With a sharp clang of metal, Yan Yuwei was sent flying, spraying a fine mist of blood in midair.

In that fleeting moment, Xu Yunfan finally seized the opening, grabbing the elder’s wrist and snapping it backward against the joint!

"CRACK!"

The sound of the breaking bone was drowned out by the battle cries that filled the tower.

The elder’s dark-purple face flushed an even deeper shade. Veins bulged on his broken wrist as his five fingers clamped onto Xu Yunfan’s pulse point like iron pincers, giving him no chance to rise and use his hammer.

’If he lets Xu Yunfan swing that hammer again, I won’t be leaving here alive.’

The two rolled across the banquet hall, locked in close combat. They knocked over a copper hot pot, spilling boiling oil that created winding snakes of fire across the floor.

The struggle for every inch was a brush with death; every strike was a lethal blow.

The back of Xu Yunfan’s head slammed into the green brick floor. The instant the bricks shattered, his abdominal muscles coiled like a spring, and he locked his legs around the elder’s neck to flip them both over.

As the elder was thrown toward a load-bearing pillar, he drew his Steel Whip with a backhand flourish. The tip caught on the wooden pillar, abruptly halting his momentum.

In the next instant, the Thunderfire Qilin Hammer came whistling toward him.

"Down you go!"

With muscles rippling like waves across his body, Xu Yunfan’s arms swelled as he brought the Heavy Hammer crashing down with the force of a thunderstorm.

The instant the face of the hammer was about to touch his skull, the elder suddenly opened his mouth and spewed a cloud of purplish-black mist.

’It’s poison!’

Xu Yunfan had to hold his breath and lean back, but the momentum of his hammer didn’t diminish in the slightest.

The hammerhead grazed the scalp of the elder, who had ducked just in time, and pulverized the floor tile beneath.

Amidst the flying debris, he spun and brought his heel down in an axe kick, chopping into the elder’s shoulder blade.

"CRACK!"

The sound of bone cracking was sickeningly clear.

The elder staggered back, crashing through a screen divider. As his back hit the wall, he kicked off it, using the momentum to thrust his one good left hand toward Xu Yunfan’s throat like a scorpion’s stinger.

Xu Yunfan neither dodged nor retreated. The trapezius muscle on the side of his neck bulged a full three inches, trapping the elder’s fingers between the hardened flesh!

"Caught you."

Xu Yunfan grinned, his blood-stained teeth flashing with the menacing white of a wolf’s fangs.

"Wait, we can talk about this! He was just an apprentice, not your own son! We can negotiate! This isn’t some mortal feud, there’s no need to fight to the death!"

The purple-robed elder’s words tumbled out in a rush. He saw Xu Yunfan raise the Heavy Hammer, the muscles on his arm bulging into hard knots as thin tendrils of blood appeared within the fibers.

What horrified him most was the realization that dawned on him: ’This man isn’t a Martial Master at Second Level Perfection. He’s clearly achieved Third Level Perfection!’

’How many people in the entire world could do that!?’

"You’ve reached Third Level Perfection! The Incense and Candle Sect has a path to divine revelation that can help you..."

As the purple-robed elder spoke, Xu Yunfan was distracted. ’I clenched my jaw too hard,’ he thought. ’My gums are bleeding a little. Can’t be so reckless next time.’

While lost in thought, he brought the hammer crashing down.

The instant the elder’s skull caved in, a mist of blood erupted from his seven orifices, splattering against the wall in the shape of a lotus blossom.

After a long moment, Xu Yunfan knelt on one knee, panting like an ox, his Heavy Hammer still pressed firmly against the corpse.

Xu Yunfan shook the hammerhead, flinging off the bits of blood and flesh.

Just then, a noise came from a pile of rubble. With a backhanded flick, he threw a shard of a Broken Blade, pinning the last man in black—who had been playing dead—to a pillar.

Yan Yuwei limped over, using her greatsword as a crutch. After she dispelled her Melting Gold and Forging Iron technique, the bleeding wounds covering her body were a shocking sight. They hadn’t been inflicted by the Incense and Candle Sect grunts; the purple-robed elder’s last blow had nearly run her straight through. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

If not for the Horizontal Training effect of her Melting Gold and Forging Iron technique, combined with her Geng Metal Body Refining, she would have died here.

