Chapter 698, Shot In the Back In the quiet wilderness, a small group walked forward silently. Cang Yan led the way, Li Wan and Fei Yu brought up the rear, and Yang Kai, Mi Na, and Old Man Du were sandwiched in the middle. With the exception of Mi Na, everyone else looked calm and indifferent, as if they were oblivious to the danger they were approaching. As they continued walking, Yang Kai’s eyes suddenly flashed. He was surprised to discover that Fei Jian had disappeared without a trace. This Third Order Transcendent master had managed to vanish without Yang Kai even noticing despite being only a few steps apart. The night wind blew, the towering trees swayed back and forth, and the leaves rustled eerily, as if there were ghost and demons brushing past them in the darkness. Mi Na was so scared her pretty face had completely paled and she unconsciously moved towards Yang Kai and leaned against him, looking for a sense of security, her pair of beautiful eyes darting back and forth nervously. Sensing her uneasiness, Yang Kai firmly grasped her hand, allowing Mi Na to relax a lot; however, she made no attempt to distance herself from him either. Cang Yan’s mouth slowly curled into a subtle grin, seemingly enjoying this thrilling situation. Li Wan and Fei Yu, who were at the back of the team, also wore aggressive expressions as they scanned the area, as if they couldn’t wait to start something. Old Man Du, as an experienced Alchemist, maintained his usual calm, unflustered appearance. Obviously he had great faith in the strength of the four masters from Soaring Heaven Sect. Suddenly, a burst of strange laughter came from all around, like the howling of a ghost, gloomy and dreadful. At that moment, the night wind seemed to become stronger and colder. Soon, several more laughing voices began ringing in their ears, trying to disrupt their hearts and weaken their concentration. However, the three masters from Soaring Heaven Sect were completely unperturbed and continued walking forward without any pause. Half an hour later, the wicked laughter gradually faded. The other party seemed to have noticed that this little trick wasn’t enough to cause Cang Yan and the others to panic, so they had stopped wasting their time. “Not even daring to show your faces, just a bunch of cowards,” Cang Yan muttered discontentedly, he thought there would be a big battle when he first entered this region and his blood was boiling in anticipation, but the opposite party didn’t seem to have any intention of immediately attacking and were instead playing tricks on them and probing their reactions. This made him quite disgruntled. “Li Wan, go take a look,” Cang Yan said. Li Wan grinned fiendishly and his small body suddenly disappeared into the darkness. A short while later, a sad and shrill scream rang out from the forest, giving people a creepy feeling. These screams didn’t last long, obviously this poor soul had been killed before he had time to react. The next moment, another scream could be heard from a different direction. Yang Kai’s eyes flashed. He could tell that these screams came from two different locations at least a few thousand meters apart. In such a short period of time, accurately finding the hiding places of these two people and killing them, Li Wan’s great strength was obvious. After a brief silence, Li Wan calmly returned and shrugged his shoulders to Cang Yan, “Two First Order Transcendent trash, not even enough to fill the gaps between my teeth.” Saying so, he licked his lips and showed a not satisfied expression. Hearing this, Mi Na’s eyes rolled back and she fainted directly. “This little girl... isn’t her courage a bit too small?” Li Wan was struck speechless. Yang Kai shook his head and gently held Mi Na against his shoulder. Fei Yu smiled tenderly and explained while trying to hold back her laughter, “She thinks you actually ate them.” Li Wan’s face went black and realized how his ambiguous words could be misconstrued. He wanted to defend himself but the one with the misunderstanding was already out cold so he could do nothing but grumble in annoyance. The team continued to move forward, but probably because Li Wan had just killed two of their group a moment ago, the enemy party became more vigilant. After two more hours, nothing out of the ordinary had happened. However, Yang Kai could still sense a vague hostility in the air, indicating their opponents had yet to give up. Once their group relaxed their guard, the other party would not hesitate to kill them all. After waiting so long though, Cang Yan had finally lost patience and suddenly stopped, staring around with a cold glare as he shouted, “Since you’ve all already decided to kill us and seize our treasures, you should just come out and fight with us. If you want to keep hiding like timid rats we’ll just take our leave.” All around it was quiet though, no one answered. Cang Yan slowly shook his head and looked disappointed before taking out a long sword and waving it, leaving a cut several tens of meters long on the ground beside him. Yang Kai’s eyes shrank as he instantly recognized this long sword. It was one of the artifacts that Cang Yan and Fei Yu acquired back in the ancient secluded cave mansion. “This is a Saint Grade artifact. To be honest, I haven’t had time to refine it yet, don’t you want it for your own? If you can kill me, this artifact is yours, act fast, Saint Grade artifacts are rare after all,” Cang Yan said lightly. “I also have one,” Fei Yu, apparently fearing the world would not be chaotic, quickly added, also summoning out a Saint Grade artifact. After two yet-to-be-refined Saint Grade artifacts suddenly beings summoned out, in the next instant, countless Divine Senses flooded over like locust to probe them. At that moment, Yang Kai swore he could hear heavy breathing and feel greedy stares all around him. “Hey, when did the two of you manage to get Saint Grade artifacts?” Li Wan squinted his eyes enviously, “How come I never knew?” “A few months ago,” Fei Yu smiled, turning her eyes to Yang Kai, “We got them on our way back after picking up Martial Nephew.” “The Heavens are blind, why didn’t I have a share?” Li Wan cursed and yelled. “There were only