Chapter 171

The fire of the Fire Qilin burned with unbearable intensity; the boy's blood and qi surged, his injuries healing rapidly. He lifted his gaze, the tips of his temple hairs lifting slightly, his black hair stained with gold and crimson. The Fire Qilin roared violently around him.

Suddenly, cracks appeared on the ground within ten zhang of Li Guanyi, resembling shattered stone.

But these cracks glowed a crimson-gold hue, and as the Fire Qilin roared, molten flames erupted like a volcanic blast—golden sparks shattered and scattered across the earth, vaporizing the imperial guards dispatched by Dantai Xianming.

The air warped from the searing heat. The Fire Qilin circled Li Guanyi, its crimson-gold eyes like a dragon's, mouth open, a swirling mist of gold-red qi exuding from its throat. The earth melted outright; steel turned to molten iron, flowing across the ground.

Li Guanyi raised his sword and gently pressed his hand against the Fire Qilin beside him.

The violent fire did not harm him—it curled around Li Guanyi. He lifted his head, watching General Yue Qianfeng, who was barely holding on: the crimson dragon's scales snapped one by one. The top thirty, top ten, top five of the Divine General Roster were all chasms of irreversible decline.

Li Guanyi whispered: "Go, Fire Qilin."

"Help Brother Yue. You can't come with me…"

The boy rubbed the Fire Qilin's head and said: "I know—it's hard asking you to fight the fifteenth-ranked Divine General in this state. But…" The Fire Qilin's low roar was calm. Li Guanyi set down his sword. The Fire Qilin lowered its head, pressing its forehead against the boy's.

Then it let out a mighty roar.

As if rushing to a battle delayed for ten years.

The Fire Qilin's four hooves trod the void; each step exploded into a ring of gold-red flame.

The Fire Qilin's flames surged upward, merging into the crimson dragon, restoring its scales again and again. The top-tier Divine General finally had to defend himself. In the void, General Yue Qianfeng's shoulder armor was shattered—he had suffered two grave wounds in just two months, followed by brutal combat.

He gripped his battle halberd tightly, staring at the Fire Qilin's appearance, nearly dazed. He lowered his head. Opposite him, Xiao Wuliang also lowered his head. Both instinctively gazed at the battlefield, as if they could still see that figure raising a spear and stepping onto the field.

But in the end, they saw nothing.

He had once led their generation of Divine Generals, an invincible symbol.

He had fallen.

General Yue Qianfeng gripped his halberd, grinned wide, and laughed: "To fight alongside the Fire Qilin again—hahaha! Good! It seems this world still holds some mysterious fate… as if the Commander still lives!"

Xiao Wuliang lowered his eyes.

General Yue Qianfeng laughed. He felt no fear of death—only gripped his halberd with both hands, his heart pounding, his blood surging. Laughing, he charged the Divine General alongside the Fire Qilin. Xiao Wuliang raised his heavy hammer, one side blocking the twin halberds, the other suppressing the Fire Qilin.

"I have my own reason I cannot retreat."

General Yue Qianfeng laughed: "Then what's left to say?!"

The twin halberds slashed down!

"Kill!"

Divine Generals clashed overhead. Li Guanyi gripped Han Shuang Ji, turned, and charged without hesitation into the Qilin Palace, plunging into the great array. Behind him, the Fire Qilin's roar—after this battle, it would need long rest; it was the battle the Fire Qilin had longed for most.

It was General Yue Qianfeng's only chance at life.

It was the lifeline for Li Guanyi, Yan Xuanji, Yue Pengwu, and everyone else.

Everyone has their own battlefield.

Li Guanyi suddenly felt the great tide of this world's destiny.

Holding Han Shuang Ji at an angle, he charged into the Dark Palace!

The imperial guards who saw him—and then the Fire Qilin—changed expression. Some sharp-witted ones had already realized the Fire Qilin's former master. As their faces shifted, they suddenly heard a faint whistle through the air, then pain in their necks.

Instinctively they raised a hand, touching a crude yet hard triangular arrowhead.

The arrow's fletching was made of eagle feathers from the steppe; the shaft was short and straight, capable of tearing through wind.

This was… the Tie Futu of the Turkic…

He never got to confirm it.

The next instant, a second arrow pierced his brow.

Only as it pierced his forehead did the piercing, eagle-shrieking whistle of its flight reach his ears.

While the imperial guards were still stunned by the Fire Qilin's emergence and its implications, arrows rained from all directions, killing them one by one. In the time of a single incense stick, every guard who had witnessed the Fire Qilin's birth lay dead.

