Clang!

 Floatingcloud’s sword stabbed into Xu Yangyi, and he immediately sprayed out a mouthful of blood. This sword… was completely different from the previous ones! It seemed to rend apart heaven and earth! This first sword nearly caused Xu Yangyi’s Animus Armament to escape his hand!

“DIE!!!” Floatingcloud’s voice shook the world. In his heart, worry, fear, and anxiety twisted into a heart-devouring viper. Since his initial move, over a minute had passed now!

Soon… he wouldn’t be able to suppress the Dream Walker!

Upon recalling that his centuries of hard work had been ruined in a single day today by this insect before him, Floatingcloud was aching to quickly reduce Xu Yangyi into bloody pulp!

“Second Sword… Snow Dances, Ruined Yang! Third Sword! Wind Sweeps, Clouds Carried! Jade Dragon Falls To Snow! Blossoming Flowers, Blooming Stems!!!”

A literal sky of sword shadows and blankets of snowy light turned the surroundings silver-white, and completely swallowed Xu Yangyi’s figure!

“Urk!” Xu Yangyi vomited blood. Floatingcloud was already fighting with everything on the line. Although he could bog down the other for five minutes, he didn’t dare to stall for thirty seconds now! Each sword accurately pierced his body. In less than five seconds, swords were present in his dantian, chest, and limbs! Gushing blood dyed him into a bloody figure!

“KILL!!!” Floatingcloud was like a demon-god descended. A several-dozen-meter-long streak of white light flew out, enough to cleave through any building on Earth. He hoarsely screamed, “Fallen Heroes Vast And Varied!!!”

Xu Yangyi’s eyes were dimming from rapid blood loss. With a following pop, a horrific wound appeared from his left shoulder to right hip, nearly bisecting him!

Bone-deep anguish spread through his body. One sword… has sent him flying back by a hundred meters! In the air, he left behind a bloody trace, but he suddenly screamed out in anger, “I can’t fall!!!”

Right now… whoever left the stage would no longer have the qualifications to continue standing!

Floatingcloud was fighting with his life on the line, so how could he not do the same?!

Floatingcloud’s lips shivered, and his face seemed to age by several years. Xu Yangyi still wasn’t dead… still not dead!

“GO DIE!!!” he madly shouted, transformed into a streak of white light, and charged up again!

Sharp swords pierced down like raindrops! Xu Yangyi did his very best to defend, but he could only hear the jingle of what sounded like large and small pearls falling on a jade tray.

“Die! DIE!!!” As his state of mind became ever unsteady, Floatingcloud’s assault became wilder and wilder and his expression became increasingly sinister. “Why aren’t you dead yet?!?!”

Swoosh!

 A sword plunged through the right side of Xu Yangyi’s chest, and Xu Yangyi sprayed out a mouthful of blood. He reared his sword back and chopped at Floatingcloud’s head, but all he saw were mirages.

The gap between the late stage and the Great Circle… was still great!

“You forced me into using my most desperate move! Die without regrets! DIE!!!” Amidst Floatingcloud’s savage howl, the man’s sword stabbed into Xu Yangyi’s belly, but the demon slayer didn’t cry out in pain. Xu Yangyi firmly clenched his already-bloody teeth and swept back with his sword again!

His mind was fuzzy. He only saw a hazy shadow in front of him. Too strong… Apart from the Core Formation masters, Floatingcloud was the strongest figure he’d encountered to date! Although Floatingcloud’s current state of mind was chaotic, it was even more wild and frenzied!

Only willpower kept Xu Yangyi going. He couldn’t fall! Each second longer he dragged the fight out, Floatingcloud had to pay out several hundred more times in reimbursement!

Stuck between him and the Dream Walker, Floatingcloud was a fully drawn bow. There would be a final moment when he broke!

“Still not dead… still not dead!!!” Floatingcloud seemed to have gone insane. Each sword shadow even ripped out spatial cracks in the vicinity. Finally, he heard a squelch. The bloody-red before him receded like a tide.

At some time unbeknownst to him, his sword has stabbed into the left side of Xu Yangyi’s chest. He could even feel through the tip of his sword that the beating heart below was gradually coming to a stop.

