A Single Sword

Hearing this, Li Guanqi felt an immediate surge of joy and hastily asked, "Can you?" The sword spirit's voice grew grave. "I can, but the price is steep!" Li Guanqi drew a deep breath. Looking back at the heavily wounded Cao Yan and Ye Feng, he said in a low voice, "Still better than dying right now! Let's do it!!" The sword spirit smiled faintly. She admired his decisiveness; once he had thought things through, he never wavered over other concerns. She said softly, "If that is your choice, open your mind. I will take over your body." Li Guanqi gently closed his eyes. To Fang Yishan, it looked as though he had simply given up resisting. Yet in the very next instant, a terrifying aura that made heaven and earth tremble surged from his body! Boom! The terrifying aura erupted violently. When Li Guanqi opened his eyes, a layer of blood-red veiled his pure white pupils. The Red Lotus in his hand let out an intensely thrilled sword hum! His spirit ruins swung open with a roar, and a blood-colored longsword slowly emerged, ultimately merging into the blade of Red Lotus. An irrepressible sense of dread spread wildly in the depths of Fang Yishan's heart! From the aura alone, Fang Yishan stood frozen where he was, his body turning freezing cold as if dropped into an ice cellar. The terror of death instantly gripped his mind, yet he stood rooted to the spot, unable to move a muscle. Both Ye Feng and Cao Yan looked toward Li Guanqi with shock in their eyes. Li Guanqi looked up at the firmament and let out a light, enigmatic sigh. Though his eyes lacked pupils, everyone could see an expression of supreme haughtiness within his gaze—a gaze that looked down on heaven and earth and held all creation in contempt. Hum! Red Lotus erupted with an incomparable, terrifying pressure before slowly rising toward the sky. Fang Yishan's pupils contracted to pinpricks as he screamed desperately in his heart, *Move! Move!!* As the longsword slowly rose toward the sky, the fear in Fang Yishan's heart reached its absolute zenith. The world before his eyes suddenly transformed into a boundless mountain of corpses and a sea of blood! Those massive, mangled remains were like great mountains, piled high one upon another. Shrouded in crimson, Fang Yishan raised his head with immense difficulty; atop the mountain of corpses towered a blood-colored sword. "No... no... no!!" "I don't want to die! Move! I don't want to die!!" Having taken over Li Guanqi's body, the sword spirit looked down at Fang Yishan with utter disdain, as though gazing at an ant. As the sword was raised high, winds and clouds churned across heaven and earth, unleashing a violent gale. Amid flashes of lightning and rolls of thunder, a heaven-cleaving sword ray laced with crimson slashed out with a roar! Thunder shrieked as the sword light flashed across the darkened sky and vanished! Where he stood, Fang Yishan was instantly swallowed whole by the sword light. Wherever the sword light passed, a mountain several hundred zhang tall was cleft clean in two! The earth rumbled and the peak shattered, sending countless massive boulders crashing down! Fang Yishan's corpse plummeted limply from midair, splattering blood in all directions. Ye Feng and Cao Yan stood slack-jawed, staring at the scene in utter disbelief. The might of that single strike was fully comparable to an all-out blow from a Nascent Soul realm cultivator! The dark rift slowly sealing in the sky likewise testified that this sword strike had been extraordinary. The lightning sword ray, mingled with an unknown crimson, had flashed and vanished like a world-destroying light. The sword spirit turned back to look at Ye Feng and Cao Yan, an enigmatic smile touching her lips. But right after, the blood-colored Dao runes on Li Guanqi's body suddenly flared with dazzling light! The sword spirit frowned slightly, cursed under her breath, and departed from Li Guanqi's physical body. Li Guanqi's figure instantly tumbled from midair. Seeing this, Ye Feng forced his heavily injured body forward and flew up to catch him. Yet as Li Guanqi fell, his appearance began to age at a speed visible to the naked eye! Though his features did not change drastically, unnatural wrinkles crept across his face, a few strands of white hair appeared at his temples, and his aura became extremely feeble! Ye Feng was horrified. Catching Li Guanqi, he called out repeatedly, but received no response. Cao Yan flew over and hurriedly reached out to check the aura within him, only to find that Li Guanqi's vitality was desperately weak! Both their expressions changed drastically. Cao Yan desperately channeled primal energy into him, yet he still could not halt the drain of his vitality. With an extremely grim expression, Ye Feng asked, "What on earth happened to Boss?! Could it be... because of that strike just now?" Cao Yan shoved Ye Feng aside and ripped open Li Guanqi's tattered robes. "What are you doing?" Cao Yan's eyes were bloodshot as he roared, "Get away! Don't get in the way of me saving him!!" With that, both looked down and saw the exceedingly intricate, eerie blood runes across Li Guanqi's body. Cao Yan froze. To Ye Feng's eyes, these crimson Dao runes might have appeared unremarkable, but in Cao Yan's eyes, they were extraordinarily complex, like chains bearing the profound truths of the Great Dao, sealing something tightly away. With no time to overthink, Cao Yan slashed open his finger, a boundless power of fire swirling around him. Infusing his finger with the last vestiges of his flame power, his right hand rapidly traced an extraordinarily complex blood array across Li Guanqi's spiritual terrace and dantian. Gradually, cold sweat covered Cao Yan's forehead, and his eyes grew hollow. Yet the more hollow they became, the firmer his resolve grew! *If not for Big Brother... all of us would be dead...* However, the force draining that vitality was far beyond his power to stop. Ye Feng watched as Cao Yan's body trembled more and more violently. Blood began trickling from his seven apertures, and two trails of bloody tears streamed down from his eyes! "Seal for me!!" Accompanied by Cao Yan's roar, two blood-colored array patterns formed, but the blood array held for only a single breath before shattering. Cao Yan swayed and passed out cold. Ye Feng pulled Cao Yan over, then turned back to look at Li Guanqi and found that the drain on his vitality had finally stopped. Ye Feng let out a long breath of relief and collapsed onto the mountain summit, panting heavily. Hum! A dark spatial rift roughly a zhang wide tore through the void. Ye Feng rolled over, instantly shielding the two behind him, and looked toward the sky with longsword in hand, his gaze tangled with emotion! Then, a black-robed figure slowly materialized. Ye Feng looked closely, rolled his eyes back, and fainted as well. At the sight, Qin Xian flashed and appeared beside the three. Looking at the heavily injured trio and Li Guanqi's faint spark of life, Qin Xian's expression changed drastically. Turning his head, he caught sight of the cleft mountain and the corpse lying upon the ground. The ancient trees felled around the mountain were scorched black, and the lingering aura belonged precisely to Li Guanqi. The old man knit his brows tightly. Looking at Li Guanqi once more, he could not help muttering under his breath, "It seems this boy... used some forbidden technique that overdrew his lifespan!"