His arms were in pain, his vision was a little foggy, and his fingers felt like they were about to turn to sand and fall off.

But, though this was the case, he knew that he had made a necessary sacrifice.

If he had dallied for any longer, the consequences would have been much too severe for him to handle.

Instead of only being minutely affected by his actions, he would have lost his life from his inaction!

So, it was indeed a great gamble that he had taken in order to trick the guards in that fas.h.i.+on.

On another note, though he had been running for around 10 minutes, the truth was that he was not running very fast.

This was because he had wanted to lure the group of guards that were chasing after him to get into a position that was close enough for him to deliver a decisive blow and overwhelm their numbers with a solid strike.

Due to this decision, he was actually still quite a distance away from his destination near the Western Gate.

Currently, he was near the gathering of courtyards near the southern area of the manor. If he mustered up his fastest speed, he might be able to reach the Western Gate in a matter of minutes.

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He decided against this though, because running at his top speed would attract too much unwanted attention.

He didn't want the guards to be aware of his plans.

He had decided to come this way, instead of heading directly towards the Western Gate, because he did not want to hint his intended destination to the guards that were madly chasing after him.

Consequently, he took a bit of a detour and entered the 37th courtyard. This courtyard was actually located very close to the Southern Gate and was only a couple minutes away from it.

If Hua Yan was suicidal enough, he could even attempt to leave the clan through the Southern Gate, as it wouldn't take him a great amount of time to do so.

But, this was only under the a.s.sumption that the guards stationed at the gate would let him go through unquestioned, which they absolutely, most certainly would not allow.

With the commotion that he had created behind him, the guards of the Southern Gate would most likely already be aware of his arrival in this area, so heading to that gate, where they were waiting for him, would be foolish; it would be akin to pouncing into a lion's open maw.

Hua Yan did not have iron skin or a demon's luck to come out such a situation alive.

But, though he could not make use of that gate to escape, he was actually not in much danger at the moment. The reason for this was because, even though the guards of the Southern Gate knew about his presence in the area, they would not actively come after him, as it was not their job to do so.

In addition, there was fierce compet.i.tion amongst the guards from the various gates. The dispatch that had chased after him from the 24th courtyard all the way to here were from the Eastern Gate.

And, because of numerous conflicts of interest, the guards of the Eastern Gate did not get along well with those from the Southern Gate

As such, the guards from the Southern Gate would watch the situation from a distance and give the guards from the Eastern Gate a perfect chance to lose face, since they were being played so effortlessly by a kid with no cultivation.

The Southern Gate guards would be more than happy to watch their colleagues in name be kicked down a peg by a brat.

Hua Yan made use of this knowledge and arrived in this area to lose his pursuers. He was going to stealthily continue to head west until he reached the party that was taking place in the Western Gate.

Meanwhile, Hua Bim was not pleased.

All this time he was carefully watching Hua Yan, and was completely captivated by his frivolous actions. The moment the boy drew blood, Hua Bim was greatly taken aback.

In his stupor, he didn't notice that Hua Yan had run away. He was too preoccupied with the fact that a junior with no cultivation had just killed 13 of his men with one strike. And some of those men even happened to be those at the peak of the Complete Ballooning Stage.

This amount of shocking power… Hua Bim would not have believed it if he didn't see it.

Even the greatest of geniuses that he knew would not be able to mimic such a feat. With no cultivation bases, they were like chickens placed up on a chopping board ready to be slaughtered when placed up against cultivators. And this was especially so if they were pitted up against numerous high-level Continuous Ballooning Stage masters.

Yet, what was this Hua Yan doing?

He had just flipped around Hua Bim's understanding of the world in a single, very lethal sword strike.

Hence, Hua Bim could not be blamed for momentarily losing track of what his mission was. Hua Yan had shocked him out of his pants!

When he came back to his senses, he was furious, both with himself and with Hua Yan!

How could he afford to be distracted like that? That was exactly what the enemy had wanted, and like some greenhorn, he had walked right into the enemy's trap.

As for that Hua Yan, he was only a youth, yet he had such a poisonous and cunning mind! Hua Bim was greatly disgusted that such a conniving and despicable trickster was part of the Hua Clan.

He truly, completely believed that someone like Hua Yan should have been executed the moment he was born. Keeping him around all this time was only waiting for an accident to happen.

Today, now that the accident had happened and numerous guards and civilians had lost their lives to Hua Yan, Hua Bim would make sure to get justice for the clan today.

Drawing out his sword, he commanded his men in a thunderous voice.

"I don't care if you have to die to catch that criminal, but today, he must not be left alive!"

Hearing his emboldening speech, the guards rose their weapons and screamed back.

"Kill!"