However, there was another saying in the world, “Man proposes, God disposes.” Li Qingshan was not absolutely confident he would emerge victorious. Once the situation took a turn for the worst, he would still have to rely a little on luck.
The wings of wind suddenly expanded to thirty meters across. Li Qingshan whistled through the air as a confident smile appeared on his face. As a man, he would fight even if he only had thirty percent confidence, let alone when he had a seventy percent chance at victory.
Bloodshadow sneered. With a flap of his cloak, he turned into a streak of red and shot off rapidly.
In the blink of an eye, the two of them had become tiny, almost merging with the darkness.
Li Qingshan felt like he had become a part of the wind. The scenery around him rapidly changed. If it were not for his faster reflexes, he would feel like he was close to losing control. Sure enough, his innate abilities had become much stronger after reaching the third layer of the tiger demon. He reached a gorge in the blink of an eye.
However, before he could even appreciate his changes, a bloody daemon qi wafted over. Li Qingshan turned around suddenly. Bloodshadow’s pale-white, sunken face lunged over, his pale-white claws arriving first.
Li Qingshan’s eyes lit up, and with a flap of his wings, he sped up towards Bloodshadow with the might of the Tiger Demon Descends from the Mountain. At the same time, he formed a claw with his right hand, unleashing the Tiger Demon Digs out the Heart. As for his left hand, it constantly varied in different ways to try and capture Bloodshadow. As long as he caught Bloodshadow and pulled him into close combat, the outcome would be determined.
When he struck, it was like he was dealing a final blow against the opponent.
Bloodshadow sneered scornfully. His figure flashed like a ghost. The Tiger Demon Digs out the Heart landed on his chest, but only a blur remained behind. Li Qingshan had already lost all trace of him before his left hand could even reach over.
With a clang, the Spirit Turtle’s Profound Shell flashed and four, deep scratch marks appeared.
Two figures, one red and one blue, brushed past one another. The blue figure struck the wall loudly, while the red figure made a turn gracefully, landing on a piece of rock that traversed the gorge.
From this clash, their disparity was evident. Although Li Qingshan possessed the innate ability of Like Giving Wings to a Tiger, he was still not an exotic beast that was born to fly like Bloodshadow. The air was not his primary battlefield.
Li Qingshan did not seem defeated at all. Turning around and pushing off the wall, he flapped his wings and lunged towards Bloodshadow like a flying tiger.
With a flash, Bloodshadow brushed past Li Qingshan.
There was a boom, and before the dust even settled, Li Qingshan had already pushed off the wall and lunged towards Bloodshadow again.
Booms constantly rang out above. Ye Mingzhu raised her head and gazed over. Li Qingshan was like a humanoid tiger, leaping about between the gorge like it was no different from flat ground.
However, Bloodshadow was better than him. He paced around the rock like he was on an idle stroll, except he was actually extremely fast. There seemed to be several Bloodshadows walking around, dodging the attack each time with great ease. He even had the time to say,
“And I had thought you were hiding something. Looks like this is all you can do.”
“But can you even touch a hair on me?” Li Qingshan stopped his useless attacks, resting on a wall and huffing slightly. He used the Strength of the Earth to recover. The string of rapid attacks had exhausted him by quite a lot.
Before Li Qingshan had even finished speaking, Bloodshadow vanished from his sight. Suddenly, he raised his head and saw Bloodshadow only inches away, hanging upside down and saying sinisterly, “Really?”
His pale-white hand pressed against the Spirit Turtle’s Profound Shell gently.
Thump! Thump, thump! Thump, thump, thump, thump!
Li Qingshan felt his heart thump like a drum. A mysterious power pierced through the Spirit Turtle’s Profound Shell and directly grabbed his heart—no, more accurately, his blood. All of his blood flowed backwards into his heart, as if it could explode at any time.
Daemons at their level already possessed extremely tenacious life force, such that even if their hearts were ripped apart, their daemon cores could replace its function, and it would be fine as long as they circulated their daemon qi and repaired it. Many fatal weaknesses were no longer fatal weaknesses. However, as a vital component to life, if it were heavily damaged, it would be akin to a heavy wound. You would never have the opportunity to recover in the midst of battle.
“What? Don’t you feel feeble? Do you really think I earned my current position through speed alone? Do you really think I’m afraid of close combat? I’m only helpless against a piece of rock like Strongboulder. Your vitality is very powerful. I can’t wait to see what it tastes like!” Bloodshadow extended his bright-red tongue and licked his lips. The opponent he had treated like an archenemy the moment he appeared was now powerless within his grasp. He was filled with indescribable delight.
“How does this taste?” Li Qingshan threw a punch at Bloodshadow’s chest.
“That’s a very special power. No wonder even Strongboulder couldn’t withstand it.” As the shockwave wreaked havoc, Bloodshadow began to vibrate, but nothing changed once the shockwave passed. Even the scornful sneer on his face lingered. The attack that even Strongboulder was unable to resist was actually completely useless against him.
Strongboulder stood with his arms crossed and his brows firmly furrowed. No one had a better understanding of just how troublesome Bloodshadow was than him. Bloodshadow’s greatest advantage was not speed, but his strange ability to recover, except very few people had witnessed it. Strongboulder had managed to corner Bloodshadow in the countless battles they had, but even when he smashed him to a pulp, he would make a full recovery in the blink of an eye. This was not an innate ability. Instead, it was the same as Strongboulder’s “toughness”, something that they were simply born with.
