Formidable

*Whoosh!* Sword and man united as one, Yaoguang swept past a Grandmaster who stepped forward to block him like a streak of flowing light. The sword passed; the man split. The intercepting Grandmaster was decapitated on the spot. As Yaoguang arrived outside Zhenxiu Hall, where his senses told him a cluster of powerhouses was gathered, before he even had time to smash open the doors, a red dot had already moved ahead of the rest, seemingly... Opening the doors to take the initiative and face him in battle. *Are the people of the Crimson Star Empire... all this brave?* Earlier, when Shangguan Jinlong sensed danger, he too had disregarded that he was in his clan's headquarters with an absolute advantage in numbers, choosing instead to rely on his own strength to clash head-on with him. Now... Was this Martial Saint—or perhaps Spirit Intent Martial Saint—inside the Chixing Imperial Palace doing the exact same thing?! Moreover, in mounting their defense, the four red dots representing beings at least at the Martial Saint level hadn't moved together; instead, they let one take the lead to meet him, as if aiming for a fair, one-on-one duel. *Fine. Backed by three beings who are at least Martial Saints—possibly with Spirit Intent or Hunyuan Martial Saints watching his flank—he certainly has the backing to face an enemy alone, but...* What Yaoguang wanted was a swift resolution. If he could kill his opponent in the shortest time possible, he would never drag things out until forced into a life-and-death struggle. When he fought an opponent, every strike was perilous to the extreme; life and death were decided in a fleeting instant. Just like right now... Whether this Martial Saint was arrogant and conceited or possessed absolute confidence in his own strength was completely meaningless to Yaoguang. Almost the instant the man pushed open the doors and stepped out, the force beneath Yaoguang's feet erupted violently. Star Ignition! And not just Star Ignition! To seek a quick resolution, he activated Heavenly Demon Disintegration once more, directly driving the power his flesh could unleash beyond its current physical limits! His current realm was already the ninth rank, Star Transformation... Although his actual combat strength still lagged considerably behind a genuine Heavenly Being at the ninth layer of Fiendgod Body Refining, his wealth of experience and realm granted him deep familiarity with the kind of power wielded by Heavenly Beings of the Star Transformation, Domain, and Furnace realms. Furthermore, a realm vastly transcending any Spirit Intent Martial Saint allowed him to understand with crystalline clarity the upper limit of explosive force his physical body could endure. Thus, when the Jiang family's favored genius—who had become a Martial Saint at twenty-one—confidently pushed open the doors, intending to confront this madman who dared run amok in the imperial palace of their capital, what met his eyes was that very figure bursting through the guards' blockade, lunging forward in lethal assault. The moment he laid eyes on Yaoguang, an indescribable sense of terror and oppression welled up unbidden from the depths of his heart. Just like small animals panicking and fleeing aimlessly upon sensing an impending earthquake. As a Spirit Intent Martial Saint, Jiang Xuntian felt a similar crushing oppression and trepidation. Yet, catching sight of Yaoguang so abruptly, he couldn't tell at all where this feeling originated. Until... As his gaze tracked and his aura locked onto the lunging Yaoguang, his spirit intent resonated—and he felt it. A volcano. An ancient volcano steeped in power for hundreds, thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of years, seemingly releasing every ounce of energy it had accumulated over the ages all at once. Endless magma erupted forth, sending up rolling clouds of smoke that blotted out the sky, accompanied by terrifying molten rock that incinerated everything in its path, surging toward him like a tsunami. This terror, this trepidation, this horror... It felt like falling into a nightmare from which he could never awaken; no matter how he struggled, resisted, or wailed, he could only watch this hellish, nightmarish spectacle draw closer and closer... In the end, all of it converged into an unwilling shriek. "No!" He seemed to possess some sort of treasure that forcibly jolted him out of that nightmarish, awestruck stupor. Seizing this chance, the Spirit Intent Martial Saint rallied his last shred of courage and swung his sword forward in futile desperation... *Bang!* A force so immense that no Martial Saint ought to possess it bore down like a crushing weight. As the two blades collided, the sword in Jiang Xuntian's hand was instantly knocked from his grasp. A total, crushing defeat. In the next instant, having shattered Jiang Xuntian's desperate strike, the Shenying Sword ripped through the air with a shrill whistle, piercing the Jiang family prodigy's skull like a bolt from a crossbow. Though during the penetration, blue light burst from his body just as it had from Shangguan Jinlong—the shockwave from that light even violently rattling the blade of the Shenying Sword—with Shangguan Jinlong's precedent fresh in mind, Yaoguang had already factored this into his thrust. Consequently, this protective dharma artifact... failed to exert its full protective effect. A single encounter. In merely a single clash, this skirmish drew to a close with Jiang Xuntian's entire head shattered by the incoming thrust of the Shenying Sword. Jiang Shengtian, Jiang Ruolong, and Qi Renjie, who had only just opened the doors, still wore smiles on their faces, expecting to watch the true dragon of the Jiang family display his supreme might. And the result... Gone? Looking at Jiang Xuntian—his head shattered, his body toppling stiffly forward under sheer momentum—Jiang Shengtian, Jiang Ruolong, and Qi Renjie froze where they stood. Immediately afterward, an unprecedented fury swept through every fiber of their beings like wildfire across a dry plain. "Xuntian! No!" "Insolent!" "You deserve to die!" The three high-ranking members of the Crimson Star imperial clan fell into an uncontrollable rage almost at the same time. Yet, before their fury could translate into action, Yaoguang—having shattered