The grudge between the Central Region’s Yashan and the Snow Region’s New Esoteric had ancient origins.
As early as the end of that Yin-Yang Realm war that swept through the entire Nineteen Continents eleven cycles ago, it had already been as deep and vast as the boundless Western Sea. Those young lives from twenty years ago had merely torn this old wound that had never healed even deeper.
Qu Zhengfeng was a witness to the Yin-Yang Realm war from eleven cycles ago. The hatred he harbored was deeper and more profound than Jian Chou, who had only come to Yashan eighty-some years ago!
Even at this moment—
He was no longer a disciple under Yashan!
The sword momentum was towering and precipitous like the treacherous paths of Yashan.
The sword qi soared upward like the spread wings of a Kun-peng, and before the Treasure Seal Dharma King could react, it smashed toward him like the collapse of heaven and earth!
All surrounding sounds were swallowed by the long sword’s cry.
In the wilderness below, moonlight was as clear as water. The stone-gray sword body even gave people a rather crude feeling, yet the moment sword intent rose, it seemed to connect with the entire world!
Qu Zhengfeng’s figure merged with the sword’s shadow.
In an instant, it was impossible to tell whether he held the sword or the sword carried him—just one force moving against the fierce wind of this snow region, attacking the Treasure Seal Dharma King!
“Hahahaha…”
The Treasure Seal Dharma King was completely fearless, truly not regarding Qu Zhengfeng as worthy of attention. After all, in that Yin-Yang Realm war eleven cycles ago, Qu Zhengfeng, who was the new generation’s senior brother of Yashan at the time, was merely a Nascent Soul cultivator, while he had already been a Bounded Realm great power at that time!
In these Nineteen Continents, those qualified to battle him could be counted on one hand!
“If your master Fudao had come, this seat might still fear and take a second look, and because he can wield the Huangtian Mirror, would move to exchange a couple of moves with him as a courtesy. As for you—”
The mocking voice paused, and the words that followed were even more provocative!
“Overestimating yourself, seeking your own death!”
When the Yashan Sword’s mountain-toppling sword shadow fell and struck his body, it was like water meeting a boulder—automatically splitting to both sides, unable to harm him in the slightest! But when it flowed past his body, it sank into the ground, leaving behind a terrifying deep mark!
At this instant, Jian Chou, who was about to follow up with an attack, froze.
But Qu Zhengfeng seemed to have anticipated this scene long ago, showing not the slightest surprise on his face. He simply gripped his sword tighter and looked down at the Treasure Seal Dharma King from above, praising: “Worthy of being a Bounded Realm great power, dominating the snow region for over ten cycles!”
Bounded Realm!
Among the great cultivators who had stepped into Void Refining, whether one could enter the Bounded Realm was yet another new watershed!
Heart Questioning was merely understanding the dao, but Bounded Realm required comprehending the rules of space.
After comprehension, the weak could understand the principles of spatial change, the moderate could open their own space within the great world, and the strong could even use spatial power for themselves, for defense or attacking enemies, as they wished!
The higher up in the ranks of great cultivators, the greater the gap between one realm and another. Compared to lower realms, it could be called earth-shaking and extremely different.
Therefore, the higher up one went, the more impossible it became to kill across levels.
Jian Chou could kill the Treasure Bottle Dharma King because she was only one small realm away from him, and she had seized the initiative in battle.
But Qu Zhengfeng’s apparent realm was merely Void Refining middle stage, barely equal to the Treasure Bottle Dharma King. Even with the Yashan Sword—one of Yashan’s three swords—in hand, how could he kill the Treasure Seal Dharma King who had already broken through to Bounded Realm and was only one step away from great completion?
Moreover…
The Treasure Seal Dharma King’s so-called “Treasure Seal” was the Houtu Seal, comparable to the supreme treasure Huangtian Mirror in this world!
In the past dozen years, they might have seen battles between great powers, but they had rarely witnessed firsthand what methods true Bounded Realm great powers possessed.
Jian Chou had seen Hengxu, but had never seen him take action.
