Shatter His Sea of Consciousness!

At that moment, the heartstrings of every disciple of the Six Ancient Sacred Sect were deeply stirred. Roused by surging passion, countless disciples wished they could lend Zhou Shiyu even a sliver of their own strength. Yet their cultivation was limited; all they could do was stand to the side, waving banners and cheering him on. Over the past month, the Six Ancient Sacred Sect had been overrun by the Sun clan. Zhou Shiyu, the favored child of heaven in everyone's eyes, had set an unprecedented record in the sect's history by clearing five gates single-handedly. Yet the Sun clan... Sun Zhen had likewise breached five gates, while Sun Tianqi... had broken through all six alone! That peerless pride of their sect had seemingly been crushed by the Ancient Clan at that very moment. One month... In just one short month, the Six Ancient Sacred Sect had been reduced to a vassal of the Sun clan. The disciples of the Sun clan ran rampant through the sect, treating them like dirt. *Boom! Boom!* Roars battered his ears without cease. Sun Zhen glared intently at Li Guanqi before him and said in a chilling voice, "Who are you? Why do you bar my way?" Li Guanqi kept his hands behind his back and said nothing, merely looking at him in silence. A flicker of mixed emotion stirred deep within his eyes. He knew what kind of person Sun Zhen was. Yet it was precisely because of that that his feelings were so tangled. For in his eyes, the Sun Zhen before him had lost some of the sincerity and innocence he had possessed when they last met. He wondered what had influenced Sun Zhen since their parting to turn him into the man he was today. A ruthless edge now shadowed Sun Zhen's eyes, and his speech and mannerisms were gradually taking after Sun Tianqi. The two were biological brothers to begin with, bearing similar features, and now their gazes were virtually identical... A pang of disappointment struck Li Guanqi's heart. Turning his eyes away from Sun Zhen, he looked toward the void not far behind him where the other two were locked in combat. In a calm voice, he said, "Who I am... does not matter. "This is a battle between the two of them. Do not interfere." His composed tone showed he did not take Sun Zhen seriously in the slightest. Faced with such nonchalance from Li Guanqi, Sun Zhen felt all the more uncertain. Still, with Sun Tianqi utterly overpowering Zhou Shiyu in their fight, Sun Zhen composed himself and cautiously probed Li Guanqi's aura. Yet Li Guanqi merely cast a glance at him, and the divine sense surging around Sun Zhen was instantly shattered. Li Guanqi spoke in a deep voice, "I will grant you only this one chance to probe me." Sun Zhen's pupils contracted. He had never expected that the divine sense he deployed via a secret art would be seen through and crushed so effortlessly! *Just what cultivation does this man possess?!* *And... why does he give me such a familiar feeling?* *Could we have met somewhere before?* Behind them, the battle raged on. A ferocious look twisted Sun Tianqi's face; right now, he wanted nothing more than to torture Zhou Shiyu to death before everyone's eyes! This man who dared challenge his authority had to be made an example of! What the clan had given Sun Zhen years to resolve without success, Sun Tianqi had settled in less than a month. At present, Sun Tianqi enjoyed immense prestige within the Sun clan, to the point where the clan was already discussing when to pass the position of family head to him. And right at this juncture, Zhou Shiyu had jumped out to provoke him. Had it not been for Sun Tianqi's plethora of life-saving measures, that earlier strike might well have left him grievously wounded! *Bang!* Sun Tianqi swept a vicious kick across Zhou Shiyu's head. The terrifying force blurred Zhou Shiyu's vision, shaking his sea of consciousness violently. As Zhou Shiyu was blasted backward, Sun Tianqi lowered the sword in his hand and retrieved an all-silver hammer from his storage ring. Then, from his storage ring, he drew a longbow of pure silver, nocking an arrow and drawing the string in one fluid motion! Trailing a thread of silver, the silver-white arrow plunged straight into Zhou Shiyu's skull in an instant! Yet as the silver-white arrow pierced into Zhou Shiyu's head, it left not the slightest physical wound. The arrow behaved like an ethereal phantom, but immediately afterward, the thread trailing behind it snapped taut. Gripping his massive hammer, Sun Tianqi licked his lips and roared with madness in his eyes, "Since that's how it is, I'll destroy your sea of consciousness and leave you an idiot for the rest of your life!" *Bang!