From the looks of it, the burly man in the midst of his furious assault held an overwhelming advantage. But no one knew that this seemingly imposing figure was secretly cursing his luck over and over again.
Every single punch he landed pushed the golden light inward and sent the entire golden shield trembling, making it seem like it was only a matter of time before he tore through this layer of protection.
But who could have guessed that every time his hands or feet made contact with the golden light, he felt a powerful, resilient force pushing back? And the harder he struck, the fiercer the counterforce became. His hands and feet were already in tremendous pain—once he stopped channeling his strength, they would swell up instantly.
What's more, the golden light was incredibly tough. The dents he hammered into it sprang back to their original shape the moment he pulled away, as though they had never been struck at all. Even when he relentlessly pounded the same spot, he could only keep that section caved in without driving it a single inch deeper.
And so the burly man's assault dragged on for quite some time, yet the golden shield remained in the same state—trembling ominously, looking as if it could shatter at any moment.
But by now, everyone's thinking had done a complete about-face. They all understood that this man would never break through the shield. His tremendous strength could at most make it wobble, but could never truly destroy it.
Not only did
However, because of the embarrassment he had suffered earlier, there was a flush of humiliated anger on the Golden Light Shangren's face, and the look he directed at the man grew even more venomous. But under the continuous barrage of attacks, he couldn't steady himself, and his attempts to cast spells kept going wrong. So he gave up forming hand seals entirely and instead fixed both eyes on his opponent, muttering curses in a dialect no one else could understand.
The man, for his part, seemed utterly oblivious to all these changes, continuing to bombard the golden shield like a madman. Just when everyone thought he wouldn't stop until his entire body gave out from exhaustion—
"Bang, bang, boom!" After unleashing two punches and a kick with every ounce of his remaining strength, the man suddenly spun around and bolted backward. For such a massive body, his speed was remarkably fast.
This abrupt move stunned the onlookers, and then the crowd erupted into commotion.
The Golden Light Shangren was momentarily taken aback, but he flew into a rage almost instantly. He quickly sat cross-legged and placed the black box across his lap, his lips moving in rapid incantation. He raised both hands to his chest, fingers twisted into bizarre gestures, trembling with obvious strain. Watching the way his fingers shook, it was as if a thousand pounds of weight hung from each one.
By now the man was only a few steps from the
The man's heart lurched. He threw his body to the left in a desperate leap while glancing sideways.
A streak of hazy gray light, fast as lightning, shot past from the spot where he had stood just a heartbeat ago, grazing his shoulder.
A chill ran through the man, but then he relaxed. Since he had dodged this hidden weapon, he could regroup with his two fellow disciples and be perfectly safe.
Before this thought had even finished forming, a searing pain exploded in his right arm. He looked down instinctively, but before he could make sense of what he saw, another chorus of cries rang out—including his two senior brothers' voices, thick with alarm.
The man froze, utterly confused. At that very moment a flash of light appeared before his eyes, and a gray beam pierced clean through his chest. It was the very same hidden weapon he had thought he dodged.
Shock and fury surged through him. He opened his mouth to say something, but his body collapsed to the ground with a heavy thud. Only then did he realize that his right arm had been severed clean off at the shoulder at some unknown moment, blood gushing out in a steady stream.
"What just happened?" Filled with a belly full of questions and unwillingness, the man's vision went black, and he lost consciousness.
Even at the point of death, this man never understood what had just taken place. But the onlookers from both the Wild Wolf Gang and the Seven Mysteries Sect had seen every detail with perfect clarity.
They watched as, after the dwarf finished forming hand seals and chanting, he uttered the word "Rise," and a streak of gray light shot out from the black box. It circled once above the dwarf's head, then shot straight toward the man, guided by his pointing finger.
Though the man had cleverly tilted his body to dodge the initial chest-piercing strike, after the gray light grazed his shoulder, his arm quietly slipped off—evidently the gray light had been so razor-sharp that he never even felt it happen.
What shocked everyone even more came next. After being dodged, the gray beam followed the flick of the dwarf's finger and, after passing about ten feet beyond the man, executed a sharp U-turn and charged back at him. Completely unprepared, the man was finished off with ease.
Everyone stood dumbstruck by the spectacle, and without exception their gazes converged on the gray light as it flew back to hover and circle above the dwarf's head.
The word "flying sword" rose unbidden in most people's minds. Although these people knew nothing of cultivators' existence, they had all heard plenty of legends about flying swords from various tales of wonder.
This streak of gray light bore an uncanny resemblance to the flying swords used by sword immortals in legend—it was practically identical.
Could it be that this unremarkable dwarf was actually a legendary sword immortal? The awe in everyone's eyes as they looked at the Golden Light Shangren deepened considerably. After all, the title of sword immortal was enough to intimidate a great many mortals.
The Golden Light Shangren now held his head high, radiating arrogance. He manipulated the gray light with a showy flourish, dancing it back and forth above his head until it wove into the shape of a massive gray serpent. The Wild Wolf Gang's side erupted in gasps of admiration, while the Seven Mysteries Sect fell deathly silent.
If Jia Tianlong's faction, bolstered by the aid of a sword immortal, had seen their morale soar, and the Seven Mysteries Sect had fallen into confusion and lost much of their fighting spirit—then
Because he had discovered that the incantation and hand gestures the Golden Light Shangren used to command the gray light were exactly the same as the Object Control Technique he himself had learned. He didn't know whether that gray streak was truly a flying sword, but the Object Control Technique was designed to manipulate precisely this kind of thing—he was absolutely certain of it.
Right now, Han Li's mind was filled with nothing but thoughts of killing and seizing treasure. It seemed his fascination with cultivators was only growing stronger.
(End of Chapter)