If bystanders were so anxious, imagine the terror Cai Tongguang felt beneath that descending streak of light!
He had intended to teach the two a lesson. Instead, he had all but delivered his own neck beneath another man’s sword.
Panic seized him. He could feel the terrible chill approaching from above. Every inch the light advanced seemed to slice at his skin, and in another instant it would split his skull!
His regrets were beyond counting. Wen Tianhua did not know where Honored Master Li had gone, but Cai Tongguang knew perfectly well.
Honored Master Li should have been waiting outside to protect them. Yet Cai Tongguang, eager to torment Xu Ziqing and Yun Lie, had ordered him to intercept Honored Master Xing of Wuling instead. Now his own life was in danger, and he had personally sent away the very man who could save him!
As the light drew nearer, Cai Tongguang sank into despair.
The killing intent was so dense and cold that it seemed to seep into every pore and freeze his internal organs. Overwhelmed by terror, he could not move at all. Despite the many battles he had fought, he had never been so close to death!
Seeing the streak of light about to strike, Wen Tianhua shouted, “Spare him! We concede!”
If Cai Tongguang died here, Wen Tianhua could hardly expect to escape blame!
After shouting, he could not intervene himself. Doing so would violate the rules of the Heaven-Pillar Contest and bring punishment upon their entire mountain domain. He could only hope their opponent was not excessively bloodthirsty and would at least leave his junior brother alive.
Yun Lie gave a cold snort. The streak of light suddenly shifted, grazing past the edge of Cai Tongguang’s head.
Cai Tongguang felt a chill across his scalp as the sword intent sheared off his hair close to the skin. Then a burst of agony tore through the right side of his body, and he collapsed.
Blood poured out. Nearly half of his body had been cut away by the attack.
Yet despite the terrible pain, he was still alive.
Wen Tianhua knew the other side had shown mercy, but Cai Tongguang’s condition still horrified him.
He rushed to Cai Tongguang, forced several life-saving pills into his mouth, and kept him alive. Then he tightly wrapped the injured man in clean clothing to slow the torrent of blood before hurriedly lifting him and leaving.
Who cared about the outcome of the contest now? Cleaning up this disaster was far more urgent!
With Cai Tongguang gone and Wen Tianhua having conceded, only three challengers remained able to continue fighting.
The cultivator who had been facing Xu Ziqing recalled his flying swords and stopped attacking.
Xu Ziqing had also noticed how different his senior brother’s sword intent was this time. He suspected it was a sign that sword intent and primordial spirit were beginning to merge into a sword soul. That seemingly casual strike had been more powerful than even Yun Lie’s full release of sword intent in the past.
Although Xu Ziqing stood some distance away, the killing intent had still brought cold sweat to his skin.
The stronger his senior brother became, the more confident Xu Ziqing felt. He smiled at the remaining Fire Origin cultivators. “Who’s next?”
With only three people left, the challengers had just one more chance.
Their sole Soul Transformation cultivator stepped forward, accompanied by another middle Nascent Soul cultivator.
They took their places. The Nascent Soul cultivator reacted quickly, throwing out a sheet of radiance that transformed into seven water dragons. Two coiled around his body, and five hovered above his head, unleashing a formidable aura.
This cultivator was cautious by nature. Even though his opponent was a Golden Core cultivator far below him in realm, he showed no trace of contempt.
Xu Ziqing extended a finger.
Two giant trees on either side of him transformed into huge tigers, each three zhang tall and powerful enough to bite through a small mountain.
The tigers charged, colliding with the oncoming water dragons!
On the other side, the Soul Transformation cultivator had witnessed Yun Lie’s earlier attack and did not dare be careless.
Anyone who had cultivated to his level was difficult to deal with if he exercised sufficient caution.
The moment he took his position, he opened his mouth and released a small cauldron.
The cauldron shook, then multiplied into seventeen or eighteen identical cauldrons. They formed a ring around him, enclosing him at the center.
It was unclear whether this arrangement constituted a formation or simply a defensive measure.
Yun Lie’s expression remained cold. Black-gold light flashed in his eyes, and two small swords of the same colors shot forward!
Two booming impacts followed as the first sword struck a cauldron.
Invisible ripples spread across its surface, violently repelling the small sword!
The other small sword pierced the rippling barrier and was about to enter, but a neighboring cauldron suddenly shifted and blocked its path!
Clang! Clang!
As sword intent scraped across the cauldrons, the sounds were surprisingly clear and musical.
Yun Lie closed his eyes and withdrew the black-gold swords.
The Soul Transformation cultivator relaxed slightly. Powerful as this sword cultivator’s intent was, it could not penetrate his protective cauldrons and therefore could not harm him.
What else could the man possibly possess that would threaten a Soul Transformation cultivator?
After all, a sword cultivator’s greatest weapon was sword intent.
Even so, he had no desire to engage Yun Lie in close combat.
Sword cultivators capable of comprehending sword intent had necessarily spent countless hours tempering their sword techniques. Fighting one directly with blades would only place him at a disadvantage.
