For a moment, a brief stagnation fell upon the scene. Li Yan still had his hands behind his back, his gaze still fixed placidly on Wan Qingshe, not saying a word.
But it was this very gaze that made Wan Qingshe feel as if he were being looked down upon. However, he wasn't surprised that the other party could block his sword; after all, he wasn't a sword immortal.
But what did surprise him was that Li Yan seemed to have used no strength at all. This was rather unusual.
His eyes slowly narrowed into a line. Suddenly, he raised an arm, his arm leaving behind an afterimage!
His index and middle fingers formed a sword sign, pointing at the green flying sword circling around him. An arc of electricity appeared at the tip of his fingers and, in the next moment, struck the body of the green flying sword.
The flying sword, which had been circling incessantly, came to a halt. Then, it stopped in mid-air. As the arc of electricity flickered, the entire sword body trembled slightly, as if gathering power for a strike.
As Wan Qingshe held the flying sword, he suddenly raised his right arm. The small green sword abruptly disappeared. In the sky above the two of them, a massive vortex, several hundred zhang wide, instantly appeared.
In the instant the vortex appeared, the sky, which had been a setting sun, turned into a mass of churning dark clouds. Flashes of lightning and peals of thunder arrived in an instant.
As a fierce wind swept through, Wan Qingshe's white robes fluttered, his long hair danced wildly, looking just like a sword immortal descending upon the world. He let out a low shout.
"Slash!"
With the word "slash," a gigantic green sword head, six to seven zhang long, emerged from the vortex. Its tail was not visible, as if a dragon's head were peering down from the sky.
"Rumble!"
As the sword head emerged, a series of explosions echoed around it. Streaks of lightning, like mad silver snakes and dragons, burst out from the clouds and coiled around the giant green sword.
With Wan Qingshe's sharp cry, the giant green sword, carrying the might of heaven and earth and wrapped in the power of ten thousand thunderbolts, struck down towards Li Yan below.
All of this happened in just two breaths.
Li Yan looked up and saw a giant green sword that seemed capable of splitting the heavens and the earth stabbing straight down. The body of the sword was still in the vortex in the sky, but its tip had already reached his head.
The giant green sword stabbed straight down, its sharp edges creating streaks of sword qi that had already torn apart the surrounding space.
Wherever it passed, it was like a long sword stabbing down from above onto a flat piece of cloth. The moment the sword tip and blade pierced the cloth and emerged, it pulled the surrounding cloth with it, forming vertical folds.
This was the scene that Su Hong saw from a distance. Having seen her fair share of storms, although her face remained calm, her heart was already in turmoil.
She had just been amazed by Li Yan's mysterious and ghost-like block of the first strike. Li Yan's strength had surprised her again.
She had thought that a fight between two Nascent Soul cultivators would be earth-shattering, but she had not expected Li Yan's move to be traceless and without artifice, giving a sense of ease and casualness.
And just as this thought arose, a truly earth-shattering strike appeared before her eyes.
Even from such a distance, Wan Qingshe's peerless might still made Su Hong feel as if death had arrived. With just one glance at the giant green sword emerging from the dark clouds, her heart trembled and her spirit shook.
Su Hong only felt that in her mind, she could not muster the slightest thought of resistance. There was only one thought.
'Am I going to die?'
Wan Qingshe knew that the other party was a great grandmaster-level poison cultivator, so he fully utilized the power of his long-range attacks, not getting close at all.
At this time, Li Yan's body, compared to the giant sword that had instantly fallen from the sky, was like an ant standing there, waiting to be hit by a giant battering ram lifted by dozens of people! The comparison was impossible.
The moment the giant sword head appeared, it had already fallen. The surrounding thunder also descended with the sword body. The sword followed the wind, and the wind accompanied the sword, completely enveloping a radius of several hundred li. At this time, even if Li Yan wanted to dodge, it would be very difficult.
The fierce wind made Wan Qingshe's long robe flutter loudly. As his long hair danced, he looked like a celestial being. Two beams of sharp light shot out from his eyes. Seeing the giant green sword instantly arrive above Li Yan's head, it directly "smashed" down.
Given the huge difference in size between the two, it could no longer be described as a stab.
'Let's see how you block this time!'
The two attacks were almost identical in form. The first was like a poisonous snake testing the waters, while the second was a thunderous strike that stirred the heavens and the earth.
Li Yan's body sank slightly. His feet instantly separated, forming a high horse stance in the void. At the same time, he lifted one hand, raising the hem of his long robe. Catching it with one hand, he tucked it into his waist.
At the same time, his other hand, from bottom to top, clenched into a fist and shot upwards with an explosive shout.
"Break!"
The next moment, his arm, which was like a thin thread compared to the giant sword tip, met it head-on.
