Mu Sha had likely gone deep underground, but he wouldn't dare use the Earth Evasion Art to escape again. Doing so would inevitably require him to use magical power and techniques, which would immediately disrupt his perfect aura concealment.
Therefore, the man in the silver cloak had to force him out. With each strike, he would pour in about seventy percent of his magical power. This force would penetrate a thousand zhang into the earth. If Mu Sha was hiding nearby underground, he would be hit by his magical power.
The man in the silver cloak believed that because he had been chasing the other party so closely, even if Mu Sha had gone underground, he wouldn't have had time to go too deep.
Otherwise, his own divine sense would have been able to track the fluctuations of his magical power as he descended. Therefore, he did not consider the possibility of Mu Sha being able to burrow more than a thousand zhang underground.
If Mu Sha had only gone about a hundred zhang deep, then under his attack, where he was not sparing any magical power, his death would only be quicker. In an instant, he would turn into a rain of blood along with the flying turf.
For a time, this part of the world was like a churning sea. The man in the silver cloak was expending his magical power at a very rapid rate, but he didn't care. He was concerned with how to kill the other party as quickly as possible so that he could buy more time to escape.
At the same time, he was inwardly glad that this legendary, somewhat sinister Mu Sha was really too arrogant.
If he had sent someone else, even if the assassination had failed, Mu Sha would only need to confirm that his subordinate hadn't returned on time to know that there was definitely a problem with him.
After that, whether he directly notified his Myriarch above or sent a secret letter to his own garrison, he would have no way to escape. How could Mu Sha have ended up in his current predicament?
With a "rumble," another huge patch of turf was grabbed by him. As the conjured cyan ghost claws' ten fingers clenched fiercely, the turf once again turned into a sky full of dust.
But amidst the dust, a black shadow shot out like lightning. With a strange twist in the air, it had already slipped through the gap between two fingers of the giant cyan ghost claws.
The next moment, the black shadow flashed and disappeared in front of the man in the silver cloak. Immediately after, a cold glint flashed before the silver-cloaked man's eyes.
The moment he shattered the huge turf, the man in the silver cloak had sensed something amiss.
"Die!" he spat out a single word. He raised a hand, seemingly slow yet urgent, and with his index and middle fingers together, he directly clamped down on that cold glint.
At the same time, an object suddenly appeared in his other hand. It was a long rod glowing with a dim yellow light. With a flash of yellow light, it had already swept towards the darkness to his right.
"Ding!" First, there was a crisp sound. The man in the silver cloak's two fingers had accurately clamped down on the body of a broadsword. The sword was seven inches wide, with a thick spine and a thin blade, clearly meant for someone with abundant magical power.
"Bang!" Almost at the same time, the long rod in the man's hand also hit something in the darkness. A sneer appeared at the corner of his mouth.
"A feint to the east, an attack to the west? A paltry trick!" As the long rod struck its target, the man in the silver cloak simultaneously squeezed his fingers. The broadsword let out a "twang" of breaking metal and was directly snapped by his two fingers.
And in the darkness, an object was also sent flying backward. It was a human figure, desperately trying to stabilize itself.
With magical power infused into his feet, two streaks of golden sparks were scraped out in the air, leaving a long, dazzling trail of fire.
By the light of the golden sparks, one could see a person dressed in a tight black suit with a black hood covering his head, revealing only two dark eyes.
His body was leaning back, his legs firmly planted in the empty air to keep himself from falling backward. In one hand, he held a broken broadsword half his height, and in the other, he held a black shield flashing with demonic runes.
The black-clad, masked man slid back with the force of a thunderbolt, only stopping after sliding for more than three hundred zhang.
His body swayed a few times before he finally stabilized himself. He glanced at the broadsword in his hand, which now had a small section of its tip broken off.
"Cough, cough, cough..." The black-clad, masked man let out a series of coughs, but his actions didn't stop. He quickly moved the black shield with the demonic runes back in front of him.
