Bai Yunsheng's fist landed squarely on Chu Xiu's face, knocking him back.
The green-haired man crashed into one of the cages, sending up a cloud of smoke.
Staggering to his feet, he looked at Bai Yunsheng with clenched teeth. His nose was broken.
"Damn, that hurt... I take it you don't intend to give up, Mr. Bai?" he asked with a smirk, wiping the blood from his nose.
Clasping his hands and releasing his Qi, Chu Xiu opened the cage doors and loudly declared.
"Everyone! You want the 'Enhancement Pill', right?"
The prisoners, hearing his question, became excited.
"Enhancement Pill?!"
"Yes! Give it here!"
"Please, Brother Chu, give me the elixir!" The Yanshi Sect disciples, who had once looked like barely alive corpses, immediately perked up and began begging him for the elixir, to which Chu Xiu grinned like a madman.
"In that case... Capture Bai Yunsheng! Whoever catches him will receive 10 'Enhancement Pills' from me!"
"Fuck, this is bad! I can't handle this crowd of zombies on my own..." Bai Yunsheng gritted his teeth and looked around.
The Yanshi Sect disciples, like drug addicts eager to get their hands on a pill, slowly emerged from their cages and headed toward Bai Yunsheng.
Among them were both newcomers at the Qi Refining stage and those at the Golden Core stage. The odds were clearly against him.
"Yeah, why did I even bother coming here? How could I have known something like this would happen? It's such an obvious cliché!!"
While Bai Yunsheng was grumbling in his mind, he noticed a corridor on the other side of the room.
With Chu Xiu and his army in front, Bai Yunsheng had no choice but to run for it.
"First I have to run, and then I'll see what happens..."
With these thoughts in mind, he ran in the opposite direction. Channeling his Qi into his legs, he also accelerated.
Chu Xiu and his "army" watched him run, and as if they were deliberately waiting for him to run a sufficient distance, they immediately rushed after him.
Chu Xiu watched this with a smirk on his face and leisurely followed.
***
Bai Yunsheng ran as fast as he could while the Yanshi Sect disciples caught up behind him for several minutes.
Turning around to look, Bai Yunsheng saw the distance widening with the majority, and only those on the Golden Core were able to catch up.
"Excellent! I'll pick them off one by one, starting with the strong ones, and then deal with the weaklings!"
Just as Yanshi's disciples were about to catch up with Bai Yunsheng, he suddenly leaped back and spun around, kicking two disciples in the face.
Unexpected, Yanshi's disciples were too slow to react, and two of them were sent flying, slamming straight into the wall.
Bai Yunsheng landed safely and, without giving them time to react, attacked those frozen in shock.
Bai Yunsheng's fists were coated in Yang fire, and he struck one of them in the face, exploding their head.
Leaping forward, he landed next to a chestnut-haired girl and slammed his palm into her chest. Then, injecting even more Yang energy, he burned her alive.
The girl screamed in pain and burns, and only then did the others come to their senses and attack Bai Yunsheng.
One of them coated his sword with Qi and swung it.
The attack left a small cut on Bai Yunsheng's side, but the wound immediately exploded, sending him flying.
"Argh! What the..."
When Bai Yunsheng came to, he noticed a large wound on his side. Fortunately, the wound wasn't fatal. However, the bleeding needs to be stopped.
"I cultivate the explosive sword technique. Anything my sword touches, imbued with Qi, will explode!" the man who caused the injury explained, but Bai Yunsheng didn't hear him.
"Fuck... The fuck is this idiot saying to me?" Bai Yunsheng thought to himself and staggered to his feet.
The enemy surrounded him from all sides, and the guy with the explosive sword attacked him again. However, this time he managed to dodge.
Bai Yunsheng dodged the enemy's attack just in time, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, and threw him at three other Yanshi disciples.
Then, charging his fists with Yang Fire Energy again, Bai Yunsheng created a bow of fire and fired it at his opponents, creating an explosion that took their lives.
Wasting no time, he charged at the two remaining Yanshi disciples at the Golden Core stage.
The fire fist collided with the large man's fist, shattering his arm and striking his face, ripping his head to pieces.
Then Bai Yunsheng transformed the fire in his hand into a sword and clashed with the weapon against another enemy.
