Archfiend

BOOM! Azure flames strung through the horizon. In this instant, all of New York’s cultivators were stunned.

“Such powerful essence!!!”

“Two super powerful Marquises are fighting!”

“Is this the House of Dracul’s overseer? She’s freakishly strong! Who is her opponent? They can actually make her use all her strength?”

In the surrounding area, it could be said that a soaring fire pillar had erupted, shrouding everything within a range of several dozen meters. It was to the degree that a kind of scorched smell wafted through the air! Even the moonlight had turned hazy because of this fire pillar!

However, in this moment of incoming peril, Xu Yangyi neither dodged nor evaded. In the face of Vermilion Snow’s killing move, he likewise shouted. “Heavenly Opening Fifth Erosion!”

The head of his staff was pointed straight at Vermilion Snow. Here and now, the region around Vermilion Snow began to be swiftly invaded by vast tapestries of red runes!

Swish swish swish… The noiseless red runes wandered forth, forcibly breaking Vermilion Snow’s azure boundary field. A similarly powerful qi loudly exploded!

Vanessa and Richard sucked in deeply and fled without the slightest hesitation!

Their Marquis-rank spiritual sense was telling them that this place… would herald a violent clash in a blink of an eye!

Indeed. Neither Xu Yangyi nor Vermilion Snow fled. This was an old grudge spanning decades! They had both opted for a frontal battle!

Hum hum hum… Terrible qi condensed in the air and flashed, and the fox-demon’s giant azure flame pillar flared. In the next second, a giant mushroom cloud frantically exploded with Vermilion Snow at the center of it!

BOOM!!! Soon, a second explosion rang out! From the heart of the first crimson mushroom cloud, nearly 200 meters all around, a second explosion detonated and ascended! As if the deity Kuafu was beating drums, all sound now became mute! [1]

But in this noiselessness, one could hear the clap of thunder!

RUMBLE!!! A third explosion rang out, and with its swift arrival, it fully triggered the first two blast waves to detonate! The black clouds in the air were instantly swept away! Right now, there were no clouds in the surrounding several hundred meters!

Swoosh swoosh swoosh… The clouds appeared to recede, and a massive shock wave streaked right to the horizon! The three mushroom clouds were like mountain range upon mountain range, the tyrannical aura of the Fishbowel Sword from over a thousand years ago on full display!

Red and azure, two radiances collided together at an incomprehensible speed! Subsequently… 

A massive explosion shocked New York’s sky!

“Brat!!!” On no uncertain terms, Vermilion Snow had never expected that Xu Yangyi would actually be able to match her kill move. She wanted to end the battle as fast as she could, because she knew that Xu Yangyi had an Animus Armament. In order to put to rest her long troubled nights and many dreams, she used this move without a trace of hesitation. Still… she didn’t expect that Xu Yangyi’s kill move actually wasn’t weaker than hers!

In the wake of her screech, azure and red clashed. Brilliant light filled the world, devouring hers and Xu Yangyi’s figures in a flash.

“What’s going on?” On the ground, a student listening to his headphones suddenly took them out and looked at the sky in amazement. “The moon is so nice… How did the sky change?” 

“That’s some loud thunder.”

“Yeah, there’s a storm so late?”

“Let’s pick up the pace! Or else we won’t have enough time to get home.”

The voices of pedestrians rose and fell. They simply didn’t see that above the sky and beyond the clouds, all that remained after the clash of red and azure was a twisting patch of air!

Everything in the vicinity seemed to have been drawn to the collision site, slowly buried into the center little by little.

A Nirvana Void!

The great collision from the two attacks of Green Hill’s Lonely Lantern and the Heavenly Opening Fifth Erosion caused this part of heaven’s curtain to sway!

Ruuummmble… Azure and red fire ripped apart half of the sky and then receded. But this time, a Nirvana Void, no less than ten meter in size, was left at the center. Like a black hole, it sucked in everything around!

Clouds… light… wind… Everything and anything was sucked in, turning the Nirvana Void’s surroundings into a pitch-black hollow. At this moment, though, Vermilion Snow’s slitted pupils shivered coldly. She saw… an azure silhouette braving the evisceration of her ghostly embers, charging over like lightning!

