At this time, since the lightning and thunder was not very fierce, Meng Qi was afraid he might be lacking in power. He did not dare to activate his Thunder God Imprinting. Instead, he violently shouted,
“Kill!”
His shout was as powerful as the spring thunder, making the room rattle and the beams shake. If not for the thunder rumbling outside, the guards on the roof and outside would have already been aware that something was wrong inside.
The Evil Prince’s momentum had risen to the extreme. He was shrouded in his strength and kept secure by his spirit as if his whole body resided between existence and nonexistence. He did not belong to that place, not on the opposite bank, nor in the mid-stream. In other words, he was not affected by Meng Qi’s Thundering scream at all.
He then employed falsehood to cover up reality, turning both his strength and spirit into a vacuum. Meng Qi, who was going at full throttle to run his genuine Qi and spirit in order to counter him felt torn apart by this skill and sick to the point of vomiting blood.
Knowing that he could not passively defend, Meng Qi projected his will outwards while keeping his concentration within and drew his blade to strike.
This move driven by the essence of Heaven Blade belonged to “Mortal Dust Fall”. The light of his blade was ethereal and flashed from area to area, resembling fish in the water or ghosts in one’s heart. It changed with his momentum and his mind. It was difficult to control and left him feeling defenseless.
“Terrific!” Evil Prince half-heartedly praised. From a feinted nothingness, he reached out his right hand and pointed at Meng Qi’s mid-brows.
His gestures were constantly changing. Every change brought with it illusions that were hard to distinguish because it altered with time and followed momentum. It was impossible to tell the real from the false.
At this moment, even though he had made further progress in his Nine Strategies Beyond the Swords, and preliminarily comprehended Qi-breaking Move, Meng Qi realized that this move of Evil Prince combined virtuality and reality, which seemed full of flaws and danger.
This meant that Evil Prince’s realm and strength were much superior to his!
Facing this move, Meng Qi should have no way to break it. What he could do was use his “Mortal Dust Fall” driven by the essence of Heaven Blade to block it.
The light of his blade leaped, and every moment it changed in response to Evil Prince’s gestures, which were the soul traction and self-evolved in Kung Fu world.
Boom!
When his mid-finger, though made of flesh, pointed to the tip of his blade, Meng Qi felt his entire body shake as if struck by thunder. His right arm went numb, and he lost consciousness temporarily. At the same time, his blood churned and a dark golden glow burst out, making him nearly spit some blood. Fortunately, he had already reached the sixth pass of the Golden Bell Shield.
Refusing to give up, Meng Qi pulled out his Ice Palace Sword with his left hand. The light from his sword was pure yet had a prevailing thirst for blood. It was the very “Yama’s Invitation”.
The concentrated sword light broke through layers of strength one after another and directly pointed at Evil Prince’s mid-brows with no sign of retreating!
Evil Prince slightly gasped, withdrew his right hand, and gently slapped the blade with his palm.
This palm seemed to be powerless, but in Meng Qi’s eyes, it was getting bigger and bigger nearly to the extent of enveloping heaven and earth.
His sword tip was about to stab the center of Evil Prince’s palm when the momentum of his palm suddenly changed turning virtuality into the reality. Streaks of tremendous power suddenly began gushing out one after the other like the roaring waves of a stormy sea.
Meng Qi took three steps back. Although he had the Golden Bell Shield to protect himself, the jaws of his left hand were a little split with small streams of blood flowing out.
Evil Prince’s momentum was still at its peak, and he quietly defused Meng Qi’s Sword Qi which had just been concentrated. With a cold expression, he raised both palms, making him seem unusually tall and appear like a supernatural evil.
Rumble!
With the rumble rising to a deafening pitch and the lightning lighting up the sky as if it were daytime, the battle at the distant Hall of Diligent Government reached its climax.
Meng Qi did not hesitate anymore for his right arm had regained consciousness, and his will was building up again. He forced his will to drive his blade and made the purple thunderbolt mark on the back of his left hand glow brightly.
After fighting, Meng Qi knew that with the present strength of his Golden Bell Shield, his bladesmanship, his sword art, and even employing Mortal Dust Fall, Yama’s Invitation, Sacrifice Formula, and Peace Quietude Split all together while disregarding any consequences, it was still difficult for him to actually inflict damage on such an Evil Prince. Even the probability of a successful escape was only 50%. After all, Evil Prince’s visionary demon’s body method was illusory, from which was difficult to break away!
He was immersed in emotion, and his soul was like a calm lake where all the things around him were reflected. Though it was impossible for him to fully grasp the flow of Evil Prince’s genuine Qi and the distribution of his strength, he could hear the thumping of his heartbeat, which contained innumerable meanings.
