As the Sword Qi entered his body, it suddenly turned unbearably hot, searing Jiang Chen's spiritual meridians. It was harder to endure than Flame Mountain in the daytime.
Jiang Chen had no choice but to force himself into resonance with it. Only then could he keep his meridians clear and slowly guide the Sword Qi into his dantian.
Suddenly!
The Demonic Aura in the Qi Sea Abyss was scorched into submission by the Sword Qi.
The fierce, twisting pain deep in his lower abdomen, caused by the Demonic Aura tangling together, vanished completely.
Jiang Chen suddenly felt hollow.
He hurriedly drew the suppressed Demonic Aura out of the Abyss before it was burned away.
That was his treasure for advancing. He couldn't let Li Lingzhou's Sword Qi ruin it.
Only the scorching, surging Sword Qi remained in sole possession of the Abyss.
It churned not just through his qi sea, but through every limb and bone.
Jiang Chen felt as though his physique had been remade. His speed and strength doubled out of nowhere, as if he had switched on Saiyan Mode.
At the same time, his cultivation had not changed at all.
No wonder Li Lingzhou had dared say she could handle Tian Mingye. Against demons, her Sword Qi was a natural bane.
Pure Yang spiritual energy... Could cultivating this Sword Qi be what turned Li Lingzhou into such a tough woman? Jiang Chen wondered.
This is Sword Qi for men to cultivate!
It took Jiang Chen quite a while to use resonance to force the Sword Qi down into the depths of the Abyss, where it wouldn't surface lightly.
Then he guided the Demonic Aura at the surface of his qi sea into the Abyss's vortex and watched how the Sword Qi reacted.
This time, the Sword Qi deep in the Abyss behaved itself and stopped ravaging the Demonic Aura.
The twisting pain of their entanglement returned.
Jiang Chen seized the chance to consume more than three hundred spirit stones. Then, circulating the Demi-Immortal Art, he spent half the night raising his cultivation to Qi Refining Ninth Layer once again...
Even on his third simulation, he couldn't let the Demonic Aura go to waste. What if, by some chance, he achieved an ending even more perfect than the second time?
By the time he had settled his cultivation, the eastern sky had turned pale as a fish's belly.
It was time for Jiang Chen to take a risk.
He would devour all of Li Lingzhou's Sword Qi!
If he died, he could act as though nothing had happened.
With that thought, Jiang Chen opened his mouth wide, drew a great circle around the Sword Qi, and devoured it ravenously like a taotie.
For a moment, Jiang Chen felt as though his body was Supreme Lord Lao's alchemy furnace, and the Sword Qi boiling and rampaging inside him was Sun Wukong.
His face flushed hot and gave off a wisp of golden light, no different from the dazzling gold streaming through the morning clouds.
It burned, but he felt pretty good.
His speed and strength rose by another whole order of magnitude.
He even felt that if he faced a Foundation Establishment Early Stage opponent again, he wouldn't need any high-level skills. The Eight-Step Mad Blade, a mere mortal-level technique, would be enough to kill them in an instant!
If he wished, he could send Sword Qi flying with a single swing.
But this Sword Qi was entirely separate from his own five-element spiritual power, his demonic or devilish power, and the related spirit-control techniques.
If he forced the Sword Qi down into the Abyss's depths, then used Five-Element Spirit Control or fused Demonic Aura, none of it was affected.
Dual SIM, dual standby, each independent of the other... Wonderful!
Stars shone in Jiang Chen's eyes, with an elusive glimmer of a sword's edge deep within them.
Though he was only at Qi Refining Ninth Layer and had yet to reach Foundation Establishment, he now carried the bearing of a powerhouse.
And not just the bearing. He had a strange, inexplicable confidence.
"This is the ending I'm keeping."
Jiang Chen prepared to set off for Xiyang City, renew his bond with his dear empress dowager, and complete the hat trick.
Suddenly!
Something—or some force—was racing toward him, yet he sensed no aura anywhere around him.
He detected a faint spatial fluctuation.
He turned to leave.
The space before him was suddenly punctured like a thin membrane. A streak of Sword Qi whistled out and pierced through his lower abdomen into his dantian.
But the Sword Qi of the same origin in his Abyss forced it into resonance and absorbed it instead.
Jiang Chen spat blood. Sword light showed on his face as he looked up.
Slash—
Someone had cleaved open the space before him with a sword.
A woman in blue-green robes, a green sword in her right hand and a little red wine jar dangling from her left, pulled apart the spatial rift as though lifting a curtain. Her long black hair was tied in a single ponytail, and she stumbled out.
She had sword-like brows and star-bright eyes, her gaze hazy with drink. Her pale face was flushed like moonlight tinged with red, while her fitted blue-green robes traced the valiant lines of her tall, graceful figure. Wine and Sword Qi mingled in her eyes, conjuring a mist-wreathed scene.
Li Lingzhou rubbed her eyes, hazy with Sword Qi, and stared blearily at Jiang Chen for a long while.
"Huh? Someone broke through my Sword Qi. How are you still alive, kid...?"
Could a Golden Core Realm cultivator cleave open a spatial rift with one sword strike?
