Spirit Ruin, Sword Coffin, Blind Swordsman

Chaos erupted across the battlefield. Blood sprayed through the air. Every scream and roar all but vanished beneath the clamor of the explosions.

After emerging from seclusion following his breakthrough, Li Guanqi used the Gu clan’s pill-tribulation lightning pool to raise his spirit comprehension directly to the third level, increasing his combat strength.

But that was not the most important change. The key was that with Li Guanqi awake, everyone could fight their own battles. No one had to make protecting him the priority any longer. Freed of that burden, they could all go all out without a backward glance.

The tide of battle reversed in moments. With Li Guanqi in the fight, they began to strike back at the Sha organization’s assassins together.

“Gu Li, fall back,” Li Guanqi said over voice transmission. “Use your seal talismans to pin down their movements. Create some suppression barriers.”

Gu Li grinned and raised a hand to pull a storage bracelet off his left arm. “You got it.”

“Death Prison Seals!” Gu Li shouted.

Boom!

Strange black talismans drifted out one after another, followed by hundreds upon thousands more scattering in every direction.

Each talisman granted cultivators one of several enhancements. As they drifted down over Li Guanqi’s people, their faces changed at once. Strength flooded back into their exhausted bodies, and their movements turned noticeably lighter.Some of the talismans also restricted the assassins’ movements. “Zhou Shiyu, join up with Cao Yan and the others. Three of you in an array against them. Don’t stand there toughing it out alone!”

Zhou Shiyu swung his massive sword and moved the instant he heard Li Guanqi. He reappeared behind Cao Yan and blasted the incoming assassin away with a single strike. Blood spattered his face.

Li Guanqi issued command after command, and bit by bit, the battlefield turned to their advantage.

As Li Guanqi and Meng Wanshu teamed up to kill a red-robed assassin, Cao Yan’s voice suddenly echoed in Li Guanqi’s ear.

“Boss, should we call Second Brother back? Something doesn’t feel right to me. The power in his Ghost Arm has gotten too strong… far too strong. It isn’t normal. It may even be running past his own cultivation level already.”

Li Guanqi slashed several times in succession. A severed wrist flew high into the air as his divine consciousness spread across the battlefield.

Cao Yan was right. Ye Feng’s right eye was completely red, and blood was beginning to seep into his left as well. The power in the Ghost Arm had already surpassed his own cultivation realm. Relying on that arm alone, he could fight his opponent to a standstill. And Ye Feng had only just broken through.

Cao Yan and Xiao Chen could barely hold their own in this fight, unable to really hurt the assassins. Even within the domain Meng Jiangchu had established, only Ye Feng could truly hold his own against the adversaries.

The heavenly fire domain had suppressed the assassins by only one minor realm, so the Wang-tier assassin from the Sha organization should’ve held a clear advantage over Ye Feng, a man who had only just entered the Combined Body Realm. And yet, the two of them were evenly matched.

Demonic qi surged wildly around Ye Feng. He looked like a savage Abyssal Demon, and even his frame seemed to have grown broader and more imposing.

With the Heaven-Opening Tier Wrathful Slaughter Sword in hand, every slash scattered a great deal of his opponent’s origin power.

Li Guanqi retreated and spoke solemnly through voice transmission. “Second Brother, keep the Ghost Arm’s power in check!”

Ye Feng whipped his head around, the blood threads in his eyes receding a little. “Understood. I know my limits.”

Boom!

Rumble!

Li Guanqi and Meng Wanshu exchanged a glance, then shot forward together. At the same time, ice flowers bloomed behind Meng Wanshu, and a wave of cold energy erupted outward.

Boom!

“Heaven-Opening Tier, Snow Phantom!”

The Snow Phantom Sword blazed with azure light, and wave after wave of frost surged in all directions.

Meng Wanshu’s wrist traced one profound arc after another, her left hand hidden in the sleeve of her gown as she murmured, “World Freeze!”

Buzz!

Boom!

A vast wave of cold energy suddenly surged across a hundred li. The whole void became a frost-white world.

“Gu Li, do it now!” Li Guanqi shouted.

A sharp glint flashed in Gu Li’s eyes. Spirit light surged between his hands as he formed a series of complex hand seals and let out a low shout. “Spirit Talisman, Great Relocation Technique!”

Buzz!

Every talisman that had been restricting the assassins’ movements suddenly split in two. The Death Prison Seals had only ever been a decoy. Two talismans had been pressed together, and only one of them was burning.

Dozens of talismans around them flashed with silver light, instantly transporting every Sha organization assassin to a point hundreds of zhang ahead of Li Guanqi.

Blood trickled from Meng Wanshu’s nose and the corner of her mouth. The Snow Phantom Sword left countless afterimages as she slashed more than a hundred times in a row.

“Snowfall Sword Technique, Dancing Snowfall!”

A chaotic flurry of sword light drifted down over the world like snowflakes. Though beautiful, each snowflake was deadly.

Heaven and earth churned violently. Meng Wanshu’s killing power far surpassed everyone’s expectations.

Even Gu Li stared wide-eyed as he muttered, “I thought she had to rely on external aids, like I do… Am I the only one left?”

As Gu Li spoke, Li Guanqi’s gaze turned cold as a blade. His left hand closed on the Red Lotus Sword’s hilt while his right condensed lightning into the most solid sword sheath he had ever formed.

Buzz!

Powerful, razor-sharp sword qi cut through the void, tearing it open with countless cracks, large and small, for a thousand zhang around.

The Sha organization’s frozen members were gripped by terror. Their realms had been suppressed to the mid Combined Body Realm, and the power Li Guanqi was gathering was already enough to terrify every one of them.

The Five Yang Ghost Flame swept up the other three great heavenly fires and suppressed nearly every Abyssal Demon, shattering them again and again. It was one of the reasons Li Guanqi’s group could still hold on.

As for the lower-tier red-robed cultivators, Ye Feng and the others were slaughtering with ease. The only ones Li Guanqi and the rest truly had to take seriously were the Wang-tier powerhouses.

Sword qi raged across the battlefield. Li Guanqi crouched low, his whole frame coiled like an arrow pulled taut and ready to fire.

The vital force of a good dozen Wang-tier powerhouses surged violently. Their frozen bodies were slowly breaking the seal open.

Pshhk!

Meng Wanshu’s sword qi erupted like a freezing storm sweeping across the battlefield. In an instant, the sword light engulfed several frozen figures and reduced them to bloody pulp.

Pfft!

Meng Wanshu coughed up another mouthful of blood. In midair, the blood mist turned into red ice crystals and fell.

Her face paled slightly, and she hurriedly said, “Hurry! I can’t hold on much longer!”

Killing intent flickered in Li Guanqi’s eyes. The void beneath his feet exploded with a thunderous boom.

To everyone around him, heaven and earth simply went dark, as though a single passing sword light had stolen every last trace of light from the world.