A Blind Swordsman's Sword Coffin

Ye Feng said nothing. He looked down at the blood pooling over his feet. In his eyes, the crimson pool seemed as deep as a dark abyss. He tried to lift a foot, but it felt as though he were mired in mud that refused to let him go.

Sensing Ye Feng’s composure waver, the demonic spirit burst out, forming a black mask of demonic qi over half his face. It surveyed the scene. Ye Feng gripped the Wrathful Slaughter Sword, its savage qi lingering all around him.

Blood dripped from the blade onto the ground. The demonic spirit’s eyes flickered, but it did nothing further.

Ye Feng steadied himself and glared at the demonic spirit. “What? Afraid I wouldn’t kill anyone?”

The demonic spirit’s eyes gleamed. “Of course.”

Buzz!

The demonic spirit spat out a palm-sized black array tray. Demonic qi surged across its surface, and an eerie black portal shimmered into existence before them. Song Zhi’ang stepped through with the baby boy in her arms. Ye Feng approached the portal, his face expressionless.

He could already sense it. Li Guanqi was almost here.

Ye Feng desperately wanted to leave a clue or say even a single word to him, but he hadn’t dared to act. Song Zhi’ang had told him certain secrets, but who could say Lu Tian[1] wasn’t testing him? Perhaps Lu Tian had been manipulating her all along, making her probe him with subtle, deliberate remarks.

He suspected that even the thing Song Zhi’ang claimed to have left inside the Wrathful Slaughter Sword might be part of Lu Tian’s plan. Perhaps Lu Tian truly didn’t know, but Ye Feng couldn’t be sure.

And the demonic spirit? Was he really suppressing it? Unless he was absolutely certain, he couldn’t risk contacting Li Guanqi. A single misstep could cost him everything.

Buzz!

In the end, Ye Feng did nothing. He stepped through the portal and vanished.

The array tray disappeared, and the void rippled, leaving no trace behind.

Rumble rumble rumble!

Thunder cracked across the heavens. A figure in white appeared in a flash, and the thick clouds split down the middle as if a sword had cut them in two.

Whoosh!

Li Guanqi arrived in the sky above the Duan family estate. The stench of blood reached him before he even descended. Not even the torrential downpour could mask it.

His face darkened, and he teleported into the courtyard. A river of blood and rainwater cascaded down the blue stone steps, chunks of flesh tumbling in its current. Bodies and severed limbs lay scattered everywhere. He had never seen such brutality.

Li Guanqi clenched his jaw and closed his eyes, his brow creased with pain. He could unmistakably sense the aura of Ye Feng’s Wrathful Slaughter Sword.

Every corpse’s wounds held traces of demonic qi and metal-element power. As far as his senses could tell, Ye Feng had killed everyone here, slaughtering the entire clan with appalling savagery. He extended his divine consciousness across the sprawling estate and found over four hundred corpses.

He trembled in the rain with his fists clenched, too overwhelmed to feel his nails digging into his palms. Again and again, he pictured Ye Feng consumed by demonic qi, butchering everyone in sight.

The residual demonic qi told him something else. Ye Feng’s aura was far stronger than his own. Before his corruption, Ye Feng had lagged behind Li Guanqi in cultivation, yet he had already reached the peak of the late Combined Body Realm. Even Cao Yan had only just stabilized his cultivation at the early Combined Body Realm.

The peak of the late Combined Body Realm... and thirty percent of Ye Feng’s life jade slip was already shrouded in demonic qi.

For a long time, Li Guanqi stood with his eyes closed, unable to move.

Boom!

“Ahhhh!”

Li Guanqi clenched his fists, his eyes wide and blazing, his veins standing out on his neck. His hoarse, anguished howl carried all his fury and frustration, and even more than that, his deep-seated helplessness and fear.

The thing he’d feared most had come to pass. Ye Feng had killed people. ℯ

The cultivators from the surrounding area had detected the overwhelming stench of blood and were converging on the estate. The commotion Li Guanqi had caused on his arrival had attracted even more people, including powerful figures from some of the ancient clans.

Li Guanqi’s eyes flickered. He’d already noticed the fluctuations of their auras.

Boom!

Dozens of four-chi-long lightning swords erupted from the Duan estate. They halted one cun from each person’s brow, forcing every single one of them to stop dead five hundred zhang away.

Buzz!

A massive barrier of lightning took shape in an instant, enveloping the entire Duan estate. The demonic qi and metal-element sword qi inside were far too dense. Anyone who got through would certainly recognize Ye Feng’s signature.

Among them, an elder in lavish purple robes narrowed his eyes at the lightning sword hovering before his brow and spoke coldly. “Who goes there?”

No one answered. Only the ceaseless crackling of the barrier’s lightning filled the silence. The elder let out a cold snort, his murky eyes fixed on the lightning sword. “Whoever you are, don’t you think this is a bit excessive?”

Boom!

Li Guanqi slowly emerged from the barrier in his white robes, the Red Lotus Sword in hand. Icy killing intent seeped into the surrounding void. Looking into his pure white eyes was like staring into a terrifying abyss. Lightning crackled beneath his feet, and ragged sword qi crisscrossed the air around him.

He stared at the elder, his face dark as a storm. “Excessive? Take one step forward, and I’ll kill you.”

The moment the words left his mouth, all forty-plus lightning swords expanded to a hundred zhang in length. They plunged into the earth like a towering wall of lightning.

Li Guanqi’s voice was ice. “This is a restricted zone. All trespassers shall die.”

Under their furious gazes, he vanished in a flash.

The elder at the front was drenched in cold sweat. The instant he’d tried to lift his foot, a suffocating wave of death locked onto him. If he hadn’t stopped immediately, he would’ve lost his head.

The gathered cultivators exchanged uneasy glances. One by one, they dispersed.

A rumor began to spread like wildfire.

“The Duan family in the Falling Sunset Territory somehow offended the Yanluo Sword Sovereign. That Li Guanqi crossed territories alone, sword in hand, and wiped out their entire clan!”

“What? He actually killed them all?”

“Hmph, don’t believe me? I saw it with my own eyes! Through the cracks in the barrier, we saw bodies everywhere. Men, women, children... not a single one was spared!”

“Sigh... I’d heard that the Daxia Sword Sect’s Li Guanqi was unpredictable and loved massacring entire factions. How is a cultivator like that any different from a heretical cultivator?”

Li Guanqi never once defended himself. His silence only convinced people further that he was guilty and too ashamed to speak.

Rumors and slander spread everywhere, and some of the more upright senior cultivators outright branded Li Guanqi a heretical cultivator.

But he ignored it all, as though he’d heard nothing at all.

1. Lu Tian is Sha’s new name ☜