In Xu Yangyi’s hand, a silver staff brought forth moonlight to fill the sky.

Xu Yangyi gazed straight at Vermilion Snow, his eyes holding no room for any other fancy. His hand clutching the staff tightened, but his palm didn’t sweat. Through the flesh of his palm, he could even feel the swivel of the veined patterns on the Gold-Banded Staff.

This was his Dao.

This was the seed that originated with his consciousness as a cultivator.

This was the cause that made him realize what the two-character-word cultivator was. [2]

To repay kindness with kindness, and to repay enmity with justice! [3]

On this day and in this place, Xu Yangyi wished to write a period down with his own two hands on everything that had happened that year.

Looking at this figure amidst the flames, Vermilion Snow instantly became absent-minded.

A trace of astonishment appeared in her heart for the first time, but there was much more disbelief.

Was this truly the cultivator she had stepped on back then?

Was this truly the insignificant Qi Condensation cultivator from back then, who she could send flying into the ground with a slap, whose bones she fractured, whose muscles she snapped?

“Overseer!!!” Vanessa’s cry of alarm quickly brought Vermilion Snow back to her wits. Like a viper, she gazed at Xu Yangyi, her fists now beginning to involuntarily clench.

“Thirty years… In barely thirty years, you grew to such a degree! Today… you mustn't survive!”

“You have also made me realize how great the Emperor Armament’s present is… How could such a mangy dog of a cultivator like you be worthy of a divine object of such level?”

Swoosh! Nine fox tails spread out like vipers. Amidst this extension, the end of each tail transformed layer after layer, unexpectedly morphing into nine actual vipers that were a hundred meters long and over twenty meters thick!

“HISS HISS!!!” The nine vipers let loose sky-shaking shrieks. Their bloody maws filling the air with a rancid odor, they rushed straight at Xu Yangyi!

BOOM!!! The explosion’s aftermath wasn’t over yet, but Xu Yangyi was already arcing towards Vermilion Snow! He didn’t even hesitate to punch straight through the explosion’s fallout! The blast wave was like a blade. Swish after swish of scything air instantly covered his exposed skin with bloody scars. Azure embers burned him, but he seemed not to feel it. All that remained in his heart was an expanse of cruel, ice-cold killing intent. He was like an avenging devil-god running out from the flames, like Sun Wukong who jumped out from Laozi’s furnace. His staff was directly aimed at the crown of Vermilion Snow’s head. [4]

His figure like lightning, his staff like a dragon, Xu Yangyi brought forth a rain of lotus flowers!

“KILL!” His shout quaked the vast sky.

His left hand pressed down, and an explosion rang out, suddenly shaking the sky again. It was like a giant, invisible hand had pressed down. Black clouds that had been blown away gathered again, and an unseen lance stabbed straight at the center of Vermilion Snow’s brows!

Myriad Spirits Suppression!

“Heavenly Demon, Flying Immortal!” Vermilion Snow also sensed it. She couldn’t see the substance behind Xu Yangyi’s move, but the sense of danger she had as a former half-step Core Formation cultivator was continuously warning her that this move was dangerous.

Following her faint cry, a dim golden curtain of light flickered around her. In the light curtain, all kinds of people from different walks of life in the human realm wandered at great speed. Yet at this time, Xu Yangyi slightly pressed down on his mask.

The Azure Winged-Demon Mask activated!

Swish… In the instant the light curtain was on the verge of forming, it suddenly went up in smoke. Behind the layers of golden light, Vermilion Snow’s expression of incredible shock was revealed.

For the first time, her feelings were reflected on her face!

What was going on?

Her spiritual sense… Why couldn’t she see anything all of a sudden?

In a face-off of two sides, one side suddenly had their eyes sealed. There was no substantial harm, but no one couldn’t help but feel confused in such a situation.

Wouldn’t the enemy take advantage of this to attack?

Wouldn’t the enemy now attack at full power?

