Chapter 542 - A Hack in the Face

Chapter 542 A Hack in the Face

Ding Yi made that speech in a murderous manner.

He was drenched in blood, covered in scars and bruises. At the moment, he did look like Death who just stepped out of the sea of blood.

Qu Xuening, known as the Divine Punch and God Foresight, the prominent Young Lord of Cold River City, and a famous hero in Jianghu, just died in front of the lord of Cold River City, the head of West Sea Sword Sect, and the first-class experts of the two forces.

Some people even couldn’t believe their eyes.

Over the years, the Divine Punch and God Foresight was absolutely the most important one among the disciples of the nine sects that had been murdered.

And he was killed right here in public.

Qu Yi, Lord of the Cold River City, watched with his own eyes his son be trampled into pieces and died an unnatural death. The fury in his heart was raging like an angry ocean that was going to destroy heaven and earth.

He goggled at Ding Yi unblinkingly and uttered every word full of resentment. “From today on, the world, though so vast, has no place for you to live. I will make you understand what is a real living hell!”

“Oh? Really?” Ding Yi laughed merrily, then he demanded, “So to speak, before I killed your son, you didn’t consider making me, a member of the Devil Cult, live in a living hell?”

The two were mortal enemies. Saying such words as a threat did not have much effect.

Qu Yi’s fury was like a tangible flame. Around him, a bizarre energy field instantly spread out.

In his rage, he had temporarily lost his sanity and made a threat, which seemed a little ridiculous. However, he had gradually calmed down at this time. He forcibly suppressed his anger while quickly weighing the situation in his mind.

It soon struck him that the biggest obstacle tonight was not Ding Yi.

Instead, it was the mysterious young man called Duan Shuiliu.

Ding Yi was the future leader of the Fate-defying Sect and was in the Great Sage Realm. Although his cultivation was quite outstanding amongst the younger generation on the Bitter Star, there was still a huge gap between him and the seniors in Jianghu. Even though he was at the Desktop Peak and could borrow the power of the peak, he would ultimately end up as a prisoner under the absolute power of two mighty experts in the Void-breaking Realm, no matter how strong his combat desire or his willpower was.

However, the strength of this young man named Duan Shuiliu was too daunting. He was like a dragon weaving its way among the clouds, rather elusive in his ways.

Even though Qu Yi had exchanged several blows with him earlier, he was still unable to determine his opponent’s level of strength. On the surface, the mysterious man’s energy fluctuations were only at the peak of the Great Sage Realm. Yet, his actual combat strength was terrifyingly powerful and was definitely above the Void-breaking Realm. Could he be in the legendary realm called the Life and Death Bridge?

Tan Rushuang, the Top Sword of West Sea, stood in front of the stone forest with a very solemn look on his face.

He thought they were just to remove a spy of the Devil Cult, but he never knew the spy could be so tricky to deal with.

He held the Sea Shadow Sword in his hand, concentrated on gathering his qi, and was on full alert.

As long as Ding Yi and his crony were prevented from entering the stone forest and activating the trick the Fate-defying Sect hid in the Desktop Peak to escape, today’s situation was still under the control of the nine major sects. After all, the nine major sects were here. Since when had they been defeated?

“Hey, Brother Ding, have you finished your heroic declaration?” Seeing Ding Yi had done the bluffing, Li Mu finally couldn’t remain silent but suggested, “Let’s discuss some serious business. Next, let’s figure out a way to run away. Otherwise, when the heads and experts of the nine sects arrive, the attrition warfare is enough to exhaust both of us, not to mention that you are already half-disabled.”

“What do you mean by ‘half-disabled’?” Ding Yi was very dissatisfied with this statement. “Even if I only have one leg left, I can still fight against ten people at a time.”

Li Mu rubbed his forehead and said helplessly, “Big brother, be serious. It’s not the time to force yourself to draw a long bow.”

Ding Yi smiled guiltily and said, “Oh, really? Haha, just an old habit… Huh? Force me to draw a long bow? Does it mean to brag? That’s interesting.”

Then, he pointed at the stone forest behind Tan Rushuang and said, “As long as we run into the stone forest, we can be temporarily safe.”

