Chapter 594: Cold Light Across Ten Thousand Li, One Sword Shatters a City!

The black-clad masked men who had been preparing to attack again all paused in surprise.

With an expert of this caliber already taking the field, there was clearly no need for them to intervene.

Interfering would only be courting death.

They stopped and simply looked up from within the villa to watch.

High in the sky, one flying mount carried the eunuch cultivator in circles as he waited.

Farther away, another flying mount arrived carrying Ga Miaoshui and Gao Shaoming, allowing them to survey the entire battlefield from above.

Zong Yuan's upward momentum gradually ran out. Looking down, he saw the flower-robed man rising again.

He spread both arms.

A yellow vortex surged beneath his feet and immediately lifted him higher at increasing speed.

He wanted to test the other man's true depth once more.

Their first head-on collision had left him deeply uncertain.

The man fighting him had concealed his face, and Zong Yuan wanted to force out enough of his methods to identify him. Anyone with strength at this level should not be an unknown figure in the cultivation world. If the man were truly one of the famous experts beneath Heaven, Zong Yuan ought to recognize at least something from his techniques.

Seeing Zong Yuan accelerate upward, the flower-robed man twisted into a spinning rise. His sleeves spiraled around him as he shot straight toward the sky.

The eunuch cultivator watching from a flying mount was shocked to see Zong Yuan rise again without borrowing force from anything.

He could only sigh inwardly.

As expected of the expert ranked seventh on the Golden Core Ranking.

Ga Miaoshui, arriving aboard another flying mount, likewise watched in silent admiration.

A flower-robed figure spread his arms and rose into the sky. His broad sleeves caught the wind and held him suspended for a moment.

Ga Miaoshui was startled.

Who was this man?

Far below, Niu Youdao and the others atop the pavilion looked toward the heavens, but at that altitude all they could see were several black specks.

“Old Zong Yuan, why are you running?” the flower-robed man called.

Zong Yuan flew into a rage.

With a sweep of both sleeves, he rushed forward.

The flower-robed man likewise snapped his sleeves and met him.

Boom!

The two collided instantly.

A succession of violent impacts exploded through the sky.

At the moment they clashed, turbulent qi blasted outward in every direction and threw the high-altitude airflow into chaos.

The two flying mounts observing nearby flapped and swayed violently, their riders struggling to keep them steady.

The two figures crossed and recrossed through the sky at tremendous speed.

For a time, they appeared evenly matched.

Neither could gain the upper hand.

Then the violent sounds of battle abruptly stopped.

Their four arms had become entangled.

Each man had locked one of the other's arms while having his own seized in return. Neither would release his grip, and neither intended to let the other go.

Their faces were almost pressed together, four eyes glaring sharply at one another.

Still entangled, the two rotated slowly in the sky.

Supported by their qi, they descended little by little as they spun.

“Who exactly are you?” Zong Yuan demanded.

They had exchanged blows for quite some time, yet he still could not identify the other's origins.

A man with this kind of strength should never have been an obscure nobody in the cultivation world.

The flower-robed man replied, “Who I am isn't important. What surprises me is you, the great Zong Yuan. I never imagined you'd willingly become a court hound. I'd rather know what benefit the Yan court offered you!”

“You're helping Nanzhou. How are you any different from me?”

“If you hadn't acted, naturally I wouldn't have acted against you.”

“A rat who hides his head and covers his face. Since you're determined to seek death yourself, don't blame me!”

Zong Yuan gave a cold snort and shook both shoulders.

Yellow qi surged from his body and wrapped itself around his opponent.

The flower-robed man suddenly thrust both arms outward.

The two separated at once.

But yellow force had already wound around his hands and feet, pulling and binding them.

He shook all four limbs violently.

Boom!

The clinging qi exploded apart.

Zong Yuan swept both arms in a circle and formed a mass of yellow cloud.

It twisted forward like a yellow flying dragon and instantly wrapped the flower-robed man from head to toe.

The more it coiled, the tighter it became.

The pressure squeezed the man's hands until the skin turned red.

The strange force was astonishingly tough and elastic.

Even when the flower-robed man poured his full cultivation into struggling against it, he could not break free.

More terrifying still, Zong Yuan gripped the dragon's tail and shook both arms.

From the coiling yellow dragon, countless small snake-like strands seemed to emerge and burrow toward the flower-robed man's eyes, nostrils, and other openings.

The flower-robed man circulated qi to protect his body.

