High Martial Arts: Enlightenment after Practices

On the other side of the opening was the fortress’s underground storeroom, piled with ore and supplies and currently deserted.

The two slipped inside, and Chen Yuan quickly covered the opening with a camouflage cloth. From the inside, it looked completely unremarkable.

”Position confirmed. We’re in,” Chen Yuan transmitted over the encrypted channel.

”Copy that,” Hong Nianyi’s voice replied. ”We’re drawing away the pursuers. You proceed as planned.”

Outside the fortress, Xu Wuyi and Hong Nianyi fought as they retreated.

They deliberately slowed their pace, allowing the pursuers to keep them in sight but never letting themselves be caught.

They would occasionally wheel around to attack, wounding one or two Werewolf Warriors to enrage them, but never dealing a fatal blow—their goal was to continuously hold their attention.

The tactic was a success.

Three Werewolf Squads, thirty in total, were all lured to the hills west of the fortress, drawing them more than a kilometer away.

As a result, the fortress’s internal guard was weakened by at least a third.

In the underground storeroom, Chen Yuan and Lin Jue donned the Werewolf Warrior Leather Armor they had prepared beforehand.

It had been stripped from a War General they’d killed earlier and, after being treated by Lin Jue with runes, could now simulate a Werewolf’s aura.

The more powerful one was, the more they relied on sensing auras, but sometimes, it was simple visual observation that offered the only chance to see through a disguise.

”Let’s go.”

The two pushed open the storeroom door and entered the fortress’s internal corridors.

The corridors were crude, with exposed rock walls and an uneven floor. Torches hung from the walls, their flickering flames making shadows leap and shrink.

The sound of footsteps came from up ahead.

Chen Yuan immediately pulled Lin Jue into a side passage to hide.

Two Werewolf Warriors hurried past, muttering curses under their breath. It seemed they were being redeployed to reinforce the main gate.

Once the footsteps faded, the two continued onward.

According to the structural diagram Lin Jue had scanned earlier, the Priest’s quarters and the altar should be on the fortress’s top floor.

They needed to find a passage leading to the upper levels.

After rounding two bends, a stone staircase leading upward appeared before them.

At the top of the stairs was a heavy wooden door, flanked by two Werewolf Warrior guards.

These two warriors were clearly more elite than the ones outside. They wore full suits of Bone Armor, a sharp light glinted in their eyes, and both were at the War General Level.

A direct assault would give them away.

Chen Yuan glanced at Lin Jue, who in turn produced two small spray bottles.

The bottles contained a specially made anesthetic mist. It was colorless and odorless, capable of penetrating the skin and rendering a War General Level target unconscious within three seconds.

The pair crept closer.

When they were ten meters from the guards, Lin Jue pressed the buttons on the bottles, and two fine streams of mist shot toward the guards’ faces.

The guards seemed to sense something, but before they could react, they were overcome with dizziness and collapsed.

Chen Yuan darted forward, catching them both and laying them gently on the ground before pushing open the wooden door.

Behind the door, a stone staircase spiraled upward, leading to the top floor of the fortress.

Chen Yuan made a hand signal, motioning for Lin Jue to remain outside and stand guard while he went up alone.

Lin Jue nodded, taking out a monitoring device and vigilantly watching both ends of the corridor.

Chen Yuan set foot on the stone stairs, his steps as light as a cat’s.

The staircase was long, spiraling upward for three full turns before reaching the top floor.

The top floor was a wide platform with a stone altar at its center. An eerie green Flame burned upon it.

The High Priest stood before the altar with his back to the entrance, his bone staff held high, apparently performing some kind of ritual.

Chen Yuan held his breath and slowly drew the short blade at his waist.

But just as he was about to make his move, the High Priest suddenly spun around, his crimson eyes staring directly toward him.

”Human, did you think your disguise could fool me?”

The High Priest’s voice was glacial. He slammed his bone staff heavily on the ground.

