Chapter 541: Ambushing Xue Yu

It wasn’t long before Li Jiu, Hong Ju, and Fei Ling reached a unanimous decision—they would temporarily separate from Fairy Xue Yu to search for other Survival Tickets, as they lacked confidence in capturing Su Che alive and didn’t want to risk their lives entirely on him.

The three of them had essentially come for nothing, as the mysterious old man had taken away many Yuan Ying cultivators. They could afford to lose those, but wasting nearly two precious hours was truly heartbreaking.

However, Li Jiu and his companions couldn’t blame Fairy Xue Yu for this. After all, their original goal was to capture Su Che, and since Su Che still had two Survival Tickets, it was only right of Fairy Xue Yu to inform them promptly.

Li Jiu and his friends left, leaving Fairy Xue Yu alone—still determined to follow Su Che in search of an opportunity. She seemed confident enough that even though Su Che had the numerical advantage and a powerful bodyguard like Hong Ju, they couldn’t do anything to her.

“Su Che, should we deal with her right here? Or do you want her to keep following?”

Hong Ju’s loud voice, even when spoken in a hushed tone, could be clearly heard by Fairy Xue Yu from a hundred feet away.

“Of course I don’t want her to keep following. But killing her seems unlikely too—this woman is extremely tricky.”

After saying that, Su Che changed his tone: “But since we have the advantage, we should at least give it a try. Brother Hong Ju, please drive her away. If you can kill her on the spot, that would be even better.”

As for capturing Fairy Xue Yu alive, Su Che had no such illusions.

“Alright!”

Hong Ju roared and strode forward at full speed toward Fairy Xue Yu.

At a distance of a hundred feet, thanks to his tall stature, long legs, and special running skills, just five steps were enough. Moreover, as a native creature, Hong Ju wasn’t bound by any game rules and could even fly high to attack Fairy Xue Yu.

Seeing the giant rush up in an instant, Fairy Xue Yu wasn’t panicked at all. She moved swiftly, using spatial contraction techniques to dodge sideways. Her speed might not have been fast, but it was highly ingenious, allowing her to avoid being hit by the mountain-like Hong Ju.

Whoosh!

Hong Ju swung his large iron rod horizontally, covering an area of over ten feet. Though it was a close-quarters combat method, its killing range was quite extensive.

It must be said that Hong Ju’s movement speed is far greater than that of the Snow Jade Fairy, as he can ignore any game rules—running or flying however he wants—while the Snow Jade Fairy cannot; she can only dodge at a relatively limited walking speed, making it impossible for her to completely avoid Hong Ju’s attacks.
Within the range of the giant iron rod’s sweep, the Snow Jade Fairy could neither fly into the air nor lie on the ground. With no place to hide, she had no choice but to endure the attack head-on.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Faced with the giant iron rod as thick as a water tank sweeping toward her, the Snow Jade Fairy instantly created four light blue portals in front of her. When the rod hit the first portal, there was no sound at all—it seemed as though the rod’s mountainous force had sunk into the portal and entered another space.
From a distance, Su Che could clearly see through the naked eye a faint glow flowing back and forth between the four portals. It seemed that Hong Ju’s formidable attack power had been transformed into another form of energy, circulating among the portals and weakening gradually until it was completely absorbed, only to enhance the brightness of the portals.
“Absorbing the enemy’s attack power and converting it into one’s own energy—this seems to be…”
Su Che’s expression changed slightly as an idea struck him: “This seems to be one of the Three Thousand Great Paths—the ‘Great Transformation Art’!”
Could it be that the Snow Jade Fairy also knew the great path arts of the immortal realm?
Just as surprise arose, Su Che thought, “I’m just an ordinary person, yet I can master several great path arts. Why assume that others can’t do the same? In the vast universe, there are certainly not just me as an ordinary person who has mastered great path arts!”
The ‘Great Transformation Art’ is an extremely powerful great path art, commonly known as an invincible supernatural skill. It allows one to absorb and transform the enemy’s attack power to strengthen themselves. As long as the enemy’s attack power isn’t strong enough to kill them in one strike, they can turn the enemy’s strength against them—the more they take hits, the stronger they become.
Of course, nothing is absolute. There are some extremely special energies that even the Great Transformation Art cannot absorb or transform—such as the most primitive and ancient top-tier energies in the world.
“Little woman, she really knows her stuff.”
Hong Ju’s first sweeping attack was effortlessly deflected, but he wasn’t annoyed at all. Instead, he was extremely excited, longing for his opponent to be stronger so he could fully unleash his strength and have a thorough fight.
Whoosh whoosh whoosh…

The second strike came swiftly. The giant iron rod spun at high speed in Hong Ju’s hands, generating extremely bizarre spiral energy currents. Moreover, once separated from the rod, these energy currents could flexibly change direction, bypassing the four light gates, and charge straight at Snow Jade Fairy herself.

