Spirit Ruin, Sword Coffin, Blind Swordsman

Li Guanqi clenched his right fist and drove it directly at Lu Wuhen.

Lu Wuhen blocked with his forearm, sent the Red Lotus spinning with his right hand, and formed a seal with his left. “Spell number seventy-six, Three-Elephant Golden Mausoleum Gate!”

In the same motion, after deflecting the Red Lotus Sword, he pivoted his wrist and unleashed a rising slash at Li Guanqi. “Ascension Sword, Myriad-Breaking Slash!”

With this strike, Lu Wuhen unleashed the full power of Sword Spirit’s fragment. The companion sword groaned, and a faint crack ran through it. How could an ordinary sword ever bear the strain of wielding Sword Spirit’s power, even if it was just a fragment of it?

A stone gate a hundred zhang tall rose before Li Guanqi. Its surface was covered in intricate patterns, and three enormous turtle-shelled beasts were coiled atop it. The instant he sensed the aura beyond the gate, terror gripped his heart. The power revealed itself for only a moment, yet that brief glimpse alone left him shaken.

“Move! You cannot withstand this attack!” Sword Spirit hurriedly said.

But just then, the Red Lotus Sword loosed a ringing, soaring cry, and its savage sword intent shot straight to the heavens. It was Li Guanqi’s sword. How could it show cowardice before an enemy?

The moment Li Guanqi felt the Red Lotus Sword’s intent, he stopped thinking about the Yanluo Sword, which had been knocked aside. His knuckles whitened on the Red Lotus Sword’s hilt. He exhaled slowly, and when his eyes opened, he thrust out in rapid succession. “Destruction! Blade Breaker! Illusory Form!”

The first slash, Sword of No Restraint. This was the sword Li Guanqi had comprehended after he annihilated the Liu clan of the ancient clans, when no worldly gaze could weigh on his heart any longer.

The second slash, Blood Shura. Terrifying sword light followed close behind the first, the thunderous light suffused with a bloody glow, as though a phantom of corpse-mountains and blood-seas had taken shape within it. This was the sword of bloodlust he had comprehended after destroying clan after clan. The third slash, Sword-Unsheathing World Annihilation. He sheathed the blade within the lightning sheath, wrapping inside it the tribulation’s blood-colored lightning that he had not yet fully refined, and brought the full weight of world-ending power crashing down in a single strike.

The stone gate shattered. The first two sword lights broke one after another, and by the third, Lu Wuhen was drenched in blood. That sword tip was peerless, as if it could sever anything in the world.

Clang!

Crack!

Two sharp, explosive sounds rang out, and Lu Wuhen was cleaved in two at the waist.

The Ascension Sword pierced Li Guanqi’s chest and shattered inside him, its fragments erupting from the wound. If he hadn’t reacted in time, his dantian would almost certainly have been destroyed.

But what truly broke his heart was something else. Lu Wuhen’s sword tip had struck the center of the Red Lotus Sword. In a crimson flash, the Red Lotus Sword had snapped apart.

Li Guanqi grabbed Lu Wuhen by the hair and lifted the upper half of his body. Lu Wuhen’s entrails hung from the severed torso. What remained of his lower body fell away and was shredded by the lightning sword qi.

Lu Hengtian’s face twisted, ugly with rage, yet he still would not concede.

Li Guanqi’s eyes glistened as he put away the Red Lotus Sword and sealed off Lu Wuhen’s vital force with a single palm to the dantian. Then, his face contorting with fury, he crushed Lu Wuhen’s jaw and wrenched out his tongue.

”Mmph!”

Li Guanqi plunged his hands into Lu Wuhen’s skull and lifted his head until they were eye-to-eye. “Do you think you’re that strong? Strong enough that I can’t kill you?”

Fear flooded Lu Wuhen’s eyes. He tried to transmit his concession but could not. He shook his head desperately. He had never imagined that Li Guanqi, fresh off his breakthrough to the Combined Body Realm, would be so terrifyingly strong. Facing him now felt like facing one of the old monsters of the Combined Body Realm. Facing Li Guanqi, he was utterly helpless.

Li Guanqi had never once meant to spend his final sword strikes before reaching the Combined Body Realm.

Lu Wuhen’s eyes widened, trembling uncontrollably, as though they had lost all focus.

