563: Chapter 563 Sword Slashes Across All Directions, Unrivaled

As soon as these words were spoken, silence fell all around.

Fan Yuan's face sank inch by inch.

"Kneel."

If he knelt, the backbone of Fuyao Tower would effectively be broken in public.

But if he didn't kneel...

His peripheral vision swept over Zhou Heng, who was being held down on the ground.

The very instant those two words drilled into his ears,

Zhou Heng suddenly raised his head.

"No!"

A hoarse scream suddenly exploded.

He struggled, his eyes turning bloodshot in an instant.

"Master, you cannot kneel!"

But this scream, falling upon this deathly silent battlefield, was laughably faint.

No one paid him any mind.

Zhou Heng was filled with guilt.

"It's my fault."

"If I hadn't insisted on coming to this battlefield, how would Master have fallen into this predicament..."

Thinking of this, Zhou Heng could no longer hold back; he struggled desperately, wanting to rush over.

But before he could even rise,

With a crisp "slap,"

Ji Changfeng casually slapped him, sending him flying sideways, crashing heavily to the ground, unable to get up for a long time.

"A useless stray dog dares to bark?"

"Whether he kneels or not, is it for you to decide?"

As he spoke, Ji Changfeng seemed to recall something, the corners of his lips curling up.

He signaled with his eyes.

A Cultivator beside him understood, stepped forward, grabbed Zhou Heng, and placed a cold blade against his neck.

The blade reflected the firelight, pressing against his skin, seeping out a thread of chill.

Ji Changfeng then looked slowly toward Fan Yuan, a mocking smile on his face.

"Elder Fan, your disciple's neck is still quite tender."

"Do you want to kneel and beg for some dignity, or would you rather watch his head hit the ground first?"

Zhou Heng's mouth spilled blood, his brain buzzing.

In this moment of daze, a voice fell into his ears.

It was Fan Yuan's voice.

"Zhou Heng, listen to me well."

He was being held, yet he still tried his best to turn his head to look at the youth sprawled on the ground.

His tone was calmer than ever before.

"Everything here has nothing to do with you."

"Whether you came or not, this battle would have been fought all the same."

"Tonight's disaster, even more so, is not something you could have stopped."

"So—"

"I don't blame you."

He knew Zhou Heng too well.

This kid looked rough and reckless, but beneath that carefree exterior, he harbored an exceptionally sensitive heart.

Zhou Heng lifted his head in a daze.

Through tear-blurred eyes, he only saw Master's knees.

Slowly, they began to bend.

He was going to kneel.

His mind went blank with a boom.

At this very moment.

As if guided by a ghost, a face emerged in Zhou Heng's mind.

It was Qin Wangchuan.

And that day, the instructions given under the jujube tree upon parting—

"After you finish eating, don't throw away the pit; keep it with you."

"At a critical moment, it can keep you safe."

At the time, he had only taken it as a joke.

But that voice now rang in his ears like a life-saving straw.

Like fate.

"If you encounter a strong enemy—"

"Just throw it out."

Almost out of instinct, Zhou Heng reached into his robes with trembling hands and pulled out the jujube pit, which had long been rubbed smooth and warm.

Using all his strength, he hurled it fiercely toward He Ge.

He Ge didn't even lift his eyelids; he reached out and caught the "hidden weapon" firmly in his palm.

He looked closely.

He laughed.

"Still just a child after all."

"Using such a thing as a hidden weapon."

He sneered, his fingertips tightening, preparing to crush the jujube pit into dust.

However.

His knuckles turned white from the pressure.

The small jujube pit, however, remained unmoved.

The smile on He Ge's face froze bit by bit.

It was also at this moment that his palm burned.

The jujube pit actually began to get scalding hot, so hot that he jerked his hand away.

The pit fell to the ground.

The moment it touched the ground—

Boom!!

The ground beneath their feet suddenly shook violently.

Immediately after.

In the eyes of everyone, filled with terror,

An ancient tree towering into the sky rose from the ground, spreading its branches and leaves to pierce the clouds!

This sudden scene disrupted everyone's calculations.

He Ge's expression changed drastically; he didn't understand what this giant tree, rising from flat ground, was all about.

