Half-Step Soul Formation! Next Target!

As soon as this news spread, countless experts throughout the Great Xia Domain were thoroughly stunned! Especially the Mo Family, who had been following this matter closely. In a fit of rage, Mo Zhiyuan smashed his most beloved teacup to pieces, pointing at the several elders standing below as he cursed furiously. "Useless!! You're all useless trash!!!" "After all this time, no one from our Mo Family went to hunt him down!!" "What on earth are you good for?!!" *Boom!!!!* A terrifying pressure instantly forced all the elders flat against the ground. *Thud! Thump, thump!* *Thump! Thud!* *Crash, crash, crash, crash!!* The blue flagstones beneath them shattered under the sheer force of their knees, yet not a single person dared to utter a word of complaint. One of the elders could not help speaking up: "Reporting to the Family Head, it is not that we refused to hunt him down." "The place he was located is close to the Southern Domain, and we are quite far away. It has only been three days." "Moreover, the brat is too cunning. Right now, even the major intelligence organizations cannot track down his whereabouts, and the price of intelligence is soaring higher by the day." *Swish!!!* Mo Zhiyuan flashed before the speaking elder in an instant and delivered a vicious kick straight to the man's chest!! The elder shot backward like a cannonball!! *Bang!* He slammed into a white jade pillar three arm-spans thick before coming to a halt, violently coughing up a mouthful of blood. "*Gah!! Pfft!!*" "*Ugh!!! Mmh-mmh-urgh!!!*" The moment the elder spat blood, an invisible, giant hand seized his throat and hoisted him up along the pillar!! With a gloomy expression and hands clasped behind his back, Mo Zhiyuan stood before the elder, his eyes narrowing. Cold killing intent flickered in the depths of his gaze as he spoke in a low voice: "The one who died was Yun'er! My son!!!!" "No matter how expensive the intelligence is, buy it for me!!!" *Whoosh!!!* The invisible giant hand gave a violent fling, hurling the elder away. *Crash!!* The elder's body smashed through the great doors and tumbled outside the hall. Mo Zhiyuan turned around slowly, looking straight ahead as he spoke in a chilling voice: "Three days. If, after three days, I do not see members of the Mo Family stepping forward to hunt down that blind brat, I will slaughter every single one of you." With his back turned toward the crowd, the man slowly rotated his head, his frigid gaze sweeping over everyone present. Every bowing figure felt that piercing gaze and could not help shuddering. They all realized that the man before them was not joking. The Mo Zhiyuan who had once dominated an entire region... had returned. Everything that had transpired at the Crane Alliance swept across the entire Great Xia Domain like a raging gale! In particular, among the very first batch of people to arrive at the Crane Alliance, a black-robed person with hands on their hips had quietly recorded everything using a shadow-casting stone. After all, with the Crane Alliance destroyed, many of its resources had been looted clean. And this black-robed person's shadow-casting stone became the earliest record of the Crane Alliance's gruesome tragedy after Li Guanqi's departure. Before long, the contents of this shadow-casting stone were leaked. This allowed countless people to witness those scenes of living hell at the Crane Alliance... Without exaggeration, everyone who saw the contents of the stone tightly pursed their lips in dead silence. Counting the final Nascent Soul cultivators, Li Guanqi had slaughtered five hundred and twenty-one cultivators in the span of a single night!! A full five hundred people!!! It was from that day forward that Li Guanqi earned a resounding moniker: Blood Slaughterer! Immediately afterward, numerous rumors began to spread. It was said that the reason Li Guanqi had attacked the Crane Alliance in the first place was that among the cultivators who had previously pursued him, one was none other than Lin Jian, the third elder of the Crane Alliance! Furthermore, the order to hunt down Li Guanqi had been personally issued by Wei Xian, the alliance master of the Crane Alliance. 'Vindictive to the extreme!' Aside from ruthless and formidable, this was the impression everyone held of Li Guanqi. In an instant, many sects hurriedly issued recall orders! As for rogue cultivators, after seeing the bloody words on the boulder and the scenes from the shadow-casting stone, many abandoned all notions of striking it rich overnight. Li Guanqi's strength was obvious to all. They were terrified they might have the life to earn the reward, but not the life to spend it. Only at this point did many finally awaken to reality. Since Li Guanqi possessed the strength to slay Mo Congyun—ranked sixth on the Tianji Rankings—in head-on combat, he was already someone far beyond their ability to besiege. Add to that his direct confrontation and slaying of a Soul Formation cultivator, and many were forced to recognize their own limits. *Hum!! Hum!!!* Within the pitch-black void, a figure clad in a white robe sat atop a giant dragon, slowly breathing in and out. Pure white mist snaked into his nostrils, and when he opened his mouth, he exhaled a wisp of turbid air. Faint arcs of lightning flickered across his body, and scattered embers drifted beside him. *Boom!!* With a resounding boom, Li Guanqi's aura instantly surged upward by a massive leap!! His aura grew significantly stronger than before, and the primal energy surging within his body roared endlessly like a raging torrent. His surging vitality was also far more powerful than before! However, the Dragon Elephant Prison Suppressing Art was simply too profound. To break through to the next layer, he would likely still need the blood essence of a great demon belonging to the dragon or elephant lineages. The Nascent Soul inside him radiated a faint, lustrous glow, its aura vastly augmented. Li Guanqi slowly opened his eyes, having recovered from seventy to eighty percent of his injuries. Sensing the power within his body, he murmured under his breath: "Once all the internal injuries are completely healed, I should be able to formally step into half-step Soul Formation." Indeed, he could already faintly sense the threshold of the Soul Formation Realm. Even the Nascent Soul inside his body had begun undergoing subtle changes. He constantly felt as though the Nascent Soul was trying to merge into one with his soul. "Is this the key to transforming a Nascent Soul into an origin spirit?" Li Guanqi calculated in his heart that more than two years had passed since he left the Great Xia Sword Sect. In just over two short years, so much had happened, and his cultivation had leaped from the Core Formation realm to the verge of attempting Soul Formation in the blink of an eye. Yet thinking back, every time his strength had grown rapidly, it had been spurred by various life-and-death crises. A bitter smile touched the corner of his lips. He rose, stretched lazily, and murmured: "It really is... quite a thrilling life..." A peculiar, subtle smile curved his lips. Standing atop Jiuxiao's head, he slowly extended a finger. As his finger sliced through the void, a mysterious spatial fluctuation rippled outward from his fingertip. The void was torn open into a narrow slit. Li Guanqi turned his head to look and verified his current location. Not bad. It would not take long to reach the North Sea Monastery. He called out to Jiuxiao to shift directions. Then, one man and one dragon vanished into the void. This time, the North Sea Monastery reacted extremely quickly, raising their sect-protecting grand formation at the very first moment!! Yet immediately after, a lightning sword ray laced with crimson light struck right against the barrier of the formation!!! Ripples spread across the barrier ring after ring, and cracks appeared in rapid succession!! Treading upon the void, Li Guanqi slashed out sword after sword until finally... *Bang!!!!* Li Guanqi looked down at the crowd hovering in midair and casually tossed a jade pendant onto the ground. "No need to waste words. Let us... settle the score!" *Boom!!!!!* In the next instant, his figure vanished into thin air, and the shattered formation barrier was replaced by a terrifying heavenly flame boundary. No one knew what the North Sea Monastery, situated on an isolated island, had endured. Until early the next morning, when fishermen heading out to sea saw the waters dyed red with blood. Only then was it discovered that the North Sea Monastery... had also been wiped out!!