Unsheathed

Chen Qingdu said something strange to Ning Yao, commenting, ”No matter what the outcome is, don’t feel like Chen Ping’an will lose too much in this battle.”

Ning Yao remained silent.

Chen Qingdu smiled and continued, ”In any case, I never asked Chen Ping’an to leave the city wall to return the gesture.”

Dust and stones flew around the battlefield.

Three flickering and translucent sword immortals in black drew their swords, standing in a triangular formation as they surrounded Chen Ping’an. Their sword lights glowed brilliantly and rumbled like thunder as they chaotically smashed toward Chen Ping’an without any technique or coordination.

One of the sword immortals in black was shattered by a punch, but it was quickly reconstructed by the sword intent, only appearing slightly more translucent than before. It launched attacks as normal, with its sword light as hefty and quick as before.

Another sword immortal was struck by friendly fire, but it was easily able to continue fighting as if it had been reborn.

Over at the other side, the conflict between the heavenly tribulations and Chen Ping’an’s yin soul was an unbalanced one. The sea of clouds containing the Five Lightning Righteous Technique bore down, while the thunder pool on the ground caused the entire platform to rise. It was clear that heaven and earth were trying to come together to crush the yin soul in white.

A sword immortal in black that had been hiding in the shadows the entire time finally showed itself and stood still, making it four sword immortals that were now surrounding Chen Ping’an.

The next moment, the earth behind the four sword immortals started to shudder, and divine statues rose from the earth. These were four Heavenly King Dao Manifestations, with each appearing like the most colorful and lifelike deity statue in the world. The four sword immortals then formed sword seals in unison, after which the four Heavenly King Dao Manifestations opened their eyes and assumed the expressions of furious warrior deities.

One of the divine statues appeared dazzling and extravagant, with golden light flowing over its body and a five-buddha treasured crown on its head. It was suited in golden armor and wearing many ornaments and jewels, also holding a treasured tower in its hand.

Another golden deity statue was dressed in crimson-purple armor, an expression of fury on its face and a spear in its right hand, the tip pointing at the ground. In its other hand was a treasure mirror reflecting the vast land.

The third Heavenly King Dao Manifestation was wearing a heavenly robe, with its left arm pointing down and holding a saber, and its right palm holding a valuable treasure.

The last divine statue had a dragon wrapped around its body, and there was a red rope in its right hand, rumored to be a treasure that could suppress and subdue dragon kings of all areas.

Li Zhen had his attention split between two battlefields right now, and he was both focusing on his opponent’s true body, which was setting up a formation, as well as paying close attention to the yin soul in white, which was facing the two tribulations of heaven and earth inside the sword intent formation.

Each of the four Heavenly King Dao Manifestations was holding a treasure, and they used the treasure light of these valuable items to once again create a small world. The four sword immortals in black disappeared after creating the formation, transforming into wisps of extremely pure sword intent.

Chen Ping’an unleashed a punch, using the Rain Evaporation Technique and causing the barrier of the small world to violently tremor. Heaven and earth were not yet able to crush him in between.

At the same time, First shot out from Chen Ping’an’s acupoint and sliced through the nearby sword intent.

Li Zhen pursed his lips. His opponent also had many trump cards, and only at this moment was he forced to use them to block his attacks.

The little boy issued a command with his mind, and ”Guan Zhao” strode forward from behind him, appearing like a guardian god as he shielded Li Zhen.

A streak of dark green light rapidly shot over at an unimaginable speed, instantly burying itself into Guan Zhao’s body before breaking through his back. The tip of the sword shuddered slightly as it came to a rest just one foot away from Li Zhen’s glabella.

Li Zhen stepped back, and Guan Zhao’s faint body became increasingly solid and material, and it was just about to reach down and use two fingers to seal the extremely sneaky and vicious flying sword.

Unexpectedly, however, the dark green flying sword flew backward and disappeared after failing to strike its target.

Mortal humans had frail bodies, and they wouldn’t be able to control immortal treasures from the mountains even if one fell in their lap. In fact, they would suffer calamity as a result.

Similarly, it wasn’t the case that all earth immortals were able to completely control a pseudo-celestial tool.

As for becoming the recognized master of a celestial tool, this was as difficult as ascending to the heavens.

However, Li Zhen owned a celestial tool right now. Not one, but two.

