When the five blood-soaked, death-reeking words "jungle strangulation battle" became reality, mercilessly reaping one living life after another like Death's scythe, a thoroughly one-sided massacre began its bloody performance within this shadowy valley!
The Heavenly Martial Society, the outer academy's most elite team that had recently been riding a wave of unstoppable momentum, arrogant beyond measure, and proudly called itself lions, had now been utterly reduced to lambs awaiting slaughter, ruled by endless terror and despair!
Their proud cultivation, far surpassing that of their peers, and their Profound Grade martial arts, enough to make any opponent tremble, appeared so pale and laughable before Lin Xiao's modern special-operations mindset, a crushing blow from an entirely higher dimension, and Yellow Class Nine's terrifying execution ability, honed until it moved as naturally as an arm!
Before they could even touch the hem of their enemies' clothes, poisoned blades striking from every direction and fatal traps impossible to guard against had ruthlessly stripped them of all ability to resist!
"Ah—! My hand! My hand's been cut off!" "Help! Someone save me! I don't want to die!" "Demons! They... they're not human at all! They're demons that crawled out of hell!"
Shrill screams filled with boundless terror and despairing wails rose and fell, becoming the only mournful song in this earthly purgatory.
In less than the time it took to burn an incense stick, more than forty members of the Heavenly Martial Society's sixty-man elite team had been killed or wounded, utterly losing their ability to fight!
The fewer than twenty surviving members had long since been scared out of their wits by the nightmare-like bloody scene before them!
They no longer possessed even a shred of the pride and dignity of Heaven Class geniuses. Like startled rabbits, they huddled back-to-back around their sole hope—Wu Tianxiong—trembling as they stared pleadingly and fearfully at that domineering figure, who had not moved an inch from beginning to end!
"Hu..." "Hu..."
Wu Tianxiong was panting.
His broad, iron-plate-like chest rose and fell violently.
Those eagle-sharp eyes had long been completely flooded with a terrifying blood-red hue!
He looked at his capable subordinates, who usually held their heads high above the clouds and thought themselves extraordinary, now curled at his feet like pigs and dogs awaiting slaughter, continuously letting out pitiful whimpers.
Then he raised his head and glanced at that deep, dead-silent forest, as though countless horrifying demonic shadows lurked within it, waiting to devour their prey.
An unprecedented humiliation and fury, so extreme that it nearly ignited his entire being, erupted from the deepest reaches of his soul like the most violent volcano!
He, Wu Tianxiong!
The legitimate eldest son of the Marquis Zhenbei's residence in the royal city!
Cloud Creek Academy's publicly acknowledged number one of the outer academy!
Since stepping onto the path of martial arts, he had fought no fewer than a thousand battles! The so-called geniuses who had died by his hand were beyond counting!
He had long grown accustomed to crushing and destroying every enemy before him with the lofty posture of a god looking down upon ants!
When had he ever been so wretched as he was today?!
When had anyone ever forced him into such a humiliating position with such despicable methods, as though they were playing with him?!
Unforgivable!
Absolutely! Unforgivable!
"Lin! Xiao!"
Wu Tianxiong suddenly threw back his head and let out a mad roar that scarcely sounded human, overflowing with endless killing intent!
"I don't care what background you come from!"
"I don't care what schemes and tricks you used!"
"Today, I will make you and those damned sewer cockroaches of yours die here, completely and utterly!"
"Turn into ashes for me!!!"
"Boom—"
The instant the final word "ashes" left his mouth.
A dazzling golden radiance, more than ten times as terrifying, domineering, and scorching as when he had blasted apart the Miasma Swamp with one punch, erupted from his towering, iron-pagoda-like body as though a true sun had descended upon the world!
"Profound Grade Upper Tier Art—Great Sun Burning Heaven Art!"
"Ultimate art—Golden Crow Patrols the Heavens!!!"
Accompanied by Wu Tianxiong's mad roar, brimming with an endless will to destroy, the blazing golden light that could instantly turn night into day rapidly condensed and compressed above his head, finally transforming into a lifelike three-legged Golden Crow over thirty zhang long, formed wholly from the purest golden Spiritual Energy, intensely yang and unyielding!
"Cry—"
A lofty cry that pierced the clouds, filled with boundless imperial majesty, rang from the three-legged Golden Crow's beak!
Then, beneath everyone's horrified gaze, that terrifying existence, like a sun god-bird from myth descending into the mortal world, abruptly spread its enormous wings, enough to blot out the sky and cover the sun. Carrying a horrifying heat capable of burning, vaporizing, and reducing everything in its path to nothingness, it transformed into a golden shockwave of death and swept madly in all directions!