The great powers in the Nineteen Continents who had crossed into Bounded Realm could be counted on one hand. Most had already reached the peak of the entire cultivation world, and times when they needed to act were extremely rare. They almost all existed as a deterrent force.
Until today…
The Treasure Seal Dharma King simply stood there without moving, yet the strength and methods he displayed in an instant were enough to shock other cultivators who had never experienced their power!
It was a complete sense of helplessness.
Jian Chou’s tightly knitted brows didn’t relax, but Qu Zhengfeng beside her gripped the Yashan Sword in his palm tighter and actually attacked once more!
In the Treasure Seal Dharma King’s view, this was undoubtedly futile.
His body still had endless black qi shaped like centipedes continuously crawling into his body, making the power within him more abundant and explosive!
Seeing Qu Zhengfeng coming again, he didn’t even spare a glance, directly raising his finger to point!
“Rumble!”
Where his fingertip pointed, the entire space where Qu Zhengfeng stood actually shattered like a mirror!
The aura of destruction swept like a storm!
Almost immediately, everyone could no longer see his figure, as if he had been completely swallowed by this collapsed space, vanishing along with this heaven-destroying, earth-annihilating finger!
Cries of alarm from everyone’s mouths were drowned by the oncoming fierce wind!
Jian Chou, who was closest, clearly felt that spatial fluctuation and nearly got swept into that shattered space herself!
The hem of her moon-white robe instantly turned to dust!
Qu Zhengfeng, who was at the center of this attack, seemed to have also turned to dust along with it, leaving not the slightest trace.
In this brief moment, everyone’s hearts felt utterly empty.
However, the Treasure Seal Dharma King himself, who had casually pointed out this attack with his finger, strangely froze for a moment, as if sensing something was wrong!
But by the time he realized it, it was too late!
That stone-gray long sword, bearing the rugged cast patterns bestowed by mountain ranges, appeared without warning behind his head!
“Puff!” A sound!
The long sword pierced through his skull as easily as stabbing into a watermelon!
The blunt, edgeless sword tip even instantly protruded from the Treasure Seal Dharma King’s eye socket, then was guided by the palm that had appeared behind him out of nowhere and pulled down forcefully!
“Rip—”
It brutally tore away half his head and hacked off half his body!
Blood immediately gushed like a fountain, and even the black qi that had originally gathered in the Treasure Seal Dharma King’s body scattered like fleeing demons!
“Ahhhhhhhh—”
A completely unexpected injury!
A completely unexpected attack!
How was this possible! He was clearly only at Void Refining middle stage! How could he have escaped that strike where he had used Bounded Realm spatial power!
Even though the Treasure Seal Dharma King was already one of the few Bounded Realm great powers in these Nineteen Continents, he hadn’t yet escaped his mortal shell. In his shock and fury, he also let out a painful wail due to this sudden, completely unexpected pain!
In those pitch-black, lightless eyes, black qi instantly surged. At this critical moment, without even looking back, when his thoughts moved, from within the severed cross-section of his head that had been cut away by half, black qi suddenly twisted into a mass and pounced backward!
The Yashan Sword hadn’t yet had time to withdraw and was immediately invaded by black qi.
The originally gray-white stone sword was instantly covered in deep black!
Qu Zhengfeng, who had somehow appeared behind the Treasure Seal Dharma King, immediately frowned deeply. When he tried to withdraw his sword, he couldn’t break free from this black qi!
With no choice, his form explosively retreated!
His speed was extraordinarily fast, even faster than each sword light he had just slashed out, actually using pure speed to break free from this black qi!
Only simultaneously, the originally extremely close and excellent attacking distance between him and the Treasure Seal Dharma King was suddenly stretched and distanced.
The scene momentarily became even more strange than before. Not only Jian Chou, but even Zen Master Xuelang, who had just moved to the side and was planning to help, froze for a moment, as if completely not expecting what had just occurred.
An almost impossible scene!
