Free Web NovelChapter 371: Chapter 371: The Reckoning Begins
「An hour later, at the gates of the Jiangnan Dao Sword Pavilion.」
Amidst the churning sea of clouds, a figure arrived, treading on air. His black robes fluttered, revealing a towering figure. Within his robes, faint Dark Gold Armor Leaves could be seen slowly pulsating with his every breath. The newcomer was none other than Xu Yunfan.
He stood with his hands clasped behind his back on the bluestone steps outside the Sword Pavilion’s gates, his Ten Extremes True Qi contained like a vast abyss. Only a faint golden sheen emanating from his spine betrayed the pressure of the Land Immortal Realm.
The mountain winds died down, and even the birds steered clear in fright.
Xu Yunfan looked up at the empty mountain gate and smirked. He unleashed his Ten Extremes True Qi, holding nothing back, its power as vast as an ocean.
In an instant, a boundless pressure that far surpassed the Ninth Realm erupted from him. The terrifying aura unique to the Land Immortal Realm surged out like a furious tide, engulfing the entire Sword Pavilion in a flash.
The bluestone steps before the gate fractured, and the thousand-year-old pines on either side snapped. CRACK!
The Sword Pavilion disciples within felt as if they had been struck by lightning. Those with weaker Cultivation fell to their knees, blood seeping from their eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. Even the Elders felt their Blood Qi roil and stagnate, as if an invisible giant hand were clutching their throats.
"Is this all the Jiangnan Dao Sword Pavilion has to offer?"
Xu Yunfan chuckled, his voice like the clash of steel, echoing throughout the mountain range and causing the Sword Pavilion’s entrance plaque to vibrate with a metallic ring.
The clouds at the summit were torn asunder as three streaks of sword light, like rainbows piercing the sun, landed before the gates in an instant.
Three figures appeared. One was as gaunt as bamboo, with white eyebrows that drooped to his cheekbones. He wore a black Sword Robe and carried an unsheathed Ancient Sword on his back. The blade was as transparent as ice, its chilly aura condensing into a frosty mist that swirled about his feet.
His aura was like an arctic gale, icing over the stone steps where he passed. He had cultivated his Cold Soul Sword Intent to the level of the Peak of the Ninth Realm and had already reached the Transformation Realm.
Beside him stood an old woman with crane-white hair and crimson eyes. Her vermilion dress was adorned with sword-shaped golden bells, and she wielded a scarlet Soft Sword.
When the sword moved, the ringing of the bells could bewitch the mind, and its Sword Qi struck like a viper’s tongue. Xu Yunfan saw it clearly: the scarlet Soft Sword was a Tier Eight Divine Weapon. The Sword Aura it projected gave him goosebumps, and the ambient Sword Qi it radiated seemed specialized in piercing Protective Gang Qi.
A sweet, cloying scent of Blood Qi emanated from her, a clear sign that she practiced the Evil Sword Nurturing Technique and was adept at feeding her sword with the Essence Blood of her foes.
Xu Yunfan merely glanced at the old woman. With her cold, severe, and harsh features, she was clearly a merciless, battle-hardened matriarch.
Most of his attention, however, remained on the scarlet Soft Sword in her hand.
The third elder was an old man with an impassive face covered in faint Cyan Scales. He leaned on a Profound Iron Coiling Dragon Staff, its head embedded with seven Sword Spirit Crystal Stones. Though he carried no physical blade, Sword Qi arose from his every movement. He had to be a practitioner of the Sword Pavilion’s notoriously difficult Void Nether Sword Manual, embodying the principle that ’No Sword is Better than Having One’. His aura was ethereal and unpredictable, like thunder hidden in the clouds.
"Xu Yunfan! You perpetrated a massacre in Jade Capital, and you still dare come to our Sword Pavilion and challenge us at our gates?"
Elder Bai Mei demanded, his voice frigid. Though his Ancient Sword remained sheathed, his words alone were enough to crack the ground open into a ten-zhang-wide chasm of ice.
"What about my people from the Sword Pavilion?"
"Your Sword Pavilion people?"
Xu Yunfan said coolly, "You’ll just have to go ask them yourselves."
He scanned the three of them, a slight smile playing on his lips. "Three old relics. A bit stronger than that other bunch of trash, at least."
"Why are we wasting our breath on him? So what if he’s strong? How much stronger can he possibly be? The sheer arrogance, coming to the Sword Pavilion’s gates all by himself!"
