Breaking the Deadlock and Turning the Tables

Gu Yang stood quietly in the absolute shadow at the top of the cliff, his deep black eyes like a dry well, without the slightest ripple.

He was in no rush to draw his sword.

The Great Sun Heaven Burning Sutra circulated silently within his body. The blood-qi sense belonging to an apex predator spread toward the surrounding quagmire like countless invisible tentacles in extreme secrecy.

The extremely subtle distribution of trampled dead leaves at the bottom of the cliff, the faint sense of stagnation in the flow of spiritual energy at the edge of the array...

All of this quickly outlined a deadly picture of surging undercurrents in Gu Yang's mind.

The sound of the wind behind the weathered rock on the left lacked a trace of the sharpness of clashing metal.

In the muck beneath the swamp on the right, two extremely obscure streams of blood-qi were suppressed, their pace slightly quickened by greed.

There was no need to clearly see who was hiding in the dark.

As long as the trajectory of the wind was wrong, it meant that prey was breathing and grinding their fangs in the shadows.

Three late Foundation Establishment cultivators.

One was a senior brother of the Dao Yi Sect hidden in the tree canopy, and the other two were rogue cultivators lying dormant in the foul-smelling mud, preparing to reap the spoils without lifting a finger.

The corners of Gu Yang's thin lips curled up extremely slowly into a cold, emotionless smile.

The fourth layer of his Dao Foundation roared into action, and his tall, straight body instantly transformed into a translucent phantom that even divine sense could not lock onto.

Netherworld Shadow Evasion.

Like a drop of black water merging into a sea of ink, he sank with extreme smoothness into the shadow of the putrid swamp.

Rogue Cultivator A, hidden in the waist-deep muck, was staring fixedly at the Dragon-Transforming Saliva in the center of the depression, his Adam's apple bobbing greedily.

Suddenly, he felt a faint, extremely abrupt cool breeze brush past the back of his neck.

Before the hairs all over his body could stand on end.

A large, knobby hand with rough calluses, like iron tongs reaching out from the Nine Nether Underworld, had already clamped tightly over his mouth and nose.

"Mmph—"

He didn't even have the chance to vibrate his vocal cords.

A trace of dark gold flame instantly drilled into his seven orifices through the gaps of Gu Yang's rough fingers.

The overbearing extreme temperature of the Great Sun True Fire, which carried true damage to the soul, directly burned his spirit and internal organs to ashes the moment it touched his flesh.

There was no struggle, no explosion of spiritual energy.

Gu Yang let go as if discarding a stinking rag, allowing the corpse—intact on the outside but reduced to charcoal on the inside—to sink silently to the bottom of the bubbling mud.

Under the cover of the Thousand Illusions Concealment.

His slender fingertips flicked extremely lightly in the void.

An array disk, like a falling dead leaf, landed silently at the feet of another man, Rogue Cultivator B, ten steps away.

Lesser Formless Illusion Array, activate.

The scene before Rogue Cultivator B's eyes was completely distorted within half a breath.

In his line of sight, the surrounding swamp instantly disappeared. The hidden Dao Yi Sect senior brother in the canopy suddenly stood up with a sinister smile on his face, sacrificing a blood-red grand seal in his hand that exuded the terrifying pressure of the Core Formation stage, sealing off all his routes of retreat.

"A mere rogue cultivator dares to covet a supreme treasure? Die!" The senior brother in the illusion let out an earth-shattering roar, and the blood seal smashed down with a bang.

"Hypocrite, I'll fight you to the death!"

Rogue Cultivator B's eyes nearly split open. The extreme instinct for survival made him instantly detonate all the essence blood in his body.

He let out a wild roar, and his whole body turned into an extremely ruthless, desperate black saber beam, braving the sky full of muddy water, and slashed straight toward the tree canopy!

"Boom—!"

This sudden suicide attack caused the Dao Yi Sect senior brother, who was preparing to watch the show and reel in the net, to change his expression drastically.

He simply had no time to think about what madness had overcome this rogue cultivator in the mud pit, and could only hastily summon his natal flying sword to meet the enemy.

Two late Foundation Establishment experts just like that, in an extremely absurd yet fatally decisive manner, clashed together in mid-air.

Violent fluctuations of spiritual energy exploded like a hurricane.

"Senior Brother?!"

The three Dao Yi Sect disciples controlling the Demon-Locking Array below turned pale with fright and instinctively looked up at the canopy.

In just this short half-breath of distraction.

"Crack."

The foundation of the Four Symbols Demon-Locking Array loosened by an extremely tiny gap.

Mo Ji, who had been slumped in the muddy water as if even breathing was a struggle, suddenly had her dim golden vertical pupils shrink to the size of pinpricks.

An extremely violent wildness instantly squeezed out the last trace of demonic power deep within her meridians.

"Hiss—!"

She didn't try to dodge the cold flying sword slashing toward her face at all, allowing the sharp blade to brutally pierce through her snow-white left shoulder.

Using this pulling force, her slender and powerful black-scaled snake tail slammed against the mud pit.

Her graceful, delicate body, covered in blood and mud, shot out like an arrow from a bow, instantly pouncing on the nearest disciple.

The bright red forked snake tongue brought up a nauseating bloody wind.

She opened her red lips full of fangs and ruthlessly bit through the man's throat in one go!

"Pfft!"

Scalding hot blood splashed high like a fountain, spilling onto her snow-white, smooth skin, meandering down her breathtaking curves, revealing an extremely barbaric, poignant, and bloody temptation.

"Ah—! Help!"

The remaining two disciples, seeing their fellow sect member's neck bitten off alive, completely broke down, crawling and scrambling as they tried to escape from this blood-soaked monster.

Above, the sound of killing shook the heavens; below, blood and flesh flew everywhere.

The entire depression, under Gu Yang's invisible, cloud-turning and rain-making hand, instantly turned into an extremely tragic stew of chaos.

After the time it takes an incense stick to burn.

The slaughter in mid-air finally determined a victor.

That Dao Yi Sect senior brother fell back to the ground covered in blood, with a deep, bone-revealing saber wound on his chest, his internal organs faintly visible.

He panted heavily, looking at the severed limbs covering the ground, an extremely morbid fanaticism surging in his eyes.

They were all dead.

This stalk of Dragon-Transforming Saliva was his alone.

He swallowed a mouthful of bloody saliva and stumbled toward the spiritual grass emitting a purple light.

His trembling right hand reached out with extreme greed.

Just at the moment his fingertips were about to touch the edge of the spiritual grass—

A gray, thick-soled cloth shoe, without any warning yet like a thousand-catty boulder, stepped on the back of his hand.

"Crack!"

A scalp-numbing sound of bone fracturing clearly exploded in the silent depression.

"Ah—!"

The Dao Yi Sect senior brother let out a shrill scream. The agonizing pain connecting his fingers to his heart made his whole body convulse, and he lay in the muddy water like a dying dog.

He raised his head in utter terror.

Gu Yang, wearing the coarse hemp garments of a rogue cultivator, stood with his hands behind his back.

His deep black eyes, like a dry well that reflected no emotion, quietly looked down at him.

"Who are you?! I am from the Dao Yi Sect..."

Before the Dao Yi Sect senior brother could finish his shout.

The sole of Gu Yang's boot ground downward with extreme ruthlessness.

Dark brown muck mixed with shattered bone directly blocked his shrill scream.

A wisp of dark gold flame, following the sole of Gu Yang's shoe, silently drilled into the other party's meridians.

There was no earth-shattering explosion, and not even a trace of a scorched smell drifted out.