United Front

After the battle concluded, Li Guanqi ransacked the North Sea Monastery completely. He forcibly extracted the island's sole spiritual vein. However, the spiritual vein was of mediocre quality and heavily depleted; even if converted into high-grade spirit stones, it would amount to only about a hundred or so. This prompted him to sigh ruefully, "Money really doesn't last..." Not to mention that he now had a bottomless pit of a giant dragon following him around. Relying on Jiuxiao absorbing spiritual energy on its own did nothing to increase its strength. Just as he had done at the Crane Alliance, Li Guanqi slaughtered everyone in the North Sea Monastery who harbored hostility toward him. He then crippled the cultivation of every remaining disciple. Moreover, his strength had clearly grown considerably following the battle at the Crane Alliance. Hardly anyone in the North Sea Monastery could rival him, even though one of them was likewise an expert who had recently stepped into the Soul Formation Realm. Under his sword, that opponent could only struggle desperately to hold on, and once tainted by heavenly flame, had no choice but to shear away his own flesh to survive. Striking down an entire sect twice in a row! Li Guanqi's notoriety skyrocketed overnight, and more and more people withdrew from the hunting ranks. Due to Li Guanqi's fiercely vengeful nature—repaying even the slightest slight—many clans and sects feared for their lives!! Meanwhile, the number of corpses bound by the thunder chains trailing behind Li Guanqi continued to grow. This time, however, his injuries were far lighter. Though he still appeared soaked in blood with gruesome wounds, none of them had struck vital spots. As long as his vitals remained unscathed, in Li Guanqi's eyes they were merely flesh wounds. Sitting cross-legged atop Jiuxiao's head, Li Guanqi's eyes flickered slightly. He had clearly sensed that when he appeared at the North Sea Monastery, several messages had been sent out. If he wasn't mistaken, after he wiped out the Crane Alliance, among the pursuers who had hunted him—specifically those who had been in the same group as Crane Alliance's Third Elder Lin Jian—many had already been acquainted with one another. He even suspected that the higher-ups of the North Sea Monastery and the Crane Alliance had known each other beforehand. Which meant... The six sects he had asked Tang Ru to investigate were likely all familiar with one another. If things were truly as he suspected, then his upcoming plans for revenge might require some adjustments. A glint of coldness flashed between Li Guanqi's brows as his slender fingers lightly stroked his chin. His left hand tapped repeatedly against the empty void, his posture relaxing slightly as he pondered his next moves. *** Meanwhile. Inside an ancient, mysterious hall, the candlelight was dim. The flickering flames cast shifting shadows across the faces of several old men. *Bang!!* The leader slammed his palm down onto the table, his voice laced with bitter resentment. "Wei Xian is dead, and Old Ghost Haicha is dead too!!" "Of the group that was wiped out back then, only our six sects were involved!! Next, that Blood Slaughterer fellow will definitely come for us!!" The elder had snow-white hair and beard and wore a dark gold robe. His brow was etched with deep worry and dread. His slightly stooped body seemed weighed down as though under a mountain, sinking lower and lower. The others fell silent; no one had anticipated things would turn out like this. Besides, plenty of people across the entire Great Xia Domain had taken part in hunting the Blood Slaughterer. Who would have thought that merely over the sect jade slip found on Lin Jian, the boy would mercilessly slaughter the entire Crane Alliance?!! Seeing them all keep their mouths shut in silence, a wave of fury surged within the leading elder! Glaring at the three men seated below, he barked, "I told you back then not to act rashly, but you refused to listen!!" "What do we do now?" His words immediately stirred resentment. An emaciated elder with sunken cheeks looked at him coldly. In a raspy voice, he sneered, "Don't act like you're any better than us. When there was talk of hunting the Blood Slaughterer, you were the most eager of all!" "What? Now that you see he's about to come knocking, you're terrified?" The elder at the head of the table looked displeased. He let out a cold snort, but offered no rebuttal. What calculations each person in the room had made from the very beginning was crystal clear to all of them. Their six sects were neither overwhelmingly powerful nor completely insignificant. Hunting Li Guanqi offered a handsome bounty on one hand, giving them greater resources to push toward higher cultivation realms. Yet the most important factor was the chance to latch onto the Mo Family's coattails. An elder seated near the door narrowed his eyes, a ruthless look flashing across his sinister visage. He said in a deep voice, "Bickering about this now is pointless. It's obvious that boy repays every slight with blood!" "None of our four sects will be spared. If we want to live, we're all in the same boat now." "If one drowns, the rest die too!" "Even if that Blood Slaughterer can slay an early Soul Formation cultivator, so what?" "At the end of the day, he's still only in the Nascent Soul realm. I refuse to believe he can kill all four of us at once!!" As those words fell, a sharp gleam erupted in the eyes of the others. They turned to the elder and asked, "You mean..." Outside the dim hall, the heavy light of a barrier flickered. No one knew the details of what they conspired. Yet by the time they departed, much of the gloom on their faces had cleared, and the four sects began making moves. After all, the news that Li Guanqi had wiped out two Soul Formation sects single-handedly had already spread far and wide. The disciples of the four sects lived in constant panic day in and day out. Had the sects not raised their sect-protecting grand formations, barring anyone from entering or leaving, many disciples would have fled long ago. The terror of death loomed perpetually over their hearts. Across two sects, over a thousand people had been slaughtered!!! The terrifying name of the Blood Slaughterer had shaken every one of them to the core, leaving them living in dread. Whenever they looked up at the sky, they terrified themselves thinking that monster might suddenly descend upon their own sect. Whispers and rumors had long circulated among the disciples of various sects. If the Crane Alliance's destruction had been seen as Li Guanqi randomly picking a target for revenge, then with the North Sea Monastery being destroyed as the second, many began to realize something was amiss. It seemed... his revenge was not random, but highly deliberate. Soon, word leaked out: after an investigation, people discovered that both the Crane Alliance and the North Sea Monastery had elders who had taken part in the ambush against Li Guanqi!! And they had all been slain in that exact same batch by the Blood Slaughterer!! By now, Li Guanqi's fearsome title of Blood Slaughterer had spread in every direction, striking terror into countless hearts!! *** Li Guanqi slowly rose. His aura was overwhelmingly formidable, violent lightning surging around his body. Half-step Soul Formation Realm!!! A sharp gleam flashed in his eyes. Looking up at the surrounding void, he murmured softly, "Have they arrived?" "Is it the Mo Family... or...?" Li Guanqi tapped his foot lightly. Jiuxiao understood immediately; with a flash of purple light, it transformed into a bracelet and coiled around his wrist in slumber. Clad in white robes, Li Guanqi stood in the void, gazing forward with an indifferent look. *Buzz!!!!* An elder clad in a shimmering, navy-blue robe slowly materialized before Li Guanqi's eyes.