Kill the Game!

He flicked his right hand, the movement as casual as brushing away dust.

The God-Splitting Spike transformed into an imperceptible black shadow, vanishing from his fingertips; only a faint, almost inaudible whistle remained in the air.

Yin Mingchen ran at the front, leaving Chu Lingtian far behind, and felt his heart ease slightly.

He had always believed in one principle: when fleeing for your life, you don't need to run faster than the pursuer, you only need to run faster than your companions—and Chu Lingtian was his perfect "stepping stone."

Yet at this moment, a trace of sorrow welled up in Yin Mingchen's heart; a dignified member of the Royal Clan, reduced to saving his life in such a manner.

No sooner had the thought arisen than a sharp, faint whistling sound suddenly came from behind him.

Yin Mingchen instinctively looked back, but the space behind him was empty; Wang Xuan was still far away and had not caught up at all.

However, Chu Lingtian, who was to his side and rear, suddenly went rigid, all his movements coming to an abrupt halt. The fierce, gritted-teeth expression of his desperate flight remained on his face, but his eyes instantly lost focus, his pupils dilating. His body carried forward by momentum for a few steps before crashing heavily onto the beach, kicking up a cloud of sand.

Yin Mingchen's pupils shrank to pinpricks, his footsteps stopping dead. His eyelid twitched violently as he stared fixedly at Chu Lingtian's neck.

A short, pitch-black spike was embedded there, with only a small portion exposed. The entire body of the spike had sunk into the flesh, and not a single drop of blood seeped from the wound.

"God-Splitting Spike?!"

Yin Mingchen's brain buzzed, his heart nearly leaping out of his throat, his voice cracking in pitch.

"How could it be the God-Splitting Spike?!"

He realized the truth instantly, his hair standing on end as a chill surged from his tailbone straight to his crown.

The other members of the Royal Clan also turned back one after another. Upon seeing the short spike in Chu Lingtian's neck, their eyes widened in terror, their faces pale with fright.

"It really is the God-Splitting Spike!"

"It's Mu Huacheng's! That piece of trash, not only did he give away the Xiantian Qi, but he couldn't even keep the God-Splitting Spike safe!"

"When we get back, we must not let him off!"

"Stop talking nonsense! Run!"

In this moment, all dignity of the Royal Clan and all thoughts of mission merit were cast to the winds. Only one thought remained in their minds: run, run for their lives.

By the time Wang Xuan landed beside Chu Lingtian's corpse, those Royal Clan members had long since vanished without a trace.

On the beach, there remained only a corpse that still held warmth but was slowly cooling, a strangely shaped longsword stuck diagonally into the sand, and a God-Splitting Spike that was turning gray and stony, already cracked into fragments.

The sea breeze, carrying a faint scent of blood, brushed gently against his cheeks, bringing with it the characteristic salty chill of the coast.

He raised his hand, performing a hollow suction with his palm.

The strangely shaped longsword immediately rose into the air, landing steadily in his palm.

The moment he touched it, a gentle yet vast vitality surged into his body through the hilt, even more potent than the vitality cultivated by the Divine Illumination Scripture. The clear, cool energy flowed through his meridians, spreading to his limbs and bones, instantly sweeping away the exhaustion left by the intense battle.

The panel popped up with a prompt at the right moment:

[Item: Frost-Ling Sword (Complete Form)]

[Material: Sword Body: Ten Thousand Year Ice Spring, Sword Soul: Blood of the Demon Sword Remnant Clan, Sword Spirit: Nine Dragon Stone]

[Description: The Heart Sword grants life, sharpened by righteousness; the Demon Sword grants death, sharpened by blood. One saves, one kills; combined into one, it holds the power of life and death!]

"Frost-Ling Sword," Wang Xuan murmured the name of the sword.

He naturally knew of this sword; legend claimed it could grant immortality. Now it seemed the rumors were indeed exaggerated, but its nourishing effects were not false in the slightest.

This was likely what was meant by "the Heart Sword grants life." He held the sword horizontally before his eyes to examine it closely. Red and blue patterns flowed slowly along the spine of the blade like two intertwined ribbons. A cold glint flickered at the edge, and a light touch from his fingertip felt bone-chillingly cold.

He looked down again at Chu Lingtian's corpse. The God-Splitting Spike in his neck had turned completely gray, like a stone weathered for a thousand years. As his gaze fell upon it, the spike cracked into several pieces with a click, scattering onto the sand without a hint of luster, having completely lost its lethality.

Wang Xuan raised his hand again, silently activating the Energy Absorption Technique. Chu Lingtian's corpse, along with his clothing, was instantly reduced to a pile of gray powder that drifted from between his fingers, only to be blown away by the sea breeze until not a trace remained.

He reached out and snatched the gold-bottomed, black-patterned storage bag from Chu Lingtian's waist. Probing it with his senses, he found the bag filled with miscellaneous items. He rummaged through it briefly before his fingertips touched a cold, pitch-black object—another God-Splitting Spike.

