Amidst the collapsed buildings and billowing smoke and dust, the hundred-zhang giant wolf clad in scales resembled a towering mountain. The sound waves spreading from its maw continuously tore through the streets around the prefectural yamen that were still intact.
It had all happened too suddenly.
In the battle against Mu Nuo, everyone at the prefectural yamen had already been pushed to the brink of collapse. Only after Xu Yuan awoke and drew Mu Nuo away did they finally find a moment of respite to tend to the wounded and collect the dead. Yet right then, Linlang abruptly went berserk behind them.
Gazing up at the giant wolf howling at the moon before him, Si Zijing tried to get up, only to find himself so weak he could not even twitch a finger.
He was simply too weak.
Yet upon realizing this, Si Zijing felt his heart settle into calm instead.
In this clash between Saints, he had already done everything within his power. What came next was in the hands of fate.
Considering the disparity in strength between the two sides on the field, however, he was almost certainly going to die this time.
At this thought, a touch of resentment welled up irrepressibly in his heart.
Resentment toward that Third Young Master.
From the very beginning, he had felt that the young man should never have fought such a battle of striking a rock with an egg.
Yet complaints were merely complaints; Si Zijing bore no hatred for the choice.
A general's glory is built on ten thousand withered bones.
That he had attained high station was precisely because he had walked that very path.
Now, becoming the withered bones beneath the feet of someone placed even higher was naturally as it should be.
Watching the rampaging giant wolf, Si Zijing suddenly felt he ought to leave some final words, just like those who demonstrated their ideals through death and etched their names into the annals of history.
Yet after pondering for a long while, he realized he had nothing to say, nor did he possess any such aspiration.
Dying in the darkness as the Chancellor's shadow wasn't a bad end either...
Though he told himself that, Si Zijing found a sliver of regret lingering in his heart that refused to disperse.
Having climbed to the core of the Prime Minister's Manor, he had believed he would get to see with his own eyes the world spoken of by the Lord Chancellor.
In the end,
he was still dying a step too early...
His consciousness gradually blurred, and Si Zijing faintly heard the voice of the Commandery Princess.
Somewhat hoarse, strained to the point of exhaustion.
"You can't handle this beast! Leave me be, go save people!"
*The Commandery Princess isn't dead?*
The sudden, violent assault Linlang had unleashed just now had been aimed straight at her.
*Was it Mu Xingchen?*
That eldest young master of the Mu family did possess skill, but in his condition, taking that sneak attack in place of the Commandery Princess meant he was likely dead or close to it...
Even as these thoughts crossed his mind, Si Zijing suddenly felt his body being dragged.
Someone seemed to be trying to rescue him amidst the dust-choked ruins.
Straining to cast his gaze downward,
Si Zijing saw a ponytail swaying before his eyes...
Grabbing Si Zijing by the collar, Xu Mengxi glanced back at her senior brother, who was supposed to have died along the road, and fought down the tangled turmoil in her heart as she transmitted her voice into the air:
"Commandery Princess, everyone has been gathered! I'll take them to the Tang family residence in the north of the city first to settle them!"
"..."
As the words fell, what arrived before Li Junwu's reply was the colossal wolf's paw slamming down with ferocious force.
Fast.
So fast that the moment Xu Mengxi noticed, the paw was already right before her!
*Boom—!*
Beneath the flying dust and debris,
blood trickled from Li Junwu's lips as she held up the colossal wolf paw with a single hand. Her fine eyes glanced back at the dazed Xu Mengxi, and she squeezed out a single word from between her pearly teeth:
"Go."
"..." Xu Mengxi.
Tightening her grip slightly, Xu Mengxi used source qi to lift and support the bodies of the three Transcendent Realm cultivators, speeding off into the distance in an instant.
At the same time, wisps of blood seeped from beneath Li Junwu's skin, and a hoarse, sharp shout rang out:
"Jiayi... can you explain to me what kind of madness has possessed Linlang?!"
With those words, the mighty power of the military array manifested around her. Her fingertips dug into the sole of Linlang's paw, and the array weapon blade condensed in her palm instantly impaled the descending paw!
In pain, Linlang reflexively pulled back its paw.
Li Junwu seized the chance to leap into the air, but her strike seemed only to drive the mindless Linlang into even greater frenzy.
Violent saint origin surged endlessly from around Linlang, creating an astral wind of saint origin that carved countless sharp gashes into her costly armor in practically an instant.