Despite their frantic probing, the smaller strands could not penetrate.

Zong Yuan shook his arms again.

The dragon's head opened a mouth lined with fangs and lunged straight for the flower-robed man's skull.

The trapped man shook his whole body.

A surge of qi burst outward.

The enormous dragon head clamped over his head, but its fangs remained a finger's width away from the actual flesh and could not bite through.

“Your man seems to be losing!” Huang Lie warned Niu Youdao in a low voice from the pavilion.

At this point he had no desire to see Niu Youdao's side lose.

If Zong Yuan won, who knew whether the man would spare Huang Lie afterward?

Niu Youdao looked upward with a grave expression.

If even the flower-robed man could not stop Zong Yuan, then Niu Youdao truly was in trouble.

He had genuinely never expected the imperial court to bring out Zong Yuan against him.

“Excellent! What an eye-opening display. As expected of the expert ranked seventh on the Golden Core Ranking!”

Standing atop a flying mount, Ga Miaoshui watched Zong Yuan seize the upper hand and nodded in approval.

Gao Shaoming likewise shook his head in amazement.

Zong Yuan could tell the other man was trying to meet him head-on with raw cultivation.

Their spiritual power appeared almost evenly matched.

If they continued deadlocked like this, there would be no quick resolution.

Still gripping the dragon's tail, Zong Yuan abruptly dropped his body downward.

He dragged the bound flower-robed man with him and began plunging toward the earth.

The flower-robed man instantly understood his intention.

Zong Yuan wanted to use the force of their fall to whip him downward and smash him against the ground until nothing remained.

At first, the flower-robed man used his cultivation to resist and slow their descent.

Very quickly, he realized how badly that disadvantaged him.

He had to struggle against Zong Yuan's pull while simultaneously pouring spiritual power into slowing the fall.

His consumption was far greater.

Zong Yuan only needed to keep dragging him downward while benefiting from the force of gravity.

If this continued, the flower-robed man could not possibly win the contest.

He immediately stopped trying to slow their fall.

The two began dropping faster and faster.

Zong Yuan dragged him downward like a falling star.

As they neared the ground, the people on the pavilion could finally see clearly how the two men were entangled.

Everyone's expression changed.

Then a fierce light flashed through the flower-robed man's eyes.

He seemed to make some decision.

Suddenly, his voice rang out with metallic force.

“Cold light across ten thousand li—one sword shatters a city!”

Zong Yuan immediately sensed something change in the aura above him.

He snapped his head upward.

Within the coils of the yellow dragon, a flash of blood-red light erupted.

Boom!

A shock like thunder shook Heaven and Earth.

The flower-robed man had transformed himself into a sword.

His entire body was enclosed within an enormous blade nearly two zhang long, translucent and blood-red like amber.

The instant the sword's force erupted, it cut apart the yellow dragon binding him and shattered the technique completely.

Still upside down within the giant sword, he brought one hand together with two fingers extended in a sword seal and pointed directly at Zong Yuan below.

Taking advantage of the downward momentum, he slashed toward him in a single killing stroke.

Everyone atop the pavilion stared in astonishment.

None had ever seen such a magnificent sight.

It was like an enormous flying sword descending from the Nine Heavens to execute a demon.

Shang Shuqing alone could not understand what they were seeing.

Whether it was the yellow dragon Zong Yuan had formed or the flower-robed man's blood-red amber sword, anyone without Dharma Eyes could not see it.

To her, there were only two human figures falling from the sky.

She could not perceive the true scale of the techniques being exchanged.

Ga Miaoshui, however, witnessed the transformation into a sword from his flying mount above and blurted out in shock, “Who is that man?”

Zong Yuan was equally startled.

His downward speed was slower than that of the smooth giant sword, which cut through the air with far less resistance.

The blood-red amber blade was upon him in an instant.

Caught unprepared and unable to evade, he had no choice but to meet it directly.

Both palms slammed together and clamped onto the body of the sword.

“Transforming the body into a sword! Could this be the Azure Cloud Sword Art, the technique no one in Shangqing Sect has mastered since the third generation?” Zong Yuan cried out in alarm and anger.

Then he immediately corrected himself.

“No. The Azure Cloud Sword Art manifests an azure sword shadow. Yours is blood-red. Who exactly are you?”

No answer came.

There was no time for one.

The two were already falling like a meteor toward a hill below.

Several cultivators fighting on the hill were badly startled.

