137: Chapter 137 Suppressing with a Single Thought: How Could the Power of the Golden Core Allow a Treacherous Person to Test It?

Lin Chen's gaze slowly swept over his clansmen, over the wounds on their bodies, and finally, it landed on the dead silent sky in the distance, landing on those two figures hung upside down in mid-air by Earth Element chains, resembling air-dried cured meat.

He did not speak immediately, nor did he reveal even a trace of anger.

His face, which had just acquired a touch of otherworldly charm from his Breakthrough, was as calm as a lake frozen for ten thousand years.

Yet, this calmness made Sect Master Tie Kuang and Cave Master Yue Ji feel a bone-chilling cold far more intense than any thunderous rage.

Lin Chen raised his right hand and, across a distance of several hundred zhang, made a phantom grasping motion towards the two figures hanging upside down.

"Creak... creak..."

The bodies of Sect Master Tie Kuang and Cave Master Yue Ji convulsed violently and uncontrollably at almost the same moment.

It was not a muscle spasm, but the sound of shattering coming from the deepest parts of their bodies, from within every inch of their bones, as they were forcibly squeezed and ground!

They wanted to scream, but found that even the strength to open their mouths had been stripped away.

An invisible and overbearing force, like an unseen giant hand, was tightening around all the bones in their bodies inch by inch. The excruciating pain of their bones being on the verge of snapping made their Divine Souls tremble.

But this was merely the beginning.

What terrified them even more was the loss of control over the spiritual power within their bodies.

That vast power seemed to possess a life of its own, rampaging through their Meridians, forcibly extracting and stripping their Golden Core spiritual power—which they had bitterly cultivated for a hundred years—from their Dantian!

"No... no!" A desperate roar finally squeezed out of Sect Master Tie Kuang's throat.

He could clearly "see" his own thick and overbearing Dark Iron spiritual power transforming into streams of gray-black Qi, uncontrollably pouring out from the top of his head.

Cave Master Yue Ji's situation was the same; her pink spiritual power, which possessed illusionary traits, also turned into wisps of light smoke and was forcibly ripped from her body.

The two spiritual powers of different attributes were roughly kneaded and gathered by that invisible giant hand above their heads, eventually condensing into two fist-sized, turbid-looking balls of spiritual power.

These had once been symbols of their strength, the pride of their status as Golden Core powerhouses, but now they had become marks of humiliation hanging above their heads.

Physical torture was bearable, but this sense of powerlessness and fear, watching their own strength being stripped away and kneaded at will like a toy, was like a red-hot branding iron searing their Dao Hearts, causing their mental defenses to collapse instantly.

"Lin... Clan Chief Lin! Spare me! Please, spare me!" Cave Master Yue Ji could no longer care about the dignity of a Cave Master, and she begged with a trembling voice.

At this moment, a roar filled with monstrous rage erupted from the other side.

"You brat! How dare you humiliate me like this!"

Venerable Xueli's face was livid, his eyes blood-red.

He saw clearly that from the moment Lin Chen appeared, he had not taken him seriously at all, instead using Sect Master Tie Kuang and Cave Master Yue Ji, those two soft persimmons, to establish his authority.

To him, this was a greater humiliation than a direct attack!

He forcibly suppressed the stinging pain in his Divine Soul caused by the damage to his life-bound Magical Artifact. With a sudden shake of his hands, a black and red long banner suddenly appeared in his hands, expanding rapidly in the wind.

"Whoosh—"

The banner unfolded, standing three zhang tall, embroidered with countless twisted and struggling ghostly faces. A thick aura of blood and resentment surged into the sky, as if the gates of Hell had been opened.

It was his life-bound Magical Artifact, the "Blood Soul Banner"!

"Die for this seat!"

Venerable Xueli poured all his remaining spiritual power into it frantically. The main Soul on the Blood Soul Banner let out a sharp shriek, and a thick beam of blood-colored light, carrying resentment capable of polluting Divine Souls, crashed down upon Lin Chen's head!

However, Lin Chen remained standing where he was, not even lifting an eyelid.

He merely moved his mind.

In an instant, the world covered by his Golden Core Domain changed color.

The gentle Five Elements Spiritual Qi in the air seemed to have received a command from a monarch, instantly becoming violent and sharp.

"Zheng! Zheng! Zheng! Zheng!"

Countless golden Sword Qi, as fine as cow hair, condensed and emerged from the Void Realm out of thin air. Densely packed, numbering in the thousands, they converged in mid-air into a golden storm of Sword Qi, striking after but arriving first, instantly enveloping the blood-colored beam of light along with the main body of the Blood Soul Banner!

"Chi chi chi..."

Like boiling oil poured onto ice and snow, every golden Sword Qi that struck the blood banner brought up a wisp of black smoke.

That seemingly ferocious and peerless blood-evil resentment, in front of the purest and most yang Geng Metal Sword Qi, was purged and weakened as if by a crushing force.

What shocked Venerable Xueli even more was that every time a Sword Qi struck, he felt the connection of his Divine Soul to the Blood Soul Banner being severed by a fraction!

The feeling was as if someone were using a blunt knife to cut his Soul, one slash at a time.

"Pfft—"

Venerable Xueli could no longer endure it, and another mouthful of black blood spewed out. His entire aura withered once more, and the hand holding the Blood Soul Banner trembled violently.

The backlash from the damage to his Magical Artifact was even more severe than he had imagined!

