Free Web NovelChapter 370: Chapter 370: Sweeping the Four Directions
Sensing the lurking auras, Xu Yunfan couldn’t help but grin.
’Master Bi Yuan once said Ninth Realm Supreme Grandmasters were as rare as a phoenix’s feather...’
He crushed a wisp of Dragon Vein Residual Energy drifting from the Imperial Mausoleum between his fingertips. The Ten Extremes True Qi surged under his skin like a great river. ’But now it seems that while they aren’t a dime a dozen, they’re more like poisonous mushrooms sprouting after a rainstorm.’
At this moment, Jade Capital City was embroiled in the most brutal street fighting it had seen in the eight hundred years since the dynasty’s founding.
Li Haomiao personally led one hundred thousand soldiers of the Profound Armor Army, breaking through the Vermilion Bird Sect. The dark torrent of heavy armor crashed into a wall of fire erected by the Imperial Guard using the Heaven-Burning and Spirit-Destroying Array.
The elites of the Imperial Guard, clad in their Red Scale Armor, were actually spitting out their own Essence Blood mixed with sulfur and saltpeter. Wherever the mixture landed, even the bluestone tiles melted into a glassy glaze.
"Form the Iron Chain Cross River Formation!"
Li Haomiao’s roar pierced the battlefield.
His gaze, however, was not on the immediate battle but was fixed far ahead, toward the depths of the Great Zhou Imperial Court.
Today’s battlefield belonged to Xu Yunfan and the Empress.
With the Great Zhou Divine Artifact now displaced, the Empress was in mortal peril. Li Haomiao was a decisive man and certainly wouldn’t miss such a once-in-a-millennium opportunity.
Suddenly, the front ranks of the Profound Armor Army raised towering Profound Iron Giant Shields. Soldiers in the rear threw out iron chains soaked in Cold Spring Water. Three thousand chains, like strangling black dragons, forcibly ripped an opening in the wall of fire.
Seeing this, the Martial Artists hidden within the formation rushed forward, using the chains as a bridge and pouring down like an avalanche, nearly routing the Imperial Guard.
"Impressive moves, Your Highness."
A sinister voice drifted from a pile of rubble.
The commander of the Imperial Guard abruptly tore off his human-skin disguise. His face, covered in blue-black Demon Patterns, suddenly twisted and contorted. Two curved horns pierced through his temples, his pupils narrowed into vertical crimson slits, and the corners of his mouth split open to his ears, revealing ghastly, serrated fangs.
Li Haomiao’s brow twitched involuntarily.
"True Blood Ancestor?! You’re from Daqian?"
The ultimate state of Daqian True Blood was True Blood Ancestor, a power comparable to one of Great Zhou’s Nine Realms Qi Cultivation Supreme Grandmasters.
A bestial growl rumbled in the man’s throat. Dark purple vascular patterns surfaced beneath his exposed skin, squirming as if alive.
That was the Profound Nether Demon Blood unique to the Daqian Royal Family, rumored to originate from the Ancient Demons and Monsters beneath the Northern Ice Glacier.
As his bloodline boiled, a frosty mist rose around him. His ten fingers morphed into sharp claws, and the escaping Demon Qi corroded honeycomb-like holes into the Cold Iron ground.
"You have sharp eyes, Your Highness."
The Half-Demon commander’s voice had taken on a dual tone, as if a man and a Demon Fiend were speaking at once. "A pity Great Zhou’s destiny is at an end. Today, I’ll use your blood—the blood of the Profound Armor Army’s commander—to consecrate my Daqian Southern Expedition Banner..."
Though alarms screamed in Li Haomiao’s mind, he knew that if he retreated, the Profound Armor Army behind him would collapse like a landslide.
He sneered. "Just some mongrel Demon Blood, turning yourself into something neither human nor ghost."
"You’re courting death."
The Half-Demon flew into a rage and lunged at Li Haomiao, his claws tearing through the air and parting the shockwaves.
In the nick of time, a sharp crack like a sonic boom echoed from the sky.
Xu Yunfan descended like a falling star, his right palm slamming down on the Half-Demon’s head with a chaotic vortex of Ten Extremes True Qi.
The Half-Demon’s claws, which had been mere inches from Li Haomiao, began to twitch violently before shattering segment by segment, like grain being crushed in a millstone.
"Xu... Yun... fan..."
The Half-Demon’s pupils shrank to pinpricks in terror.
He was all too familiar with Xu Yunfan’s name.
Seeing Xu Yunfan here now, he knew the battle in the palace depths was already over.
The Demon Qi in his body flowed backward uncontrollably, surging along his meridians toward Xu Yunfan’s palm.
