170: Chapter 170 Skull Tide

The golden broken sword fell into the skeleton tide. The moment it landed, instead of acting as bait, it was like a drop of cold water hitting a sizzling wok—it instantly triggered an even more violent "explosion"!

"Hum—!"

Where the broken sword landed, golden light surged violently. It was no longer the gentle ripples from before, nor the mild, water-like Spiritual Qi; it was like a dying ancient Vicious Beast erupting with its final, most piercing brilliance—a radiance so intense it seemed as if it would scorch through the entire blood-red plain!

A Sword Intent, ten times more violent than before, mixed with a monstrous resentment capable of drowning the heavens and earth, erupted in a ring-shaped shockwave, spreading fiercely in all directions!

Boom—!

The dozen or so skeletons closest to it didn't even have time to shriek before their bones instantly turned to fly ash under this impact, their dark blue Soul fires completely annihilated without leaving a trace.

But the skeletons further away—

were completely driven into a frenzy by this pure "zhuxian sword" aura.

Their Soul fires rapidly shifted from dark blue to blood-red, a red so thick it seemed like blood, pulsing like flames, as if it would burn their own bones to nothing.

Their bones emitted a "creak-creak" sound of unbearable strain from the excessive burning of the Soul fire, as if they were about to shatter at any moment, yet not a single skeleton stopped.

Some even—

began to bite and devour the bones of their companions.

They lunged at their own kind, bone blades piercing through gaps, forcibly tearing bones from their bodies, stuffing them into their jaws, and chewing with a crunching sound.

With every companion devoured, their aura grew stronger, the blood-red Soul fire in their eye sockets burned brighter, and faint blood-colored patterns began to appear on their bones—a sign of overflowing power, a testament to madness pushed to its limit.

The entire skeleton army, instead of fighting over the broken sword on the ground, seemed driven by some supreme command. They turned in unison, rushing toward the fleeing Xuanyuan Zhanxian and his companions with even greater madness and shared hatred!

Their numbers were several times greater than before. Dense, packed bones rolled, collided, and piled up on the ground, emitting a dull "rumbling" sound, like an approaching earthquake of death—

Even the earth trembled.

Even the air groaned.

"What is going on?!"

Chu Zhanxiao shattered a skeleton lunging from the side with a punch. Bone fragments splattered his face, mixed with dark red dust, but he couldn't spare the time to wipe it off. He only felt the death aura surging like a tsunami behind him growing closer and heavier—

It pressed down on him until he could barely breathe.

His face was pale as paper, and his voice changed pitch:

"We already threw the broken sword away, why are they chasing us even tighter?! What exactly do these skeletons want?!"

Jian Tanghuang turned her head and cast a quick glance at the scene behind them.

Just one look, and her heart sank to the bottom.

The blood-red Soul fires connected, like a sea of burning blood, surging and boiling beneath the dim sky.

The skeletons advanced by treading on the corpses of their companions, devouring each other to grow stronger. A few skeletons even had faint sprouts of flesh growing on their bones—a layer of translucent flesh, thin as a cicada's wing, covering the white bones, trembling slightly in the wind, eerily nauseating.

Their auras were as strong as a Foundation Establishment Late Stage Cultivator.

And it was still climbing.

Her heart sank. She instantly understood the key, her voice carrying a hint of undisguisable despair:

"It's the aura!"

Her speech was extremely fast, as if afraid she wouldn't have time to finish.

"When Senior Brother held the broken sword just now, he channeled his own Spiritual Qi—his spiritual power and even his Divine Soul aura have briefly merged with the zhuxian sword fragment!"

She turned her head abruptly, looking at Xuanyuan Zhanxian's back, her eyes full of anxiety and fear.

"These skeletons are driven by eternal resentment. They have remembered Senior Brother's aura... In their eyes, Senior Brother himself is an extension of the zhuxian sword's aura, a target that deserves to be destroyed even more than the fragment!"

Xuanyuan Zhanxian did not stop his pace.

His speed remained astonishingly fast, his robes fluttering in the gale. But his eyes became incomparably sharp, like tempered blades.

He abruptly let go of Jian Tanghuang's wrist and said in a deep voice:

"Separate!"

His voice was not loud, but it carried unquestionable determination.

