On the battlefield, upon seeing the avatars vanish once more into the ground, the five remaining enemies kicked off the earth and ascended into the sky on guard, unwilling to be ambushed.
Mu Luyin, panting, did not pursue, only following them with her eyes.
She was nearly drained, and when she charged to draw attention, she hadn't held back at all, squeezing out every bit of energy she had. It had been a risky gamble, staking her life and placing her trust in unknown men.
But, had those same men not intervened to save her, she and Lei Yun would already be dead. So even if it had gone wrong, the result would not have been any different from what was originally bound to happen.
And, considering that even if she ignored her saviors, trying to flee in their worn-out state would not have taken them far. It hadn't really been a gamble—just a lack of alternatives.
The reason, however, did not matter. The result did. And this time, she had won.
The men in the sky, faces grim, exchanged words through sound transmission.
After some discussion, they scowled, turned, and departed, vanishing into the clouds without leaving behind a single word or threat.
They too were exhausted from the chase, and feared ending up in the gutter if they insisted on continuing the fight.
Aotian also saw them leave and did not attempt to stop them.
He could have blocked their escape and killed them with his current strength, but a cornered beast might bite fiercely even at the cost of its life, and he felt no need to wager his avatars' lives in such a needless battle.
Thus, the battle ended with the enemy's retreat.
Lei Yun, who had barely laid out some materials on the ground to begin setting up a formation, was left speechless by the sudden end of the fight in just a few seconds.
Looking at the sky, he felt that those cultivators were not pretending—they truly had left.
Helpless, yet sighing in relief inside, he gathered the materials back up and approached Mu Luyin.
"They really left," he said with a calm face.
Hearing his words was like having invisible strings cut. She collapsed to the ground, gasping heavily.
"Good…" she exhaled between breaths, nodding with trembling heart and a complicated look on her face.
Never before had she been so close to death, nor so wronged in her entire life. Thus, her heart was far from at peace even after the battle was over.
The avatars calmly emerged from the ground and approached the two.
"You two look like you've had a rough time these last few hours," Gu Jian, once again stepping to the front, teased them as he saw their pitiful and ragged states.
Lei Yun massaged his temple, powerless.
"Don't even mention it. But before seeing you all, I thought you might be in even worse shape. Seems I was mistaken." He shook his head, eyeing them curiously.
Despite some torn patches in their clothes and spots of blood, the breaths of the ten men before him were calm, and there were no visible wounds on their bodies.
"We're good at avoiding trouble. Only these fourth-tier Shadow Beasts aren't so easy to deal with—they ended up ruining some of our clothes."
Gu Jian smiled playfully, poking a hole in his tunic shoulder and tugging lightly to show the tear more clearly, though the shoulder beneath was unscathed.
His gaze then shifted to the green-haired girl, sitting exhausted on the ground, breathing heavily as she watched them.
"The little girl needs to recover her energy, but it's not wise to stay here, since they might return with reinforcements. Do you have any spare flying boats? We only brought that one."
He spoke with a more serious look, though keeping the irritating tone of an elder, pointing toward the burning wreckage.
As if to answer his gesture, some internal material exploded, making the flames rise higher.
Lei Yun simply shook his head, saying he had none.
Mu Luyin pressed her lips together at being called "little girl" by a Golden Core cultivator, but recalling their strength in killing those Nascent Soul cultivators—even if by ambush—and the fact that they had saved her, she decided not to complain.
"I only have one, but when we suffered the ambush earlier, it was badly damaged." She too shook her head in reply.
Gu Jian blinked.
"Bring it out, let us have a look," he requested with a small smile.
Shrugging, the girl waved her storage ring, and from it appeared a small dark-wooden ship with green trimmings—quite beautiful, but with charred patches and severe holes in its structure. It lay collapsed on the ground.
Gu Jian turned to the other avatars, who at some point had left the conversation to him and were collecting the battle spoils. His eyes also passed by the cut-down tree where the ambusher woman had lost her legs earlier—now empty.
During the battle, that terrified woman, still alive, had picked up her legs and fled flying for her life—a scene that would have been comical if not so horrific.
"Zhuan Lu, Han Ruoyun, how long to fix this?" Gu Jian asked, pointing at the ship, which was too damaged to even float and remained collapsed on the ground in its miniature form.
The two he called, who had approached after finishing collecting the spoils, were, respectively, outer elders of the Refinement Pavilion and the Formation Pavilion.
"Let me see." Zhuan Lu was the first to step forward. Without any ceremony, he grabbed the ship as if it were his own.
Turning it over in his hands while analyzing, he nodded.
