Dusk cloaked the earth, and the Lei Bird's flames dyed the sky a deep blackish red.
Cui Laoqi's expression was solemn, and he carried the refined air unique to a middle-aged man, like a schoolteacher from the mortal world.
Yet a Dao Repository was condensing within him. Two arms that looked as though they had been forged from scarlet-hot iron grew out, tinged with a faint blood color. Countless red lines coiled around his entire body, making him look several shades more ferocious. "The Ancient Lie Immortal Relic—I found it first."
Among the forest, Chen Xuan wore a simple black martial artist's outfit. His handsome face was now coated with a faint White Light, and his bearing was completely different from before, carrying a limpid, transcendent charm.
He walked out of the woods and looked up at the sky, a soft laugh escaping him.
"Boom!"
The Lei Bird beneath Cui Laoqi's feet suddenly accelerated, as if a miniature volcano had crashed into the earth. In an instant, it reached Chen Xuan.
The great bird swooped down, making the earth tremble. Its scarlet, divine-scissors-like beak stabbed forward, but Chen Xuan stood unmoving like a reef amid a colossal wave. Vast flames surged outward from both sides, and rows of great trees toppled and burned in their wake.
"Rip!"
Chen Xuan seized the Lei Bird's sharp beak. With a ripping sound, he tore it cleanly into an upper and lower half. Hot blood gushed everywhere, and in that instant, the Lei Bird's shrill, mournful cry pierced the heavens.
Cui Laoqi was stunned. He had not detected Chen Xuan using Immortal Qi at all; Chen Xuan had actually resisted the Lei Bird's strength with nothing but his bare hands. Was this truly a human in the Ascension Realm? For a moment, Cui Laoqi