At the most crucial moment of their life and death struggle, the Spirit Sword that had been contained in his body for all this while had unexpectedly vanished!
This was something that Ye Que could never have imagined or expected. He had traversed the Three Realms for dozens of years, and had never encountered such a thing before. It was not a conscious mistake.
A figure cut a huge parabola across the air.
Fresh blood spurted like a fountain!
Ye Que could not even begin to understand what happened as he felt a sharp pain in his chest. He bore the pain and focused his attention within his body. The "Chengren" Mother Sword of the 13 Mother and Children of Spring and Autumn Swords had indeed vanished from his Spiritual Sea!
"How could this be?"
"Completely impossible!"
"I"ve never heard that a Spirit Sword kept within someone"s body can vanish on its own. Could it really have left me?"
Ye Que"s mind was full of doubts as he lay on the ground. Time waited for no man, however. No matter how great his doubts were, they would have to wait until after the fight; only then would he have the time to think about them. If his life was gone, everything would turn to naught, and it was pointless to ponder about such things if that happened.
He half kneeled and lifted his head to look at Lei Sihai, who was more than a hundred steps away. The mink coat that he had been wearing had already been shattered into pieces, and a b.l.o.o.d.y figure appeared in front of him. He was so muscular that his physique looked unreal. Each part of his body, however, seemed to have been cut or sliced through by Ye Que"s swords, and blood was flowing all over him.
Blood was still seeping slowly out of nine, inch-long holes made by swords.
"Boom, boom, boom..."
There was a soft chain of sounds as Lei Sihai"s body exploded. His flesh turned into a b.l.o.o.d.y mist that squirmed. After the mist had dissipated, a five feet tall shriveled up old man with cracked up skin, a head of white hair, and black nails had replaced the nine feet tall body cultivator.
The old man looked vengefully at Ye Que.
"D*mned kid, how dare you to destroy the husk that I"ve spent such a long time to find? He was a body cultivator of the Starburst Realm and halfway into the Formless Realm. Do you know how valuable such a body is? You destroyed it! D*mn! D*mn! Really, d*mn it!"
The hoa.r.s.e, crow-like voice had sounded piercing and unbearable on the violent man, but the same voice on the old man sounded peaceful, something rare to hear.
This voice and appearance were undoubtedly how we truly looked.
At the same time, Red Bean, who was a thousand steps away, and Ye Que could sense a vague dark aura on the old man. It was the aura of a monster.
"That"s right, this is the aura of a hunter, and I will never be mistaken!" Red Bean"s eyes seemed to look extremely vengeful and seemed to be gritting her teeth. From young, she had heard many stories of the hunter. They were the evilest presence on earth, and the image had taken root in her mind.
As for Ye Que, he looked as cold and serious as her. "Even if I hated the people of the General"s Manor and begrudged them, it"s my personal issue. I didn"t go in there to kill anyone. How could you ghostly beings make your own decisions? Do you really think that there"s no match for you in the entire world?"
"Monsters are also beings of the world, all beings were born equal. There"s no reason for you people to be undefeatable. If that was true, the Human World would long have changed and be ruled by monsters by now."
After understanding all these, Ye Que got up with much difficulty and retrieved all of the other 12 Spirit Swords. He suspended them in front of himself, all of them pointing at the old man who stood a hundred steps away from him. With the loss of the Mother Sword, however, the artifact"s value had instantly decreased on level. It used to be a rare set of Spirit Swords that was between Levels 2 and 3, but now, they were just ordinary Spirit Swords.
However, it was not a big deal. Spirit Swords were still Spirit Swords.
Even though their power was reduced by half, the sharpness of the blades was undiminished. Ye Que believed that the Spirit Swords would still be able to draw blood after piercing into the old man"s body.
The slightly hunch backed scrawny old man seemed to be gathering his battle power as well. The viciousness in his eyes had grown increasingly intense, and even though Ye Que hated monsters, he still wanted to kill the youth.
The white small flag was summoned by him, and terrible cries rang out across the entire small path of Mount Mei.
All of his fingers were in motion as the white flag began to circle in the air at great speed. The flag blew gently into the sky and faint grey spiritual beings surged out from underneath. All of them looked sinister, vicious and cruel.
The old man was prepared to fight to the death!
"Since you"ve destroyed the body that I"ve spent so much effort to get, you shall pay with your own. To think that you"re able to wield and control those 12 Spirit Swords with such agility and imagination at the Psychic Ream. I believe yours isn"t too bad. You pay for murder with your life and your body if you destroy mine."
"Pay with my body?"
Ye Que grunted coldly. "If I can destroy the body you obtained, I can destroy you as well."
"Anyone can boast. Don"t be too impudent, little one."
The scrawny old man stepped hard with one foot, and his movements were extremely bizarre. His speed was more than three times greater than that of the violent man in the mink coat, and the faint grey spiritual beings above his head were also baring their fangs and unleashing their talons, as they swooped down upon Ye Que like a huge patch of grey clouds.
Ye Que looked extremely serious as the corners of his lips moved. A string of thick incantations came out of his mouth, and the 12 Spirit Swords stood extremely stiffly before rapidly forming a Killing Formation. It was extremely tight, and the energy from his swords radiated into the surroundings.
However, just as the energy from his swords spread to a three-step distance, the "Quyi" Spirit Sword suddenly disobeyed his command and broke free of the formation, instantly worming its way back into his body.
The Sword Formation had dissolved on its own!
Even the old man who was not far away was somewhat surprised and stopped moving for a while in case it was a trap. He thought that there was a possibility that Ye Que was weaving a fixed step confusion-inducing formation and was planning on catching him unaware again. "Once bitten, twice shy," he thought.
If he fought blow for blow and in a traditional fashion, Ye Que was no match for him.
Any fancy strategies were pointless in the face of the harsh truth about the disparity in their strengths.
The shriveled up old man grew increasingly pleased with the state of Ye Que"s body as he examined it closely. It seemed to be a good thing to have discarded the ident.i.ty of the mink coat wearing mindless fool Lei Sihai. He had profited from his own bad luck and met with an even better husk.
The old man was a monster who traveled in the Human World. It was extremely dangerous if he did not know how to conceal his real ident.i.ty. The lesson he had been taught a century ago was still fresh in his mind. After a long time spent experimenting, the Mountain Valley of Pure Blackness had come up with a way of seizing control over someone else"s body and walking among humans with the aid of the body it had s.n.a.t.c.hed.
A century of planning.
In Divine Land, the seeds of the monsters had already been sowed everywhere.
While pausing to catch a breath, the old man had swept his gaze carefully around Ye Que"s surroundings, but he could not find any potential site of b.o.o.by traps. Even though it was rare to see a Sword Formation dissolve by itself, it did not mean that that wasn"t a trap set by the opposition. Even if it was, could he not have attacked his foe without the formation?
He was unafraid when his opponent possessed the Sword Formation.
What more without it.
A huge, pure black skull opened its ravenous mouth and howled as it charged toward Ye Que.
Ye Que"s expression did not change, but his feet were continually shifting to avoid his opponent"s attacks. At the same time, he tried to look within himself to find out what was wrong with his body. How could the Spirit Swords have disappeared consecutively?
This was because the Quyi Sword was just about to worm its way into his Spiritual Sea when Ye Que grabbed hold of its end.
The inch-long Quyi Spiritual Sword was entirely out of his control now and crashed straight into the deepest recess of his Spiritual Sea before falling into a page of paper.
It was one of the pages of the Divine Book.
The one that emerged from beneath the ground of the Imperial Mausoleum of the ley lines of sovereignty.