Rumble!

 The tidal wave of black fog surged up! In this instant, however, the front of Xu Yangyi’s eyes blurred once more!

Nalan Liusu’s emotionless face emerged before him again! 

It was in these moments that the figure within the black fog had just appeared. 

Of the entire world’s martial arts, speed alone was undefeatable! And that wasn’t to mention that this prerequisite of speed was added with the utmost-terrifying destructive force!

All his spiritual force needlessly warned him to frantically amass qi, yet even if his gathering power had just started cycling, a burst of sharp, unimaginable pain immediately lanced through his abdomen!

BOOM!

 A loud noise roared. Xu Yangyi spat out a mouthful of blood, and the scenery before his eyes blitzed distantly away from view! Both sides of the landscape suddenly reversed!

The loud noise was actually from Nalan Liusu’s palm, which had slapped him directly out of the room! One wall after another, Xu Yangyi broke through quite a few passages and landed into another room!

Thump!

 This time, after he fell to the ground, blood did not flow or gush, instead torrenting straight out of his mouth.

A monster… Truly a monster!

His spiritual force defense didn’t have the slightest effect! The maiden’s two palms had tore his qi defense into pieces!

This was an ancient cultivator?

This was the Nalan Clan’s holy maiden?

Compared to her, what could Cultivation Civilization’s so-called geniuses be considered, then?

Swoosh… 

Spiritual sense fairly hazy, he tenaciously braced himself against a wall and stood up. But just as his eyes regained clarity, a foot was already planted on top of his palm.

Crack.

 The sound of his finger fracturing caused him to clench his teeth with all of his might, fat beads of sweat finding home on his temples.

The second… This was the second time he’d ever had such a feeling of total powerlessness.

The first time was Vermilion Snow. The second time was Nalan Liusu. Both were people who had come from the era of Ancient Cultivation. Could it be that the cultivators of the Ancient Cultivation era were truly so strong as to have reached such strength?

“Truly weak…” Nalan Liusu’s emotionless face studied him. “Are modern-day cultivators already so improper?”

“Given another decade, you’d probably be able to reach my level. ‘Tis a pity…” she sighed gently, “you have encountered me.” Without another wasted word, her spiritual force revolved to her left hand, and she suddenly plunged into Xu Yangyi’s qi sea!

“I won’t kill you. I’ll cripple your cultivation to the utmost and leave you inside the Reincarnation Puppet to become nourishment for the Spirit Parasite’s body.”

“There is no better than to use your life to repay the Nalan Clan’s cultivation resources…”

BOOM!!!

 Meanwhile, outside, the Reincarnation Puppet’s six arms were stabbing above the Featherwood Guard stronghold’s light cover, as if they were beating a drum!

Hum… 

a low hum droned, unbearable whines coming from the protective cover of spiritual light. Ripples of flowing spiritual light, vibrant with gorgeous color, exploded above! The heavenly calamity pushed down again by another meter! All of them were like turtles in a jar, left without strategy or ruse to attempt!

“Fifth Uncle!” A cultivator with a terribly pale rushed before Zhao Wuye and kneeled down. “Go! You need to leave fast! Take advantage now, while it still hasn’t completely broken through! Hurry and go!!!”

“Go? GO WHERE?!” Zhao Wuye’s countenance was likewise ashen-white, and he gritted his teeth and yelled, “Look all around, those tentacles are everywhere, and the only path behind us is blocked off by the Linghu Clan! Is there even anywhere we can go?!” He pushed the cultivator aside. “Moreover… the battle up there isn’t done yet! How can we run?!”

He had confidence in Xu Yangyi!

This confidence originated from the endless journey of Danxia Temple. How could such a man, able to leave a deadland, possibly die inside a Reincarnation Puppet?

“Fifth Uncle…” the cultivator’s eyes were flushed red, and he gritted out, “take a look at the people around!”

As far as Zhao Wuye’s eyes reached, he saw that almost everyone were chugging pill-elixirs while continuing to wield their spirit cannons with pale faces! Quite a few people even had blood spilling out from the corners of their mouths! This was the omen that the meridians connected to spiritual force inside the body were already starting to collapse!

