Chapter 90

Chapter 90: She Is Sir Bamboo
Sir Orchid, Sir Plum, and Sir Bamboo each faced a different Illusory Realm, but all of them were trapped deep inside, unable to pull themselves out.

What surprised Yu Zhao was that the only one who held onto her true heart and broke through the illusion was the most hot-tempered and impulsive of the Four Gentlemen, Sir Chrysanthemum.

Her whole body was soaked in sweat, as if she had just been dragged out of water, and her eyes were shining unusually bright.

Sir Chrysanthemum took quite a while to calm down before she finally shook off the negative emotions the Illusory Realm had left in her.

She looked around. Sir Bamboo and the other two still had their eyes closed. Fear twisted their faces, and their bodies trembled in small, constant shivers.

Sir Chrysanthemum’s eyes burned with fury.

She had just broken free from the Illusory Realm herself, so of course she knew how terrifying the scenes inside were. It was a nightmare she never wanted to remember for the rest of her life.

She roared at the sky: “Yu Zhao! You deserve to die!”

Sir Chrysanthemum raised her sword and charged straight at Yu Zhao.

As long as she killed Yu Zhao, the Illusory Realm would be broken.

Yu Zhao tapped her toes on the ground and shot backward in a sharp retreat.

Sir Chrysanthemum chased after her from behind, refusing to let her escape.

Seeing she still could not close the distance between them, Sir Chrysanthemum suddenly stopped. Her aura surged, and the chrysanthemum embroidered on her robe seemed to come alive, fluttering wildly in the air.

Then she gripped her sword in both hands and slashed down.

A nearly solid wave of sword qi burst out, wrapped in endless killing intent as it slashed toward Yu Zhao.

The sword qi howled through the air, setting off a chain of sonic booms.

A chill ran down Yu Zhao’s spine. Every inch of her body screamed of danger.

She shouted: “Phantom Mirage!”

Her hands flew through a series of seals. Her figure flickered, and a figure exactly like Yu Zhao stepped out of her body.

Then a second Daoist shadow, a third Daoist shadow…

In the blink of an eye, fifteen Clone Techniques appeared around Yu Zhao. Every single clone’s aura was exactly the same as hers.

The next moment, sixteen “Yu Zhao” figures scattered at once, dodging in sixteen different directions.

Sir Chrysanthemum stared, dumbfounded.

Even when she searched with her Divine Sense, she still could not tell which one was Yu Zhao’s real body.

That last sword strike had almost drained half of the spiritual power in her body. If she could not heavily injure Yu Zhao now, the battle would definitely turn against her next.

“Split!”

Sir Chrysanthemum stretched out her arm and clenched her fingers into a fist. The sword qi that had been flying forward at high speed suddenly stopped in midair.

Then she snapped her fingers open. The huge mass of sword qi quickly split into sixteen smaller strands of sword qi.

“Go!”

She flicked her wrist. The sixteen strands of sword qi each locked onto and chased after one of Yu Zhao’s Clone Techniques.

After doing all this, Sir Chrysanthemum’s face flushed red while her lips turned pale.

Forcing her attack to change in midair took an enormous toll on her mind. If it was not to end Yu Zhao as soon as possible, she would never use this kind of move that hurt the enemy a thousand while wounding herself eight hundred.

But when she saw Yu Zhao fleeing in a panic under the pursuit of the sword qi, her mood brightened again.

Just then, one strand of sword qi caught up to a Yu Zhao and stabbed straight toward her back without hesitation.

There was a loud bang, and Yu Zhao’s figure turned into a puff of smoke and scattered in the air.

It was a Clone Technique.

Sir Chrysanthemum felt a bit disappointed, but she knew that finding the true Yu Zhao among sixteen clones was not an easy task.

In fact, Yu Zhao’s strange and unpredictable methods had already filled her with deep dread, even fear.

If she could not kill Yu Zhao this time, she would spend the rest of her life trapped in a nightmare named Yu Zhao.

So Yu Zhao had to die.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

One Clone Technique after another was destroyed.

Sir Chrysanthemum’s grip on her sword tightened even more.

In the end.

All fifteen clones vanished. Only one figure was still dodging in the distance.

“Found you!”

Sir Chrysanthemum was overjoyed.

She did not hesitate. She poured all the spiritual power she had left into her Flying Sword and slashed down again.

Another wave of sword qi formed in front of her.

It had appeared later than the first, but its speed was terrifying.

