“Am I still too late...”
Luo Bingli’s gaze swept across the ground blanketed in a gelatinous fungal carpet, past the monster looking up toward her, and finally settled upon the corpse of the woman surnamed Fu.
Prior to this, she had not known her, only having heard her name by chance on a few occasions.
A fickle, wanton woman.
Yet staring at the gruesome remains for several breaths, Luo Bingli could not help but let out a soft sigh.
Every descent of a Great Calamity was a slow, gradual process, taking anywhere from ten to several dozen years to evolve into an uncontrollable catastrophe.
As a Transcendent Realm expert, the woman could have chosen to live cravenly like Fatty Zhou, continuing to enjoy everything her authority afforded her.
And in this era fortified by military arrays, as supreme figures within their sect’s hierarchy, they no longer had to stand on the front lines against disaster as they had ten thousand years ago. Yet she had still chosen to fight to the death here.
Now the elder surnamed Tian was dead, the woman surnamed Fu was dead, and Taishi Ran, who was risking his life to stall Lou Ji, would most likely die as well.
Of their party of five, three were already gone.
Arriving to face the calamity, only to die as light as a goose feather.
Her emotions surged, but Luo Bingli had no time to mourn the fallen, for the monster had appeared before her eyes without the slightest warning.
Without an instant’s hesitation, a palm struck straight toward her face.
Faced with this sudden turn of events, in the fleeting breath before the palm wind reached her, Luo Bingli even had leeway to ponder other things.
She thought of the woman surnamed Fu, whose skull had been crushed by five fingers in death.
It seemed she had perished under this very strike.
This monster’s instantaneous movement technique, devoid of any qi dynamic, paired with the bizarre energy cloaking his body, made for an almost perfect first-strike kill against most Transcendent Realm cultivators in this world.
Her thoughts flashed by. As the palm enlarged before her eyes, Luo Bingli showed no intention of dodging. Raising her hand slightly, striking second yet arriving first, she clamped directly onto the incoming wrist.
Exerting instantaneous force, her immense power made Xu Yuan’s wrist screech in protest.
Yet Xu Yuan’s physical constitution was no longer the frailty of Soul Condensation; almost simultaneously, he erupted with power no weaker than Luo Bingli’s.
After grappling for several breaths, a glint of realization crossed Luo Bingli’s eyes, as though she had obtained the information she sought.
She abruptly shifted her stance. Leaning her body slightly, the hand gripping Xu Yuan’s wrist yanked sharply at a subtle angle, instantly dispelling the monstrous force within it!
Propelled by sheer momentum, Xu Yuan lunged forward, only to be dragged by the wrist and swung through the air like a plaything.
Xu Yuan attempted to forcibly arrest his motion midair, but it was futile; the immense momentum and the power in Luo Bingli’s grip left him utterly incapable of resisting.
Within the silent, misty expanse, an ear-grating whistle tore through the air, followed immediately by the tremendous crash of flesh slamming into the ground.
Luo Bingli had hurled the ambushing Xu Yuan back into the dirt.
Yet despite holding the upper hand, Luo Bingli chose not to pursue the advantage. Instead, she remained where she stood, looking down at the right hand that had just made contact with him.
Her slender fingers and well-defined knuckles radiated a light too brilliant to behold directly.
Beneath her gaze—
*Bang!*
With a muffled pop, her hand shattered without warning.
Beholding this eerie sight, Luo Bingli’s beautiful eyes remained tranquil and calm, as though she had anticipated it all along.
The message transmitted by the woman surnamed Fu had noted that a strange membrane enveloped the monster’s body, capable of reverse-deconstructing Source Qi techniques.
From the looks of it now, that membrane could even directly deconstruct her fully qi-fied body.
With that thought, the qi around Luo Bingli surged, and the obliterated right hand re-condensed in the blink of an eye. She fixed her gaze upon the center of the billowing dust.
This bizarre membrane was a natural counter to her current state. As long as it remained intact, wanting to kill him was nothing short of a pipe dream.
However, that brief clash had allowed her to probe out further details.
His speed and strength were not overwhelmingly formidable; compared to martial cultivators, he was roughly at the level of a newly advanced Transcendent Realm.
Furthermore, his physical body was somewhat peculiar, seemingly relying on some external aid to reach its current resilience.
“You... don’t... taste... good.”
Amidst her contemplation, a voice resembling a sleepwalker’s murmur drifted up from the dust below.