Yet their perseverance… was all just to slow down the heavenly calamity above by a little… Slow it down a little bit more! They were perfectly aware that doing so would herald their demise, yet they could only stare helplessly at the slow death! 

No… they still had a sliver of hope, the few most elite who were up in the sky! So long as they could stop the Reincarnation Puppet, everything would change for the better!

Thus, no one fled even now!

Zhao Wuye’s heart ached with pangs of pain. These people were all pretty good seeds. After this battle though, quite a few would now definitely be crippled. And yet… 

He firmly gnashed his teeth and took out a bottle of pill-elixir, chugging it down. He flung the bottle away and grinded out, “The Clan Elder is up there! What are you talking about running off?!”

“But…”

“But nothing…” Zhao Wuye inhaled deeply and cycled his spiritual force again. The Spirit Accumulation Cannon boomed and fired out a ray of white light. “If the Clan Elder doesn’t retreat, I’ll kill anyone who dares to pull back!”

Mo Yeyu was trembling from head to toe. He had never tested drawing upon his spiritual force to such a degree! Apart from the tide of spiritual light in the air, a puppet-dragon was soaring in the air. A crimson ray of twilight sprayed out from its mouth and joined in on the group fight to ward off the heavenly calamity. However, the scales on its body were becoming increasingly dim. Based on his estimations… it wouldn’t need ten minutes to completely stop!

This was his strongest killing trump!

Mo Yeyu only felt as if a knife was scraping through his qi sea, pain coming in one burst after another. He realized that this was the sign of a qi sea overloading. He glanced at Jun Man besides him, the bald man’s face likewise deathly white. Forests of trees were expeling tendrils on both sides.

“A little faster… A little bit faster!” He clenched his teeth, not looking over. The puppeteer’s eyes were staunchly nailed to the sky. “At most ten minutes… At most ten!”

“If you guys still aren’t done… all of us are going to die here today!”

Boom!

 A streak of sword qi separated the twenty-six riders again. Xuan Chengzi’s face had become the color of earth long ago, yet three people in front of him shockingly collapsed!

The front of him was also a chasm, but it was much, much shorter than Xu Yangyi’s Ketu-Rahu Sword in comparison. At ten-odd meters long and half a meter deep, the chasm wasn’t so much that a tiger of the Screaming Wind Legion couldn’t leap over it. 

And while three riders had fallen, the formation in front of the sword-cultivator still wasn’t in disorder!

Charge… Charge ahead! The Screaming Wind captain’s eyes were already scarlet-red as he took in the view inside the branch. Even he could see that Xu Yangyi’s forces wouldn’t be able to hold on for long! So long as they charged over and seized the command plate, he wouldn’t be ashamed even if he died!

“ROAR!!!” Following thunderous snarls, the twenty-three riders gathered into the formation of an arrowhead again. Merely, the lead rider had already switched to the fifth person. 

Xuan Chengzi gritted his teeth and gripped his longsword. No good… he was soon to reach his limit. Against a group assault, a single person’s power—unless they exceeded the enemy by a great realm—wouldn’t be able to hold on for a minute! For him to be able to last for five or six minutes was already an unusual figure.

“Last two moves…” He raised the azure edge in his hand, expression solemn. “If you still haven’t come out after these two moves… this poor Daoist will feel no qualms in my heart.”

No one was none the wiser that Xu Yangyi, whom they had placed their hopes in, now had a hand inserted into his dantian.

Squelch!

 Blood scattered through the air in flight. A burst of sharp pain came from his dantian, and Xu Yangyi gnashed his teeth in a rictus of death. He didn’t make a sound, his gaze hooking over to the cold, elegant, and supremely beautiful face that was less than a meter away from him.

Nalan Liusu studied him apathetically. She didn’t somewhat understand. Why was there no desperate fear in this person’s eyes? The crippling of the qi sea was enough to bring the willpower of the most resolute cultivator into a fathomless abyss. Why was this person not afraid?

