The nine divine fire dragons, capable of incinerating heaven and boiling the seas, were about to completely devour Shi Ji's delicate, curvaceous body.
Atop Skeleton Mountain, Taiyi Zhenren's mouth had already stretched into an exaggerated grin, his eyes filled with the cruel pleasure of imminent victory.
Die!
You lowly Stone Goblin!
Let me show you what it means for one's origins to determine one's fate!
Let me make you understand just how foolish it is to resist a Golden Immortal of the Chan Sect!
Shi Ji had already closed her eyes, her long lashes trembling faintly as though she awaited the final outcome of having her soul scattered and spirit destroyed.
Humiliation, resentment, fury... all manner of emotions ultimately became a bleak despair.
However, at the instant the nine fire dragons' savage heads came within less than three feet of Shi Ji—
A sudden change occurred!
"Boom—!"
A tremendous explosion rang out—not from the sky, nor from the earth, but without warning from the entrance of White Bone Cave, directly behind Shi Ji!
The stubborn stone that had accompanied Shi Ji for thousands of years, bearing witness to all her joys and sorrows, violently exploded at that very moment!
An indescribably dazzling radiance, like a divine sword of World Creation, shot into the heavens from the shattered stone, instantly piercing the clouds and tearing through the nine heavens!
The entirety of Skeleton Mountain—no, the world within a radius of ten thousand miles—was dyed a sacred gold by that incomparably brilliant light!
Taiyi Zhenren's prized Nine Dragon Divine Fire dimmed instantly before the radiance, like fireflies meeting the full moon.
Then something even more horrifying happened.
The fragments of stone scattered by the explosion appeared completely ordinary, yet they carried a terrifying power that even he could not comprehend. With unstoppable force, they effortlessly pierced through the dragons' bodies formed from primordial divine fire!
"Roar—Aah—!"
The nine fire dragons that had been arrogantly roaring about burning all things were now like punctured balloons, releasing a series of incomparably mournful cries. Their enormous bodies twisted and struggled in midair before shattering inch by inch into sparks that scattered across the sky.
In a single instant, the Nine Dragon Divine Fire was broken!
It had been... blown apart by a stone?!
"Pff!"
High in the sky, Taiyi Zhenren seemed to have been struck by lightning. His face went pale as he violently spat out a mouthful of golden immortal blood.
His magic treasure had been broken, and the backlash upon his Spiritual Sense made his Primordial Spirit tremble violently. Even his foundation had developed a faint crack.
Yet he had no time to care about his injuries. His eyes were wide as bells, fixed upon the center of the light below, his face filled with ghostly shock and disbelief.
"How... how is this possible?!"
"What is that?! Who is it?!"
Taiyi Zhenren roared wildly in his heart, his entire worldview blasted to pieces in that instant.
His Nine Dragon Divine Fire Cover was a Houtian Merit Spirit Treasure personally refined by his master, Yuanshi Tianzun. Its power was boundless—how could it possibly be destroyed by some lousy stone?
An illusion!
This had to be an illusion!
Some Great Power of the Interception Sect must be hiding in the shadows and making a move!
Yes! That had to be it!
However, as the radiance filling the sky gradually receded and revealed the figure at its center, the last trace of wishful thinking in Taiyi Zhenren's mind was utterly crushed.
That was not some Great Power of the Interception Sect.
It was a man.
A man he had never seen before.
A tall, straight figure stood silently in the air, dressed in an ancient gray Daoist robe. Its style was simple, yet it seemed to contain the most fundamental truths of heaven and earth.
His glossy black hair draped casually over his shoulders, moving without wind. Every strand seemed alive, flowing with profound Dao rhythm.
His face was so handsome that no words could describe it, as though he were the Dao's most perfect creation. Any more would have been excessive; any less would have been flawed.
Most especially, those eyes were as deep as the boundless starry sky—ancient, vast, and immeasurable. With only a casual glance from them, Taiyi Zhenren felt as though his Primordial Spirit would be drawn in and utterly sink beneath their depths.