"Boom!"
The nearby void shook violently. Su Hong and the others in the distance also swayed unsteadily. Two forces from behind Su Hong instantly enveloped her.
At the same time, Su Hong also involuntarily raised her snow-white jade hand to shield her eyes.
Amidst the loud noise, a dazzling four-colored light exploded in the air in front. The light was composed of green, blue, black, and yellow.
At this time, in the dazzling light cluster in front, a frozen frame appeared. Li Yan, in a horse stance in the void, had met the giant sword tip with a single punch.
The sword tip, like a boundless giant mountain, had actually been blocked by Li Yan's single punch.
A series of green lights erupted from the body of the giant sword. Streaks of blue electric arcs, like slithering snakes, struck down along the sword body with a dense crackling sound, hitting Li Yan's arm like slithering snakes.
And from Li Yan's raised fist, a patch of brilliant golden-yellow light also erupted. Mixed in with this golden light were streaks of dark black light that emerged from between Li Yan's knuckles, as if he had crushed a ball of thick black smoke.
"You... you you..."
In the distance, Wan Qingshe was truly dumbfounded, his eyes wide open.
He couldn't believe that the other party had caught his flying sword with just his physical body. He had seen it clearly; no magical treasure had appeared in the other party's hand.
"Bang!"
Li Yan, in his horse stance, shook his shoulders as if a lion were shaking its head. As his body rose slightly, a dull "hum" came from within him, and the black and yellow light on his fist erupted again.
A shocking scene occurred again. The sky-piercing giant sword, which had only revealed half of its body, as if endless, was sent flying by a huge force with just a shake of Li Yan's shoulder.
This scene made the Third Elder and the others in the distance feel their hearts tremble.
The green giant sword had only revealed a section of its body, and its true length and hilt were still unknown.
Amidst an explosion, all the blue thunderous arcs on the surface of the giant green sword erupted with an even denser sound, crackling incessantly as they all detonated.
And the giant green sword, at an even faster vertical speed, shot back up towards the vortex of churning dark clouds and flashing lightning.
Its speed was actually three parts faster than when it came, like a cloud-piercing sharp arrow, straight into the center of the vortex.
"Not good!"
The hand seal in Wan Qingshe's hand shook violently. A tremendous force was transmitted, making it impossible for him to maintain it. The hand seal instantly collapsed. His heart was immediately filled with alarm. He would never have dreamed of such a thing.
Someone could actually hit back his heaven-shaking strike so cleanly in an instant, and his magical treasure had instantly lost control.
"Boom!"
The moment Wan Qingshe sensed something was wrong, the hilt of the giant sword pierced through the vortex from the top at an angle. After a violent shudder, the vortex immediately stopped rotating.
However, the vortex only paused for a very short time. Almost in the instant it paused, the vortex exploded outwards. An incomparably majestic force could no longer be condensed and burst out as it spread.
The first to be hit was Wan Qingshe himself. He felt a stuffiness in his chest, as if he had been struck by lightning. With a muffled groan, he was immediately sent flying backwards. At the same time, a large amount of blood shot out from his mouth and nose.
As for Li Yan, after throwing the punch, his figure was like a phantom, and in a flash, he had already reached a distant place, hundreds of li away in an instant.
And the Third Elder and the others only reacted after Li Yan had flown some distance.
Fortunately, they were already quite a distance from where the two were fighting. The three of them immediately took Su Hong and flew quickly to an even further distance.
And behind them, rings of airwaves, like a volcanic eruption, followed them all the way.
Wherever the scorching airwaves passed, the peaks of the mountains that pierced the clouds were like fresh bamboo shoots, instantly breaking and turning into fine dust that filled the entire sky.
Fortunately, their battle was nearly ten thousand zhang above the ground below, and it only affected the peaks above ten thousand zhang. Otherwise, even though this place was far from the Tianli Clan, it would have destroyed all the mountains, forests, and low-rank demonic beasts in this area.
"Cough, cough, cough..."
Wan Qingshe, who had been sent flying, coughed up blood continuously. Under the frantic infusion of his magical power, after covering a long distance, his body finally came to a stop in the void.
The hem of his long robe, which had been pulled straight like a white flag in front of him due to his rapid retreat, also fell down. And at this moment, a hint of madness flashed in his eyes.
Wan Qingshe didn't even check his own injuries. With a sudden wave of his hand, a narrow, long, green, thin sword appeared above his head.
"Kill!"
He let out a low roar. His body, like a cheetah, gathered power for a moment, then transformed into a streak of white light and shot out.
Sword cultivators did not fear battle, much less death. But they cared about honor, about a sword heart as sharp as a solitary peak. Therefore, as long as they had a breath left, sword cultivators would often press forward.
