Li Xue's body tensed up. From the looks of it, her whereabouts were already discovered, and they were marching toward her at full speed.
"I have reached 8-Star now, but the enemies are three people with cultivations ranging from 7-Star to 9-Star. More importantly, Xiao Jun is still there…" Li Xue furrowed her eyebrows, realizing that the situation might be more serious than she originally thought.
Hao Yu had told her that he would take care of them, but she should expect that some of them would definitely pass the traps.
Now that she understood the severity of the situation, Li Xue pulled out her sword, ready to take over. However, she didn't plan to move out of the safe area, fearing that there might be a trap lying around.
On the other hand, Xiao Jun kept shouting, "Hurry up. We can't let her escape our vision anymore. She might be the one preparing this trap."
Xiao Jun believed that only a cultivator had the strength to create all the traps. That was why he didn't want Li Xue to escape, as she might know all the positions of the traps and use it to her advantage.
However, the plan didn't go as smoothly as he thought. All of a sudden, the 7-Star Expert tripped over.
"What?" He was stunned, realizing there was a rope underneath the bush he just passed.
The rope caused some noises on the tree.
"Watch out!" The 8-Star Cultivator rushed to his side, grabbing him before throwing him away.
The 7-Star Expert was completely surprised to see a log swinging down. The other cultivator struck the log with his spear and somehow stopped the log's momentum.
"Are you alright?" He asked. The log was quite big, and the momentum was a bit too fast, so stopping it with his martial arts wouldn't be easy.
"Yeah, I'm fine." The 8-Star Cultivator nodded nonchalantly to avoid worrying him. But he added inwardly, 'My right hand is numb now.'
"What are you doing? Hurry up!" Xiao Jun made the situation worse by urging them to go forward. The time they wasted helping each other would be the time Li Xue had to run away.
"…" The two cultivators could only look at each other with a wry smile. They had no choice but to continue.
Still, there were a lot of traps near the safe area. The faster they rushed through all these traps, the more traps they involuntarily triggered.
And the next one to trigger the trap was Xiao Jun.
When he passed two trees, he felt a slight resistance on his chest, making him realize that it was a trap.
"!!!" Xiao Jun raised his sword out of reflex. Fortunately for him, that was what actually saved his life, as a wooden plate emerged from the ground. There were numerous spikes on top of the wooden plate, and it was swinging directly towards his face.
Xiao Jun instinctively swung his sword. As expected of a cultivator backed by an elder, his sword was extremely sharp. The moment it hit the board, it cut the board like tofu.
Still, the bottom part of the plate was still coming toward him, while the upper part continued towards his face due to the momentum.
Despite being able to slice it, Xiao Jun had no choice but to throw his body to the side, avoiding the plate.
"Kh. It's just a normal wooden plate and a trap that should only work against a mortal. But to think that my momentum is the one causing me to fall for this trick." Xiao Jun had realized that if he was a bit slower, he could easily avoid any of these.
Instead of a physical battle, it felt like a battle of the mind. The traps were playing with his psychology and caused the other cultivators to die. Whoever made this trap might have the intention to kill a low-level cultivator.
However, Xiao Jun had no time to stop. As soon as he stabilized his body, Xiao Jun continued forward. The other two had regrouped with him.
Unbeknownst to them, they had been tailed by someone else. Now that the person who would catch up to them had died, it was the time for the next trap that had to be triggered manually.
When Xiao Jun and the others had lined up and moved together, a series of bushing sounds began to echo in their ears.
"!!!" The noises alarmed them because of what had been happening. Xiao Jun and the other two cultivators raised their swords, ready to intercept what was going to come.
Surprisingly, the sound came from the bush, which ended up having nothing other than a wire that shook them. In other words, they might have triggered another trap, but that trap was just the creation of the bushing sound instead of any practical trap.
This trap confused them. Before, all the traps worked against cultivators. But this time, it looked like a normal trap they usually used to capture an animal or spiritual beast with low intelligence.
They didn't realize that stopping there was a bad idea. After all, they were not far away from Li Xue.
Since they had stopped, Li Xue grabbed a few palm-sized rocks and threw them at Xiao Jun.
"Li Xue!" Xiao Jun shouted, his tone filled with anger. Since Li Xue attacked them like this, there was no doubt that she was the culprit of all these traps.
With his strength, parrying a few rocks was nothing extraordinary. He skillfully threw away the rocks, but the anger of him seeing Li Xue forced his body to move to the unknown territory.
He jumped as high as he could, trying to avoid all the traps on the ground. This would be the last leap to reach Li Xue's position.
Li Xue raised her sword as well and said, "You shouldn't have come."
"You—! You'll be soon begging for my forgiveness!" Xiao Jun roared. He also noticed something. "Even if you have advanced to 8-Star, you won't be able to go against me!"
Li Xue positioned herself to the location of the trap she found a week ago.
"Is that so? Let's see if you can defeat me." Li Xue looked confident.
Xiao Jun swung his sword downwards, using the momentum to increase his force. He would knock the sword to the ground and disarm Li Xue afterward.
Surprisingly, the moment their swords clashed, Li Xue lowered her sword, following Xiao Jun's movement without any resistance. As a result, Xiao Jun managed to strike her sword down, even though it wasn't enough to knock her sword from her hand.
But this was what Li Xue was planning. Due to him stopping right in front of her, his feet ended up penetrating the bush underneath him and reached the trap below.
"Ngh?!"