She was confident in her own ability to engage in a Tier Jumping Battle against someone from the Outer Three Harmonies and escape unscathed. But to see someone fight an opponent two entire Realms higher without giving ground—and even gain the upper hand at one point—was beyond anything she could have imagined.

’Faced with a genius of Xu Yunfan’s monstrous caliber, it’s almost enough to shatter my Martial Arts Heart Realm.’

’Are the disciples sent out by the world’s top Sects all like him? Do they all perform Tier Jumping Battles as easily as breathing?’

’But it wasn’t easy at all.’

To kill the purple-robed elder, Xu Yunfan had used every trick up his sleeve, holding back only his Gilded Mace and Linn Character State. When the elder had pulled him into close quarters, his opponent’s highly penetrating Spiral Force had relentlessly bored into his body.

Fists, feet, palms, claws—every touch sent significant tremors through his insides.

Even now, his Blood Qi was in disarray and would need time to settle.

Still, it was proof enough of just how powerful Third Level Perfection truly was—a state the ancient texts called Transcendence.

She glanced at the elder’s head, embedded in the floor tiles, then looked up at the ruins of Cui Bo Tower.

"The chefs at Cui Bo Tower are going to be in tears..."

She suddenly lifted her foot and stomped down hard on the purple-robed elder’s chest.

CLANG!

"Hiss!"

Yan Yuwei staggered back a step, her face flushing red. She hadn’t expected the purple-robed elder’s body to be so incredibly tough.

A kestrel suddenly swooped past the window. Xu Yunfan narrowed his eyes, tracking the dark shape until it vanished from sight in a blink.

The autumn wind gusted through the broken window, carrying the stench of burning. In the distance, the silhouette of Cui Bo City looked somber in the twilight.

He abruptly got to his feet. As he started to walk out, Heavy Hammer in hand, he suddenly stopped short.

From the ruined eaves of Cui Bo Tower, the last fragment of a glazed tile fell into the raging inferno below.

"What’s wrong, Senior Brother Xu?"

Seeing Xu Yunfan standing motionless, Yan Yuwei felt a prickle of unease. She instinctively tightened her grip on her greatsword and straightened her posture.

"Be careful. We have company."

Xu Yunfan stepped out of the ruins, dragging his Thunderfire Qilin Hammer behind him. The hammerhead plowed a three-inch-deep furrow in the flagstone street.

His left arm hung limply at his side, sore from overexertion. He had fought the purple-robed elder with savage intensity, wanting to test his own limits.

He needed time to recover.

He had just reached the remains of Cui Bo Tower’s main gate, where the manager was shouting orders to rescue the buried Celestial Craft Cave disciples, when a massive, blood-red banner rose at the far end of the street.

Three hundred Incense Followers advanced in formation, their iron boots thundering. Their Fine Steel Heavy Shields struck the ground, sending up sparks.

Ten-foot Hook and Scythe Spears protruded from the gaps in the shield wall. The spearheads, coated in a ghastly blue snake venom, cast a grim and ghostly pall over the entire street.

In addition to the soldiers, a crowd of commoners in assorted clothing, their faces filled with pious devotion, followed closely behind and began to surround them.

"CLIP, CLOP, CLIP, CLOP..."

A crimson Jiao Horse trotted forward, its hooves shattering the flagstones.

The figure on its back was clad in Bright Armor, and two points of scarlet light gleamed from the slit in his Face Armor.

As he slowly raised the Bright King Spear, an inch-long, bloody glow condensed at its tip. This was Blood Qi projecting from the body, gathering a mist around itself—the mark of a Blood Exchange Realm master!

’A Treasure Artifact!’

Xu Yunfan’s pupils contracted as he stared at the Long Spear.

’For a spear tip to emit such a steady, unfading aura... only a Blood Exchange Realm expert who has merged with their Treasure Artifact can do that.’

Someone in the Blood Exchange Realm was known as a renowned master in the Mortal World, capable of shaking an entire province. Anywhere they went, they were a formidable power that could not be ignored.

"Young Hero Xu, did you know that the man you just killed was the stupidest of my sect’s thirty-six Patrol Envoys?"

The voice from beneath the Face Armor sounded like scraping metal. "However, I suppose I should thank you. You’ve saved me the trouble of punishing him according to sect rules."