Chapter 256 - 245: Not So Fast—!!
"You people dare call yourselves righteous? The way I see it, you’re nothing but a pack of Evil Cultivators who twist the truth!"
"My junior sister already said she’s not from Qingxu Temple, but you keep spouting slander and twisting the facts! You want to make my Guixi Sect a vassal sect? Who the hell do you think you are?!"
"We are the true righteous path!"
"The Celestial Furnace Sect is bullshit! It’s clearly a demonic sect, only fit to shine our shoes!"
The hand he had pressed on Xuanyuan’s head suddenly tightened its grip!
"You dare!"
Seeing this, Mr. Huohua could no longer remain calm.
He tried to retrieve the Crystal Ball from Xuanyuan’s hand, but found that Xuanyuan was clutching it in a death grip, refusing to let go.
If he tried to take it by force, he would only shatter the Crystal Ball. The souls inside would scatter, and his entire trip would be for nothing!
A vast, imposing pressure bore down on Lin Qingfeng!
Lin Qingfeng felt his bones groan in an instant, and the ground beneath his feet cracked inch by inch.
But he just sneered and endured the pressure, the force of his hand on Xuanyuan’s head not weakening but growing stronger!
"Why wouldn’t I dare? I’m going to kill this old Daoist goat, and that’s final! Not even Jesus could save him! I said it!"
Every word seemed forced from between his clenched teeth.
Under the pressure of a Nascent Soul cultivator, the downward motion of his hand was incredibly difficult. The veins on the back of his hand bulged, and his arm trembled slightly, but his five fingers still tightened, bit by bit!
Xuanyuan’s skull made a CREAKING sound. The shadow of death had completely enveloped him. Out of the corner of his eye, he inadvertently glimpsed a figure that had just arrived.
It was Dong Changsheng.
In that instant, an absurd thought began to grow wildly in his mind.
’Could it be... Did Dong Changsheng lead these people here? Was he dissatisfied that I had treated him as a disposable pawn? So, he set this trap to kill me with a borrowed knife?’
But this speculation was soon crushed by the force on his head.
Feeling the excruciating pain of his skull about to be crushed, all emotion slowly faded from his eyes, leaving behind a grayish-white emptiness.
He remembered his master’s eyes on his deathbed—cloudy, yet full of expectation.
He remembered the oath he took when he became the Sect Leader: "I will surely bring glory to Qingxu Temple."
’When... when did I start to become like this?’
’I can’t even remember what I was like when I first started my Cultivation.’
’Perhaps... this is retribution...’
A final trace of relief flashed through Xuanyuan’s mind.
’Although, before I came, I entrusted my Direct Disciple to lead everyone in a retreat from Anhe City... I wonder how they are now... Did they manage to evacuate... Will my Direct Disciple be able to successfully carry on the lineage of Qingxu Temple...?’
’I’m sorry... Master... Qingxu Temple... It seems there’s nothing more I can do for you...’
And as for the Crystal Ball, which contained the souls of the Qingxu Temple disciples, Xuanyuan used his last ounce of strength to voluntarily tighten his grip.
’Since I’m going to die anyway, I might as well send these disciples... on to the next life...’
"BANG—!"
Finally, with a dull explosion, Xuanyuan’s head, along with the Crystal Ball he had deliberately crushed, burst into a cloud of blood mist and points of light.
Countless liberated souls transformed into motes of spiritual light under the sun, dissipating between heaven and earth.
...
Dong Changsheng, meanwhile, had hidden in the shadow of a stone wall, clamping a hand tightly over his mouth, his body convulsing with grief.
’The Sect Leader... is dead.’
’The Sect Leader who recognized my potential, the benefactor I always wanted to repay... just like that... his head was crushed by that monster, Eldest Senior Brother!’
’It’s all my fault... If... if I hadn’t hesitated just now, if I had stopped Eldest Senior Brother at all costs... maybe the Sect Leader wouldn’t have died... The debt... In the end, I failed to repay it...’
...
Watching everything turn to dust, Mr. Huohua was completely enraged!
"You brat! You’re courting death!"
Now, the full force of his pressure was aimed solely at Lin Qingfeng!
A giant palm, blotting out the sun, slammed down ferociously toward Lin Qingfeng’s position!
"Stick to the plan! Retreat, now!" Lin Qingfeng roared at the others, facing the palm strike alone.
At that very moment, he activated the Secret Technique he had just obtained.
[Secret Technique: Indian-style Evasion·Initial]
His entire demeanor changed. Facing the sun-blotting giant palm, he advanced instead of retreating, merely raising a hand to lightly brush his hair.
Then, with an exceedingly cool and carefree posture, he tilted his head back and turned to the side.
"BOOM—!!!!!"
The giant palm scraped right past him, slamming into the ground by his side!
The entire canyon trembled violently, and dust shot into the sky. And Lin Qingfeng stood between the fingers of the giant palm, completely unharmed.
Mr. Huohua’s pupils contracted sharply.
’This is impossible! How did he dodge that? How could I have not seen it clearly?’
However, what enraged him even more was Lin Qingfeng’s taunting voice that followed.
"Hey, old geezer, you’re not the weakest Nascent Soul in the Celestial Furnace Sect, are you? You can’t even hit a Great Perfection of Core Formation cultivator like me. And you call yourself an elder?"
"You didn’t just weasel your way into the Celestial Furnace Sect to collect a free paycheck, did you? No way. No way. Don’t tell me it’s really what I think it is?"
"You brat!" Mr. Huohua was livid!
The person he was supposed to protect had his head crushed right before his eyes, his sect had been insulted, and now he was being openly mocked by a junior of the Core Formation Stage! As an elder of the Celestial Furnace Sect, when had he ever suffered such utter humiliation!
"Die!"
He slammed the beast bone staff in his hand onto the ground. In an instant, hundreds, even thousands, of fire crows imbued with Geng Metal Qi shot toward Lin Qingfeng, blotting out the sky!