Spirit Ruin, Sword Coffin, Blind Swordsman

Li Guanqi cursed under his breath at the sight.

How many more clones does Ji Yuchuan have that I don’t know about? No wonder he could also use the Divine Piercer’s Soul Dissolution during the battle at the Heavenly Intelligence Pavilion. At their core, their divine souls are the same person!

There was no time to think any further. Li Guanqi threw himself backward, leaving the range of the old man’s array.

Xi Yunhuai wielded his brush alone, inscribing arrays at an astonishing speed. In the blink of an eye, he had formed an entire grand array to counter it.

Li Guanqi raised his sword and slashed at the pitch-black array. “Heavenly Destruction Technique, Crouching Demon Slash!”

Boom!

His sword moved with him, and he streaked forward like sword light itself. The strike carried enormous power, tearing a gap clean through the whole grand array.

Gu Li shot out from inside. He shoved Li Guanqi aside with both hands and twisted around to shout at Xi Yunhuai, still bent over his inscriptions.

“Run!”

The words had barely left his mouth when the old man seemed to sense something. He put away the Divine Piercer and turned to flee. Spirit light flashed beneath his feet, and in two steps he had formed an array that brought him ten thousand zhang away in a blink.A hand appeared behind Li Guanqi and dragged both him and Gu Li into the Void Interlayer.

The three of them had only just left when the Wang-tier assassin’s face changed. “…It’s over.”

Boom!

A terrifying explosion of firelight turned nearly a hundred li of the void into a blazing crimson sea. The shockwave spread out for over one hundred and fifty li.

Within the flames, chaotic and violent vital force raged, forming a storm that shot thousands of zhang into the void.

Peng Luo’s back was roasted black. He hauled himself out of the void and took one look at the explosion in the distance. His face darkened. “Just how many explosive talismans did you throw in there, you maniac?”

Gu Li shrugged and crushed an empty storage bracelet. “There was nothing else to do in there anyway, so I just kept chucking them… I was past ninety thousand by the time you pulled me out.”

The corners of Li Guanqi’s and Peng Luo’s mouths twitched. Ninety thousand…

Not a splinter of bone remained of the Wang-tier assassin. The violent blast had annihilated his divine soul outright, and dozens of red-robed assassins with him.

Li Guanqi’s eyes flickered. “How did you manage that?”

Gu Li raised a hand, and countless talismans floated behind him. Li Guanqi plucked one out at random and found that Gu Li never used his talismans one at a time. Each was pasted to the back of another, and that one to another, three layers deep at the very least.

Gu Li rubbed his nose and chuckled. “As long as one talisman sticks to them, that’s when my performance begins. Those forty-odd just now? I quietly planted fixed-point transporter talismans on every one of them.”

Li Guanqi nodded and surveyed their surroundings with a chilling gaze. The tide had turned completely. Slaughtering the rest of these assassins was only a matter of time. With the Wang-tier assassins dead, the others posed no real threat.

Li Guanqi narrowed his eyes at Ye Feng, whose battle intent surged and churned, and sent Gu Li a quiet, grave voice transmission. “Have you picked up any unusual aura? Something about Ye Feng right now feels… off.”

Gu Li shook his head, brow furrowed. “Nothing. Cao Yan mentioned something along those lines earlier, but I haven’t detected anything strange. My divine consciousness is far stronger than his, and I’ve watched Ye Feng closely for a good while now. There’s nothing there.”

Li Guanqi’s eyes narrowed further. He had no idea how the battle inside was going, though he doubted anything would go wrong. He pondered for a moment, then spoke. “Finish this battle. Quickly.”

Then he leaned in and murmured the rest into Gu Li’s ear.

Gu Li’s brow knotted, and he stared at Li Guanqi in disbelief. “You seriously want to do this?”

Cold light flickered in Li Guanqi’s narrowed eyes. “This is a hidden danger. I won’t rest easy until we deal with it. Do exactly as I said.”

Gu Li drew a deep breath and stopped hesitating. He waved a hand, and three more ancient storage rings appeared in his hands, shimmering with flowing light.

He met Li Guanqi’s gaze and shrugged. “This is just how I am. I can’t possibly use everything up.”

Without further words, Li Guanqi stood by Gu Li.

