Song Qingshu had self-destructed his dantian, the Yecheng Supervision Hall had been completely wiped out, and the Little Grand-Uncle was at the end of his strength...
Ruan Zhong, witnessing all of this, reached the peak of his fury.
Trapped in this desperate situation with no way out, and having been schemed against to such a degree, there was no way to turn the tide.
The moment a spear pierced through Xu Xian's chest, leaving his survival uncertain, the Nascent Soul stage man went mad.
In a state of total frenzy, he used his own body to meet Min Zhan's mountain-cleaver head-on. Enduring the searing pain, he gripped the blade tightly, channeling all his spiritual power to restrain his opponent in this suicidal fashion.
He burned his flesh.
He shattered his own Nascent Soul.
He was going to self-destruct.
Just as Song Qingshu had done...
Min Zhan's hand, which held the saber, could not break free. He knew exactly what Ruan Zhong intended to do, but he was not unprepared.
It was as if he had long anticipated that Ruan Zhong would be driven to this point.
Not only was there no hint of panic, but his eyes were filled with mockery.
"Struggling at death's door? Do you disciples of the Wendao Sect know how to do anything other than self-destruct? You want to sacrifice your life for righteousness? I won't give you the satisfaction. Go to your next life filled with resentment and humiliation..."
He hooked his left index finger, and a broken blade whistled through the battlefield into his palm. Without a moment's hesitation, Min Zhan first dispersed the true essence in his own arm.
Then, he decisively brought the blade down, severing his own right arm at the shoulder.
Cutting off his own limb, he didn't even flinch.
Once freed, he endured the agonizing pain, tossed the broken blade aside, and formed a seal with his remaining hand. Condensing a sigil, he slammed a palm onto Ruan Zhong's crown.
"Seal!"
A surge of spiritual energy hammered into Ruan Zhong's body. His spirit was suppressed, his Nascent Soul sealed, and his consciousness disrupted. The intent to self-destruct was forcibly extinguished.
Ruan Zhong bled from his eyes, nose, and mouth as his cultivation base dissipated entirely.
"Damn you!" Min Zhan hissed venomously. "The one who dies is you."
Ruan Zhong let out a pained wail.
In the final moment of his life, unable to detonate his Nascent Soul, he chose another extreme method.
Using his last shred of consciousness, he forced the spiritual energy within him to reverse its flow, literally causing his body to burst from the internal pressure.
It was like a cultivator suffering a sudden qi deviation.
Except this wasn't accidental.
He had done it on purpose.
As a disciple of the Zhujian Peak, he was renowned for his physical toughness. While the power released by bursting his body in this manner was far less than a true self-destruction, it was still enough to catch Min Zhan completely off guard.
Boom!
Min Zhan couldn't retreat in time and was caught in the shockwave. He was sent flying back hundreds of meters through the air before he could barely steady himself.
The massive release of energy left a crater hundreds of meters wide and several yards deep in the dark forest.
Soil, stones, and wood splinters flew everywhere, mixed with the blood and mangled remains of a Nascent Soul expert.
The blast wave swept across the surroundings, knocking over the soldiers and plunging the area into temporary chaos.
"Cough, cough!"
"Pah!"
After landing, Min Zhan waved away the dust before him and cursed with lingering fear, "That lunatic... even in death, he had to find a way to disgust me."
Bursting one's flesh was naturally nowhere near as powerful as a true self-destruction.
Even if Min Zhan hadn't dodged, he would have been fine.
In the end, he had only suffered some superficial wounds, though his armor was splattered with bits of gore, which was revolting.
It wasn't physical nausea, but a psychological blow.
Once the dust settled, the soldiers began to crawl back to their feet. The surviving horses struggled up and bolted toward the edge of the forest without looking back.
The wilderness grew much quieter, save for the occasional scattered cursing, the receding sound of hooves, and the faint crying of a few infants.
As for the rest, it was unknown if they were too tired to cry, had fainted from terror, or were already dead...
Naturally, no one cared.
In the world between heaven and earth, only the distant sound of the great snake battering the formation remained constant.
Min Zhan watched as two swords emerged from the smoke and dust one after the other. They shot into the clouds, turning into streaks of light as they sped toward the north...
One was Zhuhun.
The other was Wait.
The masters were dead, and the swords were returning. The swords' departure confirmed the masters' demise.
This meant Ruan Zhong and that youth were truly dead.
Still uneasy, Min Zhan used his Nascent Soul divine sense to sweep the area, confirming it repeatedly. Only when he was certain there was no trace of their aura did he allow a satisfied smile to spread across his face.
He didn't care about the lost arm in the slightest.
A severed limb could be regrown, but the dead could not return to life. All things considered, this wasn't a loss...
Moreover, this missing arm would serve as proof that he had given his all.
He considered it a minor, unplanned decoration to the plan.
However, he didn't see Xu Xian's corpse.
Then again, how many of the eight-person party from the Wendao Sect had bodies that could be recovered? They were likely all dismembered and scattered.
In all probability, after being skewered by his subordinate's spear, the boy had been disintegrated by the blast from Ruan Zhong's body.
He could only be described as unlucky.
Min Zhan had a deep impression of that youth.
He had witnessed everything. Despite being only at the foundation establishment stage, the kid was decisive in killing, possessed a powerful body, and his sword techniques were exceptionally overbearing. In particular, the sword that had just flown back was different from the others.
That sword had fought through a night of bloody battle, yet it had departed unscathed and as pristine as new...
That was proof enough of its extraordinary nature. It was likely a true immortal sword.
They called him Little Grand-Uncle. According to his intelligence, the Little Grand-Uncle of the Wendao Sect was Xu Xian, the owner of a sword spirit root who had gained enlightenment at the sword stele five years ago.
He believed the boy who just died must be him. There was no doubt.
In the dark, lightless underworld of Fanzhou, the name Xu Xian had long appeared on bounty lists.
Demons, beasts, and spirits—all three races—and even the Twelve Immortal Demon Caves sought his head.
The shadows walking the mortal world wanted nothing more than to tear him apart and nip him in the bud.
If they knew he had drawn an immortal sword, even the Three Sects might have had second thoughts.
It was just that the world rarely saw these things happening in the shadows.
Under these heavens, there were plenty of people who wanted to see the Wendao Sect become a laughingstock, and countless others who wished to witness its fall from grace.
Some dared to say it, while others did not.
Min Zhan was one of them, and also the latter.
Now, by a twist of fate, he had actually killed the boy in Yecheng.
He could already imagine how much the Wendao Sect would suffer. The fall of a sect's prodigy was often a blow to the sect's very fortune.
And the death of a peerless beast was a fatal strike to any sect. It could very well cause them to topple from their pedestal.
Such things were hard to quantify or explain.
But it didn't matter. As long as the Wendao Sect was suffering, he was happy.
Furthermore, having killed the Little Grand-Uncle of the Wendao Sect, even if this mission was botched or if his superiors found out he had backstabbed the Blood Demon Cave, this achievement would be enough to offset his faults.
He could finally report back; these three years of effort hadn't been in vain.
But before that, he had to resolve one last problem.
Min Zhan turned his murderous gaze toward the direction of the booming sounds in the night, staring at the crumbling formation wall and the rampaging great snake.
"Only you are left!"
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