Li Junwu once again used a secret art to forcefully gather the military array's might.
Yet in the very next instant,
Li Junwu felt an immense force strike her without the slightest warning.
*What happened?*
Empowered by the military array, she could clearly see Linlang's every movement.
Clearly...
Clearly, this stupid wolf hadn't lifted a paw.
Nor were there any fluctuations of magical arts.
What had struck her?
No sooner had the thought flashed through her mind than her figure was sent hurtling back by the colossal impact!
Her slender form traced a streak of afterimages across the sky before crashing into ruins miles away, kicking up a sky full of smoke and dust.
"Awoooo—!"
A wolf's howl resounded through the entire city. The giant wolf sprinted, shaking the earth and mountains as it raced toward where Li Junwu had landed.
Yet before it arrived, a blast of air abruptly blew away the billowing dust in the ruins.
A slender, graceful figure clutching a halberd was revealed in the center of the crater.
With the empowerment of the military array, Li Junwu had not suffered injury from Linlang's attack, yet she still coughed up a large mouthful of blood uncontrollably.
The backlash of forcibly manipulating a twenty-thousand-man military array was gradually setting in.
Lifting a hand to wipe the blood from the corner of her lips, Li Junwu silently counted down the time in her heart. Seeing that scarcely any remained, a look of desolation flashed through her beautiful eyes as she stared helplessly at the incoming Linlang.
*It has come to this after all.*
*Yet using my trump card to slay this stupid wolf seems rather a waste...*
Exhaling softly, Li Junwu half-narrowed her eyes and fixed her gaze upon the gentle woman outside West City.
The other woman was calmly observing her at leisure.
The gazes of the two women intertwined in midair.
Li Junwu's was filled with killing intent.
The woman surnamed Wen simply ignored her resolve, her gaze thoughtful.
She seemed to know Li Junwu's trump card, yet cared not in the slightest.
Li Junwu felt no anger at this, for she had run out of time.
Subconsciously,
she looked toward East City, wanting to see him one last time.
Yet what met her eyes only brought a pang of disappointment.
Her view was blocked by the towering city wall of East City that reached into the clouds. The colossal city she had once taken pride in seemed so terribly in the way at this moment.
Lightly shaking her head, Li Junwu watched the savage giant wolf drawing nearer and parted her lips in a faint smile, murmuring:
"We clearly agreed before that it would be the last time I relied on you, yet every time, it ends up with you saving the day... But now, you finally can't make it, can you..."
As she spoke,
the rapid circulation of Life-Defying Blood Healing caused her ear-length hair to grow longer at a visible pace.
The sudden shift in the military array technique within her body sent a signal to the twenty thousand soldiers linked to the array. Sounds of shattering glass instantly echoed across the drill grounds, and wisps of medicinal fragrance spread out.
Gazing at that mountain-like beast of barely a hundred-odd zhang, Li Junwu subconsciously tightened her grip on her halberd. Her crimson lips trembled slightly as her voice resonated outward:
"Zhenxi Army, consume the Jinqi Pills—"
"Consume your mother's ass!"
The simplest vulgar curse detonated across the heavens.
Accompanied by his voice were sonic booms that tore through the air.
It was a sphere of blood.
In time that seemed frozen,
the blood sphere appeared to transcend time and space.
Passing over the city wall, over the prefectural yamen, crossing a dozen-odd li in an instant.
At that moment,
the galloping Linlang seemed to sense something and instinctively looked back in the direction the blood sphere had come from.
Yet it was already too late to dodge.
Arriving above it without a moment's pause, the blood sphere abruptly burst open, blooming into a magnificent sea of bloody thorns.
Like falling torrential rain, countless blood thorns plummeted from the sky and pierced through Linlang's body, instantly arresting the colossal momentum carried by its inertia and pinning it firmly to the ground!
"Roaaar—!"
Suffering this heavy blow, Linlang showed not the slightest sign of flagging. Instead, disregarding its wounds, it roared and struggled to rise.
Under the colossal saint origin pressure surrounding it, in merely a breath, the bloody thorns embedded in its body began to fracture and loosen.
Supporting itself bit by bit, Linlang stood up, just about to raise its head and howl at the moon...
*Boom—!*
A figure dropped from the heavens, slamming squarely onto its snout and stomping its head into the earth.
