261: Chapter 261: Xu Ruyu's Battle Against the Nascent Soul Battle Spirit - Everyone's Hearts Were in Their Throats

When Xu Ruyu stepped onto the eighth floor, the many high-ranking members of the Taihu Clan outside the tower, who were watching the battle scenes in real-time through a secret method connection, became completely unsettled.

Outside the Heart Testing Cliff, core figures such as the Clan Chief, the Grand Mage, the Grand Elder, Elder Lan Yi, Elder Mo Feng, and Madam Qingli, along with more Elders and elite Disciples who had rushed over upon hearing the news, gathered before a light screen projected by several large yingxi stones. The screen was divided into several sections, each showing real-time footage of Xu Ruyu's battles on various floors of the War Soul Tower.

Initially, seeing Xu Ruyu easily kill the Qi Refinement Stage mark of Qingfengzi in seconds, although everyone was somewhat surprised by the subtlety of his movement technique and that peculiar finger force, they felt it was still within the realm of reason. After all, since Xu Ruyu was favored by the Old Ancestor, he had to have some extraordinary qualities.

But immediately following that, the Early, Middle, and Late Stages of Foundation Establishment... then the Golden Core Initial Stage, Middle Stage, and Late Stage...

Xu Ruyu swept through everything like dry weeds before a gust of wind, challenging those at higher levels with an almost crushing posture and emerging victorious!

Moreover, from beginning to end, he did not use any obvious Magic Treasures or Talismans, nor did he perform Spells in the traditional sense!

He was fighting solely by relying on a set of strange "True Qi" that seemed capable of manipulating the air and generating various effects like kinetic energy, cutting, vibration, and deflection!

What made people's scalps tingle even more was that the aura he revealed was, from start to finish, freaking Qi Refinement Stage! That weak but stable Qi Refining fluctuation could not be faked!

A Qi Refinement Stage Cultivator killed the mark of a Late Golden Core Stage demon Cultivator by jumping levels???

Even if it was just a mark, possessing only a portion of the combat experience and skills from its lifetime and lacking the strength of the original body, that was still the combat awareness of a Late Golden Core Stage!

To be blown apart by a Qi Refinement Stage Cultivator using only fists and "Qi"?!

This had completely overturned the most basic common sense and understanding of the power system in the Cultivation World!

"This... what the hell... is going on?!"

A Taihu Clan Elder with hair and beard as white as snow, whose aura was at the Mid-Nascent Soul Stage, pointed at Xu Ruyu on the light screen—who had just stepped onto the eighth floor and was waiting for his opponent to be generated—his voice trembling.

"Qi Refinement Stage... killing a Late Golden Core Stage?!

I have cultivated for eighteen hundred years, and I have never seen such an absurd thing!"

"His True Qi... is so strange!

It seems like spiritual power but isn't. Its properties are ever-changing, its control is microscopic, yet its power is staggeringly great!"

Another Elder skilled in energy perception had a look of horror on his face.

"And have you noticed? Since the start of the battle, his aura has hardly weakened!

Where does a Qi Refinement Stage Cultivator get such a majestic and long-lasting reserve of 'True Qi'?!"

"And his combat awareness! It's frighteningly calm!

Every time, he can precisely find the opponent's flaw and break it in the most labor-saving and effective way!

This is definitely not the kind of experience a young man should have!"

Splendor flickered repeatedly in Elder Lan Yi's beautiful eyes, her tone filled with amazement.

Elder Mo Feng's face was now livid, his lips trembling, unable to say a single word.

The strength Xu Ruyu displayed had already completely exceeded the scope of his understanding and control.

The light in Madam Qingli's eyes grew brighter and brighter, and she couldn't help but curl her lips into a proud arc.

Look, this is my Xiao Yuer!

The faces of the Clan Chief and the Grand Mage, shrouded in radiance, could not be seen, but the slightly fluctuating aura around them showed that their hearts were by no means calm.

"The eighth floor... according to the rules, what appears on the eighth floor will be the combat mark of an Early Nascent Soul Cultivator." The Grand Elder's voice was dry. "Can he... still continue?"

As if to answer his question, in the center of the plaza on the eighth floor within the light screen, a phantom that was more solid, with an aura as vast as the sea and Law runes faintly flowing around it, slowly coalesced.

This was the phantom of a handsome young man dressed in a moon-white robe with a cold and aloof gaze. Behind him, the phantoms of nine fox tails momentarily flashed and vanished.

The pressure it exuded, even through the yingxi stones, made many Taihu Clan members with lower cultivation find it difficult to breathe.

"Early Nascent Soul, the combat mark of our clan's predecessor, Elder 'Yuehen', activated."

The Tower Spirit's voice carried a hint of indiscernible solemnity.

Yuehen's phantom solidified, his gaze sweeping indifferently toward Xu Ruyu as if looking at an ant.

He did not act immediately. Instead, he slowly raised a hand, palm upward, and a constantly rotating crescent moon blade emerged, emitting a sharp aura that seemed to cleave through space.

"For a mere Qi Refiner to reach this floor is truly not easy," Yuehen's phantom spoke, his voice cold and aloof, carrying the unique Law resonance of a Nascent Soul Cultivator. "However, below the Nascent Soul Stage, all are but ants.

This is no empty boast.

I shall grant you defeat and spare your life."

As the words fell, he flicked his finger!

That small moon-glow crescent blade vanished soundlessly. In the next instant, it had already appeared three inches in front of Xu Ruyu's brow!

Its speed was so fast that it exceeded the reaction limits of a Golden Core Cultivator!

The cutting Law power contained within it was enough to easily tear through the protective spiritual light of a Golden Core Peak!

The hearts of everyone watching outside the tower instantly leaped into their throats!

A strike from a Nascent Soul—can Xu Ruyu block it?!

The moment Yuehen's phantom raised his hand, every hair on Xu Ruyu's body stood on end!

An extreme omen of danger was like ice water poured over his head. He had no time to think at all; his body reacted instinctively!

"Buzz—!"

The "Haotian True Qi" within his body, which had been continuously purified and strengthened by practicing the Haotian True Qi Chapter to the twenty-fifth layer, erupted with unprecedented speed and intensity!

It was not scattered outward, but guided according to the preliminary theories of the "Hunyuan Electromagnetic Law," circulating at high speed on the surface of his body to form a high-speed rotating "Air Kinetic Energy Vortex Shield"!

Simultaneously, he frantically compressed even more True Qi between his right index and middle fingers, simulating the principle of instantaneous release of "chemical bond energy" (the prototype of the Five Elements Evolution Scripture)!

"Ding—!!!"

A collision sound so sharp it was ear-piercing rang through the eighth-floor space!

That moon-glow crescent blade, containing Nascent Soul-level cutting Laws, "gouged" fiercely into the Air Kinetic Energy Vortex Shield in front of Xu Ruyu!