Witnessing the man's head fall, Pei Yuhuan, clutched in the hand of the Innate Primordial Qi Great Capture, could only mutter, "That's my brother!"
Qian Chen smiled faintly. "Then that works out perfectly. You two can make a pair! You won't be lonely on the Yellow Springs road..."
The Innate Primordial Qi great hand clenched, crushing him to death as well!
Charging into the Jinchuan Sect, within the mere span of a cup of tea, at least a hundred men had rushed out from the various mountain peaks. Every single person who dared to strike at Qian Chen was cut down beneath his sword, all while Qian Chen held in his heart the desire to harm as few innocents as possible...
Qian Chen knew that from the moment Pei Junhu insisted before him on having a resolute Dao heart and sought to contest the Great Dao against him, this killing tribulation was already unavoidable. No matter how he compromised, Pei Junhu would only press harder, leaving not the slightest chance of reconciliation.
Even if Qian Chen had forcefully defeated him and spared his life, it would only have invited a subsequent siege by Jinchuan Sect experts.
Because what he held in his hands had reached the point where Pei Junhu was willing to risk his life to obtain it... When the time came, this Sect Master of the Jinchuan Sect would still act, and these Jinchuan Sect disciples—who might be innocent, who might die for reasons they never understood—would still obey the sect's commands to fight him to the death.
At that point, Qian Chen could easily just walk away, but as local tyrants in Jiuzhen Commandery, wouldn't the Jinchuan Sect make a move against everyone connected to him—the villagers of Sanyang Township who had received his benevolence, the Jiang grandfather and grandson, and County Magistrate Cui Dan—intimidating them to pry out Qian Chen's whereabouts?
Only then would disaster truly strike the innocent... *They* were the real innocents.
As for these disciples of the Jinchuan Sect, they might have died wronged, but they were by no means innocent.
The most Qian Chen could do was to strike with the utmost speed and the most ruthless methods, killing until no one dared step forward again. That was the only mercy Qian Chen could grant... If he wished to minimize harm to innocents now, his only choice was to temper a heart of thunder with lightning methods, eliminating all resistance from the Jinchuan Sect's Pei clan with thunderbolt swiftness.
So long as he broke the enemy's limbs and stripped them of the ability to resist, there would be no need to kill them, and he would create less slaughter.
So long as he struck them hard enough to terrorize them out of lifting a finger, casualties would naturally diminish. It would also reduce slaughter and lessen the karmic ties forged... This reasoning was utterly sound!
And so, every single Jinchuan Sect disciple who charged forth to challenge Qian Chen was slain before the mountain gate, without exception. Sure enough, soon not a single disciple dared rush forward.
When the terror-stricken disciples finally thought to report to the sect master, and Pei Boyu heard that both of his sons had been casually cut down by the intruder, a roar seemed to explode in his ears like peals of thunder, nearly causing him to faint. He could not help roaring, "Where are Elders He Chun and Wang Liang, who guard the mountain gate, and the several clan elders of the Pei family?"
"Are they just watching that brute run rampant?"
Trembling all over, the reporting disciple braced himself and said, "Elder He went up to confront the man as soon as he barged in, along with three Pei clan elders. Two of them were already at the Core Formation stage, though with eighth- or ninth-grade cores... But they were slain in a single exchange by that man! Seeing this, Elder Wang turned and fled!"
"The Wang clan, the Wen clan—how dare you kick us while we're down!" Pei Boyu raged in impotent fury.
Yet he had wronged the two families in this. With a formidable enemy attacking the mountain gate, they never harbored any thought of sitting on the sidelines watching tigers fight; the Jinchuan Sect's reputation was as dear as life itself to the cultivation clans within it. How could the Core Formation elders of the two clans be so foolish as to cling to internal squabbles while an enemy assaulted their gates?
They had simply been terrified out of their wits by Qian Chen's slaughter, terrified until their limbs shook, completely robbed of the courage to strike.
The sect's reputation was indeed as heavy as life, but in the end, it was still not worth throwing one's life away.
Thus, the elders of the two families stood numbly like wooden chickens, playing dumb, and under their lead, the Jinchuan Sect disciples quickly scattered, none daring to stand before Qian Chen...
Nowadays within the Jinchuan Sect, how could there be any true transmission disciple who did not hail from the three clans? The outer disciples of other surnames had no intention of throwing away their lives for these three families. Once the few disciples loyal to the sect had died off, the disciples of the Wang and Wen families, led by their elders, shuttered their cave dwellings tightly. The Pei clan members found themselves isolated and without aid, leaving them no choice but to gather around their pillar of support, the sect master.
Pei Boyu had barely rallied the scattered Pei clan disciples when he heard a clear voice call out from outside the hall: "Is Sect Master Pei within the hall? The loose cultivator Qian Chen has come as promised to collect the wager!"
The tone was calm and flat, yet upon hearing it, fully seventy percent of the Pei clan disciples could not stop their bodies from trembling.
It seemed that beneath that flat tone, they could sense a chilling murderous intent etched to the very bone!
As the Pei clan disciples cowered and hesitated to advance, Pei Boyu merely threw back his head and laughed aloud. In that laughter, there was not the slightest joy, only bone-deep hatred, an enmity so venomous that even Master Sun beside him felt a chill run through her entire body.
