Chapter 204: with translation of chapter title

This arrow...

Qin Shuo's heart pounded wildly; he felt as if a cold, venomous snake had fixed its gaze on him, making him ill at ease.

This arrow clearly lacked any strong momentum, carried no gust of internal energy, and gave forth no grand, imposing presence,

like an arrow shot by an ordinary person, seeming easy to swat away, yet it filled him with a great sense of alarm, his very soul trembling.

I must not be hit!

That was Qin Shuo's sole thought at that moment.

This arrow was too strange; I don't know what material it's made of, yet it is unaffected by the yuan‑magnetic true qi.

Swish!

Without hesitation, Qin Shuo activated the Divine Travel Technique; his form vanished instantly and reappeared several meters away.

Yet a strange thing happened.

The arrow, like a bone‑eating maggot, reappeared three feet in front of him the moment he materialized.

I can't dodge it!

Qin Shuo's eyes narrowed, his scalp tingling; he had never encountered such a situation before.

But in the next instant, he had already made his decision.

Since I cannot dodge…

then I'll smash it head‑on!

Boom!

As if a great golden sun exploded in the night sky.

Qin Shuo's 365 major apertures shot out blinding pillars of light; in his sea of consciousness, the Vajra Buddha-nature boiled, turning into raging flames.

In an instant, his entire appearance transformed, his body seeming cast from gold, even his hairs glowing with a flowing metallic luster.

He clenched his five fingers and thrust out a fist.

A tide of Buddha‑light blazed forth, accompanied by deafening dragon roars and elephant cries, colliding with the blood‑red ghost arrow.

Bang!

Under the tremendous force like a surging sea, the blood‑colored arrow exploded.

But the next moment, a wisp of icy killing aura, as if buried deep underground for tens of thousands of years, clung to him like a bone‑eating maggot and drilled into his body along his arm.

In an instant, Qin Shuo felt as if he had fallen into a pitch‑black, icy ten‑thousand‑year cavern; his body stiffened, his blood flow slowed, and even his thoughts seemed about to freeze.

Hit!

In the darkness, Xiao Yinglin's face ashen as paper, his eyes blazing, he was so tense he forgot to breathe.

Soon he saw the black‑clad youth as if frozen, standing motionless on the rooftop.

Third Elder, Seventh Elder…

He shouted loudly, urging the two clan elders to seize the chance and strike, completely cutting off the youth's path to survival.

Die!

Without his prompting, Xiao Heng, whose tendons and bones had been shattered by the barrage of nine arrows, roared and charged forward.

He endured the pain of broken bones throughout his body and thrust a heavy finger into his lower abdomen's dantian.

Accompanied by a bursting sound.

His true essence boiled like water, his face instantly flushed crimson, and his withered frame began to swell like a sack.

Third Elder…

Xiao Yinglin's expression shifted, his eyes filled with sorrow.

He had not expected Xiao Heng to be so unyielding,

at this critical moment, he directly employed the Xiao family's Baleful Qi secret art, intending to perish together with that Qin.

The Baleful Qi method is not a martial art but a secret technique that can instantly incinerate all true essence, a vicious means to take the enemy down with oneself.

Third Elder…

Xiao Rui's eyelids twitched as well, yet his hand movements were not slow at all.

His true essence surged forth, violently rubbing against the surrounding airflow to form innate gang qi, which he poured into the fine‑iron great bow.

Cry!

Sound waves exploded!

A shaft veiled in azure light streaked across the sky like a meteor, aimed straight at Qin Shuo's heart.

This arrow's speed reached the extreme, nearly drawing away eighty percent of Xiao Rui's internal energy.

Thus, the moment the arrow left the bowstring, it was already almost within a zhang of Qin Shuo.

Die!

Xiao Rui's eyes were icy cold.

This arrow of his could pierce even bronze walls and iron barriers.

Even if the youth's externally trained body were stronger, without being able to mobilize true essence to resist, his death would be certain.

Patriarch, Sixth Brother, I have avenged you!

He felt an indescribable exhilaration, as if he already saw the youth pierced through by his arrow.

But the next instant, his expression froze.

At the critical moment!

The youth, who had been immobilized by the ghost king's power, suddenly moved.

Only to see the long sword at his waist flash out, its blade light like a silver river illuminating the night, sweeping sideways at the soaring Xiao Heng.

I…

Xiao Heng's pupils contracted sharply, his face drastically changed.

At this moment he was in midair, with nowhere to borrow force to turn, he could only grit his teeth and clash head-on with that overbearing and fierce blade aura.

