The blade was narrow and long, its edge gleaming with a bloody light, while the hilt was shaped like a wolf's skull.
The Blood Wolf Saber was a renowned weapon of the barbarians, a low-grade Yellow-rank weapon.
Although Wanyan Lie's severe injuries had not yet healed, the Blood Wolf Saber in his hand still gave him a terrifying aura.
He walked toward Li Xuan step by step.
The surrounding barbarian soldiers automatically opened a path.
"Li Xuan," Wanyan Lie said, his voice hoarse. "It is time for you and me to settle this."
Li Xuan tightened his grip on the Black Scale Saber. "Just what I wanted."
The two stood ten paces apart.
Above and below the city walls, everyone held their breath.
This battle would determine the fate of Iron Wall City.
"Die!"
Wanyan Lie struck first.
The Blood Wolf Saber came chopping down, its blade-light like a bloody moon, accompanied by a shrill wolf howl!
Li Xuan neither retreated nor yielded. He swept the Black Scale Saber upward.
Clang!!!
The two sabers collided, sparks flying in all directions!
Both men retreated at the same time.
Li Xuan took five steps back, the web between his thumb and forefinger splitting open.
Wanyan Lie took three steps back. The wound in his chest burst open, and blood dyed his bandages red.
But neither of them stopped.
The second strike, the third, the fourth...
Clang clang clang clang!
The blade-lights flashed like lightning, and the collisions roared like thunder.
In a mere ten breaths, the two had exchanged thirty blows!
The more Wanyan Lie fought, the more alarmed he became.
He could clearly feel that Li Xuan's strength was inferior to his own, but the other's bones were absurdly hard. Several blows had clearly landed, yet they had only left shallow marks and numbed his own arms from the impact.
And Li Xuan's saber technique was even more bizarre.
It looked simple, but every strike was precise and deadly, never wasting the slightest bit of strength.
This was a killing art tempered through a thousand trials.
"What are you, exactly?" Wanyan Lie could not help asking.
"The man who's going to kill you," Li Xuan said.
He seized an opening in Wanyan Lie's defense. His blade thrust forward, stabbing straight toward the heart.
Wanyan Lie hurriedly retreated, but he was half a beat too slow.
Pfft!
The tip of the saber pierced half an inch into his chest!
Blood sprayed out.
"Young Chieftain!" the barbarian guards cried out in alarm and tried to rush forward.
"None of you move!" Wanyan Lie roared. "This is a battle between him and me!"
He lowered his head and glanced at the wound in his chest, madness flashing through his eyes.
"Li Xuan, I admit you're strong." He bared bloodstained teeth. "But today, you must die."
He pulled a blood-red pill from his robes and swallowed it.
As the pill entered his stomach, Wanyan Lie's skin instantly turned blood-red. His muscles swelled, and his veins bulged.
His aura surged. From the level he had fallen to after dropping from the eighth layer of the Body Tempering Realm, it climbed all the way past the ninth layer and shot straight toward the tenth!
He was burning his vital essence to forcibly raise his strength!
This was a desperate gambit. Once the medicine's effects wore off, his cultivation would fall by at least three layers, and he might even be crippled.
But Wanyan Lie could no longer care.
All he wanted was Li Xuan's death.
"Die--!"
The Blood Wolf Saber struck down again. This blow was ten times faster and ten times heavier than before!
The blade-light poured down like a bloody waterfall!
Li Xuan's pupils shrank.
He could not dodge!
He could only take it head-on!
He circulated all his qi and blood and raised the Black Scale Saber horizontally.
Clang--!!!
The tremendous impact rang deafeningly in his ears.
The Black Scale Saber broke.
It snapped in two.
The tip of the saber flew away and sank into the ground ten paces off.
Li Xuan was sent flying and crashed into the city wall, spitting out a mouthful of blood.
At least three of his chest bones had broken.
But he did not fall.
Bracing himself with the half-broken saber, he stood up.
"Your saber is broken," Wanyan Lie sneered. "What else do you have?"
Li Xuan looked at the broken saber in his hand and suddenly smiled.
"The saber is broken, but I still have my fists."
He threw aside the broken saber and clenched both fists.
Blood Fiend Bone Forging Technique—full power!
He absorbed the Killing Intent from the battlefield, the soul force of the Wolf Soul he had just devoured, and the violent energy radiating from Wanyan Lie's burning vital essence.
He was going to... break through to the third layer!
