Chen San and Su Li clashed in a chaotic melee, axe shadows and fiery light intertwining as they tore up the ground beneath them, sending shattered stones flying. As Chen San swung his twin axes, they let out a low hum, each strike descending like a falling mountain. Behind Su Li, her nine tails thrashed wildly, and reddish-gold flames erupted from her palms to force the axes back. The two fought from the ground into the air and then crashed back down, shattering brick and snapping wooden beams wherever they passed. Standing not far away, Du Qi held the writing brush he had used to write countless characters. The ink on its tip never ran dry; every time he wrote a word, an ink character would condense in the air, flying toward Su Li like a living thing to bind her wrists, ankles, and waist. Su Li's movements grew noticeably sluggish, as if her joints were bound by invisible ropes.
Lu Yan supported Yao Wu as they retreated to a wooden beam that had not yet collapsed. With one arm draped over Lu Yan's shoulder, Yao Wu leaned heavily against him, his legs barely able to support his weight. Lu Yan helped him sit down against the beam, retrieved some pills from his storage bag, poured one bottle into Yao Wu's mouth, and swallowed another bottle himself. The bitter taste of the medicine exploded at the back of his tongue. Lacking water, he swallowed hard to force the pills down.
“How did you get here?” Lu Yan asked, his voice weak and raspy, as if squeezed from his throat. Chen San was too distracted by the fight to answer, so Du Qi spoke as he wrote. He didn't speak quickly, but every word was crystal clear: “The Abandoned Guest Hall was raided by those ruffians from the Beast Soul Sect. They didn't expect the Third Master to be holding the fort. As soon as we finished them off, we saw the massive commotion you were making over here.” He spoke in a flat tone, as if reading a ledger. But Lu Yan could tell that Du Qi's spiritual energy was also running dry—the characters he wrote were a size smaller than usual, and their brushstrokes were noticeably fainter.
Lu Yan's heart tightened; he still didn't know how Jiang Ci was doing. Du Qi glanced at him, seemingly knowing exactly what he was thinking. “I sent Hong Jiu to the inn. You don't need to worry about Jiang Ci.” Lu Yan let out a massive sigh of relief, his shoulders dropping slightly, though he immediately felt a wave of embarrassment—with Hong Jiu's big mouth, the entire Abandoned Guest Hall probably knew about this by now. He opened his mouth to explain, but then swallowed his words. What was there to explain? It would only make things worse.
Pillars of fire erupted around Su Li, four of them blasting out from beneath her feet to force back the descending giant axes. She retreated dozens of feet, her chest heaving violently as sweat dripped down her temples, mixing with the dust on her face. She couldn't suppress her rising fury—where on earth had this half-step Void Refinement body cultivator come from? She was originally a beast tamer, and could barely be considered a spell caster now. It was only because of her Nine-Tailed Celestial Fox lineage and the physical enhancement of a late-stage Void Refinement realm that she could fight on equal terms with this brute who had seemingly poured every bit of his strength into physical power. On top of that, there was a Confucian cultivator nearby who kept piling debuffs on her, one after another, like an inescapable swarm of flies.
It was suffocating. She had never felt so stifled in her entire life. Her momentum was waning—first effort brings courage, second dampens it, and third exhausts it. This was already the third time her explosive outburst had been blocked. Every time she thought she was about to win, someone from the other side would step forward and push her back down.
“Come fight!” Chen San roared, his battle intent soaring as his twin axes whistled through the air. A dark gold glow of blood vitality flowed along the axe blades, each strike creating a sharp crack in the air. As one of the top combatants of the Abandoned Guest Hall, he pursued nothing but ultimate combat and ultimate power. It had been a long time since he had fought such an exhilarating battle; the more he fought, the more excited he became, and the hotter his hands grew. Su Li nearly ground her teeth to dust. Why was this opponent getting stronger as the fight went on? Her spiritual energy was almost depleted, so where was he getting so much blood vitality?
Su Li gritted her teeth and pulled a crimson crystal from her storage bag. It was as red as blood, with lava-like light flowing inside, and the moment it appeared, the surrounding air began to warp. A fire calamity seed—condensed from the natural spirits of the southern volcanoes, it was originally something suppressed by the demon race. Her half-demon identity had played a major role in her acquiring it. Spiritual energy surged wildly into her body, the flames behind her leaping up three feet as the calamity seed rapidly dimmed. She tossed it aside. Lu Yan watched the calamity seed turn from crimson to ash-gray, cracking into several pieces as it hit the ground like burnt coal.
The black spot within her golden providence expanded once more, growing from the size of a copper coin to the size of a fist, staring at her like a bruised eyeball. Although providence was normally invisible and intangible, the blackness was now so dense it almost seemed to drip.
