Eternal Swordmaster
Chapter 153 - 146: Wait a Moment

Chapter 153: Chapter 146: Wait a Moment

White light transformed into a semi-spherical membrane that rapidly expanded, covering an area of more than ten meters around.

Hiss!

Suddenly, the white light membrane was torn from the inside, and Yuan Shihong burst out in a shower of golden radiance, completely unharmed.

"Interesting, Dead Soldiers urging on the ’Luminous Talisman Sword’? Such tremendous power, must be at least twenty exploding together, right?" He looked composed, seemingly unaffected by the explosions, and even Wan’er in his arms was smiling, completely unperturbed.

Before he could finish speaking, he saw several black-clad figures rushing towards him.

"Radiant sun high in the sky!"

These people shouted the inexplicable slogan and pounced on him like madmen, each with poor cultivation, but somehow very fast, as if they had focused only on ’Qinggong’.

Yuan Shihong chuckled, and with a glance, he noticed many more such black-clad individuals emerging around him, their calm expressions tinged with fanaticism.

"These kinds of goods? All here to die?"

With a flash of golden light, hiss, hiss, hiss, three consecutive sounds, three black-clad individuals were immediately pierced through the throat.

Boom, boom, boom!

But immediately after, three intense white lights exploded, once again enveloping Yuan Shihong and his companion.

These three had actually carried out suicide attacks!

Caught off guard, Yuan Shihong was still unharmed, but Wan’er’s ’Jade Pendant’ seemed to be a bit overwhelmed. Amidst the violent explosions, a figure swooped down, heading straight for Wan’er.

Amid her screams, Yuan Shihong was enraged, the ’Golden Scale Sword’ shot out a white ’Sword Qi’, instantly appearing beside Wan’er, and slashed towards the attacker.

Boom!

As expected, this person was also a Dead Soldier, directly exploding upon contact.

A mass of blood and flesh splattered onto both of them, along with the explosive force and white light, all repelled by the ’Defensive Spiritual Light’.

"Seeking death!"

Seeing that someone dared to attack Wan’er, Yuan Shihong roared in anger. He lifted the ’Golden Scale Sword’ and pursued the direction of the enemy leader.

That person had anticipated this and had already escaped a distance. Judging by that speed, it was yet another ’Qi Cultivation’ expert!

Yuan Shihong’s heart tightened. A small ’Suppressor Villa’ actually concealed, besides the ’Villa Master’, two other ’Qi Cultivators’. He suddenly felt a sense of mystery about what the ’Manor’ was doing in secret.

In the chase that ensued, the two quickly entered a valley flanked by moderately tall grey-green cliff faces.

Yuan Shihong hugged Wan’er, lightly tapped on a boulder in the valley with his feet, and the two of them shot high into the air, heading towards the fleeing figure.

Just as he had entered the valley from afar and looked down from above, he suddenly paused in shock.

In the valley below, standing as if he had been waiting for a long time, was a person Yuan Shihong recognized from portraits and found eerily familiar.

The man had three ’Longswords’ hanging around his waist, silver, black, and red. His face was calm, as if he had been waiting there for a long time.

Lin Xin’s clothes fluttered in the wind, making a rustling sound. Facing the direction where Yuan Shihong was descending, he slowly drew his sword.

"Merely ’Innate’!" laughed Yuan Shihong, hugging Wan’er with one hand as the ’Golden Scale Sword’ descended from the sky.

Just then, Lin Xin’s sword speed suddenly surged, his eyes fiercely glowing with a demonic red light. His attack speed was more than twice as fast as before.

Clang!

Amidst the clear sound of swords, red light burst forth.

One gold, one red, they collided abruptly.

Boom!

Red ’Sword Qi’ and light scattered in all directions, and the cliff sides of the valley crumbled, with immense ’Sword Qi’ and golden light splashing down, carving sword marks into the cliff faces.

Instantly, an explosion created a gap on the right side of the valley entrance, hurling countless fragments of rocks and earth outwards, as members of the ’Radiant Sun Sect’ hastily dodged.

