Seeing Tang Shedu's long halberd thrusting straight toward Li Yuanjiao's back, Tu Longjian knitted his brows tightly. Bringing his hands together, his spiritual sense stirred incessantly until the black-red medallion finally and reluctantly rippled with a grayish light, knocking aside Halting Warfare.
Having cast Halting Warfare off in a single breath, a hazy glow rose from top to bottom along the black-red medallion, and the six patterns inscribed upon its reverse flared faintly.
Tang Shedu stretched his long arms as a sharp buzzing hum resounded. With dark, ruthless eyes, the golden armor upon him flared with a fire-like white luminescence—scorching and blinding—blasting away the magical artifacts of several people around him. Like a celestial warrior descending into the mortal realm, he roared, "Give me your life!"
On the other side, Li Yuanjiao felt an enormous force crash over him. His body abruptly shifted sideways across the void, narrowly evading the vital strike.
A chilling cold pierced his lower abdomen as a bright-white blade of light burst through his front. Almost simultaneously, razor-sharp metal qi erupted from the halberd's blade of light, tearing straight toward his internal organs. Spitting a mouthful of blood, Li Yuanjiao took several swift strides with the River-Crossing Torrent Steps while triggering a blood escape technique to dart far away. At the same time, he slipped a Wanling Flower from his sleeve and hastily shoved it into his mouth.
The flower melted the moment it touched his tongue, sending a refreshing cool sensation coursing outward. The metal qi rampaging through his organs paused all at once, as if having lost its direction, remaining motionless and dormant near the wound.
With the aid of the Six Ding Combined Fire Medallion, Li Yuanjiao barely broke beyond three zhang of Tang Shedu. Still daring not relax in the slightest, he pulled out his final Foundation Establishment talisman, activated the incantation, and cloaked himself in a white shield of light.
Having failed to slay him in that single blow, Tang Shedu lost the initiative. A blinding white glare burned in his eyes, and his armor radiated trails of drifting light in the sky. Consumed by rage, he seemed to unleash another trump card.
"Damn it!"
His unfocused gaze suddenly locked onto his target. Jerking back the halberd, his eyes turning ferocious, he swung the weapon around with a cold sneer, knocking Tu Longjian's golden hammer flying with a single strike. Reversing his grip with both hands, the platinum-gold halberd spun violently, forcefully deflecting an incoming golden beam that scattered into a golden arrow and fled.
Farther off, Li Yuanjiao had just conjured the dark-pattern spirit mist when his chest turned shockingly cold. The Foundation Establishment shield before him shattered with a bang, and the spirit mist in his grip disintegrated. His magic power felt as though sealed within a restrictive formation, churning unstably, on the verge of dispersing at any moment.
Barely ten zhang behind him, an exceedingly tiny streak of light flashed—none other than the Violet Palace talisman sword Dispel Cloud. That sword had lain in ambush for so long, waiting precisely for the moment he raised the spirit mist to flee before piercing his heart!
What an insidious talisman sword!
As the talisman sword's power unleashed, the immortal foundation within him abruptly fell silent, and his magic power froze like thick mire throughout his body, while the metal qi around his wound surged once more. Paralyzed by the talisman sword, he could barely keep his footing upon the wind, finally understanding why Tu Longjian had remained so listless and weakened after taking a blow from Dispel Cloud—anyone else would likely have plummeted straight from the clouds.
The platinum-gold glow stirred a tempest across the sky. The blazing white radiance in Tang Shedu's eyes rapidly dimmed, but drawing on the power of this final strike, he raised the halberd high above his shoulder and hurled it forward with savage force.
In that spark of flint, a final thought flashed through Li Yuanjiao's mind:
This outcome was part of my design—deceiving step by step, borrowing Tu Longjian's might, ambushing and encircling Yu Muxian move by move... I only fear that when I meet my grand-uncles below, they will fault me for being unscrupulous in this life, for doing things far too dirtily.
The next instant, the platinum-gold radiance drove clean through his chest. The two blades of Tang Shedu's halberd were fully three feet long, expanding far wider than a human torso. Li Yuanjiao's chest was incinerated into nothingness, his head and shoulders flung high into the air!
Clang!
Tang Shedu had long prepared over a dozen talismans within his sleeves, unleashing them in a blanket across every direction. Stepping forward, he reached the space behind Li Yuanjiao in two strides, catching his halberd with effortless ease and riding the wind forward. He did not even bother looking back, fully certain that this man was doomed beyond doubt. Pierced through the heart by Dispel Cloud, he was already lingering at the gates of the underworld, with death only a matter of time; now that his entire chest had been obliterated, not even a Violet Palace master could save him.
This man is dead; at least I have an answer for Master... Fortunately, Yu Muxian is dead as well, and this life can serve to stifle the criticism of the others...
Yet Tu Longjian was half a step too late, his other hand still clutching the wound left by Dispel Cloud on his abdomen. Tang Shedu only sneered as he retreated, the hatred in his heart greatly purged. For some reason, he even mocked, "Even the Long Sky Halberd has such a day?"
Tu Longjian gave chase on the wind...
