172: Lord Shen, I know I was wrong...!

“Shut up!” Li Yuan trembled with rage, gritting his teeth as he cursed, “You beast! I should have let Wang Cuihua strike you down with her sword back then!”

Back then, before Jiang Yang entered the Void Realm, he nearly died at Wang Cuihua's hands, and it was Li Yuan who risked his life to save him.

The next second!

Jiang Yang grabbed Li Yuan by the neck. The feeling of suffocation turned his face purple, but his eyes still burned with fury.

“Heh, Wang Cuihua?”

“I know you just tried to get the people outside to inform the Heavenly Sword Sect. Guess why I noticed but didn't stop you?”

“Hahaha, that's because Lord Shen has already gone to the Heavenly Sword Sect, and it's probably been completely razed!” Jiang Yang laughed uproariously toward the sky.

Li Yuan's eyes dimmed, his heart utterly dead.

Similarly, the Disciples of Xuan Guang Cave were filled with despair, only able to pray to the heavens for a powerful being to descend.

“Alright, it's time to wrap things up.” Jiang Yang swept his Divine Thought across the entire Xuan Guang Cave and said softly.

The next second!

Jiang Yang suddenly tensed up. A terrifying sword prestige, beyond anything he could imagine, suddenly appeared. He struggled to raise his head and look.

He saw a thousand-zhang blue divine sword descending from the sky, instantly piercing through the Great Array that Jiang Yang had painstakingly arranged over many years. Sword Intent swept across thirty thousand miles. Wherever it passed, the Chaos Divine Flame mercilessly incinerated all Demon Flowers, and the Disciples of Xuan Guang Cave who had turned into demons were all shredded by the Sword Qi.

Before the sword even arrived, hundreds of Demon Flowers were ground into dust.

“This is!!” Jiang Yang stared at the sky in horror, completely stunned.

In an instant, the Sword Qi pressed down.

Jiang Yang, along with the nine Demon Infants behind him, was pressed flat onto the ground, even though the sword was still thousands of meters away from Xuan Guang Cave!

“What powerful Sword Intent!”

“Who is wielding that sword!”

“When did Great Xia get such a terrifying Sword Cultivator!”

Jiang Yang's heart was filled with disbelief besides terror; he couldn't wrap his head around it.

However, atop the thousand-zhang divine sword, a White-robed Figure suddenly appeared, black hair flowing, expression indifferent.

Upon seeing the person's appearance, Jiang Yang's pupils constricted sharply.

Shen Nian!

How is this possible!

The Chief Disciple of the Ninth Mountain?

How could he be this strong!

However, his thought process stopped there. The sword had fallen, and the entire area where Xuan Guang Cave was located was deeply crushed. The residual power spread tens of thousands of miles, shocking the entire Great Xia.

On this day, Xuan Guang Cave, which had stood at the peak of Great Xia for thousands of years, was wiped out by a single sword strike from a White-robed Figure.

News soon spread.

“A sword descended from the heavens, leveling Xuan Guang Cave. No demons survived, leaving ten thousand miles of Void...”

The surviving Disciples of Xuan Guang Cave bowed down to the figure in the sky, seemingly trying to engrave the image deeply into their memories. They didn't know how strong an Immortal was since they began cultivating, but perhaps it was exactly like this white-robed young man before them.

In the sky.

Shen Nian looked down at the surviving figures. If his Divine Thought hadn't arrived first and noticed that there were still some Human Race individuals with spirit left in Xuan Guang Cave, absolutely no one would have survived his sword strike.

After glancing down a few times, Shen Nian turned and took a step. The canglan divine sword instantly transformed into nine hundred and ninety-nine swords that chased after his receding figure. This scene left everyone in Great Xia dumbfounded.

However, Shen Nian paid no attention to this, opening his System interface to check the upcoming changes in his fate.

[Fate: Long life of a hundred years, extended life by a hundred years.]

“Solving a life-and-death crisis does increase longevity every time. In that case, achieving eternal life isn't entirely impossible...” Shen Nian thought to himself while looking at the fate column, a hint of joy in his eyes.

At least temporarily free from life-threatening crises, he felt much more secure, even though it seemed he had been bulldozing his way through everything.

Immediately after.

Ding.

