Chapter 17 Pre-emptive Strike

With a casual wave of his hands, Lu Tianzi easily collected the two human heads that had been separated from their bodies, throwing them onto the carriage seats. Even though it was only a matter of time before people from the City Lord Manor realised that something happened to them, the possibilities were endless as long as no traces of their bodies were found.

Thus Lu Tianzi had to dispose of these bodies carefully, such that they would not be discovered by any search parties. Only then could he be sure that he would not be implicated in the future.

At this moment, Lu Tianzi felt two traces of energy rose from the corpses of the servants.

This was exactly the same scenario as when Lu Tianzi first killed the demons that had been after his life. The only difference was that the amounts of energy within these two traces were vastly different from each other!

The trace of energy that escaped from the mortal servant seemed minute and miniscule, almost like a tiny earthworm floating through the air.

The trace of energy from the servant at the Primary Essence Building realm, however, seemed like a fully grown viper. The energy within was at least multiple times that of the one from the mortal servant!

This difference was not surprising to Lu Tianzi.

All it did was to confirm his hypothesis that this trace of energy was proportional to the entities' life force. Considering that the energy only appeared when an entity's life had been reaped away, it was not difficult to draw such a link.

Even though any martial artist below the second cultivation realm, Essence Condensation, retained the lifespan of a mortal, their life force would still be on a completely different level from mortals!

After all, a martial artist's body would be constantly nourished by the Spiritual Essence in their inner world. This meant that every cell was being constantly strengthened, stretching the very limits of the human body's latent potential.

When this phenomenon of strengthening the physique reached a high enough level, it was said that even swords and spears would not be able to pierce through a martial artist's skin!

How was it surprising then that the energy from the martial artist was countless times that of the mortal?

However, there was one thing that Lu Tianzi was still confused about.

This trace of energy from the Primary Essence Building realm servant was actually almost equivalent to those that came from the Intermediate Essence Building realm demons that he killed before!

While they were both of the Essence Building realm, it had to be known that each boundary within a cultivation realm was a huge step forward! It was extremely unlikely for the life force of people at different boundaries to be this similar.

Lu Tianzi had a few guesses as to why this was the case. However, there was no way to confirm it right now so he did not dwell on the topic.

With a single thought, the two traces of energy joined together and was absorbed into Lu Tianzi, passing through his meridians and slowly spreading throughout his body.

From his previous experience, Lu Tianzi knew that his body would refine the energy on its own, so he did not think much of it. Instead, Lu Tianzi put out the burning torches and carefully guided the horse carriage off the main trail.

After tying the horses to a tree in a denser part of the forest, Lu Tianzi drew his sword and swiftly cut out a mark on a nearby tree before leaving once more.

Tonight, his main goal had already been achieved. By taking care of the servants from the City Lord Manor, he had effectively saved Yan Bingren from being delivered to the demons.

However, this much was not enough to satisfy Lu Tianzi.

He had already prepared so much for this night, so how could he stop at just that?

Since the demons wanted to take their lives, then he would return the favour!

On top of that, he had gained quite an interesting bit of news from the servants earlier. The demons traded for the human sacrifices with an Essence Stone!

This meant that in the group of demons that would be coming to get Yan Bingren, it was very likely that they would be holding another Essence Stone.

And Lu Tianzi just so happened to lack Essence Stones for cultivation at the moment!

As long as he was able to obtain another Essence Stone, Lu Tianzi was confident that he would be able to quickly break through to the Peak Essence Building realm, or perhaps even touch on the boundary of the Essence Condensation realm!

Once again, Lu Tianzi shuttled through the trees as he silently headed towards the meeting point.

The meeting point was a small circular clearing in the forest with a diameter of roughly 20 metres. When Lu Tianzi arrived, he naturally chose not to step into the clearing to be an open target.

He stayed well hidden within the bushes, but also near enough such that he would be able to see the entire clearing at one glance. However, even though he had an unobstructed line of sight, the lack of light still served to limit his visibility range.

Even though it was a small clearing, the trees from the sides still spread their branches to completely block off the top. The canopy above allowed only miniscule amounts of moonlight to shine through, casting the area in even greater darkness.

All Lu Tianzi could be thankful of was that upon hitting Advanced Essence Building realm, his senses and perception had both received a qualitative enhancement, allowing him to gather terrain intelligence far easier than before.

While waiting, Lu Tianzi stayed completely still, afraid of even letting out even the slightest of noise. Any mistake at this moment could prove to be extremely costly! Thankfully, he did not have to wait long before he finally detected movement in the clearing.

It was a horse carriage driven by the demons.

Riding on it seemed to be three demons, same as the number from before. But something was very wrong about them.

Of the three, all of them were at Advanced Essence Building realm?

