“You court death!”
As those two words fell, Duan Xiao did not even seem to move his feet, yet his body slid flat across the ground. His brocade robe cut a sweeping arc through the curtain of rain as he closed the distance to Shen Xiuhan inch by inch with ghostly speed.
Sensing the razor-sharp wind behind him like a blade, Shen Xiuhan gritted his teeth and pushed his inner force to its absolute limit. His legs churned like wheels, stamping a deep crater into the muddy ground with every stride!
The explosive force shattered the falling rain, trailing a white shroud of mist over ten feet high behind him.
“A futile struggle!”
The cold shout pierced through the sheets of water like a death summons from King Yama, exploding in Shen Xiuhan's ears.
Immediately after, Duan Xiao's figure blurred, vanishing completely from Shen Xiuhan's perception.
“Not good!”
Shen Xiuhan's heart leaped wildly as a sense of mortal peril engulfed him like a tidal wave.
In the next breath!
The misty rain was violently torn apart. Amidst a sharp sonic boom, a pair of bare palms carrying a terrifying momentum slammed toward the center of his back.
There was no dodging it!
Shen Xiuhan's pupils contracted. At this life-or-death moment, the sheer ruthlessness in his heart was fully unleashed.
His four major acupoints spun rapidly, channeling every ounce of his Mystic Ice Force into his fists.
Without hesitation, he spun his waist and slammed his fists directly against the incoming palm strike, which bore down on him like a collapsing mountain!
“Get lost!”
Boom!
A muffled boom, like a sudden clap of thunder, echoed wildly through the narrow, dark alley, causing the high walls on both sides to shudder.
Unable to withstand the rampaging shockwaves, the curtain of rain was blown outward, forming a cascading ring of water around them like a waterfall.
Fists clashed against palms.
Shen Xiuhan felt a surge of Huajin true qi—as solid as iron and as violent as a raging ocean—instantly crush his Mystic Ice Force and charge brutally up his arms toward his chest!
That power was too immense, too overbearing. It was simply not something an Anjin Rank martial artist could withstand!
In that split second of life and death, the Lionheart Armor worn beneath his robes saved his life!
The armor protected his heart, its fine scales squirming and contracting like living things to absorb more than half of the terrifying palm strike!
Creak...
Shen Xiuhan could almost hear the faint sound of the armor's scales cracking.
What a great treasure...
He gritted his teeth inwardly. All two hundred and six bones in his body surged at the same time, and a metallic hardness erupted from the depths of his bone marrow!
The Great Perfection of the Iron Bone Technique!
After being weakened repeatedly, the invisible shockwave of the palm strike finally passed through his bones and muscles, exploding inside his body.
Even with two life-saving trump cards, the gap of an entire major realm still injured him instantly!
“Pfft!”
Shen Xiuhan threw his head back and spat out a mouthful of blood. His face was as pale as paper as he flew backward uncontrollably for several yards. With a thud, he slammed into the muddy ground and rolled twice, his clothes instantly covered in mud.
A single strike had dealt a heavy blow!
Yet Duan Xiao did not immediately leap forward to pursue him.
Instead, the Huajin expert stopped, slowly lowered his head, and looked at his palms in disbelief.
On his palms, a layer of deep blue ice fragments was slowly falling into the mud and rain.
Strangely, these ice fragments could not be melted by the rain, stubbornly sticking to the ground like irregular steel nails.
“This cold force...”
A strong light flashed in Duan Xiao's eyes, and a flame seemed to flicker deep in his pupils.
In his mind, the dying words of his father, Duan Wei, from over ten years ago resurfaced:
“That man practiced a terrifyingly powerful frost force and possessed an extraordinary sword technique. He was exceptionally clever, usually only showing his power through sword-glow to hide it. When we cornered and attacked him, he used a sword array, releasing wave after wave of sword-qi, which left me heavily injured like this...”
The memory instantly aligned with the ice fragments before him.
Duan Xiao slowly shifted his gaze from his palms and looked up at the young man struggling to stand up from the muddy water in the distance.
“Impressive brat...”
Duan Xiao's mouth split open, revealing white teeth, and a nearly morbid ecstasy appeared on his face.
“It really was you... who took his...”
Before he could finish, his voice stopped abruptly.
Not far away, the young man lying in the mud slowly rose. Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth, but his eyes were incredibly bright.
With a flip of his left hand, a palm-sized sword-shaped jade plate appeared.
The jade plate was pure white, with intricate patterns carved along its edges. Faint flowing light moved through the patterns, like a sleeping silver snake being awakened.
