Chapter 167: CH. 167 | The Immortal Power in the Island Sky
He unleashed a golden slashing attack, driving it into the black demon with terrifying force.
A powerful burst of qi tore loose and spread across the entire island, accompanied by a fierce blast of wind.
Trees were ripped into the air, animals dropped dead in an instant, and Li Qingxue was caught in the shockwave, forced to fly away from the island entirely.
Her Nascent Soul shook violently. She clutched her chest and immediately started drawing in the qi around her to steady herself.
The sheer intensity of their fight was terrifying. That kind of power could level the entire island.
Sparks of spiritual energy tore open a rift in the dimension itself, and Li Qingxue’s eyes went wide at the sight.
The sky turned black once again, lightning striking down relentlessly, seemingly at random.
Lin Tian was still pouring every bit of strength he had into holding his ground, channeling spiritual qi from his body straight into the golden slashing sword attack.
The reach of that golden crescent kept expanding, its power growing significantly stronger.
He looked over at the black armored man, the crimson rune inside his soul fading further, the qi aura radiating off his body nowhere near as strong as before.
"HYAAAA!" the man screamed, pouring the last of his strength into holding up his red eyed demon.
The demon let out a thunderous roar, its echo reaching all the way to Lin Tian. But it didn’t faze him at all.
If anything, that roar was a sign the demon had already hit its limit.
Lin Tian shouted and threw everything he had into overpowering the demon.
Before long, cracks began spreading across the black demon’s body, catching the armored man completely off guard.
"WHAT?!" he screamed.
It didn’t take long before the demon’s attack broke down entirely, and Lin Tian’s golden sword tore straight through the red eyed demon, destroying it.
A massive explosion rocked the sky above the island, tearing through the land and the forest below with devastating force.
BLAST!
A crater formed, vast and deep, trees for a wide radius around it catching fire, thick black smoke billowing high into the sky, darker and denser than any volcanic eruption that island had ever seen.
Lin Tian’s body was thrown back hard, badly wounded. He collapsed to his knees mid air, vomiting blood violently, every part of his body aching as if his bones had all been shattered.
Elsewhere, the black armored man was flung all the way to the edge of the island.
His armor lay in pieces, his body covered in burns, and the demonic qi aura around him had already faded away.
He winced in pain, struggling to get back up. Blood kept spilling from his mouth, his internal organs badly damaged, both his hands severed and bleeding without stopping.
"Y-You...?" the man murmured weakly.
His demonic transformation faded away, revealing his true form, nothing more than a cultivator in a tattered black robe.
His vision blurred, his other senses going numb. He was truly standing at the edge of death.
Outside the island, Li Qingxue could only stare, stunned, at half the island reduced to rubble and swallowed in flames, thunder still crashing across the sky.
This is a truly terrifying fight.
Her attention shifted upward, and she saw Lin Tian still on his knees mid air, clutching his aching chest.
Without wasting a moment, Li Qingxue flew into the island, taking in the state of the place as she went.
She found the demonic man lying just outside the forest, right at the island’s edge, surrounded by the ashes of the destroyed corpse puppets.
But he wasn’t who she was there for. She was there for Lin Tian.
She landed beside him and saw his condition was bad, though nowhere near as bad as the man lying nearby.
"Are you okay?"
"I’m fine."
"I just need to cultivate for a bit... to recover."
"Let’s get away from this place."
Li Qingxue took hold of Lin Tian’s shoulder and carried him away in a flash of blue light, out of the center of the island and over to its edge, right near the demonic man from Yuanmo.
They landed their feet back on the sandy ground. Lin Tian released his primordial transformation, his appearance returning to normal.
He turned his head to the side. The demonic man from Sect Yuanmo still lay weakly on the ground, his body covered in wounds, blood pouring out of him heavily.
Lin Tian didn’t start cultivating right away. Instead, he walked over to the demonic man and looked down at him with open contempt.
"Now... you’re in the exact same position as your corpse puppets," Lin Tian said quietly.
"Y-You’ll regret all of this."
"They’ll find out... that you’re the one who killed me."
Lin Tian reached out and took the man’s bag of holding. Inside, he found a large number of spirit crystals stored away, along with pills, techniques, and artifacts that didn’t look anything like typical demonic sect items.
He’d clearly stolen all of it from the corpse puppets.
But his attention landed on the black sword the man had used earlier to shatter Lin Tian’s qi sword.
He pulled the sword out and studied its shape closely.
A powerful blade, sturdy steel, and a shape that felt oddly familiar.
The only issue was that the entire sword was wrapped in demonic qi aura, something that just needed to be properly purified.
This sword... has me pretty curious.
Before long, the demonic man died, his blood soaking into the sandy ground beneath him. There was nothing left to take from him. He left nothing behind after death besides his own corpse.
Lin Tian tucked the man’s bag of holding away and left with Li Qingxue for another location.
He didn’t want to cultivate on that island, since its spiritual energy had already been tainted, and that could risk corrupting his qi.
"We’ll rest over there for a while. I’ll keep watch over you while you recover," Li Qingxue said.
Lin Tian looked over and nodded, flying alongside her toward another island near the volcanic one they’d just left.
They landed right on the remains of a mysterious altar, already worn down, its pattern no longer intact.
Still, Lin Tian could feel that the spiritual energy there was far better, pure and untainted by anything.
Li Qingxue watched as Lin Tian began cultivating in the middle of the altar. She decided to fly up into the sky and form an array with a hand seal.
A blue qi orb shot upward and burst apart, forming a dome of water that could shield them both for the time being.
The dome didn’t interfere with Lin Tian’s cultivation at all. She turned around and studied him closely.
She sensed something different about him, especially in the qi aura radiating from his body.
Even before the fight, his qi aura had already been unstable. But after the battle, that instability had only gotten worse.
Could it be... that transformation earlier took a real toll on the state of his Nascent Soul?
In the middle of Lin Tian’s cultivation, Li Qingxue was stunned to see something happening at the altar where he sat.
"Wait... did the altar just activate on its own?"