For this battle, Nine Heavens and Peng Luo had come to Li Guanqi’s aid knowing they might die, and Cao Yan, Xiao Chen, Zhou Shiyu, and Ye Feng had each shouldered their own share of the burden.

Li Guanqi had endured all of it for one reason alone: a single, certain-kill strike once he broke through to the Combined Body Realm. Otherwise, a man like Lu Wuhen would never have revealed the full extent of his sword spirit void.

The Red Lotus Sword had fought at his side for more than ten years through countless battles, and until now, it had only ever been damaged.

Li Guanqi had been willing to pay an enormous price to preserve it: three ownerless sword spirits and the Lock Moon Sword. Yet now, the Red Lotus Sword was broken.

Blood trickled down all ten of Li Guanqi’s fingers. Lu Wuhen was truly frightened now. He had considered the possibility of losing, but not of ending up with no chance to even surrender. He strained his eyes to find Lu Hengtian, but Lu Hengtian’s expression had darkened to its lowest point.

The Lu clan had lost. Their foundation, meticulously built over ten thousand years, would be passed into the hands of the Daxia Sword Sect today.

Should he resist? Refuse to honor the wager? Setting aside whether Nangong Xuandu would allow it, the Zhu clan and the other ancient clans certainly wouldn’t. Their own interests were tied to the outcome. The Lu clan’s loss didn’t mean they couldn’t still come out on top.

Li Guanqi turned toward the Lu clan, drawing close to Lu Wuhen’s ear. His voice came as a murmur, like a devil’s whisper. “You see? You’re nothing but a chess piece too, and a discarded one at that. So what if you used my hands to kill Lu Xingyuan and Lu Xiuzhong? Once you’re dead, the entire Lu clan will pin the blame on you. All of this was lost because of you. You’ll pay the price for your arrogance. If you’d taken the field yourself in Ye Feng’s match, everything would have turned out differently.”

Lu Wuhen stared at Li Guanqi and felt, all at once, that he was terrifying in a way that went far beyond strength. Lu Wuhen had believed he was in control of everything, never knowing that Li Guanqi had seen through him long ago and had endured in silence all this time.

Li Guanqi didn’t want to say anything further. The moment he recalled Cao Yan, Xiao Chen, and the others fighting drenched in blood, his rage boiled over.

Whoosh!

Facing Lu Wuhen’s near-pleading, fear-filled gaze, Li Guanqi severed his head.

But Li Guanqi then did something that no one had expected.

He turned his hand and put away Lu Wuhen’s remains, storing them in the sword coffin’s space.

Sword Spirit’s expression turned grave as she shrouded the body in a cocoon of blood-colored light.

Nangong Xuandu looked over the wound-covered Li Guanqi and smiled faintly, then announced in a calm voice, “Li Guanqi of Daxia Sword Sect wins the fifth match. The wager is now in effect. All resources belonging to the Lu clan are hereby transferred to the Daxia Sword Sect. From this moment on, the Lu clan’s territory will be sealed. No one may remove any clan property. Any violator will have their entire clan exterminated.”

Boom!

An uproar erupted all around. The cultivators of the Six Territories raised their fists in the air and shouted.

“We won! We won! The Six Territories won!”

“Hahahahaha, what a relief! We won!”

“Yanluo Sword Sovereign!”

“Yanluo Sword Sovereign!”

Lu Kangnian’s eyes brimmed with tears. He watched the radiant Li Guanqi and felt nothing but pride swell within him. Every member of Daxia Sword Sect broke into joyful embraces and shouts of celebration. They had accomplished something none of them had dared dream of.

Lu Hengtian’s face darkened. He let out a cold grunt and spoke with an extremely grim expression. “The Lu clan… accepts its defeat.”

With that, he turned and led every Lu clan cultivator away. Nangong Xuandu had already sealed the Lu clan’s territory realm.

Li Guanqi exchanged no words with anyone. In an instant, he vanished from where he stood, leaving the ancient clan cultivators lost in thought and the Six Territories cultivators still roaring in wild celebration.

This battle had also drawn back the curtain on the conflict between the Six Territories’ sects and the ancient clans. And Li Guanqi had become the youngest cultivator in the entire history of Daxia Sword Sect to reach the Combined Body Realm.

The whole sect erupted in celebration.