Chapter 798: 798 - Your mistake
"A way out? Ha!" The elder Fey spat on the ground in contempt.
From the moment he had seen his disciple’s lifeless body and locked eyes with Qingyi, he had known he had fallen into a bottomless pit.
Not only were Chen Wei and his wife already under protection, they had also caught him carrying the very same spear used by the missing cultivator.
It was far too obvious to deny. And with the sect’s young Lord himself present—a figure whose prestige grew with each passing day—Fey knew his chances of escaping punishment were practically nil.
What bothered him most was that he couldn’t understand how they’d been discovered. Every detail of the plan had been carefully thought out.
The letter sent to Chen Wei had been rigged with a self-destruct mechanism that not only physically incinerated it, but also erased any trace of Qi that might identify them.
They had even managed to plant evidence pointing to a band of bandits as the real culprits.
The only suspicious link was the old connection between Chen Wei and the humiliation once suffered by Beifeng’s younger brother.
But even that could easily be erased by Beifeng’s connections during any formal investigation.
Unfortunately for Fey, this was far from a normal investigation.
"What are you going to tell me? That you want to fight me, and if I win, you’ll give me a chance to live?" Fey asked with a smile full of contempt, his chapped lips curling in mockery.
"No." Qingyi shook his head slowly. "You won’t win. But you can still extend your life a little longer. How about a duel with both of our cultivation levels sealed?"
"Ha... ha... hahahahaha!"
Elder Fey froze for an instant before bursting into uncontrollable laughter, his shoulders shaking with each fit.
"Are you crazy, kid?" he asked between chuckles.
But Qingyi didn’t even bother to answer. With a single thought, he accessed his system’s store and acquired two artifacts capable of completely suppressing a cultivator’s cultivation.
He kept one for himself and hurled the other toward the elder.
Fey caught it in midair, his wrinkled, trembling hand closing around the object as his bony fingers tightened their grip.
The moment he recognized the artifact, his eyes widened in shock.
"Young Lord... this is dangerous, please, let us handle him!" One of the elders from the Hall of Justice stepped forward, his voice heavy with concern. "He will be arrested and taken to the master of the Celestial Justice Pavilion for judgment!"
"Don’t worry." Qingyi’s lips curved into a cold smile. "I will take full responsibility for this. Just ensure my friend’s safety."
Qingyi wasn’t crazy.
He knew full well that the cultivation gap between them was far beyond what his lineage and cultivation technique could make up for.
If they fought using their cultivation, he’d only stand a chance by burning through his greatest trump cards.
But in a battle of pure physical strength, without their cultivation to interfere?
In that case, Qingyi was absolutely confident in his victory.
Of course, one’s cultivation level still significantly affected a cultivator’s physical power.
But at his current stage, he knew he could even defeat some weaker Star Sovereigns in a fistfight, despite being only at the fourth stage of the Cosmic Domination Realm.
Fey narrowed his eyes at Qingyi suspiciously, then turned his gaze to the suppression artifact in his hands, scanning every inch of it as if searching for some hidden trap.
"Very well, if you want to die that badly!"
Without hesitation, he activated the artifact on himself. The light in his eyes faded as his cultivation was suddenly suppressed.
Qingyi did the same, and within moments both were reduced to the level of mortals, left with nothing but bodies powerful enough to tear through mountains.
For a brief moment, they stared at each other in silence. Then, without holding back, they both charged forward.
A deafening roar tore through the hall the instant Qingyi’s sword and Fey’s spear collided in midair. Sparks exploded from the point of impact, and a shockwave burst outward in every direction, cracking the polished stone floor and making the walls tremble violently.
In the next instant, a figure was sent hurtling from the cultivation hall, punching through dozens of walls as though they were rice paper before crashing far beyond the boundaries of the main building of the defensive fortress.
It was, of course, Elder Fey, his eyes wide with sheer shock, unable to process what had just happened.
His body slammed onto the hard, sandy, gray lunar rock, the impact splintering the ground beneath him and kicking up a thick cloud of pale dust.
Fortunately, the entire moon had been covered by arrays that created an artificial atmosphere on its surface. Otherwise, Fey would already be suffocating as he coughed up blood.
He stared up at the starry sky, feeling the excruciating pain throbbing in both his arms.
His left arm was completely shattered, the bone jutting out beneath torn skin. His right arm had several ligaments ripped apart, turning it into a dead weight at his side.
That had been just a single exchange of brute force, without Qi, but he felt as if he’d been punching a wall of spiritual steel for hours.
That was his limit.
What if they’d fought at the same cultivation realm? He would have been turned to dust without even having time to blink.
Fey heard footsteps echoing in the distance.
Qingyi approached calmly.
"Do you know what your mistake was?" Qingyi asked, his eyes as cold as freshly fallen snow.
"I targeted a friend of yours... haha," Fey replied with a bitter chuckle, the metallic taste of blood flooding his mouth.
"No." Qingyi raised the Heaven-Defying Thunder Sword, its metal glinting under the light of distant stars. "You thought I wouldn’t care."
With a slight swing of the blade, Fey’s head separated cleanly from his body, a thin, perfect cut opening across his neck.
"Live a more dignified life in your next reincarnation," Qingyi declared coldly, feeling the artifact blocking his Qi deactivate automatically as the duel ended.
He turned his face, watching as all the elders and guards, along with Chen Wei and his wife, appeared flying above the fortress. Their expressions were filled with a mix of emotions, ranging from shock to reverence.
In less than ten seconds and a single exchange, Qingyi had slain an elder of the First Step of the Extinction Realm.
Even without using Qi, if it had been anyone else, such a feat would have been considered utter nonsense—something worthy of the oldest legends.
But this was Long Qingyi, the Supreme Emperor of the Ten Thousand Blades, the young Lord of the Cosmic Dawn Sect, recognized by a Cosmic Emperor.
He had broken many of the sect’s rules, but who there would dare to persecute him for it?
In the end, this was a world where truly only absolute power and connections mattered, not justice.
