The moment those words were spoken, everyone present shuddered inwardly.
It was not merely because Li Guanqi had called out the immortal's hypocrisy without mincing words.
It was even more so because a living, breathing human being was actually hidden inside the belly of that demonic beast!
If Li Guanqi had not intervened, that person would have already been cast into the formation to become a sacrifice.
No one could have foreseen such an outcome. After all, this was nothing less than a living human sacrifice!
A living sacrifice...
True to the name, the offering could not be dead.
That meant the victim had to be alive and fully conscious when cast into the sacrificial array—sacrificed alive!
Li Guanqi reached out and helped Xuan Lin up. By now, Xuan Lin was gradually regaining consciousness.
His swollen eyelids narrowed his eyes into mere slits.
Straining with all his might, Xuan Lin forced his eyes open, but with his tongue cut out, he could not make a single sound.
His blurred vision slowly sharpened. When he made out the face of the man before him, he froze in disbelief, and tears instantly welled in his eyes.
"Ah... ah-ah! Ah-ah-ah-ah!"
Trembling whimpers broke from him as Xuan Lin squirmed desperately, his gaze brimming with entreaty.
Seeing this, Li Guanqi could not bear the sight.
Things remained, but people had changed...
Once a favored scion of heaven capable of clashing and contending with him, now hacked into a limbless stump, stuffed into the belly of a beast to serve as a living sacrifice!
No one could have ever imagined such an earth-shattering reunion...
Li Guanqi channeled wisps of pure primal energy through his palm into Xuan Lin, helping him soothe and untangle the chaotic meridians within.
Because Pan Yi and his cohort needed to ensure Xuan Lin's cultivation remained intact, they had merely wounded him gravely and placed a powerful seal within his dantian to prevent him from drawing upon his power.
With a cold snort, Li Guanqi unleashed his divine sense.
The tempestuous divine sense surged forth like a feral beast, instantly shattering the sealing barrier laid inside Xuan Lin's body!
Standing nearby, Pan Yi narrowed his eyes at Li Guanqi and said chillingly, "You had better know what you are doing! This is an offering prepared for Master Cizhi. By acting like this, are you not afraid of incurring the immortal's wrath?!"
Li Guanqi snapped his head toward Pan Yi, his piercing gaze as sharp as an eagle's.
All at once, the skies over the entirety of Qixia City churned as violent winds whipped up!
Dense, heavy dark clouds massed overhead, thunder rolling unceasingly with roars akin to the descent of a heavenly tribulation!
The phantom silhouette of Cizhi narrowed his eyes, the corner of his eye twitching slightly. He had not expected Li Guanqi's aura to be capable of triggering such an earthly and heavenly phenomenon.
Such a figure was bound to be an extraordinary standout among mortals!
*Rumble!*
Several spears of lightning plunged from the thunderclouds in the sky!
A spirit incantation!
Cizhi narrowed his eyes, inwardly murmuring, *No chant required? His resonance with spirit incantations is remarkably potent!*
Li Guanqi fixed his gaze on Pan Yi in the distance. A terrifyingly profound spatial force instantly locked down the space surrounding the man.
Under the relentless squeeze of that immense power, Pan Yi could not even muster the strength to fight back. His limbs began to warp and contort.
The sickening crunch of splintering bones was chilling to the bone, drawing sharp intakes of breath from all the watching cultivators.
They had all heard of Li Guanqi's ruthless style; seeing him merely break the man's limbs now seemed almost far too merciful.
*Crack! Snap-crunch!*
Pan Yi's limbs were shattered, and the plunging spears of lightning instantly pierced through his arms and legs, hurling his body backward until he slammed into the stone wall encircling the plaza, thoroughly pinned and immobilized!
"*Pfft!*"
"*Cough, cough...* Do... do you have any idea who I am?! I am Pan Yi!"
"How dare you... treat me like this?!"
"If you dare... kill me today... the elders of my clan... will never let you off!"
Li Guanqi's brow furrowed. With a single hand, he condensed a thick, massive Thunder Spear and, without a word, hurled it straight at Pan Yi's head!
The eight-foot spear dragged a streak of purple lightning behind it, flashing across the sky in the blink of an eye!
*Rumble!*
An ear-splitting blast detonated. Li Guanqi and Pan Yi were separated by a hundred zhang, yet the void between them was instantly ripped open into a long, pitch-black fissure.
*Bang!*
The spear drove straight through the thick stone wall, and Pan Yi's head burst apart like a watermelon!
The headless corpse went limp, its limbs still firmly nailed to the stone wall as it sagged powerlessly.
Li Guanqi regarded it coldly, spitting out chillingly, "Noisy."
The massive Thunder Spear remained driven into the stone wall amidst splattered gore, red and white viscera slowly oozing down the stone face.
Seeing this, the powerhouses of the Pan family were shaken to their core. Many immediately crushed jade slips to transmit distress messages, while others whipped out spatial teleportation scrolls, desperate to flee.
Li Guanqi did not even bother to stop them, because throughout all of Qixia City...
From the moment Qixian Pagoda opened, the space spanning a hundred li around had already been enveloped by the immortal's power, isolated entirely from the rest of the world.
In other words, the surrounding hundred li of space was now the immortal's domain.
Sure enough...
"It doesn't work! The message can't get out at all!"
"What do we do... run! Run!"
With his back turned to the crowd, Li Guanqi lightly pressed his hand downward.
*Rumble!*
Thunder crashed, and in an instant, countless bolts of lightning coalesced into spears, raining down from the heavens!
Each descending Thunder Spear snuffed out a cultivator's life, the thunderous booms and shrill screams ringing out to the heavens.
From start to finish, the phantom silhouette in the sky showed no change in expression, watching the entire spectacle unfold in eerie stillness.
It was as if none of this had anything to do with him. Catching sight of that detached look, Li Guanqi felt an even deeper disgust rise within his heart.
A massacre.
In barely the span of a breath, every single member of the Pan family had been reduced to a pool of mush. Upon the scorched craters scarring the earth, nothing remained save for dark, blackened blood.
Li Guanqi did not even glance at the corpses of the other demonic beasts; there was no point.
Everything the Pan family had done had been solely to conceal Xuan Lin's presence.
Li Guanqi suddenly began to laugh—a laugh that was cold, mocking, and full of disdain.
"Heh..."
As the laughter sounded, Li Guanqi's divine sense poured forth like an overwhelming tide, instantly immobilizing all the cultivators of Qixia Academy where they stood.
Immediately after, vile scenes flooded into Li Guanqi's mind.
So it turned out that Qixia Academy was the guide and accomplice for Cizhi.
They were specifically tasked with covering up the hidden truths Cizhi wished to keep buried, as well as...
Disposing of the people in the city who died under mysterious circumstances...
Cold-blooded, ruthless scenes flashed across Li Guanqi's mind one after another.
Gradually, the killing intent radiating from Li Guanqi grew more and more terrifying!
*Bang!*
*Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!*
A succession of violent detonations rang out as the bodies of the higher-ups of Qixia Academy ruptured uncontrollably, bursting into clouds of bloody mist!
Shreds of flesh mingled with the blood mist, showering everyone around them. Several young men and women who had no knowledge of the truth were frightened out of their wits by the sight.
They stood frozen in place, trembling from head to toe, their faces pale and their eyes blank and numb as they stared forward.
They could only let the red and white matter splatter across their faces, their robes thoroughly drenched in minced flesh.
Chapter 950