A Hair's Breadth Between Life and Death

Within the dim space, the battle had already reached a fever pitch.

After the initial peril, Li Yuan's heart instead settled. Facing several experienced Shadow Kills, he chose to fight steadily, treating this life-and-death struggle as the finest proving ground for honing his combat techniques.

He drove his footwork to the utmost, his figure weaving and darting through the gaps in their encirclement, narrowly and perilously evading lethal killing moves time and again at the very last instant.

He even attempted to draw upon that sliver of time power he had only just touched. When his spiritual sense was intensely focused, he could feel his opponents' movements seeming to slow by a fraction.

Relying on that hazy perception, he could always make the most precise judgment at critical moments.

He continuously explored his limits. Though he appeared hard-pressed on every side, beset by danger, and several wounds had been cut across his body by short blades, leaving blood streaming down him—

In truth, his control over his own power was improving at a tremendous pace amid this life-and-death battle, while his understanding and application of all manner of techniques grew increasingly effortless.

Like an uncut jade, only beneath a blade could it be swiftly tempered.

"Damn it! Why is this brat so slippery?!"

The rock giant had attacked for so long without success and grew ever more irritable. One punch slammed down beside Li Yuan, demon power erupting and shaking cracks across the ground, yet it did not even touch the hem of Li Yuan's robe.

Shadow Thirteen was filled with doubt. Li Yuan looked utterly bedraggled, yet at crucial moments, he could always turn danger into safety, as if he possessed foresight.

A ridiculous feeling faintly rose within her. It seemed that he was... using them for practice.

"Cangmu, intensify the interference!" Shadow Thirteen shouted at the staff-wielding elder.

The hunched elder immediately began chanting. The dark-green eyeball atop his wooden staff suddenly shot out a dense green light, and an invisible mental shock, like fine needles, pierced toward Li Yuan's sea of consciousness.

Within his sea of consciousness, the Bronze Palace trembled faintly. Pale golden radiance flowed across it, silently dissolving most of the mental assault.

"Ahhh!"

Just then, Aji suddenly let out a shriek unlike any human sound. The ghostly gleam in his pitch-black eyes surged, his fingernails rapidly lengthened, and he lunged madly at Li Yuan without a care for anything else.

It appeared that the mental attack had triggered the restriction within Aji's body, driving him completely berserk.

Li Yuan's eyes turned cold. His body flickered aside, evading a backstab from Shadow Thirteen. True qi exploded beneath his feet, and his speed suddenly soared as he instantly closed in on the frenziedly charging Aji.

"Aji, forgive me!"

With a low shout, Li Yuan's hand moved like a butterfly flitting through flowers, leaving swift afterimages as it tapped seven major acupoints on Aji's body with incomparable precision, seeking to sever the circulation of his demon power.

At the same time, a silver needle abruptly appeared at his fingertips and swiftly pierced into the back of Aji's head.

"Urgh..."

Aji's berserk body suddenly stiffened. The mad black qi in his eyes ebbed away like a receding tide, and then his eyes rolled back as he collapsed limply to the ground.

The needle had been coated with a potent sedative specially made by the academy, which Li Yuan had specifically prepared for self-defense.

Shadow Thirteen was both shocked and enraged. She had not expected Li Yuan to have such a trick up his sleeve, instantly neutralizing Aji, the chess piece meant to restrain him.

"Kill!"

Killing intent flashed fiercely in her eyes. Knowing she could no longer hold anything back, she let out a sharp howl. In an instant, four more black shadows silently emerged from the dim corners around them.

Though these four had somewhat weaker auras, their movements were perfectly uniform and their eyes cold and numb. They were clearly elite Shadow Kills who had undergone rigorous training as well.

At that moment, six Shadow Kills formed a strange combined attack formation in an instant, surrounding Li Yuan at its core.

Once the formation was established, their auras linked together, and killing intent sealed off all directions. The pressure on Li Yuan surged sharply.

His heart sank. This was the enemy's true killing move.

Everything before had merely been testing. Against an entire squad of Shadow Kills skilled in fighting through formations, it was absolutely impossible for him to remain as at ease as before.

One slight mistake, and he would end up with his head parted from his body.

