Li Guanqi narrowed his eyes. The newcomer radiated an indescribable sense of oppression.
Merely standing there, the man sent a chill down Li Guanqi's spine.
The young man's long hair fell loose and unrestrained. He had a lean, angular face and pale skin.
His narrow eyes resembled those of a fox, curving slightly as he spoke, exuding a distinct air of danger.
Between his brows were two crimson dots; his nose was tall and straight, his lips thin.
His gaze was serene, unfazed in the slightest even in the face of Li Guanqi's extraordinary aura.
Across his back hung a longsword in a jet-black scabbard—the very sword that had deflected Li Guanqi's strike moments ago.
Having spoken, the man cast a casual glance around.
Frowning slightly, he covered his nose with a look of distaste, as though repulsed by the Human Spirit Realm's impure, chaotic spiritual energy.
All the while, anxiety gnawed at Li Guanqi's heart.
The Seventh Domain cultivators were already hard-pressed, and now a fresh wave of reinforcements had arrived to bolster the enemy!
Worse still...
In the span of a single clash, the Seventh Domain's side suffered heavy casualties!
Chan Kongzi had an arm severed by a sword strike and fled in haste!
Xiang Huaizhi and Long Hou rushed to his aid, but within moments they too were pushed to the brink, barely able to defend themselves amidst grave peril.
Li Guanqi's heart sank. If this continued, the cultivators of the Seventh Domain would be slaughtered to the last before long!
Li Qingchan and Meng Wanshu stood back to back, besieged by five enemy cultivators, their injuries mounting by the second.
Li Guanqi exhaled a breath of stale air. As his vital energy and blood surged, the wounds across his body rapidly knitted together.
The young man glanced at Li Guanqi, observing him with keen interest. After a pause, he murmured in slight surprise:
"Not a mortal body... a spirit physique? Second tier?"
"A second-tier spirit physique... the Demon King Physique? No, that's not quite right..."
Li Guanqi was thoroughly shaken. The man clearly knew nothing about him, yet just from watching how his injuries healed, he had deduced the Demon King Physique?
Alert and guarded, Li Guanqi dared not expose even a hint of his Spirit-Devouring Dao Physique.
"Who are you? You're not with those fellows from before, are you?"
The corners of the young man's lips curled upward slightly, but out of sheer indifference, he ignored Li Guanqi's question entirely.
Yet Li Guanqi's very next words rubbed him entirely the wrong way.
"Speak up. After all, I don't kill nameless nobodies."
At that, the young man sneered.
"Big words..."
"Listen well, then, and remember it."
"My name is Tu Yuan, from the Liuli Land."
Li Guanqi murmured, "Tu Yuan..."
This man was terrifyingly strong. The peak Ascension Realm pressure radiating from him was not a shred weaker than that of Emperor Chen before him!
Now Grandfather had taken Emperor Chen and ascended to the Immortal Realm.
Which meant...
In the entire Youhuang Realm, not a single person possessed a cultivation that could rival Tu Yuan's.
Li Guanqi did not even know what the man's true cultivation realm had been before descending.
Tu Yuan looked at the one-sided slaughter below, thoroughly pleased.
As for Li Guanqi...
In his eyes, the boy could be killed at any moment.
*Clang!*
The longsword at his back cleared its scabbard in an instant. Gripping the green-hued blade, Tu Yuan pointed it toward Li Guanqi, standing sideways with an arrogant gleam in his eyes.
"Come. Let me see what you prodigies of the Human Spirit Realm are capable of."
With those words, Tu Yuan soared straight up into the high heavens.
This suited Li Guanqi's intentions perfectly; now he would not have to worry about anyone interfering in their duel.
Meng Wanshu's voice reached his ears:
"Be careful!"
Li Guanqi gave a quiet nod, sending a solemn voice transmission in return:
"Hold on a little longer. Once I kill him, all of this will be over."
In a fold of layered space, Pengluo looked at Jiuxiao, reluctant pain in its eyes as it spoke:
"Brother Jiu... do you really have to do this?"
Resolute determination flickered within the massive dragon's eyes, and Jiuxiao's great head nodded slightly.
Pengluo gritted its teeth and shook its head firmly in refusal.
"No! Absolutely not!"
"With just the strength of the two of us, trying to break through to Rank Ten and reach the Ascension Realm by consuming your blood essence is as difficult as ascending to heaven!"
"Even if I consumed every drop of blood essence in your body, the amount I could actually refine would still be limited."
"The damage to you would be too great."
"Breaking through to Rank Ten is easier said than done!"
"No... absolutely not!"
Jiuxiao let out a low rumble. He extended a dragon claw toward Pengluo, gestured to himself, and then looked anxiously toward the void.
