The weapons Yaoguang held were not limited to the Shenying Sword he had just acquired; he also had Chengying, which he had nourished with the Formless secret technique for some time.
Seeing what they thought was an opening, the two demons pounced to kill, only to be greeted by the abrupt manifestation of Chengying, an inherently invisible blade.
Sword light tore through the air!
The edge of Chengying shredded one demon's arm directly, sending flesh and blood flying.
The other demon collided head-on with the full-power dan jin Yaoguang unleashed midair.
The violent collision of power in midair sent Yaoguang—who had nothing to brace against—flying sideways out of control.
Yet even as his body flew sideways, Chengying, which had just shredded the first demon's arm, cleaved toward its head with undiminished momentum. With sharpness capable of severing refined iron, it split the demon's skull clean in half on the spot.
Using the resistance from cleaving the demon's head, Yaoguang's body—knocked sideways by the fist force—flipped in midair and planted itself steadily at a ninety-degree angle on a wall several meters away.
A reenactment of the scene when he had fought Xia Li to the death.
As his knees bent slightly to absorb the jarring force that shook his frame, the power within his body erupted the very next instant.
*Boom!*
The wall cracked!
Like an artillery shell, he launched through the air and closed ferociously on the other demon.
Having clashed with Yaoguang's dan jin, this demon had staggered back several steps and only just regained its footing. Faced with Yaoguang hurtling in like a cannonball, it had no time to mount an adequate response. It could only let out a low roar, dark-red bloody light bursting with terrifying killing intent, vaguely reflecting a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood in its pupils.
Anyone beholding such an apocalyptic vision could not help but be gripped by sheer terror.
Spirit intent!
This was a spirit intent attack!
Although this demon was limited by its physical strength and could not display the might of Zhao Sheng or Xie Yusheng, it unexpectedly...
...could also release the Spirit Strike technique, a technique that only Divine Realm Martial Saints could unleash!
Unfortunately...
If it had been half a month ago, a spirit intent attack might have had some effect on Yaoguang. But with the secret technique condensed when completing his Fourth-Stage Martial Saint progress—the Great Sun Spirit-Suppressing Diagram—his mental world had already visualized the embryonic form of a brilliant great sun.
Before the terrifying baneful aura of corpses and blood could invade Yaoguang's mental world, this brilliant sun suppressing his sea of consciousness radiated tens of thousands of rays of light. Intense heat and dazzling light instantly suffused every corner of his mental world, and likewise...
...through the resonance of spirit intent, shone into the demon's mental world as well.
In an instant, the demon felt as though plunged into a blazing sun; its thoughts, consciousness, and perception were incinerated into a pure blank by the resplendent light. Under the violent backlash, it could not help letting out a shriek of agony.
*Bang!*
The next second, the demon's shriek cut off abruptly.
As its head was shattered by the sword strike blasting through the air like an artillery shell, its pain was thoroughly cured—and its life brought to an end by Yaoguang.
*Skrrrt!*
Diving down and landing solidly, Yaoguang dropped into a crouch with a low center of gravity. His shoe soles screeched against the floor as he slid forward nearly ten meters.
This was because he had exploded with full speed just now and could not stop immediately.
*Bang! Bang! Bang!*
As he slid, his body jolted slightly three times in rapid succession.
A sign of being struck by bullets!
He had guns, and the people of the Xie Family Manor had guns too.
Taking three hits, the kinetic impact of the three bullets instantly slowed his sliding momentum.
Seeing Yaoguang take three rounds without a single drop of blood bursting forth, one of the Xie family Martial Masters who fired immediately realized what was going on. Raising his muzzle, he aimed for Yaoguang's head...
Yet virtually the moment the barrel rose to target Yaoguang's face, Chengying in Yaoguang's hand was already flung through the air. Howling forward at a speed not the least bit inferior to a bullet, it pierced between the Martial Master's brows like lightning, its tip erupting from the back of his skull.
The man toppled backward.
Yaoguang himself completely bled off the downward momentum at this moment. As one hand swept past the Shenying Sword impaling Xie Yusheng's head, his body spun violently...
The custom large-caliber handgun turned in tandem with his spinning body, snapping onto the other four gunmen in the hall. Both sides fired almost simultaneously!
*Bang! Bang! Bang!*
Blood splashed.
As Yaoguang pivoted, bright crimson blood sprayed simultaneously from between the brows of all four men.
Immediately afterward, the Shenying Sword he had swiftly retrieved was held level and swept out in a hundred-and-eighty-degree arc with his turn...
*Clang!*
Sparks flared.
A bullet aimed straight for his forehead was deflected by the blade.
As for the other two bullets that struck him...
The formidable defense of his 5S-class combat suit ensured he took practically no real damage.
Just as Yaoguang eliminated Xie Yusheng, the demons, and the gunmen in the ground-floor hall, the Jishi Society elites led by Zong Yan came charging in.
Of the twelve demons including Zhao Sheng and Xie Yusheng, Yaoguang had personally dispatched eight. With only four remaining, no matter how shorthanded the Jishi Society was, they would no longer be suppressed to the point of being unable to lift their heads.
As Zong Yan, Zhang Tianji, and the others stormed into the hall, the offensive and defensive dynamic instantly reversed.
The quicker-witted demons realized the tide had turned and tried to disengage.
