Left-Handed Dao

"What? Aren't you all coming at me together? Don't say I'm not giving you a chance. I've just mastered my divine skill and need to increase the difficulty to test the current level. Everyone is welcome to sign up."

Li Fan stood with his hands on his hips in the center of the arena, turning his head to look around. For a moment, no one responded, only the chattering of the three monks' teeth. So he could only shrug and say, "Do as you please. The killing has already begun."

Then he beckoned, and a cicada flew out from the pile of flesh and blood and landed in his palm.

Well, this guy, Fazhi, is actually quite lucky; he actually succeeded in half of his dismemberment.

This item is called the 'Cicada Molting Immortal Robe'. It is made from the remnants of the immortal body and Dao body left behind by the great masters of the cultivation world when they break through to the first level of enlightenment and ascension. It can be used to temporarily house the primordial spirit of those who have not yet formed a nascent Nascent Soul Stage or whose primordial spirit has been damaged, so as to preserve their memories and cultivation from their previous life and increase the success rate of reincarnation.

Of course, there is a probability of physical disintegration, and it is very low. There is a probability of failure in entrusting one's primordial spirit to the Golden Cicada. There is also a probability of perishing if the Golden Cicada is destroyed. There is a probability of failure during reincarnation. Even if one is successfully reincarnated, there is a probability of being merged with the host. In short, it is not as simple as deleting an account and starting over in a game. No one wants to give up a hundred years of cultivation and start over unless absolutely necessary.

Of course, Fa Deng and the others didn't really have many options. His original mission was to hold back the Xuanmen during the massacre and cover the escape of Tianlong Mountain. If they could join forces to deal with the Kongsang Mountain family first, they might have a chance of winning. But now the situation has changed drastically. It's now Hengshan, Guyeshan, Kongsang Mountain, and Zhu Ming Jianjun fighting against the two of them. They are simply at the mercy of others and doomed. It's no wonder that Fa Deng and the others betrayed them.

Of course, Fazhi probably couldn't understand why this "senior brother" would actually give him a priceless treasure and a cicada-shaped immortal robe, helping him escape from the calamity, as long as he admitted his mistakes and accepted punishment.

To be honest, Li Fan wasn't that generous with his treasures, because he actually had two more of the Cicada Robe. Well, to be precise, Li Datang had two.

Xu Ziqing, the manager of the Heavenly Clothes and a member of the Luo Sect, had given Li Fan one before. He did so mysteriously, and even the Profound Heaven Sword Intent was shocked, leading Li Fan to believe it was some rare treasure. He kept it close to his body, reluctant to use it, as one of his life-saving trump cards. However, later, when he joined the Penglai Shenzhen Palace and went out to patrol the seas to collect sect supplies, he unexpectedly discovered that among the standard supply jade pendants given to the Outer Sect elders by Penglai, besides pills and talismans, there was actually a Cicada Garment!

Later, I asked the Ling sisters, and it turns out that the Outer Sect elders of Penglai can all receive a protective amulet, since it can only be used once. Inner Sect disciples with Daoist Dao Companion or direct relatives who need to undergo self-destruction can use merit points and pills to exchange for an extra Cicada Robe. Of course, there must be a valid reason; reselling sect benefits is definitely not allowed. So, it still requires spending Donghua Changchun Pill to exchange for it... Li Fan had exchanged one for Xiao Yushi, a Nine-Turn Changchun Pill, but honestly, with her cultivation level, the success rate of self-destruction wasn't very high.

So, besides the one given to him by the Luo Sect, Li Fan also had two more Golden Cicadas allocated by the Shenzhen Palace and the Zhenzhen Palace, for a total of three. Of course, these days, it's rare to find someone who can even beat him to the second stage, let alone someone with the Tai Su Dao Body and the Three Flowers. The Cicada Robe is probably useless to him most of the time...

So Li Fan casually gave one to Fazhi. He also wanted to see up close how this thing worked. If Fazhi's primordial spirit failed to reside in the cicada's robe, how would he go to cultivate 'on the other side'? Who knew this guy would actually have good luck and successfully disintegrate? How disappointing... Oh well, at least he got the 500 cap.

Li Fan carefully examined the cicada in his hand, tossed it around, scanned and checked its condition to save a record, then shrugged, casually tossed the cicada out of the killing spree, and sent it flying out to find its own opportunity.

"You, you really are... Tai Xuan Dao?" Zhu Ming Jianjun had lived for so long, and he frowned, seemingly trying to recall information about Tai Xuan Dao.

Li Fan smiled at the other person and said, "You don't believe me? Then I'll kill a few people to show you."

Li Fan then turned his head and glanced at the three people beside him, including Fa Deng.

