Chapter 222: Chapter 140: Suppressing the Ten Heroes
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The incoming Sword Qi crashed against the barrier of blade light, exploding and vanishing into nothing.
The cyan lotus blooms, ten thousand blades descend!
With a silent roar, Lu Maozhi’s figure shot several dozen feet higher. He flipped upside down in mid-air, head below his feet.
The Cyan Light Treasure Sword in his hand became a blur. The surging cyan Evil Qi around his body churned wildly, transforming into countless fine, sharp streams of Sword Qi. Like a torrential downpour, or an inverted, blooming lotus, it descended upon Chen Sheng below, brimming with incomparable killing intent.
From the very first exchange, Lu Maozhi had used the killing move from his famous ultimate technique, the Cyan Lotus Sword Technique, holding nothing back.
Although he was confident he was the stronger of the two, the image of Chen Sheng killing Song Renyi was still fresh in his mind, so Lu Maozhi dared not be the least bit arrogant.
After all, Wang Zilan was watching from below, as were countless guests with rapt attention. He had to defeat this maniac who dared to covet his fiancée in the most dominant, devastating manner possible.
He would show Wang Zilan that he, Lu Maozhi, was worthy of her.
The rain of cyan Sword Qi covered an area dozens of feet wide. The piercing aura radiating from it made the skin of the spectators below tingle. At the center of the Sword Rain, Chen Sheng’s expression finally grew a bit more serious.
’This Lu Maozhi isn’t just famous for nothing.’
As the thought flashed through his mind, the Six Extremes Golden Bell Technique roared to life.
VMMMM!
An ethereal Golden Bell, its light growing brighter and with crimson runes flowing across its surface, instantly enveloped Chen Sheng.
DONG! DONG! DONG! DONG—!!!
A flurry of impacts, as dense as the rolling of war drums, suddenly erupted.
The cyan Sword Qi hammered against the Golden Bell like a torrential storm, kicking up visible ripples of gold and waves of crimson.
Terrifying shockwaves of sound and Fierce Qi blasted outward. The closer spectators turned pale and stumbled back in horror. Those with weaker Cultivation felt their ears ring and their blood churn.
"What?!"
Lu Maozhi’s pupils contracted. He was secretly stunned.
He never imagined that his full-power attack—one that could easily crush an ordinary mid-stage Earth Fiend Martial Master—couldn’t even break through the man’s Protective Golden Bell.
In his shock and anger, Lu Maozhi pushed his Body Technique to the absolute limit. He became a cyan afterimage, circling rapidly around the seemingly impregnable Golden Bell.
The Cyan Light Sword transformed into a bolt of cyan lightning. Its tip, gathering a point of brilliant, cold light, struck the exact same spot on the Golden Bell with astonishing frequency.
TING! TING! TING! TING!
The crisp, rapid impacts blurred into a single, continuous tone.
Ten strikes!
Twenty strikes!
Thirty strikes!
CRACK...
A fine but distinct crack finally appeared at the point of impact, spreading rapidly.
"Break!"
Lu Maozhi roared, focusing all his Cultivation into his sword. The cyan light flared as he thrust forward with all his might.
BOOM!
Unable to bear the strain, Chen Sheng’s Protective Golden Bell finally exploded, dissolving into a shower of light motes.
A flash of joy went through Lu Maozhi. He was just about to follow up with a fatal blow.
However, in the instant the Golden Bell shattered, before the motes of light had even dispersed, a flash of blade light—colder and swifter than anything before—shot upward from the center of the light without warning.
The timing was exquisite, the angle wickedly precise, as if he had calculated the exact moment the Golden Bell would shatter.
’Not good.’
Lu Maozhi was horrified, barely managing to swing his sword back to block.
CLANG—!!!
Amidst the deafening clang, Lu Maozhi felt an irresistible force travel up the length of his sword. The webbing of his hand split open, gushing blood, and he was flung backward like a kite with a snapped string.
Chen Sheng, too, was sent sliding back several dozen feet by the recoil.
Yet, before either had regained their footing, they both twisted in mid-air, kicked off the void, and shot toward each other again as two streaks of light—one gold, one cyan—clashing violently.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM—!!
High in the sky, blade light and Sword Qi crisscrossed as the sounds of their fierce clashes rang out like a string of thunderclaps.
The two figures were moving so fast they were mere afterimages, sometimes separating, sometimes clashing in a tangled mess. The radiating Fierce Qi sliced the remaining roof tiles and support beams below to splinters.
The spectators below were completely mesmerized, gasping in endless amazement.
"As expected of one of the Ten Heroes! Luoyun Manor’s Cyan Lotus Sword Technique is incredibly fierce. That Sword Rain is impossible to defend against."
"But Deputy Captain Chen is even more amazing! That Protective Golden Bell withstood the Sword Rain! His defense is terrifying, and his Sword Skill is just as ferocious. No wonder he dared to accept the challenge—he clearly had the confidence to back it up."
"They’re evenly matched. This battle is actually an even fight."
"It looks like the outcome of this battle is still anyone’s guess."
However, high in the sky, a chill was spreading through Lu Maozhi’s heart. The longer the battle raged, the more terrified he became.
Chen Sheng’s Sword Skill seemed simplistic, but it always neutralized his own exquisite Sword Skills in the most direct and effective way, as if he could predict Lu Maozhi’s every move.
Even more terrifying was the clash of their Evil Qi.
His pride and joy, the Cyan Blade Evil Qi—ranked fifty-third on the Earth Fiend list—was like a stream meeting a great river in the face of Chen Sheng’s terrifying Evil Qi. It was being constantly battered, scattered, and dissolved.
With every clash of their weapons, a strange power within his opponent’s Evil Qi—a bizarre mix of chilling cold, scorching heat, and tyrannical force—would make his blood churn and his Meridians ache.
His advantage of being at the peak of the Earth Fiend realm was almost entirely negated by his opponent’s bizarre Evil Qi, which was clearly of a much higher quality.
’Just what kind of Evil Qi did he refine?!’
A thought surfaced in Lu Maozhi’s mind.
But try as he might, he couldn’t understand it. When had such a tyrannical, chilling Evil Qi ever appeared in Ning’an Prefecture? He had never even heard of such a thing within the other Five Sects.
’Could it be a top-tier Evil Qi granted by the Government Office?’
