Chapter 211

"Clang!"

A clear chime of a blade rang out...

The Supreme Supreme Tian Mo Blood-Transforming Ancient Shendao cultivated by the black-clad demon cultivator was originally formed from primordial energy, a formless and intangible streak of fierce blade light.

But after seeing the supreme realm that he himself could never reach in this lifetime from Qian Chen, he understood...

With his aptitude in the demonic path, even if he were to toil for another thousand or a hundred years, he could never reach the level of that casual blade strike from Qian Chen.

Because this was no longer a difference in aptitude that could be made up for by hard work!

Therefore, after obtaining the "Supreme Yin Heart-Severing Blade Scripture" from Qian Chen, he did not look at the supreme mental cultivation methods within the scripture, such as the Supreme Yin Ice Heart or the Heartless Heavenly Dao. He only extracted the portion regarding the Ice Soul Ancient Shendao, and after consulting his newly acquainted righteous friend Baili Xi, he successfully refined this Ice-Snow Ancient Shendao.

Using an ice heart as a mirror, his spiritual sense and inner mind became incomparably calm, his spiritual sense reflecting every change in the surrounding primordial energy, down to the finest detail, replacing the incomparably strange and inconceivable changes within the Supreme Supreme Tian Mo Blood-Transforming Ancient Shendao.

Using primordial energy to form the blade, his entire cultivation base was contained within a single strike, his true qi transformed into ice soul, every thread and every strand possessing an extremely sharp fierceness...

This transformation of turning demon into righteous, besides the guidance of that young man in Daoist robes who was on good terms with him, also carried the shadow of that strike where Qian Chen used the method of the Supreme Supreme Tian Mo Blood-Transforming Ancient Shendao to turn the Ice Soul Divine Light into a long blade, severing his own demonic nature.

"Not a bad blade technique!"

Facing this ten-foot-long clear expanse of water, Liu Luogu saw the blade light like the large, mat-sized snowflakes of the northern lands, falling in pieces, each strike shaving away at his vital points, every strike shaving away the changes in primordial energy; as the blade light fell, the primordial energy was neatly divided, the blade waves stacked, and strike after strike slashed fiercely toward Liu Luogu.

"But it is merely 'not bad'!"

Liu Luogu's hands remained behind his back, revealing a trace of a cold, cruel smile.

A violent clanging sound erupted three feet in front of him. A cold light continuously collided with the ice soul blade light; this silver light originated from the shadows behind Liu Luogu, gripped in the hand of a silent scholar.

The continuous blade light kept pressing down the sword light in the scholar's hand, yet it could never tear through this curtain of swords.

It kept the black-clad demon cultivator's blade from ever getting within the final foot of Liu Luogu.

"This blade technique must be newly created!" Liu Luogu said indifferently: "Your first few strikes, while fierce, still had several flaws. Otherwise, you should have been able to slash within a foot of me. Although you made up for those flaws during our exchange, the Dugu family's sword technique has extremely strong resilience. If your first strike couldn't threaten me, then you will never be able to get within a foot of me!"

Liu Luogu stood with his hands behind his back, his aura subtly confronting the others in the darkness.

The middle-aged scholar standing behind Liu Luogu, a swordsman of the former Xianbei Dugu family, sighed: "I am Dugu Wensu!"

The black-clad demon cultivator snorted coldly: "Xi Mu!"

"If you had a good weapon, your blade technique would not be limited to this!" Dugu Wensu lamented.

This kind of hard clash between blade and sword relied most on the essence and sharpness of the weapons themselves. When the two clashed, Dugu Wensu discovered that while the black-clad demon cultivator Xi Mu's blade technique changes were exquisite and the blade light was very fierce, its essence was ultimately just ice soul condensed from primordial energy.

Ice can be sharp, but it is ultimately extremely fragile.

Clashing with the high-quality sword in his hand, he had to reserve some strength, using the changes in his blade technique to deflect the sharpness.

Like the Supreme Supreme Tian Mo Blood-Transforming Ancient Shendao, that streak of blood light was True Water of the Blood Sea, the foundation of the Blood Sea Demonic Path, its essence the most peculiar of all, its sharpness second to nothing in the world. Moreover, the Supreme Supreme Tian Mo Blood-Transforming Ancient Shendao did not rely solely on its essence of being sharp as a blade; it also had its inconceivable Supreme Supreme Tian Mo changes, the strangeness of the Blood-Transforming Demonic Path, and the demonic nature that devoured the essence of life and encompassed everything.

