Volume 1, Chapter 133 – An Unexpected Turn

Just as Shi Lan had expected, after the group had galloped nearly a thousand li, three streaks of rainbow light swept across the sky over their heads and dropped down in front of them, blocking their path.

In broad daylight, the three were dressed in black from head to toe, even their heads wrapped and faces covered, as if afraid others might not realize they had come to rob the road.

“We only want your things, not your lives, so…” The man in the middle seemed to be the leader. He stepped forward and began to speak.

“Buzz!”

Before he could finish, a streak of violet light swept across the air. Shi Lan’s aura surged wildly, and without uttering a single word she struck first. A sweep of halberd qi stretched for dozens of zhang as it came cleaving down on the three from above, a terrifying aura locking down the surrounding several hundred zhang.

The man had never expected Shi Lan to attack without a word. His face changed drastically as he raised his hand to summon a cyan longsword. Sword light burst forth as he hurriedly lifted it to meet the halberd qi already crashing down on his head.

Clang!

With a thunderous crash, he felt a terrifying force slam into him, like a towering mountain falling from the sky. The sword qi in his hand shattered in an instant.

Thud!

His body likewise could not withstand the pressure. His knees buckled, and he was forced down onto them, his entire body driven nearly a foot into the ground. Deep cracks spread from his knees for several zhang like a ravine.

Before he could raise a hand in resistance, an even more fearsome shocking force surged down from the halberd qi and poured directly into his body.

A series of crisp cracks rang out. In the blink of an eye, every joint in his body was shaken to powder. He collapsed limply to the ground, stripped of any ability to fight back.

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Only then did the two at his sides finally react. They summoned their own treasures and were just about to rush forward when a streak of white light flashed, appearing beside them a step ahead of their charge.

Thud thud!!

Two muffled impacts sounded. Two purple afterimages swept past, and the two men’s chests caved in almost simultaneously. Their bodies flew up into the air, drew an arc, and landed more than a hundred zhang away, rolling across the ground. They struggled, but for a time they simply could not climb back to their feet.

Shi Lan stood by the side of the man lying limp on the ground, her hand gripping the war halberd. Behind her, the Black Domain unfurled for dozens of zhang.

She lowered her head and looked at the man beneath her feet, shrouded by the Black Domain, and frowned slightly. If she hadn’t forcibly restrained the Black Domain just now, then the blood and vital essence of the man at her feet, flesh and bone alike, would probably already have been sucked completely dry.

At that thought, Shi Lan shivered involuntarily, her heart still fluttering. She had almost “eaten” someone just now?

This innate divine ability was powerful indeed, but there was something eerie about it all the same.

A streak of lightning flashed across the sky, revealing Shen Tianlan, his expression somewhat blank.

“Brother Shen, is there something else you wanted to say?” Shi Lan looked up at the sky, puzzled.

Shen Tianlan stared in a daze for a long moment. He nodded without thinking, then suddenly shook his head hard. In the end, he cupped his fists and said, “Nothing at all. Farewell!”

With that, he once more rode the lightning into the sky, speeding away even faster than when he had arrived.

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Shen Tianlan had originally planned to leave, to bait out some of the people harboring ill intent, then take action to punish them, kill the chicken to warn the monkeys, and give everyone a clear warning.

He had indeed drawn those people out, but before he even had a chance to make a move, Shi Lan had crushed them in a single sweep, which inevitably left him at a loss.

The terrifying combat strength Shi Lan revealed had also given him quite a fright.

……

Putting away the Black Domain, Shi Lan let out a long breath. Once she calmed her mind, she set the Purple Star Seven-Section Halberd before her and studied it carefully for a while. The moment her true qi entered the halberd just now, she had sensed something was off.

At first, Shi Lan had only planned to test the waters a little and had not meant to strike with full power. Yet once her true qi flowed into the halberd, its strength was immediately multiplied to a terrifying degree. That single strike had unleashed at least twice, perhaps even three times, the power she had expected.

