Facing the relentless barrage of attacks and the suffocating pressure of the baleful aura, Wei Zhaoli ignored the stream of vulgar insults washing over her.

A flash of resolve hardened in her eyes.

She bit down on the tip of her tongue, spraying a mouthful of vital essence blood onto the White Jade Ruyi.

Hum!

The Ruyi erupted with brilliant light, its power surging, though Wei Zhaoli’s face turned paper-white from the exertion.

“Trying to fight with your life?” The blue-robed cultivator sneered. He waved his hand, summoning a black banner. “Taste my Wind Thunder Banner!”

The black banner unfurled. Howling winds and rolling thunder coalesced into several jagged bolts of lightning that tore through the air.

Wei Zhaoli barely managed to deflect them. The impact forced her back step by step until her spine pressed against the cold bronze of a coffin.

“Push harder! She can’t hold on!” the white-robed cultivator shouted, his voice trembling with excitement. “Whoever takes her down first gets the key!”

The attacks from the seven cultivators grew frantic and vicious.

The light of the White Jade Ruyi finally dimmed, its power exhausted. Wei Zhaoli was forced to fling out a desperate sequence of talismans, but their power was a drop in the ocean compared to the onslaught.

The moment her defense faltered, the white-robed cultivator lunged. His face was twisted with naked greed.

“You’re mine!” he laughed maniacally.

For an evil cultivator skilled in the arts of plucking yin to supplement yang, defiling the Divine Wood Sect’s premier beauty was the ultimate prize.

It was a crisis of life and death.

Gravely wounded, Wei Zhaoli knew she had no options left. Her fingers formed a final, tragic seal. The Golden Core within her body began to vibrate violently.

She would rather self-detonate her cultivation and die than fall into the hands of these animals.

“Want to self-detonate? Not so easy!”

The sinister old woman cackled. She flicked her wrist, launching a streak of black light—a pitch-black Spirit-Sealing Nail—aimed straight at Wei Zhaoli’s dantian.

At that split second—

Zheng!

A clear, melodious sword cry pierced the thick blood mist.

Frost-white sword qi cascaded down like a waterfall of moonlight.

Ping!

The Spirit-Sealing Nail snapped in mid-air. Fine ice crystals instantly bloomed over the broken halves as they clattered to the ground.

The white-robed cultivator’s laughter cut off abruptly.

A tiny crimson dot appeared between his eyebrows.

In the next instant, his body split cleanly down the middle. There was no spray of blood; the extreme cold of the sword qi had frozen his veins the moment it sliced through him.

“Who goes there?!”

The blue-robed cultivator’s face drained of color. He frantically waved his Wind Thunder Banner, erecting layer upon layer of lightning barriers around himself.

From the depths of the blood mist, a slender figure walked forward.

His pace was unhurried. With every step he took, an ice lotus bloomed on the ground beneath his boots.

The Traceless Sword in his hand pulsed with a chilling, sharp light. Ancient runes along the blade lit up in sequence, casting a ghostly blue halo that pushed back the crimson fog.

A terrifying aura swept outward, suppressing the entire square.

The remaining cultivators felt their chests tighten.

“Golden Core… Perfection!” the white-robed cultivator gasped before his corpse toppled over.

Shen Xian’s gaze swept over the group like a freezing wind, finally resting on Wei Zhaoli.

Seeing her pale face and blood-stained white robes, the temperature in his eyes dropped to absolute zero.

“Have you all…” Shen Xian asked, his voice flat and terrifyingly calm, “…decided how you want to die?”

It was the tone of a judge reading a death sentence from the Nine Netherworlds.

His eyes were like ancient wells—rippleless, deep, and looking at them as if they were already dead.

A chill shot from the base of everyone’s spine straight to their skulls. It was the primal fear of being targeted by an apex predator.

Wei Zhaoli’s pupils contracted. The White Jade Ruyi nearly slipped from her trembling fingers.

She stared at the familiar figure parting the blood mist. Her heart slammed against her ribs, fluttering like a trapped fawn.

“Shen…?” she whispered.

Her voice trembled with disbelief and a sudden, overwhelming surge of joy.

She had never imagined that in this moment of despair, the first person to appear would be him.

And she certainly never expected that her fiancé—usually so lazy and unmotivated—would radiate such suffocating power.

He has been hiding his strength all along…

The realization shook her, followed immediately by an indescribable sense of security. But the relief was short-lived.

“Shen Xian, be careful!” she cried out, her voice laced with pain. “There are seven of them!”

Her warning was filled with concern, but also self-blame. Her own weakness had dragged him into this. She struggled to stand, wanting to fight beside him, but her injuries caused her to stumble.

“It’s fine,” Shen Xian said, not even looking at the enemies. “Just a bunch of chickens and dogs. They’re just here to sell their heads.”

He ran two fingers along the blade of the Traceless Sword.

Flash!

Blinding blue light erupted. The blood mist within a ten-zhang radius froze instantly into suspended ice crystals.

“Dare to touch my woman? You must be ready to die.”