Turkic warriors rose. Their leader's gaze was cold, yet admiring:

"The Breaker Mr. was right."

He spoke in Turkic, voice filled with astonishment and reverence, to his subordinates:

"Here, truly, is a divine incarnation. Legends say gods descend to earth, their spirit becoming human heroes, their mighty flesh turning into rivers, their blood becoming people, their weapons becoming divine beasts."

"Here is one of the strongest divine beasts—a portent for the Seven Kings."

The other Turkic warriors bowed their heads, reverently saying:

"Gel Seni Ge Zhuo Hu Bo Yi Bo Ge Duo Er!"

In steppe tongue, this meant: "The Divine Spirit Who Walks Upon the Earth Amidst Flame."

The Fire Qilin had once appeared on the steppe, recorded in murals. It was an exalted beast, revered across the entire world—Central Plains, Western Regions, and the steppe alike. That strategist had quietly told them of the beast's presence, yet warned them not to interfere.

They begged the strategist, swore they would not implicate him. Only then did Breaker Mr. reluctantly guide them: the divine beast was about to emerge. To chase it, they should get the imperial guards drunk with wine, then lie in wait here, doing nothing until the divine beast appeared.

And after the divine beast emerged—

If anyone else appeared, kill everyone who saw it!

To buy time for the Seven Kings to claim this divine beast.

The Tie Futu Captain said: "Too bad the first one was protected by the divine beast—we couldn't get close. All the others were killed. Breaker Mr.'s plan is brilliant!"

They gazed toward the direction the divine beast had soared, disposing of the corpses, and said:

"Now, let's see if we can capture the divine beast."

"The weak Emperor of the Southern Kingdom has no right to be guarded by such a divine beast. Only the eagle of the steppe, heroes as divine as heaven, deserve to accompany the flesh and weapons of the gods. When such an opportunity arises, it must be fought for."

"If we fail, withdraw."

"If an investigation comes, we will commit suicide to atone—do not implicate the Seven Kings."

All the steppe warriors answered in unison: "Yes!"

Every imperial guard who had witnessed Li Guanyi and the Fire Qilin was slain by the Turkic warriors—even the traces of their killings were erased. Li Guanyi knew nothing of what happened outside. He charged into the underground palace, yet immediately sensed the problem and the danger.

Beneath this underground palace lay another array.

The construction of this underground palace was like a labyrinth!

Its power paled beside the Four Symbols Spirit-Sealing Array created by the world's first madman Si Wei to suppress the Fire Qilin, yet in terms of sealing, interference, and complexity, it surpassed it; Li Guanyi's array expertise came largely from Hou Zhongyu's life-or-death teachings.

Though later guided by the Ancestor Elder, the time was too brief; countless heroes of the world had devoted their lives to the Way of Arrays, and the arrays they forged through decades of white-haired toil were not something Li Guanyi could swiftly break.

He saw the manifestation of the Golden-Winged Great Peng, and could only rely on instinct and judgment.

Advancing continuously, guided by the experience and judgment of the Four Symbols Spirit-Sealing Array.

But when Li Guanyi saw the same intersection for the third time, he finally realized more directly: the Way of Arrays was intricate, especially at the highest levels—different arrays could produce similar effects, yet their underlying rules and methods might be utterly opposite.

Li Guanyi lifted his head; the bronze tripod howled, its qi flowing into his pupils.

He saw the Golden-Winged Great Peng, meant to strike the heavens, entangled by a two-headed venomous dragon, golden feathers flying—he felt a sense of a dragon soaring too high, its fullness unsustainable; Li Guanyi wanted to rush forward immediately, yet the more urgently he tried to break the array, the more trapped he became.

The youth swung his weapon, the Han Shuang Ji carrying the aura of the Tiger Roaring to Heaven Battle Spear.

He struck the array with a single blow of Crush Mountain.

Not a single crack appeared.

Such a divine general-level finishing move seemed utterly ineffective—the attacking qi scattered completely.

It seemed the brutal force of that strike had been entirely dispersed by the array; the destructive power meant for a single node had spread across the entire secret palace's array, leaving only ripples like a gentle breeze brushing the face.

Had everyone truly given their all in this battle?

And yet, was their fate to be trapped here, forever?

To watch Yue Pengwu die with their own eyes?

Li Guanyi gripped his weapon, a surge of defiance rising in his heart—he swung the Tiger Roaring to Heaven Battle Spear with all his might, and as it struck, his palm split at Hukou, blood dripping—but finally, the array cracked. He unleashed his techniques without restraint, hammering the array's walls.