At the brink of life and death, he took a deep breath. His true qi erupted into motion without the slightest reservation, completely revealing the aura of the mid-stage Heart-Questioning realm.

"Come!"

Li Yuan gave a low shout, took the initiative to step forward, and actually launched the first charge!

He knew that once he fell into their rhythm, only death awaited him. He had to find a way to disrupt the battle formation before he could seek an opportunity to break free!

At this moment, within the Thirty-Three Heavens Map, the Gobi was desolate.

The battle had continued for an unknown length of time. Beneath the lead-gray canopy of the sky, the collision of laws and the thunderous roar of divine abilities had never ceased.

Mr. Mo and the White Ape Demon Saint had transformed into two entangled streaks of light, sometimes soaring into the high heavens, sometimes crashing into the earth. Wherever they passed, mountains collapsed, the ground split apart, and space shattered.

Mr. Mo's movement technique was elusive and unfathomable. With every gesture, he wielded the power of space as naturally as breathing—folding it, cutting it, freezing it—dissolving the White Ape Demon Saint's incomparably violent strength into nothingness.

Yet as time passed, Mr. Mo could clearly feel that his true essence was being consumed at an abnormal rate, while the injuries on his body faintly showed signs of becoming impossible to suppress.

It seemed the White Ape Demon Saint had not lied. This Thirty-Three Heavens Map truly suppressed human cultivators.

By contrast, the White Ape Demon Saint was like a fish in water within this space rich with the source of demon qi, growing braver the longer it fought.

Its innate divine abilities, Mountain-Shifting Mountain-Throwing and Void-Rending Demon Claws, were unleashed to the fullest. Its strength was enough to shake mountains, and from initially being at a disadvantage, it had gradually come to fight Mr. Mo on equal footing.

"Hahaha... Mo Wentian, you can feel yourself running out of strength now, can't you?"

The White Ape Demon Saint laughed wildly, its crimson eyes brimming with smugness as its offensive grew even fiercer. "You can barely hold on any longer, can you? Today, you will most certainly die!"

It abruptly opened its mouth and spewed forth another stream of pale demonic fire. At the same time, both claws struck out, ten black claw beams that tore through space arriving after yet striking first, sealing off every avenue of Mr. Mo's escape.

Mr. Mo's expression remained calm, but a trace of agitation rose within his heart. After this prolonged battle, his true essence had been consumed at an astonishing rate, and for the moment, he found it difficult to disengage.

He wondered how Li Yuan was faring. This time, the Dark Pavilion had mobilized in full force. Things were likely far more grim than hopeful...

I can't continue tangling with it. Mr. Mo made his decision. Facing the White Ape Demon Saint's attack, he no longer dodged. He held two fingers together like a sword, and a speck of silver light lit at his fingertips as he intercepted a strand of the most fundamental spatial law.

"Voidbreaker!"

With a low utterance, the silver light suddenly bloomed, becoming an almost imperceptible silver thread that silently met the claw beams filling the sky.

Screech—!

With a soft sound like cloth being torn, the black claw beams melted away like snow beneath the spring sun wherever the silver thread passed, revealing a fleeting passage.

The silver thread's momentum did not diminish as it shot straight toward the White Ape Demon Saint's brow.

A trace of horror flashed through the White Ape's crimson eyes. It roared wildly, brought its palms together, and condensed surging demon power into a massive rock shield before itself, runes flickering across its surface.

Boom!

The silver thread collided with the massive shield, erupting in blinding light that completely flattened the ground for hundreds of zhang around them.

The White Ape Demon Saint's enormous body staggered backward. Each step it took stamped a deep crater into the ground. A strand of dark golden blood seeped from the corner of its mouth, and its palms trembled faintly.

Mr. Mo also gave a muffled grunt, his face turning a shade paler as his internal aura churned. Though this strike was immensely powerful, the cost to himself was not slight either.

The two sides temporarily separated and faced one another from afar, both their auras somewhat disordered.

Clearly, however, it would not be easy for Mr. Mo to end the battle quickly.

The battle had fallen into the most perilous war of attrition, and time, it seemed, was not on Mr. Mo's side.