Like Qian Chen's Ice Soul Ancient Shendao, based on the supernatural Ice Soul Divine Light and using a Second-Rank Outer Pill as a carrier, it was not only sharp in essence and extremely tough, its hardness no less than the body of a flying sword magic treasure, but it also had a chill that could freeze the heavens and earth.

And Xi Mu's blade, after shedding the True Water of the Blood Sea, was ultimately just a strand of ice soul primordial energy.

But at this moment, Xi Mu's blade light turned, instead encircling Dugu Wensu.

A faint smile appeared at the corner of his mouth, and he sighed inwardly: "I have seen both the Supreme Supreme Tian Mo Blood-Transforming Ancient Shendao and the Ice Soul Ancient Shendao in the hands of the Master! He still needs to refine divine weapons to make up for the deficiencies of primordial energy weapons. How could I not know the flaws of this blade technique?"

"So... in order to make up for this flaw, I specifically consulted Daoist friend Baili on the way of formations!"

The blade light in Xi Mu's hand was resolute, turning into ice soul; the long blade slashed out, the blade light like a mirror...

The mirror light inverted.

In an instant, he and Dugu Wensu within the blade light had simultaneously disappeared from before Liu Luogu; they had fallen together into the mirror surface reflected by the blade light.

Before Liu Luogu, only blade light could be seen, no people.

"So they wanted to drag Dugu Wensu away!"

Liu Luogu realized that Dugu Wensu and that assassin had fallen into the blade light formation, and he understood.

He revealed a mocking smile.

"But... have you all misunderstood something?"

The young man in Daoist robes, Baili Xi, waved his sleeves, scattering points of Master Chunyang Taiyin Zhenhuo, which circled him to form a formation that looked like a Dharma altar, a throne, and a city.

In the center of the great formation, the figure of a Daoist Lord sat vaguely.

It was a Daoist Lord bathed in Master Chunyang Taiyin Zhenhuo, riding a fire crow.

"The Heaven and Earth Furnace Great Formation—my cultivation is not yet mature enough; I can only refine Master Chunyang Taiyin Zhenhuo and form a Master Chunyang Divine Furnace."

A three-legged divine furnace suddenly flew out from the formation formed by the Master Chunyang Taiyin Zhenhuo around Baili Xi. The divine furnace roared, and the Master Chunyang Taiyin Zhenhuo flames rolled in, madly swirling and absorbing the surrounding fire-attribute primordial energy, and even the radiance of the setting sun, like a giant whale swallowing water.

The Master Chunyang Divine Furnace lunged forward, and in just an instant, it sealed Liu Luogu within it.

Liu Luogu stared at the few of them, revealing a mocking smile.

"Dugu Wensu is not here to protect me..."

"Because I am far stronger than him!"

Amidst the rolling flames and endless scorching red of the Master Chunyang Divine Furnace, an eye suddenly opened. It was a deep darkness within the endless crimson flames; the whites of the eye were still dark red, but the pupil was the deepest darkness. The Master Chunyang Taiyin Zhenhuo within the Master Chunyang Divine Furnace, which burned away demons, was continuously sucked into this pupil that was like a black hole, yet it could never fill its depths.

Hum!

Below this vertical eye, two more eyes opened! They were Liu Luogu's eyes. The pupils of these three eyes were slightly contracting, slowly moving, and landed on Baili Xi.

"The embryonic form of a Natal God-Demon!"

Baili Xi sighed inwardly, knowing he had still underestimated this person...

This person had actually already refined the embryonic form of a Natal God-Demon; he only needed to use these three demonic eyes as a foundation to refine a Natal God-Demon Dharma Image, and he would be able to refine a Natal God-Demon body equivalent to the Yin Spirit level of a cultivator.

A streak of lightning shot out from the pupil of that vertical eye. The dark lightning instantly pierced through the divine furnace formed by the Master Chunyang Taiyin Zhenhuo, forcefully shattering this part of the Heaven and Earth Furnace Great Formation's diagram. The lightning struck in front of Baili Xi, blocked by the Eight Trigrams Cloud Light he had transformed from smoke and clouds.

