"Xu Zhijie, your killing intent is too strong."
A voice rang out over the altar, strewn with blood and severed limbs.
It was not loud, yet it struck deep within everyone's eardrums, even their souls, like a muffled bell.
A moment earlier, the blood-red poisonous fire on the palm of Xu Zhijie, the White Lotus Sect's Right Guardian, had been descending toward the weakened Zhang Yunqing's head with an unstoppable, deathly force. It was fierce enough to corrode the void.
Life and death hung by a hair.
Yet the instant that voice faded—
Boom!
No one saw a figure move. Three feet in front of Zhang Yunqing, a terrifying Martial Astral Force condensed from thin air, so heavy it seemed someone had crammed the entirety of Mount Tai into that tiny space.
The murky yellow force bore no dazzling light or shadow. It simply became a hand that could prop up the sky.
The hand rose from below and closed with casual ease.
Hiss—
As though snuffing out an insignificant firefly.
The blood-red poisonous fire, into which Xu Zhijie had poured the full depth of his Grandmaster power, had no chance to struggle. The yellow hand crushed it into flecks of foul-smelling red light, then its astral force ground those flecks into nothingness.
A gale swept back.
Xu Zhijie's gaunt body jolted as though struck by lightning. The overwhelming backlash stopped his forward-leaning killing charge dead.
The bluestone altar beneath his feet cracked in a rapid series of protests. Riding the force, he slid back more than ten yards before barely regaining his footing.
When he looked up at the figure standing before Zhang Yunqing, all mockery had vanished from his narrow eyes. In its place was the horror of a man who had seen a ghost.
"Guo Bingfu?!"
Xu