Chapter 65: Five Thunder Splitting Sword
Lin Yuan’s gaze met the translucent barrier of the ancient defensive formation.
The grand array, a masterpiece forged centuries ago by the Xu Clan’s founding ancestors, pulsed violently. It formed a massive, impenetrable dome over the inner sanctum of the estate, designed to withstand the continuous bombardment of a dozen Core Formation experts. Yet, under the stare of a single Nascent Soul cultivator, the barrier seemed to hum with an instinctive anxiety.
Inside the dome, the atmosphere was one of terror.
The thousands of disciples, servants, and lower-level elders who had been pressed face-first into the floor were desperately trying to compose themselves. As the crushing weight of the Nascent Soul aura slightly stabilized—not because Lin Yuan showed mercy, but because their bodies had grown numb to the pressure—a few of them managed to slowly, and agonizingly raise their heads.
They looked up through the hue of their defensive barrier, their eyes wide with a mixture of reverence and horror, trying to get a clear look at the Nascent Soul expert hovering in the sky. To them, he was as a descending god of calamity, cloaked in black-and-white Daoist robes, bringing judgment upon their doorstep.
From the deepest, most secure pavilions of the inner estate, the remaining people of relevance finally emerged.
With Patriarch Xu Canghai and the other Core Formation elders completely erased from existence the night before, the clan’s hierarchy had been hollowed out. The highest authority now rested upon the shoulders of this: four late-stage Foundation Establishment experts and one white-haired elder who managed to reached the half-step Core Formation realm not to while ago.
These five men, the last pillars of the once-mighty Xu Clan, stepped forth onto the plaza. Their body flared wildly as they actively resisted the suppression of Lin Yuan’s aura just to remain standing.
They gathered tightly together, their faces pale, and exchanged a series of frantic, despairing glances.
"What absolute misfortune has fallen upon our Xu Clan?" one of the late-stage Foundation Establishment elders whispered, his voice trembling as he stared up at the young man in the sky. "To have a Nascent Soul expert approach our gates with such overwhelming contempt... what could we have possibly done to draw such a monster?!"
"Quiet your panic!" snapped the half-step Core Formation elder, his aged eyes narrowing as he gripped his wooden walking staff until his knuckles turned white. "We are the rulers of this City. We have weathered greater storms before."
"But Elder Xu Gan, where is the Thunder Lord?!" another expert hissed, his eyes darting around frantically as if expecting their Patriarch to suddenly materialize and save them. "The Patriarch took the absolute core of our fighting force last night to deal with some trivial outer-city rat. He should have returned by dawn! It seems he is still away dealing with those ’important clan issues’!"
"If Patriarch Xu Canghai were here, his late-stage Core Formation might and his mastery of the Five Thunder Arts could at least negotiate with this senior!" the fourth expert lamented, completely oblivious to the fact that their invincible Thunder Lord was currently a pile of body in the very outer-city slum he had gone to purge.
Elder Xu Gan slammed his staff into the plaza, cracking the stone. "The Patriarch is delayed! We cannot simply kneel and wait to be slaughtered while he handles his affairs! If this Nascent Soul monster decides to test our barrier, the defenses will not hold his might forever. We must take the initiative. We must hold him off until the Thunder Lord returns!"
The four late-stage Foundation Establishment experts looked at the elder in shock. "Hold off a Nascent Soul expert? How?!"
Elder Xu Gan pointed his finger toward the glowing core of the defensive array. "We will activate the First Art of the Five Thunder Arts. If we channel it through the grand formation, it will generate an attack capable of threatening even a Nascent Soul expert. But we lack the required Core Formation qi to naturally invoke it."
The realization dawned on the other four experts, their faces draining of whatever little color remained.
"We must burn our cultivation," Elder Xu Gan ordered, his voice echoing with grim finality. "Burn half of your cultivation base! Do it now, or the Xu Clan falls today!"
Driven by the sheer terror of extermination and their misguided faith in their absent Patriarch, the five experts did not hesitate. They simultaneously sat cross-legged on the floor, formed a series of synchronized hand seals, and violently bit the tips of their tongues.
Pffft!
Five mouthfuls of blood essence sprayed into the air, instantly dissolving into a dense, crimson mist. They actively incinerated fifty percent of their accumulated cultivation bases, permanently crippling their future prospects, and fed this massive surge of energy directly into the central node of the defensive array.
