This near-teleportation sword skill Qin Mo had comprehended was truly formidable—formidable enough that even Xu Yuan, who possessed the Blood Yuan Heart Calamity Art, felt quite tempted by it.
If used properly, taking an enemy by surprise to kill someone above one's realm would be all too easy.
Conversely, once exposed, using such a sword technique for offense became somewhat useless.
The variation of Sweeping Blade was never meant for offense in the first place, but for utilizing invulnerability frames to dodge skills.
Furthermore, the reason this move worked so well in Cangyuan was entirely because the game's bosses had no concept of invulnerability frames, let alone how to punish a wake-up.
The bosses of the past didn't understand, but Xu Yuan, as a living person, naturally did.
If Su Jinxuan hadn't mentioned that Qin Mo possessed such a technique, Xu Yuan truly would have suffered a disastrous setback here.
But since she had, it created a fatal intelligence disparity.
Xu Yuan knew, yet Qin Mo had no idea he knew.
So all Xu Yuan had to do was set a trap and wait for him to charge right in.
With Xu Yuan's current cultivation, channeling the secret skill Blood Phoenix Drill was grueling even without interference, but for close-range wake-up pressure, it was the perfect fit.
Leaping lightly down from the courtyard wall, Xu Yuan nearly stumbled and pitched forward onto the ground. Feigning nonchalance, he brushed nonexistent dust off his Blood Jade Glazed Robe, sending his intent-soul surging into the smoke and dust by the wall to investigate.
Source Qi and intent-soul complemented yet remained independent of each other; exhausting Source Qi did not impair the intent-soul.
"Cough, cough, cough... ack... cough..."
The moment his intent-soul probed forward, Xu Yuan heard the sound of someone coughing up blood within the dust.
Sensing carefully, Xu Yuan suddenly let out a soft chuckle.
As the smoke and dust gradually dispersed, the guards reformed their battle array. Inside the crater, Qin Mo could barely even stand; his entire chest was charred black, and he was drenched in blood from head to toe.
Having taken Xu Yuan's overdrawn, all-out strike, Qin Mo was now on the verge of total exhaustion, like an oil lamp burning down to its wick.
The crimson tier of the Blood Yuan Heart Calamity Art was no joke.
The only reason those Eighth Rank martial apprentices had been able to trade blows back and forth with Xu Yuan was entirely because he was a terrible fighter, not because of any deficiency in the art's power.
His combat proficiency was simply too low; almost anything he tried to do would be interrupted a step ahead by those martial apprentices who had been trained since childhood.
Give him time to charge up a skill, however, and it was a completely different story.
The plot's protagonist before him was living proof.
"Bastard..."
Qin Mo glared with utter venom at the young master in the blood-colored robe, forcing his battered body upright from within the crater. As he spoke, his grip tightened once more around the ancient ingot saber in his hand.
Xu Yuan stood behind the crowd, staring at Qin Mo with an impassive face. Resisting the urge to mock him, he said flatly, "Instructor Wang, don't waste time. Kill him."
Kill the man, crush his spirit.
Since he could already kill the man, there was no need to waste breath trying to crush his spirit further.
Villains die from talking too much—Xu Yuan understood that lesson well enough.
The moment the words left his mouth,
a spear was violently hurled by a burly man in the military array.
The spear blurred into a black streak, swift as lightning, crossing the distance of more than ten zhang in the blink of an eye.
*Clang—!*
A metallic ring resonated as the thrown spear was deflected by Qin Mo's ancient ingot saber. Yet at his last gasp, the jarring impact knocked the weapon straight from his grip.
On the battlefield, no one gave an enemy room to breathe.
In the very next instant,
as two more spears hurtled through the air, several burly men from the array charged forward, rushing toward Qin Mo.
*Hum—*
This time, no crisp metallic clash rang out; instead, an ear-piercing hum filled the air.
The two thrown spears abruptly froze in midair before Qin Mo.
