"Qi Refinement eighth layer!"
Gao Tingyuan glared fiercely at Luo Chen, almost grinding his teeth as he spat out those words.
Luo Chen raised an eyebrow.
Sure enough, amid such violent fluctuations of spiritual energy, even the Great Perfection Qi Concealment Incantation could no longer mask his true cultivation realm.
He had intended to keep pretending to be at the seventh layer to catch his opponent off guard.
Unfortunately, Gao Tingyuan was determined to take him down. The man's very first strike had been savage and unrelenting, leaving no room to maneuver.
Gao Tingyuan sized up Luo Chen intently, his expression flickering between suspicion and shock.
A high-grade offensive dharma artifact, a high-grade defensive treasure, and even the daoist robe on his back was high-grade.
The sheer wealth displayed on his person alone was enough to make ninety-nine percent of ninth-layer Qi Refinement cultivators green with envy.
How long had Luo Chen been cultivating?
*No wonder Wang Haichao was so set on getting him. To amass such a fortune in such a short time, he must rely heavily on his identity as an alchemist.*
*I must never let him fall into Wang Haichao's hands, or I'll have no hope of avenging my brother!*
With that thought, spiritual light flared across the twin short halberds in his hands.
Yet Luo Chen moved even faster than he had anticipated.
The spear tip spat light, and a torrential rain of fire bloomed across the night sky.
Gao Tingyuan drew a deep breath. A round bead floated out from his chest, instantly unfurling into a glowing barrier that enveloped him.
The fiery downpour hissed as it struck the light barrier.
Scalding steam billowed outward, obscuring his vision.
"Wait, this isn't right!"
*Whoosh!*
Gao Tingyuan's ears twitched, and he sidestepped sharply.
With a broad sweep of his hand, a heavy shower of water droplets scattered outward, pushing aside the rain of fire before him.
When he focused his gaze forward, Luo Chen was nowhere to be seen.
*So fast!*
*Where did he go?*
Abruptly, he turned around.
Nearby, a man fighting with frenzied abandon was unleashing vast swathes of black light, suppressing two eighth-layer Qi Refinement cultivators.
"Shan Xiu, watch out!"
Shan Xiu froze and instinctively started to turn his head.
Yet it was already too late.
The eerie toll of a small bell rang out abruptly.
The sound waves pierced his ears, making him hesitate for a fraction of an instant.
In a battle of life and death, a momentary lapse was enough to seal one's fate.
*It's Lu Huaiben's little bell!*
By the time Shan Xiu recovered his senses, all he saw was a jet-black ray of light hurtling toward him, blending seamlessly into the darkness of the night.
He only had time to trigger the defensive barrier of his robes; any other reaction was out of the question.
"What is..."
He looked down at his chest. Where his heart should have been, a long black nail had skewered straight through him.
Shan Xiu tried to channel spiritual energy to force it out, but the moment his power stirred, it disintegrated into chaos.
The Soul Breaking Nail! Spirit Disrupting Powder!
Luo Chen smiled faintly. The Jasper Saber flew before him, tracing a clean circle that severed Shan Xiu's neck, sending his head straight into Luo Chen's outstretched hand.
"Go help Hall Master Murong. Kill the one in blue first."
Luo Chen gave the order to the pale-faced Zhou Yuanli and his companion, then turned around, holding the severed head aloft.
"Second Brother Gao, when Shan Xiu led that ambush against me back then, you must have had a hand in it, didn't you?"
Staring at the head with its eyes still wide in death, Gao Tingyuan felt a chilling dread rise from the bottom of his heart.
Just as he was about to speak, his eyes fell upon Shan Xiu's corpse tumbling to the ground.
At the chest, that thick black nail was piercingly conspicuous.
"The Soul Breaking Nail! The Soul Breaking Nail!"
"You're the one who killed my brother!"
Luo Chen paused, then beckoned with the Attraction Art, drawing the black nail back into his hand.
Back then, he had indeed used this high-grade artifact to breach Gao Ting'e's defenses.
Yet from a single artifact, how had Gao Tingyuan deduced so much?
Flames of fury erupted from Gao Tingyuan's eyes, and boundless wrath boiled over.
"My brother carried a Xutu Shield talisman! Ordinary high-grade artifacts couldn't possibly kill him in an instant—it would have easily bought him enough time to call for help!"
"Only the Soul Breaking Nail, personally crafted by the Soul Refining Loose Cultivator, can bypass Five Elements defenses and inflict harm through raw piercing power!"