Most terrifying of all was the aura emanating from that figure.
What kind of aura was that?!
Ancient, majestic, supreme, exalted!
It was as though it did not belong to this era, nor to this primordial world, as though it had existed since the beginning of World Creation—or even within primordial chaos itself!
Before that aura, Taiyi Zhenren felt that his prized Golden Immortal Dao Fruit of the Chan Sect was as insignificant as a speck of dust.
The Magic Power he had cultivated all his life seemed as lowly as a tiny stream before an endless sea of chaos!
"Q-Quasi-Saint?"
Taiyi Zhenren's lips trembled, and even his voice shook.
No! That wasn't right!
Even an ordinary Quasi-Saint Great Power could not possibly possess such a terrifying aura!
Who... who exactly was this person?!
Since when had such a terrifying existence, unheard of even by him, appeared in the primordial world?
Unlike Taiyi Zhenren, who was terrified beyond measure, Shi Ji was completely stunned.
She stood there blankly, her cold phoenix eyes staring unblinkingly at the figure that had suddenly appeared before her. Her mind was utterly empty.
What... had just happened?
The stone she had casually picked up and placed at the entrance of her cave abode as decoration... had exploded?
And then... a person had emerged from it?
Shi Ji felt that her Dao Heart, along with everything she had understood after cultivating for several eras, had been completely overturned and churned into a mess.
Shock, confusion, disbelief, and a trace of relief and hope at having survived the disaster... emotions so complicated they reached an extreme tangled madly within her heart, making her already pale, beautiful face appear even more lost.
Who... was he?
Could he... be the stone's innate spirit?
A stone could actually take human form?
And after taking form, his strength was actually this terrifying?
The mere aftershock of breaking free from the stone had effortlessly shattered Taiyi Zhenren's Nine Dragon Divine Fire Cover!
This aura even surpassed that of every fellow disciple she had ever seen. It was even... even more terrifying than Senior Sister Golden Spirit Holy Mother's!
How could this be possible?!
Just as Shi Ji's mind was reeling with wild thoughts, the figure slowly turned around.
Qin Feng's gaze fell upon Shi Ji.
Seeing the glaring streak of blood at the corner of her mouth, seeing her Daoist robe slightly damaged by divine fire and exposing her snowy-white shoulder, seeing the stubbornness and grief still lingering in her beautiful eyes, an overwhelming urge to protect her and a deep ache rose from Qin Feng's heart.
This was the woman.
She was the one who, through thousands of years of unintentional companionship, had pulled him back from the brink of ten thousand years of solitude and madness.
And now, she had been bullied into such a state.
The fury Qin Feng had only just suppressed after breaking free from his seal began to rise again.
Yet not the slightest anger showed on his face.
After looking Shi Ji over, Qin Feng's gaze became incomparably gentle, and he gave her a reassuring smile so radiant that even heaven and earth seemed to lose their color.
Then, a magnetic voice filled with supreme Dao rhythm, seemingly capable of soothing every wound in the world, spoke softly.
"Don't be afraid. I'm here."
Four simple words, without the slightest trace of Magic Power, yet they seemed like the strongest calming incantation in existence.
The instant the voice entered her ears, it was like warm spring thunder, instantly piercing through all of Shi Ji's defenses and striking precisely at her Dao Heart, which seemed encased in ice but was incomparably soft within.
All her terror, all her grievances, all her resentment seemed, in that moment, to find an outlet for release—a harbor upon which she could rely.
Shi Ji's delicate body trembled slightly. Her eyes warmed, and a thin mist of tears unexpectedly rose within them.
An indescribably scorching sensation surged from her heart to her cheeks, causing a breathtaking blush to bloom across her already peerlessly beautiful, pale face.
She instinctively avoided Qin Feng's gentle gaze and lowered her head slightly. Her heart was in complete disarray.
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