However, Xu Yangyi wasn’t out of wits or lost in thought. He only smiled coldly as he stared at Floatingcloud, mouthing a few silent words.

Floatingcloud’s gritted teeth cracked. He clearly understood what was said.

We’re not done!

“Not… done? You talk big!!!” Like a madman, he forcefully swung his sword! Swiftly, the weapon pierced through Xu Yangyi’s chest, and the bloody point finally stabbed through Xu Yangyi’s sturdy body.

At the same time though, Xu Yangyi’s finally met Floatingcloud’s body for the first time. A shallow bloody scar cut across the man’s throat.

“Trash is trash…” Floatingcloud’s teeth chattered as he panted for air. With a swoosh, he drew his bloodstained longsword out and kicked away Xu Yangyi’s corpse. He glanced at his throat and closed his eyes. “Weak counterattack. Several minutes… You wasted a whole several minutes of my time!!!”

“Hehehe…” Two seconds later, he began to gleefully laugh in madness. He had won, he had finally rid himself of that stinking bug!

“Hehehe… HAHAHA!!!” But his wild laughter stopped a second later, and his eyes opened.

“WHO ELSE?!?!?!” Insane, he turned around, and Great Circle Foundation Establishment qi violently jetted out! He’d been left with no choice but to use his most desperate move. Currently, each second was worth more than diamonds to him! Xu Yangyi could afford to drag the fight out, but he couldn’t!

Bloody arrows had long since dyed his clothes red. No one dared to meet his gaze on the ruined battlefield.

Dumb as a wooden chicken, Rocjourney stood at his original position. After ages, he stuttered out, “How… How can…”

Moonless opened his mouth. His lips were ashen and trembling, yet he didn’t utter a single word.

“WHO ELSE WANTS TO DIE!!!” Floatingcloud reared his head back and madly roared, as if he wanted to use Xu Yangyi to force away the sullenness, insanity, and rage of his situation through one shout.

He’d been forced into such a plight by a middle Foundation Establishment cultivator… He had never imagined something like this! 

Yet in the instant he shouted these words, he fell into a daze.

He stopped, and everyone’s gazes stopped as well. Afterwards, Floatingcloud shakily turned around.

Behind him, Xu Yangyi’s body was being bundled by azure lotuses. Oddly… he stood up again!

Life Hangs By A Thread! Lotus Reincarnation!

Swish… 

Floatingcloud’s sword wordlessly fell into the darkness. He finally realized the meaning of Xu Yangyi’s words a little while ago.

In the rays of azure light, Xu Yangyi walked out from the azure lotus and stretched out his neck with a crack. Afterwards, he raised his sword again and pointed it straight at Floatingcloud. “Fellow Daoist Floatingcloud, I trust you’ve been well since the last time we met?”

Everyone stared blankly!

No one had expected this conclusion!

Was this even human?!

“Get a good look?” Xu Yangyi watched the dumbfounded Floatingcloud in front of him and faintly smiled, but he was already extremely vigilant in his heart.

The Qi Explosion Pill’s effect was rapidly plummeting. This pill formula… without going into specifics, it had saved his life at a most dangerous time. However, the late Foundation Establishment realm that it granted didn’t last for so long. On the contrary, it was falling by the second! When the time limit arrived, he would fall back to the middle stage!

Still, he couldn’t reveal this at all cost!

Right now, whoever retreated first would be the one to die!

Floatingcloud’s mind was already on the brink of collapse. Centuries of hard work was on the verge of going up in smoke. As long as the stalling continued, Xu Yangyi was sure to win!

The Lotus Reincarnation and Life Hangs By A Thread had just activated consecutively and saved Xu Yangyi’s life. This was part of his plan early on. But the crux of the matter was… could he hold out for so long?

“Let’s get this going.” Xu Yangyi licked his lips, the supreme spirit stone already out in his hand. He had to use the Heavenly Opening Great Explosion! He had no choice!

“You… why…! Why! Aren’t! You! Dead! YET!?!?!” The first half of Floatingcloud’s sentence was calm, but his final three words exploded out in hysteria!

“You’re the one who’s going to die.” Xu Yangyi clenched down on his teeth and pointed his sword at Floatingcloud’s throat. “Look at your body, Floatingcloud, you who boast as god.”

