"This Jinchuan Sect master is only in the middle stage of Core Formation, yet with a few magical implements left by his ancestors to protect him, he has proven difficult to overcome quickly. That Miaokong wiped out the entire Louguan Dao and managed to escape unscathed from the pursuit of a Taishang Dao Primal Spirit True Person. In both cultivation attainment and magical power, he surpasses this man a hundredfold. Having traversed reincarnation, his temperament and methods are beyond anything a sect master sequestered in a petty place like Jiuzhen Commandery could compare to!"
Faced with this deadlock, rather than feeling any urge to retreat, Qian Chen felt a surge of heroic pride—a desire to sever his constraints and slay this formidable foe by force.
He chuckled. "If I cannot even trample this petty Jinchuan Sect underfoot, what right do I have to face that arch-nemesis in the future? Compared to him, what are the rest of you? Nothing more than an itch and a rash..."
In an instant, Qian Chen made up his mind. He attached the Ice Soul Divine Needle to the Black Gold Baleful Hook, concealed an item within the Dragon Sparrow Ring, and then patted the back of his head. A primordial dan rose and vanished into his sword light. As he drove the blade, the sword light, now anchored by the primordial dan, surged outward by dozens of zhang. With a single thought, the dazzling radiance shot forth...
There was nothing fancy to this strike; the sword light was simply swift and peerlessly overwhelming.
Qian Chen had anchored his external dan onto the sword light and, driven by sheer heroic audacity, launched an unswerving strike that brooked no retreat. For sword cultivators, what mattered most was this inner spirit. Without an unyielding, indomitable spirit, how could one's sword light ever reach the realm of severing all dharmas? Striking without the slightest reservation, Qian Chen brought the sword light to a pinnacle previously unimaginable.
Locked in the crosshairs of this sword light, Pei Boyu trembled slightly all over. The killing intent that had abruptly erupted, blotting out the heavens in an instant, left him without a shred of doubt as to how Pei Junhu had met his defeat. Without the Floating Cloud Flying Sleeve passed down by his ancestors, even he, Pei Boyu, would have been slain with ease by this very sword strike.
How much less his arrogant nephew?
At this moment, even Pei Boyu harbored the despairing thought that he could not withstand it.
In the grand hall behind him, dozens of Pei clan descendants stood frozen; who knew how many among them permanently lost the courage to ever raise a hand against Qian Chen again. Even Real Man Sun Huanqin could not help feeling fortunate that her sect had not provoked such a lethal scourge.
Pei Boyu moved almost immediately! He poured all his magical power into the Floating Cloud Flying Sleeve, expanding the billowing sleeve by another hundred zhang until it thoroughly cloaked this world. Facing the darkness yawning at the sleeve's cuff, the sword light blossomed in an instant—a breathtaking radiance, agile as a swimming dragon, graceful as a startled swan...
The cuff's darkness swept over. In the blink of an eye, the void before Pei Boyu plunged into pitch-black, only to regain its light a moment later.
The process felt as long as a lifetime.
As the great sleeve swept past, everything appeared unchanged, save that the vast sword light was trapped within the darkness.
"The Sect Master's divine might! This scoundrel will never escape the Sect Master's grasp!" the Pei clan disciples cheered fervently.
From the hall behind, a roaring wave of cheers erupted... With the flying sword seized by the Floating Cloud Flying Sleeve, Qian Chen had nothing left in his offensive arsenal apart from a defensive magical implement. In the eyes of the Jinchuan Sect disciples, this virtually invincible enemy had finally been defeated!
Qian Chen remained unfazed. He merely watched the sleeve sweep through and observed Pei Boyu drawing it back, noting the slight flick of the cuff toward the rear—an action meant to neutralize the sword light's lingering force... yet one that also caused the sleeve's swallowing power to momentarily vanish.
The Dragon Sparrow Ring flew forth from before Qian Chen. Pei Boyu remained exceptionally calm. Even though the sleeve's swallowing suction was temporarily unavailable, the fabric of the sleeve itself was exceptionally tough; infused with magical power, it was among the world's finest defensive implements. The small Dragon Sparrow Ring struck the billowing sleeve as if crashing into a soft, yielding, yet extraordinarily resilient wall.
The blow was effortlessly diffused...
Yet at this moment, Qian Chen remained utterly calm, giving Pei Boyu an ominous foreboding.
The next instant, a White Bone Relic appeared before Pei Boyu, expanding from the size of a grain of sand to that of a peck bushel.
The skull dropped its jaw and unleashed a demonic howl that froze Pei Boyu's body, followed by a direct pounce...
Brilliant light flared across Pei Boyu as he invoked every defensive spell at his disposal, but as the White Bone Relic smashed down, all that radiance was shattered and blown to dust... This White Bone Relic was likewise a perfected magical implement that had fallen from the rank of a magic treasure. In a mere flash, it bored into Pei Boyu's chest. Heavily imbued with demonic nature, the relic should have instinctively devoured Pei Boyu's flesh and blood entirely.
Yet once embedded in Pei Boyu's chest, the White Bone Relic stayed utterly still, making one wonder whether it was truly an implement of the demonic path.
Seeing this, Qian Chen nodded in satisfaction. His efforts in refining the hundred poisons into the Three Corpse Divine Fiends and comprehending the methods of subduing fiends had not been in vain... In the demonic path, merely refining powerful fiends was no great achievement; countless demonic masters had spent their lifework crafting world-shaking demons only to suffer backlash, handing the fruits of their labor to the Nine Nether for nothing.
To train a divine fiend to be as obedient as a dog—that was true mastery!
