At this moment, the thick mist surged violently, and the Pavilion of Heavenly Tomes grew clearer. The Spirit Reverend of Ocean Returnance’s tremendous voice rang out.
“Li Qingshan, the Myriad Heavenly Tome is the supreme treasure of the Myriad sect. My master has ordered me to protect the Myriad sect. The Myriad Heavenly Tome cannot be handed to an outsider, much less a Demon God!”
His voice was no longer limited to just the square. Instead, it spread through the streets and alleyways of Myriad city, shaking up the ocean.
“Demon God!?”
Let alone the responses of the other people in the city, just the direct disciples alone had paled in fright, staggering back several steps uncontrollably.
Only Leng Yuan stood without budging, but a shining ring of ice suddenly rose up around him, rapidly enveloping him and protecting him from all sides. He did not experience any fear thanks to the special characteristics of his cultivation method, but his heart did sink deeply. The giant wolf under him seemed extremely uneasy too with its tail between its legs, wanting to shrink away.
The corner of Dai Mengfan’s lips twitched. She wanted to say, “I knew it”. Suddenly, everything became clear to her. All of the anxiety, restlessness, and uneasiness she had experienced over the past few days received a very precise and detailed explanation—the nightmare had come true. Instead, she now felt a strange sensation of relief, saying flatly, “If I’ve guessed correctly, he is the daemon star of misfortune.”
At this moment, no one looked down on her anymore. All of them were fixated on the man in the mist.
“Then I have no other choice.” Li Qingshan shrugged. All expressions vanished from the extremely ordinary face, except red light lit up in the depths of his eyes.
“All disciples, kill Li Qingshan’s clone! Today’s battle determines the fate of the sect. If anyone takes a single step back-”
Before the Spirit Reverend of Ocean Returnance could even finish, Li Qingshan had already leapt into the air.
All of the direct disciples responded immediately like a series of drawn bows, letting loose the “arrows” in their hands.
Leng Yuan was the calmest, as well as the one with the fastest response. Without even budging, three thousand and six hundred beams of cold light emerged from the ring of ice that hovered around him. Each beam of light was a speck of ice even smaller than a snowflake, but each one of them was enough to freeze a whale to death.
Mid-air, Li Qingshan was basically a sitting duck. He could neither dodge nor block. The beams of cold light pierced his body, immediately covering him in a layer of frost. However, his skin became blood-red like fire, like a steamed crab, and his muscles bulged as his veins popped on his face, making him seem particularly frightening.
At this moment, the inner disciples behind them all responded as well, unleashing their techniques.
Wang Junxing was in the group too. His face was twisted beyond human resemblance. When he heard Li Qingshan’s name, he felt like he was facing his doom. He even felt like Li Qingshan had paused on him momentarily when he glanced through the crowd. The significance behind that almost made his blood flow in reverse.
He was well aware that he had played a great role in Dong Dagong and everyone else’s deaths, and he had always prided himself on this, such that he did not regret it even after being expelled by the Department of Law and Punishment. This was his revenge against Li Qingshan. Only when Li Qingshan stared at him did he feel regret, and never did he regret something so much in his life.
Who would have thought that Li Qingshan’s revenge would be so vicious?
As a result, he refused to hold back at all. He bellowed out as he unleashed all of his powers, condensing a huge axe that swung down viciously over Li Qingshan’s head.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Immediately, the light pierced the mist and filled the entire square. The techniques of varying attributes collided, leading to another string of explosions, shining with numerous streams of blinding light.
Li Qingshan exploded as a ball of bloody mist. Before it could even disperse, it had been vapourised.
“We’ve won!” Wang Junxing rejoiced inside, almost wanting to leap up in joy.
However, the direct disciples looked at one another. They felt like they had won too easily.
“It’s the Myriad formation!” Leng Yuan said suddenly.
He clearly saw that all the techniques had missed apart from the streams of cold light he produced. Li Qingshan’s body had not been frozen either. Instead, it seemed more like he had suddenly ruptured under a tremendous and invisible pressure.
The other direct disciples immediately understood what had happened as well. Indeed, this was a battle between Li Qingshan and the Spirit Reverend of Ocean Returnance. They were only there to assist.
The crucial aspect was not their techniques, but the Myriad formation that the Spirit Reverend of Ocean Returnance controlled. The Spirit Reverend of Ocean Returnance’s usage of the formation had reached levels of wonders. He did not waste a single sliver of power, concentrating all of the might on Li Qingshan such that even they themselves had failed to sense the formation’s operation.
They all could not help but let out a sigh of relief. Even if Li Qingshan had become a Demon God, his clone was a Heretic God at most, equal to the Spirit Reverend of Ocean Returnance in cultivation. He had also foolishly tried to infiltrate the city, ending up in the Myriad formation, so of course, he was not the Spirit Reverend of Ocean Returnance’s opponent.
However, Dai Mengfan was grim. The aura of death in the air only grew heavier, and her uneasiness intensified too. She swallowed a Calamity Survival pill. This was a secret treasure she had prepared for the crisis of the world. It could allow her cultivation to multiply several times over for a short period of time, but the price was what cultivators valued the most, lifespan.
At this moment, the light from the exploding techniques had yet to disperse. All she vaguely made out from the dazzling light was a colossal, black figure. Is that the Pavilion of Heavenly Tomes? The figure is moving… It’s not the Pavilion of Heavenly Tomes!
“Be careful!”
Dai Mengfan narrowed her eyes. The flow of time seemed to slow down.
A huge head extended out from the light slowly, neither human nor beast. The head possessed a pair of colossal antlers, except the patterns on its forehead formed three stripes, resembling neither a deer nor a tiger. Its colossal body that rivalled a hill in size seemed to be under tremendous and invisible pressure. Its back arched up before sinking back down deeply.
The “monster” opened its mouth, revealing a mouth full of jagged teeth. It seemed to be both furious and smiling, suddenly sucking in a deep breath. Its chest heaved up, almost touching the ground.
The Tiger Demon’s Fierce Roar!
At that moment, Wang Junxing in the crowd became absolutely certain that the “monster” was staring at him. However, he seemed to lose his senses. He did not respond at all.
A direct disciple happened to be standing between him and the “monster”, so he was struck by the stream of air.
The stream of air was only thirty metres across. It was completely transparent but also very discernible. It formed an oval shape as it flew through the air, immediately exploding the moment it struck the direct disciple and turning into countless wind blades and a deafening roar. It dispersed the clouds and mist in the sky like a great storm.
The direct disciple had already used his life-preserving arcane treasure and cast several techniques to protect his body, but they were all torn apart, whether it was his techniques, arcane treasures, clothes, body…
A half-transparent Yang Soul emerged, but he clutched his ears painfully, letting out a miserable howl. That was merely his gut reaction. It actually did not represent anything. Yang Souls were similar to humans in appearance, but their structure was completely different. They were more like a ball of energy.
The howl stopped as soon as it began, and the Yang Soul shattered!
Wan Junxing only felt a gust of wind and bloody gashes appeared on his face and body. He raised his right arm. His right hand was covered in overlapping cuts, such that it fell apart from the slightest movement, scattering on the ground.
“Li-” He wanted to talk, but his tongue was sliced to pieces. He wanted to raise his head, but the world suddenly began to spin. He saw all of the inner disciples around him standing without budging, suddenly falling apart on the spot.
I’m dead… That was his final thought.
