“Roar…!”
The Taotie’s howl seemed to come from another world entirely.
The Ghost Shadow Sword in Ling Xiao’s hand flickered in and out of visibility.
A ferocious aura continued to gather around him.
He did not move. He simply stared at the three incoming attacks, a disdainful smile in his ice-cold eyes.
“Kill!”
After the three captains struck, the pirates in their squads hurled their weapons as well.
Battles like this were common at sea. The weapons these pirates threw were infused with powerful heavenly yuan force; their destructive power was astonishing, and their speed was anything but slow.
Weapons filled the sky like a raging storm.
Ling Xiao’s situation looked extremely dire.
Yet the smile on his face grew brilliantly bright.
Heaven-Burning Eye!
Taotie Apocalypse!
From his Tai Chi Eye burst a blazing sea of fire. The weapons flying through the air met that terrifying flame, instantly melted into molten iron, then fell to the ground and cooled on the bluestone slabs.
Almost simultaneously, the Ghost Shadow Sword thrust forward. An enormous Taotie shot out with the sword light, opened its maw, and swallowed the heavenly yuan force shark in one gulp.
Then its massive claw slammed down onto the turtle shell.
The shell shattered completely.
Although the tornado struck the Taotie, it only left a faint scratch and caused no substantial damage.
Seeing this, the hearts of the three captains shuddered violently at the same moment.
Retreat!
They had attacked together, yet the only thought they now shared was to flee together.
Ling Xiao’s attack was far more terrifying than they had imagined.
Especially the horrifying aura emanating from the world behind Ling Xiao; it felt dozens, even hundreds of times more dreadful than the Taotie itself.
Getting close to Ling Xiao was nothing but a path to death.
They refused to gamble with their lives.
They were afraid.
Yet escape was already meaningless.
“Since you chose to attack, you should have known the consequences. Being scared now makes you look rather spineless, doesn’t it?”
Ling Xiao’s voice rang out lightly, but his assault did not stop.
The enraged Taotie blanketed the entire street. The once-bright thoroughfare plunged into pitch blackness.
Only when the Taotie martial spirit was fully integrated did the true Taotie Apocalypse reveal itself.
The moment this move was unleashed, everything within several hundred metres truly felt like the end of the world.
Its bloody maw gaped wide. The three captains and several hundred pirates were dragged by an invisible force. No matter how they struggled, they could not escape. Their bodies were gradually sucked into that gigantic mouth.
The pirates watched in horror as sword light within the Taotie tore their bodies apart. Filled with terror, they could only scream desperately.
They did not want to die!
Even pirates did not wish for death.
When they killed others, they never treated other lives as anything of value, yet when it happened to them, they were terrified.
They had come from the sea to this place seeking revenge on Ling Xiao, to tear him limb from limb.
Yet they never expected that coming here was simply “courting death”.
The killers had become the killed.
What exquisite irony.
Before the eyes of the onlookers, the Taotie’s massive jaws closed.
With just this one move, the remaining three captains were dead, and more than a hundred pirates were reduced to nothing.
Some of the surviving pirates fainted from sheer fright, others scattered and fled.
Those who remained at the scene trembled uncontrollably, having completely lost their courage.
Everyone watching stood frozen, their expressions fixed.
Wasn’t this youth a little too overpowering? An ordinary commercial street had become a street of death!
Could only a true Cavern Heaven realm warrior subdue him?
Fire Captain dead!
Shark Captain dead!
Turtle Captain dead!
Wind Captain dead!
Along with them, nearly two hundred Celestial realm pirates had perished.
How could people not be shocked?
Yet Ling Xiao still stood in snow-white robes, black hair fluttering. Were it not for the blood dripping from the Ghost Shadow Sword in his hand, one might think he had never fought at all.
There was no killing intent in his eyes, only a calm smile and cold mockery.
Perhaps to him, this had not even been a battle, merely a boring slaughter.
“Anyone else want to fight?”
He flicked his sword lightly and asked indifferently, “I don’t mind giving you a quick death!”
Hearing this, the pirates did not step forward; instead, they retreated several steps. More tried to flee.
At that moment, the representative from the Water God Temple finally acted.
Water-blue streams of energy spread from his body and poured into the remaining three or four hundred pirates.
Their eyes turned the same water-blue colour.
Whether they had stayed or tried to escape, all became puppets.
They could no longer control their own bodies. Under the Water God Temple representative’s control, they charged uniformly toward Ling Xiao.
Before Ling Xiao could move, two figures had already darted into the crowd.
One was white as snow, icy and chilling: Feng Ming Piaoxue.
One carried the aura of plum blossoms, brimming with killing intent: Leng Mei.
“I might as well warm up a little.”
Princess Yun Ya walked out with a smile.
Of course, she did not need to bother with these pirates, but her action signified an attitude.
Yue Nü did not fight. She sat upon a patch of white clouds, eyes closed, either resting or cultivating.
It was not yet her turn.
Ling Xiao also charged forward with the Ghost Shadow Sword. This kind of slaughter was excellent for honing killing intent.
The battle was completely one-sided.
Beneath Feng Ming Piaoxue’s hands, corpses were all frozen into ice.
Beneath Leng Mei’s hands, corpses remained whole, but each had a plum-blossom-shaped sword hole in the centre of their forehead.
Beneath Yun Ya’s hands, the ways of death were varied. This woman seemed to master many different martial skills, each capable of ending a life.
Those killed by Ling Xiao suffered the worst.
Almost all were decapitated or dismembered.
He wanted to make an example. He wanted everyone in Sin City to understand that anyone who came to kill Ling Xiao had to be prepared to be killed themselves, and very possibly die without an intact corpse.
The fighting ended.
Apart from the few pirates who had managed to escape, the entire One-Eyed Pirate Crew was annihilated.
Close to a thousand people had died at the hands of Ling Xiao and the three women, among them four half-step Cavern Heaven realm captains.
These few individuals were simply too strong!
Most of the watching martial artists were themselves Celestial realm cultivators. Faced with the ground covered in dead Celestial realm warriors, they naturally felt fear.
They were extremely glad they had never provoked Ling Xiao, let alone foolishly believed they could kill him.
It was impossible to gauge the true cultivation and strength of these people.
None of them had clearly used their full power. Their fighting had looked effortless, as if they were merely cleaning up rubbish.
The One-Eyed Pirate Crew had arrived with ferocious momentum, yet they left behind nearly a thousand corpses, dyeing the entire long street red.
That blood-soaked street was truly the greatest irony.
