Chapter 139: Pity You Arrived a Step Too Late

"What's wrong, Sister Chu?"

Lu Yin asked. Being as bright as snow, she seemed to have already guessed some of the truth, yet the clever little girl chose not to spell it out directly.

"It's nothing. I have some private matters to attend to, Junior Sister Lu Yin. You go on ahead, and I will catch up with you shortly."

Xiao Wen was extremely important to Chu Xing'er; she could not simply ignore the situation, and the injured Lu Yin would be unable to assist her in any potential battles ahead.

Therefore, she instructed Lu Yin thus, left a tracking mark on her, and then shifted her flight beam to soar toward the woods.

Lu Yin bit her lip, words trembling on the tip of her tongue, but stopped herself. She knew very well that she could be of no help and might even become a burden. After a brief hesitation, she followed instructions and continued on her way.

"Dammit, do you bastards really take me for an easy target?"

Just as Xu Lingzi had surmised, once Xiao Wenzi applied the Concealment Talisman and Invisibility Talisman, he could no longer channel the demonic spiritual power within his body to execute various arts for rapid flight and escape.

Depending solely on his own fleshy wings for flight, he could cover only about a foot per second. While ambushing enemies at close range beside Chu Xing'er, this disadvantage was not entirely obvious.

However, when an enraged Xu Lingzi began wantonly destroying and burning the forest, it felt rather like a scholar trying to reason with soldiers.

Seeing the enemy's attacks drawing closer and closer, Xiao Wenzi hardened his heart. Instead of continuing to flee into the distance, he turned to meet Xu Lingzi and his companions, who were blazing with fierce momentum.

Ancient trees as thick as two men could embrace were severed by sword qi, and fiery red orbs came crashing down. The falling branches ignited and burned rapidly, turning the forest within a radius of dozens of zhang into a sea of fire.

The young men and women watching from afar whispered among themselves with complex expressions. Yet none of them—not even the prime culprit, Xu Lingzi—noticed that close to the ground right in front of them, a giant mosquito was quietly approaching.

Suddenly, an inexplicable sense of crisis caused Xu Lingzi's pupils to constrict. Without a second's hesitation, he threw open his protective spiritual light. At the same time, a grey shadow flashed before him, and that mosquito, measuring a good portion of a fist in size, darted rapidly toward him.

Go to hell~~

Carefully dodging the swirling sword qi and raging flames, Xiao Wenzi finally closed the distance to Xu Lingzi's body. Yet before he could launch his ambush, the opponent had already sensed his presence.

Realizing that attempting any other methods at this point would likely yield no results, and considering that he had only absorbed Xu Gong's blood previously, the Eleventh-Heaven System Coins he had left to exchange for middle-grade talismans were running low, making it impossible to hurl talismans in vast quantities to crush the enemy as he had before.

Xiao Wenzi charged straight at Xu Lingzi, catalyzed his Demonic Body Berserk Art, and detonated himself with a thunderous roar.

"Damn it, this demon mosquito is going to self-destruct!"

The moment the out-of-nowhere Xiao Wenzi crashed into his protective spiritual light while his demonic aura rapidly turned violent, Xu Lingzi cried out inwardly, but it was already too late for him to dodge.

In this critical moment, Xu Lingzi could only desperately pour his cultivation into his protective spiritual light, hoping to withstand the blow.

Boom! Boom! Amidst deafening explosions, his protective spiritual light shook violently. His body was blasted backward like a cannonball, his chest heaving as fresh blood spilled from the corner of his mouth.

With his Foundation Establishment cultivation, Xu Lingzi managed to barely withstand the impact of Xiao Wenzi's self-destruction, but another young man not far from him was not nearly as fortunate.

Though that fellow had also panicked and raised a protective light barrier, the impact of the berserk shockwave shattered his barrier directly, and his body crashed heavily like a meteorite into a burning tree.

Immediately after, a layer of white light screen emerged around his body, and he vanished into thin air. As it turned out, right on the verge of death, the fellow had crushed a jade talisman and been directly teleported out.