Floatingcloud lowered his head and glanced down. His eyes went blank.

Fast as lightning, a terrible black scar was appearing on his throat. Furthermore… he felt a kind of numbness from all over his body!

It was light… light… and yet his heart was heavy, oh so very heavy, falling straight down from tens of thousands of meters above! It descended into a bottomless abyss.

Sometimes, in a particular place and at a particular time, even a needle could kill an old tiger.

For some unknown reason… such a poison was actually capable of paralyzing a Great Circle Foundation Establishment cultivator by a hair.

This trace paralysis would slow him down and reduce his power. And while it was minor, this tiny bit right now was exceptionally fatal!

If he went to go kill Xu Yangyi again, how much time would he waste?

Three minutes? Five minutes?

He could definitely kill Xu Yangyi, but with these five minutes and the addition of the Azurecloud Seed’s previous forceful absorption, there was no way he could drag the battle out any longer!

Snap… 

The bowstring broke. The final straw that crushed the camel to death.

ROOOAAAR!!!

 In his spiritual sense, a qi exploded with a rumble! Although this qi was late Foundation Establishment, it was a hundred times more terrible than Floatingcloud!

Hundreds of years of strenuous work… A dream of godhood… was merely just a step away. And likewise, the Dream Walker broke through his cage with this missing step. Centuries of his heart’s blood had run off like water in minutes. Presently, he still had a choice. If he meditated at once, he could still suppress the Dream Walker again!

But what of Xu Yangyi?

What of this blood-soaked man standing before him?

He grabbed at his sword out of habit, but he discovered that it had already fallen into the void.

“You…” His voice was calm, and he stared unblinkingly at Xu Yangyi, seemingly a little sluggish. “That reincarnation just now… how many times can you use it?”

“Can you guess?” Xu Yangyi flourished his sword. Although he was already in such pain that it felt like a knife was scraping through his entire body, he still laughed and answered, “Maybe once? Or maybe I can’t?”

Floatingcloud looked as if he wanted to laugh, but he didn’t in the end. “You… how many minutes can you last?”

Xu Yangyi fished out a medicinal pill and popped it into his mouth. His qi clearly rose back up, and the supreme spirit stone in his hand also released a dazzling splendor.

“Can you guess?”

“A medicinal pill, eh…” Floatingcloud appeared to age a hundred years, and said like a walking corpse, “I didn’t expect… that the Dao of Pills had actually come into the world once more… On my neck, what is this?”

Xu Yangyi continued to laugh. He had already faintly guessed the coming event. His vigilance was at the highest step.

Floatingcloud stared into the air and then laughed as well. “Fellow Daoist, won’t you let me walk away?”

But before his voice even fell, a walnut-sized hole suddenly crumbled open on his forehead. Previously, two waning moons had appeared in his eyes. They full shrouded his black eyes and became actual full moons!

Soon, boundless qi, qi that was a dozen times more colossal that Floatingcloud’s, rampaged out!

From within, world-shaking breathing came along.

“Huff… Snore…”

This qi was all pure-gold in color, and it swiftly rushed the entire space! It was concentrated without scattering apart, converging together into golden spirit clouds!

But these weren’t spirit clouds, this… was the Dream Walker’s spiritual sense!

Floatingcloud appeared as if he was being hanged. His mouth was wide open, and his clothes were dancing chaotically, but following the collapse of the Dream Walker’s chains, his body visibly aged. The total sum of his vigorous life force was rapidly fading away.

“I… curse… YOU!!!” Floatingcloud glared daggers at Xu Yangyi. His grinding teeth echoed, and he screeched out at the top of his lungs, “I CURSE YOU!!!”

“I eternally curse you to never reincarnate! To descend to hell forever!!!”

“I… will be waiting for you on the Narakade Bridge!!!”

[1]

Swoosh!

 As the final strand of spirit clouds jetted out, Floatingcloud’s screech came to a guttural halt. Afterwards, he looked into the sky and fell.

With his mind’s collapse, the Dream Walker had escaped!

Floatingcloud had died!

1. The Narakade Bride is part of Chinese legend. After one dies, one finds themselves on a bridge. There Granny Meng offers a bowl of soup to forget one’s past life, so they can start their next life anew.

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