In the next second, Qin Mo was yanked straight out of the crater and pulled into the sky from afar.
Xu Yuan's heart sank at the sight, and he raised his eyes to look up.
That Saint's remnant soul still had the leeway to intervene in the fight down here in the midst of his clash?
The cooked duck had flown away...
No, it should still be considered in the pot for now.
The instant the Saint's remnant soul hauled Qin Mo up, Zhou Chen seized the opening in the sky and swung his sword fiercely toward the airborne youth.
The Saint's remnant soul raised a hand and clenched.
A near-solid barrier of intent-soul materialized before Qin Mo.
The sword qi slammed into the surface of the black soul shield in an instant. The collision made not a single sound, yet the escaping Source Qi and intent-soul sent violent ripples through the surrounding air.
Taking such a heavy blow, the phantom silhouette of the Saint's remnant soul seemed to turn slightly more transparent.
Pulling Qin Mo to his side, the Saint's remnant soul looked at his disciple's battered state, sighed softly, and then remarked with a chuckle, "Brat, looks like you didn't judge character very well."
"Teacher..."
Qin Mo clenched his fists tightly.
At this point, how could he not understand how his whereabouts had been exposed?
The Saint's remnant soul smiled with easy nonchalance. "Alright, blame this old man for misjudging as well. A fall in the pit, a gain in your wit. Just be careful next time."
Qin Mo looked up at the three figures relentlessly attacking the soul shadow in the sky, his eyes tinged with guilt as he murmured, "But Teacher, what do we do now?"
While blocking Zhou Chen and the others, the Saint's remnant soul replied casually, "Well, leaving is simple enough, but I will likely fall into a deep slumber for a very long time. After that, you'll mostly have to rely on yourself."
Zhou Chen and the other two were hardly moved to pause their attacks by this master-disciple farewell. Instead, every strike of their blades and secret techniques of intent-soul grew sharper.
In mere moments, the shockwaves from the clash between the three and the Saint plowed through the already ruined Jingjiang Xu Manor once again.
"I understand..." Qin Mo made a silent resolution in his heart.
"..."
The Saint's remnant soul said no more. The aura around him surged violently in an instant, and a burst of soul intent forced Zhou Chen and the other two back.
Then,
a spatial ripple spread outward with the Saint's soul body at its epicenter!
Below on the ground, Xu Yuan's heart sank abruptly at the sight.
*Dammit.*
*Don't tell me this protagonist is going to get away even in a situation like this?*
A technique that even Xu Yuan could recognize was naturally obvious to the three Grandmasters in the sky. Yet spatial ripples had already formed around the Saint's soul body, repelling all their attacks; even if he stood there and let them strike, they could not penetrate that layer of spatial ripples in short order.
Before long, the aura of the Saint's soul body peaked. The black ripples undulating through space were visible even to the naked eye of an ordinary mortal.
The Saint's remnant soul exhaled a long breath, casting a deep glance at Qin Mo whom he shielded behind him, and smiled softly.
"Brat Qin, don't overthink it. I'm only going to sleep, not dying. We master and disciple will have plenty of chances to—"
*Whoosh—!*
Before the Saint's remnant soul could finish his sentence, his pupils abruptly shrank.
In a moment where time seemed frozen,
he saw an ancient black longsword flying toward him.
The instant he caught sight of that blade, he realized that, having exhausted his soul power, he could not dodge it.
Just as he thought,
in a soundless world,
that black longsword pierced the canopy he had erected.
Slicing through the void,
it passed through the spatial barrier around his body like entering water, and finally plunged softly into his soul body.
Everything happened so fast that it seemed as though time had been paused.
And in the next moment, the pause was released.
Wisps of freezing frost and icy shards swiftly spread outward from the blade.
In a flash,
both the Saint's remnant soul in the sky and Qin Mo beside him were frozen into ice sculptures, plunging from the heavens...
Chapter 80