Inside the cave!
Su Yu bent his knees slightly, his calf muscles instantly tensing to their limit.
Bang!
The soil beneath his feet abruptly sank, blasting out a pit half a foot deep.
His entire body became a black arrow loosed from a bow. Rather than retreating, he charged straight at the burly man.
A tenfold gravity field thundered outward.
Dark red prison-suppressing Qi and blood spread three feet around him, enveloping all three incoming attackers.
Boom!
The two disciples at the Spirit Realm Fourth Level suddenly sank downward. Their knees creaked under the unbearable burden, and the longswords they had held level were dragged down by the invisible pressure, nearly slipping from their hands.
The burly man's hammer-raising motion also suffered a slight delay.
"A gravity formation?"
The burly man snorted coldly.
The Spiritual Qi of the Spirit Realm Fifth Level within him instantly erupted with a roar. Pale yellow Spiritual Qi burst from his body, forcibly pushing back part of the tenfold gravity's suppression.
His heavy hammer swept an exaggerated semicircle through the air, carrying a shrill sonic boom as it smashed down toward Su Yu's head.
The blow carried tremendous force. Before the hammerhead even arrived, the fierce wind had swept all the dead leaves and gravel from the ground below.
Su Yu raised his left arm, holding his black-and-gold saber, scabbard and all, horizontally above his head.
At the same time, he pressed the five fingers of his right hand together into a cone, the dense prison-suppressing Spiritual Qi within him surging madly into his fingertips.
"Vajra Star-Shattering Seal!"
Dong!
The eight-sided heavy hammer slammed into the scabbard.
Two utterly different forces collided, unleashing a deafening clang of metal against metal. A visible ring of white air surged outward, snapping several slender tree trunks around them at the waist and sending wood chips flying.
Su Yu's feet sank deep into the mud, all the way to his ankles.
An immense force traveled along the scabbard into his arms, then spread through every bone in his body. His Qi and blood churned violently within him.
Yet he did not yield half a step. Fine, dark golden patterns rapidly surfaced across his skin.
The formidable physical defense of Vajra Demonic Baleful Intent forcibly withstood the violent hammer blow, dispersing its force evenly throughout his body.
The burly man's right arm, which held the hammer, went slightly numb. Waves of tearing pain shot through the web between his thumb and forefinger.
"Body Refinement Spirit Realm Second Level!"
He was utterly shaken.
The Mystic Sword Sect's information was wrong. This brat was not so easy to deal with.
Just as the burly man's previous force was spent and his next had yet to gather.
Su Yu thrust his poised right hand directly upward from below.
Dark golden finger radiance pierced the air with a shrill whistle, striking straight at the burly man's unguarded chest.
The burly man reacted extremely quickly. Years of combat experience made him instinctively slap his left hand against the hammer shaft, using it to propel himself backward.
At the same time, Spiritual Qi gathered fiercely before his chest, hastily forming a yellow Spiritual Qi shield half an inch thick.
Crack!
The next instant, the finger radiance struck hard against the very center of the Spiritual Qi shield.
Web-like cracks immediately appeared across the shield's surface, but the power of the Vajra Star-Shattering Seal was exhausted as well.
Entry-level proficiency was ultimately insufficient to pierce a defense deliberately formed by a Spirit Realm Fifth Level martial artist in a single strike.
"What are you standing there for? Attack!"
"Flank him from both sides! Don't give him a chance to catch his breath!"
The burly man shouted sharply, raising his heavy hammer again and advancing with great strides.
The two Spirit Realm Fourth Level disciples, having recovered from the gravity's suppression, immediately split up.
Their longswords trembled violently, tracing two deadly sword blossoms.
Two cold gleams of sword light thrust in from left and right, targeting the blind spots beneath Su Yu's ribs and at his waist and abdomen respectively.
Seeing this, Su Yu immediately drew his saber and retreated.
His feet forcibly plowed two deep furrows through the mud as he withdrew from their pincer attack.
Prison-suppressing Spiritual Qi circulated rapidly within him, calming his roiling Qi and blood.
Facing the three men's pincer formation, Su Yu's eyes flickered.
"System, add points to Vajra Star-Shattering Seal!"
[Consumed 2,000 Slaughter Points. Vajra Star-Shattering Seal (Spirit), supreme grade, upgraded to major accomplishment]
A tremendous roar erupted in his mind. In that instant, he completely integrated everything concerning the Vajra Star-Shattering Seal's paths of force, Spiritual Qi compression methods, and subtle applications of armor-piercing, penetrating force.
Crisp cracks rang out from the bones of his fingers.
Dark golden Spiritual Qi poured from his fingertips, perfectly fusing an incomparably fierce, mountain-collapsing momentum with a viciously cunning, star-shattering sharpness.
The sword tips of the two Spirit Realm Fourth Level disciples were already less than a foot from him.
Su Yu's footwork abruptly changed.
An ultimate-realm killing move, Dragon Concealment.
