Probably everyone in the world would naturally understand a principle: when many people face a few people, the side with more people is not necessarily guaranteed to win.
Especially when, among the side with fewer people, there was someone whose realm was sufficiently high.
But people often choose to believe, with absolute conviction, the things they want to believe.
Just like now. When this group of cultivators who had been waiting here for a long time finally saw that young martial artist, and personally witnessed him coughing up blood at the very beginning, they no longer had any doubts that they might be able to kill this young martial artist with whom they shared a great enmity.
At this moment, in their eyes, there was only revenge. As for things beyond revenge, the overall situation of the world, the survival of the human race, none of those things mattered to them.
Put another way, if they had possessed such awareness from the very beginning, they probably would not have ended up where they were today.
However, no matter how severe Chen Chao's injuries were, the foundation of this young martial artist's Fuyun Realm was still there. Killing him had never been easy.
An ordinary butcher's knife, in the hands of that young martial artist, seemed like the sharpest blade in the world. Of course, the truly sharpest blade in the world was actually hanging at his waist.
After much difficulty, a cultivator finally squeezed his way in front of Chen Chao. Seeing Chen Chao slash out with a blade and fail to hit him, the cultivator was immediately overjoyed. He thought to himself that perhaps this sickly young man had finally reached the point where he could no longer hold on. Next, it should be a powerless tiger being devoured by a pack of wolves!
But the moment that thought arose, he watched helplessly as that young man leaped backward with his blade, severing one of his arms with a slash. Before that arm had even fallen to the ground, the edge of the butcher's knife continued its motion and sliced open half of his skull.
Then that young martial artist, who looked as though he could collapse at any moment, reached out and pushed aside the lifeless corpse before facing the remaining cultivators.
After that, cultivators continued to fall.
However, everyone could see that from that moment onward, this young martial artist's movements became even slower.
Human strength had its limits, much less for a young martial artist who had truly fought a life-and-death battle against someone like the Demon Emperor. How severe his injuries were needed no explanation.
At this moment, spending dozens of lives to worsen this young martial artist's injuries and push him toward the end of his strength was something that seemed entirely reasonable.
Sure enough.
Another hour passed. The number of times that young martial artist's blade missed its target increased. He could not even remain standing steadily in place anymore, instead stumbling several steps backward.
Originally, these cultivators had already become somewhat fearful, but upon seeing this scene, strength immediately returned to them. In a journey of a hundred steps, the hardest part was often not the first few steps, but the final few that remained.
At that point, it was actually easiest to give up.
But Chen Chao was also rather helpless. If he could continue holding on, naturally he would continue holding on. But with the condition of his body right now, it truly seemed that he could no longer endure.
Taking a few steps backward was merely to catch his breath.
Lowering his head to look at the butcher's knife in his hand, whose edge had already curled and chipped, the young martial artist smiled. A butcher's knife used to slaughter these pigs and dogs was perfectly appropriate.
During the following half hour, the attacks of those cultivators became increasingly fierce. Yet for some reason, they still failed to leave even a single wound on that young martial artist.
That young martial artist, who had long since proven to the world that he was not easy to kill, truly was not easy to kill.
This entire street was covered in corpses. Looking around, there were only five or six cultivators left.
While Chen Chao had been forced back to the side of the street. Behind him stood a heavy solid-wood table. He placed one hand on it to support his body, laboriously raised his hand, and flicked the blood from the edge of the butcher's knife.
Then he raised that butcher's knife, looked at the few people present, and smiled, "Continue?"
The five or six people exchanged glances, as though having made up their minds, and charged toward Chen Chao together.
Several minutes later, the last person fell into a pool of blood, a headless corpse. As for the butcher's knife, it was lodged in that person's neck. Chen Chao could not even be bothered to pull it out.
Watching that corpse fall, Chen Chao leaned against the table behind him, laboriously shifted his body, and sat down on it.
Then this young man, pale-faced, with the hem, sleeves, and chest of his black robe soaked in blood, said somewhat wearily, "Since you've all come, why not come out?"
As Chen Chao's words fell, three figures finally appeared at the end of the long street. Two were daoists, one in a green daoist robe and one in a white daoist robe.
Their robes differed, but both possessed exceedingly profound auras. They were clearly daoist sages who had already crossed that threshold.
As for the third person, he was a thin young man holding a horizontal saber in his arms. He deliberately kept some distance between himself and the two daoists.
Chen Chao looked at that thin man with interest. Sensing the vigorous blood vitality within him, he narrowed his eyes. Although the thin man appeared unremarkable, hidden within that seemingly ordinary body was something like a primordial ferocious beast. Judging by the strength of his blood vitality, when both were in the Nepenthe realm, he was probably not much weaker than Chen Chao had been.
Chen Chao had never seen a martial artist like this before.
One had to know that the finest martial artists in the world mostly served Great Liang. Martial artists in the foreign lands had never been particularly valued, so their numbers were naturally small, and the truly powerful ones even fewer.
Previously, Chen Wannian had been the undisputed number one martial artist in the foreign lands. But now, feeling the aura of the man before him, Chen Chao had the sense that if the two fought at this very moment, this man would probably defeat Chen Wannian.
While Chen Chao was observing the thin young man, the thin young man was likewise sizing Chen Chao up too.
"You are Chen Chao?"
The young man spoke, asking what seemed like a pointless question.
If he were not Chen Chao, would there be any need to dispatch such a massive force.
Chen Chao looked at the young man and answered the pointless question quite seriously, "It's me."
The young man smiled faintly, "Let me make this clear first, I don't have any enmity against you, so I'm not here for revenge. I just heard people say you're not only the strongest martial artist in the world, but also the greatest saber user under heaven. I don't quite believe it, so I want to test it for myself."
Chen Chao smiled, "If you wanted to test it, why wait until this official is injured?"
The young man rolled his eyes and replied as though it were perfectly obvious, "Your cultivation realm is so high. If you weren't injured, how could I possibly be your opponent? If I found you when you were completely unharmed, would you really suppress your realm and fight me? I imagine you'd just rely on your realm and slap me to death."
Chen Chao smiled and did not refute him. Although things would not necessarily go quite that way, at this point in time it was indeed unrealistic for him to casually spar with people.
If this had happened before, however, Chen Chao would probably have made a wager with the young man before him and fought him at the same realm. If the young man lost, he would serve Great Liang.
Obtaining a Nepenthe martial artist for Great Liang through a single fight was not a bad deal.
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