Cao Yan and Xiao Chen turned grave at once, and they exchanged almost imperceptible nods. Ye Feng’s eyes had gone completely red. Even his left eye had changed without his noticing.

The bloodstains on the Wrathful Slaughter Sword in his hand burned brighter and brighter, and Ye Feng himself looked deranged. He seized a red-robed assassin and hacked him to death relentlessly, and though he was gravely wounded himself, he did not even seem to notice it.

His Ghost Arm had swollen to more than twice its usual size. Beside it, his left arm looked like a withered hemp stalk. Yet that only made him more terrifying.

Even facing a Wang-tier assassin, Ye Feng showed not the slightest fear. He was even beginning to gain the upper hand.

Li Guanqi rushed forward at high speed. When he was within a hundred zhang of Ye Feng, he suddenly roared out loud. “Now!”

Buzz!

A low, thunderous hum echoed out.

The four heavenly fires transformed into blazing chains and descended from the sky. More than a hundred pierced the badly wounded Wang-tier assassin in an instant, then broke apart and surged toward Ye Feng.

Crimson light flashed in Ye Feng’s eyes. Demonic qi surged beneath his feet as he shot backward more than a thousand zhang, narrowly evading the binding chains.

The chains reversed direction and raced after him, with Cao Yan and the others close behind. Meng Wanshu raised a hand and threw up several ice walls in Ye Feng’s path to block his way.

Thick saliva dripped from the corner of Ye Feng’s mouth as he loosed a low, animal snarl. His eyes were cold and utterly devoid of their usual clarity. It was exactly what Cao Yan had feared.

Gu Li pinched talismans between the fingers of both hands and said coldly, “Spatial Transposition!”

Whoosh!

An invisible talisman suddenly ignited on Ye Feng’s back. His body warped, an instant from trading places with Gu Li.

But at that very moment, a phantom mouth suddenly opened on Ye Feng’s right arm and swallowed the talisman whole. Gu Li was forcibly thrown out of the spatial fluctuation.

At the same time, Ye Feng spun around and unleashed several rapid slashes. Golden sword qi mingled with strange demonic qi, tearing through Meng Wanshu’s ice barriers.

Cao Yan forced his way through the storm of vital force, teleported to Ye Feng’s right, and drove out a fist. “Fist Crush!”

Boom!

An enormous fist projection of vital force slammed forward, only for a streak of golden sword qi to tear it apart in an instant. A gentle heat washed over Cao Yan’s chest, preceding a spray of blood. That strange demonic qi was corroding his flesh.

Cao Yan’s expression changed. He quickly backed away, a hint of anxiety in his gaze. He tore away the rotting flesh at his chest and shouted urgently, “Be careful of Second Brother’s sword qi!”

Xiao Chen gripped the Divine Slaying Spear. With the spear in its Heaven-Opening form, he looked like a god of war, and his spear struck out like a dragon. “Second Brother Ye, wake up!”

Even while speaking, Xiao Chen did not dare hold back in the slightest. He thrust the spear forward with all his might.

Bang!

The void split open. Blood-red spear light, infused with the power of the Brilliant Sunset Flame, slammed forward.

A terrifying sword light flashed out and shattered the spear light. Then a massive hand slammed onto the spearhead. The spear pierced clean through its palm, yet the hand still clamped down on the weapon. No matter how hard Xiao Chen pulled, he could not wrench it free.

At the same time, a vast surge of flame welled up in the dantian of each of them, hungry to swallow them from within. Yin Hellfire.

Ye Feng’s face, familiar and unfamiliar at once, thrust suddenly out of the explosion’s smoke and dust and pushed in close to Xiao Chen’s.

Ye Feng’s crimson eyes stared into his, and Xiao Chen’s heart lurched. There was no time to think. He watched the Ghost Arm come cleaving down at his head with the force of a fully drawn bow, and he teleported.

Splat!

An arm flew high into the air. Xiao Chen clutched his shoulder, disbelief filling his eyes.

“Second Brother…”

The Wrathful Slaughter Sword came down on Xiao Chen’s head.

At the last possible instant, a streak of red light flashed past.

Clang!

Li Guanqi knocked the blade aside and sent Ye Feng flying backward. Li Guanqi’s face was dark as still water.