"They are targeting me primarily. You go east, I will draw them away!"

"No!"

Two voices erupted almost simultaneously.

Jian Tanghuang's sharp cry and Chu Zhanxiao's deep shout cracked like thunder. Spiritual power exploded from both of them, staring fixedly at Xuanyuan Zhanxian, anxiety and anger overflowing in their eyes.

Splitting up in this Eternal Graveyard of bone seas—

This was no different from personally pushing Xuanyuan Zhanxian into a dead end.

Facing the frantic hunt of tens of thousands of skeletons alone, facing that sea of blood formed by red Soul fires—

It was certain death!

"Stop talking nonsense! I am your Senior Brother, listen to me!"

Xuanyuan Zhanxian's voice carried unquestionable determination. Because of his rapid breathing, a metallic, fishy taste welled up in his throat—a sign that his spiritual power was circulating too fast and his Meridians were damaged, but he didn't care at all.

He turned abruptly, his arms exerting force, and majestic Spiritual Qi surged out like a tide, irresistibly pushing the two towards a relatively safe breakout direction.

This push used all his strength.

This push left no room for hesitation.

And he himself—

turned back like an arrow released from a bow!

The Golden Core within his body spun at an unprecedented speed, and the majestic Spiritual Qi poured out from his Meridians without reservation, like a bursting dam, like an erupting volcano!

The boiling Spiritual Qi fluctuations were like ten thousand beacon fires suddenly ignited in the pitch-black night, so intense they almost scorched the air, instantly nailing the greedy and hollow gazes of all the skeletons firmly onto him.

"Roar—!"

A deafening roar tore through the dead silence.

The roar was so loud that the entire blood-red plain trembled, so loud that the dark red clouds in the sky were shaken apart, so loud that the Prodigies fighting in the distance had to cover their ears, their faces turning deathly pale.

The pale bone tide that had been rushing toward Jian Tanghuang and the other one seemed to be forcibly diverted by an invisible giant hand, turning in unison.

The bone-white claws refracted a chilling light in the dimness, like a surging white ocean, rushing and sweeping toward that solitary figure.

The dense white bones covered the sky and the sun, as if they wanted to completely swallow this world.

A suffocating sense of despair gripped every inch of space.

Jian Tanghuang stumbled and steadied herself.

Her fingernails had long since dug deep into her palms, fresh blood dripping silently along her fingertips onto the blood-stained land, indistinguishable whether it was her blood or the blood that had already soaked into the land.

She looked at Xuanyuan Zhanxian's determined back—

Watching that solitary figure being quickly swallowed and submerged by the surging bone tide.

Her eyes instantly turned red.

But she didn't cry.

She just bit her lower lip hard until it bled, until her teeth ached. Then, she pulled up Chu Zhanxiao, who was also staring with bloodshot eyes—

And accelerated to break out without looking back.

They must survive.

They must find a turning point.

This was the best reward for that sacrifice.

The golden broken sword, forgotten by everyone in the pile of remains, remained silent.

The surrounding skeletons surged crazily, but as if fearing some invisible pressure, they always bypassed the place where it lay, forming an eerie vacuum zone.

On the sword body, the originally brilliant golden light was slowly retracting, gradually dimming, like a candle in the wind, about to be extinguished at any moment.

But deep inside that sword body—

A trace of ancient consciousness that had slept for eternity was stimulated by Xuanyuan Zhanxian's desperate explosion of Spiritual Qi—

And quietly awakened.

This consciousness was as deep as the abyss of the Universe, as vast as the endless starry sky.

It carried the domineering and coldness of looking down on all things, the indifference and arrogance of overlooking the common people, like an ancient Vicious Beast that had hibernated for billions of epochs—

At this moment, it slowly opened a slit of its eye.

The cold "gaze" penetrated the sword body, swept across this dead graveyard, crossed thousands of skeletons, and precisely locked onto that figure who was fleeing for his life and carrying a trace of its Origin aura.

The next instant!

The dim broken sword suddenly erupted with golden light that pierced through the gloom!

This golden light was so bright that the entire blood-red plain was dyed gold, so bright that the skeletons fighting in the distance subconsciously stopped their movements and turned their heads in unison to look in this direction.

