Ruthless! Powerful!

The shattered lightning was actively drawn into the youth's body! The sword spirit's voice suddenly rang in his mind. "Hold on! This lightning is enough to mutate your lightning spiritual power!" "Devour it!" Li Guanqi was practically pierced through by lightning, thick bolts coiling around him. He clamped his jaw tight, not making a sound. The fury in his heart, fueled by his burning will, began frantically refining the lightning within him! Gradually, the dantian in his body abruptly shattered! Bang! His golden core burst apart, replaced by a radiant golden figure. "Is this... a Nascent Soul...?" The moment the Nascent Soul formed, Li Guanqi instantly felt a strand of his soul partitioned off and merging into it. With the soul's integration, the Nascent Soul seemed to gain sentience in that instant. It gathered the shattered fragments of the golden core and swallowed them all into its belly. Instantly, the meridians throughout Li Guanqi's body were widened by surges of immense power. Moreover, among the heavenly tribulation lightning wandering through his body, a wisp was finally completely refined! With a beginning made, what followed became far easier. Li Guanqi thrust out his hand and actually seized the heavenly tribulation lightning wrapped around him! If one looked closely, they would see the space around his palm warping slightly. He had actually used spatial power to bind the tribulation lightning. Yet the scene that followed made everyone's jaws drop, a chorus of sharp gasps rippling through the air! The blood-drenched youth actually grabbed the tribulation lightning and stuffed it straight into his mouth! Just touching his lips, the lightning tore his cheeks to bloody shreds, exposing the bone beneath! Yet his gaze remained ferocious. Gripping the bolt with both hands, he swallowed it down in a couple of gulps! The onlookers could faintly see his belly swell high. Yet Li Guanqi did not notice that the Nascent Soul inside his body bore the exact same blood-colored patterns as he did. Once the lightning entered his body, just as it was about to dart away, the tiny Nascent Soul caught it in its hands. It shrank at a speed visible to the naked eye! Everyone had thought Li Guanqi would explode and die immediately, yet to their shock, he had already grabbed a second bolt and gulped it down! Among the watching crowd, even several mighty Nascent Soul realm cultivators broke out in a cold sweat at the sight. In all their long lives, they had never imagined that one day they would see someone swallow heavenly lightning alive! A burly man from the northwest wiped his face and muttered, "Sweet mother of mine, who'd ever believe this if I told 'em?" Yet this act completely enraged the heavenly tribulation! Heaven and earth roared. The sky for tens of li around went abruptly dark, and in an instant, wild winds howled and torrential rain poured down! By now, Li Guanqi's tongue was blown to pieces, leaving only bare bone exposed where his lower jaw had been, making him look like a vicious ghost! Feeling the majestic heavenly might bearing down from all sides, Li Guanqi took a sudden stride forward, an epiphany striking his heart. He murmured under his breath, "Sword Art Second Form: Heaven Breaker!!" At this moment, his soaring battle intent reached its absolute peak! He finally understood why he had never been able to grasp the second sword form. It was because he had never witnessed heavenly might, nor had he ever possessed the ambition to break the heavens! At that moment, the faint figure of the sword spirit stood behind him, watching him with an inscrutable light gleaming in her eyes. Unbeknownst to anyone, her hands hidden within her sleeves were already tightly clenched! Skreee! A screech of thunder like a bird's cry tore through the sky! A bolt of lightning sword light spanning a full hundred zhang slashed out! As the sword light swept forth, the world for a hundred li around darkened. In everyone's eyes, there was only that towering sword light tearing through the lightning and the heavens! Boom! A violent explosion erupted, the terrifying shockwave blasting the surrounding spectators back a hundred zhang. Zheng Deyuan's pupils trembled uncontrollably. As much as he hated to admit it, he knew that this youth undergoing the tribulation possessed strength far beyond his own! That single strike that shattered five bolts of lightning—he knew he could never withstand it himself. Just then, however, the old man behind him strode forward and said, "I'll take him!" Zheng Deyuan looked at the elder before him and murmured softly, "Father..." The old man's robes whipped loudly in the wind. With chilly eyes, he declared in a clear voice, "My grandson died a miserable death. As his grandfather, I can't just stand by and watch." "Since that's the case, let me test this junior!" The thunderclouds in the sky had been split clean in two by that sword strike! Clear sky and sunlight spilled through the fissure down onto the earth. Bathed in the sunlight, the youth slowly spread his arms as countless strands of misty aura enveloped him. His entire being seemed to undergo a metamorphosis, the wounds across his body healing at a rate visible to the naked eye. A terrifying pressure radiated from him—hardly that of someone who had just broken through to the Nascent Soul realm! It was clearly the stabilized foundation of an early Nascent Soul cultivator! And today, Li Guanqi had only just turned seventeen! Waves of pressure swept across heaven and earth, forcing everyone to instinctively retreat several hundred zhang. All of them knew that an unavoidable battle to the death was about to erupt. Li Guanqi looked at the two of them with a calm expression, the sword in his hand humming softly. Pointing the blade toward the empty air, he said, "Come at me together." As soon as those words left his mouth, cries of astonishment broke out from the surrounding crowd. Someone spoke up, "Does he not know what level of strength Old Master Zheng possesses?" "Even if he did succeed in breaking through, isn't he being a bit too arrogant?!" Yet both Zheng Yuanzhong and Zheng Deyuan knew that the youth before them was not bluffing. With the strength he had displayed, he had every right to say those words! The old man smiled faintly, having no intention of declining the offer. In an instant, the pressure from both men skyrocketed, reaching their peaks in the blink of an eye! Zheng Deyuan's aura at the early Nascent Soul realm was exceptionally steady, while the old man, Zheng Yuanzhong, had barely reached middle Nascent Soul. This fight was no longer mere child's play. A battle between mighty Nascent Soul realm cultivators was capable of tearing mountains apart and splitting the earth. Primal energy surged violently around Zheng Deyuan, an ochre-yellow glow enveloping the void! Channeling his movement technique, he charged toward Li Guanqi with sword in hand! All around, ten-zhang palm prints abruptly condensed one after another. Li Guanqi's expression remained unchanged. Above his head, the heavenly tribulation thunderclouds that had not yet dispersed actually gathered once more! Instantly, dozens of Thunder Spears, each about a zhang in length, crashed down! Those palm prints seemed utterly fragile before the Thunder Spears. Explosions rang out in rapid succession, yet Zheng Deyuan's figure ghostly materialized behind Li Guanqi. Suddenly! Zheng Yuanzhong roared in terror, "Deyuan, look out! He's behind you!" The ochre sword light burst forth, but the figure in front of Zheng Deyuan abruptly blurred into an illusion! "Not good! An afterimage!" Behind him, the youth's voice sounded like a whisper of death. "Too slow." "Demon Shadow Slash: Dark Night!" Boom! An impossibly fast sword light flashed and vanished through the sky! Spatial power locked down all four directions. Wherever the blade passed, space was neatly sliced open into a pitch-black rift! As heaven and earth dimmed, Zheng Deyuan's lifeless body tumbled from the sky. An illusory Nascent Soul fled madly! Yet a spatial barrier abruptly imprisoned the Nascent Soul. Everyone watched as the youth clenched his left hand tight! Bang! The void warped and violently caved in! Before the Nascent Soul's wailing had even faded, it was snuffed out entirely. Watching this scene, the onlookers could not help but swallow hard. Ruthless! Powerful!