The Main Peak towered into the clouds.
Amidst the swirling mists, the majestic hall gradually came into view.
They soon arrived at the plaza in front of the hall.
The hall doors stood wide open.
Ning Xian instinctively stepped forward half a pace, shielding Fang Xuan behind her by a half-length.
The mountain wind caught her plain white robes and long hair.
Nothing happened...
But it was quiet... perhaps too quiet.
"Senior Sister, I'll go take a look,"
Fang Xuan whispered, his tone still somewhat relaxed.
There was no need to be overly tense; if he couldn't win, surely he could at least run.
Besides, he had the dragon scale Lu Qingsong had given him in hand.
If all else failed, his storage ring contained no shortage of life-saving items—at worst, he could call for backup.
However, he didn't want to contact his family so early.
After all, he had transmigrated into this body; if they noticed something was wrong and performed a soul-search on him, it would be over.
Cough... if they happened to see that he had accidentally let the musk deer eat the original owner...
He really had gone to save him, he just hadn't succeeded in the rescue...
...
Ning Xian looked at Fang Xuan with a deep, lingering gaze.
"Mhm,"
she finally whispered in response. "If anything is wrong, you must come back out and hide behind me."
...
She didn't dare imagine it.
If something happened to Fang Xuan.
If she were left alone again, returning to that desperate, cold cycle...
Without her junior brother...
She would be forever alone, wandering aimlessly.
...
Inside the hall.
Directly ahead, seated upright upon the main throne of the high platform, was a figure.
It was the Qingyun Sect's sect leader, Lu Qingsong.
When he saw Fang Xuan enter, a warm smile remained on his face, yet he spoke through gritted teeth.
"Martial Nephew Fang has returned? So soon—did you run into some trouble?"
Fang Xuan merely looked at him with indifference, his face devoid of expression.
Lu Qingsong's acting was atrocious.
Deep within those seemingly gentle eyes, a cold, roiling hatred was practically overflowing.
He didn't intend to keep up the charade either.
He would test him; after all, it was better to strike first.
Without any nonsense or response to Lu Qingsong's concern, Fang Xuan held his black sword.
In the next instant—
"Buzz!"
The sword’s blade trembled slightly, and a cold, savage sword momentum erupted instantly.
In a flash, hundreds of streaks of sword qi shot toward Lu Qingsong from every conceivable angle.
Faced with this sudden attack, the smile on Lu Qingsong's face did not waver.
"Child's play."
He casually raised a hand.
Those hundreds of sharp streaks of sword qi were all shattered by spiritual power, annihilated in mid-air.
The spiritual power control and quality of a mid-stage Transformation Realm cultivator were on a completely different level from Fang Xuan's attack.
Lu Qingsong slowly retracted his hand and brushed off non-existent dust, a smile of absolute control reappearing on his face.
Only this time, the smile was laced with unmasked contempt.
"Martial Nephew Fang, don't be so hot-headed. These little tricks are utterly meaningless."
He spoke in a slow, measured manner.
"For me to crush you is no more difficult than crushing an ant."
Before his voice could fade, a sudden change occurred.
A blurred black shadow appeared silently directly above Lu Qingsong's head at some unknown moment.
Fang Xuan, holding his black sword, had already swung downward!
Yunchang · Heavy Strike!
"Clang—!!"
A thunderous roar, like two mountains colliding, suddenly echoed through the hall.
Everywhere the aftershock passed, the green jade stone slabs on the floor were uprooted and pulverized layer by layer.
The tall pillars were instantly covered in spiderweb-like cracks.
The protective spiritual qi Lu Qingsong had hastily condensed over his head was torn through by the strike as if it were made of paper.
He took the hit head-on, turning into a blurred streak of light as he was sent flying backward.
"Rumble!"
He smashed through three massive pillars that would take two men to span.
Then, he crashed violently into the hardened wall behind him, flying hundreds of meters deep before finally coming to a stop.
The entire magnificent Main Peak hall shook violently under this single blow, and several large cracks appeared in its structure.
Amidst the billowing dust, Lu Qingsong tore himself out from the wall's wreckage and landed back on the floor, stumbling for a step before finding his footing.
The hair crown atop his head was long gone, and his long hair fell loose, obscuring half of his face.
He looked up, his eyes peering through his disheveled hair, staring fixedly at Fang Xuan, who remained standing in his original spot with his sword held high.
His gaze was filled with unbelievable shock and fury.
Impossible! He is clearly only in the Golden Core Realm!
This spiritual power... is approaching the Transformation Realm?
Fang Xuan didn't speak; he simply flicked the non-existent dust from his blade.
"Good! Good! Good!"
Lu Qingsong spat out the word three times. With each word, his aura surged, and the killing intent in his eyes grew more intense.
"Fang Xuan! I admit, in hundreds of years, you are the most terrifying genius I have ever seen! Without exception!"
He suddenly raised his hand, his loose hair fluttering despite the lack of wind.
The true pressure of a mid-stage Transformation Realm expert erupted without reservation.
"But! What! Of! It!"
With every word he uttered, the vibrations in the hall intensified!
Terrifying spiritual power gathered frantically with him as the center.
As his voice fell, several array patterns instantly lit up across the floor and dome of the entire Main Peak hall.
As the light flowed, a powerful force of spatial lockdown spread out, completely isolating the interior of the hall from the outside world.
Almost the instant the array activated, Fang Xuan tried to crush a jade talisman for void-tearing displacement.
This was one of the escape routes he had prepared.
The jade talisman shattered upon command, but the expected spatial fluctuation merely rippled for a moment before vanishing without a trace, like a clay cow entering the sea.
As expected, it was useless.
A high-grade array specifically designed to lock down space rendered ordinary void-tearing methods completely ineffective.
Lu Qingsong's voice carried through the frantic spiritual pressure, laced with frigid killing intent.
"I have been in the mid-stage Transformation Realm for over two hundred years! How can a brat like you, who relied on luck to forcefully raise his cultivation, compare to my foundations and methods!"
Before his voice finished, he struck.
He no longer used any probing moves, going straight for a full-strength blow.
Within the hall, countless massive boulders condensed out of thin air, each weighing over ten thousand tons and carrying the terrifying spiritual power to level mountains.
Then, like falling meteors, they crashed toward Fang Xuan from all directions.
Simultaneously, a heavy gravitational field descended, attempting to bind Fang Xuan firmly in place to force him to take the rain of stones head-on.
Fang Xuan's eyes narrowed slightly.
A veteran Transformation Realm expert was indeed difficult to handle.
This combination of spiritual power manifestation and field suppression was quite powerful.
He didn't plan on leaving; he wanted to resolve things with Lu Qingsong right here.
Arrogant? Perhaps.
But since he had dared to draw his sword, he had no intention of backing down.
Facing an attack terrifying enough to crush an ordinary early-stage Transformation Realm cultivator into meat paste, Fang Xuan remained in place.
His face was devoid of expression—it was his natural state.
He simply raised the black sword in his hand, the tip pointing diagonally toward the ground.
The mountain wind blew into the crumbling hall, swirling the dust and fluttering his black hair, which had fallen loose after his hair ribbon snapped.
His disheveled hair obscured part of his profile.
"..."
His lips moved slightly, as if silently uttering two words.
Then, the sword moved.
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