A Loose Cultivator's Path to Longevity

Suddenly, Qingding’s aura surged. His body emitted a ring of hazy, cyan-green treasured light, and a phantom-like, cyan sword shadow materialized behind him. It looked down upon the world, its vast aura suppressing everything in all directions.

Noticing the change in himself, a delighted expression appeared on Qingding’s face. His gaze shifted to Lü Zhong, a flicker of killing intent flashing in his eyes.

His lips moved as he began to form hand seals, Chanting an incantation.

Shuini and Huoyaozi, who had been locked in combat, were both startled and focused their attention on the new development.

”This is bad!” Shuini’s expression changed.

She immediately disregarded Huoyaozi, intending to activate her Moon Sword to help Lü Zhong.

Seeing this, a hint of pleasant surprise appeared on Huoyaozi’s face. After a cold sneer, his Six-Green Snake Hairpin streaked through the air like a phantom, flashing a few times to block the Moon Sword’s path.

At almost the same instant, Lü Zhong felt Spiritual Qi converging before him. His own pure Magical Power had suddenly become inexplicably difficult to control.

Warning bells screamed in his mind as he sensed an intense, life-threatening crisis.

Lü Zhong was horrified. Without a second thought, he hastily activated Shooting Star Escape, transforming into a blood-red meteor. He used nearly every trick up his sleeve in the process, trying to rapidly distance himself from Qingding.

His expression shifted several times, and four figures of light flew out from his sleeves.

These were his only four remaining Incarnations.

Instinctively, Lü Zhong felt this was his only sliver of a chance for survival.

In just a few breaths, he was already over three thousand *zhang* away.

And just then, Qingding finally finished his preparations.

At that moment, he was shrouded in a radiant glow. Surging Spiritual Qi billowed around him, drawn by that sliver of nature’s spiritual energy, and gathered upon the Green Cauldron Sword.

Suddenly, the surrounding Spiritual Qi stagnated!

Silently, a dazzling figure of light shot out.

In that instant, the world seemed to lose its color.

’It’s actually Heaven and Earth Primordial Qi!’ Lü Zhong was shocked beyond belief.

But shock was one thing; his actions didn’t slow. With a thought, his four Incarnations formed a straight line, blocking the path of the light figure, and began to self-destruct one after another.

He refused to believe that a Nascent Soul cultivator could unleash the might of a Divinity Transformation expert.

’So I still have a chance, as long as I can weaken this attack.’ Lü Zhong calmed himself.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM...

In an instant, it was as if four suns had appeared.

At the same time, he unleashed all his other techniques, like the Thunder Spear and Mirror Light.

Qingding watched this unfold with a faint smile.

His sword strike not only condensed all his Magical Power into his strongest Sword Technique, ”Azure Nether Break,” but was also triggered by a sliver of nature’s spiritual energy.

According to the Jia Yuan Heavenly Talisman, although it lacked the world-shaking power a Divinity Transformation Grand Venerable could command, it was equivalent to an attack from a Great Cultivator.

Before this sword strike, Lü Zhong, a mere Early-stage Nascent Soul, had absolutely no chance of survival.

However, Qingding did not let his guard down completely, still maintaining the necessary vigilance.

After all, Lü Zhong’s previous performance had been entirely unexpected. There was no guarantee he didn’t have some hidden trump card that would allow him to survive the Azure Nether Break.

It was not impossible.

The ancient records contained many such accounts.

On the other side, Lü Zhong, facing an unprecedented life-or-death crisis, was surprisingly calm. After being weakened by the four self-detonations, the figure of light finally revealed its true form.

It was an incomparably solid sword shadow, one that could be described as simple and unadorned.

It looked ordinary, yet wherever the sword shadow passed, space itself rippled. There was no doubt that if the sword shadow were just a little stronger, it could have sliced clean through space itself.

’How do I block this?’

Without thinking, and ignoring whether his meridians could handle the strain, Lü Zhong poured his Magical Power into the Five-Sided Flood Dragon Spirit Banner, causing the five Little Flood Dragons to shine brilliantly before sending them forward to meet the attack.

CRACK!

In just one exchange, two of the Flood Dragon Spirit Banners couldn’t hold.

The once-smooth surfaces of the banners were instantly covered in a dense, spiderweb-like pattern of cracks. Their powerful Spiritual Light weakened to an extreme, and they let out a mournful cry as they reverted to Small Flags and flew back to Lü Zhong’s side.

He wasn’t too surprised by this.

These two Flood Dragon Spirit Banners were items he had taken from Yue Cang of the Yan Zhen Sect.

Compared to the other three Flood Dragon Spirit Banners, these two were inherently weaker. Still, that they were *this* fragile came as a slight surprise to Lü Zhong.

The Water Flood Dragon, Poisonous Flood Dragon, and Crystal Rock Flood Dragon banners were still resisting.

Seeing the sword shadow weaken further, Lü Zhong recalled the three banners to avoid damaging them. At the same time, the Star Mirror above his head flashed, instantly condensing a hundred Light Mirrors in a straight line before him.

The sword shadow’s momentum was still unstoppable.

In the blink of an eye, it destroyed all the Light Mirrors and finally sent the Star Mirror flying.

It shattered into multiple streams of Sword Qi, most of which slashed into Lü Zhong’s body.

His Protective Gang Qi was rapidly depleted. In just a single breath, his final layer of Defense was broken. The attack landed on his scale-covered skin, immediately sending a spray of blood into the air.

”Heh, is that all you’ve got?” Lü Zhong said mockingly to Qingding, looking at the shallow wounds on his body.

The latter had already turned and fled.

The moment he saw that the sword shadow couldn’t finish Lü Zhong, Qingding decisively chose to escape. He had now transformed into a streak of Sword Light, pushing his Sword Control Skill to its absolute limit.

RUUUMBLE!

Not far behind Lü Zhong, a remnant of the Azure Nether Broken Sword Qi struck the ground.

Even though its power had been diminished by ninety-nine percent, it still obliterated a mountain in an instant. Its momentum unabated, it traveled for another dozen or so *li* across the ground, carving a gorge nearly a *li* deep.

Lü Zhong didn’t look back at the scene, instead streaking away as a blood-red meteor.

’He wounded me, and now he thinks he can run?’

’As if there’s such a good deal in this world!’

Meanwhile, Huoyaozi saw that even after channeling Heaven and Earth Primordial Qi, Qingding had failed to kill Lü Zhong. He was utterly shocked and filled with regret for carelessly provoking such a person. At the same time, his eyes began to dart around, clearly plotting his own escape.

Unfortunately for him, Shuini was clinging to him relentlessly.