Spirit Ruin, Sword Coffin, Blind Swordsman

Several hundred zhang before the waterfall, countless fiery-red flames suddenly appeared between heaven and earth. The flames and streams of spirit light rapidly gathered before Li Guanqi, taking the form of an enormous Qilin a hundred zhang long.

The Qilin’s illusory figure glared furiously at him. Li Guanqi stopped short, and with a wave of his hand, Lightning Armor formed over his body as his qi and blood thundered. He settled into a defensive stance.

Roar!

A terrifying roar erupted, its pressure comparable to that of a late Mahayana Realm cultivator. Towering waves of fire rose into the sky, gathering into a storm moving toward Li Guanqi.

There was no time to think. Li Guanqi retreated several hundred zhang and slashed out several times in rapid succession.

“Three Forms of Heavenly Destruction!”

Violent sword lights tore through the air, but they couldn’t withstand the storm. The terrifying force hurled Li Guanqi several hundred zhang backward.

Several walls of ice rose before him, yet they shattered inch by inch beneath the attack, as fragile as paper before the Qilin phantom. Huge shards of ice scattered in every direction.

Meng Wanshu caught Li Guanqi in her arms, but the impact sent them both hurtling through the air. They crashed heavily onto the mountaintop they had just left.

The moment they landed on the summit, the Qilin phantom dissolved into motes of spirit light and vanished.Li Guanqi looked back at Meng Wanshu. “Are you all right?”

Meng Wanshu coughed and spat out a mouthful of blood. Her face had turned slightly pale, but she shook her head. “I’m fine.”

Still shaken, she looked toward the distant waterfall, which continued to pour down like a river of stars as though nothing had happened. She frowned. “What was that Qilin phantom? Was it some kind of guardian protecting this ancient ruin?”

Li Guanqi gave a bitter smile. “I’m not entirely sure either, but that seems likely.”

He looked down at his shattered Lightning Armor. The impact had displaced his internal organs and even torn some of them.

A trace of fear remained in his gaze. “Fortunately, I was prepared. If I had hurried over without thinking, I would have been in much worse trouble.”

Roar! Roar, roar!

Suddenly, Nine Heavens cried out anxiously. Li Guanqi turned around, and his face immediately darkened. He could not help muttering several curses under his breath.

Li Guanqi leaped down from the mountain and looked worriedly toward the array platform. After questioning Nine Heavens, he learned that Peng Luo had grown curious about the platform and climbed onto it.

The array platform was humming loudly, with Peng Luo floating rigidly in midair. The platform seemed to be surrounded by a barrier of flames.

Li Guanqi stepped to the edge and cautiously reached toward the barrier. His fingertip sizzled the instant it touched the flames, and he quickly jerked his hand back, frowning at the scorched skin.

It seemed that once the array platform had been activated, there was no stopping it. And judging from the power he sensed within it, the barrier was far beyond his ability to break.

“What a reckless idiot! We don’t even know what this platform does or what kind of trial it contains. How could he just climb onto it?” Li Guanqi said.

While Li Guanqi was grumbling, Meng Wanshu suddenly exclaimed, “Look!”

Li Guanqi’s head snapped toward the platform. Several large words slowly formed above it: Trial of the True Self.

A series of blurry images then formed above Peng Luo’s head, and he trembled slightly, as though he were reliving something terrifying.

The images gradually became clearer, revealing a young Peng Luo bound to a wooden frame by several golden chains. A gleaming execution blade hovered nearby, and Li Guanqi could even see the terror in Peng Luo’s eyes.

With practiced ease, a figure beside Peng Luo turned him upside down. Starting at his feet, the figure brought the gleaming blade down again and again in rapid succession.

In the blink of an eye, Peng Luo’s body had been sliced into hundreds upon hundreds of pieces, each one carried away the instant it fell.

Next, the figure produced a container of filthy water and poured the murky, viscous liquid down Peng Luo’s throat. Peng Luo’s body regenerated at a speed visible to the naked eye, only to be placed beneath the blade once more.