He pointed it straight at Duan Xiao from afar!
“Hmm?”
The moment Duan Xiao's gaze fell on the jade plate, a long-lost feeling of dread rose from the depths of his bone marrow, making his expression turn solemn.
“Is this that...”
Before he could finish!
“Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!”
Three extremely condensed waves of sword-qi shot out from the core of the jade plate!
The sword-qi was silver-white, thin as a cicada's wing, and blindingly bright, as if the moonlight of the entire sky was condensed into a single line, slicing a vacuum rift through the heavy rain.
The sound of tearing through the air was as sharp as a whistle, crossing several yards in an instant and slashing straight toward Duan Xiao!
Duan Xiao's face changed drastically. He bent his knees slightly, and true qi exploded from the soles of his feet!
Whoosh!
His body rose into the air like a soaring night owl, leaping several yards high.
The violent air current whipped his wide brocade robe, making it flap loudly in mid-air!
In the split second after his feet left the ground, the silver-white sword-qi slashed heavily onto the spot where he had just been standing!
Rip!
The pure white sword-glow flashed and disappeared, like slicing tofu, plowing a three-foot-deep trench into the waterlogged bluestone ground!
Immediately after, the remaining power of the sword-qi did not diminish, flying along the muddy ground for seven or eight yards and slashing into a high green brick wall at the end of the alley with the momentum of wind and thunder.
Boom!
First, a straight and smooth sword mark appeared right in the middle of the hard brick wall.
Immediately after, web-like cracks spread wildly to both sides like frightened snakes.
The entire high wall trembled violently, then collapsed with a crash in the rainy night.
Large clumps of dust and broken bricks mixed with muddy water splashed everywhere, turning into a cloud of murky dust.
“Such overbearing power...”
Hanging in mid-air, a flash of lingering fear crossed Duan Xiao's eyes, and he felt a chill in his heart:
No wonder my father, whose cultivation was already at the Great Perfection of the Anjin Rank back then, still had half of his body shredded by this thing. After escaping back to the island, he only lasted a few days before passing away with regret.
Tonight, if I hadn't already broken through to the Huajin Rank and doubled my strength, I'm afraid I would have... Hm?
As his thoughts raced, Duan Xiao glanced toward the distance from the corner of his eye.
The young man in the mud had a fierce look in his eyes. The jade plate in his palm brightened again, flashing with blinding silver-white light!
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Another two pure white sword-qis, like intersecting deadly guillotines, tore through the rain and whistled forward one after another!
“There's more?!”
Duan Xiao had just exhausted his momentum and had not yet generated new force. Suspended in mid-air, he had nowhere to push off, making it impossible to dodge in time!
His face changed drastically. The true qi in his dantian surged wildly into his palms, which instantly glowed with a heavy, mountain-like earthy yellow light!
Rock-Solid Mountain-Inquiring Palm: Mountain Push!
“Hah!”
Duan Xiao bellowed, and his right palm, as if pushing an invisible mountain, slammed hard against the first sword-qi!
Boom!
The heavy yellow light and the silver-white sword-qi collided violently in mid-air, sending wild shockwaves in all directions!
Under his desperate palm strike, the trajectory of the sword-qi was forced to shift by several inches, narrowly grazing past Duan Xiao's right arm.
The sharp sword-qi aftermath instantly shredded the right sleeve of Duan Xiao's brocade robe into flying rags.
However, facing the second sword-qi that followed immediately after...
Even though Duan Xiao strained with all his might, he was still a fraction of a second too slow!
Tear!
The robe on his left arm tore inch by inch, and a spasm of pain crossed Duan Xiao's face.
A long trail of hot blood, along with three fingers severed at the base, fell from the air into the mud below.
Thud!
Duan Xiao landed heavily.
The gloomy First Chief of Chenjian Dock, who ruled over the region, bent down, picked up the three severed fingers one by one, and clenched them in his bloody palm.
Then, he slowly raised his head, looking through the heavy rain toward the end of the long street.
In the distance, Shen Xiuhan had taken the opportunity to flee, his figure nearly invisible as it blended into the night.
“Little bastard...”
The killing intent in Duan Xiao's eyes had turned into a sea of blood and a mountain of corpses:
“You have thoroughly enraged me!”
Boom!
In the next breath!
The ground under Duan Xiao's feet violently exploded, leaving a deep crater.
He rose into the air, leaping across dozens of yards of empty space, chasing after him with a sky full of killing intent!
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