Spirit Ruin, Sword Coffin, Blind Swordsman

The moment the thought surfaced, Li Guanqi felt Coward Li’s mood erupt into turmoil.

Li Guanqi’s expression changed. He suppressed the pain racking his body and was about to offer a word of comfort, but Coward Li had already calmed down. Within Li Guanqi’s awareness, Coward Li’s divine soul form wore an expression of relief and acceptance, and a soft murmur drifted over. “I should never have existed. Even if I disappear… what is there for me to mourn? Since I never truly possessed anything, why should I fear losing it?”

Li Guanqi no longer felt any resistance from Coward Li. If he chose to fully merge with Coward Li now, he could pass the Heavenly Tribulation with ease.

But… Li Guanqi smiled. A sealing force rose within him, locking away Coward Li’s consciousness along with the last shred of his divine soul. Coward Li sank into slumber. Whatever happened next, he would know nothing of it.

Boom!

Li Guanqi’s fusion with the illusory spirit accelerated sharply. Overhead, the churning lightning looked ready to strike again at any moment.

A thousand zhang away, Lu Wuhen faced his own Heavenly Tribulation. His injuries were far lighter than Li Guanqi’s. Each swing of the Ascension Sword unleashed a crimson light that cleaved through the lightning. Even so, he could not block all the scattered lightning force, and wounds opened across his body one after another. He continually swallowed pills and burned through defensive treasures and talismans without restraint.

Li Guanqi smiled, raised his hand, and pressed over a hundred talismans onto himself, then drew a few pills from his robes and swallowed them. Medicinal force surged through him, and his dantian stabilized considerably.

“Hahahaha, Li Guanqi! You truly are a fool! It’s a mere illusory spirit! Why should you care?! With a mind that weak, how do you ever plan to ascend and become an immortal?” Lu Wuhen shouted.

Above both men, the tribulation clouds were still gathering power. Li Guanqi was already facing the most terrifying kind of Heavenly Tribulation: a slaughter tribulation, at least thirty percent stronger than the ordinary tribulation. The heavens had deemed him too great a threat to survive. Li Guanqi had no attention to spare for Lu Wuhen. Every shred of his focus was on his own tribulation.

Boom boom boom!

Three more lightning bolts, each nearly two zhang wide, crashed down in rapid succession. Li Guanqi felt the shackles within him on the verge of shattering. He gritted his teeth and launched himself skyward.

He could withstand only two lightning bolts this time. Whether or not his Dragon-Elephant Subduing Sutra broke through the shackles, he could not take the third head-on. But all three bolts were too fast, falling almost simultaneously.

Li Guanqi gritted his teeth. Then his eyes gleamed, and both his swords unleashed brilliant sword lights. A violet-black lightning sword light shot up from the ground.

The spectators were baffled. How could a Heavenly Tribulation strike from the earth instead of descending from the heavens?

Even at that distance, the terrifying sword light made Lu Wuhen’s heart clench. His eyes narrowed as he stared at Li Guanqi. He still had strength to spare! He never fought with his full strength! To hold back in a battle that fierce... just what has this guy been through?

Lu Wuhen was certain that Li Guanqi hadn’t gone all out in their earlier exchange. The reason was simple: Li Guanqi had not been sure whether Lu Wuhen was using his full strength or still had hidden cards in reserve. Thinking of this, Lu Wuhen suddenly felt that the two of them were the same kind of person.

It was a maxim Lu Wuhen lived by. Never reveal your final trump card. Even when your opponent seems to have exhausted every means at their disposal, never reveal all of your own.

Boom boom boom!

In an instant, Li Guanqi deflected one bolt with his sword, then spread his arms wide and took the remaining two head-on. The lightning slammed into him, sending him crashing into the ruined stage like a cannonball.

Boom! Crack!

His momentum did not stop there. He crashed straight through the platform, and the lightning tore the barrier open from top to bottom. Every spectator leaped to their feet.

Nangong Xuandu’s eyes narrowed. He glanced up at the tribulation cloud, weighing whether to intervene and shatter it. Doing so would sever Li Guanqi’s path to immortality, but at least it would keep him alive.

Peng Luo, barely conscious, forced his eyes open to look at Li Guanqi. His body could no longer regenerate. His lower half was gone, juices still seeping from the wound. Normally, he would have scooped up those juices and shoved them back into his mouth, but right now, even opening his eyes took everything he had.

Roar!

The weakened Nine Heavens transformed into its true form once more, charging straight for the tribulation lightning with Peng Luo on its back.

“You idiot… you… Are you trying to kill me… Brother…” Peng Luo muttered weakly.

Nine Heavens’ thinking was simple. It would carry Peng Luo straight to Li Guanqi.

“My life is a life too, you know… Brother… Brother Nine…”

Boom boom boom!

The tribulation clouds rolling overhead seemed furious that Nine Heavens had dared to barge into the Heavenly Tribulation’s range. A torrent of more than a hundred blood-red lightning bolts came crashing down.

Nine Heavens shrank to barely a zhang long and darted through the air like a startled swan, weaving wildly through the rain of lightning. But there were simply too many lightning bolts. One after another, they struck Nine Heavens. Its violet scales burst apart as blood and flesh sprayed in every direction.

Nine Heavens’ eyes turned bloodshot. With a lash of its tail, it charged toward Li Guanqi once more. Though drenched in blood from head to tail, its gaze never wavered from the trembling Li Guanqi.

On its back, Peng Luo watched the dark-gold blood spray past, his eyes lighting up with greed. He opened his mouth and inhaled, sucking it all in. His body began to recover rapidly. “Suck! Keep sucking! Not in ten thousand years… will I ever… get a chance like this! This is great! Brother Nine… it’s going to waste anyway… so let me have it...”

Nangong Xuandu made no move to stop them, and this time, the Lu clan raised no objection either. None of them wanted to die, and they all knew what Nangong Xuandu would say: “Go ahead and enter, if you think you can.”

Lu Wuhen could only watch as Nine Heavens charged over with Peng Luo on its back. He dared not attack Li Guanqi now. The moment he struck, the surge in his aura would cause Li Guanqi’s Heavenly Tribulation to treat him as a challenger as well, and facing two tribulations at once was a death sentence.

Li Guanqi’s condition was dire. The three lightning bolts had nearly shredded his divine soul, and his body was a ruin of blood and torn flesh.

Nine Heavens reached Li Guanqi’s side and propped him up. Peng Luo perched on Li Guanqi’s neck and squeezed himself for juice. While he squeezed, he stretched out his tongue to lap at the blood seeping from Nine Heavens. Nine Heavens was so disgusted that it simply gave him all the blood pouring from its wounds.

Li Guanqi trembled unconsciously, and Sword Spirit’s voice reached his ears. “At this rate, your breakthrough to the Combined Body Realm will be very dangerous. Is it worth it?”

Li Guanqi knew what she was asking. His consciousness was fading, yet he firmly answered, “Yes it is.”

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