Inside the valley, Yuan Shihong’s face changed drastically, caught completely off guard by Lin Xin’s sudden burst of power.

From ’Innate Seventh Layer’, his power surged to near ’Qi Cultivation Seventh Layer’—a terrifying leap. Even though he was at the pinnacle of ’Qi Cultivation’, it was still too late to react now.

The two fiercely confronted each other, the ’Golden Scale Sword’ clashing with the silver blade, emitting intense scraping noises. Swarms of golden light and red ’Sword Qi’ intertwined and clashed, some annihilating each other upon collision, others shooting out and ravaging the surrounding terrain.

As the blades pushed with immense force, they grew ever closer to Lin Xin’s face. He had mobilized all his power, including all the strength of his body’s ’Attributes’, but it was still obviously weaker than his opponent.

The opponent was taken by surprise, and Lin Xin had also traveled a long distance. Despite using Dead Soldiers to deplete the opponent’s ’Spiritual Energy’, he still found himself in a disadvantaged position in a head-on confrontation.

Clang!

Suddenly, the blade shattered, and Lin Xin was flung backward, a fine crack appearing on his forehead.

That was the result of the residual force from the opponent’s ’Sword Light’.

With a thud, he slammed into the stone wall behind him and was embedded in it. Debris flew, leaving behind only a vague human silhouette.

Yuan Shihong’s face flashed with a scarlet light, having sustained internal injuries. Such a head-on clash, coupled with being caught off guard and underestimating the opponent’s strength by a wide margin, led to injuries in his meridians.

"The ’Demon Path’... that’s the aura of the ’Demon Path’!" Wan’er recognized the red ’Sword Qi’ emitted by Lin Xin and cried out in alarm.

"The ’Demon Path’..." Yuan Shihong’s pupils contracted, suddenly feeling the situation had exceeded his expectations. "It’s the ’Demon Path’! It seems I must inform the ’Sect’ of this anomaly as soon as possible!"

While his opponent looked calm and collected, he was weary and fatigued. Thinking this, he already felt inclined to retreat.

With a push off the ground, he fully launched his ’Qinggong’, and using the ’Ascendant Cloud Leaping Technique’, he soared into the sky.

Bang!

Suddenly, a white light flared up, and to his astonishment, he saw Lin Xin appearing above him, bare-chested with numerous black ’Runes’ covering him and holding a sword. The blade was thickly wrapped with countless red ’Sword Qi’.

"You!!" Yuan Shihong’s eyes widened as he suddenly concentrated all his cultivation into one strike, slashing at his opponent.

Boom!

The Red Sword descended, clashing head-on with the Golden Scale Sword.

The immense force of impact sent Yuan Shihong plummeting from the sky like a cannonball, crashing into the ground and inadvertently flinging Wan’er, who he couldn’t hold onto, far away.

"Grandfather!" Wan’er cried out in shock.

White Light exploded, and Lin Xin’s figure instantly appeared beside Wan’er, reaching out to grab her.

Yuan Shihong also appeared in a flash, red-eyed and sword in hand, blocking the way.

Another dull thud sounded as Lin Xin’s hand clutched the sword’s blade, emitting a violent collision noise, as if it were not made of human flesh.

The two were less than a few meters apart when their Dual Swords suddenly clashed like a tempest.

Lin Xin put his full strength into every strike. His body shed bursts of white light, using the force of the explosions to accelerate or change direction. The power of his attacks even surpassed his full-strength burst.

Amidst the blazing white and golden lights, the Dual Swords were almost indistinguishable, blurring like shadows.

Yuan Shihong suddenly let out a furious roar. His left hand formed hand seals lightning-fast.

"Mantra: Spirit!"

A golden cauldron swelled forth from within him instantly, turning semi-transparent and pressing fiercely in all directions.

Lin Xin abruptly retracted his sword. The Red Flower Sword unsheathed and thrust forward.

"Yin Mantuo!"