Condensing blood into baleful intent, transforming baleful intent into gang qi.
Refining the Blood Fiend Gang Qi!
"Break for me--!"
Li Xuan roared.
Inside his body, all the energy surged madly, battering against the bottleneck.
His bones exploded with thunderous cracks.
A faint bloody light appeared across the surface of his skin.
The bloody light grew denser and denser, eventually solidifying into a thin layer of bloody gang qi over his body!
The Blood Fiend Gang Qi had formed!
Though it had only just taken shape and was still thin, it... was enough.
Li Xuan raised his head and looked at Wanyan Lie.
Bloody light flickered in his eyes.
"Now," he said, "it's my turn."
He moved.
He had no saber, only his fists.
One punch shot out!
Bloody gang qi coiled around his fist like a furious blood-colored dragon, lunging straight at Wanyan Lie!
Wanyan Lie's expression changed drastically. He raised the Blood Wolf Saber horizontally to block.
Clang!!!
The fist slammed into the blade.
The Blood Wolf Saber shook violently. Wanyan Lie, man and saber together, was blasted backward and crashed to the ground ten zhang away, spitting out a mouthful of blood.
A clear fist mark was left on the blade.
"Gang qi..." Wanyan Lie's eyes filled with terror. "You condensed gang qi?!"
Condensing gang qi while in the Body Tempering Realm was something that, according to legend, only peerless geniuses could accomplish!
"Again."
Li Xuan's second punch had already arrived.
Wanyan Lie gritted his teeth, burned even more vital essence, and swung the Blood Wolf Saber down again.
Fist against saber.
A head-on collision.
Boom!!!
This time, the Blood Wolf Saber flew from his grasp.
Both of Wanyan Lie's arms broke, and he screamed as he fell to the ground.
Li Xuan walked up to him and looked down from above.
"Wanyan Lie, you've lost."
Wanyan Lie lay on the ground, gazing at the sky, and suddenly laughed.
"Li Xuan... I admit it. You won." He coughed up a mouthful of blood. "But you won't survive either."
He laboriously raised a hand and pointed toward the rear of the barbarian army.
"See that? The Blood Eagle Tribe's main force has already crossed the river. Forty thousand soldiers will arrive soon. Iron Wall City... won't hold."
Li Xuan followed the direction he pointed.
Far away on the horizon, clouds of dust rolled.
More barbarian troops were rushing over.
"So what?" Li Xuan asked.
"So..." Wanyan Lie grinned. "Even if you kill me, you can't change anything. This city is doomed to fall. Everyone inside... will die."
"Then go on ahead."
Li Xuan raised his foot and planted it on Wanyan Lie's chest.
He pressed down hard.
Crack.
His chest bones shattered completely.
Wanyan Lie's eyes widened. He took one last look at the sky, then breathed his last.
The Blood Wolf Tribe's Young Chieftain, Wanyan Lie, was dead.
Li Xuan picked up the Blood Wolf Saber and looked toward the distant clouds of dust.
Forty thousand barbarian main-force troops.
Iron Wall City truly could not hold.
But...
He turned around and looked toward the top of the city wall.
Wang Meng was still standing there. Though he swayed as if he might topple at any moment, his back remained straight.
The defenders were still fighting. Though their casualties were severe, not one of them retreated.
The civilians were still carrying arrows and stones. Though their faces were filled with fear, none of them fled.
"General!" Li Xuan leaped onto the city wall. "The barbarian main force is coming. The city can't be defended."
Wang Meng nodded. "I know."
"Then..."
"Then we defend it anyway," Wang Meng said. "We defend it to the last soldier, until the city falls and its people perish."
He looked at Li Xuan. "Li Xuan, you've done everything you could. Now... leave. With your strength, if you want to go, no one can stop you."
"I won't leave," Li Xuan said.
"Why?"
Li Xuan tightened his grip on the Blood Wolf Saber. "Because... I haven't killed enough yet."
Wang Meng looked at him, then suddenly laughed.
"Good. Then... we fight to the end."
He turned around and shouted hoarsely, "All troops, heed my order! Defend the walls to the death! Live or die with the city!"
"Hold the line! Hold the line! Hold the line!"
The defenders roared in unison.
Their voices were hoarse, yet they shook the heavens and earth.
Li Xuan stood atop the city wall, watching the barbarian main force draw closer and closer.
He tightened his grip on the saber hilt.
The Blood Fiend Gang Qi flowed across his body.
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