Chapter Twelve: The Counterattack Was Just an Accident

Scarlet powder billowed through the air, and the pills scattered like petals cast by celestial maidens.
“Poison! Hold your breath!”
“Who told you to cut it!”
“I didn’t even hit it—it exploded on its own!”
“Nonsense, I saw you cut it!”
“You’re blind, what could you possibly see!”
“Who are you calling blind!”
“Enough! One more word and you’ll die from the poison!”
In an instant, the four men’s movements slowed, throbbing headaches, dizziness, palpitations, nausea, and weakness spreading through their limbs.
“What potent poison!”
The young acolyte staggered back two steps, pulled out a vial of antidote, and gulped it down, yet...
It didn’t work?
“Damn it, something’s wrong with this poison. I’ll hold off the woman—go deal with that boy as fast as you can!” The acolyte gritted his teeth and forced his energy to surge, lunging at Chao Jin’er.
They had to take care of Lu Zhou and the woman before the poison took hold, so they could safely search for the antidote.
Perhaps the antidote was on Lu Zhou himself.
Blind Yu and the two Red Waistcoats, hearing this, staggered after Lu Zhou, their steps uncertain.
“Don’t come any closer!” Lu Zhou feigned panic, scooping up Li Zhilian and fleeing.
Blind Yu and the Red Waistcoats chased him doggedly, but despite carrying a woman, Lu Zhou outran them by far, covering hundreds of yards before they could catch up.
“He’s so fast—has he trained before?” One Red Waistcoat gasped in frustration.
“It’s the poison,” Blind Yu analyzed.
Mentioning the poison, one of the Red Waistcoats suddenly felt something was wrong. During the chase, his energy had surged, clearing his head, but heat now flared through his meridians.
“Brother, I... something’s not right...”
Hearing the weak voice of his companion, the other Red Waistcoat was startled.
At that moment, Lu Zhou, having run for quite a while, came to a stop.
He glanced back. The flute woman and the acolyte had vanished from sight, leaving no one to witness what was about to happen.
Still cautious, Lu Zhou cast out hundreds of spirit stones, instantly arranging a formation that completely isolated the area.
Now, the situation was entirely in Lu Zhou’s hands.
Originally, he’d thrown the poison at the Red Waistcoat whose attacks were the most reckless and wide-swinging—such people, wild and unruly, were easy to trick.
Of course, whether he struck or not made little difference to the outcome.
Afterward, as they chased him, he quickly broke away, just to avoid the flute woman’s gaze.
The acolyte was already poisoned and unlikely to defeat the flute woman any time soon.
At this point, the three opponents were fully under the poison’s effects, but Lu Zhou didn’t rush in.
Even a cornered dog will leap for its life.
Let alone cultivators of the Void Return realm.
Even if events unfolded suddenly, he had to ensure absolute certainty before acting.

