Chapter 428 - 427: Perilous Clash
On a distant mountain peak, solemn looks crossed the faces of Linn and his companions.
Their Divine Thought swept across every corner of the battlefield, but they couldn’t detect a thing. This terrifying Concealing Ability shocked them to their core!
"Linn, did you find anything?"
Linn, their leader, furrowed his thick eyebrows and said indifferently, "It’s very faint. His Concealing Ability is extremely strong; even with a King’s Divine Thought, I can only get a rough sense of his location. If I’d known, I would have placed a Divine Thought Mark on him earlier."
"This guy’s combat power is terrifying. He’s nearly wiped out our people at several strongholds. What now? Do we just wait for him to fight his way up here?"
"They were just cannon fodder, meant to wear down his stamina."
"We attack!!" Linn declared suddenly.
Immediately, a worldly pressure infused with Linn’s Martial Arts True Intent blanketed the entire battlefield. Qin Ya, hidden in an isolated space, felt a slight tremor and looked surprised.
’This is... a Martial Arts King!’
Qin Ya’s pupils shrank. ’Thankfully, I’m already in this isolated space. Otherwise, if he managed to place another Divine Thought Mark on me, it would be almost impossible to escape.’
’Heh, a King.’
He chuckled softly, a flicker of eagerness in his eyes. With his spear in hand, he unleashed a flurry of afterimages, cleaning up the remaining grunts from the Blood Nether Association.
BOOM, BOOM, BOOM...
At that moment, the Heaven and Earth Primordial Qi erupted. Beams of light carrying Mysterious fluctuations manifested, forming one Dharma Aspect after another, and in the blink of an eye, they descended upon the battlefield!
A Flame shot toward the sky, threatening to incinerate the Azure Sky!
Frost filled the void, freezing the very life out of the air!
Sand and dust flew as storms raged...
All kinds of energies swept across the land, filling the world with violent fluctuations. The surroundings looked apocalyptic: the earth split open with massive cracks, mountains collapsed, countless boulders tumbled down, trees shattered, and birds and beasts shrieked in terror!
From within his isolated space, Qin Ya scanned his surroundings. There were five Half-Step King Dharma Aspects, and high above them, a King surveyed the entire battlefield!
Logically, Qin Ya should have retreated immediately. Escaping wouldn’t have been difficult with the power of the Ghost Face Mask. But he did not. Instead, he put away his spear, drew the Ting Xiao from his waist, and an unparalleled War Intent erupted from his body!
In an instant, the two Mysterious powers of Destruction and Nature manifested, condensing on the edge of his sword. His figure flickered, lunging toward one of the Dharma Aspects. He raised Ting Xiao high and slashed down. The seemingly indestructible Dharma Aspect was instantly torn open with a huge gash, and before the Half-Step King’s horrified gaze, Qin Ya sliced off his head!
Blood sprayed like a fountain as the Dharma Aspect collapsed. When the others saw this, their pupils shrank and their bodies trembled. A chill crept into their hearts. A Half-Step King’s Dharma Aspect, destroyed by a single sword strike, utterly unable to fight back!
"He’s here!"
High above, Linn, the Martial Arts King, used his keen Divine Thought to pinpoint Qin Ya’s location the instant he struck. He raised his hand, and an endless gale formed countless sharp blades, each infused with Martial Arts True Intent, which instantly blanketed the battlefield!
Each of the Endless Wind Blades was powerful enough to slay a cultivator at Celestial Human Perfection. Like a torrential downpour, they targeted an area of several hundred zhang around Qin Ya and rained down fiercely. Amidst deafening booms, dust flew everywhere as the battlefield was blasted with massive craters.
’Phew, that was close!’
Within the isolated space, a deep gash ran from Qin Ya’s right shoulder down across most of his torso, bleeding profusely. His face was pale, but he showed no sign of panic as he calmly took out a Top Level Healing Elixir and consumed it.
The bleeding from the wound stopped almost immediately. Qin Ya looked up at Linn high in the sky, a solemn look in his eyes. Based on that single attack, although he couldn’t yet fully gauge Linn’s combat strength, he knew one thing: he was even stronger than Qiann Feng!
"He should be dead, right?"
"An attack like that... even the strongest Half-Step King couldn’t have survived it."
"No. Everyone, be careful."
Just then, a brilliant Sword Light materialized from thin air, radiating waves of Destruction as it slashed toward the Half-Step King with the bow. The Half-Step King’s eyes flickered, then a glint as sharp as a falcon’s flashed within them!
The giant Dharma Aspect drew its bow, nocked an arrow, and fired an astonishing shot. The instant the blood-red arrow met the Sword Light, a tempest erupted and the void began to Vibrate. Amidst the sky-filling Energy Aftermath, Qin Ya’s Mysterious Speed burst forth, carrying him hundreds of zhang in a flash. He raised Ting Xiao high, his expression cold, and brought it down in a vicious slash!
The middle-aged man’s heart trembled as the threat of death instantly enveloped him. He grit his teeth, his eyes wide with fury. Though he couldn’t see where Qin Ya was coming from, he desperately dodged to the side based on pure instinct. SLICE! His Dharma Aspect was cut open, and his right arm was brutally severed!
High above, Linn’s expression turned to fury. A great gust of wind materialized at the middle-aged bowman’s feet, sweeping him up and carrying him away. Immediately after, immense Wind Blades erupted, sweeping in all directions to devour everything. And Qin Ya, having just attacked the bowman, was undeniably the closest to them!
His pupils shrank. He sidestepped a Wind Blade, and in the next moment, was enveloped by light shields from several Defensive Pseudo-Spiritual Artifacts. BOOM! The shields shattered instantly. The attack broke through his Scenic Landscapes and sliced into his flesh, but Qin Ya ignored his injuries. In the void, hundreds of Thunder Spears Condensed and hurtled toward the middle-aged bowman!
The hundreds of Thunder Spears streaked across the void like a spectacular meteor shower. But to the middle-aged bowman, it was a lethal catastrophe. He desperately tried to deploy his Dharma Aspect, but it was like paper before the terrifying Thunder Spears and was pierced in less than an instant. Just as he was about to die, a Wind Barrier appeared.
The Wind Barrier enveloped him like an impenetrable fortress, resisting the Thunder Spears. Just as the middle-aged bowman was about to sigh in relief, his scalp tingled and the hair on his body stood on end. An immense fear engulfed him, and he couldn’t help but curse inwardly, ’Dammit, is this ever going to end?!’
’I only shot one arrow at you! Do you really have to be this desperate to kill me?’
In the void, a sword’s edge, shimmering with the fluctuations of Destruction and Nature, once again slashed toward the middle-aged bowman. Instantly, the Wind Barrier shattered. Before the bowman’s horrified eyes, the blade sliced him in two. The gory scene drove the watching Linn nearly mad, his fury erupting beyond control!
Twice. He had intervened twice to save the bowman, and twice he had failed. Qin Ya had killed him anyway. It was a vicious slap to Linn’s face!
After killing the middle-aged bowman, Qin Ya’s figure flickered, covering over a thousand zhang to land on a mountain peak. He took an Elixir to heal his wounds and drew a deep breath, his face still pale. The previous chain of attacks was complex to describe, but it had all happened in a flash. If not for his exceptional combat awareness, he might not have been able to kill a man being personally protected by a King.
From his mountain peak a thousand zhang away, he watched the enraged Linn in the distance, the corners of his mouth curling into a slight smile. He then focused on absorbing the Medicinal Power to recover from his injuries. A short while later, he was fully healed. With Ting Xiao in hand, he stepped back onto the battlefield!