The eerie green Flame on the altar suddenly erupted, transforming into fiery serpents that lunged toward Chen Yuan!

Chen Yuan’s heart plummeted.

The moment the High Priest turned around, he knew he had been discovered.

It wasn’t a flaw in the disguise; it was the instinctual warning born from the sheer disparity in their power. This Priest was stronger than the one in the canyon, his senses far more acute.

The eerie green fire serpents rushed toward him at an unnatural speed, the air filling with the stench of decay and death.

Chen Yuan had no time to think; his body reacted before his mind, on pure instinct.

He shot backward, crossing his short blades in a block before his chest. At the same time, his Heart Image, ”Shadow Crow,” activated at full power, and his form flickered and blurred in the firelight.

But it was no use.

The fiery serpents seemed to have a life of their own, twisting in mid-air to bypass his blades and bite down on his left shoulder.

SSSST—

The Leather Armor was instantly charred black. Agonizing pain, accompanied by a chilling, corrosive sensation, pierced him to the marrow.

Chen Yuan grunted, the impact from the fiery serpent sending him flying backward to slam heavily against the wall at the top of the stairs.

”Chen Yuan!”

Lin Jue’s voice cried out from below, laced with a rare note of panic.

She rushed up the stairs, and her face fell as she saw the charred wound on Chen Yuan’s shoulder and the dark, bluish-black veins spreading rapidly from it.

”Poisonous flame... Fall back!” Chen Yuan growled through clenched teeth. He grabbed Lin Jue’s wrist with his right hand, and the two stumbled back down the stairs.

Up on the platform, the High Priest did not give chase.

He stood his ground, a hint of cruel amusement glinting in his crimson eyes.

He tapped the ground lightly with his bone staff. Two thin streams of the eerie green Flame separated from the altar and snaked down the stairs, moving not with speed, but with the unhurried confidence of a cat playing with its prey.

「Outside the fortress, in the western hills.」

Xu Wuyi thrust his spear through the throat of the last Wolfman War General. A burst of Dark Gold Flame erupted from the tip, incinerating the corpse.

Thirty Werewolf corpses lay strewn about, their blood soaking the gray-black soil.

Just then, his personal terminal vibrated.

Hong Nianyi lopped off the head of the werewolf captain before him as he opened the comm link.

Chen Yuan’s hurried, strained voice came through, laced with obvious pain:

”Plan compromised... High Priest is stronger than we estimated... Lin Jue and I are wounded... We’re falling back...”

Before he could finish, the transmission cut out.

Hong Nianyi and Xu Wuyi exchanged a look, each seeing the grim understanding in the other’s eyes.

”We’re going back,” Hong Nianyi said without a moment’s hesitation. He sheathed his Long Saber and broke into a full-speed sprint toward the fortress.

Xu Wuyi was right behind him.

The two no longer suppressed their auras. The Power of Heart Image thundered within them, and their speed instantly surged to its absolute peak.

The hilly terrain flew backward beneath their feet. They crossed the eight hundred meters in just ten breaths.

The fortress’s main gate was still shut tight. The Werewolf Warriors in the watchtowers saw the two returning and immediately sounded the alarm.

But this time, Hong Nianyi and Xu Wuyi didn’t break their stride.

”Break the gate!”

Hong Nianyi roared. The instant his Long Saber left its sheath, a pale-gold Sword Gang flared to three meters in length, cleaving toward the metal gate like a giant, mountain-splitting axe.

Xu Wuyi struck at the same moment. He lunged with his Meteor Iron Long Spear, a single point of dark gold light at its tip undergoing extreme Compression before erupting with a deafening roar.

CLANG—BOOM!

The metal gate buckled violently under the two Innate Level attacks. Its hinges shattered, and the entire gate was blasted inward, crushing several Werewolf Warriors behind it.

Through the billowing dust, the two charged into the fortress.