The battle shifted in the blink of an eye. Gu Xici, who had relied on his Ascension Realm cultivation, had instantly become fish on the chopping block.
The power unleashed by the sword spirit at that instant threatened to annihilate the entire Immortal Burial Realm!!
Gu Xici had no time to ponder what was happening.
Drawing a radiant longsword with a flick of his wrist, he vaulted backward, his gaze sharp and freezing.
Riding the momentum of his retreat, he reached out, grabbed the head of the evil ghost beast, and yanked it in front of him as a shield!
The gigantic evil ghost instantly dissolved into spiritual armor that draped over his body.
The blue-faced, fanged ghost head rested squarely atop Gu Xici's shoulder.
True to his standing as an Ascension Realm cultivator, Gu Xici commanded incomparably formidable Geng Metal Law power.
Golden light wrapped around his sword, the blade spitting sword radiance tens of feet long.
With a blur, he split into several afterimages and surged forward. Wild sword light coalesced into dozens of thousand-zhang golden beams that shot forth violently.
Yet the sword spirit did not slow in the slightest, the words "Dao Fall" drifting slowly from her lips.
BOOM!!!
A terrifying, concentrated beam of blood-red thunderous sword light over a thousand zhang long blasted out.
The strike was too fast for the naked eye to track—like a fleeting shadow across a chasm, a flash of red light...
A brief hush fell, lasting less than half a breath, before deafening booms and explosions erupted in endless succession.
The skyful of golden sword light shattered in an instant.
Decisive and absolute!
The barrier of the world was torn open by the strike, leaving a rift tens of li long that failed to close for ages.
Wherever the blood-red sword light passed, nothing could stand in its way.
Towering volcanoes and the churning sea of magma were sliced cleanly in two!
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The terrifying shockwave blew the magma sea across a hundred-li radius a hundred zhang into the air!!!
Blazing fire nearly swallowed the firmament; the world quaked, and peaks crumbled.
The horrific aftershocks made even the spectating Devouring Void Sacred Flame feel waves of inexplicable dread.
It was an instinctual fear of power that transcended its own limits.
"Dao Fall... What a Dao Fall!!"
"Once the sword strikes, the Great Dao falls!!"
"Forget severing flesh or soul—it severs your Great Dao and cuts off your immortality!!"
Li Guanqi was in a wretched state, even though he had only swung a single sword strike.
The flesh of his entire left arm had vanished, leaving bare bone cracked inch by inch.
If not for a thread of primal energy holding it together, the entire arm would likely have ceased to exist.
Li Guanqi was deathly pale. His dragon scales were torn inside out, a mangled mess of flesh and blood.
Deep, bone-exposing gashes covered his body, each one ghastly to behold.
His armor of scales was shattered; the resilient dragon scales had been completely incapable of stopping the opponent's counterattack.
That sword... had been too fast...
It was simply not something his current self could withstand—the gap between them was like cloud and mud.
It even filled him with dread: an absolute suppression of cultivation realm, a chasm that no technique or trick of his could bridge.
With his last remaining wisp of primal energy, Li Guanqi opened his storage ring and pulled out a jade vial.
He unstoppered it; inside was filled to the brim with Ten-Thousand-Year Stalactite Jade Marrow Fluid!!
Then he swallowed several grade eight healing pills.
His depleted origin spirit was finally replenished, and under the operation of the Demon King Physique, his bones began to rapidly mend.
His flesh regenerated at a visible speed, the writhing, twisting sinew appearing rather horrifying.
Flung thousands of zhang away, Gu Xici lay amid the shattered volcanic rock.
The evil ghost head had cracked apart, dead as could be.
With his hair disheveled and wild, he looked as battered and pathetic as could be.
A hideous wound ran from his shoulder all the way down to his hip, nearly cleaving his torso in two.
Blood gushed from Gu Xici's mouth, thick and mixed with minced bits of internal organs.
His windpipe was choked with blood and gore; unable even to lift his head, his eyes brimmed with terror.
If an attack like that came a second time... he would never survive it.
His fingers trembling slightly, he violently crushed a cyan ring on his finger.
The moment the ring shattered, spiritual light flickered and condensed in midair into a translucent miniature humanoid figure.
Gradually, a thin line of blood appeared across the miniature figure's body!!!
The line of blood matched the exact location of his own wound!!!
Over the wound on Gu Xici's shoulder, cyan light surged, bearing a powerful life force concentrated almost to the absolute limit.
Gu Xici's expression grew cold. He shoved his fingers into his throat and tore out the gore choking him.
Kneeling on the ground, he dry-heaved violently.
Li Guanqi released his divine sense, and the moment he sensed Gu Xici, his face twisted in shock!!
The sword spirit narrowed her eyes and murmured in faint disbelief,
"A Soul Guard Ring!!"
Li Guanqi frowned.
"What's a Soul Guard Ring? Something like a substitute death puppet?"
The sword spirit nodded slightly and explained in a rapid burst:
"The effect is the same, but the Soul Guard Ring carries virtually no side effects."
Yet having said that, she merely shrugged, cast a glance toward the sky with her beautiful eyes, and turned to walk away.
"I'm done playing."
Li Guanqi rubbed his nose and said somewhat awkwardly,
"Fair enough..."
He looked up toward the heavens and shouted at the top of his lungs:
"Grandpa!! Get him!!"
As soon as the words left his mouth, the terrifying grand array in the firmament suddenly surged.
A gray-haired, slightly stooped old man stepped down from atop the boundary barrier.
In his withered left hand, the old man held a brown scabbard, while his right hand held an ordinary tobacco pipe, puffing on it rhythmically.
The moment the old man stepped down, the whole world fell silent.
Truly silent.
The wind ceased, and even the flowing magma ground to a halt.
Su Xuan smiled amiably at Li Guanqi, then turned and smiled at the Devouring Void Sacred Flame.
Yet perhaps the Devouring Void Sacred Flame was throwing caution to the wind, for aside from an initial shudder when their eyes first met,
it actually took a slow step forward to meet the old man's gaze.
Seeing this, Li Guanqi's heart skipped a beat.
"This fire spirit actually dares look Grandpa in the eye?"
"Hiss!! That's pretty gutsy..."
Yet the very next moment, the Devouring Void Sacred Flame sank to one knee, its resonant, magnetic voice speaking slowly:
"Does what you promised me still stand?"
Without looking back at it, Su Xuan fixed his eyes straight on Gu Xici and said softly,
"It stands."
"Fight a match. If you lose, follow him up to the Immortal Realm; if you win, I'll let you go."
The Devouring Void Sacred Flame nodded slightly, then rose and stepped aside.
In a flash, Su Xuan appeared a hundred zhang from Gu Xici.
He remained completely unfazed as Gu Xici continued healing. After casting a couple of glances at him...
Su Xuan suddenly sneered with a chuckle. "Sly little fox, aren't you?"
The moment Gu Xici in the crater saw Su Xuan, he did not sense much of a threat from the old man.
He could not even detect the slightest trace of an aura.
Yet the more this was the case, the greater the dread grew in his heart.
In his eyes, Su Xuan's stooped frame magnified infinitely, until in the boundless pitch-black starry sky, only the old man seemed to exist.
Colossal beyond measure, like looking up at a towering mountain whose peak was lost to sight.
The crushing pressure left Gu Xici numb from head to toe, making even moving a finger an impossible luxury.
The look he directed at the old man turned to sheer, bottomless terror.
Chapter 1355