CHAPTER 357: GOT YOU! SU SHUNQING! MARTIAL PEAK! THE CURSED EYE! THE PURE YANG PEACHWOOD SWORD!

Daoist lightning arts was the supreme yang under heaven, while Fengdu was the gathering place of yin, a land steeped in death and endless resentment and a baleful ground of ultimate darkness. The two forces were fundamentally irreconcilable.

Thus, the uproar caused by the Five-Lightning Talisman was ten times greater than when Li Yanchu wielded the Heaven-Illuminating Seal and other divine artifacts. It shook the entire realm!

Nearby, the dread spirits were struck with awe by Heaven’s wrath. The ghost-face deep within the great rift, and the millennial evil tree were instantly ravaged, and this outcome left the gathering hordes of specters utterly shaken.

Li Yanchu’s eyes gleamed with ice, and his body blazed with the smoke of surging blood and qi, a presence utterly at odds with this ghost-ridden city of Fengdu.

In Fang Qinglan’s beautiful eyes, a strange light flickered.Compared to when she had seen him in the Mount Jinting Blissful Land, his aura now seemed even more overbearing.

Just then, Li Yanchu summoned forth the Five-Dragon Wheel. Five blazing fire dragons surged outward, crashing down to devour the millennial evil tree whole!

Fire subdued wood, and the Five-Dragon Wheel was a replica of a mythical artifact, and one of the ultimate trump cards of Mount Mao’s prodigy, Danyangzi. Its might was immense!

Now, as the fire dragons consumed the ancient tree, its thick yin qi was relentlessly incinerated. In but an instant, the monstrosity was reduced to a feeble husk, its once-terrifying legend was shattered, and its sky-reaching menace nowhere to be seen.

Just then, the millennial evil tree let out a piercing shriek. On those twisted, grotesque roots, the countless dead faces wailed unceasingly.

The voices of old men, children, women, and men filled with anguish echoed all around.

“Stop burning us!”

“The fire—, it’s too great!”

“Spare us, spare us!”

At that moment, those dead bodies let out mournful, heart-wrenching cries for mercy, stirring deep emotion in all who heard them.

One couldn’t help but feel a pang of compassion. It was as if they were reliving the agony of being trapped in a great fire during their lifetime, desperately pleading for their lives!

“Trying to shake my Dao-heart with demonic trickery!? Kill!” Li Yanchu’s voice was cold as steel.

He roared, and an ancient seal soared into the air, swelling against the wind and blazing with radiant divine light. A sea of celestial fire erupted, sweeping across the millennial evil tree. It was the Heaven-Illuminating Seal!

The countless faces upon the tree turned stiff and expressionless once more, they were nothing but dead remnants. First ravaged by the five-times enhanced Five-Lightning Talismans, then incinerated by two replica mythic artifacts,the millennial evil tree was soon reduced to ashes, completely annihilated from the world!

This ancient terror of Fengdu, a nightmare that had endured for countless years, was finally erased!

The ghostly face had already fled in desperation when Li Yanchu unleashed the Five-Dragon Wheel, but the lightning arts had wounded its very essence, slowing its retreat.

After crushing the millennial tree with lightning speed, Li Yanchu immediately hefted his saber and gave chase.

Boom!Boom!

Each of his strides shook the earth, like the tread of a dragon-elephant! On his path toward the great rift where the ghost-face lurked, a ghastly old woman appeared in his way.

Bang!

Her body exploded violently, shattered into fragments by the scorching tide of Li Yanchu’s qi and blood. At once, the ghostly horde of Fengdu faltered in their advance.

Upon him, the full might of his talismanic armor ignited, radiating a terrifying aura of pure yang qi and blood.

The armor gleamed with dazzling divine light!

Battle intent surged within his eyes; it was the perfect embodiment of the Demon-Subduing Great Dao, the path of entering the Dao through martial arts. Within his body, the medicinal power of countless rare treasures was ceaselessly refined by the circulating talismanic armor, hammering his flesh into ever-greater strength. His already formidable body was further tempered and strengthened.

With every rise, there was a fall.

In the blink of an eye, he had already caught up to the terrifying ghost-face lurking in the depths of the great rift.

“Got you.” Li Yanchu’s voice was cold as frost.

On that twisted visage flickered human-like emotions, and unmistakably, fear.

Clang!