As Jiang Chen recalled, one had to reach at least the seventh cultivation realm, Myriad Phenomena Realm, to stand a chance of mastering spatial arts...
This woman's cultivation really was a mystery. Could she be the sort who had simply written in her own cultivation level, while her true identity was some Mahayana Realm big shot?
Jiang Chen wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and said with a note of reproach:
"That proves you can't guarantee my safety."
Li Lingzhou's gaze dropped to Jiang Chen's lower body... and she froze in disbelief.
"You dismantled my Sword Domain yourself, and you've still got the nerve to say that?
I came to save you, didn't I? That Sword Qi just now was meant to avenge you. You actually withstood it?
That makes no sense... Did I lose all my Sword Qi in a bet?"
As she spoke, Li Lingzhou turned sideways and slashed at the vast desert.
Slash—
A chasm a foot wide, ten zhang deep, and stretching a hundred li instantly split the sea of sand.
The fine sand on either side stood like walls, trembling as it held perfectly straight, not daring to spill a single grain into the sword-cut trench.
Her power was still there.
When she looked at Jiang Chen again, Li Lingzhou's expression had changed. She grew unusually solemn, though she could barely conceal her excitement.
"Your unusual method of nurturing qi and your pure spiritual power could never have let you swallow my Sword Qi!
Wait, you've even advanced a level...
Are you an immortal reincarnated?"
No, no. My advancement and swallowing your Sword Qi are two separate things.
The woman was shocked by his abilities, but unlike Thousand-Faced Fox, she showed no desire to dig deeper. That suggested Li Lingzhou's true strength far surpassed Thousand-Faced Fox's.
Of course, she might simply be too slow on the uptake to grasp what his physique implied.
Jiang Chen said calmly:
"And what if I am?
Your Sword Qi has already saved my life once.
By rights, that ended the trial early, and you should have come in person. But what happened?
If I went with you to the Prison Suppression Bureau, I'd become your tool for slaying demons. I'd work myself to the bone while you'd probably be enjoying yourself at some gambling house."
Li Lingzhou instinctively took a sip of wine. Her face reddened as she argued:
"I lost all my money ages ago. How could I gamble?
Besides, I was already on my way here!
Even if I hadn't arrived, my Sword-Qi Domain would have kept you safe.
Who could've known you'd eat my Sword Qi?!
Come to think of it, you're the only person on the Ascending Dragon Continent who's done that and survived.
You're pretty good. Come make a fortune with me at the Prison Suppression Bureau!"
Jiang Chen didn't believe her. He said flatly:
"Dream on... I'm not going."
Li Lingzhou thought it over. With Jiang Chen's current cultivation, the application process alone would take a year or more. She could leave him be for now and abduct him to the Prison Suppression Bureau once it was approved.
With that in mind, she slung an arm around Jiang Chen's shoulders. Her breath was fragrant with wine as she said meaningfully:
"Kid, you don't think my Sword Qi comes free, do you?
Look at that trench in the sand. Is there any Sword Qi left in it?
I have a fixed amount of Sword Qi, but it doesn't dissipate. Once I send it out, I retrieve it.
If you really don't want to go to the Prison Suppression Bureau, fine. Pay the fee for using my Sword Qi, and you can stay away."
Jiang Chen glanced at the trench. She was right.
The Sword Qi was gone.
Yet the sand seemed like it had been bitten by a snake once and feared well ropes for ten years. It still stood rigidly as walls, not daring to move.
It was as though Li Lingzhou's Sword Qi had inspired in the grains of sand a fear only living things could feel.
This woman was definitely no ordinary person!
Jiang Chen couldn't beat her, and he coveted her Pure Yang Sword Aura, so he tossed her a storage pouch.
"Five hundred spirit stones. Not one more."
Li Lingzhou caught the resolve in Jiang Chen's eyes. For a minor Qi Refining cultivator, five hundred spirit stones was a fortune. He probably couldn't have earned that much without tagging along behind her.
"Hey, aren't there two Merfolk Women here? Sell them. They're worth quite a bit."
Jiang Chen quickly lifted the water tank with a burst of power, his face stern.
"I'm keeping these two as my wives. Go away."
Li Lingzhou stared. She hadn't expected the kid's tastes to be wilder than hers. He wouldn't even spare half-demons whose transformations were incomplete. She put an arm around his shoulders again, feigning intimacy.
"Remember last time, at the Spirit Spring Inn? You teased my little snake-demon wife, didn't you?
What's the difference between us?
Once we know each other better, won't your wives be my wives and mine be yours?
As long as you have money, what man need worry about finding a wife?"
Jiang Chen shrugged off her arm, picked up the water tank, turned, and flew straight toward Xiyang City on his sword.
He glanced back, but Li Lingzhou wasn't following him...
Yet when he reached Xiyang City, he sensed her location through the resonance of their Sword Qi—
The Thousand-Gold Gambling House.
Jiang Chen shook his head.
It was noon. He hurriedly bought a carriage and drove straight to the Peaceful Palace, where he cultivated to his heart's content with the empress dowager.
Five chapters and fourteen thousand characters—done!
Before you continue