An Oath

Confronted by Wei Yuan's giant hand blotting out the sky, Huixin sneered and vanished from the spot in an instant. Yet the moment she plunged into the void, Wei Yuan let out a sharp bark. His Dao power sent shockwaves through the surrounding heaven and earth, jolting Huixin right back out. Hurled into reality, she was still carried forward by her momentum, only for heavy shield after heavy shield to suddenly loom before her eyes! Amid a volley of thudding crashes, Huixin slammed through seven or eight heavy shields in rapid succession, knocking down and gravely injuring the Dao Foundation cultivators holding them while leaving herself utterly dizzy and disoriented. Only then did Huixin understand why Wei Yuan had deployed so many heavy-shield Dao Foundation cultivators—it had been solely to obstruct her. Before she could recover from her dizziness, Wei Yuan's giant hand reached down for her head once more! Huixin shrieked. A ring of deep purple ripples suddenly expanded outward from her body. Wherever the ripples swept, every heavy shield shattered into web-like cracks, and the Dao Foundation warriors' auras violently surged like skiffs tossed upon stormy seas, on the verge of suffering fatal casualties. Wei Yuan instantly recalled every Dao Foundation warrior. His giant hand slammed down, but Huixin evaded it by a hair's breadth. Instead of withdrawing, Wei Yuan struck down with a palm, setting off a distinct ring of shockwaves! Huixin let out a muffled groan as the shockwave struck her. Attempting to use the momentum to flee, she suddenly discovered her speed had been slashed by half. Glancing down, she saw that a layer of pale blue frost had coated her body at some unknown moment, leaving many parts of her frame numb and senseless. She struggled with all her might, erupting her magic power, only to discover that the clinging frosty magic power was of an exceedingly high tier. She had to expend three to four portions of her own power just to counteract a single portion of it! Straining with everything she had, she managed to shatter only half the clinging frost, restoring her speed to merely seventy percent of its original. Wei Yuan was obviously not about to give her the chance to shake off the remaining frost. His giant hand struck again, this time lunging for Huixin's tail. By this point, Huixin had already assumed her true form in order to traverse the void. Behind her trailed a long, slender tail, its tip crowned with a dark purple crystal orb that stirred ripples through the air whenever it swayed. With her speed drastically reduced, Huixin could no longer dodge. Wei Yuan swept his hand outward, snaring the long tail and gripping it tight. Huixin cried out in alarm, her whole body going limp, nearly collapsing to her knees. Just as Wei Yuan was about to drag her into Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, a golden ray of light suddenly flashed over his wrist. It was exceptionally bizarre, instantly severing all the magic power Wei Yuan was funneling into his giant hand and sapping all strength from his grip. Huixin whipped her long tail violently, wrenching herself free, and fled to the side of a Great Shaman who had materialized out of thin air. This was an acquaintance—Shengxin, whom Wei Yuan had encountered during his previous venture into the Nether Cold Realm. "You're here to capture me too?" Wei Yuan rotated his wrist and wiped away the residual golden light with a brush of his hand. Shengxin sighed. "The Nether Cold Realm is the domain of the Shamans; humans are not welcome here. Erase all your beacons in this realm and swear an oath never to enter the Nether Cold Realm again, and I can let you leave." Huixin shouted, "No! At the very least, make him return my Void-Breaking Twin Blades!" Shengxin said to Wei Yuan, "That pair of treasures does not belong to you. It would be best to return them to her." Wei Yuan said, "Wait a moment, I'll go fetch them right now." Wei Yuan circled behind a boulder and sank into the earth. Shengxin's expression turned cold. "You dare play tricks in front of me?" Wei Yuan's voice drifted up from beneath the ground. "Don't attack! I hid the things underground, and the beacon is down here as well." Shengxin remained half-convinced, his divine sense locking onto Wei Yuan's aura. In his perception, Wei Yuan's aura flickered for an instant before he crawled out holding a pair of butterfly short blades. Seeing that Wei Yuan had indeed produced the magic treasures, Shengxin's expression softened somewhat. Wei Yuan said solemnly, "I swear an oath here: having destroyed the beacons in this realm, I shall never enter the Nether Cold Realm again. If I break this vow, may five bolts of thunder strike me down!" Sensing the unseen shifts in fate, Shengxin saw a strand of karma settle upon Wei Yuan. Satisfied, he said, "Hand over the magic treasures, and you may return." Huixin asked, "How do we account for this to Lord Hongye?" Shengxin said indifferently, "I will speak with him myself. His word does not reign supreme in the Nether Cold Realm right now; we need not concern ourselves with what he