Jiang Xuntian's skull in one strike—lunged forward once more without the slightest hesitation. Accelerating to his absolute limit, his figure whipped up a fierce gale in front of the doorway, carrying an overwhelmingly intense aura of suppression. This oppressive presence instantly snapped Jiang Shengtian, Jiang Ruolong, Qi Renjie, and the others out of their rage. "Kill!" With a low roar from Jiang Shengtian, the most decisive and quick-witted among them, the belt around his waist sprang open, transforming into a slender rapier flowing with blue light that thrust forward like a venomous serpent. Words had always held power. Many who were shocked or dazed would involuntarily obey a command barked out by another. This was a passive trigger of "unity of word and deed." Precisely because of this, when shaken to his core by the sight of Yaoguang shattering Jiang Xuntian with a single thrust, Jiang Shengtian instinctively used this method to spark fighting intent and arouse his body's potential, forcibly shifting his state from stunned paralysis into an adrenaline-fueled frenzy. *Whoosh!* The flashing light of the Shenying Sword was instantly snared by this serpent-like blue rapier; with a fierce tug, Jiang Shengtian sought to wrench the Shenying Sword from Yaoguang's grip and disarm him. On the other flank... Jiang Ruolong and Qi Renjie, whose reactions were only half a beat slower but who attacked without hesitation, charged in right behind. The moment Yaoguang was disarmed by Jiang Shengtian, what awaited him would inevitably be a thunderous combined strike from the two men. Such tacit understanding, such coordination... abundantly demonstrated the swift reflexes of the three Martial Saints. Facing a combined strike so precise that it left no opening whatsoever, let alone a Spirit Intent Martial Saint of equal realm, even a Hunyuan Martial Saint would have no choice but to retreat immediately to evade its brunt. After all, a Hunyuan Martial Saint's greatest advantage over a Spirit Intent Martial Saint lay in the longevity and sustained stamina granted by the flawless true body. The increase in explosive power and upper ceiling... was not significant. Unfortunately... the trio's seemingly flawless coordinated assault ran into trouble right from the start. Jiang Shengtian jerked his hands back to pull, but the result... He couldn't budge it! Held firmly in Yaoguang's grasp, the Shenying Sword was like an arm extended from a fiendgod, imbued with an irresistible, surging torrent of power. He couldn't budge it at all! In fact, under the strain of that pull, even Jiang Shengtian lost his balance, tilting slightly toward Yaoguang. The crushing sensation brought about by such sheer force... caused Jiang Shengtian's face to pale drastically. In this moment, he felt as though he were still a Grandmaster trying to rely on his own strength to wrest away the weapon of a Martial Saint. Yet he was no Grandmaster; he was a Spirit Intent Martial Saint. For an opponent to instill such an overwhelming disparity in strength, being merely a Martial Saint was far from enough! It had to be a Heavenly Being! The man before him clad in a combat suit... was a Heavenly Being?! *Impossible!* Jiang Shengtian's pupils contracted violently. The detection device in Qi Renjie's hands had clearly revealed that he was only a Spirit Intent Martial Saint! How could a Spirit Intent Martial Saint possess such power?! *Bang!* The rapier wrapped around the Shenying Sword like a serpent shuddered violently. In the next breath, the entire rapier was knocked flying, and Jiang Shengtian could only watch helplessly as the Shenying Sword tore through the air once more, lunging toward him. Decisive to the core. Jiang Shengtian immediately abandoned the sword and retreated frantically. He directly ceded the battlefield to Jiang Ruolong and Qi Renjie, who were charging in right behind. Facing their pincer attack, Yaoguang took a deep breath. Then, a low roar erupted instantly, vibrating and transmitting through his Life Force Field. Around Yaoguang, a visible ring of transparent ripples seemed to spread outward. "Suppress!" The ripple swept past, covering merely a meter or two around him. Yet when it washed over Qi Renjie and Jiang Ruolong, both men simultaneously felt an indescribable oppression engulf their bodies, causing their conviction and will to plunge into utter dispiritedness. A dampening of their fighting spirit naturally disrupted the circulation of their vitality and blood, causing their movements to lag involuntarily by half a beat. This was an application Yaoguang had derived from his clash with Leng Tianfeng, combined with his own understanding of the Life Force Field and the Heavenly Being realm. Because time had been short, he could not, like Leng Tianfeng, directly manipulate and hypnotize an opponent's spirit, energy, and mind mid-strike to make their psyche and will collapse into the point of attack. However... Using the Life Force Field as an amplifier to disrupt an opponent's blood and qi circulation at close quarters was already well within his grasp. Unless the opponent possessed spirit intent formidable to the extreme or had cultivated a flawless true body capable of locking down every erratic stir of blood and qi, then... it was utterly impossible to resist. Just as now, by the time the delayed Jiang Ruolong and Qi Renjie noticed the anomaly and reignited their fighting spirit, Yaoguang had already shifted his body. Evading the trajectory of Qi Renjie's attack, the light of the Shenying Sword flashed like lightning across Jiang Ruolong's neck. Because the force was so overwhelmingly destructive, the sword astral qi packed into the blade erupted, preventing Jiang Ruolong's protective dharma artifact from having the slightest effect. The azure defensive glow shattered upon contact. Jiang Ruolong tried with all his might to dodge the edge of the blade, but... the force infused in the sword was simply too violent! By all rights, a sword merely skimming past should have left only a line of blood, yet as the force within the blade detonated, half of Jiang Ruolong's neck was torn to shreds by the sword astral qi. Like mortal flesh grazed by an anti-materiel sniper round. A mere graze meant death. There was no such thing as being merely injured.