The Fa Deng, Faqiao, Fazhi were terrified and cried out in unison, "Senior Brother, spare our lives!"

However, they immediately formed hand seals, summoning three Buddhist treasures: a candlestick, a prayer wheel, and a wooden fish. At the same time, they spewed out countless rays of bright light from their mouths and noses, empowering their respective natal magic weapons, and launched a combined attack on Li Fan!

Li Fan laughed heartily, "You guys are fighting me and you're not even going to try a couple of new moves! Are you looking down on me!"

Then, with a flick of his sleeve, he unleashed a gust of wind that swept up the candlestick, prayer wheel, and wooden fish. The whirlwind swept backward, and amidst the screams of the three monks, the gale swept up the three figures who had not had time to escape, howling like a tiger's roar. In a single move, he had them all drawn into Li Fan's sleeve.

Wu Zhui, Liu Daoming, and the other members of Hengshan had originally wanted to see what kind of methods the Tai Xuan Dao used, but they never expected that the other party would use some kind of trickery to casually capture three Nascent Soul Stage! They were immediately shocked and jumped back a step to create distance. Meanwhile, the Kongsang Mountain group also drew their swords and went on guard.

Only Zhu Ming Jianjun not only didn't dodge, but instead widened his eyes and took two steps forward, saying, "This move isn't Tai Xuan Dao!"

"Oh, this move is one I just unlocked." Li Fan smiled, pulled a steamed bun from his sleeve, took a bite, and said, "Hmm... but this move is from the Tai Xuan Dao."

The crowd was momentarily confused, but Zhu Ming Jianjun stared at the steamed bun in Li Fan's hand for a while, then suddenly his expression changed drastically. He roared hoarsely, brandishing his sword, "You heretic! Prepare to die!"

Before she finished speaking, she had become one with her sword, a myriad of flames illuminating her as she charged forward! The sword tip fell like a meteor! Its bright light flashed as it pierced straight towards Li Fan's brow!

But Li Fan laughed heartily, suddenly elongating his figure and transforming into a whirlwind. He neither dodged nor avoided the female cultivator possessed by the Zhu Ming Jianjun, who charged into the wind with her sword. The peerless sword energy and the Zhu Ming Dao Flame instantly vanished without a trace!

Then the whirlwind spun around and transformed back into Li Fan's appearance, now holding a steamed bun and munching on it. "That's why I said, if you all come at me together, you still have a chance."

"Sword Lord!! Form the sword formation!"

The female cultivators of Kongsang Mountain were shocked and screamed hysterically. The remaining thirteen women formed a double sword formation, gathered their true energy, Sword Light shone brightly. The first four women and eight swords rushed towards Li Fan's ascension!

"Good timing!"

Li Fan, with a steamed bun in his mouth, pulled a blank scroll from his sleeve, unfurled it with a flick of his wrist, and held it in front of him. The four female cultivators, swords drawn, aimed straight at Li Fan, but instead, they all crashed into the scroll! And they really did 'enter' the scroll!

Before everyone's eyes, the four figures instantly vanished into the painting. At the same instant, four vibrant red flowers bloomed on the blank scroll, like blood-red ice flowers. Six-petaled, symmetrical hexagonal crystals spread across the scroll, condensing and piling up, quickly filling the entire painting. The four crystal flowers piled together, forming an ochre-red blood color, as if wet ink had overflowed from the canvas. In one corner, the color coalesced faster, and flesh and blood could be clearly seen piling up, as if a face and arm were glued together...

Li Fan, still chewing on his steamed bun, peeked out and quickly rolled up the blood-stained scroll in his hand, stuffing it back into his sleeve. He swallowed the bun and said, "Tsk, no one can hold on? Didn't I tell you all to come in together? More people might mean more protectors..."

Unfortunately, the nine people behind them were so shocked by what they saw that they gasped in horror and stopped in their tracks. They dared not come forward to fight to the death. Two of the younger ones even vomited. They didn't care about the sword formation or the encirclement. They screamed and scattered like sparrows, fleeing towards the outside of the temple.

Li Fan had already taken out a new scroll from his sleeve, but seeing that the cultivators from Kongsang Mountain were already in a panic and scattering in all directions, he ignored them and turned his head to look at Wuzhui and the eight black-clad Daoists from Hengshan.

"You are all elites of the Xuanmen sect. After calculating for so long, you should have figured it out by now, right? There is a mountain-protecting formation set up by my Tai Xuan Dao in this temple. Now it has been activated by me. The feng shui, the heavens and earth, the yin and yang are all under my control. You can't borrow any of the magic from it. You can only rely on your own abilities."

By the way, although you all possess profound mathematical abilities, breaking this deadlock cannot be achieved through mathematics alone. Let's try a couple more innovative approaches."

