Spirit Ruin, Sword Coffin, Blind Swordsman

Crackle crackle!

The firewood hissed especially loudly in the night. The mountains teemed with demonic beasts, yet none dared come within five hundred zhang, as a dragon’s might frightened everything away.

Nine Heavens seemed insecure. Even when it slept, it had to coil itself around Li Guanqi first. He sat in the center and felt mildly annoyed. He also noticed something else: when Nine Heavens was with him, his sensitivity to lightning spirit qi during cultivation improved noticeably.

Lost in cultivation, his ear twitched. He heard a faint rustle.

His eyes snapped open, glinting sharply. He frowned and turned toward the forest depths. He had sensed several strong fluctuations of vital force.

He patted Nine Heavens, who was sleeping contentedly and glowing faintly. It shrank until it was the size of a small snake and settled around Li Guanqi’s neck.

Li Guanqi was surprised. He hadn’t expected such an ability.

As he readied to leave, a beam of sword light slashed toward him.

Whoosh!

Li Guanqi leaned sideways to dodge the sword light. His gaze turned icy. That attack had been no accident.

Thud!

He set his sword coffin on the ground and waited.

Before the attacker could appear, a teenage girl shot past at high speed. In the thin moonlight he caught sight of her face.

He was shocked when he saw her face because she wasn’t ‌human, even though she looked like one. Her face was ghostly pale, and she had no ears. There were slits along her jawline that opened and closed like gills. Her clothes were tattered, and she was covered in bleeding, crisscrossed wounds.

Her tattered clothing revealed her shoulders, which were covered in blue scales that shimmered in the moonlight. She was not weak either, as she seemed to be at the late Golden Core Realm. However, she radiated a demonic aura.

Li Guanqi narrowed his eyes. He did not know who she was, but three cultivators were chasing her from behind.

He retracted his aura. He’d been discovered solely because he was cultivating. Normally, they wouldn’t have noticed him.

The girl had not expected anyone to block her path. A red light flashed in her eyes, and killing intent burst outward. She summoned two blue ice spears and hurled them at Li Guanqi.

Whoosh whoosh!

They whistled as they flew, but he flicked them aside with a casual motion of his fingers.

Boom boom!

The two spears exploded and turned into mist.

The girl was shocked. She narrowed her eyes, then changed direction to run past him.

Li Guanqi watched her curiously. Even in such a tense moment, her attack had been meant to restrain him, not kill him.

He looked at her back and squinted, noticing a weak blue light on her spine. Behind her neck, there was a spiny protrusion, like a fish’s dorsal fin.

“Who is it?!” one of the pursuers shouted.

“Stay back if you don’t want to die!”

“Hmph! Just kill him!”

The three cultivators shouted threats at Li Guanqi. Two of them were half a step into the Nascent Soul Realm.

He only smiled. They could not sense his true aura, so they didn’t know his true strength. Not wanting further trouble, he stepped aside to let them pass.

Their leader scrutinized Li Guanqi for a long moment before gesturing for the others to follow. “After her! With the Young Master’s temperament, he’ll kill us if we don’t catch her!”

The other pursuers, a man with a monkey-like face and another with a horse-like face, hurried after the leader.

Whoosh!

As the monkey-faced man passed, he noticed the snake coiled around Li Guanqi’s neck. Skilled in beast-taming, he detected the aura of a powerful demonic creature. It seemed like a newborn demonic beast.

His eyes gleamed. When he passed Li Guanq, he leaped and swung his sword, shouting, “Kill him! He’s got the aura of a juvenile tier-five demonic beast!”

The thin, horse-faced man drew his sword too.

The leader shouted, “Do not cause trouble!”

But he was too late. The blind man merely lifted a finger and tapped both swords, instantly breaking them.

Boom!

Fragments flew in every direction. Li Guanqi made a grabbing motion, and lightning crackled around the sword shards. They obeyed his command and shot forward, riddling the duo with bloody holes. In an instant, they were dead.

The leader froze, eyes darting in the direction where the girl had vanished. He turned to Li Guanqi and forced out a solemn tone. “Senior, please don’t attack. I serve under my young master’s orders to pursue that girl. Those two were ignorant to strike you without cause. These are all I have—take them as compensation for your trouble. Please let me go.”

He tossed his storage pouches and rings forward.

Li Guanqi let them fall to the ground. He smiled. “If I’m not mistaken, you were the one who fired that ray of sword light at me, weren’t you?”

The leader was the strongest out of the trio, at the early Nascent Soul Realm. He wore hemp clothing and his skin was dark. His tiger-like eyes glinted.

Since Li Guanqi had exposed him, the man gripped his sword and smirked. “I gave you face, but you did not accept it. I hope you understand why you’re about to die. Do you even know who my young master is?”

Li Guanqi crossed his arms and smiled. “Oh? Some big shot? Tell me who he is.”

The man narrowed his eyes and chuckled. “Listen well. We’re mercenaries of the Mo family from the Eastern Territory. Surely you’ve heard of our young master—Mo Congyun!”

Li Guanqi was taken aback. He pondered for a moment, and only then did he understand, recalling the Nascent Soul Leaderboard.

Ah, right! Ranked sixth on the leaderboard, Mo Congyun, also known as the Tyrant Sword.

Seeing Li Guanqi’s look of recognition, the man smirked. “Now that you know, you’d better stay away.”

Li Guanqi’s expression darkened. “And if I don’t? What will you do?”