Yet even a successfully tamed vicious hound required constant appeasement of its desires to wear down its ferocity, and the risk of turning on its master remained. Only when one could refine a demon into something akin to one's own clone could the art of subduing fiends be considered truly accomplished.
The more orthodox a demonic sect was, the more emphasis it placed on the Dao of fiend suppression.
By gathering the hundred poisons of the human heart and stealing the natural creation of a furnace of spirit pills, Qian Chen had nurtured the Three Corpse Divine Fiends.
This was already an exquisite demon-refining art of the demonic path. Furthermore, he had tempered his Dao heart with the Three Corpses and hundred poisons to subdue the fiends, completed their incubation with the lifelong cultivation of Daoist Zhen, and finally, beneath the plum tree, slain the Three Corpses. This accomplished the final step of fiend suppression: extinguishing the fiend's self-awareness and leaving behind only the purest essence of the Three Corpses.
Only afterward had Qian Chen used his own root of evil to nurture the Three Corpses anew, subdued them once more, and severed them from his body. Through this most orthodox method of demonic fiend suppression, he had forged these Three Corpse Divine Fiends, which functioned like his very own avatars.
The intrinsic quality of these Three Corpse Divine Fiends was extraordinary, and they answered to his every thought without any threat of backlash. By concealing one within the White Bone Relic, Qian Chen used demon to control demon, commanding the demonic will within the White Bone Relic and truly taming this vicious weapon. Using demon to control demon was likewise a sublime art of fiend subjugation. Driving this demonic implement in this manner thoroughly eliminated any worry of backlash.
Though Qian Chen disliked this implement and had worried that when facing Miaokong, he might suffer backlash from whatever hidden traps Miaokong had surely planted inside, he had originally intended to destroy the White Bone Relic.
However, having comprehended the art of fiend suppression, he now possessed faint confidence in unraveling those traps and subduing the fiend. Lacking effective means to contend with Core Formation cultivators, Qian Chen naturally would not leave such a useful tool idle. Thus, using it for the first time, he struck down the fifth-grade Core Formation Sect Master of the Jinchuan Sect.
With a beckoning wave of his hand, the White Bone Relic, reverted to a bone bead, tore out of Pei Boyu's chest and flew back into Qian Chen's palm.
By now, Pei Boyu's thread of fate had been severed. Clinging to life with his last breath, he cast a look of bitter unwillingness at Qian Chen before crashing to the ground.
The Dragon Sparrow Ring then gathered the Floating Cloud Flying Sleeve and the Geng Metal Divine Sand. Qian Chen retrieved the Black Baleful Hook and let out a sigh, taking back the Ice Soul Divine Needle hidden upon it. It was a close call—he had narrowly avoided detonating the Ice Soul Cold Light Gang to blow apart the Floating Cloud Flying Sleeve.
Otherwise, all his painstaking efforts to gather materials for his external dan would have gone down the drain right as they were nearly complete.
Before the eyes of countless Jinchuan Sect disciples, Qian Chen—having slaughtered his way through the sect and ultimately slain their sect master beneath his sword (by way of an ambush)—now appeared to them as an unmatched fiend from the demonic path. Wherever his gaze turned, the surrounding Jinchuan Sect disciples trembled in terror.
It was clearly Qian Chen who had come barging in to wreak havoc, yet under his gaze, it was the people of the Jinchuan Sect who lowered their heads in guilt and fear, not daring to meet his eyes.
Qian Chen merely approached an elder who possessed Core Formation cultivation—albeit of a low grade—and asked calmly, "Where have you stored the Extreme Yin True Sha?"
Under the interrogation of this god of slaughter, the elder answered truthfully, not daring to play the slightest trick. Bowing his head, he said, "It is suppressed right beneath this grand hall. Normally, when disciples draw qi to cultivate techniques, the Sect Master unseals the hall's restrictions to release a small wisp of the sha."
Qian Chen nodded. "Then I shall borrow your grand hall for a short seclusion... to collect the wager I won first. By the way, is there anyone among you who wishes to avenge the Pei father and sons?..."
The surrounding Jinchuan Sect disciples shook their heads furiously like pellet drums.
Seeing that after killing for so long, Qian Chen had actually softened somewhat and seemingly had no intention of cutting the grass and pulling out the roots, Real Man Sun Huanqin stepped forward, offered a slight bow, and said, "This humble one serves as the Sect Master of the White Deer Sect. Might I ask you, sir, how you came into possession of my sect's calling card?"
Qian Chen glanced at her. So she was the Sect Master of the White Deer Sect.
He replied truthfully, "Your disciple gave it to me. I asked someone to help me search for sha qi, and your disciple turned around and informed Fellow Daoist Pei. In order to confirm his Great Dao, Fellow Daoist Pei made a move against me. Thus, I could only test whether his Dao heart was truly unyielding and firm as iron... Afterward, to spare her life, your disciple disclosed the location of the Jinchuan Sect and gave me a calling card so that I could use it to call upon your doors."
Real Man Sun's expression changed. "May I ask about my disciple..."
Qian Chen glanced at her indifferently. "Am I one to break my word? Naturally, she returned safely!"
Having heard the whole story, the elders and disciples of the Jinchuan Sect finally understood who had brought this plague upon them. With the Pei father, son, and nephew all dead, they could no longer direct their blame toward them, but the looks they cast toward Real Man Sun changed, carrying a subtle hostility. With no choice, Real Man Sun took her leave. Qian Chen walked straight into the grand hall, waved his hand to seal the doors, raised the Heavenly Net Umbrella, and began casting spells to extract the strand of Extreme Yin True Sha beneath the hall.
Chapter 74