Qin Ao stared at Zhao Xin before him, a hideous grin spreading across his lips. "A mere nobody dares to stand in my way?"
No one refuted his words, not even Zhao Xin standing opposite him. Throughout the years, Qin Ao had earned a fearsome reputation, having cut down countless experts who fell into his hands; he had the right to speak this way. In contrast, Zhao Xin had lived an obscure life, merely a loose cultivator born to an ordinary mortal family.
At this moment, Qin Ao clenched his right hand in the air, and a blood-colored longsword condensed into existence out of thin air. Dense, substantial killing energy coiled around the blade—it was the "Killing Sword" from the Seven Kills Canon!
Zhao Xin's expression remained calm. A cyan-bladed longsword appeared in his palm, its body clear as water. "Your path is wrong."
"Wrong?" Qin Ao laughed maniacally. "This world is but a prison; to kill is to deliver salvation! Where is the wrong in that?!"
Before his voice even faded, his figure vanished abruptly. The blood-colored sword light descended toward Zhao Xin like a clap of thunder!
"Boom!" Sword energy exploded, and the rocks within a hundred-meter radius instantly turned to powder!
Yet, as the dust settled, Zhao Xin remained standing in his original position, the cyan sword held horizontally before him, not having retreated even a fraction of an inch.
Qin Ao's pupils shrank slightly. "A bit interesting."
His Killing Sword shook violently. Seven streaks of blood-colored sword energy shot into the sky, transforming into seven ferocious blood dragons that roared as they pounced toward Zhao Xin!—Seven Kill Sword Art: Blood Dragons Devouring the Heavens!
Zhao Xin gently swept his cyan sword, and a clear ripple of light spread out like water waves. The seven blood dragons instantly melted away, like snow and ice meeting the sun!
Qin Ao's expression changed drastically. "Impossible!"
Qin Ao flew into a rage, and his Killing Sword stabbed straight toward Zhao Xin's heart! This strike contained all the killing intent he had accumulated over a century of slaughter—even before the blade arrived, his killing intent had already torn through the void!
Zhao Xin finally opened his eyes. "Break."
The Green Edge Sword gently tapped, striking the tip of the Killing Sword!
"Crack—" With a crisp sound, the Killing Sword shattered inch by inch!
As if struck by lightning, Qin Ao spurted blood and violently retreated a hundred zhang!
"Who exactly are you?!" He stared at Zhao Xin in horror, eyes filled with disbelief.
Zhao Xin sheathed his sword and stood there calmly. "Zhao Xin, merely a loose cultivator."
Qin Ao's face twisted. He couldn't understand how an obscure loose cultivator could so easily break his Killing Path sword arts!
"I don't believe it!"
He tore open the front of his shirt, revealing seven hideous blood-colored patterns—the Seven Kill Seal! "Proving the Way through slaughter, offering blood to the Heavens!"
The Seven Kill Seal lit up. Qin Ao's aura surged madly, instantly breaking through the Long Life Realm limit, pressing straight toward the Celestial Human Realm!
"Die!" He punched out, and a blood-colored fist light streaked down like a falling meteor, collapsing space wherever it passed!
Zhao Xin sighed. The Green Edge Sword finally attacked on its own for the first time. "Tranquility and non-action. Shatter delusion to return to truth."
The sword light flowed like water, silently and noiselessly slicing across the blood-colored fist light. "Ssshh—" The fist light split in two, and the residual waves flattened the peaks on both sides!
And Zhao Xin's sword was already resting against Qin Ao's throat.
"You have lost."
Qin Ao froze in place, the light of the Seven Kill Seal gradually dimming. He stared fixedly at Zhao Xin, then suddenly grinned viciously. "You think this is over?"
He abruptly crushed a blood-colored jade talisman, and his body instantly dissipated into a blood mist!
"Zhao Xin! I will remember you! When I achieve the Celestial Human stage, I will return to take your life!"
The sinister voice echoed through the world as Qin Ao vanished without a trace.
Zhao Xin sheathed his sword and stood there, furrowing his brow slightly as he gazed in the direction Qin Ao had fled.
"The Killing Path has become a tribulation... This one will ultimately be a disaster for the Spirit Realm."
He turned and departed.
In the distance, the cultivators who had been watching the battle stood dumbfounded. No one had imagined that the obscure Zhao Xin could defeat the infamous demon Qin Ao! This battle was destined to shake the entire Spirit Realm!
After Qin Ao fled with heavy injuries, countless cultivators sought to kick him while he was down.