My woman?

Wei Zhaoli’s heart skipped a beat, a flush rising to her pale cheeks despite the danger.

On the battlefield, the blue-robed cultivator had only managed to half-unfurl his Wind Thunder Banner when a streak of frost-colored sword qi pierced through his three layers of lightning defense like a dragon through paper.

Thud!

The moment the qi entered his body, the blue-robed cultivator watched in horror as his right arm began to turn white with frost.

He frantically channeled spiritual power to resist, but Shen Xian merely formed a seal with his left hand and whispered a single word.

“Shatter.”

Crack!

The cultivator’s entire right arm, along with the priceless Wind Thunder Banner, disintegrated into a million shards of ice.

“Ahhh!”

He let out a shrill scream, stumbling backward.

Shen Xian watched impassively. He hadn’t gone for an instant kill yet. His divine sense, now at the Nascent Soul level, was blanketing the area.

He had detected a familiar, rat-like presence hiding in the shadows. He needed to put on a show.

“Form the Blood Fiend Soul-Locking Array!” the sinister old woman shrieked.

Terrified by Shen Xian’s prowess, she threw out twelve black banners. The ferocious ghost faces on the fabric writhed as if alive.

The ground cracked open. Seventy-two bloody chains burst from the earth, each tipped with the wailing skull of a vengeful spirit, rushing toward Shen Xian.

Shen Xian sneered.

His left sleeve flickered. Nine streaks of silver light shot out.

The Nine Orifices Exquisite Needles.

The Rhinoceros beads at the tails of the needles bloomed with dazzling azure light. The moment the needle tips touched the complex array patterns, the formations unraveled like knots being pulled loose.

“How is this possible?!” The old woman’s eyes bulged. The array she had studied for a hundred years was dismantled in a second.

Simultaneously, the Grand One Mirror flew from Shen Xian’s waist, tracing a graceful arc in the air.

The mirror surface rippled like water, swallowing all seven of the Calamity Door Nails the old woman had secretly fired.

Shen Xian flicked his sword tip.

The Grand One Mirror flipped over.

Whoosh!

The nails, now coated in extreme frost qi, were reflected back at ten times their original speed.

Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

Two black-robed cultivators tried to summon shields, but the nails curved in impossible arcs, bypassing their defenses to pierce directly through their skulls.

The old woman and her two accomplices froze in place, instantly transformed into three lifelike ice sculptures.

Shen Xian stumbled slightly, his face turning pale.

He appeared to be exerting his full strength, panting slightly.

“Since you want to be the oriole behind the mantis,” he thought coldly, “I’ll show you who the real hunter is.”

Seeing Shen Xian “weaken,” the gaunt man’s eyes lit up. He crushed a blood-red jade talisman in his hand.

“I invoke the Patriarch’s Decree!”

A terrifying pressure descended from the sky. A massive crimson palm print condensed overhead, blotting out the light as it crashed down toward Shen Xian.

Wei Zhaoli’s protective talisman activated automatically, raising a golden light shield.

At the same time, Shen Xian’s Profound Heaven Azure Cloud Robe flared with dense spiritual light.

BOOM!

The palm print slammed into the dual defenses. The explosion was deafening.

Amidst the chaotic energy, Shen Xian’s figure swayed violently, looking like a lamp running out of oil.

“Kill him! He’s empty!” the gaunt man roared.

The remaining two enemies rushed in.

At that exact moment, Shen Xian’s eyes sharpened. He “erupted” with the last of his strength.

The Traceless Sword hummed with a dragon’s roar.

The three attackers suddenly realized a massive sword array had materialized beneath their feet. Countless ice crystals began to grow rapidly from their pores.

The fattest cultivator panicked, spitting out his Natal True Fire to melt the ice.

Shen Xian’s left hand flipped. The Li Fire True Seal appeared.

Extreme Cold met Extreme Heat.

KABOOM!

The fat cultivator didn’t even have time to scream. The thermal shock blasted his body into a mist of bloody red crystals.

Seeing the massacre, the last blue-robed cultivator shattered an escape talisman, trying to flee into the void.

The silver patterns on Shen Xian’s right arm writhed and shot out.

The Void Rope.

It pierced through space, ignoring distance, and stabbed directly into the cultivator’s dantian, wrapping tight around his Golden Core.

“No!” the man screamed.

Shen Xian clenched his fist and yanked.

Rip!

The Golden Core was torn bodily from the man’s stomach.

Bang! It exploded in mid-air.

The gaunt man turned to run, but a wave of frost sword qi swept over him, silencing him forever.

The square fell silent.

Shen Xian landed heavily beside Wei Zhaoli. He was gasping for air, his face pale and covered in sweat, looking utterly spent.

“Shen… Shen Xian…” Wei Zhaoli reached out, her face full of worry.

Even though she was grievously wounded, she couldn’t bear to see him in such a state.

Suddenly!

A shadow detached itself from the darkness at the edge of the plaza. Like a venomous snake, it shot toward Shen Xian’s exposed back, silent and fast beyond belief.