Vessel of Worlds

The Kuang surnamed cultivator's face darkened. "I hope Junior Brother Zhao isn't simply boasting. If so, this fight will be over very quickly."

With that, the middle-aged man slapped a deep yellow beast-hide talisman onto himself, activating a deep yellow protective barrier that enveloped his entire body. He added, somewhat reluctantly: "This is a Yellow Heaven Thick Earth Talisman—one of the strongest defensive talismans available at the Foundation Establishment level. It certainly wasn't cheap. I'm only willing to use it because of what's at stake."

"Oh? Does this high-grade spirit stone really hold that much appeal?" Andy slapped more than a dozen defensive talismans onto himself as well—though his were all Qi Condensation grade—and at the same time produced a translucent blue high-grade water spirit stone, which he toyed with idly.

He did it deliberately, to draw the man's attention. Sure enough, the instant the Kuang surnamed cultivator laid eyes on the high-grade spirit stone, his composure cracked entirely, and an almost grotesquely naked greed spread across his face.

With a sharp whistle, Andy flicked his wrist and sent a silver-white sword streaking toward his opponent. The middle-aged cultivator reacted just as quickly—both sleeves snapped outward, and six tiny red needle-like artifacts shot forth to intercept the silver sword.

"Flying needles!" Andy's heart clenched when he saw the artifacts, but he was already directing the silver-white sword with a murmured command: "Split!"

Just before the sword collided with the needles, it separated into two blades—one long, one short—that swerved around the needles and thrust at the middle-aged cultivator from both sides.

"Paired swords!" the middle-aged cultivator cried out in mild surprise. His response was swift: he dispatched two needles to intercept each sword, while the remaining two shot straight at Andy.

Andy had a healthy respect for these extraordinarily fast, nearly impossible-to-dodge flying needles. He pulled out the Ice-Fire Shield and held it before him.

By then, the Ganjiang and Moye swords had clashed with the needles, producing sharp metallic rings. The deceptively slender needles knocked both swords back more than a zhang.

Andy was privately alarmed. The needles were not only blindingly fast but carried serious force. A direct hit on his body would punch right through ordinary high-grade artifacts and Qi Condensation defensive barriers.

The middle-aged cultivator was unsettled as well. These needles were his most prized possessions and the crowning achievement of his long crafting career. The full set originally comprised thirteen needles—the Red Cloud Thirteen Needles—which, used together, could be arranged into miniature formations with all manner of applications. Unfortunately, his spiritual sense could only control six at a time; any more and he lost precision. Even so, these six red needles were extraordinarily powerful, rare even among peak-grade artifacts. Lesser peak-grade artifacts would be punctured clean through after a few strikes, or at the very least scarred. Yet this opponent's paired swords—apparently forged primarily from Blood-Thread Silver, blended with some unknown precious material—showed no damage whatsoever from the needles' piercing attacks.

When Andy produced the Ice-Fire Shield, the middle-aged cultivator's shock deepened visibly. "A mid-grade spirit tool—and a rank-two at that!" he blurted.

A rank-two mid-grade spirit tool was one that could socket two mid-grade spirit stones, consuming more stones but delivering considerably greater power than a standard mid-grade spirit tool.

Though Andy wielded the Ganjiang and Moye swords with dazzling unpredictability—merging them into one and splitting them apart in rapid succession—he couldn't shake the needles, which were faster and more agile still. Their material was remarkably tough; even a full-force strike from one of the silver swords failed to shatter them.

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His Ice-Fire Shield, while lacking in agility, generated a double-layered circular barrier—one red, one white, inner and outer—roughly a zhang in diameter, shielding his entire body. The flying needles couldn't break through it for the time being.

After this first exchange, the two had fought to a stalemate, neither able to gain the upper hand.

