Brother Who Determines the Fate of the Nation: My Great Emperor's Cultivation Level Exposed by

In reality, a tattered white light shot out from between Su Xuan's eyebrows, tracing a pathetic arc before crashing onto the cold stone slab of the cave. It bounced twice before rolling to the corner of the wall and finally stopping.

The light and shadow flickered erratically, making it almost impossible to discern a human form; it was merely a fist-sized mass radiating a faint, dying aura.

Su Xuan's body finally reached its limit at this moment. Blood was still seeping out of his seven orifices, most of his meridians were broken, and dull pain from the displacement of his internal organs came wave after wave.

He knelt on one knee, supporting himself with the broken iron sword in one hand, his knuckles embedded in the cracks in the hilt, using this fulcrum to lift himself up from the ground.

Stand firm.

A metallic taste surged in his mouth, and he turned his head to spit out a mouthful of black blood, the blood clots mixed with fragments of internal organs, which slammed onto the stone slab with a thud.

The Asura Divine Body's self-healing had been activated, and the life force within his body was slowly repairing the meridians and organs on the verge of collapse, but the speed was several times slower than usual. The cost of forcibly fusing the water and fire elemental techniques was far greater than he had anticipated.

No problem.

The tattered primordial spirit before me could no longer stir up any waves.

Su Xuan dragged his broken iron sword, walking step by step. The tip of the sword scraped against the stone slab with a harsh scraping sound, and sparks flickered in the dim cave.

The shimmering light and shadow huddled in the corner trembled violently.

Elder Lingguang's primordial spirit sensed the approach of death, and all the pride and cunning he had accumulated over hundreds of years of cultivation shattered completely at that moment.

He mustered his last strength to conjure half a phantom figure, only the upper body, with blurred features and a swaying outline, and knelt down in front of Su Xuan with a thud.

"My good disciple!"

The forehead of the half-illusory figure slammed onto the stone slab with three resounding thuds, each accompanied by a tremor of the entire primordial spirit.

"It was my mistake! My eyes were blinded by my own inner demons! I swear to heaven, from this day forward, I will never harbor another evil thought!"

Su Xuan stood in front of him, looking down at the dying thing, without speaking or moving.

Elder Lingguang raised his blurred face, his fear tinged with a carefully calculated sorrow.

"I offer you that Geng metal essence with both hands! And this too!"

A storage ring was squeezed out of his shattered primordial spirit and rolled onto the stone slab between the two of them with a crisp clink.

"I have voluntarily erased my divine sense imprint; everything inside is yours! My three thousand years of accumulated wealth, cultivation techniques, elixirs, spirit stones—it's all yours!"

Su Xuan lowered his eyelids and remained silent.

Elder Lingguang's phantom crawled forward another half step, his posture so humble it was almost invisible.

"Xuan'er, in my life I've taken in seven disciples, but only you have truly made me happy. Those six months of guidance weren't fake; I genuinely considered you my successor!"

"It was later, it was later that the fear of my impending death overwhelmed my reason, that led me to that thought I shouldn't have had!"

He kept calling Xuan'er and Master, and his tearful appearance was extremely realistic. He perfectly portrayed the image of an elderly man who was driven by fear to commit a terrible mistake and was filled with remorse.

"Spare your master, and I'll live for another three years. During these three years, I'll serve you like a slave, imparting all the knowledge I've gained in my life to help you ascend to the Golden Elixir Path!"

Blue Star, Dragon Kingdom Live Stream Room.

The live chat was instantly flooded with comments.

"I threw up, I really threw up. This old bastard was trying to take her body just five minutes ago, and now he's kneeling on the ground calling her Xuan'er?"

"His ability to change his expression is comparable to that of a Sichuan opera master; even I, an HR professional with twenty years of experience, am ashamed of my own abilities."

"If you believe even a single word of his advice, Su Shen, I'll eat my phone right here and now."

"Look closely at the state of that primordial spirit. It's so damaged, yet it can still put on a great performance. This shows that this old man has been cultivating his mind for hundreds of years, and he's focused all his cultivation on acting skills."

"Please, God Su, don't be soft-hearted. Keeping this thing around is just asking for trouble. Once it recovers, you'll be the first one they kill!"

forbidden.

Su Ruo curled up in the corner, hugging her knees with both hands, her nails digging into the flesh of her calves, and red marks around the tips of her ten fingers.

The blood-covered figure in the sky made her start trembling twenty minutes ago, and she hasn't stopped since.

I'm alive, I'm still standing, I've won.

These three facts kept swirling in her mind, and with each swirling motion, her heart, which had been in her throat, felt a little lighter.

Inside the cave.

Su Xuan remained silent.

Elder Lingguang said everything he could say and promised everything he could. He even began to recall the details of the past six months of interaction between master and disciple, such as when he stayed an extra half hour when instructing Su Xuan on cultivation techniques and when he sent him rare pills when Su Xuan broke through a bottleneck.

The truth and falsehood are mixed together, and every word touches the softest spot in human nature.

Su Xuan listened to the whole thing.

He bent down.

