“Shoo!”
Just as the sword beam from the Ji family’s Ninth-layer Martial Emperor youth was about to reach Lin Xiao, the Fifth Peak Master had already moved to the same height as Lin Xiao. He crushed something between his fingers, and a peculiar ray of light suddenly shot out from his hand, streaking towards Lin Xiao.
This light was not an attacking force. Instead, it carried a gentle power that enveloped Lin Xiao completely, sweeping him up and carrying him away towards the horizon.
The speed was so great that he vanished from everyone’s sight in the blink of an eye.
Boom! Because the Fifth Peak Master had used one hand to help Lin Xiao escape, his other hand failed to fully block Ji Min’s terrifying attack. He coughed up blood from the fearsome shockwave and was hurled far backwards.
“A Martial Saint’s method!”
Ji Min was greatly shocked and tried to give chase, but it was too late.
Whatever treasure the Fifth Peak Master had used made pursuit impossible.
Their goal of eliminating Lin Xiao had been thwarted once again.
He was merely a youth, yet he had escaped from their grasp time and time again, killed members of the Ji family, and brought shame upon them. This filled Ji Min with unbearable rage.
…Lin Xiao was carried countless li away by that gentle ball of light. All he could see was himself hurtling at extreme speed into a region covered in endless white bones.
This area was a boundless plain, blanketed entirely in the ash of skeletons, utterly devoid of any trace of life.
There was nothing but bones.
The bones lay in dense, grim piles, ghostly phosphorescent fires flickering faintly. Under the moonlight, the whole region looked utterly sinister.
At that moment, the light enveloping Lin Xiao slowly dissipated. His body lightly descended onto a heap of bones in a valley with a soft “bang”, crushing a humanoid skeleton beneath him into powder and sending up a small cloud of bone dust.
Fortunately, the impact was gentle and caused little disturbance, so Lin Xiao suffered no further injury.
In his current condition, even a slightly heavier fall might have knocked him unconscious.
While he could still move, Lin Xiao hurriedly took out a high-grade healing pill and swallowed it.
Then he began to slowly treat his wounds.
Only after half a month of continuously refining healing pills did Lin Xiao fully recover.
This time his injuries had been extremely severe, but thankfully they had not damaged his foundation, so recovery was possible.
Feeling his body completely restored, Lin Xiao let out a long sigh of relief, though weariness still lingered on his face.
“Ji family, Sacred Heaven Sect, I, Lin Xiao, have remembered this debt!”
Gazing at the sky, Lin Xiao silently vowed, his eyes flashing with intense killing intent.
He had nearly died at the hands of these two powers, and he would certainly settle this score with them one day.
“Chi!”
At that very moment, the more than nine layers of chaos within his dantian suddenly transformed entirely into primal chaos.
Then, as if the heavens and earth were being split apart, with pure qi rising and turbid qi sinking, the chaotic dantian actually turned into a space roughly one chi in size. That space was filled with vast, majestic power.
The density of this power was more than ten times greater than before.
In that instant, a terrifying aura burst from Lin Xiao’s body, and a Martial Emperor pressure surged out from him.
Lin Xiao felt the fearsome power surging violently within the newly formed space in his dantian. His long hair whipped about, his presence shook the heavens, and layers of skeleton piles around him were flung outwards.
“Martial Emperor realm, I have actually stepped into the Martial Emperor realm?”
Lin Xiao felt dazed for a moment.
He had not refined any cultivation-advancing pills, nor had he cultivated.
He had merely taken healing pills and recovered from his injuries.
Yet the moment his injuries healed, his cultivation had inexplicably broken through?
He had directly crossed the Martial Emperor barrier that countless people struggled their entire lives to overcome?
Or perhaps, after suffering the strike of a half-step Martial Saint and bearing such grievous wounds, when his body recovered from that extreme burden, his dantian had also undergone a transformation, allowing the breakthrough?
Lin Xiao could only laugh and cry at this method of breaking through.
Still, to achieve a breakthrough through near-fatal injuries was undeniably far too dangerous; he had nearly died.
The good thing was that once his injuries healed, he had broken through without expending extra resources or effort. It truly embodied the saying, “If one survives a great disaster, good fortune will surely follow.”
“At the half-step Martial Emperor realm, I could already fight Seventh-layer Martial Emperors, and with spiritual power, I could even defeat Eighth-layer Martial Emperors. Now that I have directly broken through to the Martial Emperor realm, fighting Ninth-layer Martial Emperors should pose no problem, right?
With spiritual power added, could I sweep through Ninth-layer Martial Emperors?”
Lin Xiao sensed the power within his body and quietly weighed his strength.
He brimmed with confidence in that immense power. Even if he could not yet sweep through Ninth-layer Martial Emperors, he was probably not far off.
He could even hold his own against a half-step Martial Saint for a while.
If he could not win, escaping should be no issue.
He would no longer be as helpless as before, unable to withstand even a single strike from a half-step Martial Saint.
“Ji family, I will very soon come to settle this account with you!”
A cold smile lifted the corners of Lin Xiao’s mouth, his face filled with murderous intent.
This time, not only had he nearly died, he had even lost his Void Heavenly Phoenix Wings. If he did not cause trouble for the Ji family and Sacred Heaven Sect, he would no longer be Lin Xiao.
“Only, I wonder how far I have been taken?”
Only then did Lin Xiao come back to his senses. He turned to survey his surroundings and, seeing the ground covered in skeletons, realised how unusual this place was.
The bones here were far denser than anywhere he had passed through before.
He had no idea what part of Evil Valley this was; he had probably already entered the central region of Evil Valley.
“Sha! Sha! Sha!”
At that moment, Lin Xiao heard the faint sound of orderly footsteps approaching. The rhythm was uniform, clearly not made by just one or two individuals, but very likely by a large group.
Moreover, the sound did not come from a single direction, but from an entire area.
Lin Xiao frowned, instantly on full alert, his gaze turning towards the source of the noise.
Not long afterwards, rows upon rows of skeletons appeared in his line of sight.
At the very front and centre marched a humanoid skeleton wielding a golden spear, the weapon stained with dried blood.
Yet in the grip of that skeleton, it carried the imposing manner of a general commanding tens of thousands of troops. Its frame was also sturdier than the other skeletons.
The golden-spear skeleton walked alone at the head. Behind it followed a row of ten skeletons.
These ten skeletons stood about five metres apart, forming a horizontal line roughly fifty metres wide.
Each of them also carried a long spear.
Behind those ten came more than a hundred skeletons marching in a single row.
The first row all wielded seven-chi-long greatswords.
The second row all carried long swords.
The third row held heavy axes.
The fourth row grasped battle halberds.
From the fifth row to the dozens of rows after, skeletons carrying longbows walked, quivers of arrows on their backs, keeping one row’s distance from the spear-wielding skeletons.
The archer skeletons also carried a sword of moderate length on their backs in addition to their arrows.
Further back came row after row of spear-wielding formations.
In total, there were probably more than a hundred ranks of skeleton troops. Their formation was perfectly orderly, their steps completely synchronised, treading steadily over the bone ash and bone piles on the ground as they advanced.
