"It's an illusion technique."
The burly man with four fingers piercing through Yin Cao's throat smiled in response: "It's both an illusion technique and a sword technique—a sword technique that surpasses your Hua Xian Mou illusion technique."
Sword technique?
The onlookers in the arena were all shocked in unison.
In their minds, they simultaneously recalled a legendary sword technique...
"Huan Jian Shu?"
On the other side, Bai Gui exclaimed in surprise.
His cross-shaped heterochromatic pupils widened in anger, but he found he couldn't mobilize the power of the holy blood to shatter this space with his power of annihilation.
At that moment,
Bai Gui's pair of blue-orange overlapping heterochromatic pupils stared in utter shock at the scruffy man standing before him.
The man's two fingers were clamping a drop of holy blood that resisted confinement and yearned for freedom.
That was the holy blood Bai Gui had produced!
But when had it been stolen?
"Your illusion technique..."
Faced with the astonishment of everyone present, the scruffy man merely smiled and shook his head: "It's like showing off basic skills in front of an expert—nothing more."
As he spoke, he casually stored the holy blood back into his ring. Then, pointing toward the Yin Cao whose throat was pierced by the other man's four fingers, he asked Bai Gui:
"If I kill him, will you be so scared that you'll tell me the location of your Huang Quan leader?"
Bai Gui's pupils contracted sharply.
He rolled his eyes back and forth, incredulously gazing at the man before him, who seemed to be in two places at once yet could control two major Dao-slayers simultaneously.
What kind of ability was this?
What level of cultivation was this?
"Impossible!"
Bai Gui was frantic, on the verge of madness. As a Dao-slayer, he couldn't even discern how the Dao principles were distributed here. He exclaimed in shock:
"You don't even have a sword—how can you use Huan Jian Shu?"
"Besides, you're not Ba Zun An. How could Huan Jian Shu control both of us at the same time and even overpower Hua Xian Mou?"
"Ha!" The scruffy man replied with a calm expression, though his face showed no amusement—his demeanor was cold and serious: "Even now, you still doubt my identity?"
"Ba Zun An can't draw a sword!" Bai Gui roared in anger.
He knew something about this.
As he shouted angrily, Bai Gui tried to use his cross-shaped heterochromatic pupils to annihilate this illusion, but he discovered it felt exactly like reality—this didn't seem like an illusion at all.
The two scruffy men in front of him were real!
"An external incarnation?"
A sense of impending death arose in Bai Gui's heart. Didn't this mean the opponent was a semi-saint?
But that didn't make sense!
Why would a semi-saint pretend to be Ba Zun An?
Though Bai Gui was stalling for time, what he said about Ba Zun An not drawing a sword was true!
Upon hearing this, the scruffy man just shook his head slightly and sighed.
"Even at the brink of death, you don't know what technique you're dying to..."
"My sword is in your heart."
With that,
The scruffy man's other hand, which had been inexplicably overlooked by everyone, suddenly appeared in their awareness.
It was pressed against Bai Gui's heart!
As soon as he finished speaking, the man curled his hand into a sword-gripping pose and actually drew a black-and-white sword covered in Dao patterns from Bai Gui's heart.
"Urgh... ahhhh—"
Agonized roars instantly echoed in everyone's ears.
Time in this place seemed to slow down by hundreds or thousands of times.
The black-and-white sword was pulled out bit by bit.
Everyone could clearly see the eight trigrams mystical patterns on it and feel the Dao rhythm gathered in the blade.
"A famous sword!"
Jiang Chao Tian cried out in shock: "Isn't this the Tai Yi Sheng Shui Jian? Isn't this the sword of Yao Fu and Yao Ye? Is he from the Yao family?"
No one responded.
The crowd only watched in stunned shock as the scene unfolded, listening to Bai Gui's helpless, tearing howls of pain.
A Dao-slayer
Was rendered so powerless before this scruffy man!
The storyteller, observing the entire scene, couldn't help but feel a chill.
"Huan Jian Shu..."
In this small world of yin and yang, life and death, the only one who sensed the unreality of the scene was the storyteller.
Having witnessed his brother's sword before, the storyteller knew
This sword was merely a tiny fragment of the vast Huan Jian Shu.
And in the instant the scruffy man pulled the Tai Yi Sheng Shui Jian from Bai Gui's heart,
Both Yin Cao and Bai Gui lost all signs of life in the eyes of the crowd.
"Are they dead?"
Everyone swallowed hard.
At that moment, even Xu Xiao Shou felt it was absurd.
This was too absurd!
It was utterly ridiculous!
Two major Dao-slayers were gone just like that?
This man must be the real Ba Zun An, and the one from the Holy Servant must be a fake!
Xu Xiao Shou even entertained such thoughts.
However,
After slowly wiping the sword clean and removing all the blood from the Tai Yi Sheng Shui Jian, the scruffy man flicked the famous sword lightly with his finger.
"Clang—"
A crisp sword hum rang out.
