Chapter 48 : Chapter 48
Chapter 48: So You Like Acting Like a Master? Then Today I’ll Turn You Straight into a Corpse
“How is that possible?!!”
Everyone was stunned.
Not just the Camel Bell Five Fiends, who specialized in poison, even Sima Zheng and the others found it impossible to believe.
Forget Lu Zhan—even a Divine Sea Realm expert would die without question after coming into contact with the venom of the Emerald-Eyed Azure-Scaled Snake.
So how could he possibly still be alive?!!
The boss of the Camel Bell Five Fiends felt his entire body turn cold, a chill crawling up his spine and spreading through him.
They were wrong!
Perhaps everyone in the Five Poisons Sect had been wrong.
They should never have provoked this monstrous man.
Run!
He had to run!
Otherwise, he would definitely die. This was not someone they could handle at all!
At that moment, Lu Zhan’s figure grew endlessly larger in his heart, expanding wildly along with the fear inside him.
Right then, even if someone told him Lu Zhan could kill a Divine Sea Realm expert with a single slash, he would have believed it.
“Everyone, join forces against Lu Zhan. Otherwise, none of us is leaving alive tonight.”
Only now did Sima Zheng and the others finally realize that the one who looked to have the lowest realm was actually the greatest threat.
So they wanted to deal with Lu Zhan first.
But he did not realize that their morale had already collapsed.
And Lu Zhan was not stupid enough to stand there waiting for them to join forces.
In truth, the moment the poison mist began to fade, two phantom-like figures had already gotten into position and slipped behind them.
Slash! Slash...
The sounds of saber energy piercing flesh rang out one after another.
The boss and Fourth Brother turned their heads in horror. When had he gotten behind them? Ah, probably when Third Brother had detonated his own poison mist.
The poison mist had indeed engulfed Lu Zhan, but it had also blocked everyone’s vision, creating the perfect opportunity for him.
At that moment, he suddenly regretted coming here.
He should never have set foot on Great Xia’s soil!
With overwhelming unwillingness and remorse, the Camel Bell Five Fiends met their final end.
Now only Sima Zheng and a middle-aged man hiding his appearance remained on the street.
Sima Zheng and the others had not even managed to join forces before Lu Zhan had nearly slaughtered all of his allies.
His decisiveness and ruthlessness shook the heart of this old man, who was already close to seventy.
Deep down, he had already started to regret provoking this young man, especially since he had just kept running his mouth and taunting him.
He had truly become carried away.
At such an advanced age, he still had failed to keep his mind steady.
But it was too late to say anything now. He could only keep walking this dark road to the end.
“Lu Zhan, y-you... don’t come any closer, or this Old Ancestor will crush the Marrow Cleansing Pill immediately. If this Old Ancestor cannot have it, then none of you will—”
Before he could finish speaking, Lu Zhan drew his saber and charged straight at him.
“You old fossil, I’ve been sick of your yapping for a while now. You like acting like a master, do you? Then today I’ll turn you straight into a corpse.”
Sima Zheng flew into a rage. Damn it, could the Marrow Cleansing Pill actually be fake?
Impossible. The porcelain bottle had definitely contained a Marrow Cleansing Pill. Everyone had seen it with their own eyes.
Or was it that Lu Zhan simply did not care about a Marrow Cleansing Pill at all?
That thought made Sima Zheng even more irritable.
Lu Zhan brought his saber down in a vicious slash, forcing Sima Zheng to block.
In the end, he had only been bluffing Lu Zhan. He had not yet been driven to true desperation, so how could he bear to destroy a Marrow Cleansing Pill?
With no other choice, he could only meet the attack head-on.
Lu Zhan’s own strength was already formidable, and on top of that, his physical body had reached the level of a lower-grade Spirit Weapon. One slash was enough to leave Sima Zheng reeling.
He himself was at the eighth layer of the Aperture Opening Realm.
And yet he was being suppressed by a Martial Artist at the fifth layer?
“Fellow Daoist, are you really just going to watch? Once he deals with this Old Ancestor, this Marrow Cleansing Pill will fall back into his hands. Are you certain you can take it from him?”
Sima Zheng looked at the mysterious middle-aged man at the side.
This man had concealed his face, making his origins extremely mysterious, and his strength was considerable as well. Though only at the seventh layer of the Aperture Opening Realm, he had been able to fight Sima Zheng to a standstill.
So Sima Zheng wanted to pull him over to his side.
In truth, the middle-aged man had already begun to retreat in his heart.
But leaving just like this was still hard to accept.
Seeing him waver, Sima Zheng hurriedly said,
“Help me, and this Old Ancestor will hand the Marrow Cleansing Pill to you directly. All you need to do is compensate me with twenty Aperture Opening Pills afterward. What do you say?”
Sima Zheng gritted his teeth. By now, he was already starting to struggle under Lu Zhan’s assault.
If he did not drag this man in to help right now, he was going to die.
“Fine. It’s a deal!”
In the end, the middle-aged man decided to join the battle. Lu Zhan might be strong, but no matter what, he was still only at the fifth layer of the Aperture Opening Realm.
These two really were powerful. Together, they actually managed to maintain a brief balance against Lu Zhan.
