Mo Yuanxiu had frozen completely. For the first time since revealing his identity, fear showed in his eyes. Everything Li Yun had shown before was incomplete, and it was not just slightly incomplete either. What outsiders knew about him was only a fraction of his true ability.
"How..." Mo Yuanxiu’s lips trembled. "How can one person comprehend five Xiantian Stage Intents?"
Li Yun looked at him calmly.
"You spent months investigating me. You studied every ability you thought I had, and you built your trap around that information."
The five powers kept revolving around him.
"But you made one mistake," he said, placing a hand on the Profound Origin Sword. "You only knew what I chose to show."
Mo Yuanxiu’s expression changed violently.
"Kill him!"
The corrupted Bloodvine Spirit reacted instantly. Hundreds of vines shot toward Li Yun from every direction, and each one carried powerful essence qi and enough binding force to restrain an ordinary Spirit Manifestation Realm expert.
Li Yun did not move. The vines entered the combined field created by his Intents and began to fall apart. Slaughter Sword Intent cut off their vitality. Destruction Sword Intent attacked the internal structure that held them together.
Devouring Intent consumed the essence qi that sustained them, and Five Element Intent disrupted the balance of their spiritual nature. Meanwhile, Immortal Sword Intent made sure that Li Yun’s own sword pressure did not weaken while the other powers did their work.
One vine shattered with a crack, and several more followed. A moment later, hundreds of vines disintegrated at once.
Mo Yuanxiu’s face turned pale. Earlier, the vines had been able to bind Li Yun, but now they could not even get close to him.
"Impossible!" he roared.
His aura erupted in full, because he no longer dared to hold anything back. Massive waves of essence qi poured from his body, and the Bloodvine Spirit expanded again. The vines grew thicker, and several of them twisted together into enormous shapes that resembled green dragons.
"Ten Thousand Bloodvine Burial!"
Vines filled the sky above the frozen valley with a boom. Mo Yuanxiu thrust both palms forward.
"Die!"
Thousands of enormous vines came down at once.
Only then did Li Yun draw his sword. The Profound Origin Sword left its sheath with a clang, and the five powers responded immediately.
Slaughter Sword Intent entered the blade first, and crimson light gathered around the sword’s core. Immortal Sword Intent followed, forming a pale glow along the edge that gave the sword an almost eternal sharpness.
Destruction Sword Intent came next, and black patterns spread through the blade with a force that seemed able to collapse whatever they touched. Devouring Intent wrapped around the weapon like a dark current and kept pulling the surrounding energy toward itself.
Finally, Five Element Intent formed five streams of colored light around the other four powers. Rather than simply adding more force, the Five Elements stabilized them.
Five different Intents had gathered in one sword.
For the briefest moment, even Mo Yuanxiu forgot to attack. He had never seen anything like it among the geniuses of the current generation or among the powerful cultivators he had known in his previous life. Perhaps nothing like it appeared even in many ancient records.
Li Yun slowly raised the sword. The movement was simple, yet Mo Yuanxiu suddenly felt cold. The chill did not come from the frozen surroundings. It came from the death he sensed, and it was real death.
For the first time since taking Mu Tianque’s body, Mo Yuanxiu truly felt that his existence might end here.
"Wait!"
The word slipped out of his mouth on instinct, but Li Yun’s gaze stayed emotionless.
"You wanted me dead," he said as the five Intents surged. "So accept the same outcome."
Li Yun swung his sword a single time. There was no elaborate sequence of techniques and no drawn-out exchange. Everything he meant to reveal came together in that one strike.
Sword light crossed the frozen valley, and for one strange instant everything fell silent. Thousands of vines stopped moving, the surging energy froze, and even Mo Yuanxiu seemed trapped inside that instant.
Then thin lines appeared across the vines, and thousands of them were severed at once with a crack.
The crimson Slaughter Sword Intent erased their vitality, Destruction Sword Intent collapsed their internal structure, Devouring Intent consumed the energy stored inside them, and Five Element Intent shattered their spiritual balance. Immortal Sword Intent kept the sword’s power intact as it passed through every obstacle.
The attack did not stop there and headed straight for Mo Yuanxiu. His pupils shrank.
"No!"
He threw out everything he had at once. Vines twisted together into defensive walls, essence qi condensed into shields, and several spiritual artifacts appeared around him.
None of it mattered. The sword passed through the first defense, then the second, and then the third. Every barrier was cut apart, every treasure he brought out was broken, and every defensive method collapsed. Finally, the sword reached Mo Yuanxiu, and the Sword Qi passed through him with a soft hiss.
Silence returned. Li Yun slowly lowered the Profound Origin Sword.
Mo Yuanxiu was still standing, with his face frozen in disbelief. Several breaths went by. Then a line of blood appeared at the top of his forehead and ran down across his face, chest, and abdomen. He slowly looked down.
"No..."
His voice was barely audible. His body came apart, with one half falling to the left and the other collapsing to the right, and blood spread across the ice. Mo Yuanxiu had been cut completely in two, killed by a single stroke of the sword.
Li Yun stayed silent as the five Intents around him gradually receded. The crimson pressure of Slaughter Sword Intent vanished first, and the pale glow of Immortal Sword Intent followed. Destruction Sword Intent withdrew from the surrounding space, and the Devouring vortex slowly disappeared.
Last of all, the revolving light of the Five Elements returned to his body.
He let out a breath. The attack had used up an enormous amount of power. Controlling five completely different Xiantian Stage Intents at once was far harder than using any one of them alone.
The power it produced, however, was just as terrifying, and Mo Yuanxiu had been unable to resist it at all.

Comments

Loading...