Wu Zhui witnessed the entire battle. The Sword Lord vanished instantly, and eight Nascent Soul Stage True Cultivator perished in a flash. His face was ashen, and he stood motionless, muttering repeatedly, "Tai Xuan, Tai Xuan, Tai Xuan..."

Meanwhile, the eight Daoist priests on Hengshan Mountain gathered together, sitting cross-legged in the Bagua formation, constantly calculating. Liu Mingdao, the leader, sat in the Qian position, his smile gone, and casually said, "Stop him."

The Daoist priest sitting opposite him immediately stood up, bowed, and said, "Zhang Daoxu of Hengshan."

Seeing that they were quite composed and would proceed one by one, Li Fan spread his hands and nodded to them, saying, "Please, fellow Daoist."

Zhang Daoxu flipped his hand, revealing a Hengshan sword in his palm. He held the sword in his left hand, made a hand seal with his right, and assumed a fighting stance. Daoist Dao Breath steamed from his mouth and nose, and true energy gathered in his Inner Landscape abdomen, were almost completely ripped apart, a bloody mess. <Against Fate> on the spot!

This time, Wuzhui couldn't stop it in time. Splattered with blood again, it couldn't hold on any longer and screamed madly, "Ah, ahhh!" before turning and running back into the temple.

The other Hengshan disciples abruptly stopped their calculations and turned around. Liu Daoming, his pupils bloodshot, stood up and stared intently at the mangled corpse on the ground. "This move is also from your Dao!"

Li Fan smiled at him, "How come you recognize me?"

"Beichen Sword Sect! Invisible Sword Qi!" Liu Daoming spat out each word through gritted teeth.

His junior brothers behind him suddenly pulled out medicine bottles from their pockets and started gulping down all sorts of pills as if they were out of their minds.

"Oh? So that's how you break this trick. Good idea." Li Fan stroked his chin, nodding repeatedly to show he had learned something. Then, he tossed the scroll in his hand, which suddenly transformed into a ferocious, blue-faced demon eight zhang tall, shaped like a centipede, with many heads and legs! It was a fusion of several ghosts and gods, including Jiang Xiao! Wailing and howling, it spewed poisonous smoke and flames, rushing straight towards the Hengshan group!

Liu Daoming roared, "Daoxi, stand up! Everyone else, breathe deeply! Force the invisible sword energy out!"

The rest of the Hengshan people remained unfazed by the collapse of the sky, quietly sitting and breathing exercises to consume the energy from the pills.

A Daoist priest in black leaped out, letting out a King Kong roar, chanting incantations, his feet treading the heavenly pillars, his body growing larger in the wind, his limbs lengthening until he reached a height of two zhang (approximately 6.6 meters), like a guardian deity. He pounced, punching away the head of the oncoming demon god, then grabbed it around the waist, suddenly unleashing a terrifying force, forcefully wrestling the ferocious demon god to the ground. The two colossal figures clashed, howling and screaming, blood and flesh flying everywhere, the battle shaking the heavens and earth!

Li Fan wasn't in a hurry. He took out a third steamed bun from his pocket, stuffed it into his mouth, and ate while watching the boxing match, secretly sensing the invisible sword energy around him.

Indeed, Zhang Daoxu was killed using invisible sword energy, not the simple method of directly slitting his throat and disemboweling him, as such a direct killing intent would surely be detected by the masters of the Xuanmen. Li Fan used a more advanced version from the Blood Robe technique, concealing the invisible sword energy around Zhang Daoxu. When the opponent inhaled and circulated his energy, the sword energy would infiltrate his lungs and internal organs. Taking advantage of the moment when the opponent was gathering his Dao energy, the sword energy would Dao Breath along the meridians, tracing the three jiaos, attacking the internal organs, piercing through the heart and lungs! Launching an assassination! It was impossible to defend against!

However, this move relies on sudden, deadly attacks, harming people without them even realizing it. Now that those from Hengshan are on guard and have been given various qi-restoring and healing pills, their technique has naturally been broken.

Moreover, the deployment of this invisible sword energy was rather slow. It was nighttime, and underground, so the stellar power of Ketu was simply insufficient. Li Fan, hiding in the sedan chair, had painstakingly managed to secretly spread this small amount of invisible sword energy, intending to ambush the Hengshan cultivators. But who knew that the other side was so steady, testing their moves one by one. Zhang Daoxu even managed to absorb all the surrounding spiritual energy in one breath! In the end, he only managed to ambush Li Fan!

Damn! No wonder he's a Xuanmen Master, he's seen it all, he's not flustered at all...

'Hey, what's going on here?'

'Li Fan, what's going on with you now?'

Oh, so you guys have time to sit back and watch again, huh? Okay, let me explain briefly.