The man in the silver cloak saw that even though the other party was injured, he had immediately put up a defense. He couldn't help but secretly admire the Demon Blade Battalion. Everyone in it had such rich combat experience; they had all survived a mountain of corpses.
The shield, after taking a blow from a Nascent Soul cultivator, already had many cracks.
"Mu Sha, I know it's you! You truly live up to your reputation. A mid-stage Golden Core can still take a blow from me at seventy percent power." The man in the silver cloak looked at the other party with a sneer. He had already tested his opponent's strength.
It was said that Mu Sha was brave enough to lead an army. As a Centurion of the Demon Blade Battalion, he liked to go on solo missions to steal intelligence or assassinate key enemy figures.
However, he also lamented the innate physical strength of the Black Demon Clan warriors, especially the Mu Sha before him, whose strength was even greater than the legends suggested.
He had used seventy percent of his magical power. Although the other party had relied on a magical treasure to withstand it, the sheer force of the shockwave was enough to turn a Pseudo-Core Realm cultivator's physical body into a bloody mist.
"The Undead Demon Vine, you really have some impressive skills!" As the man in the silver cloak thought this, he had already taken a step forward, instantly appearing fifty zhang in front of the black-clad, masked man.
This was because the man he called Mu Sha had remained silent from beginning to end, and the man in the silver cloak didn't want to waste any more time.
The long rod in his hand was now like a long spear. One end of the rod seemed to traverse thousands of mountains and rivers, instantly stretching out and stabbing towards the opponent's chest.
Because the long rod was moving so fast, a yellow arc of light had appeared at its tip from the friction with space. Mu Sha only felt a blur before his eyes, and an unstoppable force came crashing towards him. Fortunately, he had just placed the black demonic-runed shield in front of him. On instinct, he immediately channeled his magical power, and the demonic runes on the shield's surface began to writhe rapidly.
"Thud!" The long rod instantly struck the demonic-runed shield. But to the surprise of the man in the silver cloak, Mu Sha's figure simultaneously appeared at his side. The other party had actually abandoned his defensive shield in an instant.
Facing an opponent whose cultivation was far superior, Mu Sha's move was extremely dangerous. In an instant, he had lost a powerful layer of protection, placing himself in a do-or-die situation.
A distance of fifty zhang, he crossed it in an instant.
"Tsk!" After losing the infusion of magical power, although the demonic-runed shield on the side was made of sturdy materials, it still couldn't block a blow from a Nascent Soul cultivator.
The long rod felt like it was stabbing into a layer of sticky substance, but it was only blocked for a moment before the demonic-runed shield was directly pierced by the long rod. A section of the glowing yellow rod tip appeared on the other side of the shield.
And at this moment, Mu Sha had reached the side of the man in the silver cloak, his broken sword slashing fiercely towards the man's neck.
Against such an attack, the man simply leaned his body slightly to the side, and the broken sword scraped past his side and down.
And he had quickly raised his other hand. In a blur, his palm appeared at Mu Sha's neck, and he also swept a claw horizontally, five streaks of cyan light shooting from his five fingers, and a sharp, piercing sound arose.
He was also attacking Mu Sha's neck, aiming for a one-hit kill. The man in the silver cloak's speed was more than a notch faster than Mu Sha's, and in his eyes, Mu Sha's attack was very slow, so he easily dodged the broadsword.
But just as his fingertips were about to touch the other's skin, Mu Sha also raised his other hand as fast as lightning and directly slapped the broken broadsword that had slid past his side.
"Bang!" The broken broadsword trembled violently, and in an instant, its body tilted sideways, transforming into countless arrows. Under the amplification of Mu Sha's power, the broken broadsword changed direction, and a rain of arrows arrived simultaneously.
The man in the silver cloak's divine sense immediately caught the opponent's attack. It was very clear in his divine sense: they were indeed black arrows, each only two fingers long, not fragments of the broken sword.