Red Runes densely appeared on the sword’s blade, and a massive amount of floral vines burst from the ground like a giant hand, gripping the expanding golden cauldron firmly.

The vines and cauldron were locked in a struggle, with dense roots burrowing out of the earth, enveloping the cauldron and the two within, completely wrapping them into a large sphere.

"Mantra: Fear!"

A sudden roar erupted from within.

Chi!

A brilliant golden light shone through, piercing the dense vines and shooting straight towards Lin Xin.

In an instant, Lin Xin raised his right hand as countless Runes on his chest lit up, illuminating at least a hundred Mundane Fire Formation’s Patterns at once.

An unimaginably high temperature immediately condensed around Lin Xin, turning into spheres of crimson flame.

With a whoosh, a sphere of red fire exploded from Lin Xin’s center, clashing with the golden light.

The color of the flames darkened swiftly, the core turning white, and soon a small cluster of pure white flame, devoid of any impurities, emerged.

The white flame flew out, landing on the golden light.

No sooner had it touched than the golden light melted away like wax.

Yuan Shihong’s incredulous face appeared through a gap in the vines.

"This is..."

As he stood in astonishment, a giant eyeball the size of a person’s height, Yin Mantuo, took shape behind him. In the center of its blood-red vertical pupil, a point of black liquid slowly swirled into existence.

The black liquid grew larger and deeper, creating the impression of an abyss, growing until it nearly filled the whole eyeball. The liquid, as if it had been under pressure, piled up more and more, creating a massive bulge; it elongated, its tip sharpening and protruding conspicuously from the surface of the eyeball.

Finally, the bulge could no longer hold, and at its sharpest point, a tiny rupture burst open.

Chi!

The black fluid shot out like a high-pressure jet, moving incredibly fast. It pierced through the vines and struck Yuan Shihong and Wan’er, who were entangled and trapped.

Ah!!

Screams rang out.

Caught off guard, the two were struck by the black liquid, their protective Spiritual Light corroded in an instant, and upon contact with their bodies, it instantly ate through their flesh, leaving gaping wounds.

"Black Poison Vines!" Yuan Shihong twisted his face in agony, as if a terrible memory had been triggered.

Before his words had even faded, he completely dissolved into a puddle of pus, along with Wan’er beside him, and even their clothing and all their possessions disintegrated completely.

The black fluid was quickly absorbed by the surrounding vines.

Kang Clang.

The Golden Scale Sword dropped to the ground, landing at Lin Xin’s feet.

He quickly contained the flames enveloping him, his upper body charred, and the hair on his head burnt away. His chest wound, not yet fully healed, was now unrecognizable.

Thud.

He kneeled to the ground, smoke continuing to rise from his body.

"Sect Master!!" Liu Yang, leading the Radiant Sun Sect’s people, hurried towards him.

"I’m, I’m alright..."

Lin Xin forced himself to dismiss Yin Mantuo, using the sword to support himself as he stood up.

"Clean up this place, retreat!"

He had not expected that even using his final trump card, stacking Mundane Fire Formations, wouldn’t be enough to kill the enemy in one blow.

The gap in cultivation was simply too great, too much for his Formation Path abilities to compensate for. The Formation Path techniques he had desperately executed in the end had only managed to counteract one attack of the opponent’s Magic Artifact.

Had the evolved Yin Mantuo not successfully launched that sneak attack, with that liquid even breaking through the Magic Artifact’s Defensive Spiritual Light, it would be hard to say whether he or Yuan Shihong would have survived the day.

Liu Yang and a few from the Radiant Sun Sect quickly helped Lin Xin up, gathered Yuan Shihong’s remains, and swiftly left the valley.

Lin Xin now suffered severe burns all over his body. By using himself as a Magic Artifact and inscribing the Mundane Fire Formation, he had indeed amplified the flames to create a transformative reaction, but before he could kill the enemy, he had almost killed himself. (To be continued. If you enjoy this work, please vote at Qidian (qidian.com), your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users, please visit m.qidian.com to read.)