The enemy was outnumbered and even pushed him against the wall, but Bai Yunsheng swung his sword to the side, parrying it, and charging his legs with Qi, kicking him between the legs.
Hellish pain pierced the man's body, and he fell to the floor without even having time to scream. White liquid flowed from his mouth.
Stopping to catch his breath, Bai Yunsheng noticed the other Yanshi Sect disciples already running toward them.
"Damn, there are too many of them... I'll have to use 'that' technique..." he thought to himself, breathing heavily.
Taking a deep breath, Bai Yunsheng calmed his thoughts and looked up, his empty eyes filled with a frightening calm.
His hands ignited with bright flames, and the air temperature began to rise.
He extended his left hand forward, and the flame on his hand transformed into a small pole. With his other hand, he touched the top of the pole with his index and middle fingers to create a crescent moon. Then he extended his right elbow backward, transforming the staff into a bow of fire.
Then, he created an arrow made of pure Yang flame and aimed his bow at the Yanshi Sect desciples.
"May the souls of my enemies be reduced to ashes!"
[Phoenix Embrace: Blazing Spear]
Releasing the bowstring, the fiery projectile shot straight at the enemies, growing larger. As soon as it reached its target, a huge explosion occurred, taking the lives of many Yanshi Sect disciples, incinerating them on the spot, leaving no trace.
Those left behind were thrown back by the shockwave and died either from colliding with the walls, suffering severe concussions and fractures, or from being pierced by their own weapons.
***
After a while, the smoke cleared, revealing a horrifying scene before Chu Xiu.
The corpses of his sect comrades lay everywhere. Each had died differently.
Some lay on the ground, bleeding from the head due to concussion. Some had been pierced by the swords of those behind them. Some had been deliberately killed by their own kind. Some were burning on the ground. And some were barely alive. But more than half of them had been killed by the explosion of a previously unknown technology.
As the green-haired boy, his eyes closed, walked among the corpses of his former friends, someone grabbed his leg and looked at him with pleading eyes on his charred face.
"Help... Please..." he begged, bleeding and clutching his leg tightly.
Chu Xiu stared at his face for a moment, as if remembering something, then his face twisted in disgust and he kicked the poor guy.
"How dare you... HOW DARE YOU TOUCH ME WITH YOUR FILTHY HANDS, HUH?! YOU FUCKING BASTARD!!!" In a fit of rage, he began kicking the man and screaming at him, calling him every curse word he knew.
"YOU BASTARD... I REMEMBER YOU! YOU WERE THE ONE WHO KILLED MIO THAT DAY! YOU BASTARD, WHAT DID A COMMON CAT, NOT EVEN A YEAR OLD, DO TO YOU??? YOU KILLED MY ONLY FRIEND, YOU BASTARD! DIE!!
***
For half an hour, Chu Xiu beat his attacker and cursed him with every curse word the world had ever known. And although the poor guy died within the first minute, that didn't stop Chu Xiu.
After a long period of beating, Chu Xiu stood over the corpse, breathing heavily. Sweat poured from his forehead, the fists on his frail body were bruised from the beating, and he finally calmed down.
Finally, he felt relief. Thinking back on what he'd been through, that half-hour outburst was a breath of fresh air.
Even torturing his tormentors for so long didn't bring him the same pleasure he was experiencing now.
"Haha... I should thank Bai Yunsheng, shouldn't I?... Ha..." He chuckled, breathing heavily.
"Well... You have the chance to do it right now!"
Hearing someone's voice, Chu Xiu turned around and saw Bai Yunsheng standing before him at the other end of the corridor.
There was a large wound on his side, from which a crimson liquid was leaking. Chu Xiu snorted.
"And I thought you'd already escaped, Mister Bai Yunsheng!"
"Yes, I'd love to, but this corridor leads to a dead end! Why do you even need SUCH a large space if you're only using one small room anyway?"
Chu Xiu laughed at his question and stood his ground.
"Let's just say... I was bored!"
Hearing his answer, Bai Yunsheng rolled his eyes and coated his fists in Yang Fire.
"I see... You show-off!" Bai Yunsheng said and rushed towards him. Chu Xiu did the same.
Running towards each other, they swung their arms and struck, sending out a powerful shockwave...
To be continued...