Chapter 1216, Slaying Zhao Xueqi

Translator: Silavin

  

With the stacking of the ninth stack of the Demon Execution Palm Technique, the muscles across Qin Yichen’s arm bulged and surfaced in savage relief, one after another. The fluctuations radiating from it were wilder and more domineering than anything that had come before.

 

Without the suppression of the Myriad Dao Divine Armour’s arm guards, Qin Yichen’s arm was covered in a web of burst and splitting wounds. Across his face, a faint pallor had taken hold.

 

The Demon Execution Palm Technique was truly a technique of the most ruthless kind, one that wounded a thousand enemies while costing eight hundred of your own.

 

If not for the Supreme Tyrant Body sustaining him, the mere attempt to stack nine times of force would have been impossible.

 

And yet its power was, in truth, truly extraordinary. Qin Yichen was confident that with these nine stacks layered upon each other, he possessed the strength to stand against an ordinary Saint.

 

“Damn it, how can he possibly grow even stronger? Is this still the power of a Martial Ancestor?”

 

Across from him, Zhao Xueqi’s pallid face darkened until it was black as storm clouds. In the next instant, a frenzied gleam lit up his eyes, and a mouthful of Blood Essence sprayed from his lips. Surging Yuan Energy howled outward once more, pouring into the Blood Hand he had been barely managing to hold in check.

 

With Zhao Xueqi’s frenzied infusion of self-damaging Blood Essence, the enormous Blood Hand spreading across the Heavens blazed once more with a bloody crimson radiance, bearing down upon Qin Yichen with a crushing, overwhelming suppression.

 

“Let me show you what true power looks like!” The giant Blood Hand bore down. Yet upon Qin Yichen’s face there was not even the shadow of panic. He tilted his head back and looked up at it calmly, and from his lips came a slow, quietly confident murmur.

 

Then, Qin Yichen’s arm swung forward. Without a single flourish or embellishment, a fist, perfectly plain and unadorned, punched out.

 

*Boom!*

 

With the sweep of his arm, a force so overwhelming it nearly defied description came hurtling forward like a crashing comet, barrelling headlong into the stalled storm of Yuan Energy with sheer, brute dominance.

 

*Rumble!*

 

In that instant the Heaven and Earth shook. The deadlocked storm of Yuan Energy was torn apart virtually on the spot, and the Blood Hand that had appeared so devastatingly fearsome trembled without ceasing under that surge of force. Its resplendent radiance dimmed at a rate that left the watching crowd aghast.

 

At last, beneath a torrent of horrified gazes, the Blood Hand, that had been enough to even awe countless Peak Stage Martial Ancestors, was blasted apart entirely.

 

*Bang!*

 

With one tremendous crash, the mountainside below caved in completely. A crater more than a hundred metres across appeared before the eyes of everyone present.

 

*Spit!*

 

The instant the Blood Hand shattered, Zhao Xueqi sprayed a wild mouthful of blood from his lips, and his aura withered to its absolute lowest ebb.

 

And having smashed the Blood Hand apart, that terrifying force did not stop. It shot forward with every bit of its momentum still intact, blazing toward Zhao Xueqi at the rear.

 

Feeling that force, which was all but impossible to contend against, bearing down on him, the ferocious Zhao Xueqi’s face drained of colour entirely. A trace of despair kindled in his eyes.

 

“Little Brother, I was wrong, please forgive my ignorance!”

 

Though he had long since imagined that a day like this might come, having experienced more life-and-death moments in the Myriad Beasts War Domain than he could count, in this moment his heart was gripped by true terror.

 

Yet facing his plea for mercy, Qin Yichen’s face did not show even the faintest sliver of compassion.

 

He was not some greenhorn making his first foray into the world, after all. The harsh trials he had endured were nothing like what others might suppose. And when it came to a place like the Myriad Beasts War Domain, Qin Yichen understood its rules of survival better than most.