A distance of several hundred li was covered almost in an instant.
Seeing that after he had broken the other party's two strikes, Wan Qingshe's fighting spirit had become even more frenzied, his attacks like rain on banana leaves, continuous and rapid, Li Yan couldn't help but have a new perspective on sword cultivators.
He had not fought with many sword cultivators. Even among the opponents of the Malevolent Spirit Sect, there was the Ten-Pace Courtyard, which was represented by sword cultivators. But because Li Yan was not on the Desolate Moon Continent for many years, he rarely encountered them and fought with them.
In the previous two strikes, Li Yan had blocked the first strike with the Gui-Yi Water-Parting Spike. Although the Gui-Yi Water-Parting Spike was an assassination-type magical treasure, it could also be used to clash head-on with others.
It was a growth-type magical treasure. As Li Yan's cultivation grew, and he nourished it with increasingly pure magical power, its quality had also grown all the way from an entry-level magical treasure used by Foundation Establishment cultivators to a Nascent Soul-level magical treasure.
Its hardness was no less than the famous magical treasures of those veteran Nascent Souls, but Li Yan was unwilling to casually use it to clash head-on with others.
Today, he wanted to test his magical treasure against a sword cultivator, especially an inner sword cultivator's flying sword nourished in their Niwan Palace, to see what the so-called most powerful attack in the world was like.
After one strike, the Gui-Yi Water-Parting Spike that had returned to his body still looked gray and unremarkable, but it showed no signs of damage.
In Li Yan's mental connection, it even sent out a kind of joyous sound that only Li Yan could feel.
The Gui-Yi Water-Parting Spike had already produced a spiritual rhyme, the prototype of an artifact spirit.
Magical treasures were divided into those with and without artifact spirits, but both would have spirituality, which was the result of the magical treasure's forging and nourishment by spiritual energy.
There were two ways to produce an artifact spirit. One was during refining, where one could refine the artifact spirit of another, or the soul of a living creature, into it. As long as the magical treasure was successfully refined, it would have an artifact spirit.
Like Gong Chenying's former halberd magical treasure, which had the soul of a certain demonic beast refined into it. In the future, through continuous nourishment, the artifact spirit within it would slowly advance, and finally drive the improvement of the magical treasure's rank.
The other way an artifact spirit was produced was from the spirituality of the magical treasure itself. Through slow nourishment, a spiritual rhyme would be produced. This spiritual rhyme, through further nourishment, would slowly produce spiritual intelligence and become an artifact spirit.
Li Yan had adopted this method.
Both methods had their pros and cons. The former might be limited by the level of the soul of the living creature refined into it and be unable to upgrade, or even be fixed at a certain level.
For example, if a "Purple Light Rat" were refined into it, then after this magical treasure was successfully refined, even if the materials used were very precious, its level could basically be determined to be only a low-grade magical treasure.
The strongest a "Purple Light Rat" could be in its lifetime was a second-rank demonic beast. Even if someone fused it into a magical treasure, it would usually only be paired with the most common magical treasure refining materials. Of course, it would only be a temporary transitional magical treasure.
Otherwise, it would drag down the level and rank of the good raw materials. It would be better not to fuse a soul and only retain its spirituality. That way, a magical treasure refined from good materials could be maintained at a higher level.
But the former method, a magical treasure containing an artifact spirit, once a good artifact spirit was found, would directly become a powerful magical treasure.
With a method like Li Yan's to nourish a magical treasure, the disadvantage was that in the early stages, the magical treasure relied on its own spirituality in battle, and could not borrow the power of an artifact spirit.
But once an artifact spirit appeared, it would be the most perfect and compatible artifact spirit, and the power of the magical treasure might undergo a world-shaking change.
After the first strike, Li Yan knew that his natal magical treasure, after a long period of continuous nourishment, was not inferior to the magical treasure of a sword cultivator, which was claimed to be the strongest and sharpest. This also filled his heart with a burst of joy.
Li Yan broke the opponent's second strike, still using the cultivation methods and magical treasures of the "Five Immortal Sects."
He instantly moved the "Earthen Patch" to the knuckles of his fist with his divine sense, and at the same time circulated the "Nine Cauldrons Gui Water" cultivation method. The Gui Water magical power in his body surged with waves. In a head-on clash, he broke the sword cultivator's seemingly effortless but thunderous attack.
The huge force even easily sent the opponent's flying sword back to its master, and Li Yan had only used sixty percent of his magical power.
And at this time, Wan Qingshe's third strike arrived in an instant. After being injured, the sword cultivator's fighting spirit was even stronger, and in an instant, an even stronger assassination attempt than the previous two strikes appeared!