A dazzling spear ray swept forward, wrapped in the raging Spiritual Power of heaven and earth, its golden brilliance so blinding it made people's eyes ache.
Soul-Severing Thrust!
As the spear ray thrust out, a thunderous sound tore through the air and resounded across the land like a sudden thunderclap.
The spear's force whipped up wind and sand, blotting out the sky and sun!
"Prince Ying, my son is about to enter the Holy Sect! How dare you hurt me?" Liu Cheng shouted! He hastily raised his hand to defend himself, sweeping Liu Feng out of his arms and sending him to one side.
A massive, cold-edged saber appeared out of thin air in Liu Cheng's hand. He swung it across his chest, forming a gale of saber energy to block Prince Ying's thrust of icy fury.
But Prince Ying was a cultivation prodigy who had trained on Mount Sumeru since childhood. With Mount Sumeru's supreme treasure-the Holy King Spear-in his hand, how could Liu Feng easily withstand a thrust delivered in his utmost rage?
Though both were in the Nascent Soul Realm, Liu Cheng was only at the Nascent Soul Late Stage, while Prince Ying had already reached Nascent Soul Great Perfection, just one step away from Spirit Transformation!
Even had their cultivation been equal, Prince Ying's combat strength would still have been beyond Liu Feng's ability to contend with.
The spear ray pierced the saber gale. A streak of golden light thrust through, and Liu Cheng staggered backward, wounded.
Crimson blood seeped from his shoulder!
"Hahahaha..." Prince Ying laughed in his extreme fury. "Never mind that he's about to enter the Holy Sect... even if he had already joined, you would both still die today!"
"Prince Ying, I advise you not to bring ruin upon yourself! The Holy Sect isn't something a mere prince of the Hua Kingdom can provoke!" Liu Cheng roared anxiously.
"You should never have..." Gripping his spear, Prince Ying raised his head toward the glaring red sun. "Disregarded human lives... paved your path with people... brought harm upon my daughter!"
The red sun hung high, and Prince Ying seemed to see that little girl's smiling face within it.
"And above all... you should never have stopped them..."
"...from going home!"
Prince Ying leaped up, turning his thrust into a cleaving strike. The spear ray flashed brilliantly, its edge splitting the void as it swept down upon Liu Cheng with dazzling force and boundless fury.
They had only... wanted to go home!
Prince Ying remembered... those two pitiful children on that rainy night, facing a parting of life and death. They had wanted to go home, only to be trapped inside that ruined courtyard!
The chill of that rainy night, the heartlessness of those beasts, the despair of being unable to return home!
"Aah!" Prince Ying's grief became boundless madness.
Boom!
A tremendous crash rang out, and dust billowed!
Amid that world-destroying aura, Liu Cheng was hurled backward and slammed into the palace wall before the hall. He fell to his knees, vomiting blood...
The gulf between their strength was as vast as the heavens. Liu Cheng had no power to resist.
Liu Feng's face was deathly pale. Seeing his father battered all over, he was frozen with terror, and boundless regret rose in his heart.
Yet he regretted only that he had seized Prince Ying's daughter. Given another chance to choose, he would have made his father act with greater caution!
He had to enter the Holy Sect, no matter the cost!
Watching the frenzied Prince Ying from behind, Su Mo felt conflicted.
Others saw Prince Ying as mighty and invincible, but Su Mo saw only a pitiful father who had lost his daughter. However invincible he might be, he could never bring that adorable little girl back!
All he could do was vent his endless rage and avenge his daughter. But once that rage passed, what would he do...
Dragging his spear, Prince Ying walked step by step toward Liu Cheng, who lay unable to rise. The spear scored a long furrow in the ground...
"She was still so young... she hadn't yet seen all the sights this world had to offer..."
Prince Ying spoke in a low voice, advancing toward Liu Cheng one step at a time. The officials along his path retreated!
"She was so sweet and sensible... how could you bring yourselves to do it..."
Prince Ying stopped before Liu Cheng. Watching him cough up blood without end, he said in anguish, "You deserve to die. You truly deserve to die..."
He thrust his spear, and golden light blotted out the sun...
A sheet of white paper descended from the sky.
It drifted down like a white crane.
The sheet was plain and unadorned, appearing to be nothing more than an utterly ordinary piece of white paper.
Yet it flew before the gravely wounded Liu Cheng and blocked the Holy King Spear as Prince Ying thrust it forward.
