The fire pearl instantly transformed into a crimson wall of flame, shielding Qin Xiaoyao from head to toe! Yet before the fire wall could fully form, hundreds of silvery-white spears came hurtling over as though hurled with all the strength of a hundred giants, their shrieking flight piercing the ears. Qin Xiaoyao was not particularly strong to begin with. He could not even withstand Tongzhu Kingdom's Immortal Slaying Crossbow, much less the spears unleashed by these Golden Core cultivators.
"Puff, puff..." More than a dozen spears effortlessly punched through the fire wall and lunged at Qin Xiaoyao from close range. His face went ashen, yet there was no regret in his eyes. Instead, a sense of relief emerged—a relief like that of a guilty man granted absolution. Though Qin Xiaoyao did not look toward Princess Changling as she fled toward Black Wind Ridge in the distance, the gaze Princess Changling, Granny Ji, and the others cast upon him no longer held their former faint rejection and contempt.
"Oh?" At that moment, a voice filled with surprise suddenly rang out. "What is going on here??"
The voice sounded somewhat ethereal, yet it was resoundingly clear. The entirety of Black Wind Ridge heard it plainly. As the voice rang out, thousands of tiny threads of lightning abruptly appeared in midair around Qin Xiaoyao. These lightning threads were few and seemed weak, but wherever they passed, the thousands of gleaming spears were instantly shattered. Lightning coiled around the silvery-white fragments that filled the sky, and in the blink of an eye, those fragments transformed into pure Primordial Qi!
"Senior... Senior Xiao!!!" Qin Xiaoyao was naturally ecstatic to have survived the calamity. He looked around almost incredulously, his voice carrying an indescribable hope.
"Xiao Hua??" Qin Qingyu watched his spell collapse under the lightning