Hearing these sudden words, Luo Bingli’s brows knitted instantly. Her gaze, gleaming with divine radiance, pierced straight through the smoke to fix upon the man slowly clambering up from the earth.
Staring at her with hollow, pitch-black eyes, Xu Yuan hoarsely uttered two words:
“Leave... now.”
“......”
Offering no reply, Luo Bingli revealed a trace of gravity in her eyes for the first time.
No matter how fierce a beast was, it was still merely a creature awaiting slaughter. Yet Xu Changtian had actually spoken.
This was good news, but also bad news.
He still retained a portion of his intellect—at least enough to pursue advantage and avoid harm.
Yet by the same token, one could discern the whole from a single clue.
Since he understood self-preservation and had chosen to persuade her to leave, it proved she possessed something that genuinely threatened him.
What could it be that allowed her to threaten his current self?
“......”
In a single breath, countless thoughts raced through Luo Bingli’s mind.
One notion after another surfaced, only to be discarded just as quickly.
And when a particular realization dawned, Luo Bingli’s shining pupils shrank abruptly. She cast her gaze down toward the right hand that had just been deconstructed.
Because of the intelligence Fu Qinggeng had provided, coupled with her own ingrained assumptions regarding the calamity, she had overlooked the most fundamental rule of the cultivation world.
No matter how bizarre a technique’s effects might seem, its foundation required the Source Qi of heaven and earth as its pillar.
The membrane enveloping him was naturally no exception.
During that preliminary probe, she had not channeled much Source Qi into her right hand, yet it had taken him roughly nine breaths to deconstruct her qi-form hand...
With this realization, a spark of comprehension entered Luo Bingli’s gaze as she looked toward Xu Yuan.
Since that membrane required energy to maintain, it meant there was an upper limit to the Source Qi it could deconstruct.
As long as she shattered that critical threshold in an instant, she could injure—or even slay—him!
Her thoughts crystallized.
Having deduced a viable way to combat him, Luo Bingli hesitated no longer. Her aura flared with violent intensity.
Her time was short. Even if Taishi Ran staked his life, he could not hold Lou Ji for long. She had to resolve this within the shortest possible time.
For a moment, the world fell deathly still.
Standing on the ground, Xu Yuan looked up at the figure whose radiant aura resembled a deity descended into the mortal world. A flicker of confusion crossed his pitch-black eyes, as if he could not comprehend what she meant to do.
Yet in the very next instant, he understood.
The figure in the sky dissolved into a beam of flowing light, appearing before him faster than his sight could follow.
Looking at the orb of light manifesting in front of him, Xu Yuan’s face instinctively contorted with primitive rage.
He did not understand. He had already said he would not eat her—why had this distasteful thing still refused to leave?!
Driven by raw fury, Xu Yuan slashed out with a knife-hand toward the approaching orb of light. At the same time, countless tangled willow branches burst from the earth and his own body, writhing outward to entangle her.
Yet unfortunately, in this state, Luo Bingli was far faster than he was.
Before the knife-hand and branches could touch her form, she had already brought a single speck of light before Xu Yuan with her slender index finger.
Catching sight of that minuscule speck, the rage in Xu Yuan’s eyes vanished at a visible rate, replaced by a tremor of fear.
From that tiny speck of light, he sensed a lethal danger.
Without a second thought, Xu Yuan abruptly checked his momentum and tried to retreat, yet his speed could never match Luo Bingli’s.
The black mist turned eerily silent in that instant.
The fear upon Xu Yuan’s face,
the indifference in Luo Bingli’s eyes,
and the tens of thousands of reaching willow branches all froze in place.
“......”
“......”
“......”
The speck of light erupted into a radiant beam, its dazzling brilliance instantly sweeping away the bizarre mist cloaking half the city.
There was no thunderous roar, no explosive detonation—only a crisp crack as the beam collided with the membrane enveloping Xu Yuan.
After a few breaths, the blinding light gradually weakened, ultimately dissolving into specks of starlight that faded into the void.
All returned to tranquility. Before Luo Bingli now stood only a headless corpse. The willow branches surging toward her froze where they hung, while in the earth behind him lay a bottomless crater a chi wide!
*Is it over?*
Looking at the instigator of the Great Calamity whose head had been obliterated, Luo Bingli felt no relief in her eyes.
Though she still could not detect the slightest breath of life from his body, he was, after all, the harbinger of the calamity.
Moreover, while this Xu Changtian still maintained human form, the strike from the wooden saber had nearly severed his upper torso in half; the anatomy of his body had clearly undergone a transformation, meaning fatal weaknesses of the human race might no longer apply to him.
