A single thought disrupts the mind; a single sword-light pierces the cold.
In the night, a chill swept through, suddenly freezing everything for miles. A single campfire was instantly extinguished.
The sky turned dark as the earth grew dim. Sword intent raged. A middle-stage seventh stage demonic cultivator died instantly, unable to even leave behind a complete corpse.
The remaining six people snapped back to their senses and scrambled to respond.
Some circulated their qi for defense.
Some struck out decisively.
Others, sensing the dire situation, retreated behind the group.
Black.
It was a darkness where one could not see their own hand in front of their face.
Yet, streaks of blood-light surged, reflecting off the frost on the ground and illuminating the scattered, colorful clothes.
The little book spirit hovered high in the air, invisible to all. Ignoring the darkness, she synchronized the entire battlefield into Xu Xian's eyes.
Xu Xian saw two sixth stage demonic cultivators lunging toward him, one wielding a blade and the other waving a banner.
He remained completely unmoved.
His gaze locked directly onto the other seventh stage demonic cultivator in the field, and he charged instantly.
He moved like a ghost through the night, suddenly accelerating.
The two attackers could not react in time, their strikes hitting nothing but air.
The thick layer of ice was torn to shreds, and jagged shards of ice splattered everywhere.
"So fast..."
"Damn it..."
Glimpsing the passing cold light, one demonic cultivator shouted at the top of his lungs, "Branch Master, watch out!"
The burly seventh stage demonic cultivator narrowed his eyes and summoned a blood-colored long spear. Seeing the dark shadow rushing toward him, he didn't dodge. Instead, he took the initiative to meet the attack, shouting in a low voice:
"You're looking for death!"
Although everything had happened too fast, catching them off guard—and they still hadn't even figured out who was attacking—the demonic cultivator was confident.
Xu Xian, having chosen to act, was no longer intentionally concealing his aura or cultivation.
The seventh stage demonic cultivator could tell at a glance that Xu Xian was only a soul transformation stage cultivator.
And he was a genuine middle-stage body integration cultivator.
Seventh stage against sixth stage. Why would he avoid the clash?
His spear shot out like a rainbow, its power piercing the sky. His seventh stage cultivation erupted with full force, appearing unstoppable.
Seeing this, Xu Xian felt a surge of joy.
He didn't run?
He actually dared to charge forward?
One could only say his courage was commendable. It saved Xu Xian the trouble of a chase.
A trace of Extreme Cold Sword Intent moved first, followed by an instant Sword Qi Transforms Into Lotuses.
The moment the ice lotus bloomed, it shielded him within.
The seventh stage demonic cultivator's full-strength spear thrust arrived with a roar and smoke, but it caused no damage.
The ice lotus remained motionless, with only a few shards of ice falling away. His spear even became stuck within the ice lotus, firmly imprisoned.
The seventh stage demonic cultivator tried to pull the spear back for another attack but couldn't budge it. In a panic, the spear tip erupted with blood-colored karmic fire, attempting to melt the ice.
Fire and ice countered each other.
The raging flames burned through the ice lotus in the blink of an eye.
The ice flowers boiled, and a dense white mist surged.
However, before he could make another move, Xu Xian had already emerged from the mist and fire, sword in hand. He immediately unleashed the seventh style of the Green Lotus Sword Song, the strongest sword move in his arsenal.
"The Green Lotus Withers, Sorrows of Autumn."
The demonic cultivator was horrified, his eyes filled with terror as he felt the gushing sword intent descending from the sky like a falling waterfall.
He knew clearly in his heart.
It was over.
He was finished.
He had been too careless.
He tried to struggle and resist while calling for help. "Save me!"
But late was late.
The sword intent fell as promised. The green-hued sword intent cleaved through the sky full of Yecheng fire and kicked up thousands of grains of yellow sand.
It swallowed him instantly. Within a radius of several hundred meters, the sword intent affected everything.
"Ah!"
A miserable scream rang out, like the final cry of a summer cicada.
He died.
Just like that.
The remaining five people were now completely terrified. A branch master and a deputy branch master—one middle-stage seventh stage and one early-stage seventh stage—had fallen one after another in less than a few dozen breaths.