The Treasure Seal Dharma King’s finger collapse of space just now had used the powerful force exclusive to Bounded Realm great powers. By reason, Qu Zhengfeng shouldn’t have been able to escape. But not only had he escaped, he had even ghostily appeared behind the Treasure Seal Dharma King and pierced the opponent’s skull with one sword, cutting away half the opponent’s head!
Zen Master Xuelang had never seen a Void Refining cultivator with such ability before.
Unless Qu Zhengfeng, at his Void Refining realm, could already access spatial power that only Bounded Realm great powers could use through some special method!
Moreover, this still wasn’t the most bizarre part.
The most bizarre was the Treasure Seal Dharma King himself!
Qu Zhengfeng’s unexpected ability and surprise attack could still find a few corresponding geniuses in the thousands of years of history of the Nineteen Continents. But the Treasure Seal Dharma King had already had half his head cut off, yet still acted as if completely unharmed, even able to counterattack swiftly!
Who didn’t know how important the spiritual platform was to cultivators?
All souls were hidden there; all understanding was gathered within!
Just looking at the position of Qu Zhengfeng’s sword, one could clearly judge that his attack had an extremely clear purpose—he wanted to kill with one strike, directly attacking the opponent’s vital point by surprise. When sword qi was released, compared to the physical body, the much more fragile Nascent Soul should have been reduced to dust in an instant!
But the Treasure Seal Dharma King showed no reaction at all!
After this head was split open, there was no trace of a Nascent Soul’s existence inside, and even the sea of consciousness that should have been entrenched in the ancestral orifice between the brows and severely injured didn’t exist!
It was just a head!
A head that was completely empty for cultivators, for opponents!
As if his divine soul was hidden somewhere in this shell, disappeared!
Or perhaps…
It had been transferred to another place in some unimaginable, horrifying way, transformed into another form.
Endless black qi, after being injured, surged from the Treasure Seal Dharma King’s broken body like a bursting dam. After his counterattack against Qu Zhengfeng failed, the anger of being ambushed completely surged up, and he also completely saw through Qu Zhengfeng’s strength!
Not merely Void Refining middle stage!
With both a Qu Zhengfeng wielding the Yashan Sword and the arriving Zen Master Xuelang who had also reached Bounded Realm, this battle finally made him dare not be careless anymore!
The moment one strike failed, the Treasure Seal Dharma King quickly assessed the situation before him. With a sinister laugh, he completely ignored his own broken and battered flesh and blood, only letting that endless black qi completely wrap around himself…
Or rather, completely transform into that mass of black qi!
No distinction between spirit and flesh, no distinction between shell and divine soul—only this existence closest to the universe’s origin!
He raised his arms and called out!
The entire snow region trembled at his voice!
The earth shook violently, as if some vicious beast lurking below was about to burst through the soil. Gorge-like cracks appeared abruptly, splitting apart the snow region’s hard frozen earth, allowing countless cold auras that seemed to come from another space to surge up from the depths of the earth’s fissures, forming an ancient gray-black seal script on the vast earth’s surface!
Earth Force Yin Essence!
This magnificent aura was clearly Earth Force Yin Essence from the Extreme Region that absolutely shouldn’t appear in the Nineteen Continents!
Jian Chou recognized it almost instantly!
However, what she simultaneously recognized was the mark on the ground that, though she had never seen it before, felt familiar to her!
Because she had once seen a similar seal in the hands of Fudao Shanren when he had annihilated most of the Jianzhu Sect with one palm strike at the Kunwu Left Three Thousand Small Assembly!
The form was different, but that terrifying aura—how similar it was!
Huangtian above, Houtu below!
All beings dwell in between…
The Mirror observes heaven, the Seal governs earth, the Command rules—all beings!
“Houtu Seal…”
It was the legendary Houtu Seal, as renowned as the Huangtian Mirror!
At this moment, in the Treasure Seal Dharma King’s mountain-calling, sea-roaring voice, it revealed its shape from the vast earth of the entire snow region, as if awakening from this frozen soil that had slept for millions of years, demonstrating to the world its power that reached heaven and penetrated earth!