"Back then, Li Da and I led men to breach the Soul Refining Cave Abode and claimed most of the relics. Only this Soul Breaking Nail went missing!"
"Later, I discovered that Li Zixiong and Chen Xiao had secretly stolen it!"
"And to my knowledge, every last one of them died at Wang Yuan's hands!"
"Yes, that's it! It all makes sense!"
Gao Tingyuan spoke with rising madness. All the doubts that had plagued his mind seemed to burst through a breached dam, swept away by a rushing flood.
In an instant, everything became crystal clear.
"You were close with Wang Yuan. With your cultivation back then, you couldn't have used a normal high-grade artifact!"
"But the Soul Breaking Nail offers no return once unleashed—it barely requires any complex manipulation!"
"With that treasure in hand, killing my little brother was like adding wings to a tiger!"
"And your cultivation realm!"
Gao Tingyuan glared venomously at Luo Chen, his aura swelling without restraint.
"Just a moment ago, you concealed your true realm. There is no way someone could advance from the third layer of Qi Refinement to the eighth in a single year!"
"Which means you've had a technique to conceal your realm all along!"
"Back then, you must have hidden your realm as well, catching my brother off guard and striking him dead!"
"No wonder a mere rogue cultivator dared to live in such a remote corner. You truly were bold because of your hidden strength!"
Listening to this tirade, Luo Chen's mouth twitched.
The earlier deductions were reasonable enough.
While not entirely spot-on, eight or nine parts out of ten were accurate.
Of his two Soul Breaking Nails, one had indeed come from Wang Yuan.
Li Zixiong and Chen Xiao had also been among the trio who ambushed Wang Yuan back then.
However, this theory about hiding his cultivation realm was an utter exaggeration.
Back then, he had truly been at the fourth layer of Qi Refinement—nowhere near as absurd as Gao Tingyuan imagined.
"Luo Chen, the evidence is ironclad! Do you admit it or not?" Gao Tingyuan roared.
Luo Chen shook his head helplessly. "At this point, does talking about it even matter? Besides..."
He glanced around. Without him noticing, seven late-stage Qi Refinement cultivators had already formed a loose perimeter around him.
"Second Brother Gao truly has good methods. Unbeknownst to me, you've already laid a trap."
Seeing the encirclement complete, Gao Tingyuan let out a small breath of relief.
Though fury raged within him, his mind was exceptionally cold and lucid.
"Given the speed you revealed earlier, I had no choice but to be careful!"
A savage grin curled at the corner of Gao Tingyuan's lips.
"Tonight, I'll send you straight to the underworld to avenge my brother!"
With a wave of his broad hand, the seven late-stage Qi Refinement cultivators unleashed their dharma artifacts, hurtling toward Luo Chen.
Surging, chaotic spiritual energy instantly illuminated the entire night sky.
Luo Chen exhaled a long breath of turbid air. Gripping his Fire-Tipped Spear, he shot into the sky like an arrow loosed from a bow.
Gao Tingyuan sneered at the sight.
*Fly?*
*How high can you possibly fly?!*
The wind howled as a mass of white cloud suddenly coalesced beneath Luo Chen, lifting him aloft.
Gao Tingyuan's eyes widened. *Cloud-riding? A Foundation Establishment technique?!*
The next instant, a wave of terror gripped him. The bead at his chest shrank frantically, transforming into a tight-fitting shroud of light that shielded him completely.
"Fall back! Quick!"
Yet it was already too late.
Standing atop the white cloud, Luo Chen pressed his hands downward and uttered a soft cry.
"Detonate!"
The seventh-layer Qi Refinement cultivator closest to Luo Chen looked in bewilderment at a tiny black dot before him.
Was that... a bead?
Green, resembling jadeite or glazed glass.
What was that?
The next moment, the bead exploded right before his eyes.
The cultivator frowned, thrusting out a surge of spiritual energy.
*Is that all the power it has?*
Suddenly, an overwhelming tidal wave roared in from every direction.
The sheer explosive force pulverized his body into fine powder.
The waste Jade Marrow beads were the failed byproducts from Luo Chen's attempts at refining Jade Marrow Pills.
Every failed batch yielded twenty waste beads.
Just how many times had Luo Chen failed since he began concocting Jade Marrow Pills?
The exact number was impossible to calculate.
