Chapter 422. The Worst Reunion (3)

Yun Guang cried out, half in relief and half in joy. “Sword God!”

“My apologies for arriving late,” Zhou Xuchuan replied to Yun Guang while scanning the area. “Elder Wu, how are you holding up?”

“Honestly, I can’t say I’m alright,” Wu Qu muttered, frowning as he clutched his bloodied side.

He had already stopped the bleeding by tapping on his acupoints, so there wasn’t a problem. And this level of pain was nothing new to him. Still, fighting a monster like the Dark Heavens Association Lord while injured was asking too much.

“The Divine Doctor should be somewhere toward the rear, Elder. Please go and get some treatment and rest.”

“I’m sorry I wasn't much help.”

“No, don’t apologize.”

Wu Qu dearly wanted to risk his life and help Zhou Xuchuan out, but against an opponent like the Association Lord, his injured body would only become a burden.

Coruscant realm experts possessed physical abilities far beyond ordinary people, but that didn’t mean they could instantly recover from a stab wound to the side. Wu Qu wasn’t foolish enough to be stubborn now.

Zhou Xuchuan glanced at Leng Yuefei next. “Ice Palace Master, what about you?”

“I’m fine.”

As befitting a martial artist who had mastered palm techniques, her palms were the most trained out of her body. She simply used ice to plug up the hole in her hand.

“As for the Evil Valley Master...”

Before Zhou could finish asking, the Evil Valley Master stood up. But even a quick glance showed he was in no shape to fight.

“I’m still alive, but the earlier impact seems to have shaken my brain around,” he said. Blood was trickling out from the part of his head that had slammed into the stone ground. “Honestly, I don’t think I’ll be of much help either.”

The Evil Valley Master honestly responded without caring about his dignity. Even if his pride was wounded, doing this was ultimately for the best.

“Besides, my compatibility with the Association Lord isn't great.”

Zhou Xuchuan listened to the Evil Valley Master’s brief explanation.

Right. The Hegemon Edict Art, and the Manifestation of his Path, only casts absolute influence over the experts weaker than him. Against stronger experts, it will be rendered almost useless.

The Evil Valley Master’s technique, which was also his Manifestation, weakened the enemies and strengthened his allies within a certain range. Such an ability might sound quite dangerous, since the martial artists were forced to fight in close quarters due to their unique quirks, but in reality, it had various flaws.

The first flaw was one’s qi. If an expert had an impressive pool of qi, their resistance toward the Hegemon Edict Art’s power of “Hegemon Edict” would be greater.

The second flaw was the difference in realms. The Evil Valley Master could weaken Harmony realm experts, and even Coruscant experts to a degree, but above that would be difficult. It was a similar principle to how stronger experts could recognize weaker opponents, but not the other way around.

That was why he had been defeated so quickly at the start.

The Evil Valley Master is better at handling a large number rather than a few elites, and is more useful in a war against a great army than in one-on-one battles. He can’t be much of a help in our current situation.

Zhou Xuchuan didn’t have to ponder anything here, and quickly arrived at a decision. “Please step back, Evil Valley Master. In case something happens, we’ll leave everything to your discretion.”

“Very well.”

Dealing with the Association Lord was important, but Zhou also had to consider what came next. For the sake of what lay in the future, he excluded the Evil Valley Master from the fight without hesitation.

The Association Lord muttered in displeasure. “To think you’d chat idly away in my presence! I shall acknowledge your guts, Zhou Xuchuan.”

“Speak for yourself. You let us talk without interfering, after all.”

“You are all destined to draw your last breaths at my hands, after all. It doesn’t matter if that happens now or later.”

“No,” Zhou Xuchuan replied firmly. “Didn’t you simply realize that dealing with five absolute masters simultaneously would be too much, even for you?”

𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

“To think that the hero of the Righteous faction carrying the title of the Sword God would resort to a cheap provocation only a third-rate loser would say!” The Dark Heavens Association Lord expressionlessly replied, although his tone implied he was somewhat disappointed.

“Run your mouth all you want.”

Whether it was him or the Dark Heavens Association Lord, neither man displayed even a hint of agitation. However, they couldn’t help but momentarily leak out their icy rage.

