Chapter 331: Sloppy Uncle

A rough glance revealed a suspended crowd in the void, numbering at least tens of thousands.

These people had been flung upward by an immense force, leaving them utterly bewildered.

They had only been walking along the road, seeing nothing at all—some hadn't even gotten a chance to enjoy their snacks—yet here they were...

Floating?

The double boundary domain had absorbed most of the force, after all.

But the instantaneous burst of the Passive Fist was simply too overwhelming.

Even though Chong Dong had quickly expanded his boundary domain, he couldn't protect the majority.

"I'm flying?" someone exclaimed in surprise, only to realize that their own voice was completely inaudible.

Every tangible and intangible medium in the air had been utterly cleared by that single punch!

Everyone who grasped this fact panicked.

Though the earth had borne the brunt of the Passive Fist's power, they had merely been shaken into the air.

Falling from such a height...

Not everyone was a Lianling Shi!

"Help—"

The instant the vacuum restored, over ten thousand cries and screams pierced the air like a torrent of demonic noise.

"Damn, this has to be like ten stories high! I've never flown in my life, and suddenly I'm up here... Urgh!"

"Grand Commander, save us!"

"Lianling Shi masters, save me..."

Some called out to the Jingwei Jun guards, others clung to the legs of nearby Lianling Shi, and some even grabbed whoever was closest as a human shield...

In the midst of the chaos, the floating chunks of ground finally crashed down, sending the tens of thousands plummeting back to the earth.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!

At that moment, three shadowy figures streaked in from the horizon: a man, a woman, and an elderly man.

As soon as they arrived, three boundary domains expanded from their dantians, overlapping and merging into a vast world that instantly enveloped the falling crowd.

"Hold!"

The elderly man with the great sword on his back uttered a light command.

With the Tian Dao Zhen Yan invoked, tens of thousands were instantly fixed in the void.

Stones hung suspended, the crowd surged in turmoil, all dangling in mid-air—an spectacle of epic proportions.

Onlookers in the distance were stunned.

This breathtaking scene unfolded like divine brushstrokes in the void, casually sketching the full spectrum of human emotions with a flick of the wrist.

Panic, unease, admiration, shock...

A myriad of expressions emerged, with miscellaneous thoughts swirling from all directions.

Yet, in the void, the elderly man with the great sword on his back simply pinched his fingers together, issuing a decree to the heavens.

"Yuan Sanda, Elder Yuan Sanda?"

When was the last time such a scene had appeared?

A Wangzuo battling within the city, with Yuan Sanda, Elder Yuan Sanda, reemerging in the jianghu?

Even Chong Dong, the Grand Commander of the Jingwei Jun, was shocked at the sight of this elderly man and the unfolding drama.

"Has Elder Yuan really come?"

"The city lord must have foreseen this perfectly—how else could he have predicted that earlier burst wasn't the end?"

A wave of fear washed over him—if the three reinforcements he requested hadn't arrived, or if only Qiu Xuan and Liu Jing had come, the situation would have been far more dire.

A Wangzuo could achieve enlightenment, but without reaching the Dao Severing stage, how could one manipulate the fate of tens of thousands with a mere snap of the fingers?

"Save them!"

Yuan Sanda didn't hesitate, though forcibly stabilizing this ten-li space was no simple feat for him.

After all, space wasn't his attribute; he managed this purely through his formidable cultivation.

With that order, the other three Wangzuo scattered immediately, each taking charge of a section, leading the Jingwei Jun crowds to mitigate the damage and rescue people from the debris.

Yuan Sanda remained still.

He gazed toward the epicenter of the explosion.

It wasn't empty there, but a blurred spatial surface.

"Hmm?"

Yuan Sanda frowned.

In his view, the previous force had shattered even boundary domains, yet the wielder had no control over the attack's range.

This suggested that, at most, the person was a Wangzuo and certainly not at the Dao Severing level.

But how could a non-Dao Severing expert interfere with his spiritual sense?

"External interference?"

