Louder!

Looking at Yan Chong with his eyes brimmed with tears, Li Guanqi could actually understand him deeply in his heart. Back then... he had been the same. Raising a hand, he drew the woman from Yan Chong's arms over to his side and slipped a small fragment of Pengluo into her mouth. Instantly, waves of surging medicinal power dissolved within her body, and the wounds across her flesh began healing at a rate visible to the naked eye. Yan Chong's taut nerves finally loosened, and his eyes shut as he slumped forward toward the ground. Li Guanqi reached out to catch him. He rummaged through his storage ring for quite a while, but failed to find a single healing pill suitable for the Core Formation realm. The other pills in his possession were simply too potent; feeding one to Yan Chong might well cause his body to explode from the overwhelming surge of energy. Next, he brought out dozens more storage rings from his own ring—spoils from the people he had slain that he had never even bothered to inventory. At last, within a purple storage ring, he found some pills suitable for treating injuries. Bringing the two of them to a mountain summit, it was not long before Yan Chong slowly came to. When he saw the figure sitting on the peak and drinking wine, his heart gradually settled. Turning to look at the woman, whose breathing was now steady and calm, his dangling heart was finally put at ease. Li Guanqi looked at Yan Chong beside him and smiled. "Care for a drink?" The two chatted for a while, and Li Guanqi learned that Yan Chong had belonged to the previous generation of disciples in the Great Xia Sword Sect—specifically, a thirty-eighth-generation disciple. Noticing his heavily preoccupied demeanor, Li Guanqi could not help asking, "What is it? You still seem weighed down by worry." Yan Chong said, "Perhaps we should leave now. The Golden Snake Sect is too powerful; it won't be long before they track us down." He gave Li Guanqi a deep look, but ultimately swallowed the rest of his words. Li Guanqi shrugged indifferently and said, "No matter. "By the way, why were you being hunted? "Speak freely." From their conversation, Yan Chong had also learned that Li Guanqi was a thirty-ninth-generation disciple of the Great Xia Sword Sect, having entered the sect a few years after him. When Yan Chong had departed the sect as a Core Formation cultivator, it had already been more than a decade ago. "Sigh... it's a long story. "Yu Qin and I discovered a three-hundred-year-old Rakshasa Scarlet Demon Flower in the lair of a powerful demonic beast. "Who could have expected that after a bitter fight to kill that beast, we would be ambushed by the Golden Snake Sect! "Qin'er was gravely injured trying to save me. Originally, the matter should have ended there. "Yet while we were on the run, I heard something else!" Li Guanqi frowned slightly and asked in a low voice, "What is it?" Yan Chong sighed softly and said heavily, "I heard that Fu An, the son of Golden Snake Sect Master Fu Dongsheng, had his cultivation crippled. "The entire Golden Snake Sect dispatched several mighty Soul Formation Realm cultivators and spent half a month hunting down and capturing the culprit." Li Guanqi furrowed his brows and said in a grave voice, "Cut straight to the point. Who was captured?" Hearing this, Yan Chong stopped elaborating and stated somberly, "The thirty-fifth-generation Peak Master of Tianshui Peak of the Great Xia Sword Sect, Elder Tu Shan!" Boom! The moment those words fell, an incomparably terrifying aura erupted from Li Guanqi's body! That pressure seemed to possess the power to annihilate heaven and earth. Yan Chong felt as though he were a solitary leaf of a boat adrift upon a boundless ocean, tossed amid Li Guanqi's pressure and in constant danger of capsizing! Li Guanqi slowly reined in his aura, killing intent surging wildly around him! "Tu Shan..." If he remembered correctly, this Elder of the Great Xia Sword Sect had returned once in the past. Moreover, rumors later claimed that between this elder and Sect Master Lu Kangnian, there were many ambiguous, unspoken feelings. Li Guanqi took a deep breath, a sneer tugging at the corners of his mouth as he slowly rose to his feet. With a flick of his wrist, he tossed two pills to Yan Chong. Looking at the two Nascent Soul Formation Pills before him, the young man was completely stunned. "Brother Li, this isn't right... This... this is far too precious!" Li Guanqi smiled. "Take them. One day, you two will grow to even stronger realms as well. "I hope Senior Brother will always keep the sect creed in mind and remain an