Completely ignoring the experts from the two sects who were glaring at them like fierce tigers, the two began to discuss how to escape as if no one else was watching them.

For the disciples of the two major sects, this felt very strange.

They felt like they looked down upon, which was a feeling they never had before.

In the past, no one in Jianghu had ever dared to be so arrogant and unbridled in front of the nine sects.

“Well, that’s easy.” Li Mu turned around and looked at Tan Rushuang. He smiled and then remarked, “Let’s discuss something. Be a good dog and stay out of my way. If you don’t want to die, can you please make way for me?”

Tan Rushuang simply laughed out of anger.

For a hundred years, no one had ever dared to speak to him like this.

Ding Yi was also stunned for a while, then he gave Li Mu a thumbs-up and said, “Brother, you are the expert of forcibly drawing a long bow.”

Li Mu said, “Thank you for your acknowledgment.”

Before those words died away, Li Mu had already entered Tan Rushuang’s energy field.

A broadsword, extracted from the core area of the Tomb of the God of Sin, had already been held in his hand. With a powerful and domineering hack, the broadsword directly cut at the face of the head of the West Sea Sword Sect.

It was a simple move.

Also a straightforward one.

That was Li Mu’s fighting style.

His Dao-using method came from turning the simple into the complex before reversing the whole process. When he hacked the broadsword, the move employed no subtle techniques. All it required were the qi in Dantian, the boiling blood coursing in the chest, the spirit in the mind, the broadswords in his hand, and a wisp of willpower in the broadsword.

The Three Flowers over Head—the Gathering of Essence, Qi and Spirit Overhead, and the Five Kinds of Qi Collecting in Mind were exactly Li Mu’s Dao-using principles.

He liked going straight to the point without unnecessary change.

Once he wielded his broadsword, it would be a neat blow.

That was also the broadsword intendment that dawned on Li Mu after he reflected on his martial arts for days.

“How puffed up you are!”

Provoked by this disrespectful hacking method, Tan Rushuang brandished his sword and rose to the attack.

“Clank!”

The fine sound of metal clashing was heard, which was followed by the noise of the vibration of the sword and broadsword.

“Poof!”

Blood squirted forth.

The two figures brushed past each other.

The Sea Shadow Sword held by Tan Rushuang, the Top Sword of West Sea, was directly snapped in halves.

Tan Rushuang himself was also neatly cleaved into two halves from the middle of his eyebrows by Li Mu’s broadsword. Like a wood carving cut open by a knife, the two halves were sent flying in opposite directions.

“Hahaha, the Top Sword of West Sea was just so-so.”

Laughing out loud, Li Mu already led Ding Yi to rush into the stone forest.

As Ding Yi launched the secret seal method, dozens of seals shot into the stone forest in a flash. A strange power spread out. The stone pillars rotated, and the spacial mist swirled. The next moment, the entire stone forest completely disappeared under the Desktop Peak, as if it had never existed.

“Whoosh!” “Whoosh!” “Whoosh!”

Dozens of figures tore through the darkness at the bottom of the mountain and arrived at the battlefield.

“What’s going on?”

“Why did you suddenly give me an urgent call?”

“How come so many our men have died? Was it a surprise attack by the Devil Cult?”

Those who turned up from the darkness were experts from the nine major sects, including the other three cities, the heads of the two major sword sects, and the masters of the two major well-known families.

When Li Mu defeated Tan Rushuang and Qu Yi with one punch, this urgent message was sent out. It was the most pressing kind, indicating that the situation was more serious than ever. Hence, the experts of the nine major sects bustled there at once. But when they saw such a scene, they were all astounded.

Plainly, there had been a fierce battle between some people as powerful as sect masters.

There was still a terrifying aura of Broadsword Intent in the air.

“We were about to catch the future leader of the Fate-defying Sect, but a heaven-defying expert of the Devil Cult turned up and ruined our operation.”

Blood swirled, then, the two halves of Tan Rushuang’s body were put together again. The Top Sword of West Sea stood there with a dark and infuriated look on his face.

“You’re too late.”

There was still a trace of shock in the depths of his eyes.

Of course, that hack Li Mu just perform did not really kill him.

