The Foundation Establishment Realm's advantage over the Qi Refining Period was not quite that exaggerated, of course, but it was still absolute, as was its control over the initiative.
Apart from the handful of dazzling "Heavenly Prodigies" throughout history, almost no cultivator could defeat someone in a higher realm.
Even Liu Yu had been unable to challenge Foundation Establishment cultivators while he was in the Qi Refining Period.
When the formation broke and the Huang Household's five elders fled, they had already ordered the household's cultivators to scatter and break out on their own. They had not even had time to tell them where to regroup-or rather, had not dared to.
The Huang Household's roughly two hundred Qi Refining cultivators scattered in a rush. The City Guard Army was responsible for pursuing those who ran quickly, while only about forty remained: those who were slow or stood rooted to the spot.
"Aaagh!"
Wreathed in Azure Yang Demonic Flame, the Mother-and-Son Soul-Chasing Blades reaped lives freely amid the crowd.
In little more than a dozen breaths, not a single person remained alive.
When the final scream faded, nothing remained on this stretch of mountainside but black ash and silence, broken only by the sounds of battle nearby.
More than forty lives that had been vibrant just moments ago, perhaps including a few so-called "geniuses," had become heaps of black ash in the blink of an eye-the traces of their existence.
Liu Yu watched it all without expression.
With a thought, he sent the Mother-and-Son Soul-Chasing Blades circling swiftly, absorbing the pale azure flames atop each heap of ash into the blades.
Liu Yu beckoned again, and the Mother-and-Son Soul-Chasing Blades returned to hover before him. The Azure Yang Demonic Flame separated from the blades and gathered over his right hand.
*1.2