Countless streaks of powerful dark-purple lightning transformed into chains that wound around the man and bound him completely.

The man struggled with everything he had. The chains shattered again and again, only to reappear just as fast, layer upon layer. Li Guanqi only needed to trap him for an instant.

“Die!”

Li Guanqi swung fiercely. The lightning sword cracked under the force, fissures spreading across the blade, and a burst of blood mist erupted from his taut arm. He turned even paler.

The man’s mask started to crack, his eyes wide with sheer terror. No matter how desperately he struggled against the lightning chains, it was futile.

A vicious light blazed in his eyes as he poured every last shred of his frenzied demonic qi into his blade. “I’ll drag you down to the grave with me!”

Li Guanqi’s features contorted in agony as terrifying demonic qi flooded into him. His flesh blackened around the waist, the demonic qi devouring his meridians rapidly.

A sword light fell, and the lightning sword shattered in Li Guanqi’s grip. Lightning erupted outward with the man at its epicenter, and as that terrifying force spread outward, the lightning god phantom burst apart. The shockwave wiped out nearly every trace of demonic qi in the space.

The last remaining enemy, who had meant to seize the moment to strike Li Guanqi down, was blasted back thousands of zhang.

Heaven and earth shuddered, the blood formation underfoot lurching and swaying without stop, blood radiance flickering erratically like a flame battered by wind.

Caught too close to Li Guanqi, the last enemy had also absorbed much of the explosion’s shockwave. Half his body had been blasted apart, and the demonic qi around him thinned. The blood-red mask had shattered at the edges, exposing one eye and half a cheek. Blood pooled in his eye socket, the exposed eye riddled with red specks, the terror in its depths beyond words.

“Dead... another one dead...”

Three half-step Combined Body Realm cultivators had come to encircle a single late Illusory Refinement Realm cultivator inside a grand formation, and they had lost two lives, one after another. It was an outcome none of them had foreseen before setting out.

As the shockwave from the explosion gradually faded, the sound of water drops broke the stillness.

In the distorted void, a figure stood suspended in the air, his waist a mess of rotting, festering flesh. Li Guanqi’s hair hung loose and disheveled, his head lowered slightly. Fresh blood welled up from his mouth, more than he could swallow back down. His eyes were slightly glazed; inside, he was a wreck.

In his final moments, the man had poured every last ounce of his strength into flooding Li Guanqi’s body with demonic qi, and the resulting explosion nearly tore him in half. Had Li Guanqi not used his full strength to suppress that force, he would likely have died right then and there.

He coughed, groaning through gritted teeth. Demonic qi surged through him with purpose, racing toward his dantian to devour his primordial soul. Li Guanqi mobilized what little vital force he had left and fought back with all he could muster. At the same time, he raised his hand, condensed a dagger, and started cutting his own flesh.

He looked up at the sole remaining figure in the distance, his palms slick with sweat. If the enemy attacked now, he wouldn’t get a chance to fight back—he could only wait to die.

All he could do was bluff. He laughed mockingly. “Too afraid to make a move?”

The eyes beneath the mask flickered faintly. The man shifted his feet, gradually closing in on Li Guanqi.

Li Guanqi’s heart leaped into his throat. He crushed spirit stones in secret and frantically absorbed the spirit qi within. But his meridians were too badly damaged—even performing the most basic technique was beyond him. He couldn’t complete a single full circulation of the macrocosmic orbit, leaving the dense spirit qi from the stones useless.

His vital force had dropped to less than twenty percent. If the enemy struck now, his odds of survival were slim.

The sword coffin trembled, the Red Lotus Sword slamming against it desperately, trying to get out.

Li Guanqi’s eyes hardened with resolve. Without further hesitation, he drew the Red Lotus Sword, flipped his wrist, and carved away every last piece of rotting flesh around his waist with a single slash. The stroke stripped nearly all the flesh from his entire left side at the waist, and the pain wrung a muffled grunt from him, cold sweat streaming down his forehead.

The Red Lotus Sword shook and achieved the Heaven-Opening state in what felt like an instant.

Crack!

A single red lotus petal fell. Li Guanqi’s heart ached deeply, but the Red Lotus Sword still radiated an imposing, razor-sharp aura. The sword tip’s power was absolute, and nothing could withstand it.

All of a sudden, the man's body surged with dense, suffocating demonic qi, blotting out the entire sky. The array’s light churned beneath the man’s feet. The inexplicable suppressive force grew stronger by several degrees, and Li Guanqi’s blood drained faster still.

Li Guanqi’s heart sank heavily. His current position was that of a cornered beast.

The enemy had no reason to hurry. He only had to wait quietly while the formation wore Li Guanqi down bit by bit. After all, he could no longer absorb spirit qi, and his vital force was nearly exhausted. With injuries this severe, more than half of Li Guanqi’s blood essence had already drained away, and even his thoughts were beginning to fog over. His powerful divine consciousness was of no help. Letting demonic qi taint it would only worsen his injuries.

Li Guanqi’s knuckles whitened on the sword grip, his eyes narrowing. He had never faced a crisis like this.

I might really die this time...

Beneath the pitch-black demonic qi, there was no sound, nothing to see. Even the blood formation below had vanished, as though a black sphere had wrapped Li Guanqi inside.

Li Guanqi spread his divine consciousness a hundred zhang in every direction and still found no trace of the enemy’s aura.

Suddenly, countless demonic-qi-laden sword lights erupted from every direction.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

Li Guanqi gathered his remaining vital force, his body a blur as he dodged, relying on raw strength alone to conserve what little vital force remained. He dared not strike back. The moment he did, the enemy would know how little he had left.

He wasn’t the only one wounded; so was the enemy. The last man knew Li Guanqi was gravely injured and was probing in turn.

Li Guanqi’s eyes flickered. At his current strength, even if he burned through every last drop of vital force, unleashing those two sword techniques... still shouldn’t be enough to kill the last man.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

The sword lights thickened, becoming so dense that dodging them all was no longer possible. With no other choice, Li Guanqi raised his own sword to defend himself.

Clang! Clang! Clatter!

Boom! Boom!

Explosions rang out one after another, and Li Guanqi could do nothing but endure each burst of stray demonic qi head-on. The Red Lotus Sword was nearing its limit as well. Li Guanqi sensed that one more sword light would shatter it completely.

Whoosh!

Li Guanqi reversed his grip and sheathed the sword as a devastating streak of sword light bore down on him.

At the same time, a large white radish came tumbling up just outside the domain, flustered and breathless. Peng Luo now had dozens of green leaves atop his head, making him far easier on the eyes than before.

Peng Luo took in the scene for a moment before doubling over, hands on his knees, gasping for air. “It’s... it’s right here!”

He turned and found both Meng Jiangchu and Gu Yong staring at him in surprise.

Peng Luo had already shoved one hand into the domain barrier when he looked back at the two of them. “What are you looking at?”