Feng Chengdao was stepping on a dense array of precepts under his feet. Those precepts stirred up an air current, which formed into a millstone-like cloud as it rolled and crushed downward.
On the other end, the disheveled Venerable Hiddenheart lunged out of the woods with a roar.
With the flick of his hand, a corpse eater with silver wings flew straight toward Zhang Ruochen.
The corpse eater devoured all the vegetation on the ground wherever it went, leaving even the rocks densely dotted with holes.
Facing the two Nine-step Saint King-level veterans, Zhang Ruochen appeared fearless. He summoned the Yi Huang Bone Scepter and held it in his hand.
The black skeleton lunged up and broke up the millstone-like cloud in the air with a punch.
The skeleton’s punch did not stop there. It clashed with Feng Chengdao’s finger and sent Feng Chengdao flying backward into the air.
It shocked the cultivators to see a skeleton blow away a Nine-step Saint King, whose cultivation base was close to the Greater Precept World.
Zhang Ruochen had fed all the soul remnants that he had collected to an evil spirit during his two-year closed-door cultivation.
Besides, the evil spirit had consumed two-hundredths of Qing Jin’s soul. Having such strength was not something of a surprise anymore.
In fact, Zhang Ruochen was worried that his cultivation base was too low and that he could not keep the evil spirit under his control. So he had been feeding it very slowly to keep its strength under the control of the Greater Precept World.
Using Divine Purification Flame, Zhang Ruochen burned all the corpse eaters into ashes.
Before Venerable Hiddenheart could react to it, Zhang Ruochen had lurched up in front of him and came down with his Ancient Abyssal Blade. The Sword Way Xuangang and Venerable Hiddenheart’s white-bone armor collided with a loud grating sound.
The collision sent Venerable Hiddenheart flying backward, crashing into a cliff. The impact caused half of the mountain to collapse.
A bone-chilling air rushed out from the crumbled mountain and froze everything within a thousand miles.
Boom!
Venerable Hiddenheart flew out from the underground with an icy mountain of thousands of meters rose behind him.
“Zhang Ruochen, I will give you a taste of what a Nine-step Saint King is capable of!”
“Dark Ice Storm!”
The thousand-meter icy mountain shattered at once. Ice crystals gathered like snow and formed into a creature that was called Ice Phoenix, which then swooped down at Zhang Ruochen.
With the flap of the Ice Phoenix’s wings, a vast area of the earth under Zhang Ruochen’s feet caved in.
Storm of Dark Ice was an intermediate Saint technique of the Dacheng Realm that Venerable Hiddenheart had acquired after spending over four hundred years in cultivation. This incredibly powerful move ranked in the Fane of Youshen’s top-ten collection of intermediate Saint techniques.
The eleventh move of Zhang Ruochen’s Dragon-Elephant Prajna Palm Strike, which was also an intermediate Saint technique, was supposedly better than Dark Ice Storm.
However, the thing was, the number of chilly ice precepts that Venerable Hiddenheart had infused into Storm of Dark Ice was 160,000, which was more than the just-over 8,000 that Zhang Ruochen had with his Precepts of the Palm.
Taking Venerable Hiddenheart head-on with his Saint technique, what Zhang Ruochen did was no different from suicide.
Venerable Hiddenheart stood on the body of the Ice Phoenix, his face looking hideous. “Hey, kid. Go home and practice for a few more years. You still have a long way to go.”
As the Frost Phoenix approached, the air current in the surroundings became colder and colder. Even Zhang Ruochen’s body was frozen in ice. His Saint Qi could do nothing to protect him from the cold draft.
A Divine Purification Flame suddenly burst out of him and broke the ice.
“Yanshen’s Leg!” Zhang Ruochen raised his left leg and roared.
Boom!
Streaks of red pattern appeared on his left leg as a horrific divine power burst out and shattered the Ice Phoenix, which was a few-dozen-mile long.
Venerable Hiddenheart gave out a horrified cry as his body went up in flames and flew backward.
While still in the air, Venerable Hiddenheart’s body disintegrated and turned into particles of red ashes.
The kick was so powerful that even the aftershock of the move could annihilate the Nine-step Saint King. Those cultivators not-in-the-know thought it was the move of a Supreme Saint.
While the black skeleton and Feng Chengdao were still fighting in the distance, the shock wave swept past them, causing them to lose their balance and tumble backward.
Sensing the mighty divine power in the center of the shock wave, Feng Chengdao was shocked. Could Zhang Ruochen have really gotten his hand on a divine ancient artifact, using the Godstone to trigger this destructive power? Feng Chengdao thought.
Only by using the Godstone to trigger the divine ancient artifact could a Saint King perform such horrific divine power.
Feng Chengdao could never have expected Zhang Ruochen to have such a divine leg.
Meanwhile, in the Royal Mountain, the Purple-Gold Bagua Mirror shot out a purple light beam, which was Power of Supremacy, to hit the black altar.
Boom!
Flags flying on the black altar formed a Ninth Stratum Array, blocking Power of Supremacy.
The black altar continued to fly toward the Royal Mountain and was about to breach the Dimensional Labyrinth and Time Array.
Faceless laughed as he stood on the altar. “That’s all a supreme artifact has got?”
Feeling belittled, Awesome, the Little Taoist, gritted his teeth. “If not for the defect on the Purple-Gold Bagua Mirror, I could have killed you anytime I want.”
Faceless laughed some more. “Boast as you want until I go in and neutralize you. A hundred-thousand-year-old sacred herb should be enough to be made into a top-quality sacred elixir.”
