Jian Shen truly didn't for He Xing who looked to be on the losing side of the battle against Xifeng to suddenly appear in front of him and attack him.
Therefore, even though he tries his best and accumulated as much element of metal as he could in front of him to defend against the attack, all he did was manage to reduce the physical strength behind his punch.
The attack to his soul, however, wasn't reduced in the slightest.
Thus, the punch which wouldn't have had a huge impact on Jian Shen's physical body managed to critically injure him and threw him into the air and sent him over the cliff while coughing a huge amount of blood while doing so.
"Jian Shen!"
Flying straight towards the pale Jian Shen who didn't even look conscious of what was happening due to the how badly his soul was wounded, Xifeng stretched her hand to try and catch him when He Xing interfered and pushed him back.
"Humph! If you really want to save him, wait until I hear the sound of his body falling inside the forest."
"You.…"
Unable to finish her words due to what she saw, Xifeng suddenly felt her powers growing due to the white swords in her hand.
Using the sword to easily sweep He Xing far away, Xifeng once again began flying towards Jian Shen but failed to even get close to him because the huge bird which caught him was flying so fast that it became impossible for her to try and reach him regardless of how much she tried to.
"Stop."
Startled from the voice which came out of nowhere, Xifeng almost lost grip of the Myriad God Sword and let it fall inside the Black Forest.
"Who...?"
"Go back."
Speaking in an exhausted tone not due to overexerting herself, but rather due to seeing everything that happened to Jian Shen, Qingyu after ordering Xifeng to take her back found that He Xing and the blonde-haired woman had already left.
It seems like their plan was to kill only Jian Shen from the beginning so that their secret would stay hidden.
Xifeng and Meirong were only attacked to make sure that Jian Shen wouldn't be able to concentrate on his own fight and somehow die while trying to help them.
Going back to the cliff in a daze, neither Xifeng nor Meirong could understand how the fight they were winning quickly ended in a defeat.
Despite feeling as if they were unbeatable when they were holding onto the swords which Jian Shen threw towards them, they didn't even manage to help Jian Shen when he actually needed them to.
Ignoring the two shocked women, Qingyu and Juewang who were once again near each other began discussing on what to do.
"Since our connection to him hasn't severed yet, it means that husband is still alive."
"I know that as well. But we need to quickly find him before something bad happens."
Even though they didn't want to do so, the two swords now had no choice but to enter the Black Forest while having Xifeng and Meirong carry them.
If possible, they'd rather choose one of the women from inside the World Crest because they would feel more confident in them.
But right now they had no other choice than to hope that these two women wouldn't turn greedy and try to run away while taking the two of them with themselves.
After all, even if they could refuse to show their true power in the hands of someone else, it was impossible for them to escape by themselves due to not possessing the powers to move around by themselves anymore.
One thing however was real. This was definitely the biggest threat Jian Shen faced in this life, and the two swords who always kept him safe weren't there to help him through it.
...
Frowning hard from feeling an unbearable pain from an unknown location on his body, Jian Shen despite being sure that his physical body was safe was feeling as if he was broken into an uncountable number of pieces.
Feeling so hurt that he couldn't even bring himself to move as much as a single finger, Jian Shen began thinking back to what happened.
He killed all the assassins when He Xing suddenly attacked him which caused him to fall down the cliff.... Then....
From there on Jian Shen's memory felt very fuzzy but he barely remembered hearing the loud cry of a bird.... Which caught him and flew away?
Feeling vulnerable instantly from realizing that Qingyu and Juewang weren't near him, Jian Shen was just about to try and go back inside the World Crest when he suddenly stopped from remembering something else.
This part of his memory was the most fuzziest and it was quite possible that this never happened and was all just a figment of his imagination, but when he was being carried away by the bird someone else appeared.
A woman... A woman with tails stopped the bird... And saved him?
Yes.
The woman spoke to bird and it immediately let him go.
This was what made Jian Shen think that it never happened and he dreamt it up.
"You're awake. How are you feeling right now?"
Trembling not from the woman finding out that he was awake but instead because her voice sounded so warm and sweet, Jian Shen no longer thought about anything else as he opened his eyes.