Below the array platform, Li Guanqi’s eyes burned with rage. He was so immersed that he roared at the figure, “Stop!”

Bang!

His clenched fist slammed into the array barrier. Violent ripples spread across the fiery-red barrier, but it did not budge in the slightest. Its strength was comparable to a tier eight array.

As Meng Wanshu watched Peng Luo’s trembling body, a tear slipped from the corner of her eye without her noticing. It was as though the inner demon she had shattered when facing Cizhi had stirred back to life.

The horrors within the vision did not end there. Again and again, the figure tore Peng Luo’s living body apart and threw the pieces into a pill-refining cauldron in an attempt to refine them into medicine. At other times, people stuffed him into their mouths and chewed him to pieces, ignoring his pleas and agonized screams.

Even through the array barrier, his hoarse, desperate cries sent chills down their spines.

The sight filled Meng Wanshu with fury. Terrifying frost power surged around her as she glared at the figures in the vision. “Monsters!”

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Li Guanqi’s fists blurred as he struck the array barrier again and again, but neither his furious curses nor his desperate shouts could reach Peng Luo.

Gradually, Peng Luo stopped trembling. Inside the vision, his eyes grew blank and numb. Something inside him had already died.

Li Guanqi could no longer find even the faintest desire to live in those eyes. Death qi began spreading from the center of Peng Luo’s brow.

The sight made Li Guanqi snap. Only now did he understand the unspeakable cruelty Peng Luo had endured.

Whenever Peng Luo was with him, he was always smiling and joking. He would casually snap off his own fingers as though it meant nothing, leading even Li Guanqi to believe that he felt no pain.

Peng Luo, you idiot...

Bang! Bang! Bang!

“Stupid radish! Wake the hell up! Don’t you dare die!”

Li Guanqi’s fists were already a bloody, mangled mess, but he no longer felt the pain. One thought alone remained in his mind—he would not let Peng Luo die here.

Clang!

Screech!

Violent sword intent surged into the sky and pierced the heavens! “Heaven-Opening Tier, Red Lotus! Sword-Unsheathing Technique! World Annihilation! Thunder Wrath! Dark Moon!”

Mountains and rivers trembled. The surrounding peaks shook as the sky changed color. Sword qi swept across the land.

Thunderous explosions echoed into the clouds. Every great demon in the Illusory Forest trembled beneath the force of the attacks.

Boom! Crack!

The fire mark between Li Guanqi’s brows blazed fiercely. Through sheer force, he managed to cut a narrow crack into the array barrier.

His chest heaving, Li Guanqi drew a deep breath and gripped both sides of the opening. He stared at Peng Luo and roared, “Wake up! I won’t let you die! Wake up! Someday, I’ll take you with me to the Immortal World, and together, we’ll destroy the Seven Treasures Pavilion! Everyone who ever hurt you will pay in blood! And I’ll never let you tear off your own arms again!”

His hoarse shouts, infused with vital force and mind power, shook the entire region.

Peng Luo’s eyelids trembled. When he opened his eyes, he saw Li Guanqi before him, shouting desperately, his fists torn open to the bone.

The corners of Peng Luo’s mouth curled up, and the image of spirit light above his head abruptly changed. It now showed two figures standing protectively before him as Cizhi attacked, their silhouettes outlined against a brilliant golden light. They were Nine Heavens and Li Guanqi.

Bang!

The vision shattered.

The death qi between Peng Luo’s brows disappeared.

The array barrier collapsed, and Li Guanqi shot forward. He gathered the terribly weakened Peng Luo into his arms, his eyes turning red.

Li Guanqi immediately slapped Peng Luo twice across the face and cursed, “Are you going to run off again? Are you?”

Peng Luo’s cheeks reddened and swelled. He narrowed his eyes into a foolish grin and replied, “No, I won’t.”

He continued, “Someday… will you really take me up there to kill them?”

Li Guanqi gripped his hand tightly and answered in an icy voice, “I  will. I swear I will!”