The Heavenly Dao Strikes, Shen Qingyuan Confronts It Head-On

Xie An's survival shocked Jin Pang as well. He immediately did the same as Qin Chuan: after swallowing two pills, he took out his alchemy cauldron and slowly walked toward Xie An, ready to send him on his final journey.

It wasn't that Qin Chuan and Jin Pang didn't want to finish Xie An off with a simple little spell. Their legs were trembling even as they walked, and sheer, overwhelming willpower was all that let them approach him to finish him off.

Trapped in the formation, Gu Xiran attacked it desperately while screaming like a crazed groundhog. "Second Senior Brother!"

"Stop! If you dare kill Second Senior Brother, my master will never let you off, and neither will the Xiao Family!"

Qin Chuan and Jin Pang paid no attention to Gu Xiran's groundhog screams. Their backer feared neither the sect master nor the Xiao Family.

Besides, once they killed Xie An, they would leave. Gu Xiran could say they had killed him, but where was the evidence? As long as they refused to admit it, they hadn't killed him.

Xie An was unconscious, barely breathing, and had only half his body left. He had no strength to resist.

Qin Chuan and Jin Pang reached him at the same time and moved in sync. Qin Chuan raised his sword and swung it toward Xie An's neck, while Jin Pang raised his cauldron and smashed it toward Xie An's head.

As the sword and cauldron slowly descended, Gu Xiran kept up her groundhog screams. "No!!! Second Senior Brother!!!"

Just as Qin Chuan and Jin Pang smiled in triumph, believing they were about to finish Xie An off, someone forcibly split the secret realm open.

The forceful breach caused a tremendous tremor, making Qin Chuan and Jin Pang, who were already at their limits, stagger.

At the same time, an enormous palm came bearing down on them. "You dare lay a hand on a direct descendant of my Xiao Family? You're courting death!"

When Xie An endured the first strike of the Heavenly Dipper Demon-Breaking Sword, his Dao protector had heard a voice in his head telling him to go into the secret realm and save him. He didn't know why he had believed it, but with Yun Yao's help, he had forcibly broken into the secret realm and arrived just in time.

"It's Xie An's Dao protector. Damn it!" The pressure from the distant Soul Transformation cultivator forced Jin Pang to the ground.

Qin Chuan was swaying on the verge of collapse as well. He couldn't accept it. After all his preparations, could he still not kill a supporting male character? Was he really going to die like this?

Against the False Nascent Soul wolf demon, he had used every trump card and faced deadly peril several times before finally killing it. Now, facing someone at Peak Soul Transformation, what strength did he have left to fight back? The Soul Transformation pressure forced him to the ground as well.

Just as the enormous palm was about to crush Qin Chuan and Jin Pang, Qin Chuan heard an incomparably familiar voice. "Scram."

The enormous palm before Qin Chuan dissipated, and that single word shook Xie An's Dao protector into dust. He hadn't even managed to show off for three seconds; even Might Guy's ultimate move had lasted longer. Yep, he'd failed to show off without even showing his face.

Shen Qingyuan appeared above Qin Chuan and intervened to protect him.

"Master!" Qin Chuan cried out in delight.

"Holy shit, Junior Brother Qin-no, Martial Uncle Qin, your master is the Glazed Glass Immortal Venerable?" Jin Pang had thought he was about to die, but he hadn't expected another reversal.

What shocked him even more was that the person he had been calling Junior Brother Qin all along had such a fucking powerful background. How could he still dare call him Junior Brother Qin? This was his martial uncle.

Then he remembered the grudge between Qin Chuan and Xie An, and his heart leaped with joy. That bastard Xie An was as good as dead.

Shen Qingyuan didn't speak as she touched a finger to Qin Chuan's forehead to heal him. "You must never again use sword techniques beyond your limits so many times."

"Master, I understand." Before Shen Qingyuan, all Qin Chuan could do was obediently accept the lesson.

At the same time, he was pondering a question: had his master been following him all along, or had she only just arrived?

If she had been following him all along, then the wisp of a split soul that had suddenly appeared when he forcibly made the Tianquan Sword acknowledge him as its master had been his master personally intervening.

