Ci Nan’s muscles bulged, his face beaming with delight.
If he could defeat Xu Yunfan, he too would be baptized by the Profound Yellow Qi.
Cui Yu, however, shook his head. "Xu Yunfan has the Dragon Scale Armor for protection..."
Ci Nan was displeased. "This won’t work, that won’t work. Is your Great Zhou really going to just stand by and watch its own kingdom fall?"
Cui Yu’s expression instantly turned cold. He stared daggers at Ci Nan, the killing intent in his eyes completely undisguised.
Only when Ci Nan averted his gaze did Cui Yu pull a jade seal carved with a *bì’àn* from his robes. "This is the ’Dragon-Suppressing Seal,’ a special gift from His Majesty. It can temporarily suppress the Profound Yellow Qi. As for that Xu Yunfan..."
He looked at Ci Nan, Yan Tieshan, and the others, a faint smile on his face. "The Profound Yellow Qi is a wonderful thing. Who knows, perhaps a Land Immortal—something not seen in a thousand years—will emerge from one of you."
Hearing this, everyone’s breath caught in their throats.
Cui Yu sneered inwardly at the sight.
***
Within Jade Capital City, Xu Yunfan let out a light breath, his gaze fixed on the Great Zhou Imperial Court and its nine-tiered palace in the distance.
With his current power, such tolerance and retreat were naturally not Xu Yunfan’s style.
Besides, if the Great Zhou Imperial Court managed to stall him, unexpected complications could arise.
Ever since the Profound Yellow Qi had refined his body, the True Qi within him was as vast as an abyss and deep as the sea. Every inch of his flesh surged with boundless strength, and his every move seemed to carry the force of wind and thunder.
At this moment, he was like a razor-sharp blade, drawn but half an inch from its sheath. Though he had yet to unleash his full power, he already caused the surrounding Spiritual Qi to tremble.
He suddenly whipped his head to the side, his gaze as sharp as a tempered blade, piercing straight at Chen Wei.
Chen Wei’s knuckles turned white. The black Long Spear in his palm vibrated with a hum as a fierce shout was forced from his throat, "Xu Yunfan! What do you think you’re doing?!"
Xu Yunfan’s robes fluttered as the incredibly tyrannical Ten Extremes True Qi condensed into a tangible vortex around him.
"The Taoist Sect exhausted its resources to send me to the Nine Realms Peak, hoping to reopen the path to the Land Immortal Realm. Since you all..."
He took half a step forward, and the floor tiles cracked under his foot. "...lack the guts to execute me and the power to slay me, then today, I shall be the one... to clear away this obstruction."
As his voice fell, Xu Yunfan drew his Shaking Mountain Sea-Suppressing Hammer and strode forward like a meteor.
The instant he shattered a floor tile with a step, his figure vanished and reappeared before Chen Wei. The Ten Extremes True Qi erupted around him like a volcano, pouring into the Shaking Mountain Sea-Suppressing Hammer and condensing into tangible Gang Evil on its face.
Chen Wei’s pupils contracted violently. He hastily brought his black Long Spear up to block, but the pressure was so immense that the coiling dragon pattern on the shaft sparked.
The Shaking Mountain Sea-Suppressing Hammer descended with the force of a mountain collapsing and a tsunami crashing.
The muscles in Chen Wei’s arms bulged as his True Qi flared. The spear’s tip pulsed with light. The moment the shaft met the hammer’s face, the stone tiles within a thirty-foot radius beneath him collapsed into a crater. The shockwave sent a row of Crossbowmen at the edge of the Martial Arts Arena tumbling.
The webbing between Chen Wei’s thumb and forefinger split open, and the spear’s shaft let out a metallic screech as if under unbearable strain. He was horrified to discover that his True Qi was like snow in boiling water, instantly evaporated by the Ten Extremes True Qi coiling around the hammer!
"Can’t take it?"
Xu Yunfan’s eyes were indifferent. "I only used thirty percent of my strength."
Chen Wei’s face flushed crimson.
"You’re courting death!"
Xu Yunfan spun for another strike, the muscle fibers in his body, empowered by his Jade Marrow Golden Bone, thrumming with a sound like a dragon’s roar.
At that moment, Chen Wei roared, channeling all his True Qi. The tip of his spear erupted with a seven-foot-long black radiance as he tried to counterattack, but when the Hammer Gang reached him, it was like thin ice hitting an anvil.
Before the hammer even arrived, its ferocious True Qi had already shattered his Protective Gang Qi.
A Tier Seven Divine Weapon, snapped in two by a single blow!
Chen Wei’s chest caved in, the sound of his ribs breaking like a string of firecrackers. As he was sent flying, spitting blood, his eyes reflected Xu Yunfan’s cold face and the giant hammer tearing through the air in pursuit.
