Lu Mingxuan laughed maniacally, his body wreathed in blood-baleful spiritual energy that flickered like burning flames.
With a grasp at the empty air, a hideous, blood-red demon-head great saber appeared in his hand.
Blood-colored baleful energy swirled around the blade like restless vengeful spirits.
"Fang Xuan! Die!"
He took a step forward, shattering the green bricks beneath him. Like a crimson meteor, he charged ferociously toward Fang Xuan.
He raised the blood saber high over his head, and a crimson saber qi, nearly ten feet long, slashed down toward Fang Xuan's head!
This strike carried the force of a thunderclap. It was clearly Lu Mingxuan’s full-strength attack, intended to kill Fang Xuan instantly.
.......
"Clang!"
A thunderous boom echoed, sounding as if two mountains had collided.
A violent shockwave erupted from the center of the clash, pulverizing the remaining decorative rocks and withered trees nearby and plowing deep trenches into the ground.
The expected scene of the black sword breaking and Fang Xuan being split in half did not occur.
The moment that terrifying crimson saber qi touched the dark sword blade, it was as if it had struck an immovable divine iron barrier. It shattered with a roar, finally dispersing into a mist of blood-colored light.
Lu Mingxuan himself was sent flying back by the recoil force.
"Bang! Crash!"
He slammed hard into a thick palace wall a hundred meters away, creating a massive crater in the masonry as web-like cracks spread across the surface.
He remained embedded in the wall, covered in dust and grime, his head ringing.
He was completely dazed.
That full-strength strike had integrated the blood and spiritual energy he had plundered from numerous fellow disciples. He was confident it could force even a golden core realm cultivator to retreat... and yet, the opponent had simply blocked it with an unsheathed broken sword and sent him flying?
"How can it be this hard?!"
.......
Lu Mingxuan shook his head, rattling the brick dust from his hair as his spiritual energy surged wildly to suppress his roiling blood.
He let out a roar and beckoned with his hand, calling the thrown blood saber back into his grasp.
A ruthless glint flashed in his eyes. This time, he held nothing back. His blood-colored spiritual energy burned to the absolute limit as he charged once more to hack at Fang Xuan.
Fang Xuan did not dodge; he simply took a step forward.
A thread of sword qi arrived first, despite being launched second.
Lu Mingxuan felt his saber strike empty air. Worse, a sharp surge of energy traveled up the blade in a counter-attack, instantly carving several bloody gashes into his arm.
Too fast! Too precise!
Warning bells blared in his mind as he retreated, trying to put distance between them to regroup.
But Fang Xuan’s sword was faster.
The black sword followed him like a shadow, clinging to him relentlessly.
The sword moves were no longer limited to the basic Qingyun Sword Scripture; they became fluid and unpredictable.
It was the Fang family’s direct inheritance, the Canglan Sword Scripture, merged with the cold sword momentum he had comprehended himself.
Lu Mingxuan could only wave his blood saber frantically in a desperate attempt to block.
But the more he fought, the more his heart sank into despair.
Fang Xuan’s spiritual energy clearly seemed to be only at the middle-stage Void Core, yet the sheer volume of his energy far exceeded the massive amount Lu Mingxuan had plundered.
Every sword strike was as heavy as a mountain, shaking his internal organs and leaving his tiger’s mouth bloody and mangled!
"Ah! Get away from me!"
Driven to a dead end, Lu Mingxuan burned his origin blood essence at any cost to detonate his plundered spiritual energy all at once, finally forcing Fang Xuan back a few steps.
He gasped for breath in that brief instant, staring at his opponent with venomous eyes. He would have to use a life-risking restriction art!
But at that moment, several more streaks of peak sword intent arrived.
He couldn't dodge in time. A streak of sword intent pierced through his left shoulder, leaving a bloody hole that went straight through to the other side.
"Ugh!" Lu Mingxuan grunted. Half of his body went numb instantly, and his movements faltered again.
Fang Xuan seized the opportunity, and the sword momentum gathered on his black sword reached its zenith.
He suddenly remembered that he seemed to have a heaven-grade sword move he had practiced back at the Fang family.
Spiritual energy as vast as the sea poured into the blade. The black sword slashed down, silent and weightless.
But in Lu Mingxuan’s eyes, it looked as if a boundless, raging tide carrying the weight of ten thousand thunderclaps had transformed into a world-cleaving blade, crushing down upon him.
Between heaven and earth, there was only this single sword.
"Ah!"
He used the last of his strength to hold the blood saber horizontally over his head.
Crack!
The blood saber snapped instantly.
The sword momentum did not stop. It sliced through his body, through the palace wall behind him, and through the vast ruins of the halls further back.
A massive, bottomless gorge appeared instantly on the courtyard floor.
It spread forward, splitting the entire rear courtyard of the Xuanli Hall in two!
The dust slowly settled.
Lu Mingxuan had been reduced to ash.
Fang Xuan slowly lowered his sword and returned it to its scabbard.
He let out a long breath, feeling a surge of spiritual energy within him.
Late-stage Void Core. It was done.
He turned to look at Ning Xian.
Ning Xian was also looking at him, her cool eyes reflecting an emotion that flashed and vanished too quickly to catch.
She lowered her hand, and the faint blue sword qi at her fingertips quietly dissipated.
In that moment just now, Fang Xuan had erupted with full power, and the characteristics of the Fang family’s sword techniques were fully exposed.
With Ning Xian’s insight and experience, she naturally recognized it at a glance.
As she had suspected before, he was... a member of the Fang family.
And judging by the purity of his sword technique, it was not something a member of a collateral branch could ever practice.
But if he was from the direct lineage, why would he come to the Qingyun Sect and be so... close to a useless person like her?
Was he forced out by internal strife within the Fang family?
Or was he... the illegitimate child of some elder with an awkward status? A child whose talent was high but was unwanted, even secretly abandoned, leading him to wander here...
Numerous guesses flashed through Ning Xian’s mind.
She looked at Fang Xuan’s handsome profile, which still carried a hint of youthful energy, and remembered him saying he was "punished by being sent to the kitchen for being lazy with his lessons as a child."
One's spirit bones would not lie. He was clearly only seventeen. With such incredible talent, he should have been nurtured with every resource in a place like the Fang family.
Instead, he had ended up here, having to go through all this...
She felt a pang of pity for him.
.......
However, if Fang Xuan could hear Ning Xian’s thoughts at this moment, he would probably let out a long sigh to the heavens.
He had simply run away from home. It had nothing to do with being an illegitimate child or being abandoned.
He was the one who secretly smashed his own soul lamp, he was the one who ran away under the cover of darkness, and he was the one who had made off with all the good treasures.
"Senior Sister, are you alright?" Fang Xuan retracted his spiritual energy and walked over to Ning Xian’s side to ask.
Ning Xian pulled herself back from her thoughts and shook her head gently. "I am fine."
But her gaze remained fixed on the hand Fang Xuan had used to sheath his sword, and on the terrifying sword scar on the ground.
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