’Just as I thought. He forced his promotion, so his Mental Realm is lacking. His grasp of Youtan’s Power is abysmal.’

’Mingya’s Youtan’s Power is actually quite strong, and its potential is extremely high. If he used it well, there might have been a slim chance for him to break through the suppression of my Flame of the Sun.’

’For instance, if he had used Youtan’s Power to create an Illusion of endless, freezing water, he might have been able to counteract some of the Purifying Flame’s suppressive effects.’

’Unfortunately, Mingya made the worst possible choice. The Ghost-faced Vengeful Spirit Sword he created might be terrifying to ordinary Cultivators, but it was completely countered by the Breaking Evil Golden Light and the Purifying Flame.’

’How utterly foolish!’

Having recorded all of Mingya’s abilities, Zhong Ming sighed and shook his head. Then, holding back no longer, his gaze hardened. A magnificent, vast Great Sun suddenly rose from within his left eye.

The moment the Great Sun appeared, it blazed with scorching flames, radiating countless rays of brilliant light!

BOOM!

Because the Giant Profound Pupil above Mingya’s head was locked onto Zhong Ming, it was essentially meeting his gaze. When the brilliant Great Sun manifested, it was naturally reflected in the pupil.

The next moment, with a resounding BOOM, the Great Sun detonated within the pupil. The explosion unleashed a tsunami of endless golden light, and the crimson-gold Purifying Flame began to madly incinerate the evil power inside the giant eye.

"Aaaah!"

A bloodcurdling scream echoed between heaven and earth. Mingya felt as if his own eyeball was about to be seared through.

What drove him to despair was that, under the suppressive power of the Purifying Flame, his prized Giant Profound Pupil was completely eroded and transformed in just a few short breaths.

Finally, the profound, black-purple pupil turned a brilliant crimson-gold, hovering above Mingya’s head like a miniature sun.

The next moment, as the pupil rotated, a crimson-gold Dragon Flood Dragon emerged from within it. An instant later, that Candlelight Dragon, radiating endless majesty, condensed into a blade—a Breaking Evil Divine Sword. It looked deceptively ordinary, yet it pulsed with an unparalleled might.

VMMMM!

As Zhong Ming, standing against the horizon, lowered his gaze, the Divine Sword transformed into a streak of light and shot toward Mingya.

"No!"

"Vaporization!"

The sudden turn of events and the mortal danger forced Mingya to push his abilities to their absolute limit.

It had to be said that Youtan’s Power was truly terrifying. After burning his Holy Blood to reach the Foundation Establishment realm, Mingya’s Vaporization could not only affect himself but also his surroundings, like a personal domain.

Zhong Ming clearly felt a strange power descend upon his Light Divine Sword. His blade, an Energy State construct, felt as if it was about to shift from solid to illusory. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

Unlike Mingya, who had mastered Youtan’s Power, if the sword became illusory, it would simply dissipate into nothingness.

’A high-level ability, but unfortunately, useless against me.’

BOOM!

A sudden burst of Purifying Flame incinerated that strange and unpredictable power, reducing it to nothing.

The next moment, before Mingya could completely finish his Vaporization, the Divine Sword became a streak of golden light and struck him squarely.

In that instant, Mingya’s Armor of the Dark Monarch activated, along with a whole slew of Protective Talismans and Demon Patterns, all trying to block the brilliant golden light.

But whether it was because Mingya had no other tricks up his sleeve, or because he hadn’t figured out the nature of Zhong Ming’s Ability Attribute...

...in any case, the attributes of the Magical Artifacts he summoned were all evil in nature.

And the light Zhong Ming’s Divine Sword had become was the purest form of Breaking Evil Golden Light.

The added Sword Intent, combined with the Breaking Evil Golden Light’s natural suppression of evil forces, allowed Zhong Ming’s strike to slice through Mingya’s various defenses as easily as a hot knife through butter, passing straight through his body.

BOOM!

After piercing Mingya, the Breaking Evil Golden Light’s power was not yet spent. Fired from Zhong Ming’s high vantage point, the beam, imbued with the properties of light, plunged straight into Crescent Lake. A violent explosion tore a bottomless chasm into the lake’s surface as the water instantly boiled and evaporated, filling the sky with white steam.

...

...

...

It all sounds like a long story in the telling, but from the moment Zhong Ming prepared to strike and the Flame of Candlelight appeared in his left eye, to Mingya’s profound pupil being tainted crimson-gold, to the Great Sun Dragon Transformation, its subsequent change into a sword, and the final transformation of the Divine Sword into light... everything happened in the blink of an eye.

And Zhong Ming, the one who had done all this, had hardly moved. With just a flash of fire in his left eye and a slight lowering of his gaze, it was all over.

It was so fast, so clean, that the Cultivators by the lakeside couldn’t even process what had happened.

Only the true experts and the True Disciples of the Major Sects gasped in shock.

"So strong!"

But before they could even exhale, something even more shocking occurred.

Mingya, whose body had been sliced in two by the Breaking Evil Golden Light—was somehow not dead!

...

’I lost?’ The swiftness of his defeat had caught even Mingya off guard. It was only after his body had been cleaved in two that he finally processed it.

But because Zhong Ming’s attack had been so fast, some consciousness lingered even in his bisected form. This allowed the resentful Mingya to activate the Youtan Flower’s ultimate ability.

"I will not lose! The power of the Youtan Flower is invincible! Youtan Birth and Death!"

VMMMM!

With Mingya’s furious roar, his body flickered with Vaporization for a moment. The next instant, a scene unfolded that made even Zhong Ming narrow his eyes.

The wounds on Mingya’s body vanished. The two halves of his torso rapidly fused back together. Soon, he stood before the crowd completely unharmed, as if he had been resurrected from the dead.