Wang Xuan felt as if he had fallen into an ice cellar. Every hair on his body stood on end, and fine goosebumps covered his skin. The chill of death crawled up the back of his neck and engulfed him. His heart pounded wildly, tightening his throat as though it were about to burst out.
He had barely been able to evade that twenty-meter-long icy blade light earlier with his movement technique.
But the hair-thin, blindingly bright sword line before him made his entire body stiffen. Wherever it passed, the air, sand, and even the True Qi drifting through the air were silently erased, as though that stretch of space had never existed.
He could not dodge it.
The instant that thought surfaced, Wang Xuan's mind instead went still with a buzz.
Extreme fear did not break him. Instead, it forced out an almost cruel clarity. In the midst of this hopeless situation, an idea abruptly surfaced. He remembered a possibility.
At a thought, his talent activated silently, and a pale blue System Panel appeared before him without warning:
[Small Formless Art (Limit)] [Eight Desolations and Six Harmonies Sovereign Skill (Limit)]
He had no time to care about the swelling pain caused by maxing out the two Divine Arts. His gaze remained locked on the panel.
The next second, the panel flickered slightly, and four large words slowly emerged:
[Free and Unfettered Wind]
"Just as I thought!" Wang Xuan rejoiced inwardly, gritting his teeth as he roared in his mind, "Talent, let me see your limit! Max it out!"
[Free and Unfettered Wind (Sixth Layer)]
A warm current instantly exploded within him and surged through his meridians. Yet Free and Unfettered Wind stopped at the sixth layer. The remaining three layers, along with the limit beyond the ninth layer, seemed blocked by an invisible barrier. No matter how he urged it, they would not budge.
If one rode the righteousness of Heaven and Earth, commanded the changes of the six energies, and roamed the infinite, what would one need to depend on?
At the same time, a drastic transformation occurred within his body. The meridians that had nearly burst from being filled with two limit-level Divine Arts rapidly expanded beneath the warm current's cleansing. Deep within his dantian, an entirely new True Qi quietly condensed. The moment it formed, it began wildly expanding his sea of qi.
In the blink of an eye, his dantian became like a dark abyss. The mixed True Qi of the Divine Illumination Scripture, Indestructible Diamond, Energy Absorption Technique, and Six Meridian Divine Sword was all drawn by an invisible force, converging into that abyss, compressing and transforming.
Everything was advancing toward the realm of Great Grandmaster. Yet just as he was about to break through that threshold, it abruptly stopped. It was as if an invisible wall stood before him. No matter how he built up strength, he could not cross it.
He knew full well that this was the ceiling of the Plot World: the Ninth Heaven of Grandmaster.
Regret was regret, but Wang Xuan did not slow down in the slightest. The True Qi in his body flowed backward through his meridians. Taking the Void as the sea and True Qi as the boat, his body suddenly became weightless, turning into a wisp of green smoke as he rose into the air against all reason.
There was not the slightest hesitation in his movement. Graceful as a startled swan, he moved at the utmost speed, leaving countless lifelike afterimages in his wake. From afar, he even resembled a Feixian descending into the mortal world. This was the might of Free and Unfettered Wind: flying through the air without external aid, turning at will, too fast for the eye to follow.
The instant he left the ground, that extremely thin, extremely bright white sword line swept across the sky.
In an instant, all sound vanished. Wherever the sword line passed, all matter, force, and True Qi were silently erased. A bottomless, mirror-smooth groove was left across the beach, without even the sound of sand shattering.
Chu Lingtian's face was deathly pale. His talent was extremely specialized: he possessed astonishing comprehension only in the sword path, while he was utterly mediocre in all other aspects.
Feeling waves of searing pain coming from his meridians, he knew that Sword Separating the World was enormously powerful, but its backlash was equally severe. There were already few within the Royal Clan capable of practicing this martial art.
He had thought that strike would certainly succeed, yet it had not even touched the corner of Wang Xuan's clothes.
"Stop watching the damn show!" Chu Lingtian's voice was sharp and shrill, filled with barely concealed anxiety. "Something's wrong with this guy! He could barely dodge the Six Styles of Proud Cold before, but now he can evade my Sword Separating the World! This has already surpassed the Plot World's limit! If you don't want the mission to fail, then attack!"
Heavenly Will Four Symbols Art! Mighty Dragon Divine Palm! Clone Demon Shadow! Dragon Riding Slash! Six Styles of Proud Cold!
Before his words had even faded, several figures atop the platform sprang into action at once, unleashing all manner of Divine Arts and Ultimate Arts in rapid succession. Heavenly Will Four Symbols Art stirred celestial phenomena, Mighty Dragon Divine Palm condensed dragon-shaped force that tore through the sky, Clone Demon Shadow created over a hundred figures, Dragon Riding Slash poured down sword qi like a waterfall, and the icy force of Six Styles of Proud Cold made the air tremble with cold.
At the request of many readers, we have now introduced an ad-free VIP membership feature.
Click to view.
In an instant, the weather shifted and the heavens changed color.