In the Spirit Realm, Eastern Barrens—
Qin Ao clutched the wound on his chest, blood continuously seeping through his fingers. He staggered through the desolate mountain ranges, the aura of pursuers following like a shadow.
"Damn it..." He spat out a mouthful of blood, the redness in his eyes undiminished.
Since his defeat at Zhao Xin's hands, the entire Spirit Realm had been in an uproar. The sects he had once suppressed now sent their elite to hunt him down, vowing to eradicate this "demon."
In just half a month, he had already survived seventeen ambushes.
The most dangerous one involved three Long Life Realm cultivators setting up a killing formation that nearly trapped him in a desperate situation. If not for ruthlessly detonating his Seven Kill Seal at the cost of severe injury, he would have already perished.
"Cough, cough..."
Qin Ao leaned against a withered tree, gasping for breath, his spiritual power in chaos. He looked down at the dimmed Seven Kill Seal in his palm and suddenly let out a self-mocking cold laugh.
"So that's it..."
He suddenly understood something. He recalled his years on Blue Star, when he had single-handedly ventured into Southeast Asia and ultimately established the Dragon King Hall, with hundreds of death warriors under his command. That was how he had truly gained a foothold.
"A lone wolf, no matter how strong, can never defeat a pack of wolves."
He slowly raised his head, the redness in his eyes gradually transforming into cold sharpness.
Three months later, deep in the Eastern Barrens.
A blood-colored great hall rose from the ground, and before it, a stone tablet was carved with three vicious characters: Seven Kill Sect!
Qin Ao sat high on a white bone throne, with dozens of cultivators kneeling beneath him with cold auras.
These were either evil cultivators hunted by the righteous path or those who had gone mad from cultivation deviations—every one of them a desperate killer with blood on their hands.
"From today onward, you are the first batch of elders of the Seven Kill Sect." Qin Ao's finger lightly tapped the armrest, his voice cold. "I have only one rule—"
"Those who follow me prosper; those who oppose me perish!"
As his words fell, a commotion suddenly came from outside the hall.
"The Blood Fiend Gate comes to pay respects!"
Dozens of black-robed cultivators were seen approaching through the air. The leader's cultivation had reached the early Long Life Realm—he was the notorious master of the Blood Fiend Gate in the Eastern Barrens!
"Qin Ao!" The Blood Fiend Gate Master grinned viciously. "I heard Zhao Xin beat you like a stray dog? And you think you're worthy of establishing a sect in the Eastern Barrens?"
The hall erupted in commotion.
But Qin Ao smiled.
He slowly rose, and the Seven Kill Seal on his chest lit up with an eerie blood glow.
"Perfect..."
"I need a sacrifice to establish my authority."
Before his voice faded, his figure had already appeared before the Blood Fiend Gate Master!
"You—"
The Blood Fiend Gate Master hadn't even reacted before Qin Ao's hand pierced through his chest, crushing his beating heart!
"Boom!"
The majestic spiritual power of a Long Life Realm cultivator flooded into Qin Ao's body like a breached dam! His damaged meridians instantly healed, and his aura became even stronger than at his peak!
"Master!"
The Blood Fiend Gate members were terrified and turned to flee.
Qin Ao sneered and waved his sleeve. Seven blood-colored chains shot out from the void, piercing through all dozens of them!
"From today onward, there is no more Blood Fiend Gate in the Eastern Barrens."
He turned to look at the trembling crowd in the hall, his voice like ice from the Nine Netherworlds:
"There is only the Seven Kill Sect!"
Time passed, and several hundred years went by.
In the Eastern Barrens, the Seven Kill Demon Sect had become a colossal entity.
Qin Ao used iron-blooded means to gradually annex all the demonic sects in the Spirit Realm. He commanded over ten thousand demon cultivators and occupied thousands of li of territory in the Eastern Barrens.
The righteous cultivators who had once hunted him now dared not even approach the boundary of the Eastern Barrens without trepidation.
And the Eastern Barrens came to be known by the people of the Spirit Realm as the Demon Domain.
Meanwhile, Chen Chang'an was just coming to his senses from that bell chime.
He had no idea what had happened in the Spirit Realm, and even less did he know that if not for a chess piece he had inadvertently placed long ago, the Spirit Realm would likely have already been destroyed.
After sensing that a thousand years had passed in the Spirit Realm, his divine consciousness swept through but found nothing unusual.
Though he detected the rise of demonic sects in the Eastern Barrens, to him this seemed normal—a part of the Spirit Realm's ecosystem.
His divine consciousness then withdrew from the Spirit Realm and spread in all directions, seeking the source of that bell chime.
Soon, on his own rooftop, he found a small, unremarkable ancient bronze bell.
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