Chapter 279 – He Fled?

Li Guanqi’s strike left the crowd reeling in shock. Even he thought his attack had been a little too strong.

His lightning spirit power had already begun to mutate. The pale purple glow had become much darker, its eerie flashes carrying far more destructive force than before.

Before the crowd could even react, Zheng Yuanzhong turned and fled, his face grim.

He raised his sword and tore a gash through space. Blood mist spurted from his body, and in the next instant, he vanished into the rift as a streak of light.

“What the hell? Did that old man just run away?”

“His son and grandson are dead, and he left?”

A youth in the crowd watched with widened eyes, unable to believe what he’d seen.

The old cultivators beside him chuckled. “What’s so hard to understand? He’s got only one life, and that boy doesn’t look like the type to spare it. There’s an old saying: ten years isn’t too late for a gentleman’s revenge. In this world, you swallow your pride and wait for the right chance. A hundred years, even a thousand, and you can still settle the score.”

But would Li Guanqi let the old man slip away?

He didn’t think Zheng Yuanzhong would ever surpass him, but he knew he had to nip any potential issues in the bud.

Light flared beneath his feet. He thrust out his left fist with all his strength.

Boom!

A visible ripple of energy smashed into the pitch-black rift that had only just sealed, blasting it open again. Li Guanqi leaped into the tear and vanished into the void.

The crowd looked on with burning eyes. The Zheng family had monopolized Nanze City for years, and many clans itched to take their place.

Some people opened their own spatial rifts to follow them. The old man surnamed Gu hesitated briefly, then followed their lead.

Among those who stayed was the youth who had shared a table with Li Guanqi at the brothel. He stared in shock, unable to believe that such a prodigy had been sitting right in front of him. Back then, Li Guanqi’s aura hadn’t seemed remarkable at all. With a bitter smile, the youth turned to leave. He was there on official business.

As a girl’s face rose in his mind, a shy smile softened his expression.

***

Li Guanqi plunged into the great nothingness, a space hidden beneath the sky. The place was pitch-black, dotted with drifting fragments of strange, flowing light. Spatial storms raged, carrying eerie auras, as well as notoriously terrifying spatial currents.

They weren’t things he could deal with in his current state. Getting caught in a spatial current meant certain doom.

He glared at a figure a thousand zhang ahead, murderous intent flashing in his gaze.

“

Hoo...”

Li Guanqi shot off using a sprint technique, his spatial manipulation ability further boosting his speed.

Zheng Yuanzhong’s sword hand was slick with sweat. At first, he’d thought he could crush Li Guanqi, as the latter had only just stepped into the Nascent Soul Realm.

But the moment he saw Li Guanqi slice apart two bolts of lightning, those illusions shattered.

He doubted he could’ve survived those strikes. His own son had died before his eyes, completely unable to defend himself.

Li Guanqi was terrifying.

He did not understand how someone so young could be so strong. Feeling Li Guanqi’s aura closing in, Zheng Yuanzhong began to panic.

“I’m already using a blood warp technique! How can he be so fast?! Damn it! That idiot Zheng Shaohua! I told him to rein it in a long time ago!”

But it was far too late.

Two streaks of light tore through the void, one chasing the other, while several curious Nascent Soul Realm cultivators followed at a careful distance. They maintained a distance, staying at least a thousand zhang away to avoid any misunderstandings.

Li Guanqi cast them a glance, then dismissed them. None of them posed a threat, and since they were only watching, he didn’t bother.

A few hundred zhang remained between him and his quarry. He let out a cold snort and accelerated again.

Vital force surged through his body. His control had grown sharper over time. Now at the Nascent Soul Realm, his vital force flowed with incredible speed. The moment a thought formed in his mind, his nascent soul would respond instantly, circulating his vital force without delay.

The nascent soul was like an extension of his mind; his spirit and his nascent soul were almost part of the same system.

This was why Nascent Soul Realm cultivators could possess people. Their souls were far more resilient than those of lesser cultivators. When faced with a nascent soul, ordinary cultivators were essentially sitting ducks.

Lightning flashed beneath Li Guanqi’s feet, and sparks of electricity flew around him like stars in the night sky. In just a few breaths, he caught up to Zheng Yuanzhong.

No words passed between them. Both men swung their swords.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Thunder roared, lightning crackled, and earth-yellow vital force thundered constantly. Sword lights crashed against one another in a storm of fury.

Li Guanqi’s battle spirit only soared higher. He attacked with savage intensity, his strikes swift, brutal, and merciless.

Zheng Yuanzhong, meanwhile, drew on his millennia of combat experience to barely hold his own against Li Guanqi. Part of this struggle stemmed from his wavering resolve—already planning his escape, his heart wasn’t truly in the fight.

Yet as a mid Nascent Soul Realm cultivator with a deep foundation and strong understanding of his abilities, he remained a formidable foe.

Boom!

Li Guanqi expanded his spatial prison, fury burning in his chest. He spun into a kick, then rained sword strikes down on his opponent.

His blade moved too fast for the eye. All the onlookers could see was a torrent of crimson sword light crashing onto Zheng Yuanzhong.

In seconds, the old man’s body was crisscrossed with wounds.

Suddenly, the old man took out a flag with colors flowing on its surface.

Sensing danger, Li Guanqi immediately pulled back a hundred zhang.

Zheng Yuanzhong’s eyes went blood-red. He swallowed two blood-colored pills and slapped several talismans onto his body.

His aura skyrocketed. It wasn’t enough to break into the late Nascent Soul Realm, but enough to make Li Guanqi feel true peril.

Wiping blood from the corner of his mouth, Li Guanqi stood up straight, sword in hand.