Chapter 187 - 186: Taiyi Divine Thunder
"Take you to the Young Master?" Chu Hua giggled, wiping a tear from her eye. "Are you insane, or just incredibly stupid? If we bring a Lower Division rat to the main camp, he won’t even bother drawing his halberd. He will crush you with a single pulse of his domain. You are at the Early Stage, boy. The exact same realm as us. What makes you think you have the right to make demands?"
"I am not making a demand," Lin Yuan corrected, his voice dropping into a register of absolute, freezing sovereignty. "I am giving you an ultimatum. Take me to him, or do not blame me for crippling your cultivation and leaving you to rot in this canyon."
The laughter stopped instantly.
Chu Ming’s face contorted into a mask of ugly rage. To be threatened by a lone cultivator at the exact same cultivation stage, when they held a 2v1 numerical advantage, was an insult that demanded immediate blood.
"You arrogant, mud-born whelp!" Chu Ming roared, drawing a massive, serrated broadsword from his spatial ring. The blade pulsed with a violent, bloody Intent. "I was going to just take your token and leave you unconscious. But now, I am going to sever your limbs and drag your torso back to the camp as a footstool!"
"Don’t kill him instantly, Ming," Chu Hua sneered, drawing a pair of slender, venom-laced short swords. "Let him suffer a bit for his impudence."
Lin Yuan looked at them, entirely unfazed. "So be it."
Chu Ming did not wait. He kicked off his shuttle, exploding forward with the full speed of an Early Stage Spirit Severing expert. He raised his serrated broadsword high above his head, executing his most ferocious martial art: the Blood of One to Shake Mountains and Rivers Strike.
A massive, crescent-shaped wave of boiling, blood-red energy erupted from the blade, screaming through the air directly toward Lin Yuan’s neck, intending to decapitate him in a single, overwhelming blow.
Lin Yuan didn’t draw a weapon. He didn’t even take a step back.
He raised his right hand, his flawless fingers spread wide, and activated the divine technique, Heaven and Earth Shift.
The space directly in front of Lin Yuan folded inward, creating a mirror of absolute redirection. The technique did not block the attack; it captured the force and the spiritual intent of the Blood of One to Shake Mountains and Rivers Strike, instantly turning the enemy’s own power against them.
The massive, blood-red crescent wave struck the invisible spatial mirror and vanished.
Less than a moment later, the space directly to the right of Chu Hua tore open.
"What—" Chu Hua gasped, turning her head.
Her own Senior Brother’s ultimate attack, perfectly preserved and retaining its full, lethal momentum, shot out from the spatial rift, striking her squarely in the ribs.
The impact was devastating. Chu Hua screamed as her Qi barrier shattered like glass. The blood-red energy carved a deep, horrific gash into her side, violently launching her off her shuttle. She smashed into the quartz canyon wall, the jagged crystals piercing her armor, before she slumped to the ground, coughing up a massive pool of blood, completely incapacitated by friendly fire.
Chu Ming landed on the ground, his eyes wide with sheer horror as he watched his Junior Sister fall to his own attack.
"You... what demonic art is that?!" Chu Ming stammered, stepping backward, the arrogant confidence entirely drained from his face.
"Demonic?" Lin Yuan whispered, taking a single, slow step forward. "No. I am simply returning what is yours."
Chu Ming gritted his teeth, panic overriding his logic. He raised his broadsword again, preparing to unleash a flurry of desperate strikes.
But Lin Yuan was already done playing with him.
Lin Yuan raised his hand toward the silver sky, his deep purple eyes flashing with apocalyptic intent.
He activated the supreme thunder technique passed down through the ancient epochs, Taiyi Divine Thunder.
The Taiyi lineage was a supreme heritage that possessed the might to summon divine thunder from beyond the Heavens. It bypassed the laws of the pocket realm entirely. It was a power designed to shake mountains, boil rivers, and execute gods.
The silver sky above the quartz canyon violently darkened, turning the color of a fresh bruise. The air was instantly saturated with a heavy, and suffocating scent.
CRACK-BOOOOM!
It was a solid, blinding pillar of pure divine thunder.
The pillar crashed down from the sky with a roar that temporarily deafened every living thing within fifty miles. It bypassed Chu Ming’s defensive barriers as if they were made of wet paper.
The divine thunder struck Chu Ming directly.
The Chu cultivator did not even have the time to scream. The sheer, overwhelming destructive power of the Taiyi thunder violently surged through his body. It sought out his major meridians—the pathways that carried his Spirit Severing Qi—and overloaded them with millions of volts of heavenly might.
His meridians exploded internally.
Chu Ming collapsed to his knees, his broadsword clattering uselessly against the floor. His eyes were rolled completely back into his head, his mouth hanging open in a silent scream.
He was not dead, but his cultivation was utterly obliterated. He had been reduced to a crippled mortal in a single strike.
Silence slammed back down over the canyon, save for the residual, terrifying crackle of the divine thunder dancing across the jagged white rocks.
Lin Yuan slowly lowered his hand.
He turned his gaze toward the base of the canyon wall, where Chu Hua was clutching her bleeding side, watching the scene unfold with absolute terror.
Her Senior Brother—a veteran of the Early Stage—had been reduced to a crippled husk in less than three breaths. And the sovereign from the Zhao Province hadn’t even drawn a weapon.
Lin Yuan began to walk toward her.
With every step he took, residual arcs of purple and gold lightning crackled around him, scorching the quartz beneath his feet. His black and white Daoist robes flowed like a river of yin-yang.
He then stopped a few paces away from the trembling woman.
"I will not repeat myself," Lin Yuan said, his voice a low, terrifying rumble that promised nothing but pain.
He took a single, final step forward. The impact of his boot against the stone seemed to physically shake heaven and earth, a localized tremor that rattled the canyon walls and overturned the very concept of Upper Division supremacy.
"Take me to Chu Kuang."