Late Soul Formation

Staring at the bizarre man before him, Li Guanqi narrowed his eyes slightly. Never before had he encountered an artifact spirit endowed with such sentience! Apart from his sword spirit, even Red Lotus could only convey vague emotions at this stage, falling far short of true sentience. Yet the Tianji Chart’s chart spirit not only possessed keen intellect, but his physical form had already begun taking shape. This shift instantly made Li Guanqi sense that something was amiss. Closing his eyes for a fleeting second, his sea of consciousness and spiritual terrace hummed as his divine sense surged forth like an incoming tide! In a flash, Li Guanqi perceived the state of affairs beyond the boundary. Of the three hundred Soul Formation cultivators who had entered, fewer than two hundred remained—more than half were dead or wounded! Apart from those he and Xuan Lin had slain, nearly a hundred had fallen solely to mutual slaughter! Li Guanqi locked his eyes onto the man before him and said in a low voice, “What exactly is your purpose?” Even now, Li Guanqi had no idea what function the Tianji Chart truly served. Yet he could feel that its rank definitely surpassed the seven treasured swords Lu Kangnian wielded. In other words... the Tianji Chart was at the very least a spirit treasure! The man calling himself Tianji smiled faintly and lightly flicked his sword. His gaze gradually turned piercingly sharp, gleaming with undisguised greed as he looked at Li Guanqi. He murmured in excitement, “The Ethereal Dao Body!!” “If I can take possession of your physical form... I will never have to be trapped inside this scroll again!!” Li Guanqi’s heart gave a violent jolt. With a cold snort, instead of falling back, he lunged forward, raising his blade to strike! *Swish!* Lightning flashed around Li Guanqi, his afterimage lingering for a full breath. *Clang!* Struck dead-on by Li Guanqi’s descending sword, Tianji was blasted backward over a hundred zhang! Yet the skin between the thumb and forefinger of Li Guanqi’s left hand split open at the same instant. Tianji possessed terrifying strength; a blow infused with the strength of five dragon-elephants had merely forced him back a hundred zhang. Li Guanqi’s chest tightened abruptly! Now that he had unleashed the full extent of his physical power, he had merely knocked his foe back! One had to remember that Xuan Lin could at most contest Li Guanqi when he wielded the strength of three dragon-elephants. Once pushed to his peak of five dragon-elephants, it was enough to thoroughly crush Xuan Lin despite his Qilin bloodline! Tianji raised a hand to wipe the blood from the corner of his mouth, fixing Li Guanqi with an eagle-sharp glare. “You are very strong!!” *Buzz!* An incomparably formidable pressure suddenly erupted from Tianji’s body. This sheer power made even Li Guanqi’s guard rise. From the man opposite him, he felt an inexplicable, stifling weight! *Buzz! Swish!* Tianji’s figure vanished from Li Guanqi’s sight in an instant. Relying on an almost monstrous sense of perception, Li Guanqi whipped his blade around in a horizontal slash! *Boom!* Terrifying sword qi detonated in an instant, making heaven and earth tremble! The aura radiating from Tianji shifted abruptly, and the sword qi bursting all around instantly blanketed the entire hall. Li Guanqi raised his hand to unleash the maximum pressure of the Red Lotus Sword, driving his left-handed blade forward in a relentless flurry of strikes. The sword light was agile, fierce, and remarkably tricky, each blow faster than the last! His sword momentum grew increasingly heavy as well! *Clang, clang! Clang, clang, clang!* Tianji swung his blade in rapid succession, brilliant arcs of thunderous sword light grazing past one another time and again. Both combatants pushed their speed to its absolute limit. The only sound reaching their ears was the faint howling of wind and lightning. Gradually, Li Guanqi began to fall into a disadvantage. His eyes narrowed slightly as an understanding dawned on him. The Tianji before him felt just like the figures within the sword spirit’s Hundred Champions Illusion... Tianji’s sword momentum was erratic and elusive; every few strikes, his entire aura transformed. This kaleidoscopic variety of sword styles and stances caught Li Guanqi somewhat unprepared. *Spurt! Spurt!* In no time, numerous new sword wounds opened across his body! *Thud!* Li Guanqi smashed a fist directly into the flat of Tianji’s blade, and the impact sent both of them tumbling back several hundred zhang! “*Pant... gasp...*” Li Guanqi’s chest heaved violently as he drew deep, ragged breaths. Looking down at his shredded garments and the more than ten wounds large and small lining his frame, his heart shook. He had never expected a mere chart spirit of the Tianji Chart to prove so difficult to handle! Yet at this moment, he could clearly feel that Tianji’s aura had weakened considerably. It seemed such high-intensity combat imposed a heavy toll on the spirit as well. Tianji was also gasping for air, the flesh-and-blood vessel he had nearly finished solidifying now battered and largely shattered by Li Guanqi. Tianji regarded Li Guanqi with a solemn gaze, his mind a tempest of conflicting thoughts. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that a figure like Li Guanqi would step into this Tianji Mystic Realm, which had served to harvest lives time and again! The reserves of primal energy within Li Guanqi were as bottomless as an abyss! Even a genuine half-step Void Refinement cultivator likely lacked a reservoir of primal energy so immense. Li Guanqi gritted his teeth, flicked his wrist, and whipped out the Heavenly Flame Bead! Without the slightest hesitation, he parted his lips and swallowed it whole. *Boom!* In an instant, an incomparably terrifying pressure exploded from within Li Guanqi! Almost the very moment he swallowed the Heavenly Flame Bead, his aura surged straight into the late Soul Formation realm! Tianji’s pupils constricted violently as an ominous premonition seized his heart. Li Guanqi licked the blood from the corner of his mouth. His ragged white robes fluttered without any breeze, snapping fiercely in the rushing gale. His features twisted into a feral grimace, Li Guanqi let out a low roar: “Again!!” Tianji was likewise swept along by this soaring battle intent, barking furiously, “To battle!!” As a chart spirit, Tianji had long grown sick of this hollow, ethereal existence. Across ten thousand years, he had manifested hundreds of times solely to harvest enough essence blood to forge a true body of flesh and bone. The instant he caught sight of Li Guanqi’s Ethereal Dao Body, he knew his chance had arrived. As the sole constitution in all of heaven and earth comparable to the Heavenly Dao Body, the Ethereal Dao Body was like an unblemished sheet of paper, endowed with infinite possibilities. If he could claim Li Guanqi’s physical form, even ascending to the Immortal Realm in the future would be well within reach! Were it not for this, Li Guanqi would have had to ascend to at least the eighth floor of the Tower of the Wheel of Fate to lay eyes upon the Tianji Chart’s true form. As for Li Guanqi, he needed the Tianji Chart to fulfill its promise, and his own fighting spirit blazed without restraint. Moreover, throughout his entire path of cultivation thus far, the Tianji standing before him was arguably the most formidable adversary he had ever faced! Tianji was like an amalgamation of every single powerhouse within the Hundred Champions Illusion! Through him, Li Guanqi could clearly perceive just how terrifyingly powerful the chosen prodigies from ages past had truly been. *Boom!* The Heavenly Thunder Bead completely solidified into the Nascent Soul’s second dantian the instant Li Guanqi broke through to late Soul Formation! Meanwhile, the Heavenly Flame Bead dissolved into the purest power, nourishing the two heavenly flames within his body! *Boom!* With merely a single step forward, heavenly flames swirled around Li Guanqi, scorching the surrounding space into violent distortions. Outside, the Tianji Chart itself was similarly engulfed by the two blazes. The heavenly flames raged as if determined to burn the Tianji Chart’s true form to absolute cinders!