One was trying to save

murim,

while the other tried to destroy it. These two men, two irreconcilable enemies, glared at each other in utter silence.

***

Meanwhile, martial artists from various factions surrounding the absolute powerhouses at the peak of

murim

couldn’t close their dropped jaws.

“This can’t be...!”

A duel between masters was a rare event; even more so, if it was between absolute masters. As a matter of fact, it’d be close to a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence for most people.

That was understandable, considering every master at the top of the

murim

had powerful positions in society. It made sense that most people would never get to witness their duels.

So, naturally, everyone stopped what they were doing. All eyes were locked on the battlefield. Not only could they finally get to witness the absolute masters’ god-like strength, but if they were lucky, they might find a clue to break through to the next realms from this desperate battle for survival. Knowing this, they all held their breaths and tried their best to keep up.

However, never mind keeping up, they couldn’t even comprehend what happened next.

The first unexpected development was the Dark Heavens Association Lord. Even before Zhuge Xiang could finish laying down the rules of the duel, he pounced and slammed the Evil Valley Master to the ground.

G-goodness me!

How cowardly!

You should be ashamed as an Empyrean Overlord!

The Righteous faction turned red in anger at the Dark Heavens Association Lord’s audacious sneak attack and were ready to voice their criticism. However, when that man boldly ordered the other Empyrean Overlords to attack him simultaneously, everyone’s jaw fell to the floor in shock.

“W-what? But, how?”

“What just happened?”

Every martial artist, now unwittingly turned into hapless spectators, could only murmur in disbelief.

Forget the quasi-masters like the Peak and Transcendent realm martial artists, not even those at the Harmony realm and ranked among the One Hundred Experts Under Heaven could keep up with this battle.

They finally understood why absolute masters were called that.

The Empyrean Overlords moved with such terrifying speed that the spectators couldn’t even glimpse the forms of their attacks or the mysteries behind their Manifestation of One’s Path. Their eyes simply weren’t fast enough.

“Our Evil Valley Master was taken down in one hit?!”

The martial artists of the Evil faction were too stunned to speak.

Their master was definitely not a weakling. He was so strong, in fact, that he held enough influence over the Eight Gates of the Evil Dao and could act as its central authority. Not only was he a shrewd man, but his martial prowess was nothing to scoff at either.

Seeing him defeated so easily was something none of the Evil faction martial artists had ever imagined. But before they could even process it, what happened next wiped away their questions and thoughts entirely.

“That’s insane!”

“How! How is that even possible?”

“Is the Dark Heavens Association Lord even human?”

Even though their eyes were wide open, they still couldn’t believe what they were seeing. Some even wondered if they had fallen for the trickery of an array formation.

They had all heard the rumors of the Dark Heavens Association Lord shrugging off the combined assault of the Taiji Sword and Jing Bai. But rumors tended to get exaggerated, so they assumed that some parts of the story must’ve been inflated to a degree.

“It’s not one or two, but three Empyrean Overlords working together! Yet their combined attacks couldn’t even injure him?!”

“Forget being exaggerated, I think the rumors greatly downplayed his true strength!”

“That... that is a calamity!”

Whether they belonged to the Righteous or Evil faction, everyone’s face had turned pale.

As it turned out, phenomena like creating ice seemingly out of nothing or bending swords around were nothing but mere trickery.

The martial artists sank into the pit of despair when the Dark Heavens Association Lord not only overcame the combined assault, but even overwhelmed his opponents in the blink of an eye.

It seemed pointless to try and explain what they saw. This fight had already gone beyond the realm of common sense a long time ago. The spectacle was so surreal that a few even experienced a moment of cognitive dissonance.

“

Ohh

! Our Association Lord!”

While despair gripped the Righteous-Evil Alliance, the mood in the Dark Heavens Association was the exact opposite. They were all so visibly excited that they looked like they could break into cheers at any moment.

To the Righteous-Evil Alliance, the Association Lord was despair itself, but to the Dark Heavens Association, he was their hope. However, just as their opposing sentiments intensified, another change occurred.

“It’s Zhou Xuchuan!”

“The Sword God is here!”

The Righteous-Evil path’s hero... No,

murim’s

hero! The irreconcilable enemy of the Dark Heavens Association, and its one true obstacle, had finally shown himself.