Lu Tianzi raised an eyebrow in surprise. The demons actually did not send anyone at the Peak Essence Building realm?

That made things far easier for him!

If it was about battling at the same cultivation state, then Lu Tianzi was extremely confident in his ability to subdue multiple opponents.

He had always been gifted with an unmatched martial talent. Now with his body further enhanced by the assimilation of the demon cells, he could be said to be unrivalled within his own realm!

"What is this? They still have not arrived?" a demon exclaimed in irritation as the horse carriage pulled to a stop.

Due to the silence of the forest, Lu Tianzi was able to pick up their voices easily.

"Be patient, they should be arriving any moment now," another was calm and collected.

"Those damned humans actually dare to make us wait? I must give them a good scared later!"

"Stay vigilant and don't push your limits. Did you forget that the previous group completely disappeared?" the calmer demon reminded once again.

"They probably just got unlucky and encountered a powerful wild beast though! Do you think that after so long, the humans would dare to suddenly rebel against us?"

"Better be safe than sorry."

"You are being too cautious! He's right, the humans are nothing! We just have to watch out for wild beasts on the way back," the third demon finally spoke up.

At this moment, Lu Tianzi was finally done planning his method of approach. With his opponents being only three demons at Advanced Essence Building realm, he had nothing to fear!

Driving his Spiritual Essence through his legs, Lu Tianzi burst forward with the fastest acceleration that he ever achieved in his life. With his sword in hand, Lu Tianzi was like an unleashed arrow, cutting through the air as he pierced straight towards the horse carriage!

"What?!" two of the demons exclaimed in shock, but the cautious demon had already drawn his sword to face Lu Tianzi.

Lu Tianzi pierced his sword forward and clashed head on with the demon's blade.

Sparks flew as the sound of metal hitting metal rang through the forest, testament to the strength of both parties!

However, despite being at the same cultivation realm, the demon was simply unable to match Lu Tianzi's strength.

Suffering from the powerful impact behind Lu Tianzi's strike, the demon was completely thrown off the horse carriage, falling to the ground with a shocked expression on his face.

"That sword! It's you who took down the previous party!" the demon shouted out in exasperation.

But Lu Tianzi did not give him any more time to speak. He immediately gave chase, determined to take him out before the others could even react!

His opponent was already shaken from the previous clash, so just one more swing of his sword and he should be able to end it!

"Insolent brat!"a thunderous voice roared out at this moment.

This roar brought with it a gravely chill, causing Lu Tianzi's hair to stand on ends.

However, Lu Tianzi knew that if he were to hesitate now, his opponent would definitely be able to recover. That would cause him to lose the advantage that he just managed to gain!

Forcefully driving his Spiritual Essence to calm his mental state, Lu Tianzi resumed his attack, slashing down mercilessly at the demon.

The demon's stance had already been broken. Facing Lu Tianzi's swift follow up attack, he simply had no way to defend. Blood spurted out into the air as the demon's throat was cut open, ending his life there and then.

"You bastard!" the two demons who were still on the horse carriage widened their eyes in shock and anger.

From when Lu Tianzi first appeared, to when he killed off the demon, everything had happened within a short span of less than 3 seconds. The other two demons' thoughts being preoccupied by thoughts of superiority had served to cloud their mind, making it far more difficult for them to adjust to sudden changes like this.

As such, there was simply not enough time for them to react accordingly!

"We will kill you!" one of them hollered in rage.

"Have you not embarrassed yourself enough? He is not someone that you will be able to match! Stay back, I will handle this!" the thunderous voice from before sounded out once more as another figure emerged from the shadows.

It was another demon, as could be seen from the tail behind it. However, Lu Tianzi was completely unable to judge the cultivation realm of the other party!

The demon's expression was extremely ugly, but that was to be expected as well. Rather than sitting comfortably on the horse carriage, he had chosen to lie in ambush all night.

Yet despite his efforts, he had actually been completely unable to react in time when the opponent launched their sneak attack!

On top of that, the other party was just a human brat at the Advanced Essence Building realm. Being at Peak Essence Building realm, he should not have had any problems intervening, yet he still failed!

This was the most disgraceful day of his life!

Thankfully, the other party was still alive. This meant that he could still take his time to torture the senses out of the other party. By doing that, he could at least slowly relieve some of the embarrassment that he felt today!

"I can tell that you are quite the capable one, being able to kill someone of the similar cultivation realm so swiftly and decisively. If given time to grow, you might actually begin to pose a threat," the demon sneered as he slowly approached.

"However, you are still just an Advanced Essence Building realm human brat! Choosing to act out like this while you are still weak is the biggest mistake of your life! While you are queuing to enter the gates of hell, you can take your time and slowly ponder over this life lesson that I am just about to teach you!"