Chapter 80: Slaying the Tuolong

No one had expected that the one to strike first would be Shen Yi.

He gripped the ceremonial blade with both hands; the black light on the blade's body swiftly faded, transforming into a soul-searing jet black.

This was the first time he had struck with full force since stepping into the perfection of the Jade Liquid Realm.

The Greedy Wolf Slayer of Evil, having attained the realm of perfection, displayed an unprecedented edge under the augmentation of his robust realm.

Clang—

The ceremonial blade slashed down in a single stroke—without the grand momentum of the earlier sword qi, utterly silent, nothing but the purest sharpness.

The Tuolong had been on guard in its fury, but against such bladework it truly could not muster any wariness.

Only when that black edge drew near did a chill shoot from the soles of its feet straight to the crown of its head; its face showed alarm, its foot stamped the ground, and it drove its scale-covered elbow smashing toward the blade.

Meeting the blade's edge with flesh and blood!

Crack-crack—

It was not the sound of cutting flesh, nor the ring of metal on metal.

One saw every scale on the Tuolong's arm stand on end, bristling like rows of curved blades.

The ceremonial blade never reached its hide; instead, it scraped away a whole layer of scales.

Seizing that split-second of reaction time, the Tuolong whirled about. Its broad cloth shirt flew up, and a thick, powerful tail whipped out in the same motion—seeming forged of fine steel and solid iron—and slammed viciously toward the young man's arm.

Facing the killing move the demon had hidden in advance.

Shen Yi's eyes grew cold; his bladework, perfected to the realm's apex, came and went at will.

In a single breath he slashed out again.

Just as contact was about to be made, the steel-hard tail suddenly turned supple and agile; the ferocious force from moments ago had been nothing but a feint to deceive the enemy. It never intended to contest the ceremonial blade at all, and went straight for Shen Yi's arm, coiling around it.

The next instant, the scales on the tail stood on end as well.

Riiip!

In a single turn, it had concealed three killing strikes.

The silk sleeve was torn, stained with a touch of dark red.

The Tuolong's expression was none too pleasant. What covered its body was armor nurtured over a thousand years—scales that only looked like they grew from its skin, but had long since been refined into a treasure-armor that was offense and defense in one.

It was the precious thing it relied on to survive.

Yet in a single exchange, that bizarre black blade had shaved off several dozen scales, and inwardly it was already groaning without cease.

How could that compare to a mere scratch on the other's flesh?

Fierce savagery blazed in the Tuolong's eyes; it exerted force once more, intending to seize this chance to crush the young man's entire arm in one go.

Just then, it suddenly noticed Shen Yi open his palm, his five fingers tightly gripping its tail.

"You, a mere martial artist, dare to wrestle with me?"

The Tuolong perceived the other's intent, finding it both laughable and irritatingly provocative.

If martial artists could meet the heaven-born, earth-grown demons head-on with their bodies alone, there would be no need to ponder any martial techniques at all.

Before this thought had even faded.

The next instant, everything in its field of vision suddenly flipped upside down.

Shen Yi, gripping that crocodilian tail, actually swung it straight up into the air and hurled it away without the slightest hindrance!

Boom!

The Tuolong tumbled out, its rough claws gouging into the stone ground like a rake.

It shook its flat head, its two bulging eyes somewhat dazed.

Then, as if realizing something, it raised its head, face alight with excitement.

It had assumed the other had inadvertently refined a trace of bloodline from a flood-dragon pearl—but who would have thought… heh… to actually, actually absorb it so perfectly!

"Roar!"

Its eyes turned blood red as it lowered its body and let out a bellow.

That piercingly sharp, excited sound also drew the attention of those on the other side.

The very instant Shen Yi made his move.

Over twenty Golden Eagle Captains reacted swiftly, hurling the chains in their hands to trap Elder Wrathful Sword among them.

The so-called Demon-Suppressing Grand Formation was not pure martial skill; beyond the techniques, the key lay in the material of the chains, which could greatly impede the circulation of qi.

The premise was… being able to lock him down.