With a single beam of light from his blade, more than 33 meters of the splendid mortal world showed up. Such a scene was made by “Mortal Dust Fall” indeed!
Though he could not make sure whether Evil Prince had the obsessiveness of complaints, hatred, love, and separation, Meng Qi believed he was bound to have great ambitions, which he pursued but failed to obtain for the time being. How could a mortal not be caught in Mortal Dust Fall?
This move displayed more gist of blade theory and more variation of bladesmanship than what he had used to cut Evil Prince at the center of the Pei River before. This was Meng Qi’s harvest from his recent fighting experiences.
As the dark clouds gathered together along with the silver snakes swinging, suddenly, they formed a streak of thunder light as thick as a bucket and brilliantly fell down from the heaven.
Apart from the two Great Grandmasters who were fiercely fighting in the Hall of Diligent Government, all the other people in the imperial palace were affected by the traction of Qi activity. Looking up at the sky, they saw the God Thunder falling from heaven. It was both magnificent yet terrifying!
Bang!
As the bodyguards around the Taiji Hall watched with horrified expressions, the bolt of thunder pierced through the roof, charring all the people nearby, and rumbled in.
“The punishment from Sky Thunder?” The guards and the eunuchs somehow thought of the defeat in the northwest and the violent scramble of the imperial authority.
“Thunder Blade Furious Monk…” Both Ruan Yushu in the courtyard next to the Taiji Hall and Luo Shengyi who led the guards to circle the Hall of Diligent Government, as to get rid of them, whispered at the same time.
After having sucked the essence and broken through the bottleneck, Meng Qi set foot in the Great Grandmaster’s realm and nearly reached the point of harmony between man and nature with every act and movement manifesting the great power.
The troops that revolted, who had the seventh prince as their puppet and the Holy School as orthodoxy, swept their enemies in the world suppressing Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism and completing the long-cherished wish of past dynasties.
“After the emperor abandons his throne, I will realize my dream. Since there are no more obstacles then, I will reach the realm of the harmony between man and nature and break the void.”
When he was fully satisfied, Evil Prince suddenly felt heartache as if he had been invaded and attacked by something. When he came to his senses, he saw that the blade with the electric light shining had already cut the Protective Upstanding Qi open and was near at hand.
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Once the Immortal Pressing Art operated, it would change the dying into the living and eliminate the blade strength. With a huge rumble, a thick strike of thunder light, like the ruler of the heaven and the earth, fell down and lit up the whole room making it difficult for Meng Qi to open his eyes.
All the thunder light wound around the “Evil Ordeal” and fell upon the Evil Prince with a sense of obliteration.
Evil Prince quickly circled himself time and again to accommodate the thunder light and the blade strength to desperately eliminate them changing the dying to the living through the Qi wall built by the Upstanding Qi and the meridian vessels of his body.
During his fast circling, streaks of electric light were tossed out, and puffs of strength overflowed making use of strength to directly hurl Meng Qi out.
With a thump, Meng Qi hit the ground. The dark golden glow around him was about to split, blood was spraying from his mouth, and his meridian vessels were seemingly broken. The power of the Immortal Pressing Art was evident.
As the electric light disappeared, the room became quiet again. Since he had just learned the rudiments of the sixth pass of the Golden Bell Shield and increased his strength and energy through the Qi-cultivation of Eight Nine Mysteries, he just didn’t have the strength to walk as when he had slaughtered Yuan Mengzhi. Still, he managed to stand up with an effort looking at Evil Prince.
Upon seeing him, Meng Qi was so scared that he quickly picked up his blade and sword and got ready for a second fight.
Evil Prince stood there with his back straight. Apart from some darkness in his face, he still wore a grim expression and looked Meng Qi in the eye. Nothing seemed to be wrong with him.
How could it be? Sky Thunder did not eliminate him? Meng Qi was shocked and about to begin the Sacrifice Formula to cut him again.
With the repression of the countercharge, his soul became calm. Meng Qi realized something was wrong for he could not feel Evil Prince’s heartbeat now.
In a flash of inspiration, he was about to kick out a stone to see whether he was still alive when he heard Evil Prince say something.
His voice was weak and his eyes empty. In fact, he did not breathe anymore as if an obsession was driving him to speak,
“The accomplishments in imperial hegemony have been ruined over leisurely talk, which cannot be equal to a drink…”
Bang! He fell to the ground face up with dark smoke coming out from his Seven Apertures. His body could not stop twitching, but then it quickly calmed down, and his voice echoed in the Ziji Pavilion for a long time.
