Chapter 236: Chapter 236: A Sword Rises, the 9 Peaks Resound

The hexagonal crystal format of the Dragon Scale Armor’s Heart Protection Mirror flickered wildly. All one thousand seven hundred and twenty inverted scales flipped outward simultaneously, yet they still couldn’t block the supersonic thrust.

SQUELCH!

The sword’s tip sank three inches into his flesh before getting stuck on a rib. The woman’s gaze shifted, her eyes flicking up to Xu Yunfan’s face.

Xu Yunfan’s expression was devoid of joy or sorrow. He suddenly exerted all his strength, twisting at the waist and letting the blade gouge a bloody hole in his side. His Heavy Mace, carrying the momentum of mutual destruction, smashed down toward the crown of the woman’s head.

He was using Ten Thousand Mountains Pay Homage to the Sect, the final of the eighteen forms of the Thousand-Pound Mountain-Shaking Hammer Technique. It was a move that abandoned all defense—a sacrificial, unstoppable strike with his Heavy Mace.

The pressure from the mace was so great it liquefied the very air!

The woman’s eyes finally showed a flicker of surprise.

She abandoned her sword and leaned back, her slender waist bending at an astonishing angle. The tips of her feet tapped the body of the mace nine times in quick succession.

With each tap, a burst of ice crystals exploded against his Dragon Scale Armor. Her final kick landed squarely on Xu Yunfan’s throat.

CRACK!

Four of the crescent scales on his gorget shattered.

Xu Yunfan shot backward like a cannonball, crashing through three Sword Peaks before finally stopping.

Before the dust could settle, he was already coiled to spring again, his eyes burning red from the Red Flood Dragon Mountain Coiling Strength and locked dead on his foe.

"Not bad."

The woman’s icy voice suddenly echoed in his ear.

Xu Yunfan suddenly felt his Heavy Mace become impossibly heavy. Somehow, thousands of Frost Blades had condensed into icy chains, binding the weapon!

Even the molten-rock patterns that constantly pulsed along the mace’s body were frozen solid.

He decisively abandoned the mace, pushed his Profound Steel Hundred-Forged Body to its absolute limit, and sent his fists, like crimson meteors, crashing toward the woman’s heart.

The instant his fists touched her plain clothes, the moonlight suddenly flared.

All nine Sword Peaks erupted with a heaven-shaking hum, as if the boundless starlight itself was condensing into a three-foot blade of light at the woman’s fingertips.

Xu Yunfan saw his own reflection shatter on the blade’s surface. It moved at a speed beyond any Martial Artist’s comprehension—it was as if the moonlight itself were wielding the sword!

"Mace, to me!!"

The Red Fire Dragon-Swallowing Mace sensed its master’s crisis and shot up from below his feet in an instant.

But it was all too late.

The blade of light slid gently across Xu Yunfan’s neck.

The Dragon Scale Armor let out a dying hum as all one thousand seven hundred and twenty of its inverted scales vaporized in the moonlight.

His Profound Steel Hundred-Forged Body melted like wax in a blazing sun, and the column of Blood Qi smoke condensed by his Red Flood Dragon Mountain Coiling Strength was sliced in two by the Sword Qi.

In the last moments of his vision, Xu Yunfan saw his own headless body still throwing a punch.

The force of the punch tore a bloody line across the woman’s cheek, revealing an aloof, beautiful face similar to the one on the Extreme Dao Vest.

The moonlight reflected on the Cold Pond was suddenly dyed blood-red.

The instant the Sword Qi touched his skin, the one thousand seven hundred and twenty inverted scales of his Dragon Scale Armor erupted with a crimson glow.

The Jiao Dragon Essence Blood, sealed within by Divine Weapon Ridge’s greatest Swordsmith, burned frantically, trying to resist a strike that transcended the physical realm.

The trajectory of the sword’s light was reflected in Xu Yunfan’s pupils.

The Linn Character Technique stretched time a hundredfold, allowing him to clearly see how the Sword Qi tore through the air. It wasn’t a simple slash, but a vacuum blade formed by moonlight collapsing in on itself under the guidance of Sword Intent!

His Profound Steel Hundred-Forged Body was the first to collapse.

The muscles from his Horizontal Training disintegrated at a molecular level under the Sword Qi, and his bronze-colored skin peeled away in flakes like weathered pottery.

The Red Flood Dragon Mountain Coiling Strength burst from his body as three thousand bloody streams, evaporating into a crimson mist under the moonlight.

The sound of his bones shattering was like a continuous string of firecrackers.

First, his toe bones were turned to dust by the aftershock of the Sword Qi. Then, spiderweb cracks appeared on his tibias, spiraling up his leg bones.