He knew that even if he forcibly broke through, it would consume immense time, for the array's twists and turns left him utterly clueless about the correct path.

And the imperial palace was vast.

This method was Dan Tai Xianming's style.

Ruthless, cold, leaving no chance for reversal.

Break through one stratagem, and another awaited.

It was the hand of the world's pinnacle.

Yet even so, Li Guanyi pushed himself to the limit, pressing forward relentlessly.

Li Guanyi had given everything.

He clutched the divine weapon tightly, gritting his teeth, exhausting every last ounce of his body's potential.

Giving everything, struggling to face off against heroes who had dominated the world for sixty years!

At this young age, he sensed a crushing tide of fate—regardless of friend or foe, righteous or wicked, what these world-dominating heroes revealed in this grand scheme made him feel his own inadequacy; compared to these heroes who had reached their peaks, he was still merely a young tiger.

Dan Tai Xianming was the type of man—unyielding, cold, domineering, and forceful.

Whoever he marked for death could not be saved by anyone.

Yet at this moment, Li Guanyi's Xuanguan ancestral point suddenly tingled slightly.

He suddenly felt a primal instinct.

As if someone were showing him the correct path.

This instinctive intuition made Li Guanyi pause—he suddenly recalled the old man in the Daoist temple before departure, pointing at his forehead, as if golden light had streamed forth; Li Guanyi sharply turned his head and saw a phantom elder gently gazing down, reaching out to ruffle the boy's hair.

The old Daoist's expression was gentle.

The struggles of the previous generation of heroes must be settled by the previous generation.

Guiding the young, those yet to grow, onto their path—this was the duty of the elders.

The elder's form dissolved; Li Guanyi, spear in hand, crossed beyond him and rushed forward.

The array itself was peerless in the world, reaching its extreme in complexity and entrapment, further refined by Dan Tai Xianming—the world's top strategist—and now it offered Li Guanyi not the slightest obstruction; he moved as if across open plains, far faster than normal array-breaking.

Li Guanyi burst into a grand hall—the heart of the secret palace—filled with ritual vessels: great tripods, axes and halberds, banners; at its center stood a massive altar, like one used to sacrifice to Heaven, Earth, and the State.

Upon it rested the ancestral tablets of Emperor Chen Dingye's lineage.

These were meant to be worshipped during the grand rites.

Li Guanyi saw thick, eternal lamps surrounding the altar—crafted from the oil of whales hunted in the Northern Sea, emitting an unusual fragrant aroma and burning perpetually; he did not pause, rushing forward.

Ahead lay a sealed gate.

Its seals suddenly shattered; Li Guanyi shouldered it open.

He dashed inside as the light of the Golden-Winged Great Peng faded.

As the gate opened, the flames and fragrance of the eternal lamps surged in; Yue Pengwu gasped heavily, the marks of the poison on his face and body now starkly clear; ahead, in another direction, Dan Tai Xianming was equally broken.

This divine general, trapped for months, corroded by the world's most bizarre poison, stripped of his divine weapon, armor, military momentum, and arrays, still, in this near-death state, had driven Dan Tai Xianming—the nation's chancellor, the world's greatest strategist—to exhaust every tactic and exhaust every hidden card.

The more seasoned the will, the greater the hero, the more they could unleash power beyond a strategist's prediction when they abandoned life and death; throughout history, countless legendary feats recorded in the annals—single warriors facing entire armies, stuffing their own intestines back into their bellies and roaring as they fought to the death—were born from this very truth.

Dan Tai Xianming, battered beyond prediction by Yue Pengwu, was nearly dead; both men were spent. Dan Tai Xianming said: "Yue Pengwu, even if you can control the poison, the toxin of the Fei has entered your heart meridian—your heart has already begun turning to wood and stone, hasn't it?"

Yue Pengwu gripped his weapon with deathly force—he still had one final strike left.

This strike would consume everything he had.

At that very moment, the gate crashed open—a young officer in the Gold Guard's armor, over which he wore a crimson battle robe, jade belt at his waist, wielding the iconic Han Shuang Ji of the former Guardian Mountain Villa, strode in.

Dan Tai Xianming and Yue Pengwu both changed expression instantly.

Dan Tai Xianming knew Yue Pengwu still had one final life-or-death move; he suddenly spoke, voice filled with hatred and sorrow: "Marquis of Kaiguo, do not concern yourself with me—this man is a traitor! Kill him at once!"