“Evil Prince Guan Ying has been beheaded, and the circulation of the Immortal Pressing Art has ceased, so Side Task Three has been completed. You will be rewarded with 300 Karma points and are allowed to take the Immortal Pressing Art from Evil Prince yourself, but you cannot exchange it for Karma points nor can you teach it to others.”
The voice of the Lord of the Six Reincarnations rang in Meng Qi’s ear giving him a deep sigh of relief for Evil Prince had finally died!
Only those who participated in the side task could obtain a reward of Karma points, so this time only Meng Qi acquired them.
Meng Qi composed himself, approached Evil Prince, and bowed to him as a show of respect for a powerful enemy.
He put his sword into its scabbard and squatted down to search Evil Prince for the Immortal Pressing Art. Since Evil Prince had run the Immortal Pressing Art to suck the strength of his blade light into the Qi wall and dissolved the force of his meridian vessels, the surface of the Immortal Pressing Art was unexpectedly in good condition, unlike Yuan Mengzhi, who had split into pieces of charred ashes with nothing intact on him.
Meng Qi also believed that if the things of Evil Prince were indeed broken by the Sky Thunder, the Dominator of Samsara in Six Realms would remake a copy of the Immortal Pressing Art for him.
When he first produced a piece of cloth, which was something like fur, and sensed the smell of the Demon Venerable’s spar, he suddenly understood that it was the article to wrap the spar.
Since the movement made by the Sky Thunder was bound to alert the guards on the roof and around the corner, they had to send some of them to see if there was a fire. Hence, Meng Qi did not examine the cloth but directly crammed it into his robe and continued to search the body finding a thick gray script on which was written: “Immortal Pressing Art”.
Putting away the script, Meng Qi searched him again but found nothing else. He concentrated on searching for the Demon Venerable’s spar because it was so small that it was easy to miss.
Soon, Meng Qi touched the cold spar. It felt very strange for it seemed that it was not a lifeless stone but a dead creature with flesh and blood.
When his palm touched the spar, he felt the combination of heat and coldness. Meng Qi smilingly withdrew his hand.
Just then, something strange happened for Meng Qi felt the surging essence pour out from the Demon Venerable spar and swarm into his body, which was a seemingly overbearing whole-body imbuing regardless of his intentions.
The essence swarmed into his meridian vessels and filled his body until he felt like exploding. He was unable to get rid of the spar. Meng Qi could only activate the Golden Bell Shield to suck the essence from his body, which was natural and without any impurities.
As the dark golden glow folded in, Meng Qi wholeheartedly concentrated on the digestion and absorption of the essence. He was barely able to stand up for he felt as though he were carrying heavy weights.
At that moment, Meng Qi understood why Evil Prince had to hide in the Taiji Hall, an extremely dangerous place, to absorb the spar essence to enhance his strength. In the end, he was split by the Sky Thunder though he deliberately said a bunch of nonsense to buy time. He also realized why the old emperor had fallen into a coma when he had hurriedly sucked the essence for the first time.
It had not been their choice! Like it was not his choice either right now!
Although he was extremely disgruntled, Meng Qi had to restrain himself and tried his best to absorb and digest the essence.
As the essence was crazily absorbed, the sixth pass of his Golden Bell Shield was rapidly promoted. Meng Qi was not happy at all because the guards alive on the roof would rush in to see whether the emperor was hurt by the Sky Thunder and whether it had destroyed any buildings or started any fires.
Upon landing on the ground, they were shocked on the spot because, in the Ziji Pavilion, the side tables, the screen, the desks, and all the other things were ruined. The old emperor lay on the royal bed with his Seven Apertures bleeding … dead. In front of the royal bed were two men, one of whom had fallen on the ground and the other standing in the center. The fallen one was also dead with a blackened face while the standing one’s left hand was at his back. With his right hand pressing the sword hilt and his hair messy, he still bore an arrogant grandmaster’s manner.
Meng Qi looked at the hole in the roof and spoke in an indifferent voice with a hint of guilt, “I’m one of the emperor’s bodyguards. Being a little late, I found His Majesty had been killed by Evil Prince. I had to slaughter him to repay His Majesty’s kindness.”
If I said so, would you believe me?
The two guards looked at each other and firmly shook their heads. If he had been a bodyguard, they should have seen him before because he had to eat and sleep.
Meng Qi pressed his lips together and slightly sighed, “Then do you want to know who is the new emperor and which imperial prince wants to murder his father?”
The two guards’ expression changed at once, and they suddenly shouted,
“Assassin!”
Don’t act like that! I could spin you a long tale. Meng Qi was yelling frustratedly inside. He pulled out his sword with his right hand despite it feeling like lead, and at the same time, he sped up the Golden Bell Shield to frantically suck up the spar essence.