Chapter 1545: Another Slash

Standing within the black mist, Wu Chang heard Du Wuxu's provocation and ignored it. There was no chance he would roll out and fight him one-on-one.

Given Du Wuxu's strength, the moment Wu Chang went out to exchange blows with him, he would have to fight at full power. There was no way he could keep the Boundless Demon Domain under control at the same time. Du Wuxu would inevitably find a chance to escape, and trapping him again afterward would probably not be so easy.

Ignoring the taunts and challenge, Wu Chang lowered his head and looked at the wounds across his body, still hissing and widening as they smoked. He spread his arms. A rapid series of muffled pops erupted from his flesh.

More than a dozen wounds burst open one after another, rotten flesh blasting free as he forcibly expelled the corrosive substance embedded within them. Only raw, blood-red flesh remained.

It was no pleasant sensation. It hurt badly, and the corrosion itself had been even more agonizing, yet not the slightest sign of pain appeared on Wu Chang's face.

Compared with what was before him, mere suffering was something he could forget.

Du Wuxu had once again been brought firmly under control inside the Boundless Demon Domain. Wu Chang's gaze pierced the mist and settled once more on Yuan Gang, whose violent breathing was gradually calming. He murmured to himself, "When Crouching Tiger wakes, none beneath Heaven can stand against it..."

From the instant Yuan Gang entered the Boundless Demon Domain, Wu Chang had sensed that something was unusual. A whole group of people had actually brought in a man who could not fly. Yuan Gang had very likely been the killing move they were hiding.

And indeed he was.

What Wu Chang had not expected was for Yuan Gang to kill Lan Daolin head-on with a single slash.

The indestructible force displayed by that one saber strike still had not stopped shocking him.

Lan Daolin's corpse was still inside the Boundless Demon Domain. Wu Chang closed his eyes and concentrated briefly, examining it through the formation.

He found it. Confirmed it.

Dead beyond any possible doubt.

Wu Chang flicked a hand and expelled Lan Daolin's corpse from the Boundless Demon Domain. There was no point wasting spiritual power controlling something that no longer mattered.

...

Outside, everyone remained tense and uncertain. The movement inside the roiling black clouds overhead had gone quiet.

Niu Youdao and the others had no idea what was happening within. All they could do was wait anxiously for the result of that saber strike.

The people of Qiyun Sect watching from the side did not share that particular tension. The affair did not concern them directly. But then they noticed someone drifting toward them.

He came like a floating mass of flame, or perhaps a drifting splash of brilliant color.

White beard and hair. Bronze skin. A robe of vivid red.

The old man floated down before them and raised his head toward the great mass of rolling black cloud in the sky.

Taishu Feihua and the others were startled. Why had this man come out?

After a moment's thought, however, they could understand. The commotion from the battle had probably disturbed his seclusion.

Led by Taishu Feihua, the group immediately cupped their hands and saluted in unison. "Supreme Elder Xi."

The newcomer was none other than Xi Wuxian, one of Qiyun Sect's twenty-eight Supreme Elders and the sect's foremost master of artifact refinement.

After all the upheavals Qiyun Sect had suffered, some of those twenty-eight seats now stood vacant. Even so, this body of Supreme Elders remained the foundation behind Qiyun Sect's formidable power and overbearing confidence.

Xi Wuxian was one of the rare Supreme Elders of an outside surname within the sect, and also the oldest among its surviving Supreme Elders.

Like Zhong Guzi in the past, perhaps even more so, his natural lifespan had already run its course. He was effectively a living dead man.

What sustained him was the essence, qi, and spirit forged through a lifetime of cultivation, together with spiritual power used to keep his physical body from collapsing. He had been lingering on like this, barely clinging to life.

He had long since gone into seclusion and stopped appearing before others. It had been many years since anyone had seen him.

For a man in such a condition to come out now naturally shocked everyone.

Xi Wuxian looked up at the rolling black cloud. "What is happening?"