[Important Life Event: The Host, with absolute strength, exterminated the Royal Clan Azure Dragon Xuan Ye and Xuan Ling, and then destroyed Xuan Guang Cave, causing the Heavenly Demon Realm's Ten-Thousand-Year Great Plan to fail. Your name has been sent to Wu Yue Mountain, the Holy Land of the Heavenly Demon Realm. In particular, the news that your Junior Sister Xia Youyue re-condensed her supreme bone enraged the Demon Emperor of Wu Yue Mountain. However, upon learning your identity, they understood they could not act rashly. Three months later, the Heavenly Demon Realm sets up a trap in the Heavenly Abyss, intending to lure you out and have a super Prodigy of the Royal Clan kill you. Facing this super Prodigy of the Azure Black Dragon Clan, you engage in a life-and-death battle, but you are ultimately only at the Void Return First Layer, while the opponent is already at the Sixth Layer. You are defeated. Even with a Shen Family Dao Integration Expert intervening, they fail to save you. You are banished to the Heavenly Abyss, where you turn into a handful of yellow earth after a hundred years...]

“...” Shen Nian was speechless. So this is what you meant by a long life of a hundred years???

A hundred years floating in the Void Realm?

I'm truly screwed!

Forget it!

It's only the Sixth Layer. He has a lot of preaching value now. After returning, he will acquire some Divine Items and find a way to forge the Second Layer first.

While pondering, his figure had already returned to the Heavenly Sword Sect, standing on the training ground.

The time from his departure to his return was only three breaths—the blink of an eye.

However, everyone simultaneously looked into the distance, where the astonishing roar had just erupted. The crowd at Heavenly Sword Sect was filled with confusion.

Could Xuan Guang Cave really have been destroyed just like that?

But no one dared to ask.

“Senior Brother, did you just...?” Xia Youyue couldn't help but ask, driven by curiosity.

Shen Nian nodded very calmly.

Upon receiving confirmation from Shen Nian, everyone gasped sharply.

“Hiss...”

“My god, Xuan Guang Cave was wiped out!”

“In the blink of an eye, the Xuan Guang Cave with thousands of people is gone?”

“Too terrifying! Lord Shen is too terrifying!”

“But isn't Lord Shen a bit too ruthless, wiping out such a massive Sect...”

Just at this moment.

“Sect Master, Sect Master, something terrible has happened!”

“Jiang Yang, the Cave Master of Xuan Guang Cave, has been colluding with the Yao Race for many years, and now he has set up a Great Array to refine the Disciples of Xuan Guang Cave, hoping to use this to break through to the Void Return Second Layer...”

Wang Cuihua, who was still dazed, immediately snapped back to reality. After seeing that the person reporting the news was the spy she had planted in Xuan Guang Cave, she said, “The Yao Race in Xuan Guang Cave has been executed. Lord Shen destroyed them with a single sword strike. Everything is fine now...”

“Ah?” The man looked bewildered, still showing signs of terror on his face; the scene just now had truly scared him.

Yet now you're saying everything is fine?

I just arrived!

What the heck!

The man then looked around, seeing the shocked expressions of countless people, yet not a single one was panicked, causing him to freeze up as well.

“My god, so Xuan Guang Cave was colluding with the Yao Race! No wonder Lord Shen had to destroy it!”

On the training ground, before Shen Nian could speak, he heard someone kneel down with a thud. Seeing the person's face, a hint of surprise appeared in Shen Nian's eyes.

“Shen Nian... no!”

“Lord Shen, I know I was wrong...!”

“Please, please let me go! I truly know I was wrong! I shouldn't have humiliated you, I'm simply unworthy to be compared with you...” Leng Lingshuang's face was pale and panicked. Only in the face of death did she realize how afraid she was to die.

Because she clearly understood that once she died, nothing would remain!

She had only one thought in her mind now: beg for mercy!

She had been utterly terrified by Shen Nian. He destroyed Xuan Guang Cave without even blinking; would he hesitate to kill her?

At this moment, she had even forgotten her pride.

Before such a figure, what pride was there?

Zhao Qi, standing not far away, stared blankly at her Disciple, then hurriedly crawled toward Shen Nian, tears streaming down her face.

“Lord Shen, please spare my Disciple and me, considering our years as fellow Sect members...”