In just a single breath, it caught up from behind and struck Yu Zhao’s body before all the other sword qi.

Sir Chrysanthemum had no time to feel happy before Yu Zhao’s body suddenly burst apart with a bang, breaking into pieces. It was yet another Clone Technique.

“How can that be!”

Sir Chrysanthemum stared in shock, at a loss for words.

All sixteen clones, and not one of them was Yu Zhao. So where had Yu Zhao gone?

The question had barely formed in her mind when a cool female voice sounded behind her: “Are you looking for me?”

Sir Chrysanthemum’s expression changed at once. She spun around and stabbed backward with her sword.

The Flying Sword brushed past Yu Zhao’s body. The sharp sword qi sliced a small tear in Yu Zhao’s Daoist robe.

Yu Zhao’s face stayed calm. She flicked out a finger, and a streak of spiritual light shot forward.

The light flashed once, then flew straight into Sir Chrysanthemum’s body.

In that instant, the scene in Sir Chrysanthemum’s eyes shifted in a tiny way, but she herself did not notice at all.

She turned around again, staring warily into the distance.

Three of Yu Zhao’s Clone Techniques were standing there.

Sir Chrysanthemum clenched her jaw. She raised her sword in front of her. With her left hand, she ran a fingertip down along the blade. A line of blood streaked across the sword.

Very soon, the remaining blood was swallowed up by the Flying Sword. A thick, violent killing aura spread out. A faint smell of blood seeped into the air.

Sir Chrysanthemum curled her lips into a twisted grin and snarled: “Go to hell for me!”

As soon as she spoke, several beams of sword light crisscrossed through the air, as if they were going to cut all of heaven and earth into little pieces.

“Ah!!!”

Miserable screams rang out as blood sprayed in all directions.

The smell of blood in the air grew even stronger.

Sir Chrysanthemum looked at “Yu Zhao” lying in a pool of blood and threw her head back in wild laughter: “Hahaha! Yu Zhao, no matter how many tricks you use, you still cannot escape death!”

Yu Zhao’s cold voice sounded from right behind her: “Is that so? Then take a good look at who you are seeing.”

At her words, a strong sense of rejection rose in Sir Chrysanthemum’s heart almost on its own.

Before she could think further, it felt as if someone had swept away the fog covering her eyes. Her vision became clearer than it had ever been.

She saw Sir Bamboo, Sir Orchid, and Sir Plum lying on the ground. Their breathing was weak. Their bodies were covered in wounds sliced open by sword qi. There was not a single uninjured spot left on them.

“No. No! No!!!”

Sir Chrysanthemum shook her head again and again, shouting “no” three times in a row, unable to accept what was in front of her.

The killing power of a sword cultivator was already the strongest among cultivators of the same level. On top of that, Sir Bamboo and the other two had been trapped in the Illusory Realm with no way to defend themselves. The result was a disaster.

Sir Plum and Sir Orchid had already died one after another. Sir Bamboo was also down to her last breath.

Just an hour ago, the Four Gentlemen of Plum, Orchid, Bamboo, and Chrysanthemum had still been proud and spirited. Now, in the blink of an eye, the only one left standing was Sir Chrysanthemum.

“Ah!”

Sir Chrysanthemum grabbed her head and let out a howl of pure despair.

She had killed her closest partners with her own hands.

She was a sinner.

Under the heavy blows to her spirit, Sir Chrysanthemum’s Dao heart shattered. In the end, she chose to lift her sword and cut her own throat.

As her body fell, only one thought flashed through Sir Chrysanthemum’s mind.

She never wanted to meet another cultivator who trained in Illusion Art for as long as she lived.

Bang.

The dust finally settled.

Yu Zhao walked past Sir Chrysanthemum’s body, whose eyes were still open and unwilling, and slowly stopped in front of the only one still breathing, Sir Bamboo.

Sir Bamboo forced her eyelids open with great effort. Using the last of her strength, she whispered to Yu Zhao: “I… am I really Sir Bamboo… or Little Zhu’er…”

Yu Zhao was silent for a moment, then answered: “You are Sir Bamboo.”

“Heh… hahaha…”

Relief filled Sir Bamboo’s eyes. She laughed as she coughed up blood.

Great. She was Sir Bamboo, the female assassin who roamed the Cultivation World, not Little Zhu’er, that girl trapped inside a household.

With a faint smile still on her face, Sir Bamboo’s gaze slowly dimmed.