Li Zhen raised a hand, revealing the Three Mountain Talisman, the ancestor formation of the true appearances of the Five Mountains.

He would need to pay a huge price after activating this talisman, a price so big that the little boy would continue to moan in bitter pain. He would be willing to use this talisman against Ning Yao, but he was quite reluctant to waste it on the young man standing in front of him.

Thus, Li Zhen kept his hand in a loose fist and opened his other hand, inside of which was a slowly rotating sword pellet. This had once been his — or more accurately, Guan Zhao’s — bonded flying sword. It had been severely damaged and on the verge of destruction after the battle at Holding Moon Mountain, but the mountain had paid a huge price to nurture this flying sword for ten thousand years, allowing it to slowly return to the peak of its power.

Every time the Savage World launched a large assault on the Sword Qi Great Wall, some great demons would specifically be tasked with using an ancient secret technique to collect Guan Zhao’s sword intent from the Sword Qi Great Wall, secretly transporting it back to Holding Moon Mountain.

Among them, the great demon from Holding Moon Mountain had personally snuck over and ventured into extreme danger, wanting to retrieve more of Guan Zhao’s sword intent. It was because of this that Dong Sangeng and Chen Xi had managed to work together and capture the great demon.

Capturing an Ascension Tier great demon alive was far more difficult than simply killing a great demon.

After Li Zhen spread his palm, the sword pellet rang softly and caused the space around him to distort. Meanwhile, Sword Immortal Guan Zhao, who was formed from nothing more than sword intent, surprisingly turned around and looked over. He was clearly without sentience, yet a complicated and lifelike expression appeared in his eyes at this moment.

Li Zhen looked up and clenched his hands into fists again, saying to Guan Zhao with a faint smile, ”This is mine, not yours.”

Guan Zhao lightly swung his sword, swatting away the streak of dark green that had suddenly shot over.

Li Zhen chose to ignore the unpredictable flying sword as he strode forward, walking through Guan Zhao’s intangible body as he continued to spectate the battle inside the sword intent formation.

That young man was truly able to take a beating, and he directly used his elbow to block a downward strike from one of the Heavenly King Dao Manifestations. However, such was the power of the strike that his legs sank directly into the ground.

On the city wall, the young prodigies of the Sword Qi Great Wall continued to communicate using their mind’s lakes.

Dong Bude smiled faintly and remarked, ”This is another battle where Chen Ping’an is completely unable to fight back. It’s one-sided, completely one-sided.”

Guo Zhujiu nodded earnestly and said, ”That little brat is truly very powerful, and he can completely become brothers with someone like Qi Shou. They can have a heart-to-heart conversation when they meet on the battlefield in the future.”

Chen Sanqiu smiled wryly when he heard this.

These remarks were seemingly carefree and teasing, but in reality, they perfectly reflected the tension and unease in everyone’s hearts.

Looking at Lü Duan, the young girl who was unafraid of heaven and earth, her forehead was covered in beads of sweat, betraying her anxiousness.

The sea of clouds continued to sink lower and lower, while the earth continued to rise. Heaven and earth were yet to fully come together, but the thunder pool below attracted furious bolts of lightning from the sky. More and more arcs of lightning whipped between heaven and earth, with countless tendrils of lightning true intent snaking into the surroundings.

A yin soul in white was trapped in the formation, forced to dash through the air to avoid being struck. Not only did Chen Ping’an need to dodge the bolts of lightning violently hammering the earth, but he also needed to dodge the chaotic tendrils of electricity that were rapidly emanating like small branches.

However, he would have nowhere left to hide once heaven and earth met, bringing together the two tribulations.

Li Zhen smiled and said to the four Heavenly King Dao Manifestations, ”There’s no hurry. You can slowly reduce this powerful pure martial artist into nothing but a skeleton. You can let him savor the process of a mortal transforming into a god.”

After saying this, Li Zhen looked up at Ning Yao. According to his senior sister at Holding Moon Mountain, sword cultivators at the Sword Qi Great Wall were most susceptible to comments like these.

The young man whose yin soul and true body were bogged down in two separate battlefields was most likely one of the very few exceptions.

However, Ning Yao didn’t spare Li Zhen so much as a single glance. Rather, her gaze remained fixed on the sea of clouds that was descending quicker and quicker.

Ning Yao didn’t care about Li Zhen’s provocative words.