Everyone saw the scene before them shatter once more.
Another layer of reality emerged.
Once the true reality was clear, the crowd felt their scalps tingle again.
The scruffy man hadn't moved an inch, and his hand was empty of any sword or dust.
Yin Cao, as in the illusion created by Hua Xian Mou, had truly lunged forward and reached the scruffy man.
Now, they were only a few steps apart.
The man remained still.
Yin Cao, however, was drenched in sweat, panting heavily, his face as pale as paper.
He wasn't dead!
But he looked like someone who had just survived a near-fatal ordeal.
Bai Gui, a bit farther back, wasn't dead either. His hand still maintained the pose of drawing out the holy blood.
Yet now, the holy blood was gone.
In Bai Gui's palm, only a small stone remained.
The entire area fell silent.
Not a sound to be heard.
After a moment, everyone realized that the scene where Yin Cao and Bai Gui had both died was the true illusion!
A Huan Jian Shu that completely overpowered Hua Xian Mou!
Xu Xiao Shou was shocked.
His "perception" could see through a bit of the falsehood in Hua Xian Mou, but he couldn't detect any flaws in the scruffy man's Huan Jian Shu at all.
Recalling the man's earlier words—"It's like showing off basic skills in front of an expert"—Xu Xiao Shou now felt that this man was truly formidable.
This was what a real illusion technique was!
"Huan Jian Shu?"
On the other side, Yin Cao swallowed hard and forced out the words.
His face showed the weakness of someone who had narrowly escaped death, with no hope of future fortune.
As Yin Cao's Hua Xian Mou met the man's murky eyes, it completely lost its color.
It was like a phoenix facing a mere chicken,
But in this moment, the chicken had the upper hand!
"Mm." The man simply nodded.
"You're really Ba Zun An?" Yin Cao asked again.
"Mm." The man nodded again.
Yin Cao had no more questions and fell silent.
The man then spoke: "Since you've 'died' once, you can finally answer my question, right? Where is Huang Quan?"
Yin Cao felt a sense of helplessness.
How could he fight this?
This person's Huan Jian Shu was so powerful that even Hua Xian Mou couldn't resist it.
It turned out that what Huang Quan had said was all true...
Just because you had the Lei family pupils and reached the Dao-slayer realm, it didn't mean you could fearlessly face Tai Xu, or even fight Tai Xu with holy blood.
In this world, there were geniuses.
Some people spent their lives mastering just one technique, reaching the peak.
All pupil techniques were illusions.
With one force, they could break through ten thousand methods!
Gazing at the scruffy man before him, Yin Cao still didn't fully believe he was Ba Zun An.
But whether he was or not didn't matter anymore.
Even if you called him one of the Seven Sword Immortals, Yin Cao now felt he deserved such a title.
Huan Jian Shu was known as the most difficult of the nine great sword techniques to cultivate.
For this man to reach such a level was terrifying!
"Huang Quan..."
Yin Cao pursed his lips, seemingly deciding not to resist anymore and ready to reveal Huang Quan's location.
But the next second, everyone heard him cry out in a hoarse voice: "Save me—"
The whole scene was stunned.
Even the scruffy man was taken aback by this sudden move and didn't react in time.
At the same time,
Bai Gui also shouted from behind: "Huang Quan, save me—"
His voice carried a hint of grievance and reluctance.
But in the end, both had called out.
Once the scruffy man realized what was happening, his face turned serious. He joined his two fingers together and slashed forward, as if to sever Yin Cao's head.
However, at that instant, ripples spread through the void, and the power of space-time surged.
A faint golden light rose from the bodies of the two shouting kings.
The man's sword fingers, aimed at Yin Cao's throat, seemed to cut into another dimension.
His hand passed straight through Yin Cao's body.
"Space-time power?" The scruffy man said in surprise.
Then, he watched as the two were swallowed by a black hole under the power of space-time, their figures vanishing on the spot.
"They escaped?" Jiang Chao Tian gritted his teeth in fury from behind.
His San Yan Tong Mu hadn't even been recovered yet.
The two kings had escaped?
He rushed forward immediately, but aside from passing through the space where Yin Cao had been, he couldn't catch even a trace of their clothing.
When he landed, Jiang Chao Tian looked as if he had aged decades.
This battle seemed to have made his presence entirely redundant from start to finish.
From the storyteller, to the first Ba Zun An, to the two kings, to the second Ba Zun An...
No one in the crowd had taken his status as a Jiang family Dao-slayer seriously!
In fact, it was as if they had completely ignored him...
Jiang Chao Tian felt like the world had gone mad.
When had the presence of a Dao-slayer become so insignificant?
But after realizing he was trapped in a dead end, he broke free from his mental block and thought again, knowing exactly what vortex he was in.
The Holy Servants, the two Ba Zun An, and the Yan Wang organization, which collected Lei family pupils and possessed two supreme divine artifacts as leaders...
This was far beyond what he, Jiang Chao Tian, could handle.
