Volume 4, Chapter 161 – Sudden Upheaval, the Sword Cuts Down a Budding Threat

What about the battle?

How did it turn out?

Anyone bold enough to watch on site in a venue like this naturally had some means of self-protection. These aftershocks and clouds of dust posed no real problem to anyone present. They only disliked how the dust blocked their view and kept them from seeing the result inside the arena at the first possible moment.

Sensing through qi presence was no good either. The collision had been too violent. The power of that new method, mixed with heavenly essence, was flying and churning everywhere. How could anyone sense anything clearly out of that?

“Cough, cough, cough…”

Under the dust, Bai Zhuqing sat half-collapsed on ground covered in spiderweb-like cracks. While coughing, she clutched the bare hilt of her sword, and from between the fingers covering her mouth, threads of blood slowly seeped out.

Being smashed down out of midair by that great hand seal was no joke.

If she had not mistaken it, what the other side had used was the former Golden Light Monastery’s supreme art, whose full name was the Golden Light Great Hand Seal of “Above Heaven and Below Earth, I Alone Am Supreme.”

Bai Xiang had explained this move to her before. Its greatest subtlety lay in its ability to briefly tear open the surrounding void, compress all the essence and vitality of the body into a single stream in an instant, and strike across the void at one’s opponent. And so long as the coordinates remained within one’s control range, the point at which it emerged could be altered freely.

It could come from above, or from the side.

If one could truly spread one’s qi presence far enough, then launching a sneak attack from below one’s feet or some similar angle was not impossible either.

An attack like this… was itself already a move of the “condense all momentum into a single strike” variety, so its power was naturally terrifying. Add to that its ability to travel through the void and descend at will, and once used in actual combat it was extremely hard to predict or defend against. It was almost impossible to guard against.

It was on the basis of that principle that Bai Xiang had reworked it into the Golden Light Sword Seal. After all, the brilliance of the technique lay in how it manipulated energy to tear open the void, and how it displaced force outward through empty space. There was no restriction on what exactly was being displaced.

Bai Zhuqing also knew how formidable this move was, but she had never imagined that she would run into an opponent on the tournament grounds who was so proficient in it this soon.

This Zhou Yi—how did he know the Golden Light Monastery’s secret transmission art?

She grabbed the listless metal sword pellet from beside her, shook it open, and slotted it back into the notch in the hilt. Then Bai Zhuqing watched her surroundings vigilantly, trying to locate Zhou Yi.

The enemy is strong.

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But I’m not weak either.

Good thing I listened to Sister and hid one trump card in advance. After a clash of that level, there’s no way he came out unscathed either.

Just now, at the final moment, Bai Zhuqing had split out sixteen sword shadows in one breath. The destructive power of her sword pellets had instantly doubled, at the very least.

That kind of power was no longer something Zhou Yi could normally withstand. Even the Golden Light Great Hand Seal that had gathered all his strength could not hold back against it. When the two attacks collided in midair and counteracted each other in reverse, she had seen with her own eyes that Zhou Yi had also been blasted away by the shockwave, and it looked as though one ricocheting sword pellet had even sheared off his left arm.

Compared with that, I’ve only broken a few bones, cough, cough, cough… Looks like I’m the one with the advantage.

Bai Zhuqing surveyed the surroundings. Not seeing any sign of Zhou Yi, she assumed he had been injured even worse than she was.

And with the platform nearly completely destroyed—a huge crater had caved inward in the middle, leaving only a ring around the edge still barely protruding—it was obvious that this Lingyun Group fight could no longer be judged according to the normal tournament rules. Most likely, it would be ruled a draw.

So she relaxed her guard a little.

After all, in her view, she had shown restraint in every one of the previous matches. And now the enemy no longer held the advantage. No matter how one looked at it, this was the point where both sides should quit while they were ahead. There was no reason to keep risking their lives.

Yet just as she was about to rise, the dust-cloud ahead of her was violently pierced through by a blood-soaked murderous force, carving out a cylindrical tunnel through it as though boring through butter. Inside it was Zhou Yi, his face twisted savagely.

Something is wrong with him!

Bai Zhuqing narrowed her eyes, and the Jade Spirit Mingxin Method activated in an instant. She immediately saw that strange changes had appeared all over Zhou Yi’s body.

First, the bamboo staff he had been holding was gone.

In its place, his hair… his forehead… and even portions of the exposed skin on his body had sprouted meridian-like structures resembling bamboo branches and leaves. Most of all his hair, which had almost entirely turned a dark green, with every bamboo leaf standing upright like a sword blade, making the viciousness of his features all the more pronounced.

Yes—viciousness.