Pengluo sighed, turning its head away, not daring to look at him.
With its head lowered, Pengluo spoke in a despondent voice:
"Brother Jiu... stop."
"It really won't work... Even if you drained every drop of your blood essence for me, I still wouldn't be able to break through to Rank Ten."
Jiuxiao's gaze seemed to say, *How will we know if we don't try?*
Pengluo jerked its head up to look at him.
"No means no! That's just throwing your life away!"
"Do you think I don't want to help Master?! I want to as well!"
"But—"
"What are you doing?!"
Jiuxiao ignored Pengluo's protests and plunged his dragon claw violently toward his own heart!
Dragon scales shattered. Golden blood poured down his fingertips.
His dragon eyes shone with boundless gentleness.
His claw was cupped full of brilliant golden blood.
Jiuxiao reached forward, offering it to Pengluo.
Tears welled in Pengluo's eyes at the sight, and it cursed loudly:
"You... you bastard..."
Left with no choice, Pengluo pulled out its entire hoard of treasures accumulated over the years.
Jiuxiao, too, brought out every demon core he had harvested from great demons over the years.
Pengluo devoured everything with the frenzied greed of a Taotie.
Yet this time, there was none of the leisurely joy it usually felt when absorbing spiritual plant essences.
Weeping, it drank down the shimmering golden blood.
Choking on sobs, it looked up at Jiuxiao's colossal form.
Suddenly, Pengluo flew up before Jiuxiao, throwing its little arms around the dragon's cheek and bawling aloud.
Jiuxiao looked down at Pengluo with affectionate warmth, letting out a low, soothing draconic rumble, as if comforting it.
After some time, the spiritual fluctuations rolling off Pengluo grew more and more violent!
It was different from Jiuxiao.
It had originally been a spirit creature of the Immortal Realm, having merely descended to the lower realms and suffered a drop in cultivation through the Heavenly Radish Secret Technique.
For Pengluo, as long as there was enough power to fuel its breakthrough, it could keep rising without bottleneck.
As it drank, Pengluo's eyes flickered.
All of a sudden, it plunged an arm straight into the void!
When it pulled it back, its entire arm was gone.
Pengluo frowned slightly, murmuring in a low voice:
"Brothers... this is all I can do to help you."
"Master is trapped in dire peril now. Breaking free... will depend on you yourselves."
In the inverted mirror world, Xiao Chen had not an uninjured inch left on his body. His eyelids were torn back, blood streaming down his face.
Yet between his teeth was a severed chunk of radish.
Weeping, Gu Li divided the remaining pieces among the others to purge their poison.
Only a single thought remained in Xiao Chen's mind:
*Keep moving forward! Devour him!*
He, too, could sense that he was absorbing the enemy's power.
Gu Li swallowed his piece of radish, regaining a sliver of strength.
Tearing a piece of cloth from his robe, he bit his fingertip and began drawing inscribed talismans in blood!
"Brother, hang in there just a little longer."
"From now on... I'll call you Fourth Brother for the rest of my life! Willing and true!"
The corner of Xiao Chen's mouth twitched, and he murmured weakly:
"Aren't you... afraid... of blood...?"
How could Gu Li care about any of that now?
A single thought consumed his mind: to use every means at his disposal to help Xiao Chen.
Afraid of blood?
Compared to what Xiao Chen was enduring, what did that matter?!
Meanwhile, Li Guanqi and Tu Yuan faced each other high above, separated by less than a hundred feet.
For cultivators at their level, such a distance was virtually non-existent.
It was proof that both held absolute confidence in their own strength.
Even knowing that his cultivation realm fell short of his opponent's, Li Guanqi felt not the slightest trace of fear.
If one lacked even the courage to draw one's sword, one might as well bare one's neck to the blade!
Tu Yuan looked at Li Guanqi with an admiring gaze, speaking in an unhurried, self-absorbed tone:
"To be frank, your name is often heard in the upper realm, especially where we come from."
"Of course, Su Xuan's name resounds even louder. Back in the passage, slaughtering a hundred immortals single-handedly... he is terrifyingly strong indeed."
"As for you, however... quite a lot of people want your life."
Li Guanqi gave a cold sneer. In an instant, he circulated his cultivation technique to its absolute limit, a threefold amplification causing his aura to surge explosively!
Tu Yuan's eyes narrowed into slits, his grip on his sword tightening involuntarily.
At this moment, Li Guanqi's aura was not a fraction weaker than that of a late Ascension Realm cultivator!
And that was when he had just broken through to the mid stage, without having even stabilized his realm!
Chapter 1540