two, so Fei Yu and I each took one; however, Fei Yu also got a Spirit Grade Top-Rank artifact.” “Give it to me!” Li Wan quickly ran over to Fei Yu and stretched out his hand. “What about Fei Jian?” Fei Yu frowned, appearing somewhat awkward. “No need to bother with him, he only uses bows anyways.” “How about we do this, I’ll give that artifact to whoever kills the most enemies,” Fei Yu smiled and proposed. Li Wan clapped his hands and nodded, “Great idea, I’ve already killed two.” At that moment, from all around, numerous figures shot out like lightning, all of them trying to snatch the two Saint Grade artifacts. With the three masters on this side all noisily discussing some irrelevant nonsense, the surrounding enemies apparently thought now would be the opportune moment to strike. A sharp light flashed past Cang Yan’s eyes as the corners of his mouth rose slightly. Each of the approaching figures was emitting the powerful aura of a Transcendent and moved with extreme speed; in the blink of an eye, all of them had arrived in front of the two Saint Grade artifacts. Countless hands reached out to grab for the artifact. *Xiu xiu xiu...* Several whooshing sounds rang out in the dark and Yang Kai faintly saw a number of golden streaks flash through the night sky out of the corner of his eye. Blood spattered, and all the cultivators who had rushed forward to seize the Saint Grade artifacts flew out from the resulting impact, each of their bodies having a new fist-sized hole that pierced from back to front. On top of that, these holes, without exception, were where their hearts once were. Before these cultivators hit the ground, their life auras had already disappeared. One shot, one kill! These Transcendants never even knew where this sharp attack came from. Li Wan expression changed dramatically as he rushed over, shouting angrily, “Fei Jian, you sinister bastard, if you have the ability, stop sneaking around and fight up front like a man instead of shooting people in the back!” Fei Jian did not respond, instead just sending out more arrows filled with destructive energy from various dead angles, reaping his opponent’s lives before they even had a chance to respond. Yang Kai quickly released his Divine Sense towards the direction the arrows had originated from in an attempt to find Fei Jian’s hidden position, but discovered nothing. A look of shock filled his face as he suddenly realized just how strong this Martial Uncle is. The battle was over before it even began. After ten breaths of time, Li Wan managed to kill another enemy master before the scene suddenly became quiet again. Only a thick smell of blood filling the air remained, filling everyone’s nose with the scent of iron. The only noise around was the sound of swishing clothes as a number of enemies who had still been hiding up until now were hurriedly escaping. They also understood that these four from Soaring Heaven Sect were not targets they could handle. From beginning to end, only two people had attacked yet they were able to all but wipe them out, if all four of these masters had taken action, the consequences would have been even steeper. A massive amount of Spiritual Energy gathered towards Yang Kai’s head and after a quick examination he discovered that these dead enemies were all First or Second Order Transcendents with not even a single Third Order. Seeing this, Yang Kai couldn’t help feeling a bit regretful. A Third Order Transcendent would already have some insights into how to break through to the Saint Realm. These insights were something Yang Kai wanted. His understanding and sentiments regarding the Heavenly Way and Martial Dao were all concentrated on the period before breaking through to the Saint Realm, so until he reached that height he would encounter no bottlenecks. But as to how to break through to the Saint Realm, he was currently clueless. Although back in the Ancient Demon Clan’s Mysterious Small World, he had killed Chu Jian and obtained his Second Order Saint Realm insights, Yang Kai’s understanding of the Saint Realm was still quite shallow. Yang Kai needed to absorb the sentiments from the Souls of many masters in order to gain a true understanding of the path ahead. Meanwhile, Cang Yan and Fei Yu took back their artifacts. “Idiots, how could I not have already refined this Saint Grade artifact?” Cang Yan sneered and took the artifact back into his body. Li Wan walked back with a look of frustration on his face, sighing heavily as he grumbled under his breath. Fei Jian also reappeared finally, like a ghost, showing a big crooked smile as he held out his hand towards Fei Yu, “Give it to me.” Fei Yu smiled and placed the Spirit Grade Top-Rank artifact she had previously acquired into Fei Jian’s hand. From start to finish, Li Wan had only killed three people while Fei Jian had taken out six, the winner of this match was undoubtedly Fei Jian. Yang Kai also let out a long sigh. Although this time’s battle looked very relaxed, he also knew that only masters as strong as these four from Soaring Heaven Sect could accomplish such a feet. Perhaps if it were other Third Order Transcendent’s victory wouldn’t have been so easily obtained. Moreover, Yang Kai even more felt the massive gap in strength between each Order of the Transcendent Realm. Before the Transcendent Realm, each Great Realm was divided into Nine Stages, and the gap between each Stage was quite small. But the Transcendent Realm was different. First Order, Second Order, Third Order, each step forward represented a massive leap in strength. This group of hidden enemies had failed to recognize the gap in strength between themselves and the four Soaring Heaven Sect Protectors and had become blinded by greed due to the Saint Grade artifacts. After this battle, the road seemed to become quite peaceful and as they traveled farther, fights became less common. These masters’ objective in coming here was ultimately the Thousand Year Demon Flower, so after eliminating the weak, no one was willing to stir up conflict with the strong before the Thousand Year Demon Flower had even blossomed. Everyone understood that fights between true masters would only lead to others reaping the fisherman’s profits.