The newcomer was an elderly man with snow-white hair and beard, clad in a gray Daoist robe as he streaked across the sky like a meteor.
His icy eyes gleamed with naked sharpness, as though lightning flashed within them, fixed upon the figure fleeing in panic ahead.
Yet, to his surprise, the other party suddenly stopped.
"Boy, why aren't you running anymore?"
The old man's voice boomed like a great bell, making the clouds high above churn violently.
The Heaven-and-Earth Avatar turned around to face the old man, all color drained from his face, leaving it deathly pale.
"Senior... this junior never harmed Miss Qinghan. Please spare this junior's life," the Heaven-and-Earth Avatar said in terror.
"Hmph! You still want to live? Wishful thinking!"
As the old man spoke, a Sword Qi spanning heaven and earth condensed into form and suddenly slashed out, as if it would rend the sky and split the earth.
Just as the enormous Sword Qi was about to strike the Heaven-and-Earth Avatar, it abruptly dispersed without warning.
"Ah—"
A shrill, miserable howl erupted from the old man's mouth.
An eerie buzzing sound had reached him, flooding straight into his sea of consciousness and exploding like thunder.
The old man's face twisted, veins bulging across it. He was clearly enduring unimaginable agony.
Yet his pupils still retained some of their sharpness. He had clearly not yet completely lost his mind.
A bell radiating spiritual-sense power suddenly appeared before the old man.
As he gritted his teeth and held on, the bell gradually began to emit a faint glow.
But before that glow could intensify, a flash of cold light shot toward him, aimed directly at his dantian.
The old man, under attack from spiritual sense, had no strength to resist at all.
The cold light pierced