Elder Lingguang's illusory figure trembled violently and shrank back half an inch, but then saw Su Xuan's hand pass over him and land on the storage ring that had rolled to the ground.

He clenched his fingers together, holding the ring in his palm.

Su Xuan straightened up and put the storage ring into his sleeve, his movements unhurried.

Elder Lingguang's illusory figure remained rooted to the spot, watching as Su Xuan took the ring but did not attack him. His heart, which had been hanging in suspense, slowly settled down.

There is a play.

As expected of a young man, he was indeed swayed by profit. Three thousand years of savings plus a gold-type sacred artifact—this temptation was enough to shake any Foundation Establishment cultivator, even this strange little beast.

He lowered his half-illusory head, adopting a submissive posture, his shoulders trembling slightly, choked with the sobs of someone who had survived a catastrophe.

But deep within that blurry face, a glimmer of light, almost imperceptible to the naked eye, flashed by.

That's not gratitude.

That's not regret.

He was an old hunter who had been bitten by his prey, silently licking his wounds and memorizing the chilling hatred within.

He has three years to live. As long as he survives and his primordial spirit remains intact, he still has a chance to turn the tables. He will find a new body, restore his cultivation, and then kill the first person he wants to kill.

Su Xuan had his back to him, looking down at the storage ring in his palm, the bloodstains at the corner of his mouth still wet.

Of course he saw it.

That fleeting malice, that meticulously calculated survival strategy behind those kneeling pleas for mercy. In his thirty thousand years on the throne, he had witnessed more betrayals than this old man had ever lived.

With his fingers gently stroking the surface of the ring inside his sleeve, Su Xuan slowly turned around and faced the humble, prostrate remnant soul on the ground once more.

"Master."

Elder Lingguang raised his head.

Su Xuan's face showed no extra emotion, only two words that came out as his lips moved, light and airy, revealing no joy or anger.

"You just said you were willing to serve your disciple like a beast of burden?"

Elder Lingguang's illusory figure immediately nodded frantically, and his eager appearance caused the live stream chat in the Dragon Kingdom to collectively type out vomiting emojis.

"I keep my word! As long as you—"

Su Xuan raised the broken iron sword.

The sword tip pointed downwards, aimed at the lingering soul on the ground.

Elder Lingguang's voice abruptly stopped.

The sword energy, wreathed in Samadhi Fire, instantly ripped through the void.

Without any hesitation or delay, the sword energy struck precisely at the center of Elder Lingguang's shattered primordial spirit.

"you--"

Elder Lingguang's scream was stuck in his throat. His primordial spirit rapidly disintegrated in the extreme heat. White light spots exploded, golden threads broke, and the entire remnant soul peeled away layer by layer from the outer layer to the core, without even a chance to struggle.

Within three breaths, it vanished into thin air.

Not even a single fragment of his soul remained.

Su Xuan sheathed the broken iron sword, and the Samadhi True Fire on the sword extinguished itself, leaving only the rusty surface of the sword reflecting the dim light inside the cave.

He stood there, looking down at the blank stone slab on the ground. Just moments ago, a primordial spirit had been kneeling and begging for mercy, but now nothing remained.

There wasn't even ashes left.

Su Xuan flicked his sword, and the remaining blood dripped down the blade to the ground. He then sheathed the broken iron sword behind his back, his actions no different from simply putting the broom away after tidying up his cave.

His first master in the cultivation world died at his hands, his body and soul utterly destroyed.

Blue Star, Dragon Kingdom Live Stream Room.

The comments section froze for two seconds the moment the sword fell, leaving a small blank space before exploding into a massive barrage.

"Holy crap! Su Shen is so decisive! He really cleaved it in two with one sword strike, without the slightest hesitation!"

"That old man was still putting on an act, but Su Shen didn't even lift an eyelid before calling it a day."

"To be honest, I was really afraid he would soften his heart just now. After all, that old Deng acted really well, crying and kowtowing."

"Soft-hearted?? Wake up, bro."

"Look closely at Su Shen's hands. They didn't tremble once from beginning to end. Killing people is as easy as drinking water."

No matter how fast the comments scroll, they can't cover up the image on the screen.

A gray-robed youth, covered in blood, stood alone in the center of the dimly lit cave. The protective patterns on the walls were still faintly shimmering, and dark red bloodstains were everywhere on the broken stone slabs. The air was filled with the smell of burning.

A lonely person.

As viewers around the world watched the scene, the frenzy of comments gradually subsided, and some dissenting voices emerged.

"I finally managed to join a sect and get a master, but it turns out he's an old beast who wants to steal my body."

"There wasn't a single person who was genuinely good to him from beginning to end; it was all scheming."

"This cultivation world is truly cannibalistic."

forbidden.

Su Ruo curled up in the corner, her knees pressed against her chest, her ten fingers digging into the flesh of her calves, leaving red marks around her nails.

The blood-covered figure in the sky finally stopped fighting, no longer needing to be knocked away, get up, and charge forward again.

Her lips trembled for a long time before she managed to squeeze out a complete sentence.

