Yi Jian looked around at the six bandits who were gathering, and only he could stop them from getting close to Liu Feiyan.
He knew he would need to give everything he had without holding back to give her a chance to escape.
Using all the essence from his core, he charged toward the enemies. His first target was the mountain bandit holding a spear, the one that Liao had injured earlier.
"That's right, come to your death!" the bandit shouted, pointing his spear at Jian's chest.
Jian spun his body just as the tip of the spear was about to pierce his chest, trapping the spear with his right arm as he cut the bandit's hand.
With a thrust forward, he pierced the bandit's stomach.
"Did you forget he's a cultivator? Let's all attack together!" the one-eyed bandit shouted.
The remaining five bandits attempted to strike Jian, but none succeeded; he was much faster than before, of course, due to the fact that he was spending all his vital energy without caring for his own safety.
One bandit with a saber aimed for his neck while another with a spear targeted his leg.
Jian managed to dodge the saber, but the spear managed to puncture his leg slightly. He decided to spend nearly all his essence on his special attack technique, and his sword moved as swiftly as a snake toward the neck of the bandit with the saber.
The bandit turned his head back, and Jian's sword passed very close to his nose.
The bandit laughed, thinking he had missed, but his laughter died when his eyes exploded!
All the bandits who witnessed this were terrified; they had clearly seen Jian's attack miss.
One bandit with a club managed to strike Jian's back, causing him to fall to the ground. The bandit attempted to hit his head, but Jian pushed off the ground with his legs and rolled to the side.
Jian felt as if his heart was about to explode from the effort.
The bandit with the club did not give up; he tried to hit Jian's head again, but this time, Jian stood still. His body turned into a blur of shadows, quickly closing the distance to his enemy and driving his sword deep into the bandit's stomach until it came out the other side.
However, Jian was not happy with this; all his essence had been exhausted, and he could no longer use any techniques. Now he was just an ordinary human with an injured body. But the flames of determination in his eyes had not diminished in the slightest.
The one-eyed bandit thought to himself, 'Where are those two bastards I sent to the ravine entrance and the three who blocked the exit? They're taking too long; what are they doing? If I find out they're having fun, I'll kill them!'
"Enough of this nonsense! You there, hold him; it's time to end this!" the one-eyed bandit said as he ran toward Liu Feiyan.
He knew that if he took the girl hostage, it would all be over quickly.
"NO!" Jian shouted and tried to run toward her, but two mountain bandits blocked his path.
Liu Feiyan, who was embracing her father in fear, turned pale.
Liu Junhan turned to his daughter and said, "Run, Feiyan! You need to run; I'll try to hold him off. Run as fast as you can!" He pushed Feiyan away.
"Daddy!" Feiyan cried, tears streaming down her face as she ran.
The one-eyed bandit decided to deal with Liu Junhan first, who was trying to stop him. Liu Junhan attempted to grab the one-eyed bandit, but he was quickly pierced by the bandit's sword, and within seconds, Junhan's body lost its strength.
Junhan's corpse fell to the ground.
The one-eyed bandit continued running toward Feiyan; she had managed to get a little distance away, but the bandit was too fast. After a while, he caught up to her and knocked her to the ground.
With a wide smile on his face, he grabbed Feiyan's fragile neck and lifted her as if she were a doll.
"Haha! Your girl is mine now!"
"You better not move unless you want me to snap her pretty neck," the one-eyed bandit said to Jian.
***
"Bastard! Let her go!" Jian shouted, and the bandits fighting him laughed.
Tristan turned to Yue and her grandfather.
"The archers went to fight Jian, and without those guys, the path we took into this ravine is clear."
He pointed toward the entrance of the ravine.
"You guys should leave."
"But what about you?" Yue asked.
"I've decided it's better to reduce their numbers."
Yue was surprised by this; she never imagined that Dusk would be brave enough to risk his life to help people he had only known for a few weeks. That's what she understood from what he said.
'Damn, I'm also a cultivator, and I'm three years older than him, yet I couldn't do anything.' That's what Yue thought.
"You can't do this alone; I want to help you," she said, looking into his eyes.
"What?" Zhou Lan said, concerned.
Tristan seemed to think about it for a few seconds, then turned his face to Zhou Lan and said, "Wouldn't it be better for you to take your grandfather away from here?"
"Zhou Yue, this would be very risky. We nearly got killed by two of them; what do you think you can do?" Zhou Lan said in a stern tone.
"But, Grandpa, we can't abandon Junhan, Feiyan, and the others," Yue said with conviction.
"But I'm very fast! None of them can catch me; I can do something! You can't stop me!" she said, irritated.
"You little—!" he said, exasperated.
"Here!" Tristan said, kicking a knife close to her.
The club and sword were too heavy for a child like her to hold, so Tristan threw her a knife he had found on the bandits' corpses. It was a medium-sized knife, probably used for cutting meat.
"If you want to help, you'd better be ready to kill, or you'll be killed."
After saying this, he left.
Zhou Yue and Zhou Lan watched the small child's back disappear into the darkness.
***
Tristan decided it was better to find the three bandits who had spread the nails and blocked the path. As he ran ahead in the ravine with his Shadow Aura ability activated, moving between the rocks, he managed to go unnoticed.
He also saw Jian fighting bravely against the bandits.
Tristan asked himself, a little curious, 'How much longer can he keep fighting?' The strange determination of that man piqued his curiosity; he did not understand why Jian was risking his life in this battle.
'Maybe he loves to fight?'
It took him a while to find the three bandits.
'This is where Liao fled; they must have tried to chase him. Well, that should have tired them out a bit.'