By now, Luo Jiu had curled himself almost completely into a ball.
Purple energy washed over the sphere, reinforcing every single feather to its absolute limit.
The second slash of the Desperate Seven-Kill Saber descended in an instant. Inside his protective shell, Luo Jiu's eyes flew wide open, and blood began trickling from the corners of his mouth.
*This strike is absurdly strong.*
The blade intent was terrifying, the edge incomparably sharp. The killing intent within the saber beam blended seamlessly with the rules of the blade, coalescing into an exceptionally concentrated, hyper-penetrative shockwave.
He had parried the blade energy and held off the blade intent, but he could not stop the reverberating aftershocks of the slash.
He was injured.
Damage tore through his internal organs.
Although a Mighty One's body was a rule body, Luo Jiu was an antique, after all. While adapting to the modern cultivation system, greed had led him to graft on several ancient arts from the old era.
This made him more powerful than an average Mighty One, but it also saddled him with extra vulnerabilities.
For instance, his internal organs were the very anchor of his secret arts. The moment they suffered damage, those arts risked biting back at him.
*At least I managed to survive this blow...*
Luo Jiu let out a slight breath of relief. He didn't want to fight anymore; this opponent was an utter freak. It would be far better to leave him to that old ghost, Quan Juehua.
Yet before he could even attempt to flee, the third strike arrived.
Zhang Shou's next blow was faster, fiercer, and far more violent. A crimson arc of blade energy slammed into Luo Jiu in a fraction of a heartbeat. Countless feathers snapped on impact, and buried beneath his feather cloak, Luo Jiu violently coughed up a mouthful of blood.
If the previous slash had merely inflicted a light wound, this one left him grievously crippled.
He couldn't beat him, he couldn't outrun him—he was finished!
A chill gripped Luo Jiu's heart, and he hastily shrieked, "Wait! I know Quan Juehua's secrets!"
The fourth slash, poised to drop, froze in midair.
Zhang Shou radiated overwhelming killing intent, terrifying energy cloaking his entire frame so thoroughly that his features were completely obscured. Only his blood-chilling eyes pierced through the gloom, striking terror into the soul.
Anyone beneath the Mighty One realm would have been reduced to ashes from a single glance.
Gripping his saber, the blade halted mere inches from the fringe of Luo Jiu's feather cloak. After a long pause, he finally uttered a single word: "Speak!"
"The saber isn't Quan Juehua's greatest strength! It only ranks third! His second-best art is the sword, and his absolute deadliest is Gu poison! Back in the day, he built his entire empire on poisoning people! Only me and my two brothers know this secret—every word of it is true!" Luo Jiu rattled off in a desperate rush.
Zhang Shou neither believed nor doubted him. The moment Luo Jiu finished speaking, the fourth strike slashed down without warning. Luo Jiu let out a bloodcurdling scream as he and his feather cloak were cleaved clean in two.
"I already surrendered! You broke your word, aaaaagh!" The two severed halves of Luo Jiu's body glared at Zhang Shou, howling in despair.
Zhang Shou offered no rebuttal whatsoever. Instead, he seamlessly chained into the fifth, sixth, and seventh strikes, hacking Luo Jiu into countless shredded pieces. Finally, the blade energy swept past like a roaring inferno, allowing Luo Jiu to depart this world in utter peace and quiet once more.
This was likely the most stifling, pathetic death he had ever suffered: inexplicably used as a pawn by Quan Juehua, inexplicably thrown into a fight with Zhang Shou, and inexplicably killed in the end.
From start to finish, he had never wanted to fight, nor did he want to risk his life against Zhang Shou. Yet fate had toyed with him, and so he died.
After dispatching Luo Jiu, Zhang Shou peered into the far distance. The battle between Quan Juehua and the black sun had already concluded. Sliced apart by Quan Juehua, the black sun had finally revealed its true form.
It was the elder of the Sun and Moon Brothers—the Sun God, Apollo.
Now, however, Apollo had been cut in two. His savage, twisted face stared with unblinking eyes, dead without peace, reeking of bitter indignation.