"Rumble, rumble, rumble—"
Heaven trembled!
Earth wailed!
The deep forest that Yellow Class Nine's members had regarded as their finest shelter could not even withstand a single breath before that destructive golden shockwave, which was practically an indiscriminate map-wide bombardment. Like fragile ice and snow scorched by the blazing sun, it rapidly withered and blackened at a horrifying speed visible to the naked eye, before being completely ignited into a roaring sea of golden fire!
"Ah—!" "Run! This... this isn't a power humans can resist!" "Chief Instructor, save us!"
For a moment, shrill screams full of boundless fear rang out from that sea of flames, which had instantly become an earthly purgatory!
The members of the Fangs and Ghost Shadow squads, who had been lurking in the shadows like supreme hunters and ceaselessly harvesting enemy lives, finally tasted the fear called death for the first time!
Their proud, unpredictable movement techniques and stealth arts that even ghosts and gods could not detect seemed so laughable and powerless before this absolute force capable of burning all things!
Like pitiful bugs forcibly blasted from their dark nests, they could only flee frantically and miserably from the inferno hot enough to melt steel, each one in tattered clothing, blackened from head to toe, miserable beyond words!
Yet what awaited them was not the safe shore.
Instead...
"Hahaha! You damned rats! Let's see where you can run now!"
Zhao Wuji and the remaining dozen or so Heavenly Martial Society members, their stomachs already full of towering rage over their companions' tragic deaths, instantly revealed savage grins full of boundless cruelty and delight at this sight!
Without a second thought, they drove the long-starving Spiritual Energy within their bodies, unleashing fatal attacks thick with death and destruction, pouring down like a rain of pear blossoms upon the Yellow Class Nine members who had just fled the firestorm!
"Blazing Sun Saber Technique!" "Gale Sword Art!" "..."
For a time, saber light and sword shadows flashed, Spiritual Energy running wild!
A bloody counterattack, with the identities of hunter and prey switched in an instant, officially unfolded!
"Damn it!"
Hidden in a recess in the mountainside, Lin Xiao's face, which had remained as still as an ancient well, finally turned incomparably grim at the sight!
He had still underestimated him!
In the end, he had underestimated the true terror of Wu Tianxiong, the man hailed as the number one of the outer academy!
He had calculated everything, including that the other side would lose his reason in anger, but he had not calculated that Wu Tianxiong would be mad enough to directly unleash this sort of suicidal attack, one that distinguished neither friend nor foe and could flatten everything within several hundred zhang!
This was no longer martial arts!
This was plainly warfare!
"Shi Lei!"
At this critical moment of utmost peril, Lin Xiao no longer hesitated. His roar, brimming with urgency and killing intent, exploded beside every Yellow Class Nine member's ears like rolling thunder!
"Get up there!"
"At any cost!"
"Buy time for Fangs and Ghost Shadow to retreat!!!"
"Roar—"
The moment Shi Lei, who had long been waiting in full battle formation on the slope on the other side, heard the order, his honest eyes were instantly flooded by a blood-red color that feared neither death nor danger!
With an enraged roar, he thrust the tower shield, already stained red with blood, fiercely before him. Then, like an ancient savage bull completely driven into fury, he charged without hesitation into the barrage of death formed by dozens of fatal attacks, accompanied by the four Sharp Shield squad members behind him, whose eyes were equally red!
"Vajra Barrier!"
The five roared thunderously as one!
While charging, they once more formed a moving wall of steel shields!
"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!"
A dense series of terrifying explosions, enough to shatter eardrums, burst upon that shield wall, which did not appear particularly thick!
Saber light, sword shadows, fist winds, palm imprints...
Terrifying attacks capable of blasting a thousand-jin boulder into powder poured down like a violent storm upon that advancing steel bulwark!
"Puh—"
Shi Lei bore the brunt of it, becoming the first to spit out a mouthful of scarlet blood!
He felt as though he was not being besieged by more than a dozen people, but had been viciously struck in the chest by the tail of an awakened ancient dragon!
That unmatched, terrifying impact made even his bones, remade by Earth Core Body Tempering Milk and harder than refined steel, emit overloaded, creaking wails!
The four members behind him were even more miserable!
Their bodies had long been shaken until blood flowed from all seven apertures by the violent force penetrating through the gaps in their shields, leaving them drenched in blood!
Yet they still gritted their teeth, driving the shields in their hands into their positions as fiercely as nails!
They did not retreat even half a step!
Because they knew that behind them stood their unarmed comrades, the ones responsible for assassination!