Or rather, for the entire Jiang family, the only ones who could intervene were the semi-saints.
At the very least, it would require Tai Xu cultivation!
"Slap."
Thinking of this, Jiang Chao Tian slapped his forehead and lowered his eyes.
He understood the logic.
But what about Jiang Shao?
How could he, Jiang Chao Tian, return to the Jiang family and explain this?
On the other side,
"Interesting..."
The scruffy man touched the space, sensing the residual power, and murmured to himself:
"Such dense time power—I’ve only felt something similar from Kong Yu Hen."
"But he also has spatial attributes..."
"Interesting!"
The scruffy man murmured, then suddenly looked up, his eyes gleaming: "This Huang Quan is incredibly powerful!"
He didn't care about the Jiang family trio.
Since the two kings had been rescued from afar unexpectedly,
The only thing left for him to worry about here was one person.
"Ba Zun An?" The man turned his head and looked at Xu Xiao Shou with a smile.
"Hold on."
Xu Xiao Shou waved at him and walked straight to Jiang Qi, saying directly:
"The San Yan Tong Mu isn't in my hands. I don't want to make an enemy of your clan's semi-saint. I'm not a Holy Servant, and by nature, I never strike first."
Jiang Qi was startled, not understanding what this masked man intended.
Xu Xiao Shou continued casually: "Whether you believe it or not, you should keep an eye on the Yan Wang organization. I believe that since you let the San Yan Tong Mu be carried by a junior, your Jiang family must have other Lei family pupils... you get it."
With that, he stopped.
He knew Jiang Qi was smart and didn't need to explain further.
The real Ba Zun An wouldn't deliberately antagonize a semi-saint.
But there was no need to deliberately befriend one either.
So, a single hint was enough.
Then,
Xu Xiao Shou turned to the storyteller: "Let them out."
The storyteller hadn't yet figured out who Xu Xiao Shou was, so Xu Xiao Shou sent a voice transmission: "I'm Xu Xiao Shou."
The storyteller suddenly understood and directly released the Jiang family members from the small world, returning them to Tian Qi Forest.
Suddenly finding themselves out of the yin-yang, life-death small world, Jiang Chao Tian knew he was free.
But at the same time, he had lost all leads!
Jiang Qi, on the side, was lost in thought.
"What do you mean?"
At first, Jiang Qi thought the masked Ba Zun An was real, especially since he had been to Tian Yang Manor.
But later, with the scruffy man's Huan Jian Shu being so extraordinary, she no longer believed the masked man was Ba Zun An—perhaps the scruffy man was.
Yet, in the end, the masked man could command the storyteller!
It didn't matter which Ba Zun An was real or fake.
What mattered was that the yin-yang, life-death small world was unique in the world, belonging only to the Holy Servant storyteller.
In other words, the red-skirted storyteller in the scene was definitely real.
The power of space was too rare.
No one could imitate that.
So, was the masked man who didn't make a move the real Ba Zun An?
But if that was the case, then the fake scruffy man, with his sword intent and Huan Jian Shu being so masterful...
"Uh!"
Jiang Qi suddenly clutched her head and groaned, feeling a splitting headache.
She was driving herself crazy with this!
It didn't matter...
It didn't matter...
Trying to dismiss it all, Jiang Qi turned back to Jiang Chao Tian, who was continuously healing Jiang Shao, and said: "Senior, we might have a way to save him."
"Save?" Jiang Chao Tian didn't look back, clearly uninterested.
"Yes."
Jiang Qi was very certain. Recalling the masked Ba Zun An's final words to her, a bold and terrifying deduction formed in her heart: "I won't speculate about our clan's semi-saint, but since the San Yan Tong Mu was so important, why was it lost so mysteriously?"
"Perhaps, this was just one of our clan's lines?"
Jiang Chao Tian's healing movements paused, and he suddenly turned back, his eyes regaining their spark.
Yes!
The Yan Wang organization was clearly a massive fish.
Even before the San Yan Tong Mu was lost, as a Jiang family Dao-slayer with extensive intelligence, he, Jiang Chao Tian, had never even heard of this organization.
Yet, Yan Wang had developed to the point of possessing the Xuan Jian, the Soul Cutter, and two Lei family pupils!
Jiang Chao Tian opened his mouth to speak but suddenly stopped, turning to look at Jiang Shao.
In his arms, Jiang Xian's eyes, stained with dried blood, fluttered—showing signs of awakening.
"He's not dead!"
Jiang Chao Tian was overjoyed.
He quickly composed himself and turned back to Jiang Qi, saying seriously: "Since you said not to speculate about semi-saints, then don't."
"Yes," Jiang Qi nodded.
Yes.
Bai Yi was coming.
They couldn't discuss it here—wait until they returned.
This matter had to be clarified.
For now, they should confirm the victim's identity and let Bai Yi seek justice for Jiang Shao!
After all...
Darkness should be vanquished by light!
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