The formation eye that should have been Zhao Kanglin's was now occupied by Hong Lei instead.

Their coordination was extremely clumsy; it would not be wrong to call it every man for himself.

The outer-camp Captains were much the same—utterly unused to joint encirclement-and-kill, and what was more, they had been temporarily reassigned from different Deputy Generals, having only just drilled together for a few days, not even knowing what their comrades beside them were good at.

Under such circumstances, a group of initial realm practitioners could not get close at all, and might even risk hindering the fight.

With all these factors, the Elder, five-foot longsword in hand, was like a tiger among a flock of sheep.

Fortunately, Hong Lei's foundation was solid. Though he did not know how to coordinate the Demon-Suppressing Grand Formation, he at least knew the old man feared those chains; leveraging that advantage, he could still barely hold his own for the moment.

The other had clearly used a secret art to forcibly sustain himself, burning his life force to briefly return to his peak—and even that secret art had not been fully achieved; his aura was visibly weakening by the naked eye.

If they could drag things out for three more incense sticks of time… he would die without anyone needing to lift a hand.

The only question was how many more would die within those three incense sticks.

And there was an even more important point: the demon behind them, at the perfection of the Jade Liquid Realm—even if Shen Yi were stronger, how long could he hold it off?

The silver-haired elder swung his sword at will, sending out thick sword qi one after another. Hong Lei could dodge, but the Golden Eagle Captains gripping the chains had nowhere to evade; he could not simply watch the grand formation be broken so easily, and could only grit his teeth and take the hits head-on.

Countless poisoned hidden weapons and flying arrows rained in.

The Elder did not dodge at all, letting those things stab into his skin, then casually brushing them off.

For a man on the brink of death, lethal poison could hardly be called intimidating.

It couldn't even draw his attention as much as a single roar from the Yuan Dragon.

The Elder turned to look.

He saw the demon's blue robe in tatters all over its body — clearly it had been beaten into a frenzy, and as it charged, even the earth itself trembled faintly.

Facing it, Shen Yi slowly sheathed his ceremonial blade.

"Mm?"

Confusion rose in the Elder's murky eyes.

In his view, this youth's breathing was long and steady, far from exhaustion — why sheath the blade?

Shen Yi answered his puzzlement with action.

As his palm rose lightly.

In the silent night, specks of eerie crimson suddenly appeared, baleful aura spreading, as if the place had been transformed into a realm of purgatory.

The Elder tightened his grip on his long sword; his well-like, unrippled heart finally wavered.

He had seen a similar scene before — it was the trick the Outside Qingzhou Regional Commander favored in his youth, called the Four Harmony True Gang, which had won him great fame throughout all of Outside Qingzhou.

Five supreme techniques, said to grant mastery over peers of the same realm with but one.

Yet even the Regional Commander of that time had not wielded such dense Gang qi, nor such bone-piercing baleful aura, nor this crimson, demonic feel.

He could hardly imagine what it would feel like to stand beneath this sky-full of blood-Gang rain.

"Aaoo!"

The Gang rain poured down, every strand landing precisely on the Yuan Dragon's body.

The thousand-year great demon from Yangchun River was now hammered into retreat after retreat; the gaudy flames on its body wantonly scorched the treasure armor it prized most, nearly swallowing it whole in an instant.

Only a heart-trembling wail remained in the field.

Just then, the youth standing with arms at his sides suddenly looked this way.

Then raised his palm once more.

"..."

Elder Rage Sword looked up at the specks of crimson appearing above his head, poised to strike.

His murky eyes grew ever dimmer.

His hand lost strength; the five-foot long sword fell to the ground with a crisp "clang."

It wasn't fear — simply that everything had lost its meaning.

Beneath this Gang qi, the time of three incense sticks he had scraped together over many days now seemed somewhat superfluous.

Failed — I had originally planned to write to two hundred thousand characters before going on the shelves, but my brain is already numb. I'll try to break ten thousand a day next time.

Oh no, Chapter 75 was posted wrong — I posted the pre-revision draft version! I've already reposted it.

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(End of this chapter)