"Ancestors, guide our wrath!" Elder Xu Gan roared, his hair turning completely white as his vitality drained. "First Art of the Five Thunder Arts: Five Thunder Splitting Sword!"
The grand defensive dome suddenly violently fluctuated. The violet luminescence shifted into a dark, angry purple. High in the sky, far above where Lin Yuan was hovering, the ambient clouds violently churned, reacting to the massive influx of energy.
CRACKLE! BOOM!
The sky tore open. From the churning vortex of dark clouds, five massive swords made entirely of thunder slowly descended. Each sword was the size of a grand pavilion, radiating a destructive aura that scorched the very air.
As they dropped lower, the five individual thunder swords gravitated toward one another. With a deafening screech, they forged together, rapidly fusing into a single, gargantuan Thunder Sword. It was a weapon of proportions, easily over a hundred feet long, humming with the terrifying essence of heavenly tribulation.
Guided by the desperate will of the five elders below, the massive Thunder Sword locked its trajectory onto Lin Yuan and began slowly descending toward him, threatening to cleave the young man in two.
Inside the dome, the Xu Clan disciples cheered weakly, a fragile spark of hope igniting in their chests. Surely, the ultimate strike of their grand array would be enough to at least force the Nascent Soul expert to retreat!
But hovering in the sky, facing an attack that could easily split a mountain in half, Lin Yuan did not raise a defensive barrier. He did not attempt to dodge. He didn’t even draw a weapon.
Instead, a calm, and deeply amused smile spread across Lin Yuan’s handsome face.
"Good," Lin Yuan said, his voice easily cutting through the roaring thunder, carrying an absolute confidence. "This will easily break the formation."
He had been contemplating how to efficiently shatter the dome without expending too much of his own Nascent Soul qi. The Xu Clan had just graciously provided him with the perfect tool.
Lin Yuan closed his eyes for a fraction of a second.
BOOM!
The sky behind him erupted in a blinding flash of light. His Nascent Soul Projection manifested in an instant. A colossal giant, mirroring Lin Yuan’s elegant Daoist robes and sovereign bearing, materialized in the sky, its sheer scale dwarfing even the descending thunder sword.
As the massive thunder blade dropped toward Lin Yuan’s physical body, the giant Nascent Soul projection calmly reached its massive, translucent hand upward.
CLANG!
The hand gripped the hilt of the descending Thunder Sword.
The moment the projection’s hand closed around the hilt, the massive sword trembled violently. The five elders below pushed their remaining cultivation to the absolute brink, trying to force the blade downward, trying to detonate the energy. But they had made a fatal miscalculation.
The Five Thunder Splitting Sword was forged from the imitative essence of heavenly tribulation. And Lin Yuan had just devoured the Thunder Prison, and also perfectly merged the creation and destruction of thunder with the impartiality of rain to forge his Thunder Rain Dao.
The sword’s tribulation thunder essence instantly recognized the authority gripping it. It stopped struggling. Instead, it began humming in perfect resonance with Lin Yuan’s Nascent Soul. The destructive weapon had been entirely tamed in the blink of an eye.
Down in the area, Elder Xu Gan and the four remaining experts stared upward, their eyes bulging from their sockets in awe and surprise.
"He... he caught it?!" one of the experts shrieked, coughing up a fresh mouthful of blood as his spiritual connection to the array was effortlessly severed.
"He didn’t just catch it," Elder Xu Gan whispered, his Dao Heart completely shattering as the true terror of their enemy finally set in. "He tamed it..."
Hovering in the sky, Lin Yuan’s smile faded into a mask of coldness.
Through the synchronized movement of his physical body and his nascent soul projection, Lin Yuan effortlessly hoisted the hundred-foot Thunder Sword high above his head. He looked down at the dome protecting the inner estate.
Without a single word, Lin Yuan swung the massive sword downward.
He used the Xu Clan’s own supreme art, now heavily infused with the unfathomable weight of his Nascent Soul aura, to strike their protective barrier.
The colossal blade of thunder slammed directly into the apex of the defensive dome.
KRA-KOOOOM!
The sound was like the sky itself fracturing. The barrier bowed violently inward for a moment before completely and utterly detonating. The dome shattered into millions of fading shards, raining down upon the disciples below as the presence of the Lin Yuan shadowed everyone present.