Ning Chen got a bad fright. He had never imagined an assassin could be hiding on top of the tent.

The Ning'an Army already had the outside surrounded, and not one of them had found this person.

Ning Chen moved like something out of a nightmare and fell back like lightning.

The assassin came down in a dive. The point of the sword drove into the ground, the blade bowed, then snapped straight again, and the assassin turned in midair and swept the long sword around at Ning Chen with a hard cold glitter on it.

Clang!!!

Ning Chen blocked the sword precisely with his dagger.

The ring of metal on metal was hard on the ear, and the sparks went up.

A force beyond anything he could match came through the blade. (TL Note: 無可匹敵, "nothing can be its match" — a set phrase for strength no one can stand against.)

Ning Chen grunted, and that one stroke actually sent him flying. His back struck the side wall of the tent, and the force was so great that it tore the wall open.

Shock was written all over Ning Chen's face.

His arms were shaking, his blood was turning over in him, and his throat tasted of iron.

Strong. Far too strong!

That force coming through the blade just now felt very familiar to Ning Chen, like that breath he had refined out.

What shocked him more was that this assassin was a woman: all in white, with a veil across her face so that her features could not be made out, but with eyes cold and clear as moonlight.

Pan Yucheng swept his long blade around and took the man with the voice like low thunder through the throat, then shot at the woman in white like lightning and cut at her.

The woman in white turned her sword crosswise and stopped that heavy, driving stroke of Pan Yucheng's without effort.

Then, quick as lightning, she kicked.

Bang!!!

Pan Yucheng went flying backward, smashed through the side wall of the tent and out of it.

Ning Chen stood…