Spirit Ruin, Sword Coffin, Blind Swordsman

The lightning overhead was nearly dense enough to form a solid column. Each bolt was ten zhang across, and the two figures hovering beneath them looked utterly insignificant in comparison.

Li Guanqi ran his tongue over his cracked lips. With both swords in hand, he pushed his aura to its peak.

Crash!

The void erupted, and he shot straight toward the clouds.

Lu Wuhen took a different approach. He held his ground in midair, both swords gripped tight, pushing his entire being to its peak. Facing those massive lightning columns, he unleashed a sword strike so terrifying it made even Li Guanqi’s chest tighten.

Li Guanqi’s expression didn’t change. He slowly raised his blades to the heavens, his savage vital force erupting outward. His bearing uncannily mirrored the moment Sword Spirit had possessed him to open the territory barrier.

“Heaven-Opening Tier, World Annihilation!”

Boom!

Two sword beams shot up from the earth and split the enormous column of lightning straight down the middle. Stray bolts lashed across Li Guanqi’s flesh again and again.

His face contorted as his eyes turned bloodshot, and he roared furiously. The sword light carried on without losing momentum, cleaving the vast tribulation cloud overhead in two. The heavy, blood-red layer parted before it.

The scattered lightning bolts ripped through Li Guanqi’s flesh, but he forcefully trapped all of them within his body and refined them. A dense, powerful aura of heaven and earth bloomed around his blood-drenched figure, and for a moment, his expression went blank.

Nangong Xuandu’s eyes narrowed. A faint smile touched his lips, and he murmured, “What a magnificent gift from heaven and earth.”

Lu Wuhen too, scorched black from head to toe, was wrapped in the same celestial light. A thousand zhang apart, both men broke through at the same instant and reached the early Combined Body Realm.

Hum!

Savage energy erupted from Li Guanqi and Lu Wuhen at once. Two pillars of light, one golden, one violet, shot straight into the heavens. In that same moment, Li Guanqi touched the threshold of the Sword Soul Realm for the first time.

He reached that threshold for three reasons. The first was that his mastery of the Sword Heart Realm had long since become second nature. The second was Sword Spirit’s guidance. The third, and most important, was that he had slipped into enlightenment at the very moment heaven and earth bestowed their gift.

A dense web of blood-red patterns surfaced across Li Guanqi’s back and shoulders. As he broke through to the Combined Body Realm, one of the markings vanished, leaving only two patterns from the seal that Su Xuan had laid upon him.

Li Guanqi’s eyes snapped open. Two arcs of lightning flashed through his eyes, and his aura erupted.

Across from him, Lu Wuhen’s wounds were healing just as quickly. His eyes were closed, as though he were savoring the sensation. The light at his sword tip grew brighter, and the sword intent within him surged and churned, yet it never broke through that final shackle.

Li Guanqi felt the vast power within him and the vibrant surge of life force, and could not help but have a moment of quiet reflection. He was only thirty-one, and already he held a lifespan spanning tens of thousands of years.

Only he knew that his divine soul was incomplete, like a flawless porcelain vessel with a chip no larger than a mung bean. Tiny as it was, the flaw remained. But it wouldn’t affect his strength in the slightest.

Watching Lu Wuhen clench a fist and gauge his own power, Li Guanqi took a single step.

That one step bridged a thousand zhang. Space didn’t ripple in the slightest. He simply appeared before Lu Wuhen without a sound and swung his sword.

He casually swung his sword, and the power of raging lightning surged outward in an instant.

His vital force moved exactly as he intended, without the slightest resistance.

Li Guanqi’s meridians had been tempered by heavenly lightning and were now thicker and more resilient. This single sword strike was more powerful than anything he had unleashed before.

As the blow landed, Lu Wuhen’s confidence instantly vanished.

Boom boom boom!

He raised his sword and tore through the sword light by force, yet he still shot backward like a cannonball.

Crash! Boom!

Lu Wuhen smashed through an entire mountain peak and came to rest in the rubble of the crater, blood seeping from the corner of his mouth, his organs displaced. He stared at Li Guanqi in disbelief, then looked down at the bone-deep wound across his chest.

“Impossible... How is he this strong?!”

A cold smile lingered at the corner of Li Guanqi’s mouth. At the moment of his breakthrough, heaven and earth had bestowed a gift upon him. He had passed most of it on to Sword Spirit.

Sword Spirit’s strength had surged in an instant, and even the projections within his sword spirit void had grown markedly clearer, so much so that the Red Lotus Sword itself trembled, struggling to bear the weight of the sword spirit void’s power.

Li Guanqi felt as though the power within him was inexhaustible. Without hesitation, he switched his cultivation technique to the ancient clans’ approach, a more savage and direct style.

Refusing to accept it, Lu Wuhen leaped from the crater. The sword in his hand blazed with blinding crimson, and he unleashed a torrent of sword beams that tore across the sky. The light ripped the heavens open, and countless fissures thousands of zhang long spread through space, closing in around Li Guanqi.

Li Guanqi gripped both swords. A terrifying blood-red phantom several zhang tall rose behind him. No one could make out its true form or even tell what it was, but the instant it appeared, his sword intent soared.

Nangong Xuandu’s eyes went wide, and he murmured, “That’s the embryonic form of Sword Soul Realm sword intent! His talent is outright monstrous!”

Lu Wuhen let out a cold laugh. “So you’ve reached the threshold of Sword Soul Realm sword intent? Then let me show you what it truly is!”

Boom!

The sword light swelled, and the wind rose with it. A fierce gale swept the battlefield, sending shattered debris swirling in every direction. A golden sword qi phantom took shape beside Lu Wuhen, and his already dense sword light turned even more savage.

Li Guanqi stood still in midair, gripping both swords. Tribulation lightning still ran amok in all directions. In the blink of an eye, it struck down every beam of sword light.

Lu Wuhen suddenly appeared before Li Guanqi, his face twisted with rage as he raised his sword and slashed down. The strike was abrupt, its speed pressed to the limit.

Li Guanqi had no time to think. He raised the Yanluo Sword horizontally to defend, and with his left hand, brought the Red Lotus Sword around in a reverse stab aimed at Lu Wuhen’s throat.

Li Guanqi had no time to think. He raised the Yanluo Sword crosswise to guard and brought the Red Lotus around in his left hand, reversing it into a stab at Lu Wuhen’s throat.

Clang! Whoosh!

Sparks scattered. In that instant, Li Guanqi caught the cold smile at the corner of Lu Wuhen’s mouth.

Clang!

The Yanluo Sword spun out of Li Guanqi’s hand, dislodged the instant the Ascension Sword’s tip met its blade.

Li Guanqi saw it clearly. The instant the sword tip touched the Yanluo Sword’s edge, the Yanluo Sword let out a cry of distress, and a chip the size of a soybean broke from the blade.

Li Guanqi moved his left hand even faster, but Lu Wuhen had anticipated it. He twisted aside, and the Red Lotus Sword only grazed his shoulder, shaving off a thin strip of flesh.