An expert in the Void-breaking Realm had magical abilities and cultivation that ordinary people could not imagine. He had been skilled at regenerating his blood and qi. So, the fact that his body had been ripped apart could only be considered as a heavy blow to him, causing his genuine qi to be greatly damaged. However, what was even more infuriating than the loss of his strength was that this blow had almost dashed his confidence of being invincible that he had built up over the past century.

Recalling that hack, what came to his mind was not how to resist or turn defeat into victory if the same thing happened again, but a sort of horror that was involuntarily generated.

He no longer had the courage to face the same blow again.

And this kind of fear was the biggest enemy martial arts cultivators could have.

When there was a breach in his accumulated confidence, it meant that there was also a crack in his martial cultivation.

“What kind of monster is he? Even you two together failed to stop him?” Li Muzi, Head of the Sky-reaching Sword Sect, was shocked. “Since when has the Devil Cult fostered such an expert? Even the heads of the four branches are unlikely to be so powerful!”

Tan Rushuang kept his mouth shut.

He was operating his Qi and focusing his attention, trying to mend the crack in his heart and make up for his belief in martial arts.

Qu Yi, Lord of Cold River City, gradually came to his senses. He looked at the others, briefly told them what had happened, and added, “If I’m not wildly mistaken, it should be a Devil Cult member from out space. There is absolutely no such kind strong cultivator on this Bitter Star.” He had seen the hack Li Mu made at the very end. His heart and soul was seized by it at that moment. If he were the target, he was afraid that even his Cold River’s Heaven Lockdown Palm-hitting would not be able to fend off that blow.

Although the Bitter Star was not small, it definitely could not cultivate such a martial arts expert.

So, he could only come from a different world.

“But if he were really that strong, why did he choose to escape?” Zhu Nong, the master of the famous family best at tactical deployments asked.

Tan Rushuang and Qu Yi were both dazed at the question.

“Perhaps it’s because we Nine Great Sects are working together to attack them,” someone surmised.

The heads of the nine major sects did not say anything.

Some people secretly shook his head.

A small discrepancy in strength was likely to lead to a huge difference in cultivation.

The man who triumphed over Tan Rushuang and crushed the Sea Shadow Sword would not fear a siege.

Gongsun Bieli, the master of the family best at mechanics, said, “I suppose he escaped for fear of extraterrestrial immortals.”

The sect masters nodded, concurring on this point.

The Nine Great Sects of the Decent Alliance also had backers.

The range of the battle between the decent and the devil was not limited to the Bitter Star in the first place. Instead, the battle was the aftermath of the confrontation between the decent and the devil in outer space.

The Devil Cult was also notorious in the galaxy. Although there were also experts in the Devil Cult, they usually kept a low profile. If that mysterious young man was an expert of the Devil Cult in the galaxy who landed on the Bitter Star to assist Mount Shu, he would know that immortals of the Decent Alliance would soon descend from outer space as well. The reason why he left in a hurry must be that he was afraid of the immortals of Decent Alliance coming to help them.

Some people began to check the battlefield.

“Haha, so that’s what it is… I know how to fix this. Everyone, all we need to do is fence this place off. Even though the stone forest can turn invisible, it cannot really disappear. If they want to get out of the stone forest, they will have to show up here,” concluded Zhu Nong, the head of the Zhu family best at tactical deployment, after some field observing.

After a discussion, the nine major sects of the Decent Alliance decided to set up traps and dispatch some experts around this place. This way, they could block the enemies’ retreat and then destroy them.

Of course, among those guarding this place, there had to be a sect master in the Void-breaking Realm.

Otherwise, it would not have been a defense but a delivery of sacrifice.

The first sect mast to be stationed there that night was Li Muzi, the head of the Sky-reaching Sword Sect.

“Let the news out, saying that the future leader of the Fate-defying Sect, one of the seven major branches of the Devil Cult, has emerged and is now trapped under the Desktop Peak and on the verge of death. I’d like to see if the members of the Devil Cult in White Emperor City will risk their necks to rescue him,” Qu Yi, Lord of Cold River City, said in a nasty tone.

He wanted to kill someone to vent the rage and avenge his son.