Fan Yuan's heart was also shaken.

But he reacted extremely quickly, his True Qi suddenly surging!

The few Cultivators holding him were caught off guard and were forcibly shaken off.

Fan Yuan shifted his body, darted to Zhou Heng's side, and shielded him behind his back.

"Is this the Master's doing?" he asked in a low, urgent voice. "Why didn't you bring it out sooner!"

"I... I don't know."

Zhou Heng looked bewildered.

"It's fine, it's not too late now." Fan Yuan steadied himself. "What use does this thing have?"

"I... I don't know either..."

Zhou Heng was completely dazed and couldn't figure out what was happening at all.

Fan Yuan: "..."

On the other side, He Ge also noticed their unusual behavior, and alarm bells rang in his heart.

"Don't just stand there, press the attack!"

He shouted sharply, fearing that some real accident might occur.

But the accident had already arrived.

The ancient tree was still growing wildly.

It grew taller and thicker, its gnarled roots churning out from the ground, and wherever they passed, the earth cracked inch by inch.

Under such a force, bordering on a natural disaster, no one dared to act rashly anymore.

No one could guarantee that they wouldn't fall into the torn fissures in the ground in the next moment.

In the blink of an eye, the ancient tree had grown into a giant tree that blotted out the sky.

Its branches and leaves were like a canopy, shrouding the entire area behind Fuyao Tower in its shadow.

Then.

Everything uncannily returned to silence.

"...Is it over?"

He Ge stared fixedly at the giant tree, but the string in his heart dared not loosen.

Fuyao Tower hid a Celestial Being—

He had heard this rumor long ago.

Precisely because of this, the sneak attack tonight consisted entirely of Ninth-Stage experts, so that even if they truly ran into that Celestial Being, they would have the power to fight.

But this giant tree before him...

Other than being intimidating, it seemed to have no other activity.

The wariness in He Ge's eyes dissipated by more than half.

But he didn't relax entirely.

"Stay away from that tree, be wary of tricks."

After giving the order, he turned his gaze to Fan Yuan with a mocking smile.

"It seems... that's all there is to it, Elder Fan."

"If you have any other hidden trump cards, feel free to use them—"

Before he finished speaking, the smile on his face had not yet dissipated.

A very faint sound rang out in the air.

It sounded like a sword hum.

The crowd didn't even see what had happened.

They only saw He Ge's body explode without warning.

Blood mist drifted away.

Who could have imagined?

He Ge, the youngest Ninth-Stage expert of Xuandu Prefecture, with heaven-sent talent and a limitless future.

Just a moment ago he was still provoking them, and in the blink of an eye, he, along with the unfinished half of his sentence, was wiped out of existence.

Nothing was left behind.

A deathly silence suddenly shrouded the entire scene.

Ji Changfeng, who was closest, was splattered all over by the blood mist.

The confident smile on his face also froze bit by bit, fading into a face full of astonishment.

He actually... hadn't seen how He Ge died.

Driven by instinct, Ji Changfeng subconsciously took a step back—

And it was this step.

Everyone saw his death clearly.

There was no blade light, nor sword shadow.

Ji Changfeng's body, from top to bottom, split into two halves at a speed invisible to the naked eye, and then was twisted into a cloud of blood mist by a mysterious force.

The force, its momentum not yet spent, still had residual power.

Right before everyone's eyes, it plowed a straight trench into the ground.

Now everyone suddenly realized.

That was a sword mark.

What killed them was a slash!

But from beginning to end, no one could see where that slash had come from.

It wasn't over yet!

The invisible slashes, one after another, kept falling from the sky.

There was no sound, no warning.

Only the fleeting, barely perceptible sword light.

The Cultivators who came to sneak attack, one after another, turned into blood mist under that sword light, dissipating into the night.

Some were full of suspicion, not understanding even in death how they had died.

Some were so terrified that their livers and gallbladders were split, and they turned to flee.

But whether suspicious or fleeing,

Without exception.

None could escape that sword light, none could escape death.

Fan Yuan stared blankly at this scene.

He only felt a chill shoot straight from his tailbone to his scalp, his scalp tingling in waves.