Though Tang Shedu appeared disheveled, he soon stabilized his injuries. A century of cultivation had endowed him with means no younger cultivator could match. Swallowing a medicinal pill, he landed beside a mountain peak.
What kind of monster was that! Cultivating for merely a few years... could he be another Guo Shentong? If the situation hadn't been so dire, I should have slain him before leaving! Now I have left a future calamity behind.
Just as this thought crossed his mind, a scorching wave of heat swept from behind. Tang Shedu jerked his head around to see a canopy of blazing, crimson fire descending from above. Tu Longjian was enveloped in flames, his hands clasped together, the fury and hatred in his eyes practically overflowing.
He practiced Mu Fire; the flames he unleashed were hazy on the edges, while dense, distinct tongues of fire crawled through their interior across the sky. Gray Combined Fire flowed amidst the inferno, intertwining into a horrifying spectacle.
A feeling of mortal danger surged within Tang Shedu. Lacking Yu Muxian's genius-level grasp of spiritual opportunity and meticulous spiritual sense, he could only throw everything into retreating. "You..."
Yet that brief hesitation granted his foe an opening. Like a fire god descending into the mortal plane, Tu Longjian stared down at him with frigid eyes and spat a brilliant fire bead from his mouth.
The chase spanned several li. Just then, the six patterns upon the Six Ding Combined Fire Medallion illuminated one after another through the gaps of the pursuit. The fire bead abruptly shifted dozens of zhang across space, appearing directly before him. Tang Shedu's face drained of color as he cried in terror, "Who?!"
Rumble!
He had only managed that single word before a tremendous detonation of flame erupted into the sky. Brilliant within and hazy along its borders, the blast swept across the air, sending Tang Shedu tumbling crookedly into the cloud layer like a bird with clipped wings.
Spitting out the fire bead, Tu Longjian also coughed up a mouthful of blood, his hand clutching his abdomen slick with crimson. He quietly watched Tang Shedu disappear as his spiritual sense stirred, picking up rhythmic pulses from the medallion.
With a darkened expression, Tu Longjian rode the wind back, leaving the flames to slowly disperse in the air. Beneath the clouds, a streak of blood-red light finally rose around Tang Shedu, vanishing swiftly into the sea of clouds. His armor was faintly scorched black and trailing dark smoke as he flew onward with head lowered, both resentful and shaken.
"Shut up!" Tu Longjian snapped with a cold gaze as the black-red medallion leaped about, anxious that he might act rashly and urging him repeatedly to stop.
"I know you're furious, but you must not pursue him... You're being far too impulsive! If you keep chasing him, how will our plan ever succeed?"
"If it were of any use, you would have saved him long ago! This is nothing but the rage of your own incompetence!"
"You have already done everything benevolence and duty could require! That man... that Li Yuanjiao clearly intended to use his own life to ensure Yu Muxian had no burial ground! A ruthless man—a truly ruthless man! Damn it... if someone like him had lived in the Near Ancient era, he might truly have stirred up great storms!"
"We will settle accounts with him after we get out!"
Tu Longjian hung motionless in the air, the fury in his eyes slowly subsiding into deep desolation.
From the distance, a streak of golden light approached in frantic haste. Li Xuanfeng rushed over, both hands dripping with blood and bare bone exposed, several fingers hanging limply as though only newly reattached.
The trump card stored within Li Xuanfeng's bow was no lesser than the sword intent within the Qingchi Sword. It was a trace of power accumulated from every arrow he had ever shot, nurtured over many years into a vast and boundless might. Unleashed in a single strike, it had nearly slain Yu Muxian on the spot, but the backlash had almost crippled his hands. Yet heedless of his injuries, he had drawn the bow once more to shoot an arrow to save Li Yuanjiao, nearly losing his hands entirely. Having hastily ingested medicine before rushing over, his heart ran cold and his lips were pale.
Li Xuanfeng descended and caught Li Yuanjiao, sweeping his magic power through the surroundings twice to gather the torn remnants of his body. With specks of blood dotting his face, he appeared hollow and lost.
Li Yuanjiao's body had already been torn to pieces. Li Xuanfeng barely held them together with magic power, but the damage left by Dispel Cloud continued to fester, threatening to dissolve the flesh into bloody mist.
Channeling magic power with one hand, Li Xuanfeng fished out medicinal pills with the other. Seasoned and deeply experienced, a single glance told him that Li Yuanjiao was beyond saving, yet he still fed the pills into Li Yuanjiao's mouth.
Though Foundation Establishment cultivators could not compare to Shakya cultivators in resilience, their vitality was still tenacious. Li Yuanjiao's vision blurred, faintly catching Tang Shedu's relieved laughter and the furious shouts of Li Xuanfeng and Tu Longjian.
A sweetness filled Li Yuanjiao's mouth, and a sudden clarity shattered his illusions—someone had fed him a life-prolonging spirit medicine. Marshalling a breath of strength, a speck of light surfaced in his hand, faintly revealing the silhouette of a small serpent coiling and fluttering.