Taishu Feihua looked around. Seeing no outsiders nearby, he moved closer and lowered his voice. "Supreme Elder, Wu Chang, Lan Daolin, and Du Wuxu are fighting above us."

Xi Wuxian asked again, "Who is using my Three-Roars Saber?"

Three-Roars Saber?

Everyone exchanged puzzled looks, then seemed to understand something. Hadn't there just been three tiger roars?

Taishu Feihua asked, "Supreme Elder means those sounds just now came from the Three-Roars Saber?"

Xi Wuxian's voice was old and worn, but utterly certain. "Crouching Tiger has awakened."

Only then did everyone understand why he had come out.

So even now, he still carried the Three-Roars Saber in his heart.

Those in Qiyun Sect who knew the old story were aware that after Xi Wuxian forged the Three-Roars Saber, he had once made wild declarations about it being unmatched beneath Heaven. Those words had violated a taboo, brought considerable trouble upon Qiyun Sect, and earned him a severe reprimand from the sect. He had suffered no small grievance over the matter.

So many years had passed. That old affair had long since sunk beneath the river of time.

Yet even on the edge of death, Xi Wuxian had never let it go.

Whoosh! Thud!

A corpse split into two pieces fell from the rolling black clouds and struck the mountaintop.

Niu Youdao, Hei Shi, and the others immediately stared.

For a moment they froze, then surprise and delight broke across their faces.

Lan Daolin?

Lan Daolin was dead?

Niu Youdao and Yun Ji exchanged a look. Both seemed to have had a great weight lifted from them.

Monkey's saber had probably succeeded.

The people of Qiyun Sect had naturally seen the corpse drop from the battle above as well. From farther away, they focused their Dharma Eyes upon it.

Lan Daolin?

The moment they recognized the dead man, Taishu Feihua and the others turned pale with shock. Someone blurted, "It's Sacred Venerable Tianlan!"

Given the situation before this, Lan Daolin had frequently visited Qiyun Sect. Nearly every senior figure there knew him by sight.

When he heard the dead man was Lan Daolin, Xi Wuxian's Dharma Eyes fixed on the fatal cut across the body. A smile appeared on his face.

He seemed to be murmuring to himself, yet also declaring something aloud.

"Crouching Tiger has awakened!"

Everyone immediately turned toward him.

Taishu Feihua's heart pounded. "Supreme Elder Xi, are you saying Sacred Venerable Tianlan was killed by the Three-Roars Saber?"

...

Yuan Gang's violent breathing finally settled.

Kunlin Shu and the other four gathered around him. They looked at him almost as though he were some kind of monster, even as they remained alert to their surroundings.

Those who had never seen Yuan Gang fight before finally understood why Niu Youdao had been so confident in making this man the main attacker, even assigning five Nascent Soul cultivators to coordinate around his offense.

One slash had killed Lan Daolin.

The scene still echoed through their minds.

Once Yuan Gang's breathing had stabilized, Wu Chang's face began to appear faintly in the nearby mist.

He was plainly keeping Yuan Gang under close observation. Only his face appeared, so no one could see the wounds on his body.

"Du Wuxu is still alive. Can we begin again?"

Kunlin Shu and the others naturally turned toward Yuan Gang.

Whether they could continue depended on him.

Yuan Gang stared at Wu Chang's indistinct face. "We can."

The black clouds churned.

That face vanished.

Before long, wind and mist began surging once more before the group.

Through the line of sight Wu Chang opened for them, Du Wuxu appeared.

"Let's attack together this time." Yuan Gang looked to either side as he spoke. He was changing the original plan on the spot. Adapting to what had just happened was necessary.

Kunlin Shu and the others understood immediately.

The three who had split off before had accomplished nothing.

After the result against Lan Daolin, all six now possessed greater confidence.

No one hesitated.

Kunlin Shu once again struck first, sending a fire dragon roaring forward.

Wang Zun, Yuan Cong, Zhuge Chi, and Ao Feng attacked immediately after him.