Yet early on, his failure rate had been extremely high; even at Grandmaster proficiency, he still failed half the time.
Accumulated over nearly a year, Luo Chen's failures numbered well into the thousands.
In other words, the stockpile of waste Jade Marrow beads in his hands amounted to tens of thousands!
Even after consuming many while practicing Heavenly Maiden Scattering Flowers, his reserves had only grown larger, never dwindling.
Just moments ago, Gao Tingyuan had used words to distract his mind, setting an inescapable net to cut off his retreat.
How could Luo Chen not turn the tables and employ his own hidden tricks?
Silently, using the Seven Night Stars projectile technique from Heavenly Maiden Scattering Flowers, he had utilized the cover of night to plant over ten thousand tampered waste Jade Marrow beads.
Now, the ambush was set!
The final step was simplicity itself.
Using the technique of the Hunyuan Bead, he only needed to trigger the detonation.
With Luo Chen's cry of "Detonate," over ten thousand waste Jade Marrow beads erupted simultaneously under the resonant pull of his spiritual energy.
A single waste Jade Marrow bead might have unremarkable power, unable to match even a strike from a low-grade dharma artifact.
Yet over ten thousand of them were enough to cause a qualitative leap!
Standing high upon the cloud, far removed from the ground, the colossal shockwave still hurled Luo Chen several li backward.
Had the Four Symbols Cauldron not shielded him continuously, even Luo Chen, the master of the technique, would have suffered a devastating blow.
Yet it was all worth it!
Violent turbulence of spiritual energy swept across the surroundings.
The billowing dust ignited within the blasts, turning into raging infernos that illuminated the entire battlefield.
A massive crater several hundred meters wide was left carved into the earth, shocking and conspicuous.
Across the battlefield, every cultivator turned to stare in utter disbelief.
They gazed at the sight in sheer terror. Who below the Foundation Establishment stage could withstand such a catastrophic strike?
Was this truly a method a Qi Refinement cultivator could unleash?
The head of the Pill Hall, Luo Chen, was actually this terrifyingly strong!
*Gulp!*
What should have been a faint sound of someone swallowing saliva rang out with startling clarity in the dead silence of the night.
Luo Chen's face was slightly pale. Detonating so many waste Jade Marrow beads at once had drained his spiritual energy far more than expected.
Naturally, he could not control every single bead individually.
To achieve such an effect, he had used a clever trick.
He had left a wisp of spiritual energy inside every hundredth waste bead, using it as a trigger.
Once those blew, the other tampered beads around them were set off in a chain reaction.
*This was originally prepared for demonic beasts during my escape from Dahe Market. Who would have thought it would end up being used on these people?*
*Fortunately, the power didn't disappoint me.*
Luo Chen breathed a sigh of relief. Under an attack like that, even the River Crossing Dragon, Gao Tingyuan, could hardly survive, right?
Suddenly, his brow twitched.
"Second Brother Gao, where do you think you're going?"
Amid the swirling dust, a flood dragon of blue spiritual qi enveloped a stocky figure, stumbling and lurching into the distance.
Luo Chen dispersed the floating cloud and cast Carefree Wind Riding, swooping down from the skies like a giant roc.
The Fire-Tipped Spear in his hand hummed with power.
In the next instant, it transformed into a fiery phoenix, tearing through the air!
Not only that, but two Soul Breaking Nails flanked it on either side, turning into black streaks that pierced the clouds and cleaved through the moonlight.
The fire phoenix arrived first, shattering the blue dragon on impact.
A bead riddled with cracks instantly disintegrated into dust.
The spear tip emerged, piercing through the high-grade daoist robe and barely stopping against Gao Tingyuan's back.
Immediately after, two streaks of black light pierced straight through Gao Tingyuan's chest.
*Thud! Thud!*
Gao Tingyuan crashed to the ground, rolling over and over like a loose gourd.
He forced himself to his feet, coughed up a mouthful of blood, and stared at Luo Chen with panic in his eyes.
"Luo Chen, must you drive me to absolute ruin?!"
"Yes!"
Luo Chen channeled his spiritual energy once more. The Fire-Tipped Spear resting on the ground shot toward Gao Tingyuan.
Unable to dodge in time, Gao Tingyuan was impaled straight through.
He stared in shock at the gaping hole in his chest, then collapsed heavily to the ground.
Seeing this, the boulder weighing on Luo Chen's heart finally lifted.
Shan Xiu was dead, and so was Gao Tingyuan.