Yet under her vigilant gaze,
the standing headless corpse lingered in silence for a breath, sank slowly to its knees, and then collapsed onto the ground like limp mud...
Seeing this,
Luo Bingli breathed a slight sigh of relief, yet vast amounts of Source Qi surged around her once more, another speck of light rapidly coalescing at her fingertip.
When dealing with the calamity, one could never let down one’s guard until the enemy was ground entirely to dust.
Within the silent, shattered ruins, the brilliant light grew ever more dazzling. Just as the technique was about to take form once more, a series of dull heartbeats—*thump, thump, thump*—sounded with jarring dissonance.
The moment the sound arose, Luo Bingli’s heart sank violently.
This monster truly had not died.
Right before her eyes, the headless corpse that had collapsed like mud rose from the ground in an eerie, unnatural posture.
Without hesitation, the speck of light in Luo Bingli’s hand flared with blinding radiance once more.
Yet at that moment, the headless corpse suddenly reached toward the wooden saber impaled in its chest.
The instant his fingertips touched the hilt, a tyrannical, bloodthirsty aura of mad slaughter instantly engulfed several hundred zhang around them.
In a brief trance, Luo Bingli felt as though she were standing in a pitch-black expanse; looking up, she beheld a colossal ancient willow hung with countless corpses!
Yet with her formidable cultivation, she regained her clarity in a fraction of an instant. The speck of light at her fingertip transformed into a beam, surging toward his torso once again.
Yet this time,
the monster drew the wooden saber a step ahead of her, slashing down vertically in her direction.
A single blade severing light.
The brilliant beam of light was cleaved straight down the middle by that eerie blade, shooting off to both sides!
As the brilliance dissipated, two arced craters were gouged into the earth behind the headless corpse.
Beholding this sight that defied common sense, a tremor of shock and uncertainty flitted across Luo Bingli’s beautiful eyes.
She could clearly sense that the monster was even faster than before.
Before she could think further, the headless corpse had already raised the wooden saber high, slashing toward her suspended in midair from afar.
And along with that motion,
within the air that had been cleared of mist and restored to lucidity, countless arcs of splashed-ink sword qi manifested out of thin air, streaking toward her in unison.
Light flashed and sword qi struck the earth, carving dozens of gouges tens of zhang deep across the battered ground.
When Luo Bingli’s figure reappeared, she was already several hundred zhang away.
And within her sight,
the headless monster’s body was undergoing a transformation.
With the blade drawn, the slash wound that had nearly torn his upper torso completely in two was knitting together at a visible speed, while the head she had just obliterated was slowly reforming.
“You... don’t... want... to leave.”
After a brief silence, the completely uninjured Xu Yuan looked at the woman several hundred zhang away, a flicker of mad murderous intent surfacing in his pitch-black eyes. “Then... be... eaten... by me.”
With those words, he raised the willow ghost blade once more and slashed down gently toward her.
Unlike the sweeping rain of splashed-ink sword qi from before, this time Luo Bingli could not sense the slightest incoming qi dynamic.
Just as doubt crossed her mind,
a blast of wind pressure abruptly bore down upon her body of Source Qi, instantly cleaving her entire form in two.
This invisible slash was coated in the bizarre energy that clung to his body.
Owing to the unique composition of her qi-form body, Luo Bingli did not perish on the spot. Yet looking at that figure radiating terrifying power, an involuntary sense of helplessness crept into her eyes.
Was this... the true nature of the calamity?
***
On the other side of the Huizhou ruins, another battle was raging.
After Lou Ji’s earlier words, Taishi Ran had made his move.
Lou Ji had already made her stance clear; since their paths diverged, only blades remained between them.
Furthermore,
Taishi Ran wished to test whether, in the final moments of his life, he could drag this Chief of the Black Scales—who had chosen to aid the tyrant—down to hell with him.
Even if there were only a one-percent chance, he still had to try.
And the result of this attempt had not defied Taishi Ran’s expectations.
He had failed.
Half-kneeling on the ground, the blood continuously welling from Taishi Ran’s lips had already stained the earth beneath his feet crimson.
He slowly raised his eyes toward the figure still standing in midair, yet this time, he noticed that Lou Ji was not looking at him, but rather gazing into the depths of the mist.
As doubt arose within him, Lou Ji’s teasing voice drifted over lightly:
“Hey. That woman you placed such high hopes on seems to have been beaten into running away by Changtian.”
Chapter 435