Within the forbidden grounds, all was deathly silent.
Xue Yugang sprawled limply on the ground, his eyes wide open. Reflected in his pupils was the world-destroying scene in the water mirror, and his body shook like chaff in a sieve.
It was not fear, but the dazed stupor of a belief being utterly shattered.
One punch.
Just one punch.
Blood Saber Peak, which had stood for centuries, had lost half of itself just like that.
The sect's foundation he had been so proud of, the Blood Shadow Array that had been his final reliance, had been as fragile as a joke before that punch.
"Heh... hehehe..."
Within the blood pool, that shriveled skeleton suddenly let out two dry laughs, filled with self-mockery and bone-chilling coldness.
Xue Yutang—once the peerless young sect master of the Blood Saber Sect, the ruthless mastermind behind the plot to blood-sacrifice Azure Province's martial world—
At this moment, finally understood exactly what kind of monster he had provoked.
That was no longer martial arts, but mythology.
That was not human power, but a natural disaster.
As if startled awake by the laughter, Xue Yugang abruptly turned his head and scrambled toward the blood pool on hands and knees. His voice carried a sobbing tremor. "Brother! What do we do? What do we do now? He... he's coming over!"
"What are you yelling for?!" Xue Yutang snapped. His eyes, blazing with madness and hatred, fixed firmly on his younger brother. "Do you want to live?"
Xue Yugang shuddered under his gaze and instinctively nodded like a pounding garlic pestle.
"If you want to live, go ask Father to leave seclusion!" Xue Yutang's voice was hoarse and resolute, every word squeezed through clenched teeth.
"Father?" Xue Yugang's face instantly turned uglier than a corpse's. "B-but Father is in death seclusion, trying to break through to that legendary realm. If we disturb him, Father will suffer qi deviation!"
"Qi deviation?" Xue Yutang suddenly bared his teeth in a smile uglier than weeping. "If we don't bring him out now, he won't even have the chance to suffer qi deviation! The Blood Saber Sect is about to be torn apart! What use is death seclusion then?!"
He roared, "If you won't go, then wait for him to come out and collect our corpses!"
Those words were like a basin of icy water dumped over Xue Yugang's head.
The hesitation on his face vanished without a trace, replaced by an overwhelming desire to survive.
"I... I'll go! I'll go right away!"
Xue Yugang no longer cared about appearances. He scrambled to his feet with both hands and feet, then staggered toward the deepest part of the forbidden grounds—the area even he rarely dared enter.
At the end of the forbidden grounds stood an incomparably heavy black iron stone door.
Mottled blood-red runes covered its surface, emanating an oppressive aura that made one's heart quail.
With a thud, Xue Yugang dropped to his knees before the stone door. He bit open his fingertip and rapidly drew a complex formation before it using his own essence blood.
"This unfilial son, Xue Yugang, respectfully begs Father to leave seclusion!"
His voice was incomparably shrill and choked with sobs as he howled out everything that had happened after Soul Severing Cliff, embellishing it heavily.
"Father! If you do not leave seclusion, the Blood Saber Sect will be exterminated!"
"Big Brother has been beaten into a cripple! The Blood Shadow Array was shattered with one punch, and even the sect gate... even the sect gate has had half of it torn down!"
"That devil is about to kill his way in! We brothers are both going to die! The Blood Saber Sect's centuries-old foundation is about to be destroyed in a single stroke! Father!!"
As he wailed, he repeatedly slammed his head against the ground with dull thuds. Before long, his forehead was bloody and broken, and he looked utterly miserable.
Inside the stone door was a dim secret chamber.
A dignified middle-aged man in a dark crimson robe sat cross-legged within it.
His blood and qi coiled around him like dragons; with every breath, countless streams of blood qi surged and churned. He was clearly at the critical juncture of a breakthrough.
He was none other than the master of the Blood Saber Sect, once the towering Mount Tai and Big Dipper of Azure Province's martial world—Blood Saber Ancestor.
When Xue Yugang's voice reached his ears through a Secret Technique, his tightly shut eyes suddenly opened, a flash of anger at being disturbed passing through them.
But once he heard the contents of Xue Yugang's tearful account clearly, that anger instantly turned into shock, followed by disbelief.
The Blood Shadow Array had been broken? The sect gate had been torn down?
An incomparably violent aura erupted with a thunderous boom. The black iron stone door, capable of withstanding a thousand troops and ten thousand horses, exploded at once!
Blood Saber Ancestor's figure appeared before Xue Yugang in an instant, wrapped in towering fury.
He grabbed his disappointing son by the collar, and with a flash, appeared beside the blood pool.
When he saw the nearly inhuman figure within the blood pool, even Blood Saber Ancestor's pupils abruptly contracted.
"Tang'er!"
His voice was filled with shock, fury, and heartache. Then those emotions transformed into boundless rage toward Xue Yutang.
"You worthless bastard! Look at the fine work you've done!" Blood Saber Ancestor flew into a towering rage, pointing at Xue Yutang as he roared sternly. "I had you take charge of the Blood Saber Sect so you could bring glory to its name, not turn the sect into this state! You can't accomplish anything, yet you ruin everything!"
He trembled with fury, wishing he could slap to death this son who had played an excellent hand into utter ruin.
Faced with his father's thunderous rage, Xue Yutang's shriveled face no longer carried its former pride or madness. Only deathly silence remained.
Just as the oppressive atmosphere among the three father and sons reached its peak, calm footsteps drifted in from the entrance to the forbidden grounds, neither hurried nor slow.
Tap, tap, tap.
Every step seemed to land upon the hearts of all three men.
Lu Shaoyou entered the forbidden grounds at an unhurried pace, an iron staff resting across his shoulder. His gaze swept across the churning blood pool, then over Xue Yugang sprawled on the ground.
