Spirit Ruin, Sword Coffin, Blind Swordsman

As Lu Wuhen spoke, a young man with a conflicted expression emerged from the void behind Li Guanqi. He was dressed in a red robe, and long silver-white hair cascaded down his back. Strikingly handsome with deep eyes, he left his robe slightly open at the chest, giving him an air of easy, unruly freedom.

Coward Li stared at Li Guanqi and said quietly, “You lied to me…”

Li Guanqi smiled and said nothing.

“You knew perfectly well that a fractured divine soul makes breaking through to the Combined Body Realm dangerous!” Coward Li shouted.

Li Guanqi looked at Coward Li’s handsome face, which mirrored his own, and grinned. “I gave you my word, and I won’t go back on it. It’s just a little danger. Has the path of cultivation ever been without risk?”

Li Guanqi spread his arms wide and said gently, “Come, then.”

Coward Li took a deep breath and recalled a shared cup of bitter spirit tea from some long-forgotten day. A carefree grin spread across his face.

“Here I come!”

Boom!

A golden spirit burst from Coward Li’s body and merged into Li Guanqi. Li Guanqi reached out and stored away Coward Li’s physical form. The vital force within him surged, climbing at a frantic pace.

The crowd looked up in horror. A second massive tribulation cloud had appeared, rivaling Lu Wuhen’s in scale. If anything, its reach stretched slightly farther.

Gasps of astonishment rang out on all sides, and more than a few powerful cultivators murmured among themselves.

“A ten-thousand-zhang tribulation cloud… If I’d had a cloud that size back in my day, I would have been struck dead on the spot…”

“The Yanluo Sword Sovereign actually forced Lu Wuhen to break through to the Combined Body Realm. That’s unbelievable for a martial stage duel.”

Meng Jiangchu leaped to his feet at the sight of Li Guanqi on the verge of breaking through. “This is madness! He still wants to preserve his clone?! That fool! He hasn’t made a single preparation, and he’s actually going to break through to the Combined Body Realm? Has he lost his mind?”

Concern flashed in Gu Yong’s eyes, and he said gravely, “These two youngsters have given everything they have, but breaking through this recklessly is far too dangerous.”

Lu Kangnian’s gaze remained locked on the stage. He was so focused that he punched through the battle drum without even noticing. Even he had never expected the battle to force Li Guanqi to break through into the Combined Body Realm. After all, Li Guanqi had entered the Illusory Refinement Realm only a few years ago. No one could predict what might happen if he rushed into the Combined Body Realm.

Peng Luo hovered in the air, his eyes full of worry. He gritted his teeth, and the brilliant markings across his body lit up once more.

A large hand came to rest on his shoulder. Nangong Xuandu said quietly, “Do that again and you will die.”

Peng Luo lightly brushed the hand away, something unreadable crossing his face. His head barely reached Nangong Xuandu’s knee, and he was looking straight up at the man. Yet his eyes held a lofty arrogance reminiscent of Sword Spirit’s, that same disdain for all living things.

Peng Luo glanced at his own shoulder and muttered, “Death is nothing. It’s not like I’ve never died before.”

Nangong Xuandu’s brow furrowed slightly. The moment Peng Luo’s gaze had swept past him just now, a shiver had run through him.

That feeling… was like the gaze of a territorial lord, an existence that stood above all living things, surveying the world from on high with cold detachment.

And behind it, a faint displeasure at the hand he had pressed to its shoulder, the slight furrow of its brow saying wordlessly, “Who gave you the right to touch me?”

As Peng Luo charged straight for the barrier, Nangong Xuandu’s mouth curved into a quiet smile. “Interesting…”

Without a sound, he weakened a small section of the barrier. Peng Luo sensed it quickly enough. The barrier appeared entirely normal from the outside, yet inside it was hollow, like wood eaten through by termites.

Peng Luo made a show of straining mightily and squeezed himself through, then cut off half of himself without hesitation and flung it outward.

“Catch, Master!”

The sight of Peng Luo squeezing back inside startled Li Guanqi. Then, as if realizing something, he caught what was thrown to him, and a powerful spatial force expelled Peng Luo at once.

Li Guanqi swallowed what he had been given, and his aura surged toward the Combined Body Realm.

Above them, the two immense tribulation clouds churned like a boiling sea. Thick bolts of lightning snaked down from within. The spectacle drove the crowd back nearly twenty thousand zhang before they finally stopped. Dozens of light screens materialized in midair. From that point on, the spectators could only watch the battle inside the barrier through those screens.

While the crowd was still trying to understand what was happening, a red light flickered within Li Guanqi’s surging tribulation cloud. The unsettling crimson glow engulfed the entire cloud in the span of a breath.

Lu Wuhen stared, blinked, and then a strange smile touched his face. “A slaughter tribulation! Li Guanqi, you really are unlucky. You even managed to run into a slaughter tribulation! Don’t tell me you’re going to die under the heavenly tribulation? If it actually comes to that, why not leave everything you have to me before you go? I promise I won’t disgrace them.”

Li Guanqi felt his vital force surging through his body and looked up at the blood-red tribulation overhead.

“A slaughter tribulation?”

The corner of his mouth curved into a peculiar smile. It wasn’t his first time facing a blood-colored tribulation.

He removed the tattered Floating Cloud Robe, revealing the scarred, powerful body beneath. Then he turned to Lu Wuhen and said, “Be careful. Don’t die. Once the Heavenly Tribulation is over, I’ll settle our grudges one by one.”

Boom!

As Li Guanqi deliberately released his aura, the tribulation cloud above him churned violently. A blood-red lightning bolt nearly a zhang thick crashed down, too fast for the naked eye to follow.

However, Li Guanqi stood in midair with his arms outstretched, as though welcoming the lightning.

Boom!

Crack!

The blood-colored lightning tore a gaping hole through the barrier and struck Li Guanqi. The smell of scorched flesh hit everyone instantly.

Lu Wuhen swallowed hard. He watched in shock as Li Guanqi took the heavenly lightning head-on with nothing but his physical body.

Li Guanqi shook uncontrollably. His face blackened like charcoal, and his flesh was torn open. Yet, he reached out with a hand stripped to white bone, seized the lightning, and stuffed it into his mouth. Throughout it all, his cold gaze remained fixed on Lu Wuhen. A chill crawled up Lu Wuhen’s spine.

Li Guanqi exhaled a mouthful of smoke and raised his head to the heavens. I’m still a little short…

His physical body was just one step away from breaking through to the Combined Body Realm.

Lu Wuhen drew a slow breath and braced himself for his own tribulation to fall. His greatest trump card was the tip of his sword, capable of splitting heavenly tribulation lightning apart.

Boom boom boom!

Three more blood-colored lightning bolts came crashing down in rapid succession. Li Guanqi raised no defense and took them all head-on.

Boom!

He plummeted from the air and smashed hard into the shattered martial stage.

Boom boom boom!

He lay flat in the crater, twitching uncontrollably as blood-colored lightning scattered all around him. Yet he kept a death grip on both swords, letting that terrifying lightning burrow freely into his flesh.

Then Li Guanqi’s expression changed. It felt as though the lightning was tearing his divine soul apart. Searing agony washed over what remained of his sanity. It seemed preserving even a shred of Coward Li’s divine soul was no longer possible. If this continued, there was a real chance his primordial soul would fracture, and he would die beneath the heavenly tribulation.

Faced with this agonizing choice, Li Guanqi went pale.