Wang Xuan's lips curled slightly. He took out this intact God-Splitting Spike and tucked it into his robes, whispering, "No guns, no cannons, the enemy provides them for us."

He stuffed the storage bag into his robes as well and turned his attention back to the panel.

Chu Lingtian had contributed quite a few martial arts this time. Most were mediocre, and he skipped over them with a glance, but three techniques caught his eye: Ten Thousand Swords Return to Origin, Sword Separating the World, and Holy Spirit Sword Technique.

All three were top-tier sword arts, enough to support a complete system of swordsmanship.

[Ten Thousand Swords Return to Origin] comes from the high-martial world of Wind and Cloud. It is the treasure of the Sword Sect and the supreme secret manual that countless swordsmen dream of. In the Wind and Cloud world, it is considered an early-stage divine skill. One must cripple their own martial arts before practicing it; otherwise, the practitioner will feel as if countless sharp swords are traveling through their body, and they will be torn to pieces in a single move.

After crippling one's cultivation, internal energy is born anew, and a sword qi is formed within the body. This sword qi has many functions: controlling swords, nourishing the spirit, healing wounds, and protecting the heart meridians. It is equivalent to a peerless internal energy technique. However, to quickly recover or increase one's power, one must use the sword to strike the crippled acupoints, absorbing the power of others to clear the blocked channels. But there is a fatal limitation: any absorbed internal energy must be expelled immediately after use, or the residual foreign energy will backfire and injure the practitioner.

As for why it is called an early-stage divine skill, aside from its series of pretentious cultivation methods, its actual performance in combat never reaches the level of a top-tier divine skill, leaving it with nothing but a famous name and making it essentially useless in the later stages of the story.

However, for Wang Xuan, it was already a peerless divine skill. Coupled with his immunity to side effects, it could serve as the foundation for his swordsmanship.

Next was [Sword Separating the World]. This technique originated from the high-martial world of Magic Sword Life and Death Chess and shared the same origin as the Xiantian Qi he had previously obtained. Both were ancestral martial arts of the Murong Clan—one the strongest shield, the other the strongest spear.

To practice it, one must first cultivate the "Inner Sword," using masculine and resilient internal energy to refine sword qi. This sword qi is sharper and has greater penetrating power than ordinary internal energy.

Then, one must cultivate the "Outer Sword," using a physical sword to release the power of the Inner Sword. When the inner and outer are combined, the resulting sword qi is something ordinary internal energy cannot withstand.

However, its side effects are also immense. Sword Separating the World requires the use of extremely fierce internal energy to condense sword qi, which the meridians struggle to withstand. Using it repeatedly in a short period causes irreversible damage. The more it is used, the more severe the backlash; at best, one's meridians are severed, leaving them a cripple, and at worst, the internal energy spirals out of control, causing the body to explode and die.

Chu Lingtian had only swung his sword once before stopping because his meridians couldn't handle the strain; this sword technique shared similarities with Ten Thousand Swords Return to Origin, as both involved converting true qi into sword qi.

Finally, there was the Holy Spirit Sword Technique.

Wang Xuan stared at the description of this sword technique, his breathing unconsciously growing heavier; this was a true divine martial art.

The "Holy" from Sword Saint Dugu Jian and the "Spirit" from Miyamoto Xueling—the two had jointly created this perfect sword technique and named it after themselves.

Sword One through Sword Eighteen were swords of emotion, Sword Nineteen through Sword Twenty-Two were swords of heartlessness, and the final Sword Twenty-Three was further divided into three realms: Heaven-Extinguishing Earth-Severing Sword Twenty-Three, Sentient Heaven and Earth Sword Twenty-Three, and Six-Extinction Sword Twenty-Three.

What Wang Xuan valued most was this Sword Twenty-Three, especially the Six-Extinction Sword Twenty-Three.

However, he wasn't sure if he could reach that realm after pushing this sword technique to its limit. Of course, all of this would have to wait until he went to a high-martial world; for now, he could only practice these three sword arts to the extreme that this world could withstand.

With a thought, all three martial arts were maxed out simultaneously.

On the panel, several lines of text suddenly jumped out:

[Technique: Ten Thousand Swords Return to Origin (Sixth Layer!)]

[Technique: Sword Separating the World (Inner Sword Sixth Layer!)]

[Technique: Holy Spirit Sword Technique (Sword Eighteen!)]

Wang Xuan only felt a surge of pure sword qi born within his dantian sea of qi, which was like an abyss returning to the void; as this sword qi traveled through his meridians, it grew rapidly.

As for crippling one's own martial arts or piercing blocked acupoints with a sword, he could just tell that to his unique-grade talent!

With a thought, Wang Xuan instantly transformed into a streak of sword light and soared into the sky; this method of turning one's body into sword light was truly worthy of the title of the highest realm of the Ten Thousand Swords Return to Origin sword technique.