He turned to Yue Pengwu again:

"This is Qin Wu, Marquis of Kaiguo, granted by His Imperial Majesty of Great Chen, a fifth-rank hereditary title."

"Hereditary, unrevocable."

"Marquis Qin Wu, swiftly kill this man! Cough—cough—I know the Crown Prince and the Xue clan vie for the throne, but this is not our personal feud—it is a matter of state and country! Marquis Qin Wu, remember: brothers may quarrel within the walls, but unite against foreign threats!"

The old man spoke with deep emotion, appealing to both heart and reason.

Yue Pengwu saw the young noble in his crimson robe turn and charge at him, spear in hand; his heart filled with grief and outrage, thinking all the nation's youth were being used, and he could only clench his fists in sorrow—yet as the boy rushed forward, one hand gripped the spear, the other rested against his chest.

Li Guanyi, with his back to Dan Tai Xianming, unleashed nearly all the secret signals of the Twenty-Four Generals.

The aura's flame formed intricate patterns, as if those past warriors still lived; Yue Pengwu's motion froze—he widened his eyes slightly—then Li Guanyi slammed directly into Yue Pengwu's body.

The famed general's body was lifted by the impact.

Dan Tai Xianming clutched his chest, gasping heavily, watching as the Xue family boy slammed into the exhausted Yue Pengwu, lifting him high; the famed general had truly reached his limit—he was flung clean out of the poison-blood pool and crashed heavily onto the steps over there.

Wait?!! Onto the steps?!!

Even now, Dan Tai Xianming remained sharp—he sensed a faint anomaly—but the next instant, the boy spun around, seized Han Shuang Ji, and lunged at Dan Tai Xianming with lethal intent.

Li Guanyi stepped forward, dragging Yue Pengwu clear, then whirled and struck.

Both hands gripped the spear.

All hatred, all rage, all defiance—like the final emotions of that ancient overlord—then coalesced into one devastating strike.

Overlord's Final Technique!

He truly merged with the Overlord's heart.

Seeing his hated enemy, he swept the spear hard against Dan Tai Xianming; the force sent the weakened Dan Tai Xianming reeling backward—he chose the wisest path, retreating voluntarily into the poison-blood pool, hoping to make Li Guanyi hesitate.

But Li Guanyi would not retreat now.

Even though the Tiger Roar Bone Forging Art was fully perfected, even without a second refinement to force out the poison, still—he did not retreat. Eight hundred years ago, the Overlord failed to slay his enemy; now, the "Overlord" wielding the spear had finally struck down his foe.

The spear howled, the Overlord's battle fury unrestrained.

After the Overlord's Final Technique, a second variation erupted.

After the spear surged upward, he stomped forward, spun his body, gripped the spear with all his strength, and plunged into the bloodwater—Li Guanyi staked everything on this single thrust, driving it deep into Dan Tai Xianming's chest.

Dan Tai Xianming's aura erupted, blocking the blade.

But the next instant, a black miasma exploded.

It crept inch by inch over Han Shuang Ji.

From the spear's butt, dark-gold light flashed instantly, racing to the tip—where the tiger's mouth spat a glacial gleam, and the roar of Bai Hu Da Zong echoed through the chamber.

The force that tore through all injustice, the heavenly god who rode wild through chaos.

Divine Weapon·Tiger Roars to Heaven!

The blade shrieked, the tiger's roar rose— the boy gripped the spear with both hands, stomped forward with a roar; Dan Tai Xianming suddenly understood the boy's identity—he realized: the Fire Qilin Palace, the Xue family, and behind this boy, that strategist.

So that's how it was…

Dan Tai Xianming was slammed into the bloodwater, driven forward, and crushed against Shi Zhu.

The Tiger Roars to Heaven spear's edge was merciless—it pierced straight through Dan Tai Xianming's protective aura.

It drove into his body, the tip bursting from his back, pinning him to the Coiled Dragon Pillar!

Blood gushed forth.

Li Guanyi gasped heavily.

The boy's disguise—Murong family, Jiangnan's misty rain—vanished; his brows were sharp, a beauty spot at the corner of his eye; he gripped the spear, his black hair lifting slightly, and grinned:

"First meeting, Chancellor."

"I am Li Guanyi."

A sliver of the spear's glacial edge pierced through Dan Tai Xianming's body, then emerged from behind the Coiled Dragon Pillar—it was bone-white, then stained crimson.

He said:

"Li—the Li of Li Wanli."