Evidently, after his younger brother Robos had been slain by Quan Juehua, Apollo had burned with an equal, consuming hatred.
Driven by vengeance, he had stopped at nothing to grow stronger, morphing from a blazing sun into an orb of pure hatred. His power had indeed soared to extraordinary heights, but he had still proven no match for Quan Juehua, meeting an untimely, regretful end.
At that moment, Quan Juehua turned around with a smirk, his gaze locking onto Zhang Shou across a span of countless light-years.
Though he had been locked in combat with Apollo, he had possessed complete awareness of everything unfolding here, even watching Zhang Shou butcher Luo Jiu.
He had spared Luo Jiu earlier and sent him off to gather more Calamity Origin purely to toy with him.
In truth, every shift in Luo Jiu's thoughts and all his petty little schemes had been completely transparent to him. Yet precisely because of that, he knew full well that Luo Jiu would never dare rebel against him.
As for how important Luo Jiu was?
Not in the slightest!
Quan Juehua had merely been looking for a bit of entertainment. After all, recuperating from his injuries had taken an eternity, and he had been bored to tears.
Now, however, he had found himself a brand-new source of amusement.
With a flick of his blade, he sheared off half of Apollo's head.
Grabbing Apollo by the hair, Quan Juehua hoisted the severed head in one hand, while holding a blade in the other as he crooked a finger at Zhang Shou.
It was a sneer, an invitation to battle, and an utterly contemptuous provocation.
Zhang Shou drew a deep breath and suddenly smiled. Hadn't he spent so long preparing precisely for this moment? If so, there was no room left for hesitation, and no point in lingering rage.
*Sister Niman, Old Hong... watch me avenge you!*
Murmuring softly in his heart, Zhang Shou teleported directly in front of Quan Juehua the very next instant, bringing his saber down in a vicious slash.
Blade met blade.
The victor was decided in a fraction of a second: Zhang Shou's saber was sliced open by Quan Juehua's blade, parting like silk.
The broken half went flying. An instant later, Quan Juehua drove a front kick into Zhang Shou's gut, sending him hurtling backward through space.
*Pfft!*
Zhang Shou coughed up a spray of blood, staring down at the shattered hilt in his hand with disbelief.
His weapon hadn't even withstood a single clash! What caliber of weapon was Quan Juehua wielding?
"Little brat, your blade looks a bit sub-par," Quan Juehua remarked, narrowing his eyes into an amused squint as he held his Malevolent Blade. He had forged his weapon out of countless worlds, feeding it an unfathomable number of realms, energy, matter, and living souls along the way. How could any ordinary divine weapon hope to rival it?
Moreover, he was currently equipped with multiple Transcendence-grade treasures. Even if Zhang Shou were wielding a Transcendence-grade weapon, it would still be reduced to scrap. He could proudly proclaim that his weapon, the Malevolent Blade—Dream's End on the Horizon, was the supreme blade across the entire Tree Universe!
"Cough, cough..."
"Then what about this one?"
Zhang Shou coughed twice, spitting out the destroyed cells in his mouth. Then, plunging a hand straight into his own heart, he slowly drew forth a long saber.
The instant the blade emerged, the surrounding temperature spiked wildly. Even Zhang Shou's hair instantly ignited into dancing flames.
"The Grand Blaze Sky-Burning Saber? That blade has countless counterfeits. As for yours..." Quan Juehua glanced at the saber in Zhang Shou's grip, seeing through its true nature at a single glance, and an amused smirk touched his lips.
Although the weapon was an uncanny replica of the genuine article, it was a counterfeit nonetheless, merely imbued with the rules of fire.
It was likely a top-tier fake forged by some Mighty One. If Quan Juehua hadn't been fortunate enough to lay eyes on the [True Grand Blaze Sky-Burning Saber] in the past, he might genuinely have been taken in by the deception.
"A counterfeit? Taste it first!"
Zhang Shou didn't believe him for a second. Gripping the long saber, he unleashed a ferocious slash.
This strike carried not only the rules of life and death, but was infused with a terrifying wave of blazing fire, the blade energy itself taking the shape of roaring flames.
Chapter 728