Awesome, the Little Taoist, was even more furious. “On the altar of yours is not a complete but a rudimentary Ninth Stratum Array. Do you really think I couldn’t take that down?”
He flew up suddenly, landed on the Purple-Gold Bagua Mirror, and sat cross-legged on the mirror surface.
The mirror surface seemed like a liquid surface as Awesome, the Little Taoist, slowly sank and became one with the Purple-Gold Bagua Mirror.
A purple gaseous substance instantly leaked out of the Purple-Gold Bagua Mirror and permeated the air, covering a 1,500-mile area within the Royal Mountain.
Zhang Ruochen was beyond shocked at seeing what happened. “The Purple-Gold Bagua Mirror is a sacred artifact of Immortal Luotian, while Awesome is just a sacred herb. How did he become one with the Purple-Gold Bagua Mirror? What secret does he hold?”
The Supreme Power from the Purple-Gold Bagua Mirror was even more powerful. It flew toward and collided with the black altar. The resulting light was so bright that the sun in the sky seemed pale in comparison.
The power of the Purple-Gold Bagua Mirror penetrated the Ninth Stratum Array and hit the altar head-on.
Boom!
The black altar fell out of the sky after the purple light tore it in half.
This attack killed over half of the Fane of Youshen’s cultivators, and those who survived were suffering from severe injury.
But something was not right.
Faceless had something protecting him; he was unharmed and rapidly falling toward the Purple-Gold Bagua Mirror in a streak of lightning.
Awesome, the Little Taoist had exhausted all his strength to perform that move. He was falling with the Purple-Gold Bagua Mirror to the Royal Mountain. This was his most fragile moment, and no way could he survive the attack from the faceless man.
After performing his Yanshen’s Leg, Zhang Ruochen had exhausted nine-tenths of his Saint Qi. His combat strength was less than half of when he was at his peak. All he could do was rush into the Royal Mountain; he must not let the faceless man get Awesome, the Little Taoist and the Purple-Gold Bagua Mirror.
The Mastodon-Devouring Rabbit, Demon Ape, and Xie Chengzi were also lunging out to stop the faceless man.
“Ow!”
The Mastodon-Devouring Rabbit summoned the power of Heaven-Devouring Instruction and turned into a Heaven-Devouring Demonic Dragon, looking as if it could gobble up the mountains and rivers.
On the other hand, as the Demon Ape’s body continued to swell, it turned into a giant ape that was as tall as a mountain. It charged at the faceless man with his iron fists.
Two years of closed-door cultivation and having consumed a large number of sacred herbs in the Royal Mountain had pushed his cultivation base to the Seven-step Saint King level. Needless to say, his strength was brutal.
With the whisk of his sacred staff, the faceless man summoned a thunderstorm and struck out Mastadon-Devouring Rabbit and Demon Ape. Their massive bodies crashed down to the Royal Mountains down below.
“I am a spiritual-power Saint King of the 59th order. One more step I would be a Supreme Saint. You two low lives cannot stop me!” The faceless man sneered.
Xie Chengzi performed a Bloodthirsty Ring and finally stopped the faceless man, forcing him to trace one step backward.
The cultivation base of Xie Chengzi had reached the Seven-step Saint Kinghood.
The fact that he used to be the Proud One, the leader of the younger generation of the Thousand Evils Realm, he was naturally far more powerful than Mastadon-Devouring Rabbit and Demon Ape.
Such a figure of the Seven-step Saint Kinghood was powerful enough to challenge a Nine-step Saint King.
Of course, he could barely match the strength of a Nine-step Saint King and not defeat him. There was still a slight difference in strength between them.
As such, Xie Chengzi was at an absolute disadvantage when fighting the faceless man. Ten moves into the fight, Xie Chengzi was hurt. A bloody, deep cut in his abdomen nearly ripped him in half.
The faceless man ignored Xie Chengzi and flew straight at Awesome, the Little Taoist and the Purple-Gold Bagua Mirror. Whether it was the hundred-thousand-year-old ancient sacred herb or the supreme artifact, he absolutely crazed for them.
It was a trip worth his while, so long as he got these two items.
Right then, a faint flowery scent came from the forest.
Petals were falling from the sky, and flowers of different colors grew on the ground. In a matter of moments, that entire desolate mountain had turned into a sea of flowers.
Sensing something was wrong, the faceless man summoned his mighty spiritual power to form a spiritual-powered defense tower to shield his body.
With this spiritual-powered defense tower, not even a Nine-step Saint King could hurt him.
“Who is it? Come out in the open!” said the faceless man cautiously.
A beautiful shadow walked out of the sea of flowers and broke through the spiritual-powered defense tower of the faceless man as if tearing a sheet of paper away.
The next second, the faceless man dropped dead on the ground. In his chest was a hole oozing with blood, his robe
Just then, Zhang Ruochen arrived. When he saw the graceful shadow beside a dead body, his nervous face calmed down and he smiled.
“Just an early 59th order spiritual-power Saint King, yet he thought he was invincible,” said the fairy-like beautiful lady faintly.
She still looked elegant and out-of-this-world, even though she had just killed a man.
Zhang Ruochen walked up to her. “I guess your spiritual power must be above that of the faceless man since you could break through Dimensional Labyrinth and Time Array, Fairy.”
As a Lotus of Divine Reflection that had lived from the Hadean until now, no matter how high Ji Fanxin’s spiritual-power achievement was, would not surprise Zhang Ruochen.
