400: Chapter 394 A Skeleton-like Body

Right then.

At the edge of the horizon, a burst of tangible blood-red sonic waves suddenly erupted from that massive Blood-Colored Bone Ship!

"Buzz—!"

Wherever the sound waves passed, the giant waves on the sea were instantly leveled. Space itself, like a shattered mirror, revealed large patches of visible black cracks.

Old Ancestor Xue Ming's withered, skeleton-like body slowly floated up from his throne, suspending himself in mid-air.

He was enveloped from head to toe in extremely thick, dark-red plasma, resembling a blood-colored demon god crawling out from the Nine Serene Hells.

"Chen Zhiwen—!"

Old Ancestor Xue Ming's roar, mixed with terrifying Nascent Soul Divine Sense, pierced toward Heavenly Sword City like ten thousand steel needles.

"You shrinking turtle who only knows how to hide in your shell! Two hundred years ago, you relied on the Ten Thousand Swords Sect's protective Formation to plot against me and sever my arm!

Today, I want to see what methods you have left to protect yourself in this backwater wilderness!"

Old Ancestor Xue Ming fiercely waved his intact left arm, pointing down at Li Shuang, who was in the midst of a killing frenzy, the ghost fires in his eyes flickering violently.

"You allow your subordinate to Cultivate Demonic Techniques and devour my vanguard camp! You have gone too far!

Even if I have to risk consuming a hundred years of my Lifespan today, I will level your Heavenly Sword City! I will extract your soul and refine your spirit, lighting you as a sky lantern for a thousand years!"

Faced with this earth-shaking cursing.

The expression on Chen Zhiwen's face did not change in the slightest. He slowly took a step forward, standing at the very edge of the city wall.

The wild wind whipped his moon-white robes, making his figure look like a peerless immortal sword about to be unsheathed—aloof and cold.

He did not use any amplification Spells, but simply opened his mouth and spoke quite calmly.

"Old dog."

Just those two words.

Yet they were like an invisible blade, cutting directly through the blood-red storm in the sky and reaching Old Ancestor Xue Ming's ears with perfect clarity.

"Two hundred years ago at Luoxia Valley, you were like a stray dog, burning your lifeblood essence,

using that lowliest 'Blood Escape Technique' to escape from my sword with your dog's life."

Chen Zhiwen's voice was flat without a single ripple, as if he were stating an extremely ridiculous joke.

"I thought that after you fled to this Southern Wilderness, you would tuck your tail and behave. I didn't expect that after two hundred years, not only has your cultivation not advanced an inch,

but you have regressed as you aged.

You've even stooped to absorbing the lifeblood of Mortals to maintain your pitiful Realm."

"You..." Old Ancestor Xue Ming's most painful scar had been touched; he trembled with rage, his left hand shaking violently as he pointed at Chen Zhiwen. "You brat! If you hadn't relied on superior numbers back then, how could I have..."

"Shut up."

Chen Zhiwen interrupted Old Ancestor Xue Ming's defense with extreme dominance.

He slightly raised his chin, and in his deep eyes, a coldness and superiority that felt utterly foreign to Old Ancestor Xue Ming emanated.

"The weak do not even have the right to defend themselves."

"You keep saying I'm hiding in a turtle shell. Fine, today I shall grant your wish."

Chen Zhiwen slowly raised his right hand.

His long, fair fingers slowly but with absolute determination gripped the hilt of the "Autumn Water" longsword.

"Zheng—!"

A crisp sword cry rang out above Heavenly Sword City.

The sound wasn't loud, yet it seemed to possess a power that overwhelmed everything. The wildly howling winds and roaring thunder,

even the tooth-aching sound of bones shattering below, fell into an eerie silence at this single sword cry!

All sound had been forcibly stripped away by this prelude to the sword being unsheathed!

"Old dog, watch closely."

Chen Zhiwen's wrist exerted a slight force.

"Cang-lang—"

One inch!

The Autumn Water sword was drawn by one inch!

In the instant that short inch of blade was exposed to the air.

An extremely pure, sharp, and domineering ice-blue Sword Intent erupted like a blue sun rising in the polar night!

"Boom—!"

The dark-red blood mist within a range of several hundred feet, upon contact with this blue Sword Intent, was like lingering snow meeting boiling water.

Without even a chance to struggle, it was directly frozen, shattered, and completely reduced to nothingness!

The torrential rain in the sky, the moment it fell above Chen Zhiwen's head, all condensed into tiny ice-blue swords. Tens of thousands of ice swords hung inverted in mid-air, their tips pointing directly at the distant Blood-Colored Bone Ship!

"This... this Sword Intent..."

Standing atop the bone ship, Old Ancestor Xue Ming's arrogant and frenzied expression instantly turned deathly pale the moment he saw that inch of sword light!

In his deeply sunken eye sockets, the green ghost fires flickered violently, revealing an undisguisable extreme horror!

"Late Nascent Soul Stage?! No... that's impossible! Two hundred years ago you had only just broken through to Golden Core, how could you have cultivated to the Late Nascent Soul Stage in this Qi-deprived Southern Wilderness?!

And... and your Sword Intent... is actually purer than those old monsters of the Ten Thousand Swords Sect back then?!"