“A calamity seed,” Lu Yan muttered to himself. He could tell that the calamity seed was at least of the Heavenly General grade, or perhaps even the Calamity Sovereign grade. Formless Spirits were divided from weakest to strongest into Vanguard, Apostle, Heavenly General, Calamity Sovereign, and Dao Sovereign, corresponding to a cultivator's Golden Core, Nascent Soul, Soul Transformation, Void Refinement, Grand Ascension, and Tribulation Transcendence. These things felt no pain, and it was hard enough for three cultivators of the same realm to fight one. To make matters worse, they would self-destruct upon defeat, dragging their opponents to the grave with them. No one knew where they came from; they only knew that their sole purpose for existence was destruction. The Ice Spirits of the Northern Border froze the earth, the fire spirits of the south burned everything to ash, and the Sea Spirits of the east swallowed everything. They hunted living beings and stored the plundered energy inside calamity seeds; the stronger the calamity spirit, the better the calamity seed it dropped. The cultivation world strictly forbade the use of calamity seeds, and though those in the Central Continent had always used them in secret, this was the first time Lu Yan had seen someone use one so brazenly. The Central Continent was truly rotten to the core.
Having absorbed the calamity seed, Su Li's condition was instantly restored to its peak. The flames around her body condensed into solid form, the phoenix patterns on her robes shining with a blinding light, and every gesture she made carried a heat that could incinerate all things. With every step she took forward, the stone slabs beneath her feet melted into glass. Even as a body cultivator with thick skin and tough flesh, Chen San was now injured. Several charred burn marks marred his body, the skin on his left arm was covered in blisters, and a chunk of flesh on his shoulder was completely scorched, emitting a foul, burnt odor. Yet he did not retreat, and his axes swung even faster.
Du Qi wrote three lines of poetry in quick succession, each line sinking into Su Li's spiritual energy like a nail. “The monolith bears the form to anchor the vast earth; the dark waves hold the force to suppress the heavy fog!”—a heavy gravity pressed down on Su Li's shoulders, causing her figure to suddenly sink as the stone slabs beneath her feet cracked. “Desiring to plunge from on high, the descent slows; treading upon the solid ground, the momentum naturally extends!”—sluggishness wrapped around her limbs, slowing her movements by a fraction of a second. Chen San's axe grazed her shoulder, slicing off a section of her sleeve. “The cosmos silently drains as vitality fades; the myriad phenomena wither as intent dissolves into the void!”—weakness seeped into her very bones, causing Su Li's aura to take a noticeable dive. Each line of Du Qi's poetry was a shackle, stacking on top of one another to suppress her arrogance time and again.
Lu Yan was not idle either. Kneeling on one knee, he pressed one hand to the ground while using the other to trace formation runes in the air. He funneled a Spirit-Gathering Formation into Chen San's body, sending spiritual energy surging through his meridians like water refilling a dried-up riverbed. He cast an Iron Armor Formation over the surface of Chen San's skin, condensing his blood vitality into an invisible layer of armor; Su Li's flames splashed against it in ripples but failed to burn through. Finally, a mind-clearing formation maintained his mental state, keeping him sharp throughout the continuous battle so he wouldn't grow sluggish from exhaustion. Layer after layer of formations enveloped Chen San, like putting one invisible suit of armor after another on him.
Yao Wu's Dharma Body had already burned out, but he had not forgotten his signature skills. The cultivation he had struggled to borrow by burning his life force could not be wasted. Deep blue spiritual energy seeped from his palms, wrapping around Chen San like threads and sinking into his wounds. The charred skin began to recover, and the torn muscles knit back together.
Four people, each performing their respective roles. One tanking, one controlling, one healing, and one buffing. No matter how strong Su Li was, she was no match for a coordinated team. Even after unleashing her hidden power, she couldn't take down Chen San. Every time she thought she was about to break through, Du Qi would write a character to suppress her, Lu Yan would add another layer of formations, and Yao Wu would heal Chen San back up. Her explosive outbursts were like waves crashing against a reef, shattering into a spray of foam.
The battle descended into a war of attrition once again. Both sides were frantically popping pills, truly proving the saying that war is a battle of logistics. The more Su Li fought, the more frustrated she became; the more frustrated she was, the more anxious she grew; and the more anxious she grew, the harder it was to land a blow. Her spiritual energy was depleting rapidly, and the side effects of the calamity seed were beginning to show—her eyes grew dark, and her fingertips went numb. She was starting to feel out of her depth.
Suddenly, she let out a cold snort and blasted Chen San back with a palm strike, using the recoil to soar into the air. Spiritual energy gathered frantically in her palms as a reddish-gold sphere of light grew larger and larger, illuminating the entire street as bright as day. She was going to bury all of these rats below.
Then, she looked up. A single snowflake landed on the tip of her nose. It didn't melt. She froze.
It was snowing.
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