Sang Jingxing cared little for swords, since his martial arts didn’t rely on one. But this was once the sword of the number one martial artist in all the land, so it had a special significance. If released into the jianghu, it would be a legendary weapon that people would fight for. Sang Jingxing touched his fingers to the hilt. “If you’re willing to submit to me nicely, I might be a little gentler…”
But at that moment, something unforeseen happened.
Without warning, a sword glare exploded before his eyes, transforming from a ray of white light into a thousand blazing sparks!
Accompanying the dazzling, magnificent sword glare was a violent upsurge of murderous intent that swept toward him. Internal energy swelled forth like the tide, brimming with potent true qi. In an instant, thundering storms swallowed the heavens and squalling blizzards rolled across the earth.
Sang Jingxing was stunned. He hastily withdrew his outstretched hand and swiftly retreated, evading the sudden attack.
A man who could kill Huo Xijing wasn’t some weakling to be trampled by just anyone. While Sang Jingxing had been spewing taunts and ridicule, he’d reserved a small bit of caution within his heart, as it was commonplace for demonic practitioners to fight and kill one another. The higher a person climbed, the more blades and treachery they’d have to fend off from all directions. Sang Jingxing wouldn’t have lived this long if he’d been a man of blind ignorance.
But now he realized that he’d still underestimated Shen Qiao.
He launched a palm strike while retreating, but the sword glare enveloped even the sky and moon. It was completely watertight—even his palm blasts found no opening. Each and every one dissolved into nothingness.
Was this really the same Shen Qiao who’d lost nearly all his martial arts?!
Sang Jingxing was alarmed and in disbelief. He almost suspected that Shen Qiao and Yan Wushi were plotting against him together.
But he didn’t have time to speculate further. The sword qi was already a hair’s breadth from his eyes, as brutal as rumbling thunder and as mighty as the blazing sun.
The winds of heaven gallop, surging and swift; the mountains and seas abide, endless and grand. All things emerge and return, from many to one, from one to many.
There lay the boundless sword intent, unbroken and interlinked, following Sang Jingxing like his own shadow. It was impossible to evade, impossible to avoid. It seemed his only option was to close his eyes and wait for death.
But Sang Jingxing wasn’t so easily dealt with. He laughed coldly, and though he only took a few steps, he shifted between myriad poses. He glided easily through the sword glare, then struck right at it. His internal energy shrieked forth as blue qi, its force as mighty as a mountain. Right away, Shanhe Tongbei’s sword glare began to dim.
Before his first strike finished, his second one arrived. Hehuan Sect’s martial arts shared its roots with Huanyue Sect but were even more uncanny and unpredictable. He’d reached the pinnacle of perfection with his Carving Dragon Palm technique—each turn and flip of his hand was unimaginably exquisite. After nine strikes, a real dragon seemed to descend, formed from true qi as it coiled faintly through the air. It shrieked forward, swallowing the sword glare in an instant.
The brilliant, celestial glow vanished all at once. It was still the same forest, still the same two people. Shen Qiao coughed up a mouthful of blood and stumbled backward, slamming into a tree trunk. He could barely grip his sword.
And finally, something surfaced on his blank, emotionless face—a look of surprised rage.
He’d used all that he’d learned and studied to deal with Sang Jingxing, but his internal cultivation couldn’t support such an attack—the effort had taxed him greatly. But as he transmitted every last trickle of his body’s true qi, not only did the Dantian19 in his abdomen fail to refine new true qi to replace it, it was like a vortex had appeared and was greedily sucking away all of his true qi.
At the same time, Shen Qiao could feel the true qi in his body rampaging like a crazed horse that had broken free of its reins. It tore relentlessly through his organs, driving his spirit to complete madness. His mind plunged into panic as his emotions roared. It was as if a mass of black shadows held him prisoner, leaving him no escape and driving him to the brink of qi deviation.
Yan. Wu. Shi.
Yan Wu Shi!
Yan Wushi had implanted a demonic core inside him while he was unconscious!
Perhaps it’d happened back in the beginning, when he was insensate after falling from Banbu Peak. Or perhaps it’d happened during one of the many times he’d passed out, defenseless after an injury. A wisp of demonic qi had silently slipped inside, then lain dormant inside him, like a seed. It refused to emerge, regardless of what happened, so Shen Qiao never realized it was there. Not until now, when Sang Jinxing’s demonic arts had fully aroused it. The seed burst from the ground, transforming at last into a towering tree.
But he’d fought Yan Wushi countless times in the past. Why had he never discovered the demonic core’s existence?
Or had Yan Wushi foreseen long ago that this day would come? So that, when he’d fought Shen Qiao, he never used his full strength.
Shen Qiao couldn’t even begin to describe his state of mind right now.
It was as if his entire body was cloaked in flames—flames with sharp teeth that gnawed at his meridians and his organs bit by bit. The agony was tremendous, yet his mind was incomparably clear!
Shen Qiao didn’t know if this was his final rally before death or if he was hallucinating from the unbearable pain. But somehow, his eyes, which had been burning just a moment before, showed him Sang Jingxing’s palm as it struck out at him.
It came on with incredible speed, yet it was clear beyond compare.
And despite this critical juncture of life and death, Shen Qiao suddenly remembered what Yan Wushi had once said to him.
Once you’ve been truly deserted by everyone, completely and utterly alone, can you still bear no grudges and insist on repaying others with kindness?
Shen Qiao closed his eyes. Even the breaths he exhaled seemed to carry the thick scent of blood.
The searing wind from the palm swept toward him.