"Young Master Xuan Xiao! Wh-what's wrong?"
The corners of the black-robed Great Saint's eyes twitched incessantly as he cried out, his expression caught between shock and suspicion.
He tried to help Xuan Xiao up, but Li Xunyuan waved his hand again, and Xuan Xiao fell heavily to his knees once more.
"Elder Xuan... there's something wrong with this brat... I feel like I've been cursed with a gu!"
Cold sweat poured down Xuan Xiao's forehead. He had discovered that an invisible force was restraining his legs!
They were completely beyond his control. He had never experienced anything so bizarre in his life!
Now, Xuan Xiao looked at Li Xunyuan with undisguised terror!
There was something toxic about this divine son of the Li Lineage!
There was definitely something seriously wrong with him!
"Hiss!"
Everyone in the auction hall sucked in a breath of cold air, stunned by the sudden, bizarre sight.
All they had seen was the divine son of the Li Lineage wave his hand, and Xuan Xiao had dropped straight to his knees!
He had made the successor of Xuanming Divine Mountain kneel with a single move?
It was too much like a tale from the Arabian Nights. None of them would have dared imagine such a scenario even in their dreams!
Yet this absurdity had unfolded right before their eyes, in broad daylight!
"C-cursed with a gu?"
The black-robed Great Saint known as Elder Xuan narrowed his eyes and whipped his gaze toward Li Xunyuan. As his eyes flickered, frost scattered across the sky, as though it could freeze time.
His voice was hoarse and low as he asked gravely, "Young friend, this old man has just one question. What did you do to our divine son?"
"Nothing. He's just too weak to withstand even a single strike of my sword!"
Li Xunyuan stood with his hands behind his back, his immortal-like features serene. His indifferent words exploded like thunder in everyone's hearts.
He claimed that a successor of the ancient imperial lineage could not withstand even a single strike of his sword. How arrogant and overbearing was that?
But that was indeed what had happened. The divine son of the Li Lineage had used his fingers as a sword and delivered a strike, and Xuan Xiao had promptly fallen to his knees before him.
Everyone had witnessed it with their own eyes. It could not have been faked.
At this answer, Elder Xuan's face darkened considerably. He said in a deep voice, "This old man admits that your talent is peerless and your combat prowess unmatched, young friend, but aren't you being a little too conceited, saying such a thing?"
"Conceited? I don't think so!" Li Xunyuan smiled calmly.
"I cultivated the sword in the womb at one year old, and split open heaven's gate with my sword at two!
"At three, I slew imperial-lineage demons. At four, I mastered an imperial sword art!
"At five, I refined the supreme sword Dao. At six, my body returned to heaven and earth, and I became one with my sword!
"At seven, I comprehended the will of a sword immortal. Now, in the domain of the sword Dao, I am invincible beneath the heavens and can scarcely find a single defeat!
"Tell me, in all this vast world, who can withstand one strike of my sword without kneeling?
"Even if the sword emperors of the Primordial Dao Domain's past generations were to return to life, they couldn't do it either!"
The youth stood in the pavilion, his red sleeves fluttering. Like an immortal riding the wind home, he bore an invincible presence that could suppress the past, present, and future!
When Li Xunyuan finished speaking, tribulation lightning churned above the heavens, wind and clouds roiled between heaven and earth, and the portent of a world-destroying heavenly punishment descended in an instant.
A single declaration could make heaven and earth change color!
It also made countless people in the auction hall turn pale!
"Disperse!"
Li Xunyuan pointed his sword fingers at the heavens and coldly spat out another word. The wind and clouds above gradually subsided.
"This is how a man should be!"
Yun Yuan drew a deep breath, his profound gaze full of complicated emotions. It was as though he had glimpsed the bearing of an old acquaintance.
Today's youth was blue drawn from indigo, yet bluer than the plant itself. Xiaoran... had raised a fine son!
In the Emperor private room, Huang Wu stared at the figure in red, a startling light shimmering in her clear eyes. She... was a little smitten!
"Young friend, what this old man means is that being too arrogant and conceited is no good. What is too rigid breaks easily!"
Amid the ruins of the room, Elder Xuan forcibly suppressed his shock and steeled himself to speak.
As he spoke, he tried to help Xuan Xiao up.
But Xuan Xiao was like a man suppressed beneath an ancient divine mountain. No matter how hard Elder Xuan strained, he could not move him an inch.
"Hahaha! Arrogant? Fine! Today, I'll show you what true arrogance and true pride look like!"
Li Xunyuan suddenly threw back his head and laughed aloud. As his eyes flickered, boundless sword intent rippled forth, giving rise to the sword Daos of all heavens.
Boom!
He took a step forward and stood in the void. At that moment, the two hundred and six immortal bones in his body erupted with their most blazing, dazzling immortal radiance!
In the space of an instant, Li Xunyuan seemed to turn into a blazing sun, shedding ten thousand rays of immortal light that seemed to illuminate all ages!
"This sword strike is called Immortals Kneel!"
"Whether mortal men of this world, Great Emperors bearing heaven's mandate, or even those elusive, illusory immortals, when this sword falls, all must kneel before me!"
Li Xunyuan closed his hand around empty air, and an illusory, hazy sword took shape in his palm. He then swung it at Elder Xuan.
"You..."
Elder Xuan's expression changed in alarm. The moment the sword moved, he felt an indescribable pressure, and all the blood in his body seemed to congeal and flow backward!
Thud!
Elder Xuan's hands came together of their own accord. His knees buckled, and he dropped straight to the ground.
He was a Great Saint from Xuanming Divine Mountain!
Before a multitude of onlookers, he offered no resistance and fell to both knees before Li Xunyuan!
"Elder Xuan, what are you doing? Get up, quickly!"
Beside him, Xuan Xiao's pupils underwent a magnitude-one-hundred earthquake as he roared himself hoarse at the kneeling Elder Xuan.
"..."
Elder Xuan wanted to cry but had no tears. His old face was as black as the bottom of an iron pot, and his expression was uglier than if he had eaten a stinking sock from 1982!
He wanted to stand up too!
But his fucking useless legs were like they'd been damn amputated. They just wouldn't move!!