"The cultivation world is too cruel; there's no warmth whatsoever, only scheming and manipulative tactics..."

Inside the cave.

Su Xuan stood still.

The Asura God Body's self-healing process continued, with broken meridians reconnecting inch by inch, displaced internal organs slowly returning to their original positions, and a dense, itchy sensation emanating from the fractured ribs—a signal of bone regrowth.

He lowered his head, took out Elder Lingguang's storage ring from his sleeve, and probed it with his divine sense.

The origin of Geng metal, a fist-sized white sphere of light, lay quietly in the deepest part of the ring's space, with golden threads flowing within it, and pure Geng metal power overflowing out.

The Five Elements Foundation Building Method is still missing two sacred objects from the metal, wood, and earth elements; now only wood and earth are missing.

In the rest of the storage ring, spirit stones were piled up like a small mountain, pills of various grades were neatly arranged in jade bottles, and there were also more than a dozen cultivation manuals, most of which contained cultivation insights from the Golden Core stage and above.

Su Xuan withdrew his divine sense and put the ring into his pocket.

As Elder Lingguang perished, the restrictions on the four walls of the cave gradually dimmed, the golden patterns extinguished one after another, and spiritual energy surged in from the outside, making the dry and scorching air moist.

Su Xuan raised his head.

From the Qingyun Sect until now, he has been without a single person by his side.

It wasn't there then, and it's not there now.

But things are different now than they were back then.

There is someone on Blue Star waiting for him.

His gaze passed through the cave's ceiling, through the main peak, through the void of this world, and landed in a direction he couldn't see but always remembered.

Only by surviving can one become stronger than everyone else.

Su Ruo.

His only obsession.

Su Xuan withdrew his gaze from the distance and looked down to scan the cave.

The ground was littered with rubble, dark red bloodstains, and scorched burn marks that spread from the ground to the walls, a scene of utter devastation left by a battle between Golden Core cultivators.

If anyone in the sect were to see this scene, he would be transformed from a true disciple of the Vajra Sect into a prisoner today.

They cannot be kept.

Samadhi True Fire surged from his left palm, the crimson flames precisely controlled into a thin layer, sweeping across the ground. Elder Lingguang's physical remains quickly turned to ashes in the high temperature, leaving not even bone fragments behind.

The bloodstains, the residual golden core spiritual energy fluctuations on the rubble, and even the lingering battle aura in the air were all burned away by the extreme temperature of the Samadhi True Fire.

Su Xuan squatted down, pressed his five fingers on a broken stone slab, and let his spiritual power seep into the bottom layer of the ground restriction along his fingertips, replacing the spiritual power imprints belonging to Elder Lingguang one by one.

Half an hour later, the entire cave was restored to its original clean and tidy state.

Su Xuan walked to the communication array outside the cave, condensed a stream of spiritual power in his right hand, deliberately simulated the operating frequency and aura characteristics commonly used by Elder Lingguang, and poured it into a blank communication jade slip.

"I suddenly had an epiphany and went out to travel in search of a breakthrough opportunity. My return date is uncertain. My disciple Su Xuan will go into seclusion to guard the main peak in my stead."

The spiritual energy fluctuations, aura patterns, and even the pauses in the rhythm of the speech on this jade slip were exactly the same as those of Elder Lingguang himself.

Su Xuan embedded the jade slip into the communication array, and the array automatically synchronized the information to the record jade tablet in the Clan Affairs Hall.

The old monster at the peak of the Golden Core stage said he was going on a journey, and no one in the sect was qualified to inquire about his whereabouts.

In addition, the main peak cave itself has a top-level isolation array that completely blocks the spiritual energy from entering and leaving, so that external divine senses cannot penetrate it at all.

It could take a year or several years for anyone to notice that Elder Lingguang had been completely destroyed, both physically and spiritually.

Blue Star, Dragon Kingdom Live Stream Room.

The screen was filled with comments.

"Su Shen's cleanup skills are amazing. He can kill someone, destroy the body, and cover up the crime all in one go."

"That communication jade slip is incredibly realistic! It can even replicate the spiritual energy frequency. What level of skill is that?"

"For Su Shen, fabricating things is as natural as breathing."

"The key point is that isolation array, which means that Su Shen has now gained a Golden Core-level cultivation chamber for free, and can do whatever he wants."

A secret chamber in a cave.

Su Xuan sat cross-legged on the futon, the medicinal power of the three healing pills dissolving within his body, the warm energy slowly repairing his broken meridians.

With the help of the Asura Divine Body's self-healing and the aid of elixirs, 70% of the broken meridians were reconnected within half a day, and most of the displaced internal organs were also returned to their original positions.

The remaining injuries will take time to heal, but they won't affect what I need to do next.

Su Xuan opened his eyes, took out Elder Lingguang's storage ring from his bosom, and probed the deepest compartment with his divine sense.

A fist-sized white orb of light floated there silently, with golden threads flowing endlessly inside. The power of Geng metal overflowed from the surface of the orb, and its sharp metallic texture could be felt even through the storage space.

The origin of Geng metal.