His body dipped down at an uncanny angle, completely defying human biomechanics as he slid almost flush against the mud.
The two deadly streaks of sword light skimmed his back and struck empty air, merely lifting a torn scrap of his clothing.
As he slid, Su Yu suddenly veered toward the Mystic Sword Sect disciple on the left.
The distance between them instantly closed to half a foot.
Su Yu pressed his right index and middle fingers together and thrust upward from below like lightning.
Major-accomplishment Vajra Star-Shattering Seal!
The dark golden finger radiance struck the disciple's protective Spiritual Qi without the slightest uncertainty.
There was no stalemate whatsoever.
The Spiritual Qi shield collapsed on the spot like fragile paper. The finger force pierced the blue-green Daoist robe, easily driving into the left side of the man's chest.
First shattering, then drilling.
Violent dark golden force exploded inside his chest cavity.
His chest caved inward, leaving a bloody hole the size of a bowl's mouth.
The back of his robe instantly burst apart. Blood mixed with fragments of organs and shattered bone gushed out, splashing entirely across the tree trunk behind him.
His entire body flew backward, snapping two ancient trees thick enough to encircle with both arms before crashing heavily into the distant bushes.
He died on the spot.
The remaining Spirit Realm Fourth Level disciple stopped dead, his sword hand trembling violently beyond his control.
A Body Refinement Spirit Realm Second Level martial artist had instantly killed a Qi Refinement Spirit Realm Fourth Level martial artist in one strike, leaving him no room even to resist.
Even the personal disciples revered as heavenly prodigies within the sect could never have achieved such a feat.
"Trash!"
Witnessing the man's gruesome death, the burly man flew into an utter rage.
He poured every last bit of his Spiritual Qi into the eight-sided heavy hammer.
The hammerhead shone with dazzling yellow light. The surrounding air warped violently under the intense heat, giving off a scorched smell.
"I'll smash you into meat paste!"
The heavy hammer swept toward him with heaven-destroying, earth-annihilating might.
The blow carried immense force, driving out all the air for dozens of meters around them and completely sealing off every route Su Yu could use to dodge or retreat.
Su Yu stood motionless, his right hand hanging naturally at his side.
A silver glimmer suddenly flashed between his brows as his Spirit Realm Fourth Level divine sense was compressed to its limit.
"Spirit Sense Piercing!"
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh...
Twelve invisible short spears of mental power shot through the air.
In midair, they did not attack in straight lines. Instead, they traced twelve different angled paths, precisely avoiding the violent fluctuations of physical Spiritual Qi in front of the burly man.
Ignoring physical defenses.
All twelve short spears plunged deep into the burly man's sea of consciousness.
His charging body abruptly froze in place, the motion of his raised heavy hammer locking still.
Scarlet blood spurted from all seven of his orifices at once.
His sea of consciousness was forcibly pierced, and the excruciating pain deep within his brain directly severed all his control over his body.
Without the guidance of his divine sense, his violent Spirit Realm Fifth Level Spiritual Qi began rampaging through his meridians in backlash, tearing apart his flesh.
Su Yu seized the opportunity, shattering the ground beneath his foot as he closed in.
He pressed his right index and middle fingers together once more. Dark golden finger radiance struck the burly man's completely unguarded throat with unerring accuracy.
Crack.
His neck bones shattered completely. The finger force pierced straight through his entire neck, leaving a bloody hole open from front to back.
The burly man's massive body crashed to the ground. The eight-sided heavy hammer in his hand struck the mud, smashing out a deep pit.
The burly man was not a member of the Mystic Sword Sect. He had only come here out of greed for spirit stones.
Now he had paid for that greed with his life.
At the sight, the remaining Spirit Realm Fourth Level disciple completely lost the courage to resist.
He dropped his longsword, turned, and sprinted into the depths of the dense forest.
Run!
I have to escape this fiend and get word back to the sect.
Su Yu pressed his left thumb against the saber guard, pushing the black-and-gold saber half an inch from its scabbard.
An ultimate-realm killing move, Wind Falls Silent, Leaving No Trace.
The air within three feet of him was instantly drawn away, and Su Yu abruptly vanished from where he stood.
A silent streak of black saber light flashed through the dense forest.
[Killed one Spirit Realm Fifth Level martial artist. Gained 600 Slaughter Points] [Killed two...] [Current Slaughter Points: 1,500]
Su Yu turned and walked toward the burly man's corpse.
He bent down, reached out, and pulled the black storage pouch tied at the man's waist free.
Just as his fingers touched the drawstring at the pouch's opening.
An extremely violent vibration suddenly came from inside the storage pouch. A black-and-red jade talisman flew out of the opening on its own and hovered in midair half a meter before Su Yu.
Without any warning, dense cracks split across the jade talisman's surface.
A dazzling red light burst from the cracks and shot into the heavens. Beneath the pitch-black night sky of the Black Demon Mountain Range, the red light exploded, swiftly condensing into an enormous ghostly silhouette.