Chapter 275

In an unknown part of the desert, the South Island Lord floated in mid-air, looking at the hunched old man opposite him.

No one would have imagined that such a withered-looking old man was actually a Transcendent Master.

The South Island Lord’s camel was nowhere to be seen, nor was there a camel following the old man. However, neither of them cared whether there were camels by their sides.

Thirty zhang separated them. Although the old man showed little expression, one could tell from his eyes that he was not particularly happy at this moment.

He coughed twice and said, “Does the South Island Lord truly refuse to step aside?”

The South Island Lord looked at him without replying, only giving a slight shake of his head.

The old man’s gaze grew even more sinister. He snorted coldly, “Then we shall see if those two little brats can safely carry that thing out of this desert.”

The South Island Lord still didn’t speak. Beneath his black mask, even his expression remained unchanged, as if the two “little brats” the old man mentioned had nothing to do with him.

In fact, he knew very well that for Yun Huizhou and Lian Li, the most dangerous person was this old man. As long as he kept his eyes on this man, Yun Huizhou and Lian Li could handle the situation in the desert, even if those assassins had already received the old man’s instructions to go deep into the desert to find and intercept them.

Although he had been moving outside the sensing range of the supreme treasure to mislead the assassins and this old man for a considerable time, as the time for the treasure’s birth drew closer, the sensing range continued to expand.

A day ago, the speed at which the sensing range expanded suddenly surged. This made it impossible for the South Island Lord, who had been carefully managing distance and speed, to mislead the old man any longer; they were both within the sensing range.

The old man already knew the general direction of the treasure, and the South Island Lord also knew that the treasure had already emerged. It now depended on whether Yun Huizhou and Lian Li had used that lotus to find the treasure’s location in advance and take it away.

Fortunately, their current position was extremely far from where the treasure was located. They could only vaguely sense a direction, let alone see any phenomena.

However, besides his two disciples, there were many horse bandits and scattered assassins in the desert. The phenomena of a supreme treasure are usually quite obvious. If Yun Huizhou and Lian Li couldn’t find the location and take the treasure in advance, the phenomena would become increasingly apparent over time, and the range would grow larger.

The South Island Lord didn’t know how large the maximum range was; he only knew that once it reached its limit and the treasure had still not been taken, the phenomena would vanish completely in an instant.

The South Island Lord didn’t actually care much about whether he could obtain the treasure; he simply felt that he couldn’t let the horse bandits or the old man before him get it.

If the horse bandits got it and used it successfully—given that this treasure was at a level where it could be sensed by Transcendent Masters and calculated by Bei Heng—it was feared that a massive scale of horse bandits would emerge shortly after. At that time, it would be a great threat to both merchant caravans and the people of the border cities, and even the borders themselves would become unstable.

And if the old man before him got it, the martial arts world would likely face a great upheaval. With problems already arising in the Imperial Court, if the martial arts world fell into chaos as well, it would be a disaster for the common people.

Therefore, after seeing that the Transcendent Master summoned by the assassins was this old man, the South Island Lord knew clearly that no matter what, he had to block this person. If there was an opportunity, it would be even better to kill the opponent right here.

It seemed that the South Island Lord’s consistently indifferent attitude had enraged the old man. He could no longer restrain himself and attacked.

The South Island Lord finally reacted. He still had no intention of speaking, but he showed no mercy in his strikes. However, during the fight, he did not reveal his killing intent.

Even when Transcendent Masters fought, they usually stopped at the right moment. Because it was very difficult to completely kill the opponent, and once the opponent escaped, it would be fine if one was alone, but if one had disciples or grand-disciples, then those disciples would be in danger.

***

After Lian Li and Yun Huizhou expanded their camel train, they headed towards the exit of the desert.

Their pace wasn’t particularly fast; after all, it was impossible to let the camels gallop day and night without rest. One thing that kept them in a relatively good mood was that the horse bandits seemed to have truly lost their trail, or perhaps they hadn’t given up but didn’t dare send small squads to pursue them first, fearing further losses of men and camels.

In any case, over the past two days, besides the annoyance of the scorching sun by day and the freezing cold by night, everything else was fine.

On the third day of travel, they found a water source again. However, compared to the abundant water source in the previous oasis, the one they found now looked somewhat pitiful.

Lian Li got down from his camel, taking four empty water skins with him to the water’s edge. In the desert, water was used sparingly. Often, they only dared to take a small sip before stopping. But this time, with the supplies provided by the horse bandits, the two were slightly more extravagant than before.

He squatted down, preparing to draw water, when he suddenly heard Yun Huizhou call him: “Lian Li!”

He turned back, about to ask Yun Huizhou what was wrong, when he suddenly heard the sound of someone approaching. The distance wasn’t too far, but they were separated by sand dunes, so they couldn’t see each other. However, the camel tracks wouldn’t disappear for a while. If the other party saw the tracks, they could easily follow them here.

Leaving the water skins on the bank, Lian Li nimbly returned to Yun Huizhou’s side. Like dragonflies skimming the water, the two quickly glided to the top of the sand dune, then lay flat and relaxed, imagining themselves as giant desert reptiles, crawling to the very peak using both hands and feet.

Lian Li had come up with this method. He had even specifically asked Yun Huizhou to close his eyes while he crawled on the ground to see if Yun Huizhou could tell he was a human. Yun Huizhou’s feedback was that it was a very strange sound, unrecognizable, feeling like a lizard crawling, but also feeling like the body size was a bit too large.

The two had originally come up with this kind of crawling as a joke and never thought there would be a day they would use it. As it turned out, they really encountered a situation where it could be used.

The two lay on the sand dune, looking down cautiously. Sure enough, they saw about twenty people riding camels, following the tracks left by their own camels. They wore identical black clothes, black masks on their faces, and long swords at their waists.

It was the attire of those assassins.

Lian Li felt like cursing in his heart. It had only been a few days since they shook off the horse bandits, and now they had run into the assassins again. Could they just let them leave the desert in peace?

Despite the internal complaints, Lian Li also knew that this group of assassins and the horse bandits were all here for the treasure.