Chapter 15

Chapter 15

With that big boss taken care of, the rest of the Sand Ghosts were much easier to deal with. Hua Yuling and I worked together: I kept them occupied while she directed her insects to attack. Before long, every last Sand Ghost had vanished, leaving only raised mounds of sand scattered across the ground.

“I’m dead tired!”

The three of us collapsed onto the ground, gasping for breath.

Then the mounds of sand suddenly moved again. All the sand writhed and gathered together.

Hua Yuling rubbed her eyes.

“Qiao Moyu, you really did knock my brain loose.”

“I’m hallucinating now.”

The wreckage of the cars behind us started moving too. Metal rods, steering wheels, car doors, and all kinds of other junk kept flying toward the pile of sand.

A gigantic sand man with a bizarre shape and an extremely punk design rose up from the ground.

The three of us stared, dumbfounded.

“Is… is that a Transformer?”

“Run!”

At a time like this, even a miser like me couldn’t afford to hold anything back. I dug a huge stack of talismans out of my bag and hurled them all at it, whether they were useful or not.

Then I glanced left and right, rushed to the cliff wall, and grabbed a vine.

“Climb!”

Sand Ghosts had a special range they could move within. As long as we left their territory, we’d be safe.

As Hua Yuling climbed, she desperately pushed her gu arts to the limit. A dark swarm filled the sky as all kinds of birds and insects threw themselves at the giant Sand Ghost.

Everything we did was only to buy ourselves enough time to escape.

In a crisis, human potential was limitless.

The cliff was nearly a hundred meters high, but we climbed to the top in no time. All we had to do was reach up and grab the edge of the precipice, and we’d make it out.

But then, the unexpected happened.

A curved blade sliced through the air and appeared behind Jiang Haoyan.

At that moment, Jiang Haoyan was in the middle, I was on the left, and Hua Yuling was on the far right. I tightened my grip on the vine, swung toward him, and swung the Seven-Star Sword out to block the blow aimed at Jiang Haoyan’s back.

With a clang, my Seven-Star Sword snapped.

It snapped.

This Seven-Star Sword, whose life was longer than my master’s and whose value was beyond measure, a priceless heirloom treasure, just broke clean in two. The lower half fell into the valley below.

My whole body went numb. My soul practically left my body, and I had no idea how to react.

The curved blade broke too, and a fragment was sent flying. By sheer coincidence-or terrible luck-it cut through the vine in Hua Yuling’s hand.

Just as Hua Yuling was about to fall to the bottom of the cliff as well, a hand reached down from above and firmly caught her wrist.

Under the moonlight, that hand was pale, slender, perfectly proportioned, and full of strength.

On the back of the hand was an intricate black totem that extended from the little finger all the way up the arm.

After that person pulled Hua Yuling up, he turned and left without the slightest hesitation.

Jiang Haoyan and I climbed to the top and saw that he had already gotten into a black Jeep. The engine started. The vehicle backed up, then turned right, its tires kicking up countless grains of sand.

As the car slowly drove out of our sight, Hua Yuling suddenly came to her senses and chased after it for a few steps.

“Ji Kang?”

The car paused for one second. Then it sped up, turning into a tiny black dot before vanishing into the endless Gobi.

End of this part.