Chapter 97: The Hidden Watcher
"This can't be! The Phoenix Blood Vines should belong to my Liu family—"
Slap!
Before the enraged Liu Yuan could finish speaking, Liu Lu slapped him across the face, sending him flying.
Liu Lu's pretty face turned pale with anger.
What a useless teammate!
Liu Yuan still couldn't see the situation clearly. Both the Guan family and the Abyssal Pavilion had Great Ascension Realm cultivators here. Right now, the Liu family would be lucky just to survive.
And this idiot Liu Yuan still wanted to lay claim to the Phoenix Blood Vines?
"Liu Lu, how dare you hit me?" Liu Yuan stood up, his face filled with disbelief.
His grandfather was the only Great Ascension Realm cultivator left in the Liu family. Although both he and Liu Lu were direct descendants of the family, Liu Lu's branch had fallen out of favor after the death of their Great Ascension Realm ancestor. Despite Liu Lu having better talent and cultivation than him, he still had the backing of a Great Ascension Realm cultivator.
"Hah." Guan Wentao sneered with contempt.
"In the past, the Liu family once overshadowed our Guan family. I never expected their descendants to be so pathetic. This little girl, at least, knows when to cut her losses and wasn't blinded by greed for these Phoenix Blood Vines."
"But unfortunately, none of the Liu family members will be leaving today."
Guan Wentao shook his head and then turned to Manager Qin, saying lightly, "Manager Qin, what do you think?"
"Peace brings wealth, peace brings wealth," Manager Qin replied with a kind smile. "I'm just a businessman, but I'm always happy to earn a bit more."
"After this batch of Phoenix Blood Vines is harvested, it'll take hundreds of years for them to grow back. This is a treasure trove, and the fewer people who know about it, the better."
Hearing this, Liu Lu's heart tightened.
The Liu family's guards also looked nervously toward the Abyssal Pavilion and the Guan family. Both sides had Great Ascension Realm cultivators. How could they possibly resist?
Liu Yuan finally realized that both the Guan family and the Abyssal Pavilion were far stronger than the current Liu family. They wouldn't care that he had a Great Ascension Realm grandfather.
Even if his grandfather were here, these people would still harbor murderous intentions.
"What should we do?" Liu Yuan instinctively looked to Liu Lu, seeking a leader.
But Liu Lu was already in despair, her mind racing with no solution in sight.
With the Abyssal Pavilion and the Guan family joining forces, there was no chance for their group to escape.
"Kill them all," Guan Wentao said simply, without any further explanation.
Manager Qin also waved his hand, and the Abyssal Pavilion's forces charged toward the Liu family.
"Miss, run! We'll hold them off!" A Liu family guard standing behind Liu Lu shouted loudly. He immediately burned his true essence and launched himself at the two peak Soul Transformation Realm cultivators leading the Guan family's charge.
"Uncle Le!" Liu Lu's eyes filled with tears as she cried out.
Uncle Le had always been a trusted guard by her grandfather's side. After her grandfather's death, he had become her personal protector. Now, he was burning his true essence to buy her time.
"All you useless trash, hold them back!"
"Uncle, take me with you!"
Liu Lu turned her head and saw Liu Yuan, under the protection of another peak Soul Transformation Realm cultivator, already hundreds of meters away.
He didn't care about the rest of them at all.
Liu Lu's eyes filled with mockery. With two Great Ascension Realm cultivators present, did Liu Yuan think he could escape safely with just one Soul Transformation Realm cultivator's help?
The Liu family's forces were being pushed back rapidly. In the first clash, they had already lost thirty percent of their members. Their numbers and strength were both inferior to their enemies.
If it weren't for the desperate resolve of many Liu family guards, fighting with the mentality of taking at least one enemy with them, the Liu family would have already been wiped out.
At this moment, Guan Wentao made his move.
With a light step, he appeared hundreds of meters away, pursuing Liu Yuan.
Seeing that the Liu family's guard commander, Uncle Le, was burning his true essence and actually suppressing their three peak Soul Transformation Realm cultivators, Manager Qin frowned slightly. With a wave of his hand, a surge of true essence rushed toward Uncle Le.
"Ah!"
Uncle Le managed to force back the three peak Soul Transformation Realm cultivators with one move, then slashed out a blade of light several dozen feet long, meeting Manager Qin's surge of true essence head-on.
Bang!
The blade of light shattered on impact, and Uncle Le was sent flying by the powerful true essence, crashing heavily near Liu Lu.
"Finish them quickly. This is the Demon Abyss, not a safe place," Manager Qin said coldly.
Although they were only in the outer regions of the Demon Abyss, it wasn't uncommon for Great Ascension Realm or even Transcendence Realm demonic beasts to wander out here. If they encountered a Transcendence Realm beast, none of them would escape alive.
"Yes!" The forces of the Abyssal Pavilion and the Guan family stopped holding back and charged at the Liu family with full force.
'Is today the day I die?' Liu Lu thought as she supported Uncle Le's heavily injured body.
But out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a familiar figure on the cliff covered with Phoenix Blood Vines. The figure seemed oblivious to the battle raging below, focused solely on harvesting the vines.
No one else had noticed him.
The once densely packed cliff of Phoenix Blood Vines was now missing nearly a third of its vines.
"Senior, save us!" Liu Lu's heart surged with hope as she shouted in the direction of the cliff.
"Trying to act mysterious…" Manager Qin sneered, but before he could finish, he noticed that half of the Phoenix Blood Vines on the cliff had disappeared.
"Stop right now!" Manager Qin roared in anger.
While they were fighting for their lives here, someone had quietly harvested most of the Phoenix Blood Vines?
This was unforgivable!
Manager Qin's face twisted with rage. With a single step, he appeared above the cliff, a top-grade spirit weapon sword in hand. He slashed downward, sending a hundred-foot-long blade of light like an enraged dragon toward the figure.
The figure was none other than Li Changsheng.
Without even turning around, Li Changsheng flicked a finger as the blade of light approached.
A razor-thin sword aura shot out, clashing with Manager Qin's blade of light.
Crack!
A crisp sound echoed as the hundred-foot blade of light was sliced cleanly in half, dissipating into a gust of wind.
"Ah," Li Changsheng sighed, pausing his actions and turning around calmly.
"You all fight your fight. Couldn't you just pretend you didn't see me?"
"Hahaha!" Manager Qin laughed in uncontrollable anger. Only now did he remember that this young man had entered the Demon Abyss with the Liu family. He had assumed that after so many days, the young man had already perished in the abyss. Yet here he was.
This young man seemed to have only early Soul Transformation Realm cultivation, but with that move just now, his strength was undoubtedly far beyond the Soul Transformation Realm.
Of course, Manager Qin hadn't used his full strength earlier, as he didn't want to damage the Phoenix Blood Vines on the cliff.
"Young man, I suppose you followed the Liu family here."
"We all want to make some profit, but quietly harvesting so many Phoenix Blood Vines without a word… don't you think that's a bit disrespectful to our Abyssal Pavilion?"