Chapter 497 - 20: Shattered in an Instant

Chapter 497: Chapter 20: Shattered in an Instant

’Since you refuse to come out of your hole, I’ll just attack your den directly. Let’s see how long you can stay hidden!’

Xuan Guangdao sneered inwardly.

With a mighty swing, he brought the great saber in his hand down from above.

The boundless tsunami behind him seemed to converge upon the edge of his blade, as if it had all been compressed into the saber in his hand!

Then,

SHIIING!

A majestic wave of saber light swept out, seemingly cleaving heaven from earth as it sped toward Dawan City!

He wasn’t using his full strength in this attack. It was just a probe, intended only to draw out Shen Changchuan.

However,

Even so, the power it displayed was world-shaking!

The saber light cascaded down like the Milky Way, tearing through thousands of feet of empty space and descending with world-destroying momentum!

The Cultivators in the city below looked up at the sky, their eyes filled with utter despair!

"Oh no! Changchuan hasn’t returned! What are we going to do?!"

Inside the City Lord’s Mansion, Han Qinhu, who had been left in charge of Dawan City, turned deathly pale. The terrifying saber light reflected in his eyes, and his heart was seized with horror.

Just in the nick of time—

"SHING!"

A clear sword hum suddenly echoed between heaven and earth, seeming to slice through the very boundaries of time and space.

A crack then split open in the void, and a beam of incomparably sharp sword light shot through the sky like a meteor, flying straight to meet the titanic wave of saber light!

"BOOM!"

The sword light and saber light collided violently in mid-air, unleashing a deafening explosion.

Terrifying ripples of energy swept out in all directions, and for a moment, the very sky and earth seemed to lose their color!

In an instant,

The heavens and the earth trembled and shook!

And at that moment,

The wave of saber light—powerful enough to have destroyed half the city—was shattered by the beam of sword light, dissolving into countless motes of light that vanished into the air!

"That’s... Changchuan’s Magic!"

Down in the City Lord’s Mansion,

Han Qinhu’s eyes flashed with joyful surprise as he witnessed the scene in the sky, the tension in his heart finally easing!

"City Lord Shen, he’s finally back!"

The people in the city cried out in surprise, their former despair instantly replaced by hope.

High above, Xuan Guangdao frowned, his solemn gaze fixed on the direction from which the sword light had come.

In the void before him, space began to fluctuate. Ripples spread across the empty air, and a figure in green robes stepped out.

It was none other than Shen Changchuan, who had just returned from seeing Shen Chong off!

"So you’re that Shen Changchuan?"

"I thought you were going to hide in your shell for the rest of your life!"

Xuan Guangdao snorted coldly before Shen Changchuan could even speak.

"Hand over the secret of the Xiangshan Sect Ruins, and I’ll leave. Otherwise, don’t say I didn’t warn you!"

Xuan Guangdao leveled his great saber, pointing it at Shen Changchuan with a disdainful expression.

’He only shows his face when I force his hand,’ he thought. ’He’s just a mouse-hearted coward who won’t come out until he has no other choice. I have no idea how someone with a mindset like that became the so-called number one of the younger generation in the Tian Nan Domain’s Immortal Cultivation Realm. It’s a disgrace to those of us who stand at the peak of our domain!’

Faced with Xuan Guangdao’s aggressive demands,

Shen Changchuan said nothing.

He glanced down,

his expression dark and grim.

His opponent’s previous strike had been aimed directly at the City Lord’s Mansion and the core area of the Back Mountain.

There,

was where he lived,

and it was also where his family—his grandfather, mother, and eldest uncle, some of the few relatives he had left in this world—resided!

’If I hadn’t returned in time,’

’if that saber had landed,’

’the consequences would have been unthinkable!’

"You’re courting death!"

Shen Changchuan stared into his opponent’s eyes, his gaze as sharp as a knife. His voice was cold, laced with killing intent.

Xuan Guangdao was stunned for a moment, then burst into laughter filled with scorn and ridicule:

"Courting death? You? You blocked a single strike—one I made with less than half my strength—and you think you have the right to run your mouth in front of me? Truly laughable!"

"Open your damn eyes and watch what I can really do!"

Xuan Guangdao roared and swung his great saber with sudden ferocity.

In an instant,

Behind Xuan Guangdao, phantom images of a vast, turbulent ocean appeared, layer upon layer,

like a boundless tsunami crashing down upon the mortal world.

Beneath the layers of illusion,

colossal waves battered the void between heaven and earth, all of them stirred by that single saber!

Divine Skill: North Sea Azure Dragon Saber!

At this moment,

Xuan Guangdao’s aura reached its peak.

It was as if he and his saber were the only things left between heaven and earth. All eyes were fixed on that single strike, which carried the force of a sky-sweeping tsunami!

An endless pressure bore down from all directions, making the very air feel thick and heavy.

That terrifying slash of saber light was like a blow from the vast ocean itself. Carrying a power that seemed capable of destroying the very heavens, it tore through thousands of feet of empty space as it slashed toward Shen Changchuan!

The mere pressure radiating from such a terrifying strike was enough to make the Cultivators in Dawan City feel as though they were plummeting into a Dark Abyss, that death itself was upon them!

Even the prodigies from various lands watching from the surrounding void wore solemn expressions.

As fellow peak experts of the younger generation, they understood better than anyone just how terrifying this attack truly was!

If they were the ones facing an attack of this magnitude, they weren’t certain they could have withstood it.

"There’s no way Shen Changchuan can block a strike like that, right?"

"He definitely can’t! An attack of this caliber is likely on par with a Soul Emergence Ninth Layer Middle Stage cultivator! And Xuan Guangdao is only at the Soul Emergence Eighth Layer Peak..."

"It’s a shame. That Shen Changchuan is actually quite talented. To rise up in such a barren land... if he had been born in the Outer Realm and had another decade or so of Cultivation time, the outcome of today’s battle might have been very different."

Within the void,

Divine Thoughts intertwined.

It was the visiting prodigies from the Outer Realm, conversing via Divine Thought.

Among them was the young man in white who had hosted the banquet for the various prodigies at the Gathering Immortals Tower. He shook the White Jade Fan in his hand and sighed as he watched Shen Changchuan face the saber strike that seemed to part the very seas and heavens.

He sounded rather regretful on Shen Changchuan’s behalf.

However,

Yet, as he faced this world-destroying strike,

Shen Changchuan’s expression remained perfectly calm.

He slowly raised his palm.

In the center of his palm, incomparably profound silver runes began to glow. The light they emitted pulsed, as if alive, devouring the endless Power of Heaven and Earth!

In that instant,

The surrounding space seemed to be pulled inward, as if being devoured, sending out waves of visible, transparent ripples.

’Go!’

Shen Changchuan commanded silently in his mind.

He mobilized the power of the Void Escape Gu within his Palm Heart Acupoint, instantly blasting out an attack imbued with the Power of Space!

That attack was transparent and formless.

In a flash, it crossed hundreds of feet and slammed into the wave of saber light that tore through a thousand feet of the void.

The next moment,

As everyone above and below watched,

the thousand-foot-long wave of saber light from the Divine Skill: North Sea Azure Dragon Saber that stretched across the horizon...

instantly disintegrated!