But how could Zong Yan, Zhang Tianji, and the rest let them escape back to the wild?
In an instant, instead of being pinned down by the demons, they pinned the demons down.
And once Yaoguang freed himself to strike with both gun and sword, the remaining four demons were quickly wiped out by their combined forces.
Fortunately, demons rarely had suitable combat suits when manifesting their true forms; otherwise, ordinary members of the Jishi Society would have suffered catastrophic casualties trying to deal with them.
After personally slaying the last demon, Yaoguang made no further moves.
He also revoked his Divine Descent technique.
As he dropped out of the Divine Descent state, the agony from withstanding Xie Yusheng's strike immediately flared up, spreading frantically into every corner of his body. Fortunately, before Xie Yusheng's lethal punch struck home, the Shenying Sword had already pierced the demon's skull.
With its brain destroyed, the power of that punch had naturally fallen far short of its peak.
Combined with Yaoguang's powerful control over his muscles, bones, and internal organs, an injury like this...
...at most affected his combat capability against the demons, rather than leaving him reeling, coughing up blood, or losing consciousness.
He sat on a sofa, quietly watching the other Jishi Society members clean up the battlefield.
Meanwhile, he took a Snow Ginseng Pill and a Healing Pill.
At the same time, he consciously enhanced his stomach's digestive power and his heart's circulatory capacity, breaking down the medicinal potency and channeling it to the injured areas to nourish them and accelerate recovery.
And even...
...accelerating the transformation of his internal organs.
Taking a direct hit from Xie Yusheng's demon-form "Martial Saint" strike was essentially a trial of fire for his internal organs. Once his injuries healed, it would substantially shorten the time needed to complete his internal organ refinement.
He simply sat there, letting the others clean up the Xie Family Manor.
Yet among the dozen-odd members of the Jishi Society, not a single one uttered a word of complaint.
The glances many cast his way from time to time were filled with awe and reverence.
Especially Zhang Tianji...
Though he already knew from his investigation records and Commissioner Zhou's personal assessment that his cousin-nephew was extraordinarily capable, how could reviewing dossiers or hearing about an assessment compare to witnessing such an intense, high-level life-and-death battle with one's own eyes?
No!
Not just one!
It was several!
For them, every single fight would have been a bloody battle where survival was unlikely even if they fought with their lives on the line.
Every single opponent was formidable enough that even to a Grandmaster like him, they seemed virtually invincible.
Particularly the sight of the three-meter-tall Xie Yusheng in his true demonic form collapsing an entire floor with a single punch sent chills running through his soul.
Witnessing such power made one's scalp tingle with fear.
Much less standing against it!
Yet such a terrifying monster had met its match and met its end in the mere instant of clashing with Yaoguang.
Such an expert was simply inhuman.
A being who truly embodied unfathomable power, swaying the lives of countless souls with a casual gesture.
No amount of deference or reverence would be excessive.
Before long, Zong Yan, having finished clearing the battlefield, walked over to Yaoguang.
His gaze held a touch of complexity and a hint of daze.
Only after quite a while did he sigh with emotion, "So what you said was actually true."
Lowering his head, he murmured, "Slaughtering a Martial Saint while still a Grandmaster... I thought such peerless geniuses only existed in ancient texts and biographies..."
"Today, you've seen one."
Yaoguang opened his eyes.
"One should never view someone like you—a genius who achieved Grandmaster at merely nineteen years old and possesses innate divine talents—with the eyes of an ordinary man. I will take this lesson to heart," Zong Yan said gravely. "From now on, whatever is said about you, whatever you say or do, I will believe without the slightest doubt."
"Then we have reached a consensus."
As Yaoguang spoke, he suddenly reached out and tapped across Zong Yan's body.
Zong Yan's instinct urged him to dodge, but out of trust in Yaoguang, he forcibly suppressed the reflex, letting him tap repeatedly across his body.
After dozens of blindingly fast taps, Yaoguang withdrew his hand.
"When you get back, take some medicinal herbs to replenish your qi and nurture your foundation. Rest and recuperate well," he instructed.
Zong Yan stared blankly.
Then, he quickly noticed the strange sensation within his body.
In order to unleash Martial Saint combat strength despite his advanced age and declining vitality, he had boiled his blood and qi. Theoretically, he should rapidly weaken and plummet from the Martial Saint realm, with at most three to five years of life left—or perhaps only a year or six months if luck turned against him.
Yet under Yaoguang's series of strikes, the boiling blood and qi in his body settled rapidly, flowing back through his limbs and bones, showing every sign of returning to the state before he had gone all out.
"This—!?"
Zong Yan's eyes flew wide open.
He knew all too well what this meant.
Yaoguang possessed such keen perception over the blood and qi in Zong Yan's body, and had even precisely intercepted and redirected his boiling blood and qi.
Such an understanding and mastery over the power of blood and qi...
...was something even he, a Martial Saint, could not hope to match!
Didn't this mean Yaoguang's comprehension of blood cleansing and marrow washing surpassed even his own, a Martial Saint who had been immersed in that realm for over a decade!?
"How could this be..."
All at once, the Martial Saint who had just declared he would believe everything Yaoguang said and did lost his composure yet again.
A nineteen-year-old youth!
Refining his internal organs to become a Grandmaster was already breathtaking talent!
How could his understanding of blood and qi surpass even a seasoned Martial Saint like himself!?
Chapter 66