Chương 114: Chapter 3: Slaying the Golden Core

Boom! Ancestor Ming Diao's eyes widened in sheer, naked disbelief as the sword-qi he had meticulously condensed from his vast cultivation was pulverized in an instant. Had he not reacted with the instincts of a veteran and summoned a defensive magic treasure at the final heartbeat, that miniature flying sword would have surely transfixed his heart.

"A high-grade Dan Treasure!" he roared, a mix of greed and fury lacing his voice. Like a discarded leather ball, his body was sent hurtling backward by the sheer kinetic force of the giant blade, crashing violently into the roiling vortex of black miasma. Reyn's chest heaved as he spat a thick glob of crimson onto the earth. His aura flickered dangerously, waning like a guttering candle in a gale, yet his eyes remained a frozen tundra of cold, pitiless resolve.

A divine light sparked within his pupils, and the battle intent surging through his veins turned his blood into liquid fire. Today, he would do the impossible. Today, he would slay a Golden Core.

"Reyn, I will tear your soul from your body!" Ming Diao's howl of rage echoed from the depths of the black fog. To be repelled so forcefully by a brat who hadn't even stepped into the Foundation Establishment stage was a stain on his dignity that only blood could wash away. If this humiliation ever reached the ears of his peers, his prestige would be reduced to ash. Like a cornered, rabid lion, Ming Diao burst forth.

The sheer intensity of his killing intent caused the moisture in the air to crystallize, forming jagged shards of ice that swirled around him in a lethal orbit. He stepped out of the black mist, but before he could even draw a clean breath, Reyn's sword descended once more with the weight of a mountain.

"You court death!" Ming Diao had anticipated this. He instantly flared his defensive treasure, a shimmering barrier erupting around him as his escape light flashed, intending to ram his way through the blockade.

"Get back in!" Reyn's voice was as cold as a tomb. With a sharp incantation, the High-grade Dan Treasure expanded once more, swelling to a gargantuan four zhang in length. Its majestic pressure doubled, crushing the very air beneath its edge. CRACK. A thunderous explosion rocked the clearing. Reyn let out a muffled groan as blood erupted from his seven orifices, his face turning the color of bleached bone. Internal tremors tore through his meridians, and his azure robes were instantly saturated with fresh gore.

Though the Dan Treasure was peerless in power, the massive disparity in their cultivation meant every clash sent a devastating backlash through Reyn's body.

"Reyn, I swear you will die by my hand!" Ming Diao's eyes finally betrayed a hint of panic. His body was flung backward again, uncontrolled, back into the suffocating embrace of the black mist. The Hundred-Beast Poison Pill's fumes were unnervingly parasitic; despite him sealing his breath, the miasma clung to his spiritual shield, corroding its way inward. He had inadvertently inhaled a stray wisp, and his True Essence was already beginning to stagnate.

At the Golden Core stage, he could currently only exert forty percent of his true power. If he remained trapped in this toxic cloud, the consequences would be fatal. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

"I must break free now!" Ming Diao's mind raced with the sharp clarity of a high-level cultivator. With a snarl of desperation, he gripped his defensive treasure—the Black Rock Shield—and looked at it with a flash of regret before hurling it outward.

"Black Rock Shield, DETONATE!" The moment the shield cleared the mist, it underwent a violent structural collapse, its internal spiritual nodes overloading. The resulting explosion was a cataclysmic shockwave capable of vaporizing any cultivator below the Golden Core realm. Reyn's pupils contracted to pinpricks. He poured every remaining drop of his mana into the Dan Treasure, swinging it downward in a desperate parry. BOOM! The shockwave rippled outward, felt by every living thing for hundreds of miles.

Two hundred li to the east, a gaunt elder traveling with a young maiden suddenly jerked his head toward the horizon. His face paled in terror. Without a word, he grabbed the girl and ignited his escape light, fleeing in the opposite direction. Two Golden Cores fighting to the death? In North Yue State? I thought this place was a backwater! he cursed inwardly, sweating cold beads as they vanished into the distance. Back at the battlefield, Reyn was sent flying like a broken doll.

Fountains of blood sprayed from his skin, and his aura plummeted to a near-extinct level. He looked like a corpse that had yet to stop breathing. At the edge of the dissipating black fog, Ming Diao stood with a face like stone. He was pale, a trickle of blood leaking from his lips; the forced detonation of his soul-bound treasure had dealt a severe blow to his Divine Sense.

"Reyn, to push me to such an extreme... you should be proud," Ming Diao sneered, his voice dripping with sadistic cruelty.

"But as payment, I have decided not to kill you. I will extract your Primordial Spirit and seal it within a vessel, where I will burn it with Dan-fire day and night. You will know agony for ten thousand years!" Fueled by a cocktail of old