“


    Even though they had allowed Lou Yuan to come along with the condition of having to take care of himself, their consciences simply would not allow them to leave him for dead in such a situation!


    Old Niu charged forward without stopping – straight into a bush of fairymist flowers. The entire bush of flowers collapsed and scattered, unable to bear the weight of his huge body.


    Yet despite missing the trio, his charge was not completely meaningless, either.


    In the midst of his charge, Old Niu had stepped on the array flag that Zhao Yunxiao had planted, directly crushing it under his hoof.


    It wouldappear that he had caught onto Zhao Yunxiao’s plan.


    “


    A clone formed beside Zhao Yunxiao, and the two of them immediately scattered in two opposing directions, darting around the prairie and planting array flags along the way.


    In this case, he would just have to create the array much faster than Old Niu can disrupt him!


    Do you really think that I will let you do as you please?!” Old Niu roared as he pulled himself out from the crushed bush of fairymist flowers.


    But rather than waste time going after the two Zhao Yunxiaos who were running all around the prairie, he targeted Nie Hanchang and Lou Yuan this time.


    From what he had observed so far, Nie Hanchang and Lou Yuan were definitely the weakest links here, possessing few means to defend themselves.


    And as long as he could get a hold of them, he was certain that someone as righteous-sounding as Zhao Yunxiao would immediately surrender to save the lives of his companions!


    Unfortunately for Old Niu, Nie Hanchang was no easy target.


    There was a wide variety of defensive attributes that cultivators would have to work on simultaneously, just so that they would not have an exploitable weakness in combat.


    But as a bow and arrow specialist, Nie Hanchang did not follow the conventional path. Instead, there was only one defensive aspect that Nie Hanchang hadalways been focusing on.


    Agility – or essentially just the ability to put distance between him and his enemies.


    As someone who wholeheartedly pursued the path of archery, that was the only form of defence that he believed in.


    As a result, Nie Hanchang was actually far more agile than Zhao Yunxiao!


    Nie Hanchang had simply been caught by surprise earlier, rendering him unable to react in time. But now that he had identified exactly who his opponent was, Old Niu had no chance of catching him!


    Old Niu’s charge was fast and filled with power, but it was simply too predictable. By mixing in numerous changes in directions, Nie Hanchang was basically dancing around Old Niu, sending him crashing into bush after bush of fairymist flowers.


    Zhao Yunxiao could not help but suspect that he might have had experience doing this in the past.


    He thought that he had already gotten a good gauge of their movement speed and stamina earlier during their trek into the valley.


    But now, that no longer seemed to be the case. In fact, this brat had already far surpassed his earlier threshold!


    “


    The two Zhao Yunxiaos in front of him looked identical, but Old Niu showed no signs of confusion. Just in case of unforeseen circumstances like this, he had kept his spiritual sense locked onto the real Zhao Yunxiao right from the very start of the fight!


    Unfortunately, now that he had reverted to his true form of a bull demon, the arrows no longer seemed to have an effect on him.


    The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    “


    Even though Zhao Yunxiao was moving around quickly, Old Niu was still slowly creeping up on him. This was especially so, since Zhao Yunxiao had not stopped planting array flags as he moved around, making it impossible to move as quickly as he originally could.


    On the other hand, Old Niu chose not to resort to his power charges, simply chasing Zhao Yunxiao around with his innate advantage in speed.


    It took a while, but even while constantly swatting away the energy arrows that kept coming at him, Old Niu inevitably managed to close the gap.


    “


    “


    But just as he was about to get a hold of Zhao Yunxiao, Old Niu saw his target suddenly dive straight into the ground, completely disappearing from sight right before his very eyes!


    He had no methods at his disposal to attack below ground!


    “


    Hahaha!” Lou Yuan could not help but laugh. “Stop running around and let you beat us to death? As expected of a bull demon, your body might be developed, but your brains still need a couple thousand years to fully evolve to match the state of a human brain!”


    Damn it!” Old Niu changed direction and started going after the array flags without hesitation, crushing them under his hooves one after another.


    After ensuring that he was a safe distance away from Old Niu, Zhao Yunxiao left the safety of the ground and revealed himself once more, quickly resuming what he was doing.


    Yet seeing the array flags being destroyed one by one, Zhao Yunxiao could not help but feel his heart bleed.


    Those array flags were not cheap!


    If he were a more talented individual, he might have already figured out the way to create arrays using the archaic characters that Cha had taught him before.


    When used together in the right manner, those archaic characters could form arrays with far greater ease, which would in turn allow him to set up the array much faster.


    Then again, there was no meaning to thinking about such hypothetical scenarios.


    Right now, the only way to reduce his losses was by focusing on completing the array faster!


    “


    He could similarly see that the rate at which he was destroying the array flags was not as fast as the rate at which the Zhao Yunxiaos were planting them.


    However, speed was not the only factor to consider here.


    He did not know what kind of array Zhao Yunxiao was trying to set up here. But now, he was betting on the fact that after destroying a sufficient number of his array flags, Zhao Yunxiao would not have enough remaining to complete a fully functioning array!


    Even though Zhao Yunxiao did not know the exact extent of the damage, he still involuntarily paused for a moment, astonished by the sudden increase in power behind the arrow that had resulted in Old Niu being pushed back.


    On the contrary, it was only because he had yet to truly come across a need to increase the power behind his arrows.


    And in front of everyone’s eyes, Nie Hanchang started yet another draw motion on the Grand Annihilator.


    “


    Seeing that he had attracted Old Niu’s attention, Nie Hanchang decisively lowered his bow to focus on evasive measures once again.


    He was currently in an awkward situation where he had no real option.


    But if he chose to go after Zhao Yunxiao or destroy the array flags, Nie Hanchang would be allowed to freely fire arrows at him, and these arrows were currently the only things that truly posed a threat to him!


    Rather than worrying about the future dangers, he decided that eliminating the current source of danger was of top priority.