Pei Boyu laughed loudly. "Good, very good! For the sake of this wager, you have practically wiped out my entire clan!"
Stepping outside the main hall, he saw an elegant young man. Beside him, a streak of black-gold sword-light curved like a crescent moon, swimming around him with elusive, unpredictable agility. The young man stood before the hall holding an oiled paper umbrella; the thin layer of clear light over the umbrella took the overwhelming barrage of lightning and fire spells as though they were mere drizzle, the assault unable to pierce that thin barrier in the slightest.
Qian Chen was standing sideways toward the hall. Only when he saw someone emerge did he slowly turn his head.
Now mortal enemies with not a shred of reconciliation possible, the two foes struck with full force the instant they met.
Pei Boyu swung his wide sleeve, blotting out the sun and sky. The billowing sleeve swept across the firmament, covering half the world. The Jinchuan Sect's grand main hall, dozens of zhang tall and vast in breadth, vanished behind this sweeping sleeve that surged like stormy waves swallowing heaven and earth. Needless to say, Pei Boyu's figure was completely obscured!
The sky-blotting shadow of the sleeve concealed him thoroughly.
A sleeve sweeping through the air like a surging river, carrying countless grains of drifting sand across the void. The bluestone steps before the hall shattered completely; beneath the might of this sleeve, it bore the weight of myriad jun as it swept across.
From the Heavenly Net Umbrella in Qian Chen's hand, clear light cascaded down...
He suppressed the eager sword-light.
Qian Chen could already see that the sky-enveloping sleeve was actually a magical implement of the perfected tier... It surpassed all the magical implements in his hands and harbored the ability to swallow and seize. Furthermore, Pei Boyu's magical power was inherently superior to his. If he unleashed his flying sword, it likely wouldn't even stir a ripple before being seized and suppressed by that massive sleeve.
When used for defense, this magical implement was practically flawless.
With Pei Boyu's figure concealed behind the sleeve, any spell or magic treasure Qian Chen unleashed would likely be drawn into it before reaching him. Protecting himself with such suppressive, absorbing power gave Qian Chen a thorny sense of having no angle to strike.
Yet Qian Chen remained fairly calm. After all, formidable as this great sleeve was, it was not the true Universe in the Sleeve; it could hardly seize cultivators whose magical power approached Pei Boyu's. If Qian Chen relied solely on his own magical power, he might not hold out long before being drawn into the sleeve and suppressed—if there were eighty or a hundred more Qi Refining cultivators like Qian Chen, this implement could easily suppress them all.
However, with the reinforcement of the external dan, Qian Chen could resist the subtle suction emanating from the cuff.
Thus, though Pei Boyu relied on this perfected implement, the Floating Cloud Flying Sleeve, for protection, it lacked offensive efficacy against him.
Yet this Floating Cloud Flying Sleeve was the ancestral magic treasure of the Jinchuan Sect, having only regressed to a magical implement because no Yuanshen Perfected One had rituals to maintain its refinement. How could successive generations of Jinchuan Sect sect masters remain ignorant of such a weakness?
Pei Boyu let out a cold sneer. Within the billowing sleeve, the suction suddenly inverted into an expelling force, and countless grains of brilliant golden sand erupted from the cuff, sweeping down toward Qian Chen in tandem with the swirling sleeve...
These countless grains of golden sand were all Acquired Geng Metal, twelve of which were sand mothers capable of dividing into thousands and tens of thousands, refined from Geng Metal Primordial Essence.
Golden sand was inherently adept at wearing down protective treasure light and even eroding protective magical power; moreover, it could ensnare magical implements and drag them into the sea of golden sand. A handful swept down like thousands upon thousands of tiny knives; even an iron man forged from thousand-year cold iron would have a layer of skin flayed off.
A glint of wonder appeared in Qian Chen's eyes. He held up the Heavenly Net Umbrella, and under the attrition of the endless golden sand, that layer of clear light suffered only slight wear.
After all, among all kinds of Heavenly Gangqi, the Heavenly Unity Pure Gang was the most adept at defense.
With another flick of his finger, Qian Chen released the Dragon Sparrow Ring from his wrist. Expanding into a hoop the size of a water vat, a ring of five-colored light spun around, swallowing up all the golden sand surging toward him. Pei Boyu, however, merely increased the suction of the Floating Cloud Flying Sleeve, ensnaring the Dragon Sparrow Ring and splitting off a stream of golden sand to wrap around the jade hoop.
This made it difficult for the Dragon Sparrow Ring to swallow any more golden sand.
Among the countless grains of golden sand were twelve sand mothers, allowing Pei Boyu to divide the sand into twelve shifting currents under his control. He would see whether Qian Chen had twelve magical implements in hand to match them!
Pei Boyu's Floating Cloud Flying Sleeve seized magical implements and protected him without fail.
The Geng Metal Divine Sand eroded all things, lethal and incisive.
Qian Chen's Huantian Azure Silk Umbrella was impregnable; with the wondrous protection of the Heavenly Unity Pure Gang, even the usually invincible Geng Metal Divine Sand could not threaten Qian Chen in the least. For a time, both of their defenses were watertight, locking them into a tense, unyielding deadlock.
Chapter 73