“No good!!!” A feeling of extreme fright surged up her heart. She screeched, and her light shield that was about to recede instantly solidified!

But now, a wave of immense pain, like her heart was being drilled and her bones were being pierced, spread through her mind!

The pain was sharper than a hacking blade, more painful than a slicing hatchet! It was like ten thousand needles were agitating her brain!

“YIIIPPP!!!” Far away, Vanessa and Richard looked on in shock at the just-entangled pair. Xu Yangyi’s entire body was now flaring with a domain of azure light. Like a shooting star, he threw himself straight at Vermilion Snow, but as for the giant nine-tailed fox… Her defenses had all strangely dissipated, and she reared her head back and miserably screeched at the same time!

“No good!!!” The vampires cried out in surprise. In the next moment, one of them rushed Xu Yangyi and the other to Vermilion Snow, as swift as racing thunder!

“I once watched the decisive battle of quasi Grand Dukes. Between them, even a breath of a mistake was seized by the other as a fatal threat. That’s not even to mention the overseer’s two-second mental lapse. The enemy is a true expert. Next up, he’s definitely following with an unbroken chain of attacks! Form this one point, he’s leveraging the entire situation!” Vanessa quickly said to Richard amidst her flight.

But just as Vermilion Snow’s screech fell away, her blood-red eyes glared daggers at the midair Xu Yangyi.

There were still a hundred meters between them!

Two breaths!

“Stinking bug…” She rigidly clenched her teeth, her eyes flushed crimson. “You think you can prevail over me with barely this?”

“That year you weren’t able to, and now… you still cannot!”

The rune on her forehead shimmered with a black glint. With her groan, the light of her eyes turned morose, and her voice also became glacially cold. “Divine Art!”

Huuummm… At each of her joints, a mote of azure light lit up. In a twinkling, from the enormous azure dot of light at the top of her head, white-veined patterns spread out and connected all the azure dots. In the span of a breath, her technique, which had just dissipated, instantly solidified!

However… just as her technique was about to form, her mind suddenly trembled. She had formed this divine ability for the third time, and for the third time the omen of collapse came!

Xu Yangyi wielded a staff in his left hand and a sword in his right. In the air, golden lights shimmered, and the Fishbowel Sword was swung with all his strength. In a flash, a black light that no cultivator could see circled everyone present at great speed!

Following this swing, the sudden feeling of helplessness arose in Vermilion Snow’s heart! From her cerebral cortex it rapidly spread to each of her pores! It almost caused her to turn around and run!

No! She couldn’t do that!

She absolutely wouldn’t do that against this insect!

She was instantly warped between whether to escape or not to escape. But even as her head tilted back, she promptly realized something in the next second!

“He actually formed a magik treasure?! Middle Foundation Establishment?! No… that’s not the only thing. Such a feeling… T-This is…”

“A Realm Boundary Treasure!!!”

For the first time, she shrieked with extreme surprise, “You actually have a Realm Boundary Treasure?!?!?!”

“An object that almost no Core Formation supremes possess! Yet you actually do!”

“It’s too late.” Xu Yangyi bit down hard on his lip, his eyes brimming with killing intent. “I specifically interrupted your preparations three times. So when you reach hell go confess!!!”

The bravery of a realm boundary exploded with a rumble!

“YIIIPPP!!!” Vermilion Snow’s courage was completely fractured. Fishbowel was the sword of absolute bravery! The named sword that Zhuan Zhu had used in the past to assassinate King Liao of Wu! [5]

To be born an illustrious sage, and to die a heroic spirit! [6]

“No good!!!” Amidst her screech, Vermilion Snow fell back in explosive retreat. Three times she had formed her magik, and three times she had been interrupted. She no longer had the power to form any defensive divine ability!

The Realm Boundary Treasure as well had slightly rattled her! This further increased the might of Xu Yangyi’s staff!

“Boy…” For the first time, fear, tension, nervousness, and bitter resentment mingled one after another in her heart. She flung her head to the sky and snarled, “If you wish to just rely on this staff to break my demon body… you are still unworthy!!!”