Under the deliberate propaganda of the Ancient Clans, the incident caused a massive uproar. Rumors ran rampant everywhere that Li Guanqi was a ruthless, cold-blooded evil cultivator.
The unpredictable sword cultivator had earned the moniker "Yanluo Sword" precisely because he had slaughtered countless lives.
Yet when these rumors reached the Great Xia Sword Sect, they failed to stir up the slightest wave.
Faced with all the clamor, Lu Kangnian merely remarked with quiet detachment, "Ask yourselves: have you ever killed?"
After he spoke those words, the Great Xia Sword Sect offered no further response on the matter.
Under no circumstances would Lu Kangnian believe that Li Guanqi would annihilate an entire clan without cause. Deep in the night, Lu Kangnian sat behind his desk handling the sect's affairs.
He set down his brush and sighed. Whenever his thoughts turned to those young ones of the sect, his eyes held only heartache.
To Lu Kangnian, Li Guanqi and the others were like his own children. He had watched them grow up and grow strong.
Inevitably, they would encounter many situations where they had no choice—there would be helplessness, and there would be grievances...
Once, he had been able to stand before those youngsters to shield them from the wind and rain, but now...
Lu Kangnian sighed. Once he finished handling the matters at hand, he shifted in a flash to the summit of Tianjian Peak.
Looking up at the several rays of sword light and lingering power suspended overhead, a mixture of complex emotions welled in his heart.
***
Li Guanqi walked through the void, appearing as though the recent events had not affected him at all.
The sword spirit's voice slowly rang out. "Do you still feel you aren't strong enough?"
Li Guanqi nodded as a matter of course and murmured softly, "Yes. If I were strong enough, Ye Feng wouldn't have been captured.
"If I were strong enough, I wouldn't have to worry about when the chess player behind the scenes might suddenly strike!"
The sword spirit fell silent for a long moment before saying softly, "Since you have already sent everyone away, your journey of tempering can truly begin."
Li Guanqi frowned slightly, unsure of what she meant.
Suddenly!
To his shock, Li Guanqi discovered that his connection to the Red Lotus sword had been severed completely. What was more, he could no longer even step into the space inside the sword coffin.
The sword spirit's ethereal figure slowly manifested beside him. Her beautiful eyes held a solemn gaze as she spoke.
"Starting today, I will personally instruct Pengluo and Jiuxiao inside the sword coffin.
"As for you, your current cultivation method has begun to fall short. I will give you a new one."
Hearing this, Pengluo leaped straight up. "No! Beat me to death and I still won't go in there to cultivate!"
A trace of mockery appeared on the sword spirit's exquisite face.
"Refusing to train?
"Do you plan on relying solely on your spatial affinity in fights forever?
"Do you want to be grabbed by someone and devoured like an alchemical slave again?"
Pengluo pouted and looked down, not daring to utter a single word of rebuttal.
"I truly don't know how the renowned Divine Pattern Heavenly Radish clan ever produced a coward like you."
Whoosh!
Pengluo snapped its head up toward the sword spirit, a deeply complex light flickering in its eyes.
The sword spirit turned her gaze toward Pengluo and sneered, "Since you can already guess a bit of my identity, did you really think I wouldn't know yours?
"Once we ascend, do you still want to be dead weight?"
Her words cut like knives today, extraordinarily sharp.
Pengluo hung its head in silence, its chest heaving slightly before it murmured, "I'll train!
"B-but... my lineage was severed, and I don't know my clan's divine pattern secret techniques..."
The sword spirit grabbed its head and tossed it directly into the sword coffin, her voice ringing in their ears.
"I do."
Pengluo's eyes went wide as it vanished into the void with a whoosh.
The sword spirit pointed a finger, drawing Jiuxiao into the sword coffin as well, muttering softly, "The talent of the dragon race has been utterly squandered on it... To think it can't even compare to a mere qilin..."
Li Guanqi stood rooted to the spot, dazed. In an instant, Jiuxiao and Pengluo were gone, his sword was gone... and he had just taken a round of veiled barbs from the sword spirit to boot.
Buzz!
The red dress around the sword spirit billowed as a terrifyingly immense aura swept across the surroundings. Li Guanqi swallowed hard.
A speck of crimson light drifted toward the center of his brow.
The sword spirit said gravely, "This cultivation method is enough to support you all the way to ascending to the Immortal Realm. However, grasping the basics is difficult. Be mentally prepared."
Bang!
Before Li Guanqi could speak, the cluster of light bored into his mind in an exceedingly violent manner.
An ocean of information instantly flooded his entire head, bringing a splitting headache.
He felt as though his sea of consciousness was about to burst!
Without even having time to say a single word to the sword spirit, he tore through the void in an instant and arrived at the summit of a lush mountain range, where he sat cross-legged.
Boom!
Boundless lightning erupted. Around him, a hundred thousand spirit stones were laid out and channeled into a spirit-gathering array.
Sitting cross-legged on the mountain peak, Li Guanqi instantly entered a state of cultivation!
The sword spirit stood before him, leaning down to gaze at his delicate, handsome face as she murmured softly.
"You can't fall behind them...
"You need to move faster, or how will you ever catch up to Ye Feng?"
Boom!
A massive, pitch-black stone coffin crashed down, standing erect beside Li Guanqi and sinking a foot deep into the ground.
Li Guanqi sat cross-legged with his hands cupped upward in a circle. With his eyes closed in deep concentration, he frantically digested the massive influx of information within his sea of consciousness.
"Divine Punishment...
"What a domineering name for a cultivation method. It's just that the text is a bit too obscure."
Casting aside all distracting thoughts, Li Guanqi murmured inwardly, 'Pengluo needs to grow stronger after all. If I'm not around in the future, it will be able to protect itself.
'Besides, once Pengluo becomes stronger, it won't have to view itself merely as a "pill."
'Jiuxiao is probably quite depressed over the incident with the qilin phantom spirit as well, so growing stronger will do it good too.'
For some reason, now that Pengluo, Jiuxiao, and Red Lotus were all gone, Li Guanqi suddenly felt as if he had returned to the days when he cultivated at the Great Xia Sword Sect.
Back then, no matter what happened, his very first thought had always been to rely on himself.
Now that Cao Yan, Xiao Chen, and the others were settled, he had no worries weighing him down, and he felt an inexplicable sense of ease.
His goal now was crystal clear: cultivate like mad!
Until... he broke through to the Mahayana realm!
Only by breaking through to the Mahayana realm would he be qualified to search for Ye Feng.
Only in the Mahayana realm would he have the right to face Sha.
Li Guanqi took a deep breath, completely immersing his mind in comprehending the Divine Punishment technique.
The sword spirit's figure gradually turned translucent. She murmured softly, "It's time you experienced the passage of the years...
"Divine Punishment will be enough to let you display power that crushes those of the same realm."
Within a thousand zhang of this nameless mountain, the entire area was transformed into a purgatory of thunder and lightning. The stray power leaking from any bolt was comparable to a punitive heavenly tribulation, preventing anyone from approaching in the slightest.
Beginning that day, cultivators in the southern region of the Luoxia Domain took note of this place. Many attempted to draw near, only to return severely wounded.
As time passed, more and more cultivators discovered the area and designated it a forbidden zone.
There were also many cultivators with lightning spiritual roots who utilized the lightning power leaking at the fringes to temper their bodies or gain insights into its might.
Many understood that a peerless expert must be in seclusion here.
And as for how long this seclusion lasted, even Li Guanqi lost track of time.
Chapter 993