The golden broken sword turned into a golden lightning bolt tearing through the sky, ignoring all obstacles, and at a speed beyond four dimensions—

It broke through the air towards Xuanyuan Zhanxian!

At this moment, Xuanyuan Zhanxian clearly felt the death aura surging like an ice tide behind him.

The bone-white claws were already close at hand.

The cold, sinister wind scraped the back of his neck, causing a shiver.

He could even smell the decaying aura emanating from those skeletons—that was the taste of death that had slept for a million years, so thick it was nauseating.

The shadow of death almost froze his Soul.

His eyes turned sharp.

The Spiritual Qi in his body surged and roared with unprecedented violence, and his Meridians felt a piercing pain as if they were about to tear apart from the unbearable strain—that kind of pain was like someone stirring inside him with a red-hot iron rod, but it instead ignited the ruthlessness in his bones.

His hands changed seals rapidly, and as his ten fingers flew, afterimages multiplied.

A vast aura originating from the ancient prehistoric times suddenly permeated his surroundings!

This aura was ancient, vast, and desolate, as if it had crossed billions of years of time and descended here from the ancient era.

It was as if a Kunpeng phantom was spreading its wings behind him—the phantom was so huge it covered the sky and the sun, its wings spread, soaring up to the Nine Heavens, its vast pressure sweeping in all directions!

"Kunpeng Treasure Technique, Wings Spreading to the Nine Heavens!"

Before the shout fell, his figure suddenly blurred.

The surrounding space was like a water surface with stones thrown into it, twisting and rippling violently! His figure became fainter and more blurred in the water-like space—

In an instant, only a slowly dissipating light green afterimage remained in place.

And his true body had already appeared hundreds of feet away like a ghost!

The speed was so fast it was almost a teleportation!

Only a weak vortex of airflow remained in place, rotating, grinding the skeletons rushing in the front into bone fragments, their movements stiff, even their Soul fires were sucked away by the vortex and extinguished silently.

The skeleton group that lost its target fell into a brief chaos.

They turned their heads blankly, the Soul fires in their eye sockets jumping crazily, like countless swaying ghost eyes, reflecting this land of despair—they were searching, searching, searching frantically for that figure that had suddenly disappeared.

Outside the Martial Arts Arena.

A girl in a green dress stood up abruptly, her jade hands clutching her skirt, her knuckles turning pale. Her beautiful eyes were full of shock and disbelief, her red lips slightly parted, but she couldn't speak for a long time.

She saw it clearly.

That was by no means an ordinary escape technique, not flying, not galloping—but in the line between life and death, merging into the Void Realm, transcending the logic of speed!

"Oh my god! What kind of movement technique is this?!"

Her voice was trembling.

The woman in white beside her spoke slowly, her eyes as cold as the moon, but her tone carried a hint of undisguisable gravity.

"It is not an ordinary escape technique."

She paused, her gaze locked firmly on the light green afterimage in the mirror.

"This kind of ancient and desolate aura... it seems to be some kind of ancient relic treasure technique that has long been extinct."

She turned her head slightly, looked at the girl in the green dress, and a complex look flashed in her eyes.

"It seems we have all underestimated the foundation of the Southern Region's hidden Legacy."

Inside the Eternal Graveyard.

Xuanyuan Zhanxian, who had just steadied his figure and whose aura had not yet settled—

His heart suddenly palpitated!

That was a warning from the depths of his Soul, an instinct refined only after countless life-and-death battles. His hair stood on end, his pupils contracted sharply—

Whoosh—!

A subtle but extremely sharp sound of breaking through the air ignored all noise, ignored the roaring of the wind, ignored the roaring of the skeletons—

It pierced straight into his Divine Soul!

He didn't even think about it, his body instinctively lunged forward, Spiritual Qi instantly protected his body, forming a thick barrier on his skin.

However.

When he looked back—

His pupils contracted to the size of needle points.

A golden stream of light, as if piercing the boundaries of time and space, was shooting towards him at a speed beyond his understanding!

This golden light was too fast.

So fast that his Divine Sense couldn't catch it, so fast that his body couldn't react.

Faster than his Kunpeng extreme speed—

A fraction faster!

It was that zhuxian sword fragment!

It had actually chased him on its own!