He has been reincarnated through countless worlds, adorned with billions of mythological terms!

Shen Qingqing said:

"What reincarnator could resist such temptation?"

Yun Yi fell silent.

Shen Qingqing sensed something, and although she didn't quite understand, she still added:

"Of course, that's assuming you can actually kill them."

"If your master is truly the chosen one before the world's level drops—the chosen one of a large world, and the kind that has fully matured—I can't think of anyone else who could kill such a person alone, besides that Level 1 Authority user."

"So, if you really still cherish that teacher-student relationship, I advise you to give up."

"I formed this alliance for only one purpose—to survive better before that Level 1 Authority user comes to kill us."

Yun Yi did not answer.

The old man in the gray robe tapped his wooden cane on the ground at the bottom of the valley.

A very faint, dull thud.

The sound wasn't loud.

But everyone's movements froze at the same instant.

The old man stood at the mouth of the valley, his hunched figure casting an extremely long shadow in the moonlight.

His gaze swept over each person in the valley in turn—Helian Rong, Xiao Yanzhi, Liu Xier, Su Zhong, Qin Yu, Xu Youlan, and the Gu worm reincarnator—finally landing in the shadows of the northern ridge.

Shen Qingqing and Yun Yi were standing there.

"There's one more."

He said it in a flat tone, like he was counting eggs in a basket.

"wrong."

"There are two."

Shen Qingqing emerged from the shadows.

She made no attempt to conceal her presence, simply walking down the ridge along the gravel, her steps neither hurried nor slow, her skirt billowing in the night wind before falling back down.

Yunyi followed behind her.

The two walked one after the other into the blue moonlight at the bottom of the valley.

The old man looked at Shen Qingqing for a moment, then nodded:

"Well hidden."

"If my domain hadn't expanded first, I might not have been able to discover you."

Shen Qingqing did not respond.

She stopped at the bottom of the valley, her gaze passing over the old man, and met Xu Youlan's eyes for a moment.

That instant was so brief, it was almost nonexistent.

But Xu Youlan's fingertips moved slightly on the strings—not plucked, but "tapped".

It's like someone unconsciously tapping their finger on a table.

Helian Rong made a move.

It wasn't rushing towards the old man, it was rushing towards Xu Youlan.

His battle markings, which had been mostly dimmed by the suppression of the blue moonlight, suddenly lit up again—not in dark gold, but in a very deep and dark black-gold.

It's like the color of iron after it's been heated to its extreme and cooled down.

Land Immortal God, Realm of Martial King, Beast Taming Fusion.

The power of the three major systems was absorbed into his body at this moment.

He pressed all his strength into the knuckles of his right fist.

Xu Youlan's zither music rang out at the same instant.

Ten fingers simultaneously landed on seven strings, as fast as a torrential downpour hitting roof tiles.

Every string was trembling violently, and every note precisely struck a specific point in the elderly person's life.

A still space.

Time accelerates.

Ten thousand ghosts devour souls.

A year of flourishing and decay.

And all the power of the laws that she had never used before—were released in this piece of music.

The sky above Yan Hui Valley was torn open.

The bluish moonlight split open like a piece of cloth, the edges of the crack jagged, as if it had been cut repeatedly with a blunt knife.

The moon's true color seeped in through the crack, silvery-white, cold, and illuminating the valley floor.

The old man's eyebrows twitched.

Just for a moment.

Then he tapped the ground with his cane a second time.

The cracked moonlight closed up again—like the cracks in the water's surface being silently smoothed out by the water's own surface tension.

Xu Youlan's zither piece was interrupted after she had only played half of it.

The old man's domain pressed down again, heavier, denser, and more omnipresent than before.

A trickle of blood spilled from the corner of Xu Youlan's mouth.

She bit her tongue until it bled.

The blood on the tip of the tongue is the most concentrated source of essence and blood in the human body.

She spat the blood onto the strings of the zither.

All seven strings were stained red at the same time, and drops of blood rolled down the strings, forming a thin red line on the instrument.

She didn't wipe it.