The blood in Li Qingshan’s body surged even more violently, as if the entire world was thrown into disorder. It flowed rapidly at times and halted at others. As a matter of fact, it would even transform into sharp blades. If it were not for the toughness of his body, he probably would have been reduced to a mess by his own blood already.
Although the Spirit Turtle’s Method of Sea Suppression could suppress the sea of qi and sea of consciousness, it was unable to suppress tangible things like flesh and blood. Moreover, it was not like his body had been invaded by something foreign. Instead, Bloodshadow was making use of his strange inborn ability to turn Li Qingshan’s own body against him.
Forced into dire straits, Li Qingshan was not flustered at all. Instead, he reached behind his waist, and the sharp, curved hilt of the Blade of the Drinking Poisonfeather emitted a purply-green flash, which vanished into Bloodshadow’s waist.
Bloodshadow had absolutely no intentions to dodge. Even the shockwaves that could shake him to pieces were unable to harm him, so what was a measly cut supposed to do? He just needed a while longer, and he would be able to rip Li Qingshan’s heart to pieces and subsequently taste his blood. Just as he thought like that, Bloodshadow’s expression changed, and his pale-white face became enveloped with a layer of purply-green.
Li Qingshan powered the Blade of the Drinking Poisonfeather, pouring the toxins and poisons that the blade had accumulated over many years into Bloodshadow’s body, eating him away, contaminating his body, and wreaking havoc. He had been taken away by his viciousness. Even if you crush my heart, I’ll kill you with poison first.
The stalemate lasted for only an instant before Bloodshadow gave in. Slapping the weapon aside, he broke free.
Li Qingshan settled down his blood in a hurry and urged his daemon qi to repair his damaged blood vessels and his heart that was close to exploding. Although the information Ye Mingzhu had provided him had mentioned this, he only gained a proper understanding for himself after clashing with him. This power was so terrifying that it could basically ignore all defences and launch an attack from within. If he had been a human cultivator, he probably would have been ripped apart in a single moment.
Li Qingshan recovered slightly and immediately swung the Blade of the Drinking Poisonfeather, lunging after Bloodshadow.
Bloodshadow swung his cloak, and a few foul-smelling arrows of blood shot over.
Li Qingshan danced with the wings, twisting his body and brushing past the arrows of blood. They landed on the rock behind him, producing a hiss and a cloud of white smoke. They produced a few large holes in the blink of an eye.
As for Bloodshadow, the purply-green had already dispersed from his face. He actually used blood to surround and force out the toxins, making his face even paler and more sunken. As he gazed at the incoming Blade of the Drinking Poisonfeather, fear flashed across his eyes. He was now afraid it would reach him.
Li Qingshan pursued relentlessly. He grasped the usage of the wings bit by bit through the battle, becoming even more agile. He beamed slightly inside and felt like Bloodshadow had slowed down by a lot. Although Bloodshadow had managed to purge the poison, he had lost so much blood as a result, which was quite a wound to him. His confidence in his strength had ended up as his greatest downfall.
The scales of victory slowly tipped in Li Qingshan’s direction.
Only a handful of spectators on the ground could see this. Ye Mingzhu happened to be one of them. “Is this a weapon created by human cultivators? It can actually suppress Bloodshadow using potent poison. He’s clearly much weaker in terms of daemon qi, yet he can match him evenly. This Northmoon really is something else.”
However, the others only felt a fierce gust of wind sweep down from above. They saw two figures constantly flickering in the air, sometimes clashing and sometimes parting. Their eyes were glued to them, and after staring for such a long time, they actually felt dizzy.
The booms from moving through the air rapidly were like claps of thunder, kicking up violent winds that evolved into a black storm, filling the gorge. The sound of the wind grew more and more intense.
At this moment, a sharp, tapered sound pierced through the wind and reached everyone’s ears clearly.
Ye Mingzhu’s expression changed. “Block your ears!”
In the sky, Li Qingshan swung down with his blade, but Bloodshadow’s head pivoted around all of a sudden, facing Li Qingshan. His mouth had widened to an unbelievable angle, which made his handsome appearance twisted and vicious. Terrifying sound waves emerged from his nose and mouth.
Li Qingshan felt his mind ring. His wings of wind shattered, and an invisible force pushed him into the rocks.
Bloodshadow rapidly drew closer as the sound waves constantly rang out. The rocks around Li Qingshan all trembled and shattered, sinking into a large crater. Li Qingshan was constantly pressed into the rock.
His head seemed to be reduced to a pulp, but Li Qingshan smiled viciously and let out a deafening tiger’s roar.
The two sound waves met in the gorge, confronting and overlapping one another. They surged about, passing through the rocks that traversed the gorge, making them slowly collapse and fall down.
The daemon qi in Li Qingshan’s body was rapidly depleted. He could not even maintain the Spirit Turtle’s Profound Shell. Bloodshadow saw this and made a sharp turn, transforming into a blood-red tornado and flying over through the air with the tips of his claws. The battle had gone on for so long already. Although he still had sufficient daemon qi, he was running out of physical strength. He wanted to take Li Qingshan’s life in a single move.
Faced with an attack like that, all Li Qingshan did was sink down and wield the Blade of the Drinking Poisonfeather in a reverse grip, leaping up.
The blade landed on the tornado and was actually deflected, while Bloodshadow’s revolving claws pierced Li Qingshan’s skin.
“Die!” Bloodshadow’s shrill roar rang out from the blood-red tornado.
“Poisonfeather Dance.” The Blade of the Drinking Poisonfeather suddenly lit up in Li Qingshan’s hand, like a Poisonfeather bird unfurling its wings, dancing in the darkness. Its purply-green feathers were splendid.
There was a splash of blood!
