Chapter 278: Chapter 278

To everyone’s shock, the youth’s body was devouring the shattered lightning.

Sword Spirit’s voice echoed in his mind. “Hold on! The lightning is strong enough to transform your lightning spirit power. Swallow every last bit of it!”

The thick thunderbolts engulfed him, electricity crawling across nearly every inch of his body. He clenched his teeth, refusing to make a sound. With rage burning in his chest and an unyielding will, he forced himself to digest the lightning.

Slowly, his golden core started to fracture.

The golden core shattered—and in its place appeared a tiny golden man.

Is that… the nascent soul…?

As soon as Li Guanqi’s nascent soul emerged, a wisp of his spirit separated and fused into it. The instant it entered, the figure stirred with awareness. It gathered the fragments of the broken golden core and swallowed them whole.

Li Guanqi’s meridian veins expanded as a powerful force surged through them. The heavenly tribulation lightning still writhing inside him was being broken down. Once he began to digest it, the rest became much easier.

He reached out, seizing a coil of lightning that wrapped around him. Looking closer, he realized the air around his hand was slightly warped—he had unconsciously used his spatial manipulation to imprison the lightning.

What happened next left the crowd stunned.

The blood-soaked youth dragged the lightning to his mouth and shoved it inside. The instant it neared his lips, it blasted his cheek open, flesh and blood spraying as bone showed through.

But he maintained a vicious glare, grabbing the lightning with two hands and swallowing it in two seconds.

They could faintly see his stomach expand a lot.

Li Guanqi didn’t realize the nascent soul bore the same blood-red markings as his own body.

When the lightning tried to escape, the tiny figure seized it, making it shrink rapidly.

The spectators had braced themselves to see him explode. But to their horror, Li Guanqi seized a second bolt and swallowed it one too.

Even the veteran Nascent Soul Realm cultivators watching broke into a cold sweat. Despite power and long lives, they’d never thought they’d see someone swallow heavenly lightning.

A man from the northwest wiped his face and muttered, “What the hell…? If I told anyone back home, they’d never believe me.”

But Li Guanqi’s actions enraged the heavens.

The tribulation roared, and the sky within dozens of li darkened. Fierce winds howled, and torrential rain crashed down.

Li Guanqi’s tongue had been seared away, leaving only bare bone on his jaw. He looked like a demon.

Sensing the heavens’ fury, he stepped forward, then suddenly had an idea. He muttered, “Second Strike… Heavenly Destruction.”

His battle spirit soared to its peak.

At last, he understood why he had never grasped the second move of the Heavenly Destruction Sword Sutra. He had never witnessed the true might of the heavens, and so had never felt the urge to destroy them.

Behind him, the projection of Sword Spirit appeared. A strange light flickered in her eyes as her hands clenched into fists beneath her sleeves.

A bird-like shriek pierced the air, followed by a hundred-zhang-long streak of sword light. The moment it flew forth, the world within a hundred li darkened.

All everyone could see was the gigantic ray of sword light tearing through the lightning and the skies.

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A deafening explosion ripped through the air, sending a terrifying shockwave that flung the spectators back a hundred zhang.

Zheng Deyuan’s pupils quivered violently. Though he didn’t want to admit it, he realized that the youth was stronger than he was.

He doubted he could have survived the strike that shattered the five bolts of lightning.

The old man behind him stepped forward. “I’ll handle this.”

Zheng Deyuan looked at him and murmured, “Father…”

The old man’s robes flapped loudly in the wind. With a cold glare, he declared, “My grandson died a wretched death. As his grandfather, I cannot stand idle. I’ll see what this boy is made of!”

Li Guanqi’s attack cleaved the tribulation clouds, parting them to reveal a brilliant blue sky. Sunlight then poured through the gap, illuminating the land below.

The youth stretched his arms wide, basking in the light. Spirit qi swirled around him. Before their eyes, his wounds healed at incredible speed.

A dreadful pressure radiated from him—not the unstable aura of a new Nascent Soul cultivator, but the steady force of one who had already consolidated the early stage. And Li Guanqi had only just turned seventeen.

A heavy aura spread across the lands, making the onlookers subconsciously back away hundreds of zhang.

They all knew that an unavoidable, mortal battle was about to begin.

Li Guanqi gazed calmly at the two men. His sword let out a soft cry. He pointed at them and said, “Both of you. At once.”

The crowd gasped. “He doesn’t understand how terrifying the Zheng family’s elder is! Even with his breakthrough, he’s being far too arrogant!”

But Zheng Deyuan and his father, Zheng Yuanzhong, knew the boy wasn’t lying. He had the right to make such a claim.

The old man smiled. He did not plan to honor Li Guanqi’s request.

Their auras quickly grew stronger, finally reaching their highest points. Zheng Deyuan, in the early Nascent Soul Realm, had a very stable aura. Zheng Yuanzhong’s aura was more powerful but less stable, as he had recently broken through to the mid Nascent Soul Realm.

This fight was unlike Li Guanqi’s previous battles, which felt trivial in comparison. A clash between Nascent Soul Realm cultivators could easily crack the earth and shatter mountains.

Vital force roared from Zheng Deyuan as earth-yellow light radiated around him. With a sudden burst from a sprint technique, he dashed forward, sword in hand. Several ten-zhang-wide palm seals flared to life around them.

Li Guanqi’s expression remained the same. Above, the tribulation clouds, still not dispersed, gathered once again. Dozens of lightning spears came crashing down, each stretching dozens of zhang.

The palm seals felt incredibly weak against those spears.

Countless explosions boomed in rapid succession. In an instant, Li Guanqi appeared behind Zheng Deyuan like a ghost.

Suddenly, Zheng Yuanzhong roared in a panic, “Deyuan, careful! He’s behind you!

A ray of earth-yellow sword light burst forth, but the youth in front of him turned translucent.

“No! It’s an afterimage!”

Then Li Guanqi’s voice, cold as death, whispered in Zheng Deyuan’s ear.

“Shadow Demon Slash, Dark Night!” Li Guanqi roared.

A brief flash of light cut through the air.

Li Guanqi used his spatial manipulation ability to lock the space before him. A neat, pitch-black spatial tear appeared through the space where his blade passed.

The sky dimmed, and Zheng Deyuan’s corpse fell from the sky.

A holographic nascent soul fled in terror, only to smash into an invisible barrier.

Li Guanqi closed his left fist.

The space warped and collapsed, putting a stop to the nascent soul’s wails.

The crowd swallowed hard. He was vicious. And powerful.