Spirit Ruin, Sword Coffin, Blind Swordsman

Buzz!

Silver light flickered, and two figures stepped out of the void.

Peng Luo clapped his hands and laughed. “This place was ridiculously hard to find. Just how lucky must Xuan Lin have been to stumble across it back then...?”

Li Guanqi said nothing. His divine consciousness slowly spread outward. What should have been a pitch-black expanse of nothingness was now filled with dazzling streams of multicolored light. According to the spatial coordinates Xuan Lin had given him, this should be the place.

Meng Wanshu narrowed her eyes, her entire body tense as though she were facing a powerful enemy. She drew the Snow Phantom Sword, put on her soft armor, and said solemnly, “The spatial storms here are quite strong. We should be careful.”

Li Guanqi nodded silently. His qi and blood circulated of their own accord, and he used a spell to form a layer of Lightning Armor over his body.

He looked around and frowned. Chaotic storms raged across the thousand li, extending as far as the eye could see.

Multicolored streams of light flashed endlessly, creating a magnificent spectacle. Despite their beauty, the storms were horrifyingly destructive. They could severely injure or even kill a tier-seven physique cultivator.

Peng Luo curled up on Li Guanqi’s shoulder, clutching Nine Heavens by the head and tail and wrapping him more tightly around Li Guanqi’s neck.

Nine Heavens opened its eyes and glared at Peng Luo in displeasure.Peng Luo gave him an ingratiating smile. “Hehe. I feel safer when you’re wrapped around me tightly.”

Nine Heavens ignored him. He surveyed the surroundings warily, then leaped down and coiled around Li Guanqi’s wrist before closing his eyes once more.

Li Guanqi extended his divine consciousness, but the moment he did, the chaos storms within dozens of li began to run wild.

Startled, he hurriedly withdrew his divine consciousness.

Seeing this, Meng Wanshu said, “Why don’t you see whether the jade seal Xuan Lin gave you reacts to this place?”

Li Guanqi nodded and took out the seal. He poured a small amount of vital force into it, and the fiery-red Qilin jade seal released wave after wave of unfathomable pressure.

The seal rose into the air as layers of fiery-red light spread in every direction, sending the void storms within a thousand li into a frenzy.

The surrounding space shook violently, and everyone’s hearts clenched.

Peng Luo gripped Li Guanqi’s hair tightly, trembling slightly. The pressure was overwhelming, and he felt that the chaos storms could obliterate even a Mahayana Realm cultivator.

Li Guanqi stood rigidly in place and immediately pulled Meng Wanshu behind him to shield her.

As the waves of light continued spreading, the chaotic energy within a thousand li surged toward the jade seal as though it had gone berserk. In the blink of an eye, the storms towered more than a thousand zhang into the sky.

The void around the storms shattered, collapsed, and disintegrated. Even Li Guanqi and Meng Wanshu trembled at the sight. If either of them were swept into the storms, they would instantly be erased from existence.

Gradually, a tiny flame appeared at the center of the void. The next instant, the Qilin jade seal exploded. The shattered seal transformed into streams of profound energy that merged with the flame in the void.

Rumble!

A deafening roar erupted. Li Guanqi instinctively covered his ears.

A fiery-red stone gate, a hundred zhang tall, suddenly appeared ten zhang in front of them. The moment the gate emerged, Li Guanqi and Meng Wanshu involuntarily retreated several steps before looking it over carefully.

A lifelike Qilin carving stood on either side of the gate, each a hundred zhang tall. Their bodies were blazing with flames, and every scale of the carvings was clearly defined.

Qilins had the heads of dragons, crowned with curved antlers like a deer’s. Their powerful, tiger-like bodies were covered in fiery-red scales, and their legs ended in hooves. Flames burned beneath their hooves, while their wide, furious eyes gave them a majestic and imposing air.

The two fiery-red Qilins stared fixedly at the space before the gate. Their golden eyes were unfathomably deep.

According to legend, Qilins were symbols of auspicious fortune. Under their gaze, all distracting thoughts seemed to vanish from Li Guanqi’s mind, leaving his heart as still as calm water.

Meng Wanshu was also startled by the Qilin carvings. Her delicate brows furrowed slightly.

Something in Meng Wanshu’s expression caught Li Guanqi’s attention. “What is it?”

Meng Wanshu stared at the Qilins above the stone gate and replied, “I’m not sure. There’s something about their flames that makes me uncomfortable.”

Her face had gone slightly pale. Li Guanqi’s voice softened. “Why don’t you wait here for me? There probably won’t be any trouble inside. Xuan Lin managed to obtain a Qilin soul, after all. I should be fine.”

Meng Wanshu frowned and looked at him with determination. “I’m going with you. That way, we can watch each other’s backs.”

Peng Luo tugged at Li Guanqi’s hair while gazing up at the majestic Qilin carvings, clicking his tongue in admiration.

Li Guanqi said nothing more. He drew the Red Lotus Sword and led Meng Wanshu toward the gate.

Light flashed through the eyes of the Qilin carvings, and the massive gate slowly opened on its own, revealing a distorted curtain of light. This curtain appeared to lead to another unknown, independent realm.

Buzz!

The light curtain rippled slightly. As Li Guanqi stepped through, a single strand of beast fur fell from his body and remained outside the gateway.

Buzz!

A mysterious spatial fluctuation rippled through the void. Six figures sped through the nothingness, and a burly, bearded man among them suddenly tensed.

He took out a cracked beast-bone jade slip and said coldly, “That man’s spatial fluctuations have disappeared.”

As soon as he finished speaking, the white-haired elder leading the group snorted. “The other party probably hasn’t noticed us. Hurry over and investigate. He may have entered an independent realm. No matter what happens, this is our only chance!”

His voice iced over, thick with killing intent. Pan Yi had been his most beloved grandson. Of all the descendants of his generation, Pan Yi had been his favorite. He had never expected the young man to lose his life during a minor immortal-welcoming ceremony.

The Pan clan also investigated Li Guanqi’s identity. When they read the information they had gathered about him, they stood frozen in shock for a long time. However, after discussing the matter behind closed doors, they still decided to take revenge.

But...

Revenge was little more than a righteous excuse. What truly captured their interest was Li Guanqi’s sword—a divine sword capable of slaying an immortal’s projection.

A projection summoned through an immortal’s blessing possessed only the strength of a late Combined Body Realm cultivator, but it was supposed to be indestructible. Why, then, did Li Guanqi’s group dare interfere? Regardless of how advanced their cultivation was, they shouldn’t have been able to destroy the projection—unless they had a weapon imbued with divinity. Such a weapon could not only slay an immortal’s projection but also absorb the immortal’s power.

And that was not all. Li Guanqi also had a true dragon and a tier-seven supernatural being by his side. If the Pan clan could seize all three, they could withdraw from the world and use the true dragon’s blood essence and the supernatural being’s power to cultivate an entire cohort of powerful experts.

The same covetous look appeared on all their faces.

As for the elder’s claim that he wanted to avenge his grandson? Everyone understood the truth. Sometimes, having a righteous pretext was essential.