This final blow was beyond the realm of mortal power.
The muscles in Xu Yunfan’s arms writhed like grappling Qiu Longs. The Ten Extremes True Qi compressed into a white-hot wave at the head of the hammer. As it fell, it seemed to gather the airflow from all directions. Visible ripples in the air, like waves on water, were drawn into the hammer’s momentum as if a whale were inhaling the sea.
Desperately, Chen Wei activated the Royal Family’s secret art, the "Black Tortoise Prison-Suppression Skill." But the moment it met the Heavy Hammer, it was like an ant trying to shake a mountain. His True Qi, flesh, and bone disintegrated layer by layer under the immense force. He exploded into a mist of blood. The remaining Obsidian Spearhead didn’t even have time to fall before it was shredded into iron filings by the Gang Wind from the hammer.
The aftershock of the Hammer Force spread out in a fan shape, knocking over the heavily armored Imperial Guard cavalry, men and horses alike, who were watching from thirty zhang away.
Xu Yunfan stood with his hammer lowered. Beneath his feet was a spiderweb of cracks forming a crater ten zhang in radius. Where Chen Wei had stood, only a pool of blood seeping into the cracks in the ground remained.
As he shook the blood from his hammer, the lines of his muscles, wreathed in the Ten Extremes True Qi, looked as if they were cast from molten gold. Every fiber seemed to pulse with a suffocating, violent beauty.
The arena fell silent for a moment, then erupted in a tidal wave of gasps.
Those Mortal Wanderers who had been craning their necks and standing on tiptoe just moments before now scattered in a panic as if fleeing a plague god. The crowd broke apart in terror, forming ragged channels in their haste.
A battle between Nine Realms Qi Cultivation Supreme Grandmasters was not something ordinary Martial Artists could hope to witness.
To have even seen them fighting on the stage was a blessing from a past life.
The residual Gang Wind swept across the stands, silently cracking the stone floor.
Someone who was half a step too slow to escape was grazed on the shoulder by the stray True Qi. Their face instantly turned deathly pale as they dropped to their knees, vomiting blood.
The muffled sound of bones breaking echoed from their chest, as if an invisible heavy hammer had crushed their internal organs.
"Fall back! Another thirty zhang!"
Amidst the roars, the crowd stumbled and knocked over the weapon racks at the edge of the Martial Arts Arena.
Cold Iron spear shafts clattered to the ground, only to be shattered with spiderweb cracks by the lingering pressure.
Only then did the group of white-haired old eunuchs snap back to their senses. One of them, his body roiling with Yin Evil True Qi, shrieked in a high-pitched voice.
"How dare you!!"
’Another one in the Ninth Realm?!’
Xu Yunfan raised an eyebrow, a flicker of surprise in his eyes.
He looked the stooped, withered-looking old eunuch up and down and said in surprise, "Do the Ninth Realm masters of your Great Zhou Imperial Court sprout from the ground? Why do they keep popping up one after another?"
The old eunuch was stooped and his face was wizened, but a faint aura of a Nine Realms Qi Cultivation Grandmaster flowed around him.
However, his True Qi was as flimsy as cotton fluff, so weak it seemed a gust of wind could scatter it—a far cry from the true pressure of the Ninth Realm.
"Heh..."
Xu Yunfan let out a cold laugh. His fingers slowly tightened around his Shaking Mountain Sea-Suppressing Hammer, True Qi coiling around it like an angry dragon. "A bunch of Pseudo Realms dare to put on airs before me?"
Before his voice had even faded, Xu Yunfan’s figure exploded forward like a thunderbolt, leaving only an afterimage in his place.
The old eunuch’s murky pupils contracted violently. His withered fingers had barely risen half an inch.
BOOM!
The Shaking Mountain Sea-Suppressing Hammer, carrying the ferocious Gang Evil of the Ten Extremes True Qi, crashed down like a falling meteor.
Before the hammer’s face arrived, the force of the wind was already making the old eunuch’s stooped body crackle, the stone tiles beneath his feet shattering inch by inch.
With the Heavy Hammer before him, the Earth Vein Power hummed, contracting and expanding, condensing into a tangible vortex. The air in its path was sucked into a vacuum, letting out a demonic screech.
In his haste, the old eunuch crossed his palms. A wisp of ethereal blue Ghost Fire burst from between his withered, chicken-claw-like knuckles as he futilely attempted to corrode the Hammer Gang with his venomous Yin True Qi.
However, Xu Yunfan’s strike, powered by his Ten Extremes True Qi, carried the weight of a thousand jun. Before the hammer even arrived, the ferocious Gang Wind was already making the old eunuch’s bones creak and groan!