* The hammer smashed down onto the thread. Starting from the far end, the thread began shattering inch by inch, spreading all the way... into Zhou Shiyu's mind. It all unfolded in the blink of an eye. Dazed and disoriented, Zhou Shiyu had no time to react. The arrow shattered... Already at the end of his tether, Zhou Shiyu went deathly pale and spewed a mouthful of blood. Clutching his head, he pounded it madly with both hands. Agonized roars tore from his throat, his features contorted in horrific torment. Li Guanqi watched as the light gradually faded from Zhou Shiyu's eyes. He sighed softly. He knew... countless fissures had likely spiderwebbed across Zhou Shiyu's Dao platform in his sea of consciousness. Divine sense drained away frantically, and his mind slipped into complete delirium. Slowly, Zhou Shiyu plunged from the sky, crashing heavily onto the stone pavers below. His limbs grew twisted; the fingers of both hands curled and spasmed uncontrollably, clawing in crooked twitches. Lying on the ground, Zhou Shiyu lost control of his bladder and bowels, soiling the ground beneath him. His mouth hung crookedly to one side, drool glistening as it spilled down his chin. His bloodshot eyes gradually became hollow and lifeless. Like a village idiot at the foot of a mountain, he sprawled on the ground, drooling and giggling vacantly. Ghastly sword wounds covered his entire body, mangled flesh laid bare in utter misery. Silence fell over the crowd. Only Sun Tianqi, sneering coldly, drifted down to land before Zhou Shiyu. Looking up at the silent sect master and the disciples of the Six Ancient Sacred Sect, he sneered, "Favored child of heaven? "The Six Ancient Sacred Sect... belongs to the Sun clan! From this day forth, it will always bear the surname Sun!" With that, Sun Tianqi raised his sword, poised to sever the arm Zhou Shiyu used to wield his blade. The sect master of the Six Ancient Sacred Sect suddenly unleashed a terrifying surge of pressure from within his body. "Stop!" The old man roared in fury, his sword slashing out violently! Yet Sun Tianqi remained entirely unperturbed. Lifting his chin, he glared at him with disdainful, white-rimmed eyes and said chillingly, "Old bastard, if you dare take action today... I will slaughter your entire sect tomorrow!" At those words, the old man's sword ground to a dead halt... The old man's face twisted with agony. He did not dare... He could not bear to drag the entire Six Ancient Sacred Sect down into the grave with him. Sun Tianqi sneered, and his sword cleaved down with sudden ferocity! *Clang!* *Bang!* The sword at Kong Xun's waist shot forth in an instant, tapping against the edge of Sun Tianqi's blade before exploding into countless shards that scattered in all directions. Sun Tianqi slowly raised his head to look at the man before him. Handsome with an air of bewitching charm, the man gazed back at him with calm eyes. "You mean to stop me?" Li Guanqi offered no reply. Instead, he looked down at Zhou Shiyu at his feet, whose eyes brimmed with tears, a flood of thoughts churning within him. In him, Li Guanqi seemed to see a reflection of himself. Was not everything Zhou Shiyu had done for the Six Ancient Sacred Sect the very choice any disciple of the Great Xia Sword Sect would make in his place? Even Li Guanqi found himself thinking: if he were in Zhou Shiyu's shoes... He, too, would make the exact same choice without a second's hesitation! Even knowing that returning this time meant nine chances of death against one of survival. Li Guanqi looked down at the youth by his feet and spoke in a low voice, "Have you given up? "Before coming here, didn't you draw your sword with the resolve to die? "Are you resigned to becoming a useless cripple like this, watching the Six Ancient Sacred Sect fall into someone else's hands? "Aren't you... not... yet... dead?!" The world fell silent. No one understood what Li Guanqi meant by those words. Yet hearing them, the pupils of Zhou Shiyu, sprawled on the ground, contracted and dilated. Slowly, Zhou Shiyu pushed his torso against the ground, his mangled limbs trembling into motion under the sheer force of his willpower. On hands and knees, Zhou Shiyu crawled forward inch by inch across the ground, like a maggot. With every inch he moved, the chains in his chest rattled with a metallic clatter. And the direction he was dragging himself toward was that very heavy sword, Edgeless, lying on the ground. At last, his hand touched the hilt, yet his contorted fingers refused to open. Zhou Shiyu parted his trembling lips, yet no sound came from his mouth. Yet everyone present who witnessed this scene felt as though they could hear a soundless roar. That voice... was deafening! Under everyone's stunned gazes, the twisted fingers trembled open and seized the hilt! *Boom!* Seeing this, the corners of Li Guanqi's mouth curved upward slightly, and he murmured to himself, *What admirable willpower...* Raising his hand, countless crimson threads shot straight toward the chain in Zhou Shiyu's chest, his frigid voice resounding between heaven and earth: "Spirit Absolution!" *Buzz!*