultivators among them shouted:
"Let there be light, brightening all four quarters!"
Another instance of Words Become Reality! Their tactics remained relentlessly simple and efficient. A brilliant, blinding glare erupted from nowhere around Li Banfeng. The intense light seared the shadows, forcing them to cower behind him.
Li Banfeng roared, "Don't fear! There is no light!"
How could there be no light? This illumination was conjured by Literati Cultivators; the projector's film was overexposed, and even the glove could scarcely keep its eye slits open.
Li Banfeng shouted again, "I said there is no light, so there is no light!"
The chanting Literati Cultivators suddenly fell silent. The light truly disappeared.
The Literati technique had failed!
The shadows that had been severely scorched stepped out from behind Li Banfeng, entirely restored.
No one understood why the light had vanished or how the shadows had recovered—only the projector, hovering at the highest vantage point, saw the cause.
The boundary had expanded.
The boundary forged by Close the Doors and Bar the Gates had not vanished; it had grown.
The boundary that once clung closely to Li Banfeng had expanded into a circle dozens of meters wide. Every three-headed soldier surrounding him was now trapped inside it.
"What technique was this again...?" The projector racked its memory, hearing Li Banfeng mutter raving words that sent chills down the spine:
"Within the boundary lies all my soil!"
"Within my soil, I am master!"
These were no mad ravings. When he spoke them, his expression was deadly serious and utterly focused.
The projector finally remembered. "This is the ninth-layer Dwelling technique—Expand the Domain and Open the Frontiers!"
A technique Li Banfeng had barely been able to learn: Expand the Domain and Open the Frontiers! In this moment of life and death, he had actually pulled it off!
Everything within the boundary was now equivalent to Li Banfeng's personal dwelling.
And inside his dwelling, Li Banfeng could wield Rest Easy Without Worry.
With Rest Easy Without Worry active, Li Banfeng was the supreme master of this entire domain! When he said there was no light, there was no light!
When he commanded the shadows to mend, they mended!
"Kill them!" Li Banfeng bellowed, and the shadows raised their weapons and surged forward!
The three-headed soldiers stubbornly pressed on with their tactics.
The Disrupters continued unleashing Rampant Extraneous Thoughts, and Li Banfeng welcomed them with open arms. The more distractions they fed him, the more shadows he produced, until their numbers began to surpass the soldiers'.
One shadow shouted as it fought, "Hey, isn't that the famous Banfeng Two?"
Banfeng Two looked back. "Who are you? Do I know you?"
The shadow grinned. "We're all one and the same! This is my first time out!"
The Savants continued attempting Words Become Reality.
"You cannot move."
"I can!" A shadow charged forward and hacked the Savant down.
"You cannot kill!"
"Why the hell not?!" Two shadows joined forces to drag a soldier onto the boundary line, ripping away a massive chunk of his flesh.
"You cannot—"
"I can do whatever I please!" Holding a severed head, Li Banfeng grinned savagely. "Within the boundary lies all my soil! Within my soil, I am master!"
*Rumble!*
Li Banfeng stomped down with Treading Ten Thousand Rivers, sending shockwaves through the surrounding terrain.
The glove nearly lost its balance. That Li Banfeng could unleash such terrifying power with Treading Ten Thousand Rivers genuinely shocked it. Six three-headed soldiers were instantly pounded into meat paste, and over a dozen standing farther back suffered grievous wounds.
The projector couldn't understand. "How did Director Seven master Expand the Domain and Open the Frontiers? He tried so many times and never succeeded; even the madam couldn't manage it."
The glove glanced at the projector. "The master seemed mad just now. He must have tapped into the madman techniques he learned."
*A madman's technique?*
The projector recalled Hulu Village, where Li Banfeng had studied another pathway. Was that pathway truly so formidable? Had it allowed Director Seven to unleash techniques he hadn't even mastered?
Vaguely, the glove caught a faint murmur on the wind.
"Master, this isn't just the madman technique. Someone else is lending you strength!"
"Of course he is!" Li Banfeng laughed. "The old gent is one of our own!"
Carried on the breeze came the faint, familiar voice of the companion dwelling: "Adapt... You must adapt..."
Chapter 625