Wisps of blood qi converged above into three giant swords of blood crystal. Meeting the gaze of the giant wolf eyes beneath his feet for an instant, Xu Yuan cursed in a low voice:
"You stupid wolf, going dark makes you three times stronger, does it?"
With that,
the three blood swords pierced straight through Linlang's neck, heart, and head. The crossguards sank into the flesh, and death Dao charm steadily seeped in, utterly locking down all of Linlang's movements.
Having done this, Xu Yuan looked up, glancing at the idiot standing there with her halberd, his face darkening instantly:
"Li Junwu, you hid it damn well. So the medicinal smell I noticed earlier in the Military Affairs Hall was Jinqi Pills after all."
Li Junwu blinked, opening her mouth to explain.
Before she could speak, Xu Yuan flashed behind her and kicked her right on the curve of her backside, cursing:
"I was wondering why the Saints up there never targeted the prefectural yamen—turned out the yamen was hiding a suicide-bombing brat like you!"
"..."
Li Junwu rubbed her aching backside, only to immediately feel a warm current flowing from it into her body, healing the organs that had deteriorated from the Life-Defying Blood Healing. Her eyes widened slightly:
"Changtian... this is?"
"Don't read into it," Xu Yuan sighed, speaking with heartfelt gravity. "This is my Dao charm. It'll do for an emergency, but to you, it's an external substance after all. If the amount is too great, it'll trigger a vicious rejection reaction—"
Before his voice could fade,
a gentle female voice drifted quietly from behind Xu Yuan, carrying an appreciative smile:
"With the body of a Transcendent, engaging two Saints in fierce battle—is this the Blood Yuan Heart Calamity Art?"
"..."
His pupils shrinking sharply, Xu Yuan grabbed Li Junwu and retreated a hundred zhang in a flash, turning back to stare at the suddenly appearing woman surnamed Wen.
In his perception, this woman was clearly still standing over by West City—how could she suddenly appear here?
He instinctively glanced westward.
Immediately, a chill shot from the soles of his feet straight to the back of his head.
The woman surnamed Wen was indeed still standing in the sky there.
Yet Xu Yuan could sense that the person before him also possessed a physical body, and her aura was also that of a Saint.
Furthermore,
what had this woman just said?
The Blood Yuan Heart Calamity Art?
Why did she know the name of his cultivation method?
Countless doubts raced through his mind as Xu Yuan watched the woman surnamed Wen already strolling forward, taking leisurely steps with a smile.
Seeing this, Xu Yuan shoved Li Junwu hundreds of zhang away with a push, grinned, and said:
"You must be that scholar. I didn't expect you to be a woman."
With eyes clearer than water, the woman surnamed Wen smiled gently and said:
"In terms of birth, I was indeed a woman, but to me now, gender holds no value whatsoever."
With that,
the woman surnamed Wen stared at Xu Yuan and suddenly spoke with great seriousness:
"Xu Changtian, you are truly impressive."
Xu Yuan quietly deployed his Dao domain in the surroundings, smiling in response:
"I know that better than you do, Your Excellency."
"No, you do not."
The woman surnamed Wen shook her head. She raised a slender index finger, tapped the empty air, and said:
"Since my birth, through all these many years, including you there have only ever been three people who have earned such praise from me."
"Appearances can truly be deceiving. Looking at your face, you seem barely eighteen."
Observing her actions, Xu Yuan's vigilance was pushed to the absolute limit. He chuckled softly:
"I wonder, who might the other two people you speak of be?"
The woman surnamed Wen came to a halt ten zhang away from Xu Yuan and said in a low voice:
"One is your father, Xu Yinhe. He is truly impressive; whether in strength or in methods, he slipped completely beyond my control. As for the other..."
Speaking up to here,
she half-narrowed her eyes, thought earnestly for a moment, and sighed:
"I have forgotten."
"..." Xu Yuan.
The woman surnamed Wen curved her eyes in a smile, ethereal and enchanting, her voice unhurried:
"Too much time has passed after all, so long that I have forgotten his name. But since you practice the Blood Yuan Heart Calamity Art, you should have heard the title by which he is known to the world."
"What title?" Xu Yuan asked.
"The world always called him..."
With brows like distant mountains, a trace of reminiscence appeared in her lovely eyes. Then, she suddenly fixed her gaze on Xu Yuan, whispering softly:
"...the Heavenly Gate Sword Immortal."
Chapter 693