Spirit Ruin, Sword Coffin, Blind Swordsman

For the first time, Li Guanqi truly felt just how powerful his physical body was. Even when he took their attacks head-on, it barely hurt. The overwhelming might he possessed made the Illusory Refinement Realm cultivators he faced seem almost insignificant.

Boom!

With a single sword strike, Li Guanqi blasted three of them back. He raised his hand and hurled a vicious punch straight at the back of one of the men.

Boom! Thud!

The punch landed. The lightning-infused strike blew the man’s abdomen wide open, punching a massive hole clean through him. His body arched from the impact and plummeted downward, carving a black streak through the air before smashing into the ground.

Thud!

The earth trembled. The ground caved in by more than a zhang, visibly sinking as it formed a massive crater nearly a hundred zhang wide.

At the bottom of the pit, the man coughed up blood. He looked down at the wound that had nearly torn him in half. Terror seized him. He raised his head toward the battle raging in the sky above. Panic flashed across his face, and he hastily pulled out a teleportation scroll and crushed it.

Bang!

The scroll exploded. Silver light flickered, and excitement flooded his eyes. Li Guanqi was a monster, after all. He even felt that they were nothing more than ants trying to shake a towering tree[1].Li Guanqi’s strength was simply beyond anything they could withstand.

A monster. He’s a monster!

The silver radiance gathered before him as space twisted violently, on the verge of tearing open a spatial rift. But then, a bolt of lightning as thick as a man’s thigh crashed down from above.

Boom!

The silver light shattered, and the spatial fluctuations vanished. The crack that had already opened by nearly a chi snapped shut at once.

The man looked up, only to meet Li Guanqi’s indifferent, icy gaze. The moment he saw that look, his heart sank into utter despair. His eyes went vacant, all color draining from his face.

His pale lips trembled as he muttered, “He… he never intended… to let us leave…”

The man’s expression hardened. With ruthless resolve, he sliced away a charred chunk of flesh from his own wound. He pulled out a lump of glowing, clay-like substance from his storage ring and pressed it over the injury.

Strangely, the clay wriggled like living flesh. As it fused into the wound, some color gradually returned to the man’s face. Without hesitation, he took out a suit of shimmering soft armor and donned it.

The others in the sky wore equally crazed expressions. Charred wounds spread across their bodies as terrifying lightning rampaged within them. Their meridians were scorched black, and their bodies twitched uncontrollably.

Boom!

One of the men, wearing golden knuckle guards, lunged forward and threw a savage punch at Li Guanqi’s arm.

“Die!”

As Li Guanqi turned, he clenched his right fist. His blood and qi roared, lightning coiling around his arm. The faint sound of dragons and elephants echoed in everyone’s ears.

The two fists collided in midair.

Boom!!

A deafening explosion rang out, and the man felt his shoulder go numb. A spray of blood burst before his eyes, splattering across his face. The entire void behind him collapsed.

Struggling, he shifted his gaze toward his side. Half of his body was gone, and his vision blurred. He fell powerlessly from the sky.

Swish! Swish!

Li Guanqi’s face filled his vision.

Li Guanqi had teleported directly in front of the falling man, keeping pace with his descent.

Several streaks of sword light flashed, and the man felt his body being dismembered piece by piece.

Blood sprayed everywhere, then a tremendous force struck him, sending him flying sideways. He slammed into the plaque beside the Xiao family’s main hall. Several lightning spirit swords pierced straight through him, pinning him firmly to the doorway.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Purple-black lightning swords plunged into the beams, pinning him against them. The spirit swords completely sealed his dantian and vital force. No matter how he struggled, he couldn’t break free.

Li Guanqi said softly, “One.”

The man in the crater became even more certain of his judgment. He roared, “Go all out! He never planned to spare us! If we keep holding back, we’re dead!”

Boom!

The man’s sword intent surged skyward, yet it had barely reached the Sword Courage Realm. Compared to Ye Feng, he was leagues behind. Still, his aura was far from weak, actually three parts stronger than before his injury.

Li Guanqi narrowed his eyes. Seeing the man’s throat move, he guessed he had swallowed some special pill. Pills like the Spirit-Boosting Pill always came with heavy side effects.

Ding Gengyang exchanged a glance with the woman beside him. Fear was evident in both their gazes. If they did not use their trump cards now, they might never get the chance.

Ding Gengyang pulled out a green talisman, opened his mouth, and stuffed it in.

Boom!

The pressure around him intensified dramatically. It was evidently another special technique. Then, a crystal-clear white bone die materialized in his hand. A trace of reluctance flashed through Ding Gengyang’s eyes, yet he still tossed the die high into the air.

“Purple Spirit Bone Die!” the woman cried out in shock.

Li Guanqi narrowed his eyes and noticed that only two faces remained on the die. The patterns were ferocious beast markings he had never seen before.

Li Guanqi teleported beside Ding Gengyang and unleashed several rapid sword strikes. The sword light shot out but struck empty air, shattering distant mountains and carving deep ravines into the ground.

Boom boom boom!

Ding Gengyang had clearly been prepared. He had retreated several hundred zhang before hurling the die into the sky.

The moment the die stopped spinning, a savage-looking beast burst forth from it. The creature stood nearly thirty zhang tall, its purple-black body shaped like a shadowed robe.

The oppressive aura it emitted rivaled that of a mid Illusory Refinement Realm cultivator.

Ding Gengyang laughed wildly. “An Ancient Demon Shadow Panther! You’re dead for sure!”

“It is…”

Li Guanqi observed calmly, finding the methods rather unusual.

Before Ding Gengyang could finish speaking, Nine Heavens, coiled around Li Guanqi’s wrist, began to awaken.

Amid collective gasps, a purple true dragon over seventy zhang long revealed its true form.

“A dragon… a true dragon…”

Li Guanqi did not even need to speak. Nine Heavens’ icy dragon eyes had already locked onto the ancient panther.

The moment it sensed the dragon’s pressure, the panther let out a low whimper. Its eyes were fixed on Nine Heavens, its entire body tensed like a drawn bowstring.

Nine Heavens couldn’t have cared less. Sensing the rich essence and blood within the panther’s body, it wanted nothing more than to devour the beast.

Li Guanqi sneered and muttered, “Is that all you’ve got?”

The woman snorted coldly and flung out several array trays. But bolts of lightning pierced straight through them, shattering them instantly.

Li Guanqi wasn’t about to stand around and let them finish setting up. If he had been able to stop Ding Gengyang earlier, he would never have allowed him to take out that die in the first place.

1. “蚍蜉撼树” is a Chinese idiom, pronounced pí fú hàn shù. It literally means a large ant trying to shake a great tree.

Figuratively, it describes someone of insignificant strength attempting to challenge or overturn something vastly powerful, overestimating themselves and failing to recognize their own limits.

The phrase comes from the Tang dynasty poet Han Yu’s essay “Tiao Zhang Ji”: “An ant trying to shake a great tree, laughable in its failure to know its own measure.” ☜