Prolonging the fight would turn it into a contest of spiritual power reserves. Under normal circumstances, the middle-aged cultivator's deeper cultivation gave him an advantage. But controlling six flying needles at once drained his spiritual power at a tremendous rate, while Andy only expended energy on the paired swords—the Ice-Fire Shield ran entirely on its spirit stones. Andy's consumption was therefore considerably lower, and with a high-grade spirit stone in hand besides, every angle favored him in a battle of attrition.

The middle-aged cultivator clearly saw this too. Gritting his teeth, he abandoned all defense against the paired swords and drove all six needles at the Ice-Fire Shield's protective barrier at once. He would rely on the Yellow Heaven Thick Earth Talisman for protection, trading defense for offense to break through Andy's guard and kill him first.

Sure enough, under the concentrated assault of all six flying needles, the outer white barrier shuddered violently, on the verge of collapse at any moment. The mid-grade ice spirit stone socketed in the shield was visibly draining before his eyes.

Andy showed no alarm. He turned the Ganjiang and Moye swords against the deep yellow barrier of the Yellow Heaven Thick Earth Talisman. Under the relentless chopping of both blades, its glow slowly dimmed.

Both sides attacked with everything they had, but the six needles clearly held the edge in raw power—they were breaking through the defense slightly faster.

The middle-aged cultivator's spirits soared at the sight. But just then, Andy abruptly pulled back the paired swords and produced two more items.

One was a small silver mirror, several cun across, that glimmered with points of green light. The other was a translucent bone bow radiating a faint, cold gleam, with a mid-grade ice spirit stone socketed into its frame.

The man had this many mid-grade ice spirit stones? The middle-aged cultivator could have spat blood in frustration. A single mid-grade ice spirit stone was worth twenty or thirty ordinary elemental mid-grade spirit stones. Two of them equaled the entire fortune of a Foundation Establishment cultivator who had spent years in bitter cultivation.

What broke him further was that the green-glowing silver mirror in Andy's hand was a remarkably rare auxiliary peak-grade artifact. Andy directed it to emit a beam of green light as wide as a bowl. The beam swept across three of the flying needles, and they instantly froze in midair, motionless and beyond their master's control.

In that same moment, Andy raised the translucent bone bow and drew the string. A wave of freezing energy gathered along the bowstring, condensing into seven or eight ice spikes, each over a chi long. Every spike carried power equivalent to a high-tier Qi Condensation cultivator's Ice Spike Technique cast with an ice-attribute cultivation method. Andy drew and released in rapid succession, sending wave after wave of ice spikes cascading toward the middle-aged cultivator, draining the color from his face.

Had it been only seven or eight spikes, the Yellow Heaven Thick Earth Talisman could have withstood them easily. But Andy kept pulling the bowstring without pause, and the chi-long ice spikes swept toward the middle-aged cultivator in relentless waves, leaving him ashen with terror.

Under his desperate urging, the three needles locked by the green beam finally began to stir. But by then, the Yellow Heaven Thick Earth Talisman's power had been fully exhausted. Facing the tide of incoming ice spikes, the middle-aged cultivator abandoned his needles entirely and poured his remaining spiritual power into a wooden-plaque artifact, projecting a massive wooden shield that he clung to desperately. The calm, everything-under-control expression he had worn was long gone, replaced by naked panic and abject terror.

"Junior Brother Zhao—this lowly one knows he was wrong! I swear on my inner demons that I will never breathe a word of what happened today. I beg you, spare my worthless life! You have such talent for artifact crafting—this lowly one has spent years in the craft and has a few unique techniques I could pass along in their entirety. All I ask is that you let me go..." His spiritual power nearly spent while his opponent's attacks showed no sign of stopping, the middle-aged cultivator finally broke down and begged for his life.

Andy didn't bother responding. He pulled the bowstring several more times in rapid succession, then sent the Ganjiang and Moye swords sweeping in from either side. Caught completely off guard, the middle-aged cultivator was cut to pieces.

"Only the dead keep secrets," Andy said coldly to himself as he collected his artifacts and spirit tools.