Spirit Ruin, Sword Coffin, Blind Swordsman

As Li Guanqi ventured deeper into Inferno Valley, the temperature rose. Heat shimmered above the cracked earth, warping the air. He was topless and drenched in sweat.

He suddenly stopped. He’d sensed three faint auras not far behind him.

His parched lips curved upward. Narrowing his eyes, he thrust his hand into the empty air.

Pfft!

“Ahhhh!”

A scream tore through the silence, and three figures appeared beside him. Li Guanqi looked down at his bloodstained left hand and asked, “Why are you following me? Trying to win back your dignity after humiliating yourselves?”

One of them was the man he had beaten at the Yellow Sand Guesthouse, recognizable from his small eyes and high cheekbones. The wound between his thumb and forefinger had healed. The other two were also familiar faces from the guesthouse.

Li Guanqi snorted. “Looks like I went too easy on you back then. So? What are the three of you after?”

The two others grew grim. They had assumed Li Guanqi had come to Inferno Valley seeking treasure. When Ning Xiu unleashed her full power, they believed he’d been seriously injured. Zhang Ning, the other man, had persuaded them to join him so they could exploit Li Guanqi’s weakened state. But just as they found him, he struck first.

When no one spoke, Li Guanqi lost interest in further talk. His gaze turned cold. “You’ve made your choice. Be ready to die for it.”Boom!

A dozen-zhang-wide crater split the cracked ground, and Li Guanqi disappeared. The strongest among the trio, a man with a scar on his face, saw how dire things had become and shoved the weakest forward. It was Zhang Ning, the one with a head shaped like a peach.

Zhang Ning stumbled toward Li Guanqi and cursed furiously. “Ding Gang! You bastard!”

Still, he lunged forward, blade in hand. Behind him, the third man knew it was too late to flee and began burning his own essence to boost his strength, hoping they could fight Li Guanqi together.

Knives and swords clashed, bright arcs flashing through the air.

The chaotic lights lasted only moments before fading. Then two blinding sword lights burst forth.

Lightning spread across the sky for hundreds of zhang, sword lights scattering in all directions. Li Guanqi stepped forward, crossing a hundred zhang in a single stride.

He retracted his sword and stood up straight, murmuring, “Crouching Demon.”

Boom!

Twin rays of sword light carved two deep trenches, each a hundred zhang long, into the mountains on either side.

Thud!

Two headless bodies hit the ground. Their translucent nascent souls scattered in opposite directions, panicking.

Li Guanqi pressed his lips together. As his divine consciousness flared, two illusory spirit swords streaked into the distance.

The fleeing nascent souls shot ahead ten thousand zhang in a single breath, but Li Guanqi’s spirit swords were faster. He had merged them with his flying sword technique, increasing their speed.

In an instant, the swords pierced both nascent souls. The swords shredded them into pieces, then returned to him.

Li Guanqi sighed in relief and took the storage rings from the corpses. After grabbing a few other items, he tossed the corpses into the void.

He looked up and sensed one more person fleeing frantically through the void.

Whoosh!

Hmph. You think you can run?

He tore open space with a smirk and began channeling his vital force.

“Lightning Warp.”

His body turned into a streak of lightning that shot through the void at incredible speed.

Fifteen minutes later, Li Guanqi emerged, dragging a body with every bone shattered. After destroying the nascent soul, he flung the corpse into the void as well.

He glanced at the three storage rings in his hand, thinking for a moment. Then he shaped his divine consciousness into a silver needle and shot it at one of the rings.

Pop!

The storage ring turned into dust. Li Guanqi cleared his throat awkwardly and turned to the second ring.

Sword Spirit appeared beside him, rolling her eyes. “Who breaks seals like that? You’re supposed to feel for the weak point first.”

Realizing his mistake, Li Guanqi muttered, “So brute force doesn’t work... You could’ve told me earlier. What a waste.”

He tried again, following her instructions.

Click!

A faint sound came from the ring, and his face lit up. “Hehe, it’s open!”

The two remaining rings held plenty of items, but nothing caught his eye. Besides the miscellaneous goods, they each contained only a few hundred mid-grade spirit stones.

Li Guanqi’s expression darkened. “That’s it? They’re so fucking poor!”

He continued searching through the storage ring, unearthing only basic techniques that failed to capture his interest.

Buzz!

He pulled out several crimson crystals, his eyes widening. “Fire essence? Such dense and pure fire spirit power!”

Even Sword Spirit stared in surprise. Fire essence was rare, formed only in places saturated with fire spirit power. The crystals carried a faint consciousness, much like a demonic beast’s inner core.

One of the pieces he found, though only the size of his thumb, contained the densest spirit qi of all the fragments. A hair-thin streak of light twisted inside it.

Li Guanqi was stunned. He could clearly sense lightning power mixed inside.

He carefully placed the fire essence into his storage ring.

By then, he had reached the location marked on the map.

It was a valley where six mountains converged. He looked around and searched with his divine consciousness, but he found nothing unusual. Disappointed, he was about to leave when he noticed a circular indentation hidden among the boulders.

Whoosh!

Li Guanqi hurried over, reaching between the boulders to touch it. The indent was ancient, so worn by time that it was nearly flat.

He took out his jade pendant excitedly and fit it into the indentation.

At the same moment, a faint gleam flickered in his eyes.