Under Snow Jade Fairy’s control, the four light gates could also move over short distances to defend against attacks. However, the game rules imposed too many restrictions on her. After being sealed, her strength was only at the late Yuan Ying stage, making it difficult for her to fully unleash the true power of her great dao arts. The speed of the light gates was far too slow to keep up with the attacking spiral energy currents.

Snow Jade Fairy could only move quickly, using her own movements in conjunction with those of the light gates to avoid Hong Ju’s direct attacks. Even so, she was still grazed by those spiral energy currents. With just a slight touch, the defensive barrier of her high-grade dao artifact shattered instantly, collapsing like fragile window paper.

The defensive barrier of a high-grade dao artifact could be broken with just a light touch, showing that Hong Ju’s attack method might not seem flashy, but its power was extremely terrifying.

Su Che realized that if he were to fight Hong Ju and get hit head-on by his attacks, he might be killed on the spot, without even having the chance to be knocked away or pushed back.

Huh!

Snow Jade Fairy was also extremely fast. She immediately took out another defensive dao artifact to protect herself. Although this barrier was easily shattered by Hong Ju’s attacks, it was still far better than nothing.

After just two moves, Snow Jade Fairy appeared completely passive, as if she was no match for Hong Ju at all. But Su Che knew things couldn’t be that simple. This woman, Snow Jade, couldn’t be underestimated—she surely had many life-saving tricks or trump cards.

In this situation, according to Su Che’s plan, it would be best for the Crocodile Dragon and the Strange Bird to charge forward together with Hong Ju to corner Snow Jade, while his own shadow took the opportunity to launch a sneak attack. This might just be enough to deal with this troublesome woman.

However, Su Che was also aware that such an approach would surely anger Hong Ju. For this warlike giant, it would be an insult, as if to say that he wasn’t strong enough to handle Snow Jade on his own and needed the help of Su Che and the others.

“That’s definitely how it will be. People like Hong Ju have that kind of personality,” Old Black agreed.

Therefore, Su Che could only act as a spectator. Without Hong Ju’s explicit permission, it wasn’t appropriate for him to intervene.

Boom…

In the blink of an eye, Hong Ju had launched over a dozen attacks. His staff techniques had changed through at least four different attack patterns, but all of them were deflected by Snow Jade Fairy with ease. The four light gates, seemingly related to the Great Transformation Art, protected her like shadows, silently neutralizing most of Hong Ju’s attacks. Meanwhile, the speed of those four light gates kept increasing, clearly having absorbed enough energy and growing stronger.

“This woman is really tough. I hate her more and more!”
Lao He muttered secretly in the Immortal Prison, wishing his master would send his shadow over to assassinate her right away.

Su Che was also anxious, so he sent a message to Hong Ju: “Brother Hong Ju, I hope we can deal with her as soon as possible and then look for other red tokens. Could you please end the battle quickly? Or, I can use a little trick to help you. What do you think?”

“Haha, okay, I’ll do as you say!”
He had expected a reply like, “Two big men scheming against a little woman—un honorable victory,” but to his surprise, Hong Ju, who was having fun, agreed without hesitation.

This made Su Che like him even more. A man with such an open-minded personality, neither stubborn nor inflexible, was definitely someone worth befriending.

With Hong Ju’s permission, Su Che’s shadow vanished instantly and, in the blink of an eye, entered the shadow of Snow Jade Fairy, who was hundreds of feet away. No one could detect this change, not even Su Che himself. Su Che only knew what the shadow was supposed to do but couldn’t track its movements. In other words, he only knew the outcome, not the process.

Whoosh!
Hong Ju swung his massive iron staff again, releasing a seemingly insignificant yet actually terrifyingly powerful translucent energy beam, like a crescent-shaped blade, slashing toward Snow Jade Fairy.

Snow Jade Fairy had somewhat gotten used to such attacks. Even if the speed of the transformation light gates wasn’t fast enough, as long as her own movement speed was fast enough, she could still dodge and counterattack in time by coordinating the two.

But…

Snow Jade Fairy’s figure staggered, as if tripped. Her upper body tilted to the left, while her lower body was firmly held to the ground by some pulling force.

Facing Hong Ju’s fierce attack, just this brief “mistake” could lead to deadly consequences.

There was a miscalculation in the coordination between the Snow Jade Fairy and the transforming light portal. The light portal in front of her was at an inappropriate angle and position, blocking only half of the crescent-shaped energy; the other half continued to shoot straight toward Snow Jade.
The Snow Jade Fairy’s expression changed drastically. Her stunningly beautiful face showed a hint of shock, as if she couldn’t understand in that brief moment why her feet wouldn’t move…
Hiss!
The remaining half of the crescent-shaped energy, like piercing through window paper, directly penetrated the defensive barrier protecting the Snow Jade Fairy, aiming to strike her actual body.
“Hit!” Lao He shouted in the Immortal Prison. “Destroy this damned bitch!”
“Will she die?”
Su Che looked grave, staring intently at that translucent, deadly energy about to penetrate Snow Jade’s body…