The binding power of the talisman sword Dispel Cloud had receded like the tide. What met his eyes was Li Xuanfeng's blood-streaked face, holding his own hand—wet with blood, faintly touching shattered, tender bone.
Li Xuanfeng bent low. Li Yuanjiao's lips parted and closed, issuing a very faint, raspy murmur. His voice carried a light, brisk inflection that Li Xuanfeng had never heard from him before, yet his tongue moved indistinctly in his mouth one last time, unable to form another word.
Li Xuanfeng gripped his hand, gritting his teeth tightly. Before him, Li Yuanjiao's eyes were already turning a dull gray-white. Pale green drizzle began to fall, pattering against his armor.
Li Yuanjiao only felt his hands turn icy cold, as if he had returned to that afternoon years ago, watching Li Yuanxiu walk down the moss-covered stone path step by step while pale green rain drifted from the heavens. His hands had been just as cold then.
Compared to that memory, the coldness today felt far lighter. His hands felt solid; at the very least, he was holding something—enough to give an accounting to his ancestors.
Darkness fell before his eyes as his vitality ebbed away, yet the pills and medicines forcibly sustained his breath. Through the agony, countless illusions surfaced: from his mother Mu Yalu smiling across the table, to Li Yuanxiu reading with him; from Xiao Guiluan's lovely face within the bridal sedan chair, to the youthful smiles of Li Xizhi and Li Yuexiang...
The stars in the sky flickered like lanterns in the dark. A chilly wind swept past, and wet drops of blood splattered across his face. Before his consciousness faded, he returned to a certain night: the stars before him turned into lanterns at the foot of the mountain, and the drifting mist took the shape of a slender figure.
"Chijing?"
Unlike Li Yuanjiao's habitual solemnity, this man wore an azure robe and a flowing cape, his face young and his brows serene, carrying an ease far more open than Li Yuanjiao's, quietly smiling as he looked upon him.
Not far off, another figure slowly walked out from the clouds, clad in Daoist robes with an azure flute dangling from a swaying red cord at his waist. The middle-aged man wore a Daoist crown, standing with his hands clasped behind him, looking at him with a warm smile:
"Yuanjiao."
Only at this moment did he finally have the leisure to look up, gazing toward the green rain in the distance. A deep gloom weighed on him, wishing that the grotto-heaven before him would never close, that he could stay within it for a lifetime and never have to leave...
The green rain within the grotto-heaven fell, pattering against Li Xuanfeng's dark-gold armor. The middle-aged man covered his face with one hand, uttering not a single sound, while his other hand—its wounds deep enough to bare the bone—gently brushed down over his nephew's eyes.
***
Autumn had arrived early at Lake Wangyue this year, cloaking the lands in vermilion and gold. Over Mount Qingdu, light rain fell once again, pattering through the formation to gather in stone ravines and ditches before flowing clearly down the mountain slopes.
Every single brick and stone of the Li family ancestral hall had been moved intact to Mount Qingdu. Each piece of blue stone exuded an air of antiquity, overgrown with moss. The six great doors were tightly shut, their brass fixtures slightly gray with age.
Few people were permitted to enter the Li family ancestral hall at Lake Wangyue. Years ago, clan elders had forbidden women from stepping inside, but as Li Qinghong broke through to Foundation Establishment, those voices had gradually faded into silence.
Clad in a white dress, Li Qinghong gently pushed the door open. Several lanterns within the hall flickered faintly, casting a warm, pale yellow glow. Li Qinghong bowed with practiced familiarity, the scent of burning incense clinging to her clothes.
She knelt upon the cushion to the side, raising her gaze slightly toward the rows of spirit tablets above, silently reciting her prayers:
Mother has also entered seclusion to break through... I only hope heaven grants our wish, and no unforeseen twists occur.
She recalled the day she had entered the hall back then, finding someone standing quietly inside, utterly silent as though lost in deep contemplation, turning only upon hearing her approach.
The person before her had been Li Yuanjiao. That elder brother of hers—always steady, unshaken even if Mount Tai were to collapse before his eyes—had appeared anxious and restless for the first time. He had given her a brief nod and asked a few casual questions.
Yet within those few exchanges, Li Yuanjiao had glanced up toward the dais twice. Beneath the tablets, along the tables, hung a row of jade stones—some bright, some dim, all emitting a gentle warmth.
With eyes half-closed, she had just bowed when a heavy sound of shattering suddenly echoed in her ears, accompanied by the remembered rasp of Li Yuanjiao gripping his sword hilt and his heavy breathing.
Crack...
The sound rang out with startling clarity in the quiet hall. The lamps throughout the chamber dimmed all at once, and Li Qinghong froze mid-movement.
She raised her head. Before her lay shattered jade fragments and powder across the floor. At the very top, the warm jade stone that Li Qinghong had watched intently for months had burst apart, clattering down in pieces.
"Brother!"
It's... over... It's over...
Li Qinghong shut her eyes tight. Tears spilled rapidly from the corners of her eyes, tracing down her neck to soak into her white robe. Sniffling, she gathered the jade fragments from the floor into a pile, unable to choke back a muffled sob.
Chapter 469