Boom!

The blade light swept past.

Xiao Heng was like a water bag filled with water that was instantly punctured.

His body, inflated by the supporting true qi, instantly exploded; broken bones flew sideways, blood and flesh sprayed everywhere, from inside out, blown to pieces by the true qi he himself had ignited.

"Third Elder!"

Seeing this unexpected scene, Xiao Yinglin's eyes instantly reddened; he raised the Ghost King Bow in his hand, about to shoot another arrow.

At the same time, Xiao Rui's all-out arrow had already swept to Qin Shuo's front.

As long as this arrow hits true, even if the opponent has a profound iron body, they will not die but will be severely injured.

However, the same strange occurrence as before happened again; when the iron arrow approached within three feet of Qin Shuo's body, it was as if struck by a heavy hammer from someone, forcibly deflecting its course.

This wasn't all.

Only seeing the youth's eyes flash with cold light like lightning, he snatched the arrow shot by Xiao Rui, and with a mighty squeeze of his five fingers, he crushed the innate aura wrapped around it, then nocked it onto his own Dragon Spine Splitting Sky Bow.

Hum!

As the translucent jade-like bowstring was drawn back, Xiao Yinglin gasped in shock, discovering that the youth's surrounding hundred-zhang night curtain seemed to be instantly gathered into that iron arrow.

Roar!

The full-moon-like Dragon Spine Splitting Sky Bow issued a dragon's roar that echoed through the night sky.

The next second, the arrow shot out like a meteor.

A clearly visible white line, as if violently splitting the night sky into two halves.

Under this arrow, the night was ruthlessly torn open like a curtain; the arrow, at extreme speed, arrived before Xiao Rui could even react.

In that instant, Xiao Rui's expression changed uncontrollably.

In his eyes, the arrow piercing through space seemed not to be an arrow.

but rather a streak of aurora,

an aurora capable of shattering clouds and breaking the moon!

Pfft!

Faced with this terrifying arrow that had gathered all the airflow within a hundred-zhang radius,

Xiao Rui's external protective aura, as fragile as paper, was easily pierced.

At the moment the sharp arrow passed through his body, the profound iron arrow could no longer withstand the infusion of the hundred-zhang airflow and exploded with a boom.

Boom!

Before the arrow even shattered, the person had already exploded.

The hundred-zhang airflow compressed into a single strand, then suddenly dispersed; its generated impact force could tear apart steel, let alone a flesh-and-blood body.

Without any surprise, Xiao Rui followed Xiao Heng's footsteps; both exploded and died, leaving no corpses.

"Ah!"

Witnessing Xiao Rui's death, Xiao Yinglin completely broke down, shouting hoarsely:

"Beast, you beast, I will kill you!"

The jet-black bowstring was drawn back again.

Xiao Yinglin's qi and blood surged like a bursting river into the two bow arms resembling spinal bones, and a scarlet arrow entwined with sinister, cold evil qi instantly condensed.

Qi and blood are the foundation of a person.

A massive loss of qi and blood also caused a change in Xiao Yinglin's body.

At this moment, his body withered as if drained, nothing but skin and bones, his eye sockets sunken, resembling a fierce ghost.

"So it's you!"

Qin Shuo's gaze was icy cold.

Xiao Yinglin's technique of concealing his movements and aura was exceptional; before he shot his arrow, he actually sensed nothing at all.

If it weren't for his rough judgment of the opponent's direction, combining sight and smell in a double search, he might still not have detected the opponent even now.

"Die, I command you to die!"

Xiao Yinglin had gone completely mad, his skin-and-bones body swaying on the rooftop, on the verge of collapsing.

"Is this the basis for your daring to assault and kill me in the dead of night?"

Feeling the aura coming from the scarlet arrow, as if it could lock onto one's soul, Qin Shuo no longer panicked.

This time, he even refrained from using the Dragon Elephant Divine Ability, allowing the scarlet arrow to strike him.

Pfft!

As if struck by a water arrow.

The scarlet arrow was deflected by the primordial magnetic force on his skin, but that wisp of sinister killer qi, like a bone-attached maggot, burrowed into his body and invaded his sea of consciousness.

Roar!

The next moment, the Taotie cauldron in his sea of consciousness let out a roar only he could hear.

Immediately after, the sinister ghostly killer emitted a sharp, piercing wail, exploded with a bang, and was swallowed whole by the Taotie gaping maw on the cauldron's wall.