Within three flashes of the dark lightning, the cloud light exploded.

Baili Xi felt as if his own body were about to explode, and he spat out a mouthful of fresh blood; before it could leave his body, it was burned to nothing by the power of the intertwined lightning and fire. It looked as if he had spat out a mouthful of ash.

Liu Luogu stepped across the crack in the Master Chunyang Divine Furnace formation and arrived in front of Baili Xi.

Facing the vertical eye on Liu Luogu's forehead, which made him unable to move and looked as if a black hole had been opened in his head, Baili Xi could only grit his teeth, forcibly driving the true qi in his body to condense a layer of faint cloud light.

At this moment, a hand pressed onto his shoulder.

"We'll handle this here; you go save the person!"

A cold-faced nun and a smiling, delicate-looking monk blocked his path.

In the nun's hand, endless lightning turned into colorless brilliance, like a long rope, striking toward the vertical eye in the air; the lightning tore through the darkness emitted by the vertical eye.

The delicate-looking monk, who looked like a woman, emitted a faint but firm and inextinguishable swastika from his palm...

"Shri-vatsa-kshanika."

The swastika mantra emerged with thousands of colors of cloud light, falling toward the vertical pupil of the demonic eye, accompanied by the mantra and hand seals, instantly giving birth to endless light...

The colorless lightning and the light intertwined, confronting that deep darkness, instantly dyeing this illusory and uncertain world into two colors of black and white.

Baili Xi rushed into the room; he had arrived a step too late, but fortunately, it had not reached the point of no return. In that gloomy room, the courtesan Ying'er had an expression of extreme terror; the intense pain on her face made her features twitch and distort. When she turned her head, Baili Xi saw that where the woman's bright eyes should have been, only two bloody holes remained...

One hand was even bent back from the wrist, revealing white, ghastly bone fragments!

Baili Xi's expression was grim. Suddenly, a chill rapidly cooled his entire body from behind; the woman's neck was being pulled tightly by a pale hand that felt like an iron hoop, and she was lifted up like a small chicken. The owner of that hand sneered: "As expected of the pedantic righteous path!"

"Even among the righteous path, you all are much more naive than those people from last night!"

Saying this, the owner of that hand mercilessly used his other hand to suddenly break one of the courtesan Ying'er's wrists, forcefully tearing it off!

The intense pain made the innocent courtesan scream out loud...

Anger made Baili Xi disregard the unstable true qi in his body, forcibly raising his qi to strike, but following a streak of blood light, his own wrist was simultaneously bent, leaving only a thread of skin connecting his palm, hanging down powerlessly.

Fu Xulin sneered coldly: "Want to save someone? Save yourself first!"

"It's a pity I've already used this woman twice, and she's a woman, so I can't let you fully enjoy that set of eight-cruelty suffering."

Having said that, the large hand gripping Ying'er urged its true qi, and two arrows of blood pierced her eardrums, splashing out from her ears. The woman struggled even more violently, but in Fu Xulin's hand, she became increasingly powerless.

She let out a scream that sounded nothing like a human voice.

Two streaks of stagnant blood also flowed from Baili Xi's ears; in an instant, the sounds of the entire world disappeared, leaving only the intense pain coming from his ears. This method of eight-cruelty was extremely evil; Baili Xi was not a living person but transformed from a Yin Demon, yet he had still been struck.

He gritted his teeth to keep himself awake.

In the darkness, a streak of purple lightning-fire sword light gushed out.

A drunkard, appearing half-drunk and half-sober, appeared beside Fu Xulin, opening his mouth to spit out a streak of Heavenly Lightning Taiyin Zhenhuo, which transformed into a long sword. The lightning was swift; Fu Xulin could only turn sideways to recover his qi, his entire body's black demonic qi surging up like ten thousand poisonous snakes, intertwining to extinguish the Heavenly Lightning Taiyin Zhenhuo.

But at this moment, Baili Xi had already wrapped threads of cloud smoke around the woman in Fu Xulin's hand.

With a change in the formation, he turned her from real to illusory, hiding her within the formation.

Fu Xulin's hand, prepared to crush the woman's neck, only managed to grab a handful of mist. Facing his own unexpected failure, he revealed a venomous smile: "Haha... Good! Very good!"