The five joined forces.

Their full-powered attacks converged into a single torrent of dazzling force and crashed toward Du Wuxu as he whipped his head around.

Black light erupted from Du Wuxu's body like ten thousand rays bursting outward.

A violent roar shook the void as he took the combined strike head-on.

By now, he had already worked out what Wu Chang and those demons and monsters intended.

The profound mysteries of the Boundless Demon Domain were being used to trap him. Wu Chang handled the confinement and cover, while those pieces of trash were responsible for attacking, intending to grind him and Lan Daolin to death inside the formation.

How could Du Wuxu allow Wu Chang's scheme to succeed so easily?

After taking one combined attack and discovering that the several attackers together were no stronger than this, the black radiance around his body suddenly flared even more violently.

He charged straight back into the next incoming wave like a spiked sphere of black light fired from a bow, intent on smashing through everything before him.

Kill those pieces of trash, and Wu Chang's scheme would collapse naturally.

A fire dragon came surging toward him.

Wrapped in jagged black light, Du Wuxu smashed directly through it.

Then he suddenly saw a man hidden within the flames, charging straight at him.

In sheer cultivation and power, Du Wuxu feared no one in this rabble. He punched forward without hesitation.

A cone of black light erupted from his fist.

The force and momentum tore through the surrounding air like a peal of thunder, as though the blow meant to destroy everything in its path.

Kunlin Shu was once again "blasted away."

"ROAAR!"

A thunderous tiger roar exploded.

"ROAAR!"

A second, deeper tiger roar rolled immediately after it.

Within the cone of black light, something seemed to slip through like a fish moving against a current, or like a blade cutting through water.

Neither the blade-light nor the shadowy figure behind it slowed in the slightest beneath the roaring black attack.

The cone of black radiance itself was equally unimpeded.

Within the clouds, Wu Chang watched the entire clash closely this time.

He murmured, "Man and saber as one..."

When the tiger roars came one after another, Du Wuxu instantly sensed something wrong.

In a flash, he remembered the tiger roar from before.

Had that previous sound come from an attack against Lan Daolin?

Now that he saw this abnormal phenomenon before him, a powerful sense of mortal danger seized him. In an instant, he abandoned every trace of Sacred Venerable Wuxu's overbearing pride.

He stopped charging forward and dodged at full speed.

But his evasive movement was far inferior to Lan Daolin's.

Movement arts had been Lan Daolin's specialty.

It even seemed as though Du Wuxu had managed to dodge.

He hovered to one side, both fists clenched, his face rigid.

Slowly, he turned his head toward Yuan Gang, who had already flashed past him and reached the other side, breathing heavily.

Kunlin Shu and the others had scattered just as quickly, avoiding the roaring cone of black light that continued blasting onward.

"Wu Chang..." Du Wuxu forced power into his voice and shouted, as though he meant to ask him something.

"Roaaar..."

The terrifying third tiger roar arrived late and drowned out his words.

What Du Wuxu had wanted to ask was whether Lan Daolin was already dead.

But once that soul-shaking tiger roar sounded, there was no longer any need to ask.

The roar shook his mind. His spiritual power fell into disorder and slipped beyond his control.

As he opened his mouth to speak, blood poured from between his lips.

One of his arms flew away first.

Then his body tilted.

His torso split diagonally across the chest into two pieces, tumbling downward through the darkness.

Du Wuxu forced his eyes wide open.

His gaze searched through the black mist.

He wanted to see Wu Chang.

He wanted one last look at this latecomer among the Nine Saints, at the man who was about to stand alone above all beneath Heaven.

Zhuge Chi had not forgotten his task.

After dodging the violent black attack, he immediately flashed downward, swept beneath the falling Yuan Gang, caught him, and brought him rapidly back to the others.

Still breathing violently, Yuan Gang forced out a single word.

"Go!"

Kunlin Shu swept out one arm, stirring the hidden fire element all around them...

[End of Chapter 1545]