“What? That’s Zhou Xuchuan?”

“Hold on! If Zhou Xuchuan is here, then...!”

“What happened to Lord Blessed Existence?”

“What were the fools in the bamboo forest doing?!”

All the excitement building up among the Dark Heavens Association members instantly cooled down.

Hope returned to the ranks of the Righteous-Evil Alliance, while the Dark Heavens fell into the clutches of anxiety and even terror, rather than despair. From their reactions, it was easy to see how heavy the names of Blessed Existence and Zhou Xuchuan were to the members of the Dark Heavens Association.

“No, calm down!”

“Zhou Xuchuan being here won’t make any difference!”

“Look! The Sword Demon has been stabbed in the side, while the Evil Valley Master is not in a good shape despite being alive! Even with the Sword God working together with the Martial Alliance Leader and the North Sea Ice Palace’s master, their number still remains the same!”

“Zhou Xuchuan this, Zhou Xuchuan that. No matter how amazing he is, he’s still nothing before the master of the Dark Heavens!”

They quickly regained their composure and displayed absolute faith in their master.

“Great Hero, Zhou Xuchuan...”

“Will he be alright?”

“Even if it’s him...”

Unlike the Dark Heavens Association, the Martial Alliance couldn’t shake off their worry, but not because they had no faith in the Sword God. In reality, their morale would always soar to the heavens regardless of what their situation was as long as Zhou Xuchuan showed up to help them.

His young age was no longer seen as a problem. One could search high and low throughout history and never find someone like him. At this point, he was considered as a hero, an absolute being, not just to the Righteous faction but to the Central Plains as well.

Grab a random person off the street and ask them who they respected the most in

murim,

and the majority would reply “Zhou Xuchuan”.

Even then, no one in the Righteous-Evil Alliance felt reassured right now. Which was understandable, since Zhou Xuchuan was still a human being despite his status as a hero. Meanwhile, the Dark Heavens Association Lord was a living calamity.

People knew there wasn’t much that humans could do against a landslide.

“There’s no need to worry,” said Li Yicai standing within the Righteous-Evil Alliance troops. “He will definitely succeed. As he always has.”

Even Li Yicai didn’t know the full extent of everything Zhou Xuchuan had done so far, but he still had a vague idea of how hard the latter had been working to fight against the Dark Heavens Association’s evil schemes and dastardly ambition.

No ordinary person or human being would be able to imagine it. Here was an organization that no one knew had existed until recently. Yet Zhou Xuchuan still set up an exhaustive plan to stop this villainous organization from extending its tendrils all over

murim

and diligently gave his all despite starting off with basically nothing.

“Yes, he will definitely do it!”

***

“Zhou Xu—”

Just as the Dark Heavens Association Lord tried to call out Zhou Xuchuan’s name...

Now!

Tah-haht!

The enemy before Zhou Xuchuan’s eyes was none other than the Dark Heavens Association Lord. Not only back in the previous timeline, but even in this life, that man was a martial artist deserving of the title, Greatest Under the Heavens, a bona fide monster. That was why Zhou Xuchuan swore to resort to any means necessary to win.

The Association Lord would surely ask a question to clear any doubt he had. As expected of Zhou Xuchuan, he’d never let such an opportunity slip by.

Violet!

He pulled his right arm back. The muscles on his arm bulged, veins now visible on his skin. His dantian released a torrent of hot qi while circulating violently. The source of his strength, Violet Haze True Qi, spread like branches of a tree to circulate to every corner of his body, reinforcing his power.

Haze! Dawn! Breaker!

RUMBLE!

A loud rumble went off as if a bolt of lightning had torn through the sky.

Zhou Xuchuan thrust the sword gripped in his right hand forward. Although not flashy, the sword enveloped in formless qi still unwaveringly closed in on the Dark Heavens Association Lord’s throat.

There was no such thing as testing the waters this time. From the get-go, Zhou Xuchuan went all out. He unleashed so much power at once that his lower abdomen began stinging in pain. But his sword now contained enough power to make the air rumble.

A thrust containing his entire being rapidly flew toward the Dark Heavens Association Lord.

CLAAANG!