Before making his move, Ghost Scholar had never imagined something like this could happen.
His reputation was on par with Qingyangzi's, but when it came to martial arts, the Supreme Void Dao's former disciple had the edge.
After all, Qingyangzi came from a proper prestigious sect and had trained since childhood.
Ghost Scholar, on the other hand, had taken an unorthodox path and only begun training halfway through his life. There really was no comparing the two.
In particular, Qingyangzi had slaughtered innocents indiscriminately, claiming it brought him closer to the Heavenly Dao, and his martial arts had indeed advanced by leaps and bounds.
Not long after Ghost Scholar had sided with the Black Sha Cult, he had competed with Qingyangzi, but had always come off worse.
In time, he had accepted Qingyangzi's superiority.
When Fang Shuwen had suddenly attacked Li Nanchen, Ghost Scholar had thought he alone would be enough to stop him. He had never expected Qingyangzi to intervene as well.
A combined attack from the two of them was no ordinary thing to withstand.
Fang Shuwen should have been dead for sure...
But what had happened instead?
Qingyangzi, whose martial arts surpassed his own, had been killed by a single punch from Fang Shuwen.
Now this fellow was asking who he was... how was he supposed to answer?
If I say I was just passing through and needed to borrow the latrine... will he believe me?
As for his identity... he wouldn't dare reveal it even if he were beaten to death.
Anyone who heard the name Ghost Scholar would cry out for his blood!
Should he come up with an alias on the spot?
It might not be enough to fool the heavens and cross the sea, but as long as it tricked Fang Shuwen into letting him go... he would grease his soles and run at once.
He would run as far as he could and never get mixed up in the Black Sha Cult's mess again.
Ghost Scholar had earned his scholarly name. Ideas sprang up one after another in his exceptionally nimble mind.
But just as he was racking his brains for a workable plan, he heard Fang Shuwen follow up his question with two words:
"Forget it."
Forget it?
Forget what?
Ghost Scholar soon understood what he meant.
A tremendous force surged toward him, and he was pulled helplessly toward Fang Shuwen. At the same time, Fang Shuwen curled the fingers of his right hand into a seal and thrust out his palm.
Ghost Scholar's pupils contracted sharply. He hurriedly tried to block the palm with his free hand.
But the moment his hand touched Fang Shuwen's palm,
there was a crack!
At that instant, Ghost Scholar suspected that what he had foolishly tried to stop with his arm was a mountain toppling over.
But how could a mere arm hold back a falling mountain?
It was even more hopelessly overconfident than a mantis trying to stop a chariot!
The palm strike broke Ghost Scholar's arm without the slightest resistance, pressing it against his chest.
Bang!!!
A cloud of bloody mist burst from Ghost Scholar's back.
The last trace of color drained from Ghost Scholar's already pale face. The light in his eyes dimmed visibly, and his body went limp... he died on the spot.
By "forget it," Fang Shuwen meant that it didn't matter to him who Ghost Scholar was.
At that instant, a pin could have been heard dropping in the Pearl Pavilion's great hall!
Qingyangzi... Ghost Scholar!
Dead!
In the space of a brief instant, with one punch and one palm strike, they had died horrible deaths, as though they were two ants crushed without the slightest effort!
Even Xu Chongshan couldn't keep his stiff face composed. He rubbed it hard.
With his martial arts, if he hadn't been poisoned, someone like Ghost Scholar would hardly have been worth his attention.
Qingyangzi was worth taking more seriously, but Xu Chongshan was confident that, if they fought, he could take his life within a hundred moves.
But the problem was... this young man had used only one move!
He had used one move because that was the fewest he could possibly use to attack...
It did not represent the limit of Fang Shuwen's martial arts!
That fact was even more terrifying.
Zuo Qingshuang wanted to ask Lu Xiaoqing and Zhou Qingmei just who this Fang Shuwen was.
Everything had happened far too quickly.
From Fang Shuwen attacking to kill, to being intercepted, to killing Qingyangzi and Ghost Scholar with one punch and one palm strike,
the whole thing had taken less time than a long fart.