Old Ancestor Xue Ming's voice changed pitch, sounding like a drake being strangled by the neck.

He finally understood why Chen Zhiwen remained so undaunted in the face of his "Ten Thousand Blood Return to Ancestry Array."

This wasn't arrogance.

This was absolute crushing power!

"Old Ancestor! Something is wrong! His cultivation far exceeds our intelligence reports!"

The Ghost Bone elder kneeling to the side was even more frightened out of his wits. He kowtowed desperately, shouting in a shrill voice,

"Retreat, Old Ancestor! While there's life, there's hope! This Heavenly Sword City is a death trap!"

"Retreat?"

Old Ancestor Xue Ming suddenly turned his head and slapped the Ghost Bone elder away. His skeleton-like face was twisted with frantic despair and tyranny.

"Retreat to where?! I have operated in the Southern Wilderness for two hundred years, and all my foundation is on this bone ship!

If I retreat today, I will immediately suffer Qi Deviation, my Dao Heart will collapse, and I will die!"

"I don't believe it! My 'Ten Thousand Blood Return to Ancestry Array' has condensed the vengeful blood of thirty thousand Mortals and Cultivators!

Even if he is in the Late Nascent Soul Stage, he cannot possibly take this blow easily!"

Old Ancestor Xue Ming was like a gambler who had lost everything and was pushing all his chips onto the table.

He suddenly bit the tip of his tongue and sprayed out a mouthful of thick lifeblood essence, splashing it directly onto the blood-red Formation Plate beneath his feet!

"With my blood! Sacrifice the souls of ten thousand ghosts! Ten Thousand Blood Return to Origin—Destroy!"

"Rumble—!"

The entire sky completely collapsed at this moment.

The dark-red blood clouds covering hundreds of miles converged frantically toward the center like the Heavenly River pouring downward.

Ultimately, they transformed into a terrifying blood-red giant palm that blotted out the sun, thousands of feet in size!

Upon the giant palm, countless faces wailing in pain appeared densely. That aura of extreme malice, coldness, and corrosion, even from dozens of miles away,

caused over a million Mortals inside Heavenly Sword City to instantly collapse to the ground, bleeding from their seven orifices!

"Crush him! Crush him to death!" Old Ancestor Xue Ming roared manically, his hands pressing down into the air.

The massive blood-red palm, carrying the power to destroy heaven and earth, slowly yet unstoppably descended toward Heavenly Sword City.

Before the giant palm even touched the Formation's light barrier, the sea surface outside Heavenly Sword City could no longer withstand the terrifying pressure,

instantly sinking dozens of feet deep! Revealing a large area of pitch-black seabed silt!

Inside the buffer zone.

Li Shuang, who had just crushed the throat of a demonic Cultivator, suddenly looked up. In her pure black eyes, a trace of extreme fear flashed for the first time.

"Such pressure... not good!"

She didn't even care about consuming the surrounding blood qi anymore. Her figure suddenly sank, smashing a large pit into the muddy ground as she buried herself several feet deep into the earth.

She frantically circulated all the Devilish Qi in her body, forming layer upon layer of black defensive shields, praying that she could survive this world-destroying strike.

Meanwhile, Wang Er and Uncle Li, lying in the pile of corpses, didn't even have time to react. They were directly pressed by the terrifying pressure until they spat blood,

their bones making overburdened cracking sounds as their eyes rolled back, and they fainted in the mud.

On the city wall.

Chen Zhengchu had been completely pressed to the ground, without even the strength to move a finger. His eyes were filled with despair as he could only stare fixedly at the moon-white back in front of him.

That was his, and the entire Heavenly Sword City's, last hope.

Facing the blood-red giant palm that was enough to crush the entire island into powder.

Chen Zhiwen still stood quietly at the edge of the city wall.

The wild wind blew his robes straight. He slowly raised his head,

looking at the blood-red giant palm that was getting closer and closer, blotting out all light.

His gaze was as calm as a pool of stagnant water. No ripples, no fear, not even a trace of emotional fluctuation.

"The vengeful blood of thirty thousand people? The spectacle is decent."

Chen Zhiwen commented quite flatly.

"Unfortunately, it is disorganized and cannot withstand a single blow."

The moment his words fell.

Chen Zhiwen's right hand, which was gripping the hilt, finally pulled upward fiercely!

"Cang-lang—!"

The sword was unsheathed!

In that instant, the world lost all color.

There was no more dark-red blood light, no more pitch-black dark clouds.

There was only an extremely brilliant, piercing, and pure ice-blue sword light,

like a reversed galaxy, soaring into the sky from Chen Zhiwen's hand!

"One sword—"

Chen Zhiwen's voice echoed in the vast world.

"To Sunder the Vast Sea."

"Chih—!"

There was no earth-shaking explosion, no deafening roar.

That extremely slender ice-blue sword light, only about a zhang wide, when it contacted the blood-red giant palm thousands of feet in size,

was like an extremely sharp, red-hot knife slicing into a piece of soft butter.

With an incredible momentum, the sword light pierced into the center of the blood-red giant palm, and then passed through the entire hand without any hindrance, shooting straight into the high heavens!