No one had expected such an outcome. Xu Lingzi, who had stopped a dozen zhang away after smashing through a tree, wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, his expression so gloomy it seemed capable of dripping water. The other youths wiped away cold sweat with haggard faces.

That had been too close for comfort. Fortunately, they had been quite far from Xu Lingzi; otherwise, the ones severely injured and eliminated would likely have been themselves.

Xu Chen, having been at the rear due to his injuries, had narrowly escaped disaster, and at this moment, his forehead was covered in cold sweat.

"Damned mosquito," Xu Lingzi cursed heavily as the dust and smoke settled. Then, he turned his gaze toward the rapidly approaching Chu Xing'er.

"Didn't Junior Sister Chu leave? Returning now—could it be you are also interested in that demon mosquito? What a pity you've arrived a step too late; it has already self-destructed and perished."

Having suffered quite a loss, Xu Lingzi's resentment could well be imagined. Suspecting Chu Xing'er of being the owner of that detestable mosquito, he couldn't help speaking with a trace of mockery upon meeting her.

Hmph~~

Knowing that Xiao Wenzi possessed the means to cheat death and return, Chu Xing'er felt no anxiety whatsoever in her heart, yet she still let out a cold, indifferent huff on the surface.

The demon mosquito was dead; even if it truly had a connection with the young woman before him, Xu Lingzi could find no evidence to pursue the matter.

Moreover, having suffered jolted internal organs, he was nursing some injuries and needed to leave this sea of fire to find a place to recover. With a wave of a large hand, he beckoned Xu Chen and the others to leave.

Chu Xing'er hovered in the clearing blasted open by the explosive shockwave. With a resentful gaze, she watched the backs of Xu Lingzi and his group. A moment later, she soared into the air and transformed into a beam of escaping light, flying far away.

Xu Lingzi and the others, who had already departed, never noticed that just a moment ago, a giant mosquito, faint as near-nothingness, had quietly flown into the storage pouch at the young woman's waist.

Before his self-detonation, Xiao Wenzi had clearly understood his situation. Therefore, the moment he revived, he had used his system coins at top speed to redeem a Demonic Concealment Talisman and an Invisibility Talisman to cast upon himself.

Because Xu Lingzi harbored the preconceived notion that he was already dead, and because the chaotic aura at the explosion site prevented him from spreading his spiritual sense, he naturally could not detect any anomalies. This was how Xiao Wenzi safely returned to the spirit beast pouch.

"Sister Chu, you're back."

The separation had been very brief, and with the tracking mark, it was easy for Chu Xing'er to locate the advancing Lu Yin.

The little girl Lu Yin was very clever and did not ask what Chu Xing'er had just gone to do. Chu Xing'er felt quite favorably toward this attitude, nodded in acknowledgment, and the two young women continued on their way.

Next, they needed to find Lu Fang and accumulate as many points as possible.

However, before that, the spoils of war obtained from the Luan brothers also needed to be distributed.

In truth, Lu Yin had contributed not a whit in eliminating the Luan brothers and acquiring their storage pouches and points; Chu Xing'er could entirely have kept them for herself.

Yet she was not that kind of person. Since she had stated from the beginning that she would compensate Lu Yin with the points and wealth of those two fellows, she would not break her word.

"Thank you, Sister Chu, but I cannot take this much."

"Very well then, we'll split it fifty-fifty."

Half an hour later, atop a mountain a hundred miles away from the forest, the two young women were politely yielding to one another while dividing the spoils.

In the end, Lu Yin accepted only a single storage pouch from Chu Xing'er's hands, her face filled with genuine and heartfelt gratitude.

The Luan brothers possessed over eighty points in total, and their spirit stones, spiritual flowers, herbs, and other materials were worth tens of thousands. Chu Xing'er had originally intended to hand all of it over to her, but Lu Yin had adamantly refused.

Taking only half was already a very substantial gain, and since she hadn't contributed during the enemy's elimination, Lu Yin wasn't foolish—how could she not know where to draw the line?