Zhou Yi’s face had originally been clean and handsome, even handsome to the point of seeming somewhat feminine. But now that face was utterly twisted. Strange black Dao-patterns had appeared on his forehead, cheeks, philtrum, chin, and other places. His pupils had shrunk to pinpoints, and each time he moved through the air, two grim red streaks trailed from them. He was already lifting his hand and driving it straight toward her chest.

He… he wants to kill me?

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Bai Zhuqing was shocked and furious, unable to understand where this murderous intent was coming from. She hurriedly gathered her blood and vitality again and raised her sword to block.

She also knew that her reaction was a beat slower than his. She did not hope to block the move completely. She only wanted to deflect his gouging strike as much as possible. Even if that meant having her left shoulder torn off, she absolutely could not let him strike through her heart.

Can I stop it…?

At the brink of life and death, the girl’s heart trembled faintly.

Whoosh—

A fierce gust of wind rose by her ear. Bai Zhuqing did not react at all. She only felt that a blurred figure had appeared before her eyes. A right hand pressed down her wrist and sent a stream of Qi-Origin into her, while the left hand simply lifted slightly and casually caught Zhou Yi’s strike in its palm.

Bai Xiang had arrived.

Only after she descended, crossing the void to stand there, did the traces of her approach spread outward, sweeping away the dust like real sword light and sword marks and letting the sunlight spill through again.

There she stood in a black robe-dress, her whole person upright like a sword. Her left hand gripped the wrist of the youth before her, and her pair of golden pupils stared fixedly at his crazed face.

“You kicked up dust to do dirty work. Were you trying to fool me with a trick like that?”

Bai Xiang’s tone was icy.

She could tell that there was something very wrong with this Zhou Yi.

If it had only been the Golden Light Great Hand Seal, that would have meant nothing. There was no reason only she could encounter some lucky chance. Others naturally could as well. Perhaps Zhou Yi was a legitimate heir of the Golden Light Monastery. She did not care if that identity had been taken away from her.

But.

With Qing’er having already laid the groundwork by showing mercy, and with no conflict of interest or life-and-death grudge between the two sides, this man had chosen not to accept the draw. Instead, he had activated an explosive secret art that was plainly the kind that injured the enemy a thousand while injuring oneself eight hundred, and even so still came to kill Qing’er.

That was extremely unreasonable.

“Venerable Bai! Please show mercy!”

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The man arrived before his voice did.

At the same instant Bai Xiang heard him, Chang Hongyuan had already landed nearby, a trace of awkwardness on his face.

After all, Zhou Yi really had been in the wrong.

Bai Zhuqing of Shenming Sword Dao had repeatedly shown mercy while winning. None of Zhengtian Dao’s disciples had been badly hurt.

Yet even under those circumstances, Zhou Yi had still madly tried to kill her.

If word of this really got out, Zhengtian Dao would lose a great deal of face.

It was not that, having already come this far to the Dao-Void Martial Tournament, they still had to care about face in that sense. This was not merely a matter of pride. It was that there was no need to lose face to Shenming Sword Dao in particular. It simply was not worth it.

So Chang Hongyuan’s head was pounding.

He was trying to think of what he could possibly say to calm Bai Xiang’s anger. After all, this woman was famous for her violent temper. If he handled it badly, the situation might turn worse.

But very quickly, his eyes widened, and his whole face filled with shock.

What was he seeing?

Junior Brother Zhou—!

What was he doing?

He had actually pressed forward again, trying to strike at Bai Xiang with his left arm?

Chang Hongyuan could not understand why things had turned out like this. The madness and venomous hatred now showing on Zhou Yi’s face made even him shudder. But at that critical moment, he still remembered what his master, the Ten-Extremes Daoist, had told him: You must protect this junior brother of yours well. Under no circumstances can he be allowed to suffer too serious an injury.

Wait—

Chang Hongyuan wanted to speak.

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But when he tried to do so, he found that no sound could come out at all.

His throat was moving. His windpipe was forming sound. But all his effort, once it touched reality, was futile.

It was as though some mysterious force had descended out of nowhere and erased the very right of sound to exist.

So… Chang Hongyuan only managed to raise an arm.

So… Chang Hongyuan could only watch helplessly.

Watch as those golden pupils narrowed slightly.

And then came the sword’s cry.

Clang—

The upper half of Zhou Yi’s body vanished outright.

Thud.

The mutilated corpse fell to the ground.

Click.

With a blur, Bai Xiang sheathed her sword.

She knew that Zhou Yi’s abnormal actions must have had some hidden cause, and judging from Chang Hongyuan’s expression and bearing, he most likely had not arranged this in advance either.

But what did that have to do with her?

Rather than let Zhengtian Dao preserve Zhou Yi, wasting time on a slow investigation, she chose to cut down the culprit here and now with one sword stroke, seize the soul, and interrogate it herself.