At last, it settled upon Blood Saber Ancestor, whose aura was wildly violent.
He did not even spare Xue Yutang another glance, as though he were merely an insignificant decoration.
"Where is the Dragon Vein Earth Key?"
Lu Shaoyou spoke, his voice indifferent.
Xue Yutang and Xue Yugang were both completely baffled. They had no idea what he was talking about.
Yet Blood Saber Ancestor's expression changed drastically in that instant!
The Dragon Vein Earth Key!
How did he know about the Dragon Vein Earth Key?!
Those four words were the Blood Saber Sect's most closely guarded secret, something of paramount importance to the Divine Sect Plan! In the entire Blood Saber Sect, apart from himself, there could not possibly be a second person who knew!
Just who was this young man before him?
A thought flashed through Blood Saber Ancestor's mind like lightning.
The Demon Suppressing Division! The Great Gan Dynasty!
Could it be... that the Divine Sect's plan had been exposed?
Countless thoughts flashed through his mind in the span of a spark. Blood Saber Ancestor forcibly suppressed the stormy waves in his heart, and his gaze became incomparably grave and cold.
"I don't know what you are talking about," he said in a deep voice.
"Is that so?"
A cold smile curled across Lu Shaoyou's lips.
He could not be bothered to waste any more words.
The next moment, he moved.
No one saw his movement clearly. He merely casually raised his left hand and struck an empty palm toward the blood pool.
A gigantic palm imprint condensed from golden true qi appeared out of thin air. Carrying the might of dragon-elephant roars, it instantly slammed down upon the blood pool.
"No—!"
At last, absolute terror appeared within Xue Yutang's shriveled eye sockets. He wanted to flee, but discovered that an invisible aura had already locked onto him, leaving him unable to move.
The blood pool exploded with a thunderous boom, blood water shooting into the sky.
Xue Yutang, along with his unwilling howl, was directly crushed into a puddle of flesh by that palm strike, thoroughly merging with the bloody water.
"Tang'er!" Blood Saber Ancestor's eyes nearly split open. He had never imagined that the other party would attack the instant he chose to, right before his eyes!
At the moment his mind faltered, Lu Shaoyou's figure flashed like a ghost.
Lingbo Weibu!
He appeared before Xue Yugang, who was sprawled limply on the ground. The Qi Mei Cudgel in his hand seemed to lightly tap forward.
Pfft.
A bloody hole appeared between Xue Yugang's brows, and the fear and confusion on his face froze there forever.
It was fast to the absolute extreme!
From Lu Shaoyou's attack to the deaths of the two Xue brothers, the entire process took no more than a single breath.
Blood Saber Ancestor did not even have time to make any response.
When he came back to his senses, all he saw were the cold corpses of his two sons.
"Ah—!"
Endless fury and hatred erupted like a volcano, instantly swallowing Blood Saber Ancestor's reason.
"You little beast! This old man will make sure you die without a burial ground!"
He roared madly, blood qi soaring around him. The terrifying pressure of a Half-step Transcendent erupted without restraint, and the entire forbidden grounds shook violently.
"Blood River Overwhelming the Heavens!"
He formed seals with both hands. Scarlet runes surged from his body, drawing upon the massive blood Baleful Intent hidden beneath the forbidden grounds and turning it into a true river of blood that swept toward Lu Shaoyou.
The Divine Sect Plan? To hell with it!
His sons were dead. All he wanted now was revenge!
Yet faced with this strike, enough to drive any Xiantian Peak martial artist into despair, not a ripple stirred on Lu Shaoyou's face.
He merely slowly raised the Qi Mei Cudgel in his hand.
Twelve Dragon-Elephant Power flowed into it.
"Suppress!"
He brought the staff down.
There was no earthshaking explosion. Beneath that strike, the roaring river of blood was like a stream suppressed beneath a massive mountain, instantly freezing before crumbling apart inch by inch.
Blood Saber Ancestor was struck as though by lightning. He spat out a mouthful of blood and flew backward, smashing heavily into the mountain wall.
"H-how can this be..."
Feeling the meridians within his body shattered by a single staff strike, his eyes filled with despair and incomprehension.
He was Half-step Transcendent, an existence only one step away from communicating with heaven and earth, from turning true qi into liquid! How could he... fail to even receive one strike from his opponent?
Lu Shaoyou slowly stepped forward and looked down at him from above. "Where is the Dragon Vein Earth Key?" he asked again.
Blood Saber Ancestor looked at the young man before him, who resembled a God or Devil, and suddenly laughed miserably.
He knew that today, he was certain to die.
"Hahahaha... Kill me, then!" A flash of determination and madness crossed his eyes. "But do not be so pleased with yourself! You have ruined the Divine Sect's great plan. The Divine Sect will never let you go!"
"Under heaven or upon earth, you will die without a burial ground!"
Before his words had faded, he abruptly pulled a pitch-black command token from his robes and crushed it with all his remaining strength!
"I will be waiting for you... in hell!"
Crack!
The instant the command token shattered, Blood Saber Ancestor's body exploded as well, turning into a cloud of blood mist.
Lu Shaoyou's brows furrowed slightly as he allowed the blood mist to wash over him.
He walked to the spot where Blood Saber Ancestor had self-destructed.
There lay a palm-sized ancient key, forged entirely of bronze and shaped like a dragon scale.
"Could this be the Dragon Vein Earth Key?"
Lu Shaoyou picked it up, sensing the ancient, vast aura contained within, and murmured softly.
Then he took out the Demon Suppressing Division command token Qin Wuya had given him from his backpack.
He poured true qi into it and gently crushed it.
Having finished all this, he turned and left the forbidden grounds.
The Divine Sect?
Things seemed to have become more interesting.
Before you continue