They broke off their own battle at once and scattered in every direction.

At the instant they were about to strike the hill, Zong Yuan suddenly shoved hard against the sword with both palms and tried to throw himself aside.

Inside the blade, the flower-robed man swept one arm while maintaining the sword seal.

The enormous sword abruptly twisted into a spiraling thrust.

Its spinning edge brushed past Zong Yuan and carried away a spray of blood.

Boom!

The hill collapsed beneath them as though struck by a thunderbolt from the Nine Heavens.

The sword force smashed the entire rise apart.

Earth and stone exploded in all directions, and the giant sword vanished into the flying debris.

Every witness was horrified.

All drew in sharp breaths.

Even from the distant pavilion, they could feel the tremor run through the earth.

Shang Shuqing instinctively stepped backward in alarm.

Only now did she truly understand why people said this realm belonged to cultivators.

Against figures like these, what could armies of ordinary men possibly do?

Yuan Gang and the others atop the mountain suddenly looked back toward the collapsed hill.

Amid the exploding earth and stone, Zong Yuan shot into the sky.

His expression was twisted with grief and fury.

One arm clawed outward through the air.

His other arm was gone.

He had failed to evade the spiraling giant sword in time, and the rotating blade had sliced it away.

The hand he still possessed stretched out as though gripping empty space.

The earth and stone blasting outward abruptly reversed direction like sand pouring through an hourglass, gathering toward his palm.

In a blink, the debris condensed into an enormous hammer.

With his one remaining arm, Zong Yuan swung the giant hammer down violently at the ruined hill.

The flower-robed man burst from the crater below.

His body twisted through the air.

The blood-red amber giant sword reappeared and slashed upward toward the descending hammer.

Boom!

The hammer was cut cleanly into two pieces.

At the same instant, the giant sword vanished again.

Among the flying earth and rock, the flower-robed man spun through the gaps and snapped all ten fingers repeatedly.

Strands of blood-red light shot forth one after another.

Zong Yuan twisted rapidly through the air to evade them.

At the same time, he pulled back the hammer shaft and swept it before himself as a shield.

It protected his vital points.

Even so, three beams of blood-red light pierced the weakened protective aura over his abdomen and burst out three blossoms of blood.

The stone hammer shaft in his hand disintegrated beneath the continuous barrage of red light.

Amid a storm of shattered earth and stone, Zong Yuan shot toward the sky.

The flower-robed man immediately pursued.

One above, one below, the two rose into the air together, climbing higher and higher before every watching eye.

Blood spilled from the corner of Zong Yuan's mouth.

Looking downward, he also saw the bloody holes punched through his own abdomen.

His eyes nearly split with fury as he shouted toward the man chasing him from below, “The Demonic Sect Leader's Fierce Demon Finger...”

Then the earlier suspicion about the Azure Cloud Sword Art flashed through his mind.

Something suddenly clicked.

“So it's you!”

The flower-robed man said nothing.

He continued the pursuit without pause.

Zong Yuan knew he could not keep wasting strength like this.

He immediately cut sideways, intending to flee into the mountain forests.

A flash of blood-red light crossed the sky.

The flower-robed man transformed into a sword once more.

The giant blade shot diagonally after him.

Without the air resistance of a human body and with the two already separated by only a short distance, its speed was even greater.

The sword caught him in an instant.

With his one remaining arm, Zong Yuan twisted his qi into another yellow dragon.

It wrapped around the giant sword.

He flipped and seized the sword's edge with one hand, letting himself be driven backward as he shouted harshly, “Do you have to kill me to the last?”

From within the sword, the flower-robed man's deep voice answered, “I once envied you. You could have lived as a carefree old wanderer, yet you insisted on stepping into this kind of dispute. Once you've taken that step, do you really think you can still pull your foot back?”

A storm of thoughts passed through Zong Yuan's mind.

He knew the other man's words were true.

He could no longer remain outside the affair.

If he failed to kill Niu Youdao, the imperial court would not release his family.

Even if the court did release them, those people existed, had already been exposed, and had become an invisible rope around his neck. Someone could pull that rope whenever they wished.

Grief and fury filled his face.

“I had no choice!”

“Since neither you nor I has a road of retreat, let me send you on your way.”

As the flower-robed man finished speaking, he swept the sword seal with one hand.

The blood-red amber giant sword began spinning at tremendous speed.

A cloud of blood burst through the sky.

[End of Chapter 594]