Chapter 148 (2/2)
The Devil’s Three Turns that Xiao Chen unleashed today, were utterly stronger than the Devil’s Three Turns that he had performed at the Three Pure Sect. The four Elders raced back to help their former leader. But a golden titanic fist materialized in mid-air suddenly. A mighty and electrifying force radiated strongly from the tightly-grasped hand, threatening to pulverize everything in sight. “Go! I’ll stop him!” The Elder shouted and immediately morphed into a ray of light that shot straight at Xiao Chen.
“No! Come back!” Yunya Zi squealed at the top of his voice. But he was too late; the golden fist was a gargantuan conjuration of Xiao Chen every shred of True Qi he could muster. The fist coursed with pure destructive intensity, waiting to carnage like a volcano ready to erupt.
The golden fist smote mercilessly upon the Elder of the South Chamber, completely disintegrating him. Shocked gasps and horrified yelps rose from among the crowd in the square. Never could anyone had believed that a single stroke could have easily reduced a warrior of the Core Forming Realm into dust.
“Heaven-slaying Sword!” Yunya Zi screamed, his eyes bloodshot and maniacal. He conjured his most potent technique again, infusing more power into this version that even the sky was flooded gold by its brilliance.
“Third Diabolic Shift! My soul as a blade!”
Xiao Chen released a feral howl. The cloudless weather that spanned for miles immediately gave way to dark cumulonimbuses that swallowed the sky hole with rays of lightning flashing sporadically as the sky groaned angrily above. The silhouette of a wicked-looking sabre appeared in mid-air, its girth and presence dwarfing the prominence and the size of the Heaven-slaying Sword.
The crowd was seized with a panic dread of confusion and turmoil. The might Xiao Chen displayed was far beyond their imagination. The common folk of the city of Wu Province at tens of miles away, all noticed the demonic silhouette looming precariously above the peak. Pandemonium and anarchy were everywhere. No one below knew what was happening, although they felt difficulty as they breathed as a result of the heavy and tense pressure of Xiao Chen’s boiling powers.
Yunya Zi, now horrified with shock, murmured, “Impossible… It’s his soul…” He had never expected that his foe was able to use his own soul as a source of power. Fearing the worst, he knew this was a stroke that he could never be able to weather.
“This is what your Skygale Sect owes me, Yunya Zi! I’ll have your life as compensation!”
With a savage howl, the colossal sabre came down with the force of like a mallet upon an anvil, striking upon the peak with a force that could have torn open the earth. The impact of its stroke ruptured the very fabric of time and space, causing a vortex to appear.
But before Xiao Chen launched his final strike, his eyes wandered to Luo Shangyan and the sobbing Murong Xian’er. A kaleidoscope of images from his past passed before him; he remembered his teacher from thousands of year ago and thought of Li Muxue and Hua Weiyang. The sight and memory of his loved ones almost made him hesitated as he wondered if he would still be able to see their faces again.
The Devil’s Three Turns were a discipline of techniques that expended the spirit and vigor of its user. It was almost impossible for a person to survive after unleashing all Three Turns.
But he knew full well that he had no other choice.
The catastrophic force of the Third Diabolic Shift destroyed everything in the square, reducing them into dust even before the blade of the gigantic sabre hit its mark. The foundations of the great halls and towers perched atop the mountain began to give way and crumble before the explosion from the strike annihilated what was left, turning rubbles and debris into soot and grime.
The entire mountain shook violently and dust rose into the air like smoke from a furnace. There was no way of knowing if there were any collateral damage or losses of life. Minutes passed as the scuds of dust began to die down. The entire square had been cloven into two, people began to realize, and in its center, a huge chasm was formed by the destructive force of the blow. Yunya Zi laid sprawled on the ground, panting for life. He was drenched in blood, still clinging to his dear life.
“Big Brother Xiao Chen…” Murong Xian’er gasped before she fainted out of shock.
Everyone else who had survived the devastating impact was still dazed and bewildered until Yunya Zi’s hoarse voice pierced through the silence, “He must not leave alive!” With this cry, everyone immediately understood: with only a single blow to kill a warrior of the Core Forming Realm and a stroke with his sabre to seriously wound a grandmaster nearing the Nascent Soul Realm, Xiao Chen’s name would henceforth be widely-known across the whole Violet Manor!
Prompted by the vain command by Yunya Zi, the three surviving Elders sprang into action. Woe would follow the Skygale Sect as long as Xiao Chen remain. But he was standing motionless in the wind, his face pale as Death. The Elder of the East Chamber was the first to notice his opportunity. He vanished, only to reappear suddenly before Xiao Chen, and landed a blow with all his might.
The blow hit the now defenseless Xiao Chen, tremendously powerful, enormously strong, that he was sent crashing backward, collapsing to the ground like a fallen leave, almost dead and disheveled.
“Junior Brother Xiao!” Luo Shangyan’s shrill cry came from afar. A few disciples of the Jade Qing Sect were restraining her, holding her back from rushing over to Xiao Chen.
Murmurs and gasps of incredulity and shock filled the onlookers. Even the Elder of the East Chamber could hardly suppress his amazement. A stroke with his full might would have been able to blast any Core Forming Realm cultivator into nothing but a mist of blood and viscera. But not only did he failed to kill Xiao Chen, instead, there also was not even a bruise or mark on Xiao Chen’s body which was as sturdy as the strongest steel!
The Elders of the West and North Chambers hurled themselves at Xiao Chen and were about to land another barrage of blows on him when a hollow voice echoed loudly from the distant horizon, “A leaf and flower, a sheaf of dust, let the flowers fall and leave no dust…” The voice, ringing far and distant at first, suddenly chimed so clearly as if the voice itself was speaking into everyone’s ears. Still, there was no sight of the origin of the voice.
“Hahahaha! I, the None-flower Dust, am come again!” The voice boomed again, “Strike as hard as you will, the three of you old sniveling seniles, and I will return the same favor to you, ten times over!”