If they retreated!
Then all of Yellow Class Nine would be finished!
"A bunch of idiots who don't know life from death!"
Watching the five blood-colored figures still advancing fearlessly beneath the saturated barrage from his side, Zhao Wuji revealed an exceedingly contemptuous and cruel sneer!
"Since you want to die so badly!"
"Then I'll grant your wish!"
With an enraged roar, he madly poured the Spiritual Energy he had already pushed to its limit into the Profound Grade Lower Tier Blazing Sun battle saber in his hand!
"Blazing Sun Saber Technique, final ultimate art—"
"Scorched Earth for a Thousand Miles!"
"Buzz—"
An exceptionally piercing saber cry rang out!
The previously ordinary battle saber in Zhao Wuji's hand was instantly enveloped in an incomparably brilliant scarlet saber aura!
From afar, it looked like a blade of judgment condensed from the sun's true flames!
He intended to use his strongest strike to cleave the five damned dogs blocking his path, together with their turtle shell of a shield wall, in two with a single slash!
However, just as he was about to swing that fatal strike, a faint sigh brimming with endless coldness and chilling killing intent softly sounded beside his ear without warning.
"Your opponent..."
"Is me."
"What?!"
Zhao Wuji's pupils abruptly contracted. An unprecedented sense of fatal danger, enough to freeze his very soul, instantly enveloped his entire body!
Without thinking, he tried to abandon the attack and turn to block!
But it was already too late!
A hand that appeared fair and slender, yet was as hard as ten thousand years of mysterious iron, had somehow silently pressed against his chest like a ghost!
"One Finger Annihilation, modified..."
"Heaven-Turning Seal!"
"Boom—"
An exceptionally muffled yet terrifying blast, enough to instantly collapse mountains, erupted from Zhao Wuji's chest!
"Puh—"
Zhao Wuji could not even let out a proper scream.
The cruelty and disdain still hanging on his face froze instantly.
Then his body flew backward like a tattered sack struck head-on by a high-speed siege beast, at a horrifying speed several times greater than when he had arrived!
He sprayed blood wildly in midair, his life and death unknown!
Only then did the lean figure, who had somehow appeared before Shi Lei and the others, slowly raise his head, revealing a young face stained with smoke and dust. Yet his eyes shone like brilliant imperial stars high in the nine heavens, eternal and never setting!
It was Lin Xiao!
He had finally made his move!
"Chief Instructor!"
Seeing that familiar back descend before them like a god, Shi Lei, already near his limit, and the four severely wounded squad members behind him instantly felt their blood-blurred eyes grow wet.
They knew it.
From this moment onward.
The initiative in this war would return to their hands once more!
"You did well."
Lin Xiao did not turn around. He merely spoke those four words calmly.
"Next..."
"Leave it to me."
With that, he slowly turned around, using his seemingly not-so-tall back to completely shield all his companions. Alone, he calmly faced the remaining dozen or so Heavenly Martial Society members, who had been scared out of their wits and turned deathly pale by his thunderous strike.
And...
That terrifying figure, slowly emerging step by step from the roaring sea of golden fire like an invincible war god awakened from myth and legend!
Wu Tianxiong!
"You finally dared to come out."
Wu Tianxiong wore no expression.
He merely calmly watched the culprit who had utterly disgraced him today.
There was no anger in those eagle-sharp eyes. There was only pure, cold, emotionless killing intent at its most extreme!
"I have to admit."
"You are the most interesting prey I, Wu Tianxiong, have encountered since making my name."
"Unfortunately..."
He slowly shook his head, his tone filled with the merciless indifference of a god pronouncing a mortal's death sentence.
"The game ends here."
"Boom—"
The instant his words fell.
A golden blaze more than ten times as terrifying and condensed as when he had used Golden Crow Patrols the Heavens surged from his body into the sky like the most violent volcano!
Body Refinement Ninth Level!
No!
Just one step away from truly entering the Spiritual Movement Realm...
Half-step Spirit Movement!
Under this terrifying pressure, enough to make heaven and earth change color, the entire valley trembled violently!
It was as though even this very space could not bear the supreme power that was about to transcend the mortal realm!
Yet in the face of this absolute power, enough to fill any Body Refinement Realm cultivator with despair, Lin Xiao's face showed not the slightest trace of fear.
Instead, the corners of his lips slowly curved into a brilliant smile brimming with boundless madness!
He slowly raised his right hand and lightly crooked a finger at the undefeated war god before him, who was like a humanoid sun.
"Are you done talking nonsense?"
"Done..."
"Then come and claim your death!"
Before you continue