Spirit Ruin, Sword Coffin, Blind Swordsman

The androgynous man flicked open his folding fan, which was purple-black and reeking of blood. He himself carried an oppressive scent of makeup, even stronger than that of a young woman.

The stooped matriarch leaning on her staff frowned. What kind of man wore more rouge than a young woman?

The man seemed to sense her gaze. He tilted his head, an inscrutable smile on his lips. “I know what you’re thinking. I suggest you keep it to yourself. Our alliance is only temporary. Don’t assume I wouldn’t dare kill you.”

The elderly man beside her stood with his hands clasped behind his back and laughed coldly. “Yu Chang’an, you’re every bit as cold-blooded as the rumors say. Your clanspeople were massacred, and you haven’t so much as blinked.”

Yu Chang’an, who carried himself with a swaying poise, snapped the fan shut, laughing a laugh that was slightly too sharp. He rocked back and forth, eyes glimmering with faint tears of mockery.

Yu Chang’an swayed as he snapped his fan shut and let out a shrill laugh. His shoulders shook as he rocked back and forth, tears of mockery glimmering in his eyes. “Clanspeople? What do their deaths have to do with me? The only thing that bothers me is that they exposed the clan’s secrets and cut off one of my paths...”

He provocatively trailed his slender fingers across Lu Hengtian’s chest. “After thousands of years, we all live for ourselves. How are the two of you any different from me? We’re all demons at heart. Why put on a human act in front of me?”

Yu Chang’an lifted the hem of his robe and lowered his head with a cold chuckle. “We’re all cut from the same cloth. Your precious grandson died before your eyes, but losing your domain pained you far more. Enough. It’s time to move. I’ll handle two on my own. The rest are yours. Make it quick.”

With a single step, Yu Chang’an appeared above a volcano blazing with blue-green flames. He frowned and lightly stamped his foot.

Rumble!Under the crushing spatial pressure, the volcano, over eight hundred zhang across, collapsed in on itself.

The blue-green flames dimmed and nearly went out as house-sized boulders cascaded into the mouth of the volcano.

Boom! Bang!

A muffled crash rumbled from deep within the volcano, followed by an old man’s enraged roar. “Damn it! Who dares interrupt this old man’s pill refinement? I’ll make you pay!”

Boom!

The elder, completely covered in black soot, shot into the air.

His towering, muscular frame looked nothing like an alchemist’s. He was built as powerfully as any physique cultivator and stood over eight chi tall, with a thick snow-white beard covering most of his face.

His Daoist robe was tied around his waist, leaving his powerful torso bare.

When Yu Chang’an made out the elder’s features, he paused briefly. “Gu Lie?”

The old man’s face was blackened with soot, and smoke still curled from his hair. He squinted at Yu Chang’an for a moment before recognition dawned and a sneer spread across his face. “So it’s you, you fake woman. After all these years, you’ve managed to make yourself look quite a bit younger, but you still can’t hide that stench of yours. I’ve been meaning to ask you this for a long time. Is that fox musk I smell on you? Or did they cut off what was between your legs, and now you’ve got nothing left to shake after you piss? Hahaha!”

Gu Lie stood with his hands on his hips, laughing with wild arrogance, seemingly oblivious to Yu Chang’an’s ice-cold expression.

Yu Chang’an’s killing intent grew so dense it was almost tangible. He tightened his grip on the folded fan and fixed Gu Lie with a frigid stare.

“In all these years, you’re the first person who has dared say such things to my face! Today, I’ll—“

Gu Lie impatiently waved him away. His fist, clenched at his side, was almost as large as a man’s head.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

He cracked his knuckles one by one and sneered. “The first? What, have you always known how irritating you are? Is that why you spent all these years hiding away, never showing your face or speaking to anyone? No wonder it took this long for someone to tell you. Then again, if you’d ever gone out and met people, someone would’ve said it years ago.”

The storage ring on Gu Lie’s finger flashed, and a pair of vicious-looking dark-gold brass knuckles appeared on his hands. Each was covered in spikes as long as a thumb.

Gu Lie rolled his neck. “My talent for alchemy may be mediocre, but I know a thing or two about using my fists.”

Yu Chang’an’s mouth twitched. Using your fists? You’re a lunatic who spent thousands of years cultivating your physique, only to turn around and become an alchemist.

Gu Lie sneered. “That was my first-ever batch of tier-eight pills, and you ruined it!”

Before the last word had even left his mouth, the void beneath his feet bowed inward in a terrifying arc. A deafening crack followed, and it shattered like glass. Several hundred zhang of space crumbled like porcelain.

Whoosh!

The wind around Gu Lie’s fists howled like vengeful souls, leaving a trail of spatial fractures in their wake.

Gu Lie’s hair and beard flared like an enraged lion’s mane, and his eyes burned with icy killing intent.

Only the heavens knew how difficult it had been for a brute like him to still his mind and precisely control his power while refining tier-eight pills. And his very first batch had been ruined just as it was about to succeed. The thought only fueled his rage. Flames erupted around his brass knuckles, forming a blazing lion’s head over each fist.

Gu Lie hurled a punch straight at Yu Chang’an.

Yu Chang’an swung his folded fan into Gu Lie’s fist.

Clang!

The impact rang like metal on metal, and Yu Chang’an’s arm went numb. Gu Lie’s fist barely shifted off course and continued toward his opponent’s lower abdomen.

Yu Chang’an twisted aside and retreated dozens of zhang. Gu Lie matched his explosive speed and stayed on him, raining down blow after blow.

Meanwhile, in the Gu clan’s dungeon, Tang Ru’s face had gone deathly pale. A black-robed man soon appeared beside him, his expression grim. “The Gu clan’s domain has been shrouded in a barrier. Two crimson cloud boats have arrived. There are three Mahayana Realm cultivators, eight at the Combined Body Realm, and more than twenty at the Illusory Refinement Realm.”

He continued, “One of the men has an androgynous air. I’ve never seen him before, and he’s already fighting a Mahayana Realm alchemist.”

Tang Ru’s eyes narrowed as he studied the projections Gu Chuan had transmitted. “That’s Lu Hengtian and Zhu Ying! So it really was them. But who is that other man? Why come to the Gu clan now?”

His mind raced. A moment later, their objective dawned on him.

He swallowed hard and clenched his jaw, his face ashen.

Gu Chuan and his men had arrested every Gu clan member who had leaked Li Guanqi’s whereabouts. More than ten of them had betrayed the clan.

However, the culprits’ memories had all been wiped clean, leaving no way to identify whoever had received the information. This could mean only one thing: the enemy had already made their move.

But they clearly knew that Li Guanqi, Gu Changsheng, and the others were away. Why choose this moment to attack the Gu clan?

“Ye Feng and the others!”

Tang Ru immediately thought of Ye Feng, Cao Yan, and Xiao Chen. All three were still in the middle of breaking through.

If the enemy captured them, they could use the three of them as leverage against Li Guanqi. And knowing Li Guanqi’s temperament, Tang Ru was certain he would walk straight into the trap even if he knew exactly what awaited him.