Instead, the Soul Transformation cultivator began chanting an incantation, preparing an exceedingly powerful spell.
As he uttered the first two syllables, the surrounding air seemed to resonate like two plucked strings. Great currents of power moved to a peculiar rhythm.
The force was enough to make one’s heart tremble. Once the incantation was complete, its power would be terrifying!
Naturally, a Soul Transformation expert chanted many times faster than Cai Tongguang had.
But Yun Lie was far from having exhausted his own strength, as his opponent imagined.
His aura shifted. A mighty wave of sword intent soared upward, even more powerful than before!
Within it lay a piercing, incomparable chill.
And beneath that sharpness, the sword intent seemed much more densely condensed!
A thought flashed through Yun Lie’s mind.
The black-gold radiance gathered into a straight, slender line that sliced through the air and struck a cauldron.
The Soul Transformation cultivator expected to block it as before. Only when the line drew closer did his keen senses detect that something was wrong.
If he completed his spell, he would have a seventy percent chance of success. Yet the instincts honed by countless life-and-death battles warned him that he would die before he could release it. Self-preservation had to come first! He could not continue chanting!
His instincts were correct.
The slender black-gold line pierced straight through a cauldron, leaving a tiny hole.
Though the opening was no larger than a needle point, the Soul Transformation cultivator’s chest tightened, and his internal organs sustained a hidden injury.
The cauldrons were his life-bound magical treasures, connected to his own blood and essence. Damage to them inevitably affected him.
And the black-gold line seemed not to have been slowed at all. It continued advancing!
Gritting his teeth, the cultivator directed his thoughts rapidly. One cauldron after another moved to block the attack, and one after another was pierced.
Only after passing through thirteen cauldrons did the line finally weaken a little.
Blood was already seeping from the Soul Transformation cultivator’s mouth.
At last he gained a moment’s breathing room and seized the air to either side with both hands.
The terrifying power he had summoned earlier suddenly vibrated along two invisible strings caught in his grasp!
Boom! Boom!
Explosive sounds rang out, and the black-gold line was finally shattered by the force.
The Soul Transformation cultivator was drenched in cold sweat.
But the battle was far from over.
Just as he began to relax, a vast pressure rushed toward him, threatening to crush him into ash!
He looked up and saw an enormous sword domain bearing down with boundless energy!
He had time only to release his Minor Cosmos and force it against the attack above his head.
Yet even so, the sword domain crashed against it three times in succession, each blow booming like thunder, until several cracks appeared across his Minor Cosmos.
With no other choice, the Soul Transformation cultivator clenched his fist and said, “I… concede!”
What a disgrace! He had truly lost face!
A mighty Soul Transformation expert had been driven to this state by an early Nascent Soul cultivator. Even if that opponent was a sword cultivator, there was no excuse for being so thoroughly defeated.
He had actually… lost.
Taking a deep breath, the Soul Transformation cultivator swept his sleeve and withdrew from the battlefield.
Meanwhile, Xu Ziqing suddenly felt the pressure around him lessen. Looking up, he realized his senior brother had already won.
But Yun Lie did not come to help him, so Xu Ziqing seized the chance to continue honing his own skills.
The Myriad Woods Spirit-Transformation Art could create the myriad living forms under heaven. These manifestations possessed not only the power of the creatures they resembled but also the strength of the plants from which they had been made.
Two giant tigers, a great rhinoceros, three huge elephants, and a five-horned monstrous beast now fought the seven water dragons. As Xu Ziqing gained more battle experience, the skill he imparted to his creations grew with it. They fought with increasing ferocity until they began to suppress the dragons!
Unfortunately for their summoner, although his water dragons resembled true flood dragons, he had neither cultivated a dragon-transformation method nor possessed dragon blood himself. His creations had a flood dragon’s abilities but no bloodline pressure to intimidate their enemies from the outset.
Xu Ziqing’s great beasts, by contrast, were formed from steel-hard wood, with bodies like bronze and iron. They were difficult to injure. Soon the rhinoceros slammed into a dragon’s belly, a tiger bit off another’s head, an elephant pinned down a dragon’s tail, and the five-horned beast spat five streams of blood poison that drenched the water dragons from head to tail!
The dragons were formed of the Nascent Soul cultivator’s true essence. Realizing how terrible the poison was, he almost immediately severed his connection with them.
At once, all seven water dragons dissolved into bloody water.
The Nascent Soul cultivator’s face turned deathly pale. Quick as his reaction had been, he had still absorbed a trace of the blood poison and was no longer fit to fight.
Seeing that even the Soul Transformation expert had conceded, he did not persist. He surrendered as well.
Thus, in this contest to defend their Heaven Pillar, Yun Lie and Xu Ziqing once again defeated the cultivators of Fire Origin Mountain Domain.
The defeated challengers had no face to linger. After saluting briefly, they mounted their magical treasures and departed.
Xu Ziqing and Yun Lie exchanged a glance, joined hands, and leapt down from the Heaven Pillar together.