At the very moment he spewed this mouthful of black blood, Lin Chen moved.

He took a step.

His figure seemed to span the distance of space, without the slightest warning, appearing directly in front of Venerable Xueli, less than three feet away.

Venerable Xueli's pupils suddenly shrank to the size of needle points, and the horror in his heart reached its peak.

Without thinking, he tried to crush the last Teleportation Talisman he had been holding in his palm.

But he discovered with horror that the space around him had, at some unknown point, become as viscous as mercury and as heavy as a mountain.

Never mind teleporting, even the simple action of lifting a finger had become incredibly difficult.

This was Lin Chen's Golden Core Domain; it had completely imprisoned him!

Lin Chen pressed his right index and middle fingers together to form a sword finger. With a movement devoid of any worldly aura, he lightly and casually tapped towards Venerable Xueli's Purple Mansion between his eyebrows.

The fingertip had not yet arrived.

That purely extreme pressure, which seemed to represent the will of Heaven and Earth, had already caused the protective spiritual light around Venerable Xueli, fueled by his life essence blood, to emit an unbearable "crack" sound, shattering inch by inch like glass struck by a heavy hammer!

The shadow of death had never loomed over him so clearly.

He could feel that once that finger landed, his Purple Mansion Divine Soul, along with this Physical Body he had cultivated for three hundred years, would instantly vanish into ashes, not even having a chance at Reincarnation.

Just as Venerable Xueli had completely despaired and closed his eyes to await death, that finger, radiating terrifying pressure, suddenly stopped one inch in front of his forehead.

At the tip of the finger, a wisp of golden light, condensed to the point of being tangible, flickered, stinging the skin of his forehead.

Venerable Xueli stiffly opened his eyes, only to see Lin Chen's pair of emotionless eyes.

The next moment, Lin Chen withdrew his sword finger, but with speed that was fast to the extreme, he backhanded a palm, striking it solidly onto Venerable Xueli's Dantian.

"Bang!"

A muffled sound, like a heavy hammer beating a drum.

Venerable Xueli flew backward like a kite with a broken string, crashing fiercely into the huge warship of the Dark Iron Sect in the distance.

"Boom crack!"

The sturdy protective shield on the outside of the warship did not even last a single breath under this impact, shattering upon contact.

Venerable Xueli's body, its momentum undiminished, smashed a huge human-shaped hole directly into the hard ship's side before rolling onto the deck.

"Pfft-wah!"

What he spewed out was no longer black blood, but a mouthful of essence blood mixed with specks of golden radiance.

Within that essence blood, several pieces of Golden Core fragments that had lost their luster were clearly mixed in!

His aura, at a speed visible to the naked eye, plummeted frantically from the overbearing Golden Core Middle Stage, falling all the way down to Foundation Establishment Great Perfection before barely stabilizing.

One palm, destroying his Dao foundation!

After finishing all this, Lin Chen's gaze finally turned to the two "upside-down cured meats" who were already pale and trembling in silence.

He did not torture them further, but spoke indifferently. His voice was not loud, but it clearly spread across the entire battlefield, entering the ears of everyone present:

"Hand over thirty percent of your respective Sect's resources, offer your Divine Soul imprints, and serve my Lin Clan for a hundred years. This is your only chance to survive."

As his words fell, he made a phantom grab in the direction of Venerable Xueli.

The storage ring worn on Venerable Xueli's finger, which was uncontrolled due to him being unconscious, let out a soft chime, automatically slipped off, turned into a streak of light, and flew precisely into Lin Chen's palm.

Lin Chen's Divine Sense surged into the ring like a tide, and the Divine Soul imprint belonging to Venerable Xueli on the ring could not even offer a trace of resistance before it was forcibly erased and scattered.

The space inside the ring was vast, with mountains of Spirit Stones, Medicinal Pills, Magic Treasures, and Cultivation Technique Jade Slips... The accumulation of a Golden Core Middle Stage Cultivator, who was also an Elder of an Evil Path Sect, for hundreds of years, was far richer than Lin Chen had expected.

He casually slipped the ring onto his own finger, as if it had always been his spoils of war.

Afterward, he turned around, no longer looking at the enemies behind him who were terrified, in awe, or dazed, and walked step by step toward the direction of the Formation core.

The golden Formation light screen parted automatically before him like ripples in water.

At a glance, he saw the figure lying on the ground, her face as pale as paper, with a trace of charred black blood still remaining at the corner of her mouth.

Only at this moment did Lin Chen's brows truly and subconsciously furrow tightly.

He stepped forward quickly, knelt on one knee, and gently lifted Su Qingyao.

When he held her hand, which was so cold that it had not a shred of warmth, an incomparably pure Wood Element Spiritual Qi, carrying boundless vitality, immediately passed from his palm, carefully wrapping around the strand of Dantian energy within her body that was chaotic and on the verge of extinguishing due to the backlash of the medicinal fire, slowly smoothing and stabilizing it.

Su Qingyao's tightly closed eyes trembled and finally opened slowly.

What met her eyes was the face she had been dreaming of.

Feeling that familiar and warm power circulating within her body, dispelling the cold, dead silence, her body, which had been tensed to the limit, suddenly relaxed, and she grabbed Lin Chen's hand tightly with a reverse grip.

The force was so great that her fingertips turned pale from the excessive effort, as if she wanted to embed her entire life into his palm.