"Do you think you have the strength to fight against me, Yi Chengzi? Yang Ji · Four Symbols!" Yi Chen roared in anger as he slashed again, releasing dazzling beams of Sword Qi.
"Yi Chengzi, you are nothing but a mad dog!"
"I want to see how long you can last under the suppression of the You Jue Formation without replenishment," Gui Youzi madly drained the ghost power from his body, pouring it into the black skull artifact.
Driven mad by hatred and resolved to be ruthless, he knocked out illusions with the leg bone in his hand.
This set of treasures in his hand was a rare low-grade artifact, capable of not only attacking the enemy but also sowing confusion with the sound of its strike, yet it proved to be barely effective against Yi Chen.
Xue Qianqiu watched the situation in the field with a frown. He felt something was amiss, yet he couldn't figure out Yi Chen's scheme and had no choice but to continue grappling with him.
His reluctance to flee wasn't due to a deep friendship with Gui Youzi, but rather from fear of being defeated by Yi Chen without the aid of the formation.
If Yi Chen's mystic Taoist techniques, already weakened by the You Jue Great Formation, were capable of such might, what would happen if he escaped the formation?
Ten seconds passed in a flash.
A strange sensation suddenly surged through Yi Chen's heart; he felt an inexplicable force encircling him, and he knew his next move would be significantly more powerful.
"It's time," Yi Chen said with a flash of sharpness in his eyes, holding his long sword upright.
"Yang Ji · Four Symbols."
Yi Chen had repeatedly used the Yang Ji technique three times with the intention of ingraining a fixed impression on Gui Youzi and others, as well as to deplete their Mana.
And this charged strike, with its doubled power, was his decisive winning move.
After all, Gui Youzi and the others were no pushovers. Although their Cultivation Technique was countered by him, their cultivation was by no means insignificant, and it was a joint attack from two people.
"Again?" Gui Youzi saw Yi Chen repeating his move and, to save mana, he once more spat out a breath of pure ghost energy identical to the previous one as they continued the contest.
Endless skull illusions sprang forth, directly confronting the sword light.
Xue Qianqiu, meanwhile, activated the Blood Fall to the Netherworld magic technique, and his ghastly claws ferociously assaulted Yi Chen's back, following the same strategy as before to distract Yi Chen.
As soon as the skull illusions touched the sword light, Gui Youzi's expression changed dramatically, and he sensed trouble.
The power of the overwhelming Sword Qi he was facing suddenly doubled, far exceeding his expectations.
The silver-black torrent collided violently with the advancing silvery-white light, which quickly overpowered it.
Realizing he had been duped, Gui Youzi desperately channeled his ghost energy as if money meant nothing to him, hoping to slow the descent of the Sword Qi and buy Xue Qianqiu some time for rescue.
However, he quickly fell into despair.
Yi Chen's cold voice suddenly appeared in his ear.
"Extreme Origin Starfall, explode for me!"
As the words left his mouth, the seven enormous milky white orbs suspended above Yi Chen's head suddenly aligned in a straight line, surging towards Gui Youzi.
"Damn it! We've been tricked!" Xue Qianqiu felt an urgent panic, spewing out blood as the ghastly claw swelled once again, tearing through the Dragon Tiger Divine Pattern blocking his path and striking Yi Chen's Cultivation Body.
But it was all too late.
The blinding white light swallowed Gui Youzi's figure, and a two-meter-wide pit that was over a hundred meters deep appeared on the ground, with a broken skull emerging at the center while yellow muddy water flowed out from the bottom of the pit.
The bloody claw ripped through Yi Chen's thick Extreme Origin protection, the massive impact forcing him to spit out blood.
A crimson eye caught Xue Qianqiu's gaze.
"Yi Taoist, you've expended a great deal of Mana in this fight, and you can't sustain it for long. Why not call it quits? As a sign of good faith, I can offer some compensation," Xue Qianqiu said gruffly.
"Sustain it for long? You've misunderstood, fellow Daoist," Yi Chen said, as seven white orbs reappeared around his Cultivation Body, to the disbelief of Xue Qianqiu.
A cup of tea's time later, Yi Chen, holding the severed head of Xue Qianqiu, looked at the line of information before him with a smile on his face.
[You have successfully slain Gui Youzi and earned one thousand eight hundred Deep Red Points.]
Those who work hard will be rewarded by heaven.
Although he had also suffered minor injuries, the Deep Red Points he had accumulated had also reached the substantial sum of nine thousand one hundred.
Success was within sight!
After collecting the relics of these two old guys, especially the flags from the You Jue Formation, Yi Chen followed the fragmented memories extracted from Xue Qianqiu to the hidden location of the blood coffin.
With a wave of his sleeve, he released the cultivators from the nether coffins.
Some of the nether coffins weren't sealed properly. The commotion from his fight with Gui Youzi and the others had likely been noticed by some, so he didn't bother to hide his identity any longer and revealed his true self, considering it good karma for his Hidden Dragon Temple.
After all, the valuables from these poor souls had already been transferred into his pocket through Gui Youzi and the others.
Now, he had a total of twelve storage rings on his hands—enough to form two and a half Olympic symbols...
The crowd looked on in shock at the severed head of Xue Qianqiu beside Yi Chen, at a loss for words.
After a long while, someone finally said hesitantly, "Da Yue's Dragon and Tiger Rankings are really dark-hearted. With such cultivation, Yi Taoist is unfairly placed at fifth."
"Exactly, exactly. Yi Taoist has a god-given talent. It's certain that he will become a True Monarch within five years," the crowd agreed.
To the flattering comments, Yi Chen modestly exclaimed, "Ah, fellow Daoists, you praise me too highly. I have been diligently cultivating for eighteen years, and I'm nearly nineteen. To have achieved nothing substantial and to still not be on par with a True Monarch, it's truly embarrassing."