Clang!
The sheet of white paper was thin and weightless, without the slightest fluctuation of Spiritual Power. Yet this single sheet blocked the Holy King Spear's full-powered thrust.
The Holy King Spear was like a wooden stick striking a wall of bronze and iron. With that sheet of white paper shielding Liu Cheng, the spear could not advance another inch.
"He... cannot die..." A gentle, refined voice came from above.
Prince Ying raised his head, looking up toward the voice...
An enormous white crane glided over with its wings spread.
On the crane's back stood a serene, breathtakingly beautiful woman in a white dress. A white-haired old man stood beside her.
The woman looked at Prince Ying, sighed, and repeated, "They... cannot die..."
"The Holy Sect?" Prince Ying asked.
"Yes," the woman replied.
The emperor rose from his imperial throne and descended, saying heavily, "Does your Holy Sect intend to interfere in our nation's affairs?"
The woman looked toward the emperor and shook her head slightly, replying calmly, "No. This isn't solely a matter of your nation's affairs."
She pointed at Liu Feng off to one side.
"He is about to enter our Holy Sect, so this is also our sect's affair!"
The white-haired old man beside her lightly waved his hand, and another sheet of white paper flew out.
The sheet drifted before Liu Feng and circled him once. In an instant, Liu Feng was drawn to the white-haired old man's side.
"Spirit Transformation!"
"A Spirit Transformation old monster..." an official cried out in alarm.
The Holy Sect's visitors actually had a Spirit Transformation cultivator accompanying them!!!
Watching Liu Feng being swept away, Prince Ying straightened and moved between Liu Cheng and the woman's group, preventing Liu Cheng from being taken away as well.
Prince Ying looked at the woman and asked coldly, "Do you know what they did?"
Looking at Prince Ying as he stood before Liu Cheng, the woman sighed. "I didn't before. Now I do."
"So even knowing that, you still intend to save them?"
The woman nodded. "Even so... they cannot die!"
"Isn't your Holy Sect stretching its hand too far? Can you speak for your Holy Sect?" The emperor walked into the square and stopped beside Su Mo, his dragon robes lending him extraordinary majesty.
"I am the Holy Sect's current Holy Maiden. My name is Ning Baixue..."
"I believe... I can speak for the Holy Sect!" the woman said serenely. There seemed to be not the slightest sense of superiority born of her status; she was merely stating a fact calmly.
"The Holy Sect's Holy Maiden... she's actually the Holy Sect's Holy Maiden!" an official murmured in shock!
"So it's the Holy Sect's Holy Maiden, with a Spirit Transformation old monster accompanying her as her guardian!"
"What are we supposed to do now?"
The officials exchanged glances, unable to keep a chill from creeping into their hearts.
The Holy Sect... stood far too high above them!
As high as the scorching sun hanging in the heavens. Even its name alone was enough to crush people until they could hardly breathe!
And now the Holy Sect's Holy Maiden had come in person!
"Once your Holy Sect refuses to see reason, lowly people like us truly have no recourse!" Prince Ying's eyes were red as he stared fixedly at the three people on the white crane.
Liu Feng, who had been rescued; the Holy Sect's Holy Maiden; and a white-haired Spirit Transformation elder.
A single Spirit Transformation cultivator alone was more than the combined might of the Hua Kingdom could face!
Spirit Transformation cultivators were beings of legend!
That a Spirit Transformation expert served as the Holy Maiden's guardian showed just how far above them the Holy Sect stood!
And Great Hua... was only a nation of mortals!
"But... even ants have an ant's fury!" An overwhelming, icy gleam flared in Prince Ying's blood-red eyes.
Prince Ying turned to look at the emperor in his dragon robes.
The emperor of Great Hua met Prince Ying's gaze and nodded...
Looking at the three people on the white crane's back above, the emperor of Great Hua felt a tragic resolve surge within him.
The emperor turned back to Su Mo and slowly said:
"You said... better to shatter as jade than remain whole as a roof tile!"
"But you don't know that burning jade and stone together is merely an ant's wishful thinking."
"Heaven lies beyond our reach!"
"But today... I, too, wish to take a strike at that heaven!"
The emperor raised his hand and pointed at the sky. A streak of golden light shone.
"All beneath heaven..."
"Is the sovereign's land..."
The Imperial City trembled, and the nation's power awakened!
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