When Lin Yan didn’t deny it, Cui Chenyu quickly pieced together the situation.
Lin Yan hadn’t known his purpose and lain in wait for him. He had simply come out to hunt Water Bandits today and happened to run into him by chance.
He breathed a sigh of relief. ’As long as the Lin Family doesn’t know the plan ahead of time, it’s fine. Running into Lin Yan here even saves me the trouble of having to find him by the river.’
Cui Chenyu drew the saber from his waist. It was a broad-bladed weapon. The moment his fingers wrapped around the hilt, a surge of dark red Blood Gang flooded from his palm into the blade, which let out a low hum like a beast startled from its sleep.
In an assassination, words are a liability.
It was a principle both Lin Yan and Cui Chenyu understood.
"I’ve practiced your Lin Family’s Shuiyue Saber Technique for nine years," Cui Chenyu said calmly. "You can consider it a fitting end to die by your own family’s Saber Technique!"
Before the words had even faded, Cui Chenyu stepped forward. The deck beneath his feet shattered as he bore down on Lin Yan like a moving mountain.
Dark red Saber Gang coalesced on the blade. An arc of crimson light, a full half-foot thick, formed like a giant, magnified edge. As Cui Chenyu swung down with both hands, it chopped down with immense force.
There was nothing fancy about the strike. The air shrieked as the Saber Gang tore through it. The sheer pressure from the attack splintered the deck planks, sending fragments flying backward.
Cui Chenyu was confident in his attack. He had reached the Blood Exchange Second Transformation two years ago and was now not far from the Third Transformation.
His Blood Gang was stronger than Lin Yan’s.
As for Saber Intent, while he hadn’t reached the Perfection Level, he possessed three types of Great Success Saber Intent.
’I am one of the top ten of the Cui Family’s younger generation. You’re just a member of a Lin Family branch. What do you have to compete with me!’
Facing Cui Chenyu’s attack, Lin Yan’s expression remained unchanged. He held the Abyssal Sword horizontally before him. Three silver-white streams of Sword Gang flared to life simultaneously—Flowing Cloud, Pine Wind, and Rain-Covering. In that instant, the three Sword Intents wove together into a silver-white curtain of light that shielded him from above.
The Saber Gang crashed against the curtain of swords.
BOOM!
With a muffled bang, a shockwave erupted. The entire ship jolted violently, and the impact threw up sprays of river water several feet high on both sides.
The deck beneath Lin Yan’s feet sank half an inch, but he remained completely motionless.
Cui Chenyu, on the other hand, was forced back several steps.
"This is impossible!"
Feeling the web of his thumb go numb from the recoil, Cui Chenyu roared in anger, his eyes filled with disbelief.
’How could my Blood Gang and Cultivation Method Realm be so completely suppressed by Lin Yan?’
’By what right!’
’He’s from some unknown backwater county. How can he possibly have this kind of strength?’
Cui Chenyu’s expression turned savage. He was about to swing his saber again, but unfortunately for him, Lin Yan didn’t give him another chance.
"Strike!"
The Abyssal Sword in Lin Yan’s hand sliced an arc through the air, and a pure, silver-white line of Sword Gang shot forth from its tip.
With his Four-Phase Condensing Gang Sword, all six of his Sword Intents merged into one.
"I don’t believe you can defeat me!"
With a savage roar, Cui Chenyu gripped his saber with both hands. The dark red Saber Gang on the blade flared violently. This time, he held nothing back, pouring every last drop of his body’s Qi Blood into the strike.
This was the killing blow of the Shuiyue Saber Technique, a move that burned one’s Qi Blood in exchange for raising the Saber Gang’s power to its absolute zenith.
A single strike to topple mountains.
The price was steep: after this one attack, his Qi Blood would be temporarily depleted, and it would take him at least half a month of rest to recover.
’But as long as he could kill Lin Yan, what was half a month?’
The moment the Saber Gang condensed to its peak, Cui Chenyu’s hands began to tremble slightly—not from fear, but because the Saber Gang was so overwhelmingly powerful that his body could barely contain it.
"Lin Yan, die!"
The dark red Saber Gang transformed into a crimson torrent several yards long and collided with the pristine, pure line of Sword Gang in midair.
There was no great boom, no shockwave.
The moment the dark red Saber Gang touched the silver-white Sword Gang, it was pierced through and dissolved.
The Sword Gang pierced through the Saber Gang, its momentum unchecked, and shot straight for Cui Chenyu’s chest.
PFFT.
With a soft sound, the silver-white Sword Gang punched through Cui Chenyu’s chest and erupted in a spray of blood mist from his back.
Cui Chenyu froze on the spot. His saber clattered to the deck. He stared down at the thumb-sized hole in his chest, his eyes filled with utter disbelief.
"You try to pull off an assassination without even gauging your opponent’s strength. Do you even know what you’re doing?"
Lin Yan shook his head slightly, and his words brought a flash of anger to Cui Chenyu’s dazed expression.
’How was I supposed to know?’
’Who could possibly believe that a branch member of the Lin Family from some small county, who had entered the Blood Exchange Realm less than a year ago, would already have Blood Gang comparable to the Third Transformation? And that he had comprehended... comprehended Six Paths Perfection Level Sword Intent?’
He tried to speak, but in the next instant, he collapsed onto the deck.
After finishing off Cui Chenyu, Lin Yan didn’t rush to loot the body. Instead, his gaze swept over the river’s surface. Only five breaths’ time had passed since their fight began; the Water Bandit couldn’t have gotten far.
Even if his target was hiding underwater and holding his breath, Lin Yan could still sense him with his enhanced Perception.
Executing his Smoke-Stepping Technique, Lin Yan’s figure drifted over the river’s surface like a wisp of smoke.
「Three hours later, Lin Yan returned, carrying two corpses.」
One was Yang Xuan. The other was the accomplice he had arranged.
The reason Lin Yan had taken so long wasn’t that he couldn’t find Yang Xuan, but that he had been tailing him, waiting for him to meet up with his accomplice.
Lin Yan had guessed that Yang Xuan’s claim of having sent his accomplice far away was a lie, and he was proven right. The man was merely hiding in a cave on a cliff overlooking the river at Black Water Bay.
Next came looting the bodies.
From Yang Xuan and his subordinates, he recovered over twenty thousand in silver banknotes. It seemed Yang Xuan’s crew had truly been preparing to flee, as they were carrying all their wealth on their persons.
There were the silver banknotes and a treasure box. When Lin Yan saw the pigeon-blood-colored stone inside it, his eyes lit up.
’It’s actually a True Blood Stone.’
’It seems Cui Chenyu never planned on letting Yang Xuan and his men live.’
Lin Yan knew that for Cui Chenyu to be willing to part with a True Blood Stone, he must have already been planning to kill them to tie up loose ends. There was no way he would let Yang Xuan get away with such a precious item.
’But now, the True Blood Stone was his.’
Compared to Yang Xuan, Lin Yan didn’t find much of value on Cui Chenyu’s body.
A Cui Family Identity Token and one or two thousand in silver banknotes. That was all.
’This saber must be a Spiritual Weapon. It’s a shame I can’t sell it for the time being.’
After a moment of consideration, Lin Yan disposed of the dozen or so corpses by throwing them all into the ship’s cabin. He then tossed in a special bait he had developed to attract fish. With a single sword strike, he shattered the ship’s hull. He waited until the entire vessel had sunk to the riverbed, no longer even releasing bubbles, before finally departing.

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