The old woman exploded in fury. Her scarlet Soft Sword snapped taut, and the Sword Bells on her dress shrieked like ten thousand wailing ghosts. "Arrogant!"
She struck first. The Soft Sword dissolved into a thousand red threads, each one laced with bone-eating poison, forming a web that descended upon Xu Yunfan’s throat.
Xu Yunfan didn’t dodge or even flinch, letting the red threads close in.
The old woman was about to sneer when the red threads made contact with his black robe. At that moment, the Ten Extremes True Pattern surfaced on the fabric. The poisonous attack vanished without a trace, completely devoured.
Her attack had vanished without a trace, failing to harm Xu Yunfan in the slightest.
The old woman’s spirit trembled, her turbid pupils contracting abruptly. Her attack, the Blood River Threads, was her ultimate killing technique. When unleashed, a thousand scarlet threads of Sword Qi would weave into a net specialized in piercing Protective Gang Qi. Even a Horizontal Training Grandmaster at the Peak of the Ninth Realm would be torn to shreds by it.
Yet now, that Poisonous Evil Sword Qi—potent enough to corrode bone and melt gold—had been utterly devoured by the swirling Ten Extremes True Pattern on Xu Yunfan’s black robe the instant it made contact, not even creating the slightest ripple.
"This..."
Her withered hand trembled uncontrollably, and the golden bells adorning her sword hilt shattered in unison.
Since reaching the Ninth Realm, this was the first time she had felt such a bone-deep chill. It wasn’t fear, but the instinctive terror of prey facing its natural predator.
No hesitation, no probing. The old woman’s hunched body snapped straight, and the Blood Qi around her erupted like a volcano.
She began to burn her Life Essence Blood. Her white hair turned crimson and stood on end, her wrinkled face twisting in the sanguine flames until she resembled a ghoul.
Seeing this, Xu Yunfan’s eyes lit up with interest.
This was a life-or-death gamble, the most resolute stance a Sword Pavilion Martial Artist could take when faced with a hopeless situation.
"Secret Martial Art: Tribulation’s Shared End!"
"Junior Sister He, don’t do it!"
Elder Bai Mei cried out in alarm. ’Junior Sister He has such a fiery temperament. After her full-power strike failed, she was bound to go all out, holding nothing back.’
The old woman paid him no heed, the Sword Qi surging from her body like a mountain flash flood.
Before her blade even moved, the entire mountain gate was enveloped in a cloying, bloody mist.
The bluestone ground began to HISS as it corroded. Far in the distance, the Sword Pavilion disciples who were watching began to bleed from their noses and mouths, their lungs damaged by the ambient Sword Qi alone.
This strike had already surpassed the limits of the Ninth Realm, faintly brushing against the threshold of the Land Immortals.
With this strike, the old woman burned her own Blood Qi, using a Secret Martial Technique to force her Essence, Qi, and Spirit to their absolute peak.
"Excellent. This is a far better show than those useless gluttons in Jade Capital City."
Xu Yunfan finally looked up, his golden-flecked pupils reflecting the blood-red rainbow that tore through the sky.
His tone was casual, as if he were critiquing a child’s swing with a Wooden Sword.
The power the old woman had been accumulating finally erupted, moving like a flash flood.
The scarlet Soft Sword, held taut within the blood-flames, suddenly disintegrated. It dissolved into 3,600 crimson threads, each one infused with the Tribulation Sword Qi she had generated by burning her own Life Essence Blood.
Before the Sword Qi was even fully unleashed, the very air before the mountain gate began to distort like boiling water, staining the light itself a bloody hue.
"Tribulation! Kill!"
Her hunched body bent back like a catapult before she shot forward. The 3,600 blood threads fanned out behind her, forming a vast, crimson Luo Net that blotted out the sky.
Wherever the threads of Sword Qi passed, everything in their path—be it solid rock or soil—was instantly corroded, covered in a web of fine, black cracks!
Yet Xu Yunfan didn’t move a single step.
He casually raised his right hand, his fingers fanning out like a blooming lotus. In his palm, the Ten Extremes True Pattern swirled into a vortex.
The moment the Luo Net of blood threads struck his palm, the Sword Qi—powerful enough to corrode space and melt gold—was like snow falling into a blazing furnace, utterly devoured by the black-hole-like pattern.
The ghastly expression on the old woman’s face froze. She discovered that her connection to her Sword Qi was being brutally severed.
He wasn’t blocking her attack. He was stealing it!
"You..."
She choked out a half-formed roar, only to see Xu Yunfan flick his wrist and clench his fist.