 

In a place like this, mercy and soft-heartedness were nothing short of seeking one’s own death.

 

If he spared Zhao Xueqi’s life today, he could guarantee that not a single drop of gratitude would exist in the man’s heart. Only festering resentment. And one day, given any opportunity at all, the latter would repay him with the most brutal and savage means imaginable.

 

“No, you cannot kill me, you dare…”

 

*Bang!*

 

The surge of force came hurtling down at blinding speed. Zhao Xueqi spent everything he had left, gathering a blood-coloured barrier of Yuan Energy before his chest, yet it served not the slightest purpose. With one muffled crack, Zhao Xueqi’s shrieking voice cut off abruptly.

 

The barrier was torn open with contemptuous ease. His figure was sent flying backward from the impact, and from his mouth came a torrent of blood that carried with it shards of shattered internal organs. His chest was an unrecognisable ruin of mangled flesh.

 

By the time he fell, there was not a single trace of a life-force fluctuation left upon him.

 

*Thud!*

 

At last, beneath a wave of horror-stricken gazes, Zhao Xueqi dropped to the ground like a dead bird, raising a small cloud of dust.

 

Staring at the blood-soaked figure lying motionless in that cloud of dust, the entire mountainside fell utterly silent. Every pair of eyes was filled to the brim with shock and dread.

 

Zhao Xueqi had lost.

 

This Blood Hand Zhao Xueqi, who had reigned over a territory spanning thousands of kilometres and had been without equal beneath the Saint Realm in all that expanse, had now been completely and thoroughly defeated beneath the watchful gaze of countless powerful experts, at the hands of a Junior whose name no one had ever heard.

 

After quite some time, the crowd’s collective gaze slowly shifted away from the body, settling upon that slender figure suspended in the air above.

 

At this moment, Qin Yichen’s complexion was somewhat pale. His robes were in tatters. His right arm was riddled with wounds, leaving him looking quite wretched by any measure.

 

But staring up at that figure, the gaze of every single person there was saturated with a deep and pervasive dread and wariness.

 

No one could fathom how such a terrifying power had been condensed within that rather lean and slender frame. Yet the evidence of what had just occurred left them with no choice but to acknowledge the truth, that this fellow was by no means as simple as he appeared on the surface.

 

To the eye, he looked like a lamb, gentle and easily preyed upon. In reality, he was a beast that could not be provoked. Once he erupted, the degree of terror he unleashed was simply more than any of them could bear.

 

Up in the sky, Qin Yichen’s gaze swept across the many powerful experts gathered on the mountainside. Within those eyes of his there was not the slightest regard for any of them, as though these experts did not even register enough to enter his field of vision.

 

At last, beneath the weight of that collective stare, Qin Yichen’s figure shifted, and he swept directly downward.

 

And throughout it all, not a single one of the powerful experts who had surrounded him made even the faintest move to interfere, to say nothing of stepping forward to block his way.

 

Even Zhao Xueqi had died so cleanly and swiftly. Who among them would dare to stand in his way? That would be nothing but seeking their own deaths.

 

Not until Qin Yichen’s figure had completely vanished from their sight did the air of oppression hanging over Heaven and Earth ease by so much as a fraction. Only then did those assembled experts dare to draw a full breath.

 

“He’s dead…”

 

At the same time, Blood Hand Five Eagles arrived at the edge of the enormous crater where Zhao Xueqi lay. After a careful look, a heavy, low murmur rose slowly from among them.

 

*Howl…*

 

Atop the mountainside, a great wind howled. In the sky, clouds roiled and churned.

 

All of it seemed to presage that the Myriad Beasts War Domain was about to witness an enormous upheaval.

 

Zhao Xueqi’s fame was not built on strength alone. The brazenness with which he had run rampant for so long owed no small part to the influence of a certain existence standing behind him.

 

That sort of figure was the most truly fearsome presence in the entire Myriad Beasts War Domain.