That was the only explanation.

At the explosion's end, even Chong Dong might not have noticed someone slipping into the battlefield.

And it was a powerful individual!

Yuan Sanda scrutinized the distorted spatial surface.

Logically, a boundary domain would be the best way to block vision—why go to such lengths?

Distorting space?

That consumed even more energy than his own spatial fixation!

"Could it be that inside isn't a Wangzuo, someone without a boundary domain, just a pure... space-attribute expert?"

Yuan Sanda quickly dismissed the idea.

Because he suddenly noticed that on the spatial surface, there was an extremely faint trace of...

"Sword intent?"

"Am I going to die?"

Xu Xiaoshou lay sprawled on the ground, unable to move an inch.

What appeared to be a barely intact body was actually shattered internally by the Passive Fist.

The "Everlasting Vitality" technique was still circulating desperately, but the aura of death grew thicker by the moment.

"Heh!"

He let out a self-mocking laugh.

Who would have thought his life would end by his own hand?

Indeed, a Wangzuo-level expert like Hong Gou's final frenzied slashes hadn't killed him outright.

Given time, he could have recovered.

But the Passive Fist left no such opportunity!

This punch was far too powerful—beyond what his current level could handle.

Or put another way...

He had been charging up the Passive Fist for far too long!

He thought the extra three-plus points of charge weren't much, but it turned out they would be his undoing!

He slowly closed his eyes, his six senses fading away.

Thud!

From beneath the rubble, stones were pushed aside as a body, severed nearly in half, rose unsteadily.

What kind of person was this?

He could hardly be called human anymore.

His right arm and half his body were blown to pieces, even half his skull was gone, with the remaining limbs dangling limply.

Yet, despite such injuries, he still stood.

Hong Gou laughed.

His laughter sounded nothing like a human's.

"Xu Xiaoshou..."

"Hahaha... You're too strong!"

"I've killed thousands of geniuses, but you're the only one who's forced me into this state with innate cultivation!"

"But... so what?"

His remaining eye, its eyeball dangling, suddenly contracted as spiritual energy surged wildly.

"The power of a Wangzuo is beyond your imagination!" he roared.

Xu Xiaoshou was jolted awake by those words.

The "perception" feed showed Hong Gou was still alive?

"He's still alive?"

Xu Xiaoshou was utterly shocked.

What kind of tenacious vitality and unyielding will was this!

Just on that alone, Xu Xiaoshou had lost.

If someone else were beaten into such a corpse-like state and could still persist, how could he give up just because of his own punch?

"Get up!"

In that moment, his fierce will to survive drove him to struggle, trying desperately to twitch a finger.

Because Hong Gou was crawling toward him!

This mad dog first groped for shards of a dagger, then inch by inch, slowly wriggled closer.

In such a weakened state, Xu Xiaoshou felt that even a baby's accidental fall could kill him on the spot—how could he withstand a stab from that dagger?

"Enough."

A soft voice interrupted the two crippled figures' struggle, and they both turned to see a disheveled middle-aged man emerging from the dust.

His hair hung like greasy noodles, his face rugged but filthy.

He dragged a large sack behind him, filled with what sounded like scrap metal clanging inside as he walked.

"Who are you?"

Hong Gou was stunned.

How could a mere innate, no, not even innate—just a Houtian peak expert—break into the battlefield?

What was wrong with the world? The weaker the cultivation, the bolder the people?

Hong Gou was furious.

This fight was his, and the spoils belonged to him alone.

No one could touch Xu Xiaoshou!

His dantian stirred, boundary domain activating in an instant, ready to eject the disheveled man from the fight.

But as the domain neared the man, it collided with what seemed like an endless array of swords, shattering instantly.

Hong Gou: ???

This was Houtian?

"I said, enough."

The disheveled man spoke, extending a hand from his oversized sleeve—it had only four fingers.

He bent them into a two-finger strike, a faint sword intent coating them.

With a single slash.

Hong Gou's head was severed.