thinks." "Fine." Seeing the two reach an agreement, Wei Yuan stepped up to them and handed over the pair of butterfly short blades. Huixin reached out to take them, but the instant her fingers touched the blades, she realized something was wrong. She moved to retreat, but it was already too late! The pair of butterfly short blades violently detonated into two golden spheres of lightning, instantly illuminating the entire world! The glare of these lightning spheres was specifically tailored to Shaman eyes. In that instant, Huixin's and Shengxin's vision went completely gold and white, blinding them entirely, while fine tendrils of lightning arrested their movements for a split second. Another Wei Yuan materialized behind them, brandishing Brutality, and drove the spear viciously into Shengxin's lower back! At the same moment, the towering Longying appeared beside Huixin, his scimitar slashing savagely into her! Twisting her body at the absolute limit, Huixin avoided a fatal blow, but Longying's scimitar carved a long wound across her back. Shengxin suddenly let out a sharp roar, a burst of intense light flaring from inside him outward. In an instant, Wei Yuan's vision also turned into a boundless white, blinding him as well! Sensing danger, Wei Yuan twisted the spear violently in his hands, mangling Shengxin's wound, while simultaneously summoning four Dao Foundation warriors to stand far apart at four corners, substituting their vision for his own. Wei Yuan could not have reacted any faster, yet a crushing blow suddenly struck his chest. With a sickening crunch, his breastbone instantly shattered! Wei Yuan stumbled backward, simultaneously triggering Brutality's special effect and blasting a spear strike forward! Shengxin let out a muffled groan as well, blown flying backward by the blast. In the blink of an eye, both Shengxin and Wei Yuan had suffered grievous mutual wounds. As Wei Yuan's vision cleared, he saw a gaping hole in Shengxin's chest and another in his waist. The hole at the waist was somewhat smaller, but the one in his chest was as wide as a bowl, revealing writhing internal organs through the wound. Shengxin's organs were exceedingly bizarre; several were organs Wei Yuan had never seen before, their functions completely unknown. Yet countless crystalline grains sparkled along the severed tissue, marking them as clearly extraordinary. Wearing an odd expression, Shengxin looked down at his chest, seemingly unable to believe Wei Yuan could batter him to such an extent. With that spear strike just now, Wei Yuan had activated the "Brutality" effect. The spear's spirituality had dropped permanently by twenty percent, but the strike's power had correspondingly escalated to the level of a Scenery Command attack, piercing clean through Shengxin's chest. On the adjacent battlefield, Longying pressed his advantage relentlessly, delivering another lightning-fast slash at the base of Huixin's tail, nearly severing it at the root! Huixin shrieked in agony, her figure flickering as she shifted behind Shengxin. Longying's slash had been brutal; Huixin's long tail now hung by merely a thread of skin and flesh. It seemed the tail truly was her fatal weakness. Even after having a two-foot wound carved across her back, Huixin had remained resolute, but nearly having her tail severed left her entire body trembling, barely able to stand. Compared to Wei Yuan, Shengxin's injuries were far more severe. The wounds exchanged between them were comparable, but Wei Yuan had also landed a preemptive ambush thrust and twisted the spear, inflicting no small amount of damage on Shengxin's origin soul. Seeing both himself and Huixin grievously wounded, Shengxin was both shocked and enraged. He roared, "You just swore an oath, yet you broke it and attacked immediately! Do you have a death wish?!" Wei Yuan coughed several times, spitting out a mouthful of fresh blood, and said, "What does a casual oath matter? Even if it truly came to pass, it's merely a petty five bolts of thunder striking down..." Before the words had completely left his mouth, Wei Yuan suddenly looked up. A tribulation cloud had somehow gathered within the deep vault of the heavens! It was aimed squarely at this spot, celestial lightning already churning within. A heavenly tribulation? Wei Yuan was instantly shocked and furious. He had merely sworn an offhand vow, so why was a heavenly tribulation actually descending? Wasn't this the Nether Cold Realm? Besides, by 'five bolts of thunder striking down,' he had meant ordinary falling lightning—how had it summoned the tribulation lightning of a heavenly tribulation? In an instant, Wei Yuan understood: this anomaly was likely tied to Shengxin. No wonder he had demanded an oath and had not feared Wei Yuan reneging in the slightest once it was sworn. Yet the heavenly tribulation struck with terrifying speed. Before Wei Yuan could react, five horrifying bolts of celestial lightning plunged down, blasting one of the Wei Yuans standing not far away into utter nothingness! This turn of events left both Wei Yuan and Shengxin completely blindsided and dumbfounded.