Above the vast land far away from the city wall, a flying sword continued to shoot toward Li Zhen, appearing like a sword cultivator challenging its opponent to a duel.

This time, it wasn’t just the dark green sword light by itself, and it was instead three flying swords arriving together.

The first to arrive was the extremely slender Pine Needle.

Guan Zhao swung his sword, yet the flying sword immediately altered its path and disappeared without a trace. Only a ditch with consistent depth was left in the ground.

Guan Zhao twisted his wrist and continued to unleash sword strikes. Lightning Devourer arrived with astonishing might, yet it also chose to retreat without engaging the opponent. However, it was affected by the abundant sword qi from Guan Zhao’s sword strike, causing its tip to be thrown slightly off path as it retreated.

Li Zhen found this quite fun.

As it turned out, these were two mediocre flying swords that were more flashy than they were strong. They would indeed be very terrifying on ordinary battlefields, and they could certainly change the outcomes in many life-and-death situations.

Only Fifteenth, the flying sword which genuinely possessed killing intent, raced over from the side, carving an arc in the air as it rapidly shot toward the back of Li Zhen’s head.

Right now, Guan Zhao was limited by both Li Zhen’s current cultivation base and thoughts, preventing him from unleashing sword strikes based on his instincts, and he was also limited in the sense that he no longer possessed his true body and his pinnacle cultivation base. Unable to unleash a sword strike in time, Sword Immortal Guan Zhao decided to reach forward to grab the flying sword.

Li Zhen was completely unfazed by these sneak attacks.

It wouldn’t matter even if he were struck by one of the flying swords.

In any case, he still had Guan Zhao standing here to block or slow down the flying swords.

Right now, Li Zhen’s only worry was trying to determine whether the true body of that young man was genuinely his complete true body, or whether it was nothing more than an external yang soul.

If his opponent’s true body were still hiding in some unknown place, waiting for the right moment to strike, then this current body would again have little bearing on the outcome of the battle but be enough to embarrass him.

His opponent appeared very different from typical sword cultivators who liked to fight directly and without any nonsense.

Zuo You was a good representation of those typical sword cultivators.

Li Zhen thought for a moment, deciding it would be best to stand here and wait for the two battles to finish. However, it seemed to make no sense for him to be so idle.

With this in mind, he summoned a bonded flying sword widely regarded as unique and blessed by the heavens, sending it soaring into the sky in a pillar of snow-white radiance. The bonded flying sword eventually transformed into a bright moon of the Savage World, competing with the radiance of the sun.

The round moon hung in the sky, its radiance scattering across the world below like water and illuminating an area with a radius of more than fifty kilometers. Wisps of primordial sword intent faltered slightly after catching the soft glow of the moon.

The thunder pool was a small world formed from a pile of treasures as well as Li Zhen’s formation skills, which he viewed as very elementary.

The four sword immortals in black were an illusion technique, yet they were also real at the same time. The four Heavenly King Dao Manifestations that had appeared later formed another small world.

Li Zhen’s bonded flying sword formed the third small world.

He focused his gaze, observing that the lunar radiance on the land carried with it the aura of the river of time. So, with a single thought, Li Zhen easily froze the third small world, which existed independently of the other two, even freezing the land up to three hundred meters below.

Reality proved that the young man didn’t have any other tricks up his sleeve, ones that would allow his true body to sneakily hide elsewhere.

However, the three elusive flying swords finally learned their lesson, no longer insisting on hassling Li Zhen and instead flying around in the distance like aimless flies. The two pretentious flying swords appeared especially comical as they shakily flew around, appearing like they might fall from the sky at any moment.

Apart from the sword immortal sword intent being unrestrained by the suppression of heaven and earth in the small world, only slowing down slightly, the countless remaining wisps of sword qi were all pulverized by the flowing lunar radiance.

Li Zhen breathed a sigh of relief, glad that there were no more unexpected surprises. However, he couldn’t help but feel slightly disappointed at the same time.

Chen Ping’an’s flying sword had already escaped Guan Zhao’s hand, thanks to its extraordinary sharpness.

Guan Zhao was unhurt, and if the dark green flying sword remained unable to make any inroads, then its owner would inevitably be drawn closer and closer to death. At that time, the flying sword would also shatter and crumble.

Both the flying sword and its owner were engaging in a futile struggle against death.