His skin caved in, his muscle fibers shriveling like dried fish maws. Within a few breaths, he was reduced to a desiccated corpse draped in a black robe.
Xu Yunfan stared at the ball of Demon Qi in his palm, his brow deeply furrowed. He finally let out a breath and, with a flick of his hand, dispersed the condensed energy into the air.
’Absorbing it rashly before I figure out how to purify it would likely contaminate my True Qi.’
’The only reason I can absorb the True Qi from the Five Great Sects is because my Ten Extremes True Qi has the special effect of Ten Thousand Laws Return to the Stream, allowing me to refine it and strip away impurities.’
He looked at the stunned Li Haomiao and smiled faintly, a hint of teasing in his voice. "Your Majesty, it seems you are about to ascend the throne."
Li Haomiao’s expression relaxed, and he retorted with a laugh, "And it seems you’ve become the greatest under heaven."
"As it should be."
For the next hour, Jade Capital City became Xu Yunfan’s hunting ground.
He moved through the marketplaces, his Ten Extremes True Qi spreading out like a spider’s web.
An old Daoist from the Profound Daoist Sect, hiding in the cellar of the Drunken Immortal Tower, had his Dragon and Tiger Pill Qi drained from afar.
A monk from Mituo Temple disguised as a peddler was refined into golden dust, Zen Staff and all.
Even an Elder from the Jiuyao Sect who tried to fool him with the Turtle Breath Fake Death Technique was dragged from a pile of bodies, his skull crushed as Xu Yunfan drained his Fiery Sun True Qi.
When Xu Yunfan returned to the plaza before the Imperial City, dangling the last Ninth Realm expert by the neck, Li Haomiao was directing the Profound Armor Army to clean up the last remnants of the stubbornly resisting Imperial Guard.
Seeing the desiccated corpse swinging from his hand, even the normally composed Prince felt his eye twitch. "You’ve turned the Ten Extremes Martial Arts into a harvesting scythe."
"Great Zhou had so many Ninth Realm masters. In three days, they would have just become fodder for those Outer Heaven Demons. Better that I take them. I’m from this world too, so you could say I’m doing my part."
Xu Yunfan kicked the corpse at his feet. Suddenly, he felt a faint stir of qi. He narrowed his eyes, looking toward the Astronomical Bureau. "Wait... There’s still a big fish hiding over there!"
Before the words were out of his mouth, the tower of the Astronomical Bureau exploded.
A stooped figure wearing a star-patterned Magic Robe shot into the sky. It was none other than Supervisor Guo Lang—the man who was supposed to have died yesterday!
He wasn’t holding the Dragon-Suppressing Seal, but a throbbing, purplish-black heart!
’Such potent Demon Qi.’
Xu Yunfan’s thoughts paused for a fraction of a second. Ten Extremes True Qi erupted from the soles of his feet in an invisible ripple, and his figure blurred into an afterimage and vanished.
"With the Celestial Demon Heart as an offering, I beseech the Nine Netherworld—"
Guo Lang’s withered fingers had just formed the third sign of the spell when a sharp snap echoed from his throat as his spine broke.
Xu Yunfan appeared behind him like a phantom. As his left hand, formed into a blade, chopped down and shattered Guo Lang’s neck, his right palm pierced through the man’s stooped chest. The twitching, purple-and-black Celestial Demon Heart was crushed between his fingers, exploding into a cloud of toxic mist.
"To aid a tyrant..."
Xu Yunfan flicked the bloodstains from his palm, watching with cold eyes as a twisted face manifested in the purple mist. "The Empress is already dead, and you still thought you could summon an Outer Heaven Demon ahead of time?"
He raised his foot and crushed Guo Lang’s head where it had rolled. "Such loyalty. You can continue serving your master in the Nine Netherworld."
Xu Yunfan slowly lowered his hand. The space between his brows twitched, and his Martial Arts Celestial Eye snapped open. The silhouette of the entire Jade Capital City was reflected in his pupils, which now swirled with a golden light.
The smoke-filled streets, the routing soldiers, the scattered pockets of hostility lurking in the shadows—all of it was as clear to him as the lines on his own palm.
’All swept clean, then.’
His gaze suddenly snapped to the southeast, and the Ten Extremes True Qi surged like a dragon along his spine.
That was the direction of the Jiangnan Dao Sword Pavilion.
A cold glint flashed in Xu Yunfan’s eyes. ’The debt from the Merak Sword Master’s sneak attack yesterday,’ he thought, ’will be paid with the Sword Manual True Qi of his entire Sword Pavilion.’