Zuo Qingshuang hadn't even had time to ask...
And now, after killing Qingyangzi and Ghost Scholar, Fang Shuwen attacked Li Nanchen again without the slightest hesitation.
The people of the Pearl Pavilion were not the only ones left shocked and stunned.
Feng Mantian's eyes had nearly fallen out of their sockets onto his feet!
When he saw Fang Shuwen attack again, he let out a furious roar:
"Stop!!!"
Li Nanchen's pupils contracted as well.
But he had been the Pearl Pavilion's senior brother for many years, and his [Black Sha Demonic Art] was beyond the reach of ordinary people.
He wanted to capture Fang Lingxin because, given her birth date and time, her blood was a great tonic to him, one that could help him bring the [Black Sha Demonic Art] to the major accomplishment stage in one stroke!
Whether or not the Pearl Pavilion was destroyed, Fang Lingxin had to become his possession.
A man like him possessed an extraordinary state of mind to begin with.
So when Fang Shuwen attacked again, he did not break down in despair and turn to flee.
Instead, his longsword rang as it left its sheath!
His sword was a fine sword.
Lou Yuxiao had commissioned Fenghuo Lanshan, the Eastern Region's most renowned master swordsmith, to forge it. It was named 'Slay Evil.'
Evil thoughts were to be cut down with a single stroke.
That was Lou Yuxiao's hope for Li Nanchen.
He also hoped Li Nanchen could use the sword to slay evil demons and heretics and uphold justice in the jianghu.
The sword techniques Li Nanchen used were fine techniques, too!
In the [Thousand-Character Sword Technique] and the [Ten-Thousand-Word Sword Dao], every word was a jewel, every stroke a sharp edge.
The Pearl Pavilion used literature to perform martial arts and transformed characters into swords. Its dignified Dao held endless variations.
And Li Nanchen's talent and comprehension far surpassed those of his peers. With his [Black Sha Demonic Art] covering the blade, the power of his sword techniques rose to another level.
Layer upon layer of black Qi enveloped the blade, bringing forth boundless cutting force!
It looked like a single sword stroke, but it contained a thousand transformations.
And when he struck, he was only inches from Fang Shuwen.
No one could have found the flaw in his sword technique in such a brief instant.
As the Pearl Pavilion's senior brother and the Black Sha Cult's young cult master, Li Nanchen had that confidence!
At that moment, even Xu Chongshan and Zuo Qingshuang, who had been utterly disappointed in Li Nanchen and even hated him to the bone, had to admit that he had inherited the Pearl Pavilion's true teachings.
His sword stroke was breathtakingly brilliant!
They even found themselves worrying about Fang Shuwen.
Unfortunately, Fang Shuwen had no such awareness...
Facing the sword stroke, he merely swept out a palm.
The fourth palm of the [Great Black Heaven Divine Palm]: [Strike the Mountain, Shake the Demon]!
The palm rose without a sound and fell just as lightly, yet it placed the force of a thousand weights upon a swan's feather and gathered boundless variations into a single palm.
A ding rang out.
Fang Shuwen's palm landed on the Evil-Slaying Sword, and it shattered in an instant.
Shattered along with it... was Li Nanchen's confidence!
Fang Shuwen paid no mind to his mental health. His left hand shattered the Evil-Slaying Sword, while his right shot out and grabbed.
His five fingers clamped directly around Li Nanchen's face. Without the slightest hesitation, he squeezed, and everyone heard a crack!!
Half of Li Nanchen's head was crushed out of shape by Fang Shuwen. The Pearl Pavilion's senior brother was dead.
P.S.: I received a site message today saying that, thanks to the good results early on, the trial period has ended ahead of schedule. Thanks to everyone's support, we're one step closer to going premium~
Please keep helping out. Friends who are letting chapters pile up can flip to the end of the book page until the "you are the XXth reader following updates" prompt appears, and that will count as a follow.
This can speed up the process of going premium. When the time comes, Chunjie can also break free from the daily four-thousand-character limit and update ten thousand characters a day~~ Thank you, everyone~