Pan Yucheng's cuts came faster and faster, and the Great Heavenly God was in a sorry state.

Still, a man who could hold off Pan Yucheng's attack was without question a first-rate fighter.

Ning Chen watched a while. It was only a matter of time before the dead bald donkey went down.

He walked over and pulled the dagger out of the dead woman believer.

Good-looking, this one. Pity.

Then he turned back and cut the ropes off Liang Anzhi and the others.

"Where's the other one?"

Ning Chen asked it.

He had sent five men to protect Liang Anzhi. Leaving aside the one who had risked his life to carry the message, there should have been four of them here... and there were three.

One of the Ning'an Army soldiers, red-eyed, glared murder at the Great Heavenly God. "My lord prince, he killed our other brother."

Something dropped in Ning Chen's face. Every last man of the Ning'an Army was a treasure, every one of them a hero who could fight... They had not died on a battlefield. They had died in this demon monk's hands.

Ning Chen's face had gone hard. He said it a word at a time. "Old Pan. I want him alive."

Pan Yucheng answered, and the saber came harder.

Ning Chen looked to the other side. These believers were enormously strong once the madness took them, but in the end they were a flock of crows, and against regular troops they counted for nothing at all. (TL Note: 烏合之眾, "a flock of crows" — a rabble that scatters at the first shock, as crows do, with no order and no discipline.)

There had been a thousand and more of them. Less than half were still standing now.

Thud!!!

One heavy, muffled sound.

Ning Chen looked back and saw the Great Heavenly God go flying, with the staff knocked clean out of his hands.

Terror filled the Great Heavenly God's face. He struggled to get up, and then his whole body went rigid... because Pan Yucheng's saber was already laid across his neck.

Ning Chen…