Zheng Shaohua thrust his spear forward, and metal clashed with a ringing clang.
His parry was strong, but to Li Guanqi it was full of openings. Light flashed under his feet as he slipped past the spear and went straight for Zheng Shaohua’s throat.
His sword swung with deadly precision, aimed to kill.
At first, Zheng Shaohua thought he could crush Li Guanqi with ease. Now, he realized the gulf between them. Their cultivation was equal, but their true strength was not even close.
He couldn’t block the strike.
Suddenly, two powerful auras surged from the horizon. Zheng Shaohua’s eyes widened, and he bellowed, “Father! Save me!”
The air shook as a crushing force bore down on Li Guanqi. His sword was pushed aside, slicing off Zheng Shaohua’s arm instead of killing him.
Blood splattered everywhere, and a severed arm flew in the air. Zheng Shaohua screamed in pain.
“Ahhhh! You bastard! You’re dead! I will skin you alive! I’ll tear out your tendons!”
Li Guanqi remained calm, his white eyes showing no emotion. With a flick of his fingers, gray clouds swirled together overhead.
Dozens of lightning spears rained down, cutting off the newcomers’ approach.
Then he swung his sword without hesitation.
A large head flew into the air.
The world seemed to fall silent. No one had imagined Li Guanqi would dare kill in front of the entire city. Gasps spread through the crowd. He was a savage through and through.
Unfortunately, he didn’t know that Nanze City was the Zheng family’s territory.
“Hua’er! You’re courting death!”
As Li Guanqi turned to fly back toward the brothel, a translucent spirit drifted up from the headless corpse. Narrowing his eyes, he shot forward and cut it down.
The spirit burst apart.
He didn’t understand how Zheng Shaohua’s spirit could leave his body, especially since he was only in the Golden Core Realm, but he knew he had to root out the threat completely.
One of the newcomers radiated the aura of an early Nascent Soul Realm cultivator, and the other’s power was so deep he couldn’t get a read on it.
Li Guanqi rushed into the Fragrance Motel, knocked Song Zhi’ang and her father unconscious, then sealed them inside his sword box. Murmurs rippled through the crowd. That kind of spatial treasure was priceless.
But after seeing his strength, no one dared to covet it.
Then, a palm seal, dozens of zhang wide, descended upon the Fragrance Motel. All the guests who were watching the fight in the motel fled immediately.
“Run! Zheng Deyuan’s gone mad!”
Within moments, the building was empty.
Li Guanqi’s slight hesitation left him with no place to conceal himself.
Rumble! Crack crack crack!
The colossal, earth-yellow palm crushed the entire building. Just as the onlookers were certain Li Guanqi was finished, a piercing sword cry split the air, accompanied by powerful sword intent. Thunder roared, and a dozen-zhang-long purple sword light erupted from the ruins, cleaving the palm seal in two.
Everyone was utterly shocked. Even the elder beside Zheng Deyuan narrowed his eyes.
A figure in white robes appeared in the sky above the rubble. Zheng Deyuan had cropped hair, a gaunt face, and pronounced cheekbones and eyebrow arches. His thin eyebrows and narrow, triangular eyes gave him a menacing look.
He clutched the headless corpse, sobbing with grief and seething with killing intent.
Knowing his son was beyond saving, Zheng Deyuan set the body aside and rose slowly. The elder beside him fixed Li Guanqi with a dark gaze. “You shouldn’t have killed him.”
Li Guanqi shrugged but said nothing.
Zheng Shaohua had clearly come to provoke him. In Li Guanqi’s eyes, once conflict broke out, leaving loose ends was no longer an option. Showing weakness would only invite more harassment, and it was better to settle it once and for all.
The elder shook his head, then suddenly reached toward Li Guanqi.
There was a dull boom, but Li Guanqi vanished from the spot.
He reappeared a hundred zhang back, frowning. Is this the spatial manipulation ability that Nascent Soul Realm cultivators possess? That’s terrifying! ᴛʜɪs ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪs ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ʙʏ 𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹✦𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖✦𝓷𝓮𝓽
Looking at the empty space between himself and the elder, he felt a chill of anxiety. Though it appeared ordinary, he could sense that it had become a trap. If he hadn’t escaped in time, he’d already be trapped.
Li Guanqi could not read the elder’s aura, but he felt unsettled. Glancing down at Zheng Deyuan, he decided he would break through to the Nascent Soul Realm immediately.
If it were only Zheng Deyuan, he had seventy percent confidence he could escape unscathed, sixty percent he could wound him badly, and less than forty percent of killing him outright. But once someone reached the Nascent Soul Realm, they could bend space itself. If Zheng Deyuan chose to flee, Li Guanqi could never stop him.
And with the gulf between the Golden Core Realm and Nascent Soul Realm, breaking free of a Nascent Soul’s spatial prison without being one himself would be very difficult.
The two men were set on killing him. He had no more time to waste.
Zheng Deyuan drew a sword wreathed in flowing light, his eyes filled with murderous rage.
“Today, you shall die to pay for my son’s life!”
Li Guanqi smirked coldly, scattering dozens of high-grade spirit stones in midair.
They exploded, releasing pure spirit qi that wrapped around him. Vital force surged through his body, and tribulation clouds began gathering overhead.
Three hundred zhang. Five hundred. A thousand.
The gigantic mass of clouds blanketed nearly the entire city.
The moment people realized it was a heavenly tribulation, they bolted in terror.
Arcs of lightning crackled through the clouds, forcing Zheng Deyuan and the elder to halt. If they continued, the tribulation would interpret their movements as defiance, dragging them in as well.
Zheng Deyuan glared at Li Guanqi, hatred burning in his eyes. “I hope you don’t die, little fucker. That’d be far too easy for you.”
Li Guanqi burst into laughter. “You two bastards should worry about yourselves first!”