upright man. "Should you encounter fellow disciples roaming abroad in the future, you too can draw your sword to help them without hesitation!" Yan Chong rose and clasped his fists. In his heart, he had already formed a faint guess regarding Li Guanqi's identity, though he hardly dared believe it. "Yan Chong has no regrets in this life for entering the sect! If I ever encounter a fellow disciple in trouble in the days ahead, I will never sit idly by!" Li Guanqi smiled and nodded, his figure vanishing from the spot via teleportation. Watching Li Guanqi's departing silhouette, a sharp light flickered in Yan Chong's eyes as he muttered softly, "When did the Great Xia Sword Sect produce such a terrifying monstrous talent? "I haven't paid attention to matters in the Great Xia Domain for far too long..." High above an unnamed mountain range, the winding ridges below coiled like a spirit serpent. Li Guanqi looked down upon the earth with cold eyes. With a lift of his hand, the clouds and winds of heaven and earth shifted violently. Dense, heavy dark clouds gathered, heralding a tempest. Rumble! Boom! Crackle! Dark clouds rolled and churned as purple lightning flashed incessantly, leaping through the roiling sky. The spiritual energy between heaven and earth seemed to run wild, and the ground for dozens of li around shuddered violently. As the mountains trembled and the earth shook, the demonic beasts within the range flattened themselves against the ground, whimpering in terror. At the Golden Snake Sect. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh! Dozens of figures teleported into the void one after another. Everyone looked up into the sky. Several hundred zhang above, a white-robed figure stood aloft in the void. A man clad in a black python-patterned robe slowly flew up into the air. He had sharp, short-cropped hair. With triangular eyes and an aquiline nose, his demeanor was chilling—one look was enough to tell he was an extraordinarily ruthless man. A half-step Void Refining Realm cultivator! Yet at this moment, Fu Dongsheng could not detect the slightest trace of an aura from the newcomer! Wearing a smile, Fu Dongsheng stepped forward two paces and cupped his fists courteously. "Fellow Daoist, to what do we owe the honor of your visit to my Golden Snake Sect?" As he finished speaking, primal energy surged through Fu Dongsheng, and his majestic aura erupted outward. Glancing at the lightning churning relentlessly across the surrounding void, however, an uneasy tremor ran through his heart. *Damn it, a lightning-element cultivator renowned for sheer destructive power!* *What could this be about...? We haven't done anything recently to provoke an expert of this caliber...* The corner of Li Guanqi's mouth curled slightly. A terrifying divine sense swept down like an overwhelming tidal wave toward the Golden Snake Sect! Fu Dongsheng's expression instantly darkened. This brazen action was no different from slapping him in the face in front of everyone! Boom! With his sea of consciousness humming, he foolishly attempted to block it, but upon the briefest contact with that divine sense, his very soul was violently shaken! The terrifying divine sense nearly seized the opportunity to pulverize his sea of consciousness! Had his reactions not been fast enough to sever the link to his own divine sense in an instant, he likely would have suffered severe injuries right then and there! Spiritual light flashed violently above the Golden Snake Sect as the formation barrier trembled frantically, throwing up severe ripples. Boom! Crackle! In merely a single breath, that thick barrier shattered with a deafening crash! Almost in that very instant, Li Guanqi located the woman—gravely wounded and nearly comatose, imprisoned deep in a dungeon! "Fellow Daoist!! You are provoking our entire Golden Snake Sect!!" Fu Dongsheng could endure no longer. With a sharp clang, he drew his sword and pointed it straight at Li Guanqi! At the same time, several peaks within the Golden Snake Sect shook violently as one figure after another burst out from secluded cultivation. Seeing that Tu Shan's life was not in immediate peril, Li Guanqi finally breathed a sigh of relief. He swept his right hand across the void, and a terrifying force instantly shifted Tu Shan out from the heavily warded dungeon! Casting a sideways glance at the imposingly posturing Fu Dongsheng, Li Guanqi raised his hand. The clouds churned, and tens of thousands of lightning bolts converged above Li Guanqi's head to form a hundred-zhang sword of lightning! In a calm voice, he spoke: "What did you say? Speak! Up!!"