In fact, Li Fan had already completed the deduction of the Tai Xuan Dao while riding in a sedan chair, and while the authorities were still nagging about the locals and outsiders, he had already completed the deduction.

Yes, it's not just about the layout of the Tai Xuan Dao in Ghost Valley, but also the corresponding cultivation methods of Tai Xuan Dao in this special environment!

Of course, it's not that Li Fan's math skills suddenly became incredibly advanced or cheat-like; Li Fan just suddenly realized that his cheat code had never been turned off...

The mood maintenance system, in essence, is also a kind of 'intelligent auxiliary system'! Even a supercomputer shouldn't lack basic calculator functions, right? Although Li Fan used to spend all his time using the fruits of human civilization to play games and watch trash...

In short, Li Fan doesn't need to calculate those basic and complex Cultivation Method step by step, nor does he need to keep trying and making mistakes. He can just leave it all to the system!

So what Li Fan did was, within the Divine Court, directly replace Daoist Qiongqi's Dao body model with the meridian diagram of the Qingyang Old Demon's <Qingyang Qingtian Great Transformation Divine Skill>, which the system had compiled. Then, for any inconsistencies or deficiencies, he found solutions from the Ling Shu Cultivation Method he had previously researched based on his own body to make do. Then, based on the translation of the <<Tai Xuan Scripture>> and the current internal layout of the Tai Xuan Temple, he replaced the Taiji Dao's internal Inner Landscape of Yin and Yang, Four Symbols, and Eight Trigrams cycle with the Tai Xuan Dao's One Mystery, Three Directions, and Nine Provinces cycle, compiling it into a Tai Xuan Dao cultivation method suitable for Qiongqi Dao Body!

This hodgepodge of Cultivation Method, forcibly applied to a template, has bugs? No problem. Most Daoist bodies only have a few meridians anyway. If one doesn't work, try another. And if the system doesn't respond during the trial run, just fine-tune and exhaustively try everything, even using Si Nan to guess. As long as it's right, the system will officially certify it...

My mood has improved a bit.

Therefore, at this moment, Li Fan's Daoist Qiongqi was actually starting from scratch, cultivating the newly created <Tai Xuan Death Gate Qingyang Divine Art>, because this method was the most suitable Tai Xuan Dao cultivation method for this Dao body at this time and place!

Is this Tai Xuan Gong really that powerful? It definitely is! At the Tai Xuan Temple, Li Fan felt almost as if he were cultivating in the Tai Su Realm Moon Worship, even faster than when Gui Xu Nascent Soul was cultivating demonic energy! Li Fan was just standing here watching the show, and his cultivation level and power were increasing exponentially!

Although in essence, this is a breathing and cultivation method, compared to the fierce battle currently taking place on Hengshan Daoxi's side, they can only barely hold their own true qi cultivation and even deplete the Nascent Soul Stage true essence accumulated over many years in order to fight the ghost god thrown out by Li Fan to a standstill.

Of course, after three hours, the fortune within Ghost Valley will change, and the effectiveness of this Cultivation Method will inevitably begin to diminish. Moreover, once you leave the valley and enter a different world, this <Tai Xuan> will be even more tattered, not to mention Tai Su Tai Ji, it can't even compare to the original teachings of the Old Demon Qingyang.

But at this moment and in this place, this Cultivation Method, which is most suitable for his Dao body, is definitely better than the Taiji Dao on Hengshan Mountain, which can no longer communicate with heaven and earth and can only barely draw upon true qi by consuming elixirs. This is what is called having the perfect combination of timing, location, and people!

And most importantly...

"The Demonic Path! Ahh..."

A roar like that of a demon or monster came from the foot of the mountain, stretching from afar. In an instant, a streak of fire shot into the sky like a comet, revealing a humanoid skeleton with its flesh and skin ablaze. The skeleton roared and wielded the Zhu Ming Divine Sword, its Sword Light unparalleled, its sword energy like flames, as it charged down. The words were barely out of its mouth before the Sword Light was upon it, aimed straight for Li Fan's head!

Li Fan laughed heartily at Zhu Ming Jianjun, then turned into a whirlwind as he faced the sword's edge.

And so Zhu Ming Jianjun once again vanished into the wind, his sword flame dissipating like bait with a whoosh, disappearing without a trace.

The Daoist priests on Hengshan Mountain all stopped their cultivation and turned to look at Li Fan, who had reappeared with the wind and was smiling at them. Under the gaze of those tiger-like eyes, a chill ran down their spines to the top of their heads.

They seemed unable to hear Hengshan Daoxi's shrill screams as he fought the demon god; they only heard someone beside them murmuring, "Ah... Xuan, Xuanmen!"

Liu Daoming was momentarily lost in thought, "No, it's the authentic Tai Xuan Gate!"