“What kind of poison is this?”
Blind Yu was alarmed; he and the Red Waistcoats had just poured all their energy into both chasing Lu Zhou and resisting the poison, yet it gnawed at their bones and hearts, intolerably fierce.
His cultivation was higher, so he could withstand it for a while; the two Red Waistcoats could not.
From the Red Waistcoats’ joints, purple flames flickered, and their energy surged out of their meridians, burning along with the poison from the gaps in their bones. Their skin quickly rotted, emitting a revolting stench of charred flesh.
“It’s Bone-Scorching Heart-Eater Powder!”
Blind Yu immediately realized, “Don’t use your energy to resist—it will circulate the poison and burn your meridians.”
Lu Zhou sighed—they reacted quickly enough.
He formed a spell, summoned three flying swords from his storage pouch, and sent them slicing with a sharp, azure light toward the three enemies.
“Brat, even if I’m blinded and poisoned, I won’t fear your Core Formation flying swords!”
Blind Yu sensed that the swords were only at the Core Formation level and threw out a magical treasure, which stood before the three, forming a yellow shield-like barrier.
Suddenly, a sound of swords slicing the air came from behind them.
Blind Yu turned, only to see the throats of the two Red Waistcoats pierced clean through.
The flames on their burning skin gradually subsided, but their corpses remained upright—a testament to the sheer speed of the sword that killed them.
After piercing their throats, the flying sword sped away, leaving no excess movement.
The Red Waistcoats never expected a sword to strike from behind; by the time they sensed the pain in their throats, they tried to channel their energy, but it was too late—their bodies remained balanced only because their energy stayed inside.
That sword was too fast!
Blind Yu’s heart trembled. He knew these two Red Waistcoats had made their names decades ago, once renowned on the Azure Cloud Ranking, but now, under Lu Zhou’s flying sword, they hadn’t dodged a single blow.
Though poisoned and caught off-guard, Lu Zhou’s sword was still terrifyingly swift.
So swift that Blind Yu was already considering retreat.
Unfortunately...
Swish!
He heard the sound of flying swords again—two swords, one after another, aimed straight for his heart.
He no longer cared whether channeling his energy would burn his meridians; leaping skyward, he twisted his body and barely dodged between the two swords.
Lu Zhou smiled.
If you hadn’t jumped, you’d have been safer; now you’re a perfect target.
Crack.
Blind Yu heard the sound of something breaking and frowned. A cultivator is always attuned to their magical treasures, and he sensed his defensive artifact had fractured.
At that moment, five flying swords plunged straight into Blind Yu’s chest, pinning him hard to the ground.
Only then did Blind Yu realize Lu Zhou was not a Core Formation cultivator—otherwise, he could never have shattered his magical treasure.
“You... you’re not Core Formation?”
His eyes filled with unwillingness; the mission handed down by the Embroidered Guard was merely to distract the experts of Shenzhou City and the Thousand Ox Guard, rescue Shen Changbai, and killing Lu Zhou was only an extra task.
He’d thought killing a Core Formation Lu Zhou would be easy, but he’d been caught off guard and lost everything.
Swish.
A flying sword pierced Blind Yu’s throat, ending his life.
In dramas, the protagonist always overturns the odds because villains talk too much; Lu Zhou never wasted words with his enemies—if a sword would suffice, he would never strike twice.

All three were dead.
Yet Lu Zhou remained uneasy; after all, Daoists possessed soul-searching techniques. Though not true soul-searching, they could extract a dead man’s last memories.
Thus, he had to reduce them to ashes.
Lu Zhou channeled his energy, igniting true flames in his palm and casting them onto the corpses.
He was meticulous—each flame landed at the joints, so the resulting ashes and burns on the ground matched exactly the cause of death from Bone-Scorching Heart-Eater Powder.
Only when the bodies were burned to ashes, ensuring nothing remained, did Lu Zhou lift the formation.
As for the bone ash, that was evidence.
But if the wind carried it away, that was hardly Lu Zhou’s fault.
Three proud Void Return cultivators died inexplicably at Lu Zhou’s hands.
Lu Zhou dared not linger; he couldn’t guarantee Blind Yu and the others had no backup.
As for the woman...
Hm?
Lu Zhou suddenly sensed that, a hundred yards away, the woman had broken through!
A breakthrough in battle—surely the acolyte’s fate was sealed.
Lu Zhou, carrying Li Zhilian, rode a talisman toward the site of the duel between the woman and the acolyte.
The long flute danced through the air, launching fierce attacks. The acolyte struggled to defend himself, enduring the burning pain within; flames occasionally burst from his bones, and his Daoist robe was riddled with holes.
The acolyte suddenly spotted Lu Zhou.
“You... you’re alive?”
Lu Zhou sighed—the acolyte must have been lacking in wits. No wonder he could only serve as Blind Yu’s eyes, not his brain. Standing right before him, if Lu Zhou were dead, would he be a ghost?
The acolyte panicked. A gust of wind swept behind him, causing him to stumble two steps forward.
Hm? Where did the wind come from?
What kind of wind could sweep a Tribulation Crossing cultivator off his feet?
He was startled, and saw the emerald flute streaking toward him; as if he’d offered himself up, his chest was pierced clean through.
Spurt!
He couldn’t hold out any longer—his energy ignited by the Bone-Scorching Heart-Eater Powder, and with a howl, his flesh was scorched by the flames bursting from his bones, leaving only a skeleton.
Lu Zhou quietly withdrew his spell, sighing inwardly: Had it not been for Li Zhilian and the flute woman, he could have let these people die openly; now, they perished without even knowing how, turned by his counterattack.
The counterattack was only an accident; Lu Zhou’s intent had never been so.
Chao Jin’er breathed a long sigh of relief—her breakthrough in the midst of battle was what allowed her to kill the acolyte.
Yet...
Was the acolyte’s final stumble due to the poison?
Chao Jin’er recalled how, in desperate moments, Lu Zhou had thrown out the poison to help her, and a gentle look appeared in her eyes. She turned to find Lu Zhou standing not far away.
Hm,
But who was the woman he held in his arms?