Inside the ancestral hall, Li Lingyue gently stroked her slightly swollen belly, a tender smile unconsciously blooming at the corners of her lips.
Yun Long had effortlessly dealt with those two uninvited guests, and the heart she had held suspended finally settled completely.
It was not that she had not been afraid during that heart-stopping scene earlier.
It was simply that she believed in her husband even more.
An unusual radiance flickered in Yun He's bright eyes.
The calmness and strength her elder brother Yun Long had displayed with every gesture had profoundly shaken her heart.
She had originally held only a vague notion of how powerful Qi Refining Stage cultivators were.
Only now did she truly and concretely sense what an extraordinary, otherworldly power it was.
She wondered what she herself would be like after entering Qi Refining.
Her heart brimmed with longing and anticipation for the future.
Shi Chen, Yun Long's only disciple, had his mouth wide open, unable to close it for a long while.
Yun Long's figure, like a war god descending into the world, had utterly overturned his understanding of Martial Dao experts.
He subconsciously glanced at the longsword clenched in his hand.
That sharp weapon he had once treasured like a jewel seemed somewhat pale and powerless before Yun Long's incomparably domineering fist technique.
After hesitating for a moment, he decisively tossed the longsword aside.
Seeing Shi Chen's adorably foolish look, Yun He could not help but smile.
She extended her slender jade-like fingers and gently pinched Shi Chen's slightly chubby cheek, her eyes full of laughter.
Just then.
Inside the ancestral hall, Yun Ji had remained kneeling before the ancestral tablets, motionless as a stone statue.
That earlier bell chime, capable of piercing clouds and splitting rocks, seemed to strike a heaven-shaking great bell within his mind as well.
His eyes, shut for a long time, suddenly flew open!
Countless past insights came flooding in like a tide, surging into his sea of consciousness.
Those crucial points of cultivation that he had once wracked his brains over without finding an answer.
Those ultimate principles of martial arts that he had repeatedly pondered through countless days and nights.
And the inheritance information Yun Jiang had secretly imparted to him all those years ago now melted like ice and snow, quietly merging with all the accumulations of his life.
A faint yet thunderous rumble exploded within his mind.
It was as though some invisible shackle had been violently shattered at that very moment.
As his body slowly rose from the meditation cushion, the surging Milky White True Qi within him began compressing and condensing at an astonishing speed.
In the end, a strange stream of Qi about six inches long, glimmering with a deep sky-azure luster and seemingly bearing Mysterious Turtle patterns within it, slowly took shape in his dantian.
Mysterious Turtle Sea Suppressing Qi!
After the battle ended, Yun Long clearly sensed the change in Yun Ji's aura. From beginning to end, his gaze remained tightly fixed upon his father, Yun Ji.
He clearly sensed every subtle step of the changes within his father's aura, from dim and obscure to brimming with vitality, and then to its current weighty solidity.
An indescribable joy quietly spread through his heart like a warm spring tide.
His father had finally fulfilled his wish and taken this most crucial step.
From this day onward, Yun Ji had transcended the ordinary. He no longer belonged among Mortal Stage figures and had joined the ranks of those seeking immortality and the Dao.
From now on, the Lineage had gained another Qi Refining Stage cultivator.
The Yun Clan finally had a Qi Refining Stage cultivator who could travel beyond its gates!
At the instant that stream of Mysterious Turtle Sea Suppressing Qi completely formed.
Yun Ji let out a long howl he could no longer suppress.
The howl pierced clouds and split rocks, shooting straight into the night sky.
An even more shocking sight followed.
The white hair atop Yun Ji's head turned black at a visible speed, while the wrinkles on his face faded away.
His once slightly stooped body also became straight and upright as a pine.
It was as if he had suddenly grown more than twenty years younger.
Shi Chen watched from the side, dumbfounded, scarcely daring to believe his eyes.
Th-this was practically the method of immortals!
Yun Ji slowly opened his eyes. The first things that met his gaze were the dark-red bloodstains in the courtyard that had yet to dry, along with the faint scent of blood permeating the air.