“To me, feigning calmness… does not have the least bit usefulness to a dead man,” she said apathetically. Soon after, she forcefully squeezed!

Yet in the next second, her face changed for the first time. Her peerlessly beautiful face looked at Xu Yangyi in disbelief.

She… had not felt Xu Yangyi’s qi sea!

At the same time, Xu Yangyi’s blood-soaked hand grabbed onto hers. A sinister grin betrayed itself on his face. Nalan Liusu’s gaze suddenly drew back and saw that Xu Yangyi’s other hand was shockingly forming a seal!

“Spiritcleaver Pulse!!!” These words drifted out between the gaps of Xu Yangyi’s teeth, and a terrible shock now surged directly into Nalan Liusu’s brain!

Since the enemy was far away, and he couldn’t mount an attack or strike back, then he had to get extremely close! He couldn’t dodge… but he didn’t want to, either!

“AH!!!” Nalan Liusu cried out for the first time, both her hands clutching at her head. Inside her mind, a dagger of spiritual sense had been plunged in, madly stirring about! To her, a cultivator who utilized spiritual sense to use a special arcane effort to exist within a corporeal body, Xu Yangyi’s attack was a dreadful blow!

But as she pulled her hand out from Xu Yangyi’s dantian… she discovered that she couldn’t!

Completely unable to!

“Ziqi…” Xu Yangyi wore a bloodthirsty smile on his face, glaring daggers at Nalan Liusu. 

You’ve finally screamed… You’re the one finally in pain… and you’re still conscious… for this strike, it could even be said that I’ve been seriously wounded!

In fuzziness, Nalan Liusu saw a soul-like boy firmly pressing down on her hand behind Xu Yangyi! He rendered her unable to draw her hand out from inside Xu Yangyi, clamping down on her in between the muscle of Xu Yangyi’s wound!

No… this boy was not alone!

To the four directions and eight reaches… there were at least dozens of hands! Fluttering and vaguely discernible, they were like spectres! All of them were pressing down on her hand! 

This trick of Xu Yangyi’s self-injury to gain the enemy’s confidence could truly be sung to the utmost praise!

“Ah…” The holy maiden’s lips were shivering. Spiritual-sense attacks were too formidable against a special existence like herself. Although she would not go so far as to perish, such bitter pain seemed to deliver her into the eighteenth level of hell!

But in the next second, another burst of pain came from her abdomen. She peered down in some amazement. Xu Yangyi’s hand had now pierced into her dantian in kind! The pair were like conjoined twins. Without divine ability or bodily technique, they were intertwined together!

Before her eyes, the black curtain of unconsciousness brought by pain descended at last. Nalan Liusu’s face was no longer cool and elegant, rather brimming with killing intent!

Xu Yangyi hadn’t seen either, but at some unknown time, the blood of his dantian had already ceased flowing. The cocoon inside… was smeared with a scarlet-red trace.

Without any martial skill that he could observe, a spider arm quickly stretched out from Nalan Liusu’s back in the next second. Surprisingly, it existed between reality and illusion, grabbing onto the soul-form Zhao Ziqi!

“You should die.” Three words left her vermilion lips with glacial coldness. 

Xu Yangyi’s pupils needled violently, and he roared, “NO!!!”

Bro… save me!

 Zhao Ziqi immediately cried out in terror, not having expected that the enemy would actually be able to grab him.

However, it was too late.

Crunch!

 In the wake of this gentle sound, a screen of golden light exploded out from Nalan Liusu’s hand. She gloomily trained her gaze on Zhao Ziqi’s figure as he continued to dissipate in the light screen, and coldly said, “The Empress’s Hidden Merits… Dark Destruction.”

Swoosh… 

Before Xu Yangyi’s eyes, Zhao Ziqi’s silhouette gradually dimmed. Between real and false, his shadow began to drift away speck by speck, transforming into motes of qi in the air.

How could this have happened?

Was every single attack not the least bit effective against the enemy?

He had braved such heavy injuries to pierce Nalan Liusu’s qi sea, yet she was practically indifferent to it?

Was this ultimately a person or monster?

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