Crushing the Prodigies

The several elite disciples of the Nine Heavens Holy Land who had been following behind Lu Xingchui were all frozen in place on the spot.

Their eyes bulged, their faces pale as paper, as they watched their own exalted, arrogant Holy Son — a peerless prodigy upon whom so many hopes rested — split in two by nothing more than a single glance from the other party. He hadn't even made a move.

What kind of technique was this? Was this even human?

"You think I'm still the same person you could butcher at will?"

Ye Xuan's icy voice, like a death curse from the abyss, echoed through the silent Bone Mountain.

He didn't even spare a single glance at the bloody, mangled corpse on the ground, as if he were merely brushing a speck of dust from his robe.

At this moment, a faint layer of black demonic qi surrounded his body, making him look like a god of slaughter who had crushed the heavens themselves.

"Monster! He's a monster!"

"Run! Hurry back to the Holy Land and report to the elders!"

The overwhelming terror finally shattered their sanity. Several disciples of the Nine Heavens Holy Land, their guts split with fear, let out piercing screams and frantically burned their vital essence, transforming into streaks of glaring light as they fled in all directions like dogs who had lost their homes.

"Hmph."

Ye Xuan raised his eyes slightly, a trace of undisguised contempt flashing within them.

"You dare speak of fleeing before me?"

He curled his slender fingers and casually flicked them in the void.

"Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!"

Several gray sword qi, slightly thicker than before, tore through the air with sharp whistling sounds. Their speed was so great that only afterimages remained, instantly crossing a thousand zhang to catch up precisely with the escaping lights.

"Puff! Puff! Puff!"

Several miserable blossoms of blood burst open in midair.

The several Holy Land disciples at the early Void Refinement stage never even had the chance to beg for mercy or let out a scream before their heart meridians and glabellas were pierced through by the violent sword qi.

Their fleeing forms came to an abrupt halt, like birds with broken wings, plummeting straight down from the heights. With heavy thuds, they crashed onto the hard bone veins, turning into cold, lifeless corpses.

In the blink of an eye, Lu Xingchui, the arrogant Holy Son of the Nine Heavens Holy Land, and his entire entourage had been wiped out to the last man. Their bodies were destroyed and their dao was extinguished.

And the entire process — from Ye Xuan's first step to the complete annihilation — took no more than three breaths.

Ye Xuan hadn't even left the deck of the flying boat.

Ying'er stood frozen behind Ye Xuan, her small hands clamped tightly over her mouth to keep herself from gasping aloud.

She knew her husband was unfathomably deep, but she could never have dreamed that he was so powerful as to defy all reason.

This was the Holy Son of the renowned Nine Heavens Holy Land — a great cultivator at the late Void Refinement stage!

Before her husband, he couldn't even survive a single exchange. It was as effortless as crushing an ant.

"Hus... husband, you..." Ying'er's small mouth parted slightly, her voice trembling. She gazed at Ye Xuan's back — not broad, yet as if it could hold up the entire sky — her eyes filled with sparkling fascination.

"Just a swarm of flies. Nothing to worry about."

Ye Xuan turned around, and in an instant, the coldness and demonic qi on his body vanished completely.

He looked at Ying'er, his gaze returning to its usual calm indifference.

"The Zangtian Divine Abyss is fraught with dangers, but it's also filled with opportunities. We have no time to waste here."

He glanced at the corpses of Lu Xingchui and the others below.

His hatred was deep, but he was no longer the reckless young man blinded by vengeance.

The personal wealth of the Holy Son of the Nine Heavens Holy Land had to be overflowing. These resources were exactly what he urgently needed on his path back to the peak.

"Ying'er, go down and collect the spoils." Ye Xuan instructed indifferently. By nature, he was too proud to personally touch the corpses of the dead, but this task was most suitable for the meticulous Ying'er.

"Yes, husband!"

Hearing the order, Ying'er snapped out of her shock and obediently nodded.

She gathered her courage and flew down from the deck on the wind. Though she couldn't help furrowing her delicate brows when approaching the gruesome bodies, her movements were extremely swift.

With practiced skill, she stripped the high-grade storage ring set with a starry sapphire from Lu Xingchui's hand, then collected the rings of the other disciples one by one.

Having struggled to survive in the world of immortal cultivation, she knew better than anyone the truth of "killing and looting fills the belt."

The stronger her husband was, the better she could survive in this man-eating world!

Ying'er clutched a handful of storage rings and flew back to Ye Xuan's side, offering them up like a treasure.

Ye Xuan took the rings, and with his vast divine sense, he brutally crushed the remaining recognition marks left on them, sweeping his awareness inside.

Even with all he had seen, a glimmer of surprise flashed in his eyes. This Lu Xingchui truly deserved his title as the Holy Son of the Nine Heavens Holy Land.

Inside the storage ring: supreme-grade spirit stones stacked like mountains, ten-thousand-year spirit herbs radiating alluring light, high-grade pills sealed in jade bottles, magic treasures gleaming with various precious lights, and scrolls of ancient cultivation techniques emanating an air of antiquity — practically everything one could imagine.

This was definitely a fortune vast enough to make any second-rate sect green with envy.

"Excellent. With these things, our early foundation is secured."