At the thought, Qin Chuan's heart burned. His master had been willing to intertwine her soul with his twice. Could it be that she also harbored some special feelings for him...

"Greetings, Martial Aunt Shen." Sect Master Yun Yao entered the secret realm with the second elder, followed closely by Jin Pang's martial uncle, Zhao Lin.

Zhao Lin had rushed to the secret realm after receiving Jin Pang's message. When Xie An's Dao protector tried to force his way in, Zhao Lin had intervened to stop him.

Who would have thought that Yun Yao, the sect master, would help an outsider and forcibly suppress him? He could only watch helplessly as Xie An's Dao protector forced his way into the secret realm. Now, seeing that Jin Pang was safe, he finally felt relieved.

Shen Qingyuan withdrew the hand she had used to heal Qin Chuan and paid Yun Yao no attention. With her cultivation, she naturally knew everything that had happened outside, and she was furious that Yun Yao had let Xie An's Dao protector in, nearly getting Qin Chuan killed.

Her unfriendly gaze swept over Yun Yao and the Xiao Family alchemist behind him, who had been sent specifically to teach Xie An about alchemy. She unleashed her Tribulation Transcendence Stage pressure, forcing them all to prostrate themselves on the ground.

"Please forgive me, Martial Aunt Shen. Please forgive me this once for my master's sake."

Yun Yao hurriedly begged for mercy, showing none of a sect master's dignity. He even invoked his master, who had already passed away, because he feared that if he spoke too late, Shen Qingyuan, his martial aunt in name, would kill him.

"Just this once. Consider it the end of my ties with the Pure Void Sect." Shen Qingyuan spared Yun Yao, but the Xiao Family alchemist wasn't so lucky. She gave him a single glance, and he followed Xie An's Dao protector into oblivion, reduced to dust.

"Martial Aunt, what about the promise you made to Master?" Hearing that Shen Qingyuan meant to sever her ties with the Pure Void Sect, Yun Yao hurriedly pressed her. Shen Qingyuan was the reason the Pure Void Sect was now one of the three top powers on the Origin Spirit Continent.

"I will naturally keep my promise, but only one last time." Shen Qingyuan withdrew her pressure and said softly to Qin Chuan, "Come on, let's go home."

"Master, please allow me to take care of one thing." Qin Chuan picked up the Tianquan Sword again. This time, no one dared stop him from taking Xie An's life.

Just then, a purple bolt of divine punishment lightning struck without warning at the spot where Qin Chuan stood. With his Golden Core cultivation, there was no way he could withstand it. Even a Mahayana Stage cultivator could not withstand that bolt of divine punishment lightning.

Qin Chuan knew the Heavenly Dao was determined to protect Xie An at all costs. This bolt of purple punishment lightning was meant to kill him. The Heavenly Dao couldn't afford to lose.

"Don't be afraid, Chuan'er. Your master is here." Shen Qingyuan drew her sword, meeting the purple punishment lightning with the Tianxuan Sword in hand.

At Late Tribulation Transcendence, Shen Qingyuan had no fear of lightning tribulations. She split the purple punishment lightning with one stroke, then charged into the clouds to fight the thunderclouds.

The thunderclouds had tried to strike her Chuan'er for no reason. As his master, she was bound to seek justice for her disciple. Besides, she was still seething because she couldn't kill Yun Yao to vent her anger on Qin Chuan's behalf, and now the thunderclouds had come knocking. She certainly wasn't going to hold back again.

Qin Chuan and the others couldn't clearly see Shen Qingyuan's contest with the heavenly lightning, but even the slightest aftershock of the battle could knock them to the ground. Only Yun Yao, a Mahayana Stage cultivator, could withstand it.

Yun Yao first freed Gu Xiran, then drew the dying Xie An to his side. He healed Xie An's injuries and kept him alive.

With Shen Qingyuan gone and Yun Yao having intervened, Qin Chuan had no way to finish Xie An off. Besides, his thoughts were no longer on Xie An.

He stared intently at the sky, regretting that he had insisted on killing Xie An and provoked the Heavenly Dao into acting. If anything happened to his master because of him, he would never forgive himself.