"Structurally, the damage isn't too great. Pity it's a bit poorly made, but if it's only repairs you want, a few minutes will suffice."
He said this before carelessly tossing the ship with both hands. It flew in an arc and landed in Han Ruoyun's hands, who examined it with a grimace.
"What lousy formations. With this little damage, the levitation and propulsion arrays already stopped working. Honestly, it's a miracle the shrinking and weight-reduction ones are still running with such a bad design and no proper redundancies for damage."
Han Ruoyun complained mercilessly and tossed the ship back to Zhuan Lu as if disgusted to even look at it another second.
"You—" Mu Luyin's eyes widened, teeth grinding, her face flushing red with anger.
That was the finest Nascent-Tier ship of her clan—perhaps of the entire continent—and yet these men, who hadn't even reached Nascent Soul, looked down on it as if it were some cheap product.
Unlike her, Lei Yun observed with curiosity. To him, the ship wasn't excellent, but it wasn't bad either.
Gu Jian sighed, lifted his hand, and pinched the bridge of his nose, showing exasperation.
"Elder Han, this isn't the time for perfectionism. How long until the formations are functional again?" he asked, closing his eyes as if he had a headache.
Of course, it wasn't a real headache—just Aotian's act.
"Haah… I can fix it in a few minutes too, as long as Elder Zhuan repairs the structure. I just hope no one spreads word that I touched such a trashy formation and still left it like this." Han Ruoyun waved his hand, face bitter.
Veins bulged on Mu Luyin's forehead, about to snatch the ship back by force, before she restrained herself with clenched fists.
'Go ahead, keep pretending! I want to see how Golden Cores handle a Nascent-Tier treasure—especially one of this level. I'll let you embarrass yourselves first, then mock you afterward,' she thought furiously.
She normally considered herself a calm girl, but not even she could endure such affront.
Though she wasn't sure if they really were Golden Cores—since it was too abnormal for them to have slain Nascent Souls at that realm—she still didn't believe their boast.
Gu Jian, however, kept a calm gaze.
"Good. Little friend Lei Yun, grab your woman before she pops a vein, and let's move. They'll fix the ship while we're on the run—it's not wise to linger here."
He spoke while the two elders had already begun repairs. They pulled materials from the freshly looted rings and even shamelessly demanded some from the girl, who gritted her teeth with reddened eyes.
The justification?
We're fixing your ship, why wouldn't you give us the materials?
Lei Yun, helpless, could only carry Mu Luyin on his back before she leapt up to strike those men, who seemed incredibly good at provoking despite their serious faces.
As for her being called his woman, he didn't mind. He had once been a dignified Mahayana cultivator and would not impose himself or take such little provocations seriously.
What he didn't know — something that might have left him speechless if he had — was that the girl on his back blushed when he didn't deny it. After all, not denying is a tacit approval.
Thus, they set off without wasting more time, Lei Yun the only one flying on a sword due to his low realm.
Along the way, under the avatars' "extortion" for Mu Luyin's materials, less than an hour later a brand-new ship floated before them, leaving the girl completely stunned.
'H-How?!' She wanted to scream, terrified.
Not even the old Nascent Soul masters of her clan could restore that ship so perfectly and so quickly. And yet, with just two people, it had been made like new in mere minutes—the majority of the time actually spent arguing with her to hand over materials.
At that moment, she realized those men were even more mysterious than she had imagined, and that their background was probably anything but simple.
Lei Yun was also impressed, watching them with deep, pondering eyes.
Without delay, Mu Luyin—being the one with the highest cultivation and rightful owner of the ship—took the helm as everyone boarded.
Then, under her command, the ship shot forward and vanished into the skies.
Since piloting the ship required little of her attention and consumed spirit stones instead of her own energy, she was able to focus on restoring her exhausted spiritual energy from the battle and treating her wounds while they traveled at the speed of a Nascent Soul cultivator.
Well, she would have had more peace to recover—if not for an insistent voice in her ear.
"Turn twenty degrees to the right."
"Rise higher. Powerful cultivators lie ahead and may be hostile. Let's avoid them."
"Stop here, we'll be right back."
Aotian gave orders without pause, using Gu Jian as his mouthpiece, wearing a small, satisfied smile.
With his new chauffeur, the safety and speed of the journey increased greatly, allowing them to go much farther in search of treasures than they had planned.
Thus, they occasionally stopped for the avatars to descend, kill, and gather herbs, while Lei Yun remained vigilant throughout the journey, always seeking opportunities to grow stronger.
After all, the Shadowfallen Burial Mountain held not only spiritual herbs and Shadow Beasts, but also many other treasures and chances.