Ye Xuan nodded in satisfaction. He casually picked out a few bottles of foundation-strengthening pills suitable for Spirit Transformation stage cultivation, along with tens of thousands of high-grade spirit stones, and tossed them to Ying'er. "Take these. Cultivate on your own aboard the flying boat and raise your cultivation as quickly as possible. The road ahead is only going to get more dangerous."

The vastness and danger within the Zangtian Divine Abyss far surpassed what the outside world could imagine.

Here, there was no alternation of day and night — only an eternal blood-red dome and the ever-present threat of death.

Besides the pervasive desolate murderous qi that could instantly drain a cultivator's blood and vitality, there were countless ancient remnant formations lying in wait.

But the most bone-chilling of all were the desolate slaves — beings who had lost their minds within the abyss, their flesh assimilated by the murderous qi into monsters — and the mutated ancient beasts.

Several days later. At the outer reaches of the Zangtian Divine Abyss, in the Life-Severing Soul-Breaking Valley.

Deep within the canyon, a nine-leafed spirit herb radiating a faint purple glow, the "Nine-Death Return-Soul Herb," swayed gently in the wind.

And before this peerless immortal herb, a most arrogant roadside ambush was unfolding.

"Hand over the Nine-Death Return-Soul Herb! Then cripple your own cultivation and get out. This Holy Son might consider leaving you a whole corpse!"

A young man wreathed in violent purple lightning, descending like a god of thunder, held a top-grade dao artifact, the Ultraviolet Divine Thunder Hammer, and blocked Ye Xuan's path without a trace of give.

This man was Lei Dong, the chief disciple of the supreme Central Province sect, the Ten-Thousand Thunder Immortal Sect!

He possessed the rare Ten-Thousand Tribulation Thunder Spirit Body, and his cultivation had reached the terrifying peak of the Void Refinement stage.

Half an incense stick of time ago, he had single-handedly smashed three guardian beasts at the peak of Void Refinement into pieces with his Thunder Hammer. He was in the midst of his most ferocious, high-spirited moment.

At this moment, in the shadows on both sides of the valley, no fewer than dozens of geniuses from various great dao prefectures and old-school rogue cultivators were lurking.

They too had coveted the spirit herb, but after Lei Dong revealed his terrifying strength, they had all fallen silent, shrinking into the darkness to watch the show.

"That white-clothed brat is done for—he's run right into Lei Dong, the madman."

"I heard Lei Dong's Azure Sky Divine Thunder can shatter a fellow cultivator's natal artifact in an instant. This kid's dragging along dead weight—one hammer blow and he'll be reduced to ashes."

The hidden divine sense transmissions were filled with pity for Ye Xuan and awe for Lei Dong.

Face to face with Lei Dong's overwhelming, mountain-crushing pressure of thunder, Ye Xuan merely tilted his head slightly, shifting his gaze from the spirit herb to rest on Lei Dong.

His eyes were like those of an azure dragon perched high among the clouds, glancing down at a loach writhing in the mud.

"Noisy."

He spat out two cold words, then gently patted Ying'er's shoulder to signal her to step back.

The next instant, his figure vanished without the slightest warning, dissolving into a blurry afterimage in place!

"So fast!"

The arrogance on Lei Dong's face instantly froze, replaced by a killing chill that shot straight to the crown of his skull.

His prideful divine sense—it couldn't even track Ye Xuan's trajectory at all!

"Arrogant bastard! Azure Sky Thunder Net!"

At the brink of life and death, Lei Dong roared. Without hesitation, he bit his tongue and sprayed a mouthful of essence blood into the Thunder God Hammer.

With a deafening boom, the Azure Sky Divine Thunder at full twelve-fold might condensed into a massive, corporeal thunder shield over a zhang thick, erected horizontally before him. Even a full-strength strike from a late-stage Void Refinement cultivator would struggle to break through it in a short time.

Yet Ye Xuan didn't use any spell at all.

He simply leaped into the air, his flawless jade-like immortal body erupting with the primordial draconic physical might of a savage beast, laced with a wisp of destructive gray sword qi. Like a meteor falling to earth, he drove his foot straight into that so-called impenetrable thunder shield!

Under the gazes of dozens of hidden spectators, who stared as if they'd seen a ghost, that unbreakable Azure Sky Thunder Shield shattered under Ye Xuan's foot like fragile glass.

The violent backlash surged through the Thunder God Hammer into Lei Dong's arms, accompanied by the stomach-churning sound of bones cracking. Lei Dong's prized Thunder Spirit Body could not withstand the monstrous force—both his arms snapped, joint by joint.

"Pfft!"

Lei Dong, like a tattered sack struck by a heavy mallet, spat out a massive spray of blood mixed with chunks of internal organs. His entire body was blasted backward like a cannonball for over a hundred zhang, carving a massive crater into the cliff wall behind him.

One blow!

A single, unadorned kick had utterly shattered the defense of the Chief Disciple of the Myriad Thunder Immortal Sect.

In an instant, the hidden spectators on both sides of the gorge fell into dead silence!

All the lurking cultivators sucked in cold air, their eyeballs nearly popping out of their sockets.

"How is that possible…? Lei Dong's Azure Sky Shield was kicked apart with one strike?"

"He didn't even use spiritual power! That was pure physical force! Just what kind of monster physique is this?"