Even if he left Dahe Market right now, he would have no more lingering worries.
"Besides, Second Brother Gao, you still owe me five spirit stones. I'll gladly accept your storage bag as payment."
Stopping a short distance away, his gaze settled on the dusty gray storage bag.
Suddenly, his expression changed, and his entire body stiffened.
Gao Tingyuan, who should have been dead without a doubt, abruptly sat up.
A pair of eerie green eyes stared fixedly at him.
Though separated by a distance, under the gaze of those glowing green eyes, Luo Chen found himself completely unable to move.
*Damn it, what kind of evil sorcery is this?!*
Luo Chen screamed internally, feeling as though he had completely lost control of his body.
In his line of sight, Gao Tingyuan merely sat there, glaring at him.
The two fell into a tense stalemate.
*Is it a spell aimed at the soul?*
Luo Chen calmed himself in an instant. He did not feel any actual physical damage, only an inability to move.
Moreover, while he could not move, Gao Tingyuan could not move either.
*Let's see just how long you can hold this stalemate with me!*
*And it's not as if I'm out of options!*
Instinctively, the method of Bright Spirit Fiend Shattering coursed through his mind, and a formidable will surged upward.
This will was exceedingly potent. Though not yet as profound as a true divine soul, it was already capable of mobilizing the spiritual energy normally latent around his various acupoints.
With a single thought, thirty-six major acupoints across his entire body were struck simultaneously.
A wave of intense agony erupted from his flesh and soul all at once.
"Ahhh!"
Luo Chen cried out in pain, his steps faltering as he stumbled backward.
Opposite him, Gao Tingyuan seemed to suffer a severe backlash. His lips trembled wordlessly before he slumped powerless to the ground.
Luo Chen's face was completely drained of color. The agony of running Bright Spirit Fiend Shattering at full power was something no ordinary person could endure.
Ever since he began practicing it, he had only completed it a handful of times.
He never expected to unleash it in the middle of battle.
Looking around, he was startled to realize that while it had felt like an eternity, only a single instant had passed in the outside world.
*This Gao Tingyuan had too many tricks up his sleeve. I still wasn't careful enough.*
Luo Chen believed he had already been sufficiently cautious.
Two Soul Breaking Nails had pierced both sides of his chest, and the Fire-Tipped Spear had run him through.
Coupled with the earlier explosion of over ten thousand waste Jade Marrow beads, injuries like these would have meant certain death for any Qi Refinement cultivator.
Yet Gao Tingyuan had still retained the strength for one final strike.
It could only be said that he truly lived up to his reputation as the powerhouse who had slain Xu Renke upon the Dao Discussion Platform.
Even without a Death-Substitute Puppet, his tenacity was frightening.
*Fortunately, that puppet was destroyed by Xu Renke. Otherwise, killing him today would have cost me far more effort.*
Luo Chen reached out and beckoned. The Fire-Tipped Spear flew over, hooking Gao Tingyuan's storage bag on its tip, and the two Soul Breaking Nails shot back to his hand as well.
Then, he hurled a Fireball Art straight down at the corpse.
"Second Brother!"
A shrill, anguished cry echoed through the air.
Luo Chen froze. That blue-robed cultivator was still alive?
He looked over. Under the coordinated assault of four experts—Murong Qinglian, Caiyi, Zhou Yuanli, and Liu Qiang—the blue-robed cultivator was somehow still holding on.
*Is Sister-in-law's group too weak, or is this man just too strong?*
As Luo Chen wondered, a large azure banner slid into his grip.
A faint premonition of danger caused the blue-robed cultivator's pupils to shrink.
He glared fiercely at Luo Chen and let out a low roar.
Pulling out a talisman, he unleashed ring after ring of surging waves that forcibly repelled the four attackers.
Breaking away, his eyes remained locked onto Luo Chen.
"I, Lan Tianyun, will remember this grudge!"
Hurling down those parting words, he accelerated, preparing to flee.
Yet in the next breath, the tip of a sword materialized out of thin air.
Faintly, the roar of surging ocean waves rang out.
Lan Tianyun clutched his neck in horror before plunging headfirst from the sky.
"I'm sorry, I came late."
A figure as straight and sharp as a sword landed beside Luo Chen.
With a beckoning motion, a flying sword returned to his hand.
Luo Chen looked at Duan Feng and grinned.
"Not late at all. There is still plenty of prey left here."
Chapter 142