Li Yanchu swung his saber. Behind him loomed a colossal phantom clad in armor with its blood and qi blazing, its movements perfectly mirroring his own.

Boom!

The terrifying ghost-face was cleaved apart by that dazzling saber-qi and shattered utterly, its soul scattered into nothingness.

All of Fengdu shuddered as yin qi billowed. And there, a young Daoist, stood proudly with a saber in hand.

Amid this city of chilling specters, his presence radiated a domineering aura, as if it was one man against a thousand!

On Fang Qinglan’s exquisite, icy-beautiful face was etched a look of sheer astonishment. So fierce!

Li Yanchu, invoking the Godspeed, appeared in the very next instant before Fang Qinglan.

“Come!” He seized her hand, ready to lead her away from the cursed city.

“Careful!” Fang Qinglan was shocked, and she let out a cry sharp with alarm.

Yet Li Yanchu sensed nothing amiss in the surroundings... But in the very next moment, he suddenly whirled around and cleaved with his saber.

The razor-sharp edge cut through empty air. There, floating silently in the void, was a ghastly, sinister eye, exactly the same as the one he had seen upon the altar earlier. Only this time, it was a blood-drenched eyeball, not a carving.

Sinews and nerves still trailed from it like living flesh, a sight so gruesome it could chill the soul. It had crept up to Li Yanchu’s back without a sound, as if it meant to burrow straight into his body!

From the eyeball radiated an aura of dreadful corruption, not ghostly qi, but something far worse: a warped, anomalous force that Heaven and Earth themselves seemed to reject.

“An evil demon?” Li Yanchu’s brows arched.

In the Blissful Land of Mount Jinting, he had encountered such demons before, as well as those strange, humanoid statues.

He exchanged a glance with Fang Qinglan. She too clearly recognized the aura, her lovely face paling with frost. Compared to specters, these bizarre abominations were even more troublesome, each one grotesque in a different form.

At this time, Li Yanchu’s expression hardened, and killing intent burst forth. He had glimpsed the lingering memory of Immortal Ma’s fall, and had seen with his own eyes the devastation when Mount Jinting was overrun by these demons, its sacred grounds ruined, its Dao lineage severed.

Toward such beings, his loathing ran bone-deep!

“Swift!” he barked coldly.

A flash of sword-light shot forth, pinning that sinister eyeball straight into the ground. The malignant will radiating from it was so intense that even nearby ghosts felt a shiver of dread. This was none other than the altar’s core, the tool the robed elder had forged to refine Fang Qinglan.

Having broken free, it had silently shadowed Li Yanchu, hoping to seize his vibrant, blood-filled mortal body as a vessel to return to the living world. But it had not expected that one single strike was enough to nail it down!

Seeing this, Li Yanchu’s eyes lit with joy. The sword embedded in the ground was a crude, poorly carved peachwood sword, but upon it gleamed the imprint of the Big Dipper. It was a gift from Master Yushu of Jinguang Temple!

With a mere thought, sunfire surged across the peachwood saber.

Boom!

The sinister eyeball exploded instantly, reduced to a revolting puddle of foul sludge. Yet the peachwood sword remained spotless, before Li Yanchu recalled it into his Universe Pouch. Its sword-light struck unseen, killing without a trace. This display of sword-craft bore the unmistakable grandeur of a Sword Immortal.

In the shadows of the ancient city, a disheveled woman with hair loose and clothes in tatters watched coldly, a flicker of surprise flashing across her face.

“Pure yang peachwood sword.”

Peachwood was the essence of the five sacred woods, a celestial timber that warded off demons and banished ghosts. And the peachwood sword in Li Yanchu’s hand engraved with the Big Dipper was nothing less than a fearsome weapon against evil. Here in Fengdu, its power was amplified manyfold!

Moreover, it carried an aura that made even her wary.

“I don’t know which Daoist sect this youth hails from. To be so decisive in slaughter, and to carry so many powerful artifacts... It’s fortunate I did not make an enemy of him earlier!”

The woman’s features were strikingly beautiful and lifelike, yet she was, in truth, nothing more than a corpse. This was none other than Su Shunqing, who had earlier crossed spells with Old Ghost Wusheng.

By a woman’s instinctive intuition, she had refrained from seizing the white light-sphere amid the chaos, instead concealing herself within the ancient city, watching events unfold.