And they had died without even leaving a corpse, only their spirit artifacts falling to the ground.
Yet, they hadn't even seen the opponent's face.
This was simply ridiculous!
Without the slightest hesitation, they scattered to flee.
Even the two demonic cultivators who had just had the courage to attack Xu Xian turned and ran.
"Retreat..."
That shadow in the night killed seventh stage cultivators like slaughtering pigs and dogs. To him, they—mere sixth stage cultivators—were no different from ants that could be crushed at will.
They didn't care about the mission anymore, nor did they have the courage to think of revenge.
The wind is tight! Scatter!
Xu Xian had already anticipated they would run. The moment the sword intent from the seventh style hadn't fully dissipated, he waved his left hand. From beneath his sleeve, eight yellow paper talismans stained with his essence blood flew out.
Like eight streaks of fireflies, they were as fast as lightning, flying toward eight different directions.
"Formation, rise..."
"Seal!"
An area of ten miles was instantly enveloped by a Heaven-Sealing Trapping Formation.
One breath for the formation to rise.
One moment for the formation to close.
The five people hit the wall almost simultaneously, blocked by the invisible formation wall before them.
They didn't sit waiting for death. Instead, they launched attacks at the formation wall, attempting to break it with brute force.
However...
The Heaven-Sealing Trapping Formation was incredibly sturdy.
Never mind being inside; even if one were outside, breaking this formation was not something that could be done in a short time.
Moreover, they were only in the same stage as Xu Xian, the one who laid the formation.
Technique after technique slammed into the formation wall.
In this corner of the dark desert, the air was filled with deafening booms.
"Ahhh, damn it! Break for me!" a female cultivator screamed.
Xu Xian, sword in hand, used the sound of the explosions, the whistling wind, and the raging sword intent to mask his approach as he charged in for the kill.
First, with a single sword strike, he stealthily cut down the last female cultivator.
In the next second, using a teleportation divine ability, he appeared behind another person.
While that person was attacking the formation wall, Xu Xian raised his sword and brought it down. Amidst the man's despair and fear, he was sliced cleanly in two.
It was like butchering a pig.
One...
Another...
And another...
Xu Xian moved quickly and had no intention of holding back. Like the Reaper claiming souls, every strike of his sword took a life.
Of the original seven, only the scrawny, wretched-looking man remained.
He watched with his own eyes as his colleagues died one by one in such a short time.
Even as a demonic cultivator, fear now occupied the majority of his mind.
However, he was a sixth stage demonic cultivator after all. Even in the Central Plains or the Wendao Sword Sect, he would be considered a rare existence.
Though he was in a state of total panic, he wasn't so scared that he wet himself or couldn't move.
Knowing that escape was hopeless, he stopped trying to break the formation. Nor did he think of resisting head-on.
Instead, he took the opportunity to dash back to the original spot. He reached into the sand and yanked out the demon girl who had been buried by the shifting yellow sands.
He grabbed her by the neck with one hand, lifting her up to use as a shield.
In his other hand, he brandished a sharp broken blade, pressing it against the area of her back corresponding to her dantian.
He stared fixedly at the dark, sand-swept night before him, incredibly alert.
"Don't come any closer, or I'll kill her!"
The demon girl who called herself a goddess was completely dazed.
With her cultivation sealed, she didn't even know what had just happened.
At the very beginning, she had been knocked unconscious by a stray blast of sword qi.
Now, she had been woken up by someone clutching her throat. Her face was flushed red as she struggled desperately, yet she couldn't move an inch.
"Let... go... of... me..."
She spoke in distorted, broken gasps.
The world was not in absolute darkness. Under the reflection of the golden formation light, there was a faint, weak glow.
The wind was still very strong, blowing the yellow sand about.
Vision was obstructed and blurry.
Fortunately, as a cultivator, he could still make out some details.
Hearing footsteps approaching step by step, the wretched demonic cultivator instinctively backed away.
His heart was in his throat, and his pupils constricted in frantic panic.
"I told you not to come closer! Did you hear me?"
"Don't think I won't actually kill her!"
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