劍問蒼天 - 第204章 斷劍 - 清風書屋

The Daoist laughed coldly and said, "That day you fought a great battle with me, and the destruction of the ancestral shrine was not my doing alone. Have you any regard for the patriarchs of Canglan Sect?"

The fat man was stopped short, but only grew angrier; for a moment he could not think what to say, and could only glare fiercely at the Daoist. The Daoist studied him for a few moments, then suddenly laughed coldly. "I see you had best not put on a brave front. Your cultivation runs deeper than I thought, deep enough that you could force your way through the Heart-Piercing Lock's restraint—but to save those three, you spent your cultivation to break it by force. Now your blood and qi are surging back, your whole network of meridians in turmoil. At most you have six tenths of your usual cultivation left. Heh heh."

He gave a cold, sinister laugh and said, "In the days when you were at full strength, you were still no match for me—I captured you and sealed you in that ruined coffin. And now you dare stand against me?"

But the fat man showed not the slightest fear or thought of retreat. "In those years," he said sternly, "you and Senior Brother Wan were peerless in grace and power, sweeping away demons and monsters. I followed the two of you, and I would have died for you without a moment's regret. But you are no longer the man you were, while what I do now is precisely what you and Senior Brother Wan once did, facing death a thousand times without turning back."

He gave a long, shrill cry, his face bearing a trace of fortitude, and something too of deep grief. "Take my sword!" he shouted.

Before the words had died away, his figure was like lightning, merging in an instant into the blazing crimson light, like a giant dragon soaring into the sky, lunging forward. The red gleams in the Daoist's eyes flared, yet his pupils contracted slightly; the crimson pillar of light was so mighty it seemed to cleave the heavens and split the earth, all but impossible to withstand. There remained only the one road: to perish together.

Yet he suddenly laughed coldly, and with a sweep of his right hand a cold gleam sprang up—not a dazzling radiance, but it blocked the crimson pillar's path right before him.

And the moment that cold gleam touched the crimson pillar, it blazed with sudden brilliance. Seemingly edgeless and dull, it nonetheless cut its way in by main force, light flaring and wavering in dazzling flashes.

The fat man suddenly roared, then cried out in pain. At once the crimson light recoiled, bursting apart with a thunderous crash, and the fat man was sent flying, staggering, unable even to keep his feet when he struck the ground, reeling backward again and again—and all the way back, blood was already spewing from his mouth. Clearly his wounds were grave; even the breast of his robe was soaked red with a great stain of blood.

As for the Daoist, the cold gleam flashed once and was gone, and looking closely, he held in his hand a plain, unremarkable ancient sword, archaic in form and stranger still in substance, seeming stone yet not stone. Strangest of all, the blade was broken—the front two chi of it had snapped off.

Blood flowed from the fat man's mouth as he glared fiercely at the Daoist and cried in a hoarse voice, "You—you dare bring the Immortal-Slaying Sword down from Canglan Mountain?"

The Daoist threw back his head and laughed wildly, his manner utterly unbridled. And in the distance, the more Zhou Yixuan and the other two heard, the more alarmed they grew—until at last their minds went utterly blank with shock!

The Ancient Immortal-Slaying Sword!

That broken sword in the Daoist's hand—could it truly be the Immortal-Slaying Sword, the foremost blade of the immortal schools, famed throughout the world?

Then what manner of men were these two, whose cultivation was so terrifyingly deep?