"Whew."
Xia Xuan drew a deep breath, forcibly suppressing his surging anger and killing intent. The emotions on his face gradually faded, finally settling into indifference.
His handsome face no longer held its earlier contempt and languor, nor the anger and gloom of moments before. All that remained was an icy calm, like the final moment of stillness before a storm.
Xia Xuan lowered his hands, slowly curling his slender fingers inside his sleeves to conceal the pain and trembling in his palms.
His gaze settled calmly on Lin Ming, as chilling as a poisoned blade being slowly drawn from its sheath.
"Boy, let me give you a taste of this Mountain-Covering Seal!"
Xia Xuan's voice was quiet, but its chill was almost tangible. Every word drove into the air like a spike of ice.
As he spoke, a pitch-black stone seal appeared in his hand.
The seal was roughly the size of a fist, its surface black as ink and covered in weathered marks, crisscrossing cracks, and pits. It was none other than the Quasi-Sacred Artifact he had purchased at the auction for fifteen million Supreme Spirit Liquid—the Mountain-Covering Seal.
Xia Xuan closed his fingers around the stone seal, pouring spiritual energy into it like floodwaters bursting through a dam.
The Mountain-Covering Seal shuddered violently under the influx of spiritual energy. A deep ocher glow erupted from its black surface, heavy and vast, as though an entire expanse of earth were awakening within it.
The stone seal rapidly expanded in his palm, becoming an enormous black seal hundreds of yards across in an instant.
The enormous seal hovered above Xia Xuan's head, the ocher light on its surface growing ever brighter. A suffocatingly heavy pressure swept out from it, compressing the surrounding air until it creaked.
As the Mountain-Covering