Chapter 1032 - 281: Crimson Blades and Chilling Light Shine on the Perilous Valley, Ethereal Zither Strings Carry Deep Affection (Part 2)

"Young master, behind you, beware!" Her shout carried a sobbing tremor, shrill as a cuckoo weeping blood.

That cry exhausted all her strength, like a sharp sword piercing through the clamor of the Xiuluo Scene. The silver ornaments in her hair clinked as she charged forward recklessly, tracing shards of silver light under the moon, like her heart at this moment—disordered yet blazing hot.

Her skirt flared like a dancing butterfly, the bamboo saber in her hand glinting with a cold, cutting light; her whole person turned into a streak of resolute radiance, lunging straight at the skulking ambusher. The ambusher was forced to abandon his fatal strike and turn in haste. In Guo Xiangyu’s eyes burned a fierce flame, a power stronger than any Martial Arts—so long as she could protect Shi Feiyang, she would gladly be shattered to dust!

At the instant bamboo saber met dagger, sparks scattered, yet Guo Xiangyu did not retreat in the slightest. Every move was a life-for-life assault, with only one thought in her mind: I must not let my young master suffer even the slightest harm!

At the moment he heard her cry, Shi Feiyang felt his heart violently tighten, a surge of icy chill rushing through his whole body.

The Divine Dragon Claw instantly turned into a colossal phantom, dragon roars shaking the heavens, azure True Qi surging forth like a raging sea.

The ground was gouged into deep ravines by the violent air currents; amid flying sand and rolling stones, the ambusher didn’t even manage a scream before being torn to shreds by the dragon claw, his flesh and blood scattering like raindrops.

Shi Feiyang turned and looked at Guo Xiangyu, only to see her hair in wild disarray, plastered against her face, strands stained red with blood, yet still breathtakingly beautiful.

His heart felt as if gripped tight by an invisible hand, aching and fearful all at once: "Xiangyu, don’t risk yourself. I will protect you myself!"

His voice was low and firm, yet could not conceal the concern and lingering dread within.

Guo Xiangyu lifted her head to meet his gaze, her eyes as steadfast as bedrock: "Young master, I will fight by your side, to share life and death with you!"

Her voice was clear and crisp, yet contained a resolve tougher than steel. "From the moment I met you, my life no longer belonged to myself. Look," she extended her hand, her palm crisscrossed with bloody marks from gripping the saber too tightly, "these wounds are proof of my guarding you. So long as I can keep you safe, even if the road ahead is a mountain of blades and a sea of fire, I will take it as sweet as nectar! If one day I truly must use my life to shield you, I will not hesitate in the slightest, because in my heart, you are my everything..."

The north wind howled through the air with shards of sand, dyeing heaven and earth into a scarlet mist.

Shi Feiyang stood atop a mountain of corpses, his dark cloak soaked in black-purple bloodstains, ice crystals clinging to the Celestial Frost Blade mixed with shreds of flesh, pattering down.

"If this drags on, the brothers of our Association will be gravely depleted!" Shi Feiyang thought to himself. He suddenly raised his head and gave a long howl to the sky; the vast vortex of True Qi formed by the Bright Jade Technique spun out, flinging the heroes of the Heroic Sakura Association and Guo Xiangyu far away.

In an instant, the white mist around Shi Feiyang transformed into a hundred-zhang frost dragon, its roar shaking down the accumulated snow. The Divine Dragon Claw on his left hand shimmered with azure light, while the Celestial Frost Blade in his right traced arcs of golden brilliance. The two supreme arts, "Heaven and Earth Coeval" and "Dragon Roar Nine Heavens," suddenly merged as one! Saber light and dragon-claw phantoms fused into a colossal Tai Chi Diagram, with the eyes of the Yin Yang Fish exhaling a breath of annihilation. Wherever it passed, the air twisted like boiling oil, screaming with ear-splitting shrieks.

More than twenty Holy Sect experts failed to evade in time and were instantly swept into the vortex of energy.

Their screams cut off abruptly, their bodies shredded like paper, blood mist mixed with severed limbs and broken arms surging to the sky.

Someone’s half calf flew into a blazing tent, flesh sizzling in the flames; someone’s head was blown away by the shockwave, the eyeballs in the sockets still turning mechanically. Within a radius of ten zhang, the ground was plowed into three deep furrows by the immense force, from which oozed black-purple poison that corroded the snow into bubbling froth.

The Holy Sect’s onslaught faltered; fear flickered in dozens of pairs of eyes. Just then, a sinister, chilly laughter pierced the tumult.

Qi Yin walked slowly up the mountain of corpses, the blood mist seeping from beneath his black robe writhing like living things. Wherever he passed, densely packed human faces surfaced on the ground, wailing in a rising and falling chorus.

He wove the "Blood Demon Seal" with ten fingers, the blood dripping from his fingertips congealing in midair into a skull shape. "And you Central Plains Martial Artists dare run wild under the Blood Demon Grand Art?"

Before his words had faded, the blood mist around Qi Yin surged, transforming into a hundred-zhang Asura phantom.

The phantom opened its blood-filled maw, and the blood rain it spewed wherever it fell caused the disciples of the Heroic Sakura Association to have their skin rot open at once, screaming as they clawed at their own flesh and bone.

Liao Pei let out a furious roar, his Long Arm Fist unleashing the "Chain Life-taking Hand" toward the blood mist, only to see his fist wind sink like a mud cow into the sea, his arm instead entangled by the blood mist. In a blink, purplish-blue lines crawled beneath his skin, his features twisting grotesquely.

The Lie Quan Qiankun Saber whirled into an Eight Trigrams Array Diagram, attempting to block the spread of the blood mist. Yet the mist did not disperse upon meeting the blade; instead it climbed up the saber toward his wrist. "No! It’s the Blood Demon Soul-Devouring Curse!" His face changed drastically as he desperately flung out the fire-starter at his waist.

At the instant the fierce flames leapt up, a childlike shrill laughter came from within the blood mist, and the fire was actually dyed a bizarre violet.

Seeing this, Shi Feiyang swung the Celestial Frost Blade in another move, "Frost Shrouds the Sun," its chill clashing with the blood mist and bursting into a storm of ice shards.

Qi Yin cackled oddly, his hands forming seals as he suddenly unleashed a move, "Blood Demon Devours Heaven"; the blood mist turned into a gigantic serpent’s maw, lunging to swallow Shi Feiyang.

At that perilous instant, Guo Xiangyu rushed in with her poison-soaked bamboo saber, the "Qimen Sancai Saber" thrusting straight at the serpent’s seven-inch vital point. Unfortunately, the blood mist shifted from moment to moment; the instant the bamboo saber touched it, it was corroded into a mass of dense holes.

"Xiangyu, fall back!" Shi Feiyang’s heart burned with anxiety as he drove the Bright Jade Technique to the Eighth Realm—"Supreme Detachment from Emotion." The chill around him condensed into ice armor; the Celestial Frost Blade and Divine Dragon Claw once more merged as one, the two supreme arts "Heaven and Earth Coeval" and "Dragon Roar Nine Heavens" abruptly transforming into the "Primordial Demon-Breaking Slash"!