By the time the Sword Qi swept past his pelvis, his entire skeleton was covered in light-filled fractures, like a shattered jade carving.

The Dragon Scale Armor let out a dying wail.

The hexagonal crystal format of the Heart Protection Mirror shattered piece by piece, the flying shards vaporizing in the moonlight.

The Red Flood Dragon Scales wrapped around his heart desperately constricted, but they were blown open by the Sword Qi’s aftershock, revealing his violently beating heart.

His head suffered the most gruesome fate.

His jawbone was the first to detach, his teeth clattering to the ground amidst the Sword Qi.

The cartilage in his nose dissolved into a gelatinous substance, and the blood vessels and nerves in his eye sockets were shredded like tangled hemp.

As the top of his skull was lifted clean off, the azure divine light of the Linn Character Technique was still circulating within his cranial cavity, right up until it was completely swallowed by the moonlight.

When the Red Fire Dragon-Swallowing Mace finally arrived, all it caught was a spray of blood and bone fragments.

The Heavy Mace trembled violently in the moonlight. Blood seeped from its nine Qiu Long engravings, as if the weapon itself were wailing for its master.

The surface of the Cold Pond reflected the final image: Xu Yunfan’s headless body, still frozen in the posture of throwing a punch, his knuckles disintegrating inch by inch in the moonlight.

The woman picked up a bronze sword-hairpin, turned, and left. Ice crystals slowly seeped from the tear in her simple clothes, freezing the crimson bloodstain into a pattern of frost.

"..."

Xu Yunfan’s eyes shot open and he sat up abruptly.

His expression flickered through several emotions before he finally...

"Son of a bitch!"

Xu Yunfan couldn’t help but curse. He had been in the Linn Character State, in total command of his physical self. That meant he had felt, with excruciating clarity, his body being disintegrated inch by inch by the woman’s Sword Qi.

Thinking back on it was sheer torture.

’That woman... just what is she...?’

Doubt pricked at Xu Yunfan’s mind. The woman also seemed much more lucid this time around.

A thought stirred in his mind. He slowly got up, stretching his arms and legs, and ran a hand over his Dragon Scale Armor and the Red Fire Dragon-Swallowing Mace.

’That mysterious woman’s Sword Qi was just... breathtaking.’

Xu Yunfan was certain that not even someone at the Nine Realms Qi Cultivation Supreme Grandmaster Realm could unleash Sword Qi as peerless as hers.

’A single sword-strike, and nine peaks trembled.’

’I guess it’s my own fault, too. My Spiritual Power wasn’t strong enough to fully manifest the might of my Divine Weapons, the Red Fire Dragon-Swallowing Mace and the Dragon Scale Armor.’

As he began his Cultivation of the Pure Yang Qi Skill after absorbing the Qi of Ginseng, Xu Yunfan’s eyes suddenly snapped open.

He looked up and was shocked to discover that the Primordial Spirit Breath in the surrounding area, where the mountain’s ley lines converged, was now so thin as to be almost nonexistent.

If it weren’t for his Seeking Dragon and Distinguishing Veins technique, he truly would have had no way to confirm it.

’Why is so much Spiritual Qi missing?’

Xu Yunfan subconsciously touched his chest. His Dragon Scale Armor trembled and split open slightly, revealing the Extreme Dao Relic Shell that was fastened into a vest underneath.

It was now suffused with a faint, clear radiance.

"..."

It was instantly clear to Xu Yunfan what had happened. The Extreme Dao Relic Shell had devoured all the Spiritual Qi that had gathered in this nexus of mountain energy.

He was no longer in the mood to continue cultivating. After confirming there was nothing left behind, he walked out of the cave and glanced at Qi Huan, who was meditating in a tree.

He saw wisps of black, fog-like Demon Qi stirring and swirling around Qi Huan’s body.

Xu Yunfan raised an eyebrow but said nothing more, simply calling out, "Let’s go."

Qi Huan opened his eyes. Seeing Xu Yunfan with his hammer and mace slung on his back, the Demon Qi around him abruptly retracted into his body.

He landed lightly on the ground, his expression somewhat complicated.

"Are we really going to that place?"

Qi Huan looked back toward a distant mountain peak where crimson clouds churned. If one listened carefully, one could faintly hear a whistling sound, like the heaving of the mountain itself.

This was no mountain wind, but the sound of some colossal creature breathing.

Xu Yunfan naturally understood what Qi Huan was thinking.

"Of course we’re going to check it out. If there’s an opportunity, we can’t let it slip by. If you don’t want to go, I won’t force you."