Wang Xuan stood in the air, his robes fluttering lightly. With the ethereal grace of Free and Unfettered Wind, he nimbly evaded the barrage of attacks, appearing completely at ease.
Sword rain poured down upon him. He twisted and spun like a swimming fish, every movement perfectly timed. Several fierce dragon-shaped palm forces came roaring toward him. He neither dodged nor blocked, merely shifting slightly and letting the forceful wind from the palms gently redirect him as the attacks grazed his hem and missed. As for that twenty-meter icy blade light, it had now become the most useless technique of all. It could only slash futilely into the ground, sending sand flying everywhere without touching even a corner of his clothing.
The first to close in was the Royal Clan member using Clone Demon Shadow.
More than a hundred figures lunged at him from every direction. Each was vivid and lifelike, completely sealing off every route of escape.
Wang Xuan swept his right hand over his waist. Spring Rain on a Small Building Overnight left its sheath, and the blade intent of Divine Blade Slash instantly enveloped the entire battlefield.
This strike contained the essence of the Eight Linked Styles of the Wish-Fulfilling Heavenly Demon. There was no unnecessary flourish; it was condensed to the extreme. With one flash of blade light, more than a hundred clones were struck simultaneously and split down the middle, bursting apart like bubbles.
Yet even more phantoms split out from the shattered figures, streaming forth endlessly as though inexhaustible.
At that moment, a palm shadow silently emerged from Wang Xuan's blind spot behind him and struck solidly into the center of his back.
The palm force was chilling to the bone and penetrated directly into his meridians. It was clearly a vicious move specialized in breaking internal True Qi.
Clang!
The sound rang out like a tolling bell. Wang Xuan spun through the air and drifted more than a dozen zhang away.
That palm force should have instantly sent a person's blood and qi flowing in reverse, throwing their mind into disarray. But Wang Xuan had only just cultivated Free and Unfettered Wind, and the True Qi in his body was already circulating through his meridians in reverse. Combined with the Indestructible Diamond Divine Skill constantly protecting his body, that palm strike did not hurt him in the least.
The Royal Clan youth using Distraction Palm saw his pupils contract sharply. The delight on his face instantly froze, replaced by utter disbelief.
Thunder exploded in the sky as dark clouds churned. A phantom Dharma image drew in lightning, transforming it into a palm that pressed down on Wang Xuan with enough force to shroud the heavens. It was Thunder God's Wrath from the Heavenly Will Four Symbols Art.
Wang Xuan looked up and struck out with both palms, unleashing moves from the Eighteen Dragon Subduing Palms in succession: Flying Dragon in the Sky, Dragon Appearing in the Field, Swan Gradually Landing on the Shore, Hidden Dragon Do Not Use, Shocking a Hundred Miles, Dragon Repents. The force of six palms stacked together as countless golden dragon shadows roared toward the giant palm that covered the sky.
Rumble!
A deafening explosion erupted, and the shockwaves rolled like a tsunami.
A tyrannical bolt of lightning force slipped through the gap created by the clashing palm forces and entered Wang Xuan's body, making his blood and qi churn. Blood seeped from the corner of his mouth. Borrowing that tremendous force, he turned with the momentum and drifted dozens of zhang backward before stabilizing himself.
Before he could catch his breath, densely packed phantoms surrounded him once more. Palm shadows filled the sky, some real and some false. Only one belonged to the true body, striking from a tricky angle with bone-chilling force.
But compared to ultimate killing moves such as Heavenly Will Four Symbols Art and Sword Separating the World, the combination of Clone Demon Shadow and Distraction Palm was ultimately not enough in Wang Xuan's eyes.
He simply stopped deliberately evading, allowing the opponent's palm shadows to land on him while simultaneously activating the Energy Absorption Technique and turning the area within five zhang around him into an invisible Power-Absorption Field.
The Power-Absorption Fields layered upon one another. The moment those ghostlike phantoms rushed into range, their speed plummeted and their movements stiffened. Then, with a series of popping sounds, they shattered one after another.
In the blink of an eye, every phantom had dispersed, revealing the Royal Clan youth's true body at the center, his face livid.
He was frantically circulating his cultivation technique. A layer of lustrous white Xiantian Qi emerged around his body, desperately resisting the pull of the Power-Absorption Field.
Wang Xuan's gaze turned cold. He slashed once, and sixty-four streaks of blade light condensed into a single line in midair, cutting straight through. The seemingly sturdy Xiantian Qi shattered instantly like foam before that blade line.
One Blade Splits All.
At the same time, the Energy Absorption Technique activated at full power. The Royal Clan youth did not even have time to scream before all his blood, qi, and True Qi were drained dry. The immense blood, qi, and True Qi that surpassed a Grandmaster at the peak flowed into Wang Xuan's body, yet against his abyss-like dantian sea of qi, it did not even produce the slightest swelling sensation.
Three new martial arts quietly appeared on the panel:
[Xiantian Qi] [Clone Demon Shadow] [Distraction Palm]
If you enjoy this book, please remember to add it to your bookshelf so you do not lose it next time.
Before you continue