As his fingers pressed back onto the strings, blood seeped from the point where his fingertips touched the strings, staining each note with a faint crimson hue.

The music started a second time.

This time it's not a cut-in, it's a head-on confrontation.

The sound of the zither transformed into a visible ripple, spreading from her fingertips.

Wherever it passed, the blue moonlight curled, charred, and shattered like paper that had been burned.

The ripples struck the boundary of the old man's domain, producing a muffled roar.

The entire Yan Hui Valley was shaking, and loose rocks were falling from the mountain walls.

The old man tapped the ground with his cane for the third time.

This time, the end of the staff penetrated three inches into the ground.

The staff-headed beast's eyes shone brightly with a blue light, and the entire wooden staff looked like a lit torch—except the flame was blue.

The area shrank dramatically the instant the staff touched the ground.

From covering the entire Yan Hui Valley, it shrank to only covering a radius of about 100 feet at the bottom of the valley.

The area has shrunk, but the density has increased dramatically.

The blue moonlight was so thick it was almost liquid; walking in it felt like walking underwater, with each step requiring one to push aside immense pressure.

Xu Youlan's zither music was suppressed once again.

Her fingers plucked the strings slower and slower—not from exhaustion, but from too much resistance.

Each string needs to be plucked with many times more force than usual.

The music flew from the strings, struggling to travel under the heavy weight of the blue moonlight, like a fish struggling in glue.

But she didn't stop.

Through countless reincarnations, she has only cultivated the path of immortality, and her foundation is so solid that it is beyond comprehension.

Even when completely suppressed, the sound of the zither never ceased, like a spider silk that refused to break in a raging storm.

Helian Rong's fist arrived.

Xu Youlan's zither music tore open the weakest crack in the old man's realm for him.

The gap existed for less than a moment—but it was enough for Helian Rong to pass through.

He squeezed through the gap.

The power of the three systems exploded on his right fist, and black and gold battle patterns spread from the fist to the forearm, from the forearm to the upper arm, and from the shoulder to the entire right side of his torso.

He was like a blackened iron hammer, smashing into the old man's chest.

The old man raised his left hand.

Palm facing outwards.

Fist meets palm.

Helian Rong felt as if he had punched a mountain.

No, it's a mountain range.

The weight of the entire Yanhui Mountain Range was compressed into a thin barrier, which landed in front of his fist.

His power, his battle markings, and his physical body, imbued with the three major systems, were shattered into countless white bubbles like waves crashing against rocks before this palm strike.

He was sent flying backwards.

It crashed through three boulders, smashing its back into the fourth boulder, creating a dented human-shaped mark, before finally coming to a stop.

Gravel rolled off him.

His right arm hung limply at his side, with a faint creaking sound coming from the joints.

From the fist to the shoulder blade, the bones of the entire right arm were shattered into dozens of pieces.

Blood was dripping from the corner of his mouth, and his teeth were stained dark red with blood.

He is laughing.

Because his punches weren't thrown for nothing.

In the instant his fist and palm met, he left something in the old man's palm.

The core of Xiao Yanzhi's killing formation.

The fist-sized ball of light silently collapsed in the old man's palm.

The remaining power of the four-layered array was rekindled by Xiao Yanzhi using his own blood essence, and compressed into a point smaller than a grain of rice.

That point exploded in the old man's palm.

The old man's palm was blown open.

From the palm to the back of the hand, there is a hole the size of a fist.

A faint golden light film was slowly dissipating—that was a "seal" that Xiao Yanzhi had applied to the core of the killing formation with his own life.

The purpose was not to cause harm, but to let this miniature sun linger in the old man's palm for even a moment longer.

In that instant, it remained.

For the first time, a look of surprise appeared on the old man's face.

He looked down at the hollow in his palm, watching the golden light membrane slowly dissipate at the edge of the hollow, and then looked up at Xiao Yanzhi.

Xiao Yanzhi leaned against the north side of the mountain wall, his face as pale as gold paper, his breath barely a whisper.

I don't even need to look to know he won't live much longer.