For an instant, everything hung still. Li Yan remained with his hands behind his back, his gaze resting coolly on Wan Qingshe without a word.
Yet that very gaze made Wan Qingshe feel that his opponent held him in contempt. He was not surprised that Li Yan had blocked his sword strike; after all, he was no sword immortal.
What surprised him was that Li Yan seemed not to have exerted any strength at all. That was rather unusual.
His eyes slowly narrowed into slits. Suddenly, he raised an arm, leaving an afterimage in its wake!
With his index and middle fingers joined like a sword, he pointed at the azure flying sword circling him. An electric arc sprang from his fingertips and struck the blade an instant later.
The circling flying sword jolted, then stopped in place. As the arc flickered, its entire blade trembled faintly, as though gathering strength for a strike.
While holding the flying sword in check, Wan Qingshe abruptly thrust his right arm upward. The little azure sword vanished, and a colossal vortex hundreds of zhang across appeared above him and Li Yan in an instant.
The moment the vortex appeared, the sunset sky became a seething mass of heavy black clouds. Lightning flashed and thunder roared.
Amid the sweeping gales, Wan Qingshe's white robes billowed and his long hair danced wildly. He truly looked like a sword immortal descending into the world as he uttered a low shout.
"Cleave!"
As the word left his lips, a colossal azure sword tip emerged from the vortex. Its hilt was nowhere in sight; only a section sixty or seventy zhang long could be seen, like a dragon's head thrusting down from the heavens to survey the world.
Rumble!
As the sword tip emerged, a succession of thunderous