“Lu Zhan, stop. We’re willing to hand the Marrow Cleansing Pill over to you directly. Will you let us leave if we do?”
“Do not count on the heads of the other jurisdictions coming to help. I have long since understood what the heads of the Demon Extermination Bureau are like. They only care about the safety of their own jurisdictions. They will not care whether anyone else lives or dies.”
Unfortunately, the only response he received was wave after wave of dark crimson saber energy.
For some reason, that saber energy seemed to contain some kind of terrifying force that made one’s heart pound.
He had once been fortunate enough to see a Divine Sea Realm expert take action, but even that expert’s saber energy had not been as pure and overbearing as Lu Zhan’s.
“Lu Zhan, do you really have to fight to the death? Let me tell you this— I still have a trump card I haven’t used yet. Once I do, can you really guarantee that you will survive?”
This time, it was the middle-aged man who begged for mercy.
By now, he had already cursed Sima Zheng bloody in his heart. He should never have hesitated just now.
Only by truly facing Lu Zhan could one understand how powerful he was.
The saber energy came in an endless stream, like a violent storm.
It pressed down on them so hard they could barely breathe.
Lu Zhan ignored the pleas of his enemies. He had never had the habit of letting enemies survive the night.
Still, at this moment, he frowned slightly.
He was beginning to realize that the gap between the middle and late stages of the Aperture Opening Realm was growing wider and wider.
The reason he could kill above his realm was, on one hand, because his own strength was already extremely formidable, and his foundation was far more solid than that of others at the same realm.
Beyond that, he also relied on certain abilities granted by the system.
It was like stacking buff after buff on himself—except he had stacked rather a lot of them.
For example, the 20% increase in saber art attack power from the title 【First Showing of One’s Edge】, his martial comprehension that far surpassed his enemies, the accumulation of various talents, and the sheer toughness of his physical body.
But once the speed at which those buffs stacked up failed to keep pace with the widening gap between realms, killing above his level would become extremely difficult.
However...
Lu Zhan looked at the rich amount of Slaughter Points on the system panel, and the corners of his mouth lifted slightly.
“System, raise the Nine Heavens Breaking Fiend Art to the Entering the Divine level!”
He had not forgotten that he still had a Perfection Martial Art Limit-Breaking Card he had not used yet.
In the next moment, the system window popped up.
【Ding! The Slaughter System is at your service wholeheartedly.】
【The host has consumed 1000 Slaughter Points to deduce the Nine Heavens Breaking Fiend Art.】
【No resources beneficial to cultivation have been detected.】
【Entering the Unceasing Cultivation State...】
【Your Nine Heavens Breaking Fiend Art has now reached Minor Mastery. During cultivation, you discover that the meaning of the Nine Heavens within your saber and the fiend energy can never fully harmonize. Every time you swing your saber, it feels as though thunder itself obstructs the flow of fiend energy, so you begin searching for the reason behind it.】
【Finally, after one month of cultivation, you find the flaw in your saber art. Every time you use it, the thunder of the Nine Heavens is destroying the fiend energy you have drawn into connection.】
...
【Continue consuming 1000 Slaughter Points to deduce.】
【In order to merge the meaning of the Nine Heavens with fiend energy, you try every method you can think of, but all end in failure.】
【Then one day, as you climb a mountain and gaze into the distance at the rising and sinking sea of clouds, inspiration suddenly strikes you. The Nine Heavens hang in the sky, while fiend energy lies hidden in the earth. Perhaps you should not have been thinking of merging them from the very beginning.】
【Perhaps before they can merge, they must first be separated—one in the heavens, one in the earth.】
【You suddenly understand. And so, after comprehending the Dao atop the mountain peak for three months, your Nine Heavens Breaking Fiend Art reaches Mastery.】
...
【Continue consuming 1000 Slaughter Points to deduce.】
【Another three months pass, and you begin to consider how to connect the Nine Heavens above with the fiend energy hidden underground.】
【You decide to add another carrier between heaven and earth, something that can serve as a bridge between the Nine Heavens and fiend energy. After half a year of agonized thought, you choose a tree as the medium, and your Nine Heavens Breaking Fiend Art reaches Major Mastery.】
...
【Continue consuming 1000 Slaughter Points to deduce.】
【Using the meaning of the Nine Heavens and fiend energy, you form the shape of a great tree. Yet every time you use your saber art, you still feel a slight moment of lag afterward.】
【Although that opening is extremely brief, it remains a hidden danger.】
【So you continue refining it. Then one day, a thought suddenly comes to you—why can a person not serve as the bridge of communication instead?】
【At this discovery, you are overjoyed.】
【In the end, after another half year, you finally sketch out a human figure between the meaning of the Nine Heavens and fiend energy. The more you look at it, the more it resembles yourself.】
【At this moment, saber energy moves for you as easily as an arm obeying the hand. It almost seems to have gained consciousness and now follows your command.】
【Cultivation complete. Your Nine Heavens Breaking Fiend Art has reached Perfection (+).】
【It has been detected that you possess one Perfection Martial Art Limit-Breaking Card. Would you like to use it?】
“Yes!”
Lu Zhan vaguely had the feeling that once a peak Spirit Rank martial art reached the Entering the Divine level, it might bring him a qualitative leap in power.