So strong that it makes people despair.

Standing to the side, Zhao Teng let out a light chuckle upon hearing these words.

He finally turned around and looked at Su Ji, his eyes brimming with mockery.

"Did you hear that?"

"This is reality."

"No one is going to place a bet on a dead man."

"Your little tricks are utterly worthless in the face of absolute power and profit."

Zhao Teng put away his jade slip and urged him with a hint of impatience, "Alright, are you done with your last words? Then it is time to send you on your way."

"Do not make this young master wait too long."

Su Ji stood rooted to the spot, his head bowed, as if those words had completely shattered his psychological defenses.

Only the Fallen Dragon Spear lying on the ground was still emitting a faint hum.

"Senior Brother..."

Sensing the fluctuation in Su Ji's emotions, Su Jiu, who resided within his body, could not help but call out softly.

She could feel that Su Ji was not in despair.

On the contrary.

His blood was boiling.

It was a kind of madness... the madness of casting aside all reservations after being forced into a desperate corner.

"Businessmen..."

Su Ji suddenly began to chuckle in a low voice.

"Businessmen are the best kind..."

The laughter was low at first, like a suppressed whimper in his throat, but it quickly grew louder and increasingly arrogant.

"Hahahahaha!"

He abruptly raised his head.

Where was the slightest trace of his previous sincerity in those eyes?

It had been replaced by a chilling, bloodshot scarlet.

In this world, gamblers were never the only ones who would take desperate risks.

Or rather, the most insane ones were never those degenerate gamblers who only knew how to bet big or small.

For businessmen.

When the profit reaches fifty percent, some will dare to take risks; when the profit reaches one hundred percent, they will dare to trample all rules.

And when the profit reaches three hundred percent...

They would have long cast even their own lives aside.

The rock beneath Su Ji's feet exploded with a boom, sending crushed stones flying.

He did not wait for the reaction of the Pavilion Master of Tingfeng.

Because he knew that to a scheming old fox like that, words were the palest of things; only actions could tip the scales in their hearts.

"Rise!"

His right foot flicked upward fiercely.

The fallen Fallen Dragon Spear let out a high-pitched hum and spiraled into the sky.

Su Ji reached out and grabbed it, his five fingers locking onto the spear shaft like iron tongs.

Within his body, Su Jiu's pink origin power and his own dark red spiritual energy wildly intertwined. In this moment, they were pushed to their absolute limits, even overdrawing his meridians' capacity to endure, emitting bursts of tearing sounds under the overwhelming strain.

But he could not care about that anymore.

"Zhao Teng!!"

Su Ji roared that name, his entire being transforming into a mournful streak of bloody light. Man and spear became one, carrying a devastatingly tragic momentum as he charged toward that lofty figure in the golden robe!

This thrust left no room for retreat.

This thrust gambled everything.

However.

Facing this strike capable of piercing through mountains, Zhao Teng did not even blink an eye.

He did not even assume a defensive stance. He merely stood there casually, hands clasped behind his back, watching the rushing Su Ji as if looking at a suicidal moth darting toward a torch.

Zhao Teng chuckled lightly, his tone full of mockery.

"You know absolutely nothing about the disparity in our power."

In the instant the spear tip was about to touch his brow.

Zhao Teng moved.

No, to be precise, one of his hands moved.

Su Ji did not see clearly how he struck.

He only saw a flash of golden light before his eyes, followed immediately by an overwhelmingly terrifying and irresistible force that surged through the spear shaft and spread across his entire body.

That feeling was like a high-speed train violently crashing into a towering, immovable mountain.

"Clang!!!"

A deafening clash of metal rang out.

Su Ji felt the webbing between his thumb and index finger split open instantly, blood spurting wildly.

The Fallen Dragon Spear, upon which he had placed such high hopes, was actually caught by Zhao Teng with just two fingers, effortlessly pinching the spear tip!

To advance was impossible by even a fraction.

To retreat was equally impossible.

"This spear is not bad, the material is passable."

"It is a pity it followed the wrong master."

"After you die, I will reluctantly accept it."

Zhao Teng even had the leisure to offer a critique.

The next moment, his wrist flicked slightly.

An irresistible spiral force erupted explosively along the spear body.

Su Ji only felt his hands go numb, unable to hold onto the long spear any longer. His entire body was jolted wide open by this force, leaving him completely defenseless.

Zhao Teng grabbed the spear shaft backhandedly. Without any flashy movements, he simply thrust it forward.

Puchi!

A teeth-aching sound of tearing flesh and blood.

Time seemed to stand still in this moment.

Su Ji widened his eyes and looked down.

He saw that familiar crimson long spear currently impaled in his own chest.

The position was perfectly centered.

It was in the exact same spot where he had just stabbed Zhao Wuji to death.

Even the size of the wound was not off by a single hair.

The only difference was that he had used the spear tip earlier, while Zhao Teng used the butt of the spear.

Was this...

Revenge?

Or pure... mockery?

Zhao Teng let go.

Su Ji was sent flying backward like a kite with a broken string.

He traced an arc in midair before finally crashing heavily into a pile of rubble in the distance, kicking up a cloud of dust.

"Cough... cough cough..."

Su Ji struggled, trying to crawl up.

But his body felt as if it had fallen apart; every bone was wailing, and every inch of muscle was twitching.

The most fatal thing was that large hole in his chest.

It was not simply a matter of being pierced through.

A manic stream of golden heat was wildly drilling into his body through the wound.

That feeling...

Was as if someone had grabbed a handful of boiling hot ash straight out of an alchemy furnace and forcefully stuffed it into his wound.

Burning.

A burning sensation that reached from his flesh to his soul.

Was this... Zhao Teng's power?

The despair that had crushed him to death time and time again in his Peering into Destiny?

Too strong.

So strong that it brought despair.

So strong that... it prevented even the mere thought of resistance from arising.

Or rather... was this the disparity that should exist between a Golden Core cultivator and a Soul Formation cultivator?