This was her first time using the Purple Star Seven-Section Halberd after stepping into the Earth Fiend Realm. The sensation was completely different from before, its might several times greater than it had been.

This must be the Purple Star Seven-Section Halberd’s true power. Everything before the Innate Realm had just been child’s play.

The man leading the three had not bothered to conceal his aura. He was several times stronger than a typical early Earth Fiend Realm martial artist and was clearly at mid Earth Fiend Realm. At least half of the seventy-two acupoints in his body had been opened.

Yet with such strength, he still could not withstand two moves before her and lost all ability to resist in a single exchange.

The gap between the Earth Fiend Realm and the Innate Realm was like heaven and earth. This breakthrough had increased her strength far more than Shi Lan herself had anticipated.

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It was only a shame that she still hadn’t found the limit of her strength. Shi Lan sighed, put away the halberd, lifted her leg, and kicked the man at her feet off to the roadside. Then she turned on her heel, swung herself into the saddle, and started on the road once more.

On horseback, Wu Lingkong was stunned for a long while, unable to recover. From the auras of those three, it was obvious they were all Earth Fiend Realm martial artists, yet in front of Shi Lan they were like mud chickens and clay dogs, utterly unable to withstand a single blow.

Even though she already knew Shi Lan had stepped into the Earth Fiend Realm, she was still deeply shaken by Shi Lan’s almost exaggerated strength.

When she had first met Shi Lan, their cultivations had been roughly the same. In just a few short months, with the help of the Red Cloud Lotus Root and other spirit materials, she had climbed a small step to the seventh stage of the Innate Realm and was already not far from the peak of that stage. That speed was nothing to scoff at.

But Shi Lan had already gone straight into the Earth Fiend Realm, and her combat strength was so terrifying. The gulf between them was like the distance between heaven and an abyss.

“Perhaps this is what they call a heaven-blessed prodigy.”

Wu Lingkong’s hands tightened slightly on the reins, a faint understanding stirring in her heart.

……

Not long after Shi Lan left, the other two finally managed to struggle to their feet. They lifted their companion, whose bones throughout his body had been shattered, and fled in a panic.

Four or five figures appeared at the site of the battle and looked in the direction Shi Lan’s group had gone, all at a loss for words.

“Are you… still going to follow?” one of them finally asked, breaking the silence.

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“Follow with our lives on the line? Didn’t you see that even Chen Qi couldn’t take a single move?” another replied with a cold laugh.

Three Earth Fiend Realm martial artists had attacked together, one of them even at mid Earth Fiend Realm, and yet they had all been crippled in a single exchange. With such ferocity laid bare, who would still dare to give chase?

Before long, several more people arrived. Seeing the traces of battle, they hurriedly began asking questions.

When they heard what had happened, a wave of exclamations broke out.

“How is that possible? How old is Shi Lan? Just stepping into the Earth Fiend Realm at her age already makes her an astonishing talent. How could her strength be at such a level?”

“Chen Qi has opened more than forty of his acupoints and is not far from the late Earth Fiend Realm. The Flying Feather Sword Art he cultivates is one of the very best among all mid-grade arts. Even an ordinary late Earth Fiend Realm expert wouldn’t be able to take him down in a short time.”

“If you told me Chen Qi was no match for Shi Lan and that he was defeated after a hard fight, I could still believe it. But saying he couldn’t even take a single move, how are we supposed to accept that?”

“If it’s true, then Shi Lan’s strength is enough to stand shoulder to shoulder with peak late Earth Fiend Realm martial artists. If you want to capture her alive, even a perfected Earth Fiend Realm expert wouldn’t be able to do it. You’d need someone from the Heavenly Astral Realm to make a move.”

“Those Heavenly Astral Realm martial artists strutted around plenty a few days ago, but now you don’t see a single one of them. Who knows where they’ve run off to!”

……