Chapter One Hundred and One: Peril at Every Turn

By this stage of the battle, whether there were one or two no longer made much difference.

Seizing the brief pause in his words, Liu Jianchen reset his condition, cast aside the Mountain-Suppressing Sword Ye Qiu had once given him, and a brush suddenly appeared in his hand.

In this grueling struggle against Old Man Shenji, he had grasped many true insights of the sword path. Perhaps now was the perfect moment to unleash them.

“Come!”

With a sweep toward the heavens, ink and brush flashed at once. Beneath a single stroke of black and white, countless sword lights were born, gradually turning savage and wild.

“Stubborn fool! Die for me!”

Seeing that Liu Jianchen remained obstinate, the dark overlord who had been watching from the sidelines at last made his move.

A Heaven-Overturning Seal came crashing down in an instant, intent on crushing Liu Jianchen to death with a single palm. Yet his brush and ink contained a thousand transformations.

The instant the sword aura erupted in fury, it released a terrifying power that shattered the Heaven-Overturning Seal in an instant.

“What? This brat still has another trump card?”

Old Man Shenji was shaken. He had never imagined that Liu Jianchen, who had fought him bitterly for so many days, had still not revealed his true strength.

This boy was simply too terrifying. If he were allowed to continue growing, he would become a tremendous obstacle to their plan.

“Haha, there are still plenty of things you do not know. Come on, you old mud eel!”

Liu Jianchen laughed wildly and sang out beneath the vast sky. His sword aura was lofty and unyielding, advancing as though no one in heaven or earth could stand in his way, displaying its might high above the nine heavens.

That brush now carried, to one-third extent, the splendor of Ye Qiu’s own strokes. It was so mesmerizing that all who watched were intoxicated, unable to forget it.

“Hiss... this child has inherited a few true teachings from that senior. It seems he will not be defeated so quickly after all.”

After seeing this, Daoist Withered Wood finally set his heart at ease and devoted all his strength to the seven dark overlords before him.

These dark overlords were not the same dark fiends that had once appeared by the Boundary River. This darkness was not that darkness.

This was the true source of catastrophe, the root that had silently driven all calamity from ancient times to the present.

With no more worries behind him, Daoist Withered Wood began to cut down all around him. One man pressed seven into retreat, beating them back step by step.

He had not gone all out before because he had been distracted by Liu Jianchen’s side. Now that Liu Jianchen could clearly hold on, he no longer needed to divide his attention.

For the sake of the future of the Great Wasteland, Daoist Withered Wood greatly valued these outstanding younger generations. Thus, by himself, he blocked the seven, preventing them from slaughtering the brilliant youths behind him.

The outbreak of this upheaval caught the Great Wasteland off guard, and the other side of the Boundary River was no less caught unprepared.

At this moment, the God of Darkness, fighting on the battlefield, could clearly sense the turmoil in the Great Wasteland, and his heart was filled with confusion.

Originally, with the Great Wasteland’s assistance, they had been able to resist the Void with ease. But now that disaster had erupted there, the dark army was gradually being forced back.

“Damn it, what exactly happened over there?”

The God of Darkness cursed endlessly. Seeing his dark army suffer ever greater losses, he had no choice but to order a temporary withdrawal.

Those Void beings were simply too difficult to deal with. Relying on the Dark race alone, they could not possibly withstand them.

In the Chaos Heaven, a brutal slaughter had begun. The battlefield opened by Daoist Withered Wood and the seven dark overlords cleaved the heavens and earth in all directions, plunging everything into darkness and chaos.

“It’s over! One against seven... At first it was still manageable, with enough strength to suppress them and barely gain the upper hand, but if this drags on, Daoist Withered Wood is bound to lose...”

The onlookers were deeply anxious. Every one of them stared intently at the battle in the sky, all of them wanting to join in.

But this was a battlefield for immortals. With their level of strength, going up would only be to throw away their lives; it would do no good at all.

“This is too suffocating! If this goes on, not only will Daoist Withered Wood fall, but even Sword Immortal Liu’s side will not hold out for long. Look—our Great Wasteland’s seniors are clearly at a disadvantage. What are we to do if this continues?”

“Are we really going to see the Great Wasteland destroyed here?”

“Do not forget, the Chaos Heaven now holds all the experts from every sacred land of the Great Wasteland. If all of them die here, the Great Wasteland’s golden age will be set back hundreds of thousands of years...”

The price was far too great. No one dared imagine such an outcome, and all were filled with worry.

These dark overlords had not chosen to act earlier or later, but precisely when they had gathered in the Chaos Heaven, preparing to wage war across the heavens. They wanted to wipe them out in a single net.

The scheme was far too sinister. This was absolutely a heaven-shaking conspiracy, one that had begun from the very collapse of the Chaos Heaven.

The battle continued, and because the struggle in the Chaos Heaven directly affected the battlefield within the Mountains-and-Rivers Diagram, the dark army had already withdrawn, and the Void beings, seeing the situation, likewise retreated, clearly unwilling to become involved in this calamity.

Looking back to the Chaos Heaven, Daoist Withered Wood was already growing strained. At full strength, he had indeed been able to suppress the seven men at the beginning.

But as the fight dragged on, he discovered that these people used highly peculiar methods and possessed rich battle experience; for the moment, he simply could not kill them.

With one palm, he forced back one overlord, and just as Daoist Withered Wood was about to retreat to avoid another’s strike, a black palm suddenly attacked from behind. His heart jolted.

“Bad!”

From this angle, there was no way to turn the tide. He could only endure the palm head-on. But once he took it, his strength would surely fall sharply, and then... there would truly be no way back.

At that split second, a zither melody rose from below, shaking past and present alike. The music was like a sharp blade, ruthlessly slicing through the long sky and striking the attacker’s chest in an instant.

Hiss...

A bloody wound split open, and fresh blood spurted out at once. That overlord actually reeled backward, grievously wounded with a single exchange.

“Who is it?”

One dark overlord shuddered inwardly, his cold gaze sweeping back and forth, trying to find the assailant.

At that moment, a streak of fire shot up from below, and close behind it came a sky-piercing giant bird, engulfed in blazing flames as it flew toward them.

“The Sky-Devouring Sparrow?”

The dark overlord frowned and casually waved a hand, sending out a blade of qi as he said contemptuously, “A mere ant dares challenge the might of an immortal? Courting death...”

Just as he believed that this blade of qi would kill the Sky-Devouring Sparrow outright, a voice full of righteous force rang out.

“How brazen!”

That voice, carrying the righteous power of heaven and earth, reached them. In that instant, all seven dark overlords felt as though the immortal power within their bodies had actually come to a halt for a fleeting moment.

Moreover, that blade of qi was shattered head-on by the voice. The other side had not even made a move, and yet it was simply dismissed?

“How is this possible?”

The seven overlords were shocked to the core. What kind of ability was this, to be able to snatch away a spell already unleashed?

Not only that, but the voice alone had been able to overwhelm them from afar and suppress the immortal power within their bodies.

As the words fell, a white figure appeared above the Sky-Devouring Sparrow, hands clasped behind his back, standing aloft in the wind. He seemed like an immortal silhouette drifting among the clouds, brightening the hearts of all who saw him.

“It’s the senior!”

“The senior has made a move. We’re saved. The Great Wasteland is saved...”

The instant they saw Ye Qiu, everyone’s hearts surged with excitement, and they cried out joyfully.