The tip of each arrow glowed with a dark red color, clearly a deadly poison. Before, he had clearly snapped the opponent's broadsword with his fingers, yet he hadn't noticed anything unusual about the sword. How had it suddenly become like this?
But at this moment, there was no time for him to think. This Mu Sha was truly ruthless; he wanted to perish together with him. The light of his protective spirit shield flickered, and the rain of arrows instantly struck his body. A sound like a dense rain on a banana leaf rang out.
And the man in the silver cloak's fingers had also reached Mu Sha's neck.
"Crack!" A section of mottled bone spike was snapped by him, and his fingertips also tore off his black hood in the process.
But Mu Sha did not have his entire neck crushed by the grip as the man in the silver cloak had imagined. Instead, in that hair's breadth of a moment, the skin on his fists, elbows, knees, heels, and shoulders instantly ruptured. Streaks of fresh blood shot out from within, and thumb-thick sharp spikes, bone-white, burst out.
Each was a mottled bone spike about half a foot long, the tips still stained with fresh blood and flesh. And the few clavicles on Mu Sha's shoulders instantly propped up like pillars, blocking the hand of the man in the silver cloak.
Although the man's grip directly snapped the mottled bone spike protecting his neck, Mu Sha also used the opportunity to block the opponent's fatal blow.
The man in the silver cloak's divine sense swept over him and saw that the person before him who had lost his mask was a young man. He looked somewhat ordinary, not like the handsome demonic men he had seen in the past.
At this moment, bone spikes protruded from all the joints of the young man's body, giving him a very ferocious appearance. Streaks of fresh blood flowed from the corner of his mouth; he was clearly not lightly injured.
From the start of the fight until now, everything had happened in a flash of lightning. The man in the silver cloak had struck several times in a row, yet he had failed to take the other's life. He was already furious.
He, a dignified Nascent Soul cultivator, not counting the time spent chasing, had actually failed to kill a mere Golden Core cultivator after several breaths, and had even nearly been ambushed by him.
If not for the huge disparity in strength between the two, his own protective light shield would not have been able to block the ambush of those arrows.
The second exchange happened in an instant. Mu Sha's left clavicle was snapped by the opponent, but his face showed no pain, as if that piece of bone wasn't his.
What shocked the man even more was that the small piece of broken bone left on Mu Sha's shoulder seemed to be slowly becoming smooth, as if it were healing on its own.
"Secret art recovery… Undead Demon Vine!" A thought instantly flashed through the man in the silver cloak's mind. But Mu Sha did not stop at all and brazenly launched another attack.
His movements were extremely fast. He had already thrown away his broadsword. Disregarding the broken clavicle on one side, his entire person, as if possessed, crashed towards the man in the silver cloak's chest.
The broadsword he had thrown away now had a crack on its side, revealing a row of black tubes inside.
Mu Sha had actually installed a mechanism inside the broadsword, concealed by a formation, instead of using a technique to conjure an artifact spirit or arrows for attack.
Under the sudden change, the sword's attack had almost no change in aura, and the mechanism shot out countless poison arrows.
This caused the opponent, who was using his divine sense to perceive the changes in aura and magical power around him, to realize something was wrong only when the poison arrow attack had already arrived. If not for the difference in strength, the man in the silver cloak would have already died under those poison arrows.
Seeing the other party crashing towards him, a fierce light flashed in the man's eyes. He exerted his strength, and the long rod swept out horizontally. He wanted to smash him into a pulp in mid-flight.
But to his surprise, another unexpected scene occurred. Although the long rod in his hand swept over with the infusion of magical power, its speed had become slow.
The black demonic-runed shield that had been pierced at one end of the long rod suddenly began to spin. In the blink of an eye, it was spinning like a pinwheel, creating a strong tearing force that pulled the long rod in other directions, thus dispersing the force on it.