A trace of complex, indescribable emotion quietly passed through his eyes.
At such a critical moment of life or death for the Lineage, he had actually immersed himself in comprehending the Wudang Xiantian Gong, utterly unaware of the slaughter outside.
Fortunately, fortunately, he had succeeded.
Fortunately, the Yun Clan's crisis also seemed to have been resolved.
Seeing his father Yun Ji successfully break through, with his aura fully harmonious, Yun Long no longer hesitated in the slightest.
He bent down and picked up Li Yuan's and Li Jiao's two heads, their eyes still open in death. Blood stained his palm.
"Father, I'll leave the Household to you."
Yun Long's voice was calm, revealing little emotion.
Yun Ji nodded heavily. His gaze swept over the bloodstains in the courtyard before turning toward his wife and children, safe and sound within the ancestral hall. His eyes were complicated, yet resolute.
He stepped out from the light screen of the Golden Bell Shield, newfound power filling every limb and bone.
To guard against any unforeseen turn, Yun Long did not immediately withdraw the enormous golden bell protecting Li Lingyue, Yun He, and Shi Chen.
Carrying the two heads, Yun Ji strode toward the outside of the manor, where the sounds of fighting could still faintly be heard.
He knew that the battle outside was far more complicated than the brief clash in the rear courtyard.
At that moment, beneath the night sky outside the Yun Clan manor, the battle among Qi Refining Stage cultivators had already reached a white-hot stage.
It was not only Ning Yongrui and Mo Wenjian locked in one-on-one combat.
In three other directions, the flashes of Qi Refining Stage spells continued to flicker as auras collided and surged.
When Yun Long had boldly made his move in the rear courtyard, the violent intent of his fists and the might of the Arhat phantom had long since alarmed those watchers lurking in the shadows.
They had all been fishing in troubled waters.
All of them had been waiting for the outcome of the battle in the Yun Clan's rear courtyard.
Yet none of them had expected that battle to end so quickly.
The auras of the Li Family's two Mid Qi Refining Stage cultivators had gone from exposure to complete disappearance in only a few short minutes.
It had happened so quickly that they could barely react.
Ning Yongrui thought to himself, As expected of the Yun Clan's grandmaster who entered the Dao through martial arts. Too fast! What he condensed must be high-grade Qi!
As that thought flashed through his mind, Ning Yongrui no longer held anything back.
Across from him, Mo Family Ancestor Mo Wenjian was already at the end of his tether.
"Great Cold No Snow!"
With a low shout, Ning Yongrui thrust out both palms. Ice crystals filled the sky out of nowhere, and bone-piercing cold swept toward Mo Wenjian.
Each snowflake-like ice crystal that fell precisely sealed several meridians within Mo Wenjian's body.
Mo Wenjian's aura weakened at a visible speed.
In the other three directions, figures of Qi Refining Stage cultivators also emerged.
One of them was the Li Family head, Li Jun.
He was broad and powerfully built, with a gloomy face. Thirty-six streams of white Qi, each three inches long—Flowing Cloud Water Qi—roared ceaselessly within his body.
Another was Lu Chengze, the other expert dispatched by the Lu Family.
Like Lu Xingyun, who had fled earlier, he had also cultivated Green Wood Eternal Spring Qi, though his was even purer and more condensed.
The last was none other than Ning Yongrui's son, Ning Shaojie.
Limited by his talent, he had failed to cultivate Mid-Grade Qi Refining like his father. Within his dantian were only eight three-inch streams of low-grade Autumn Water Cold Frost Qi.
Li Jun clearly sensed the extinction of his two clansmen's auras, signifying the deaths of Li Yuan and Li Jiao.
His eyes instantly reddened, and he was so enraged that his canthus nearly split. Hatred surged to the heavens within his heart.
Yet he forcibly suppressed that fury that nearly devoured him.
He knew that now was absolutely not the time to seek revenge impulsively.
That baleful star of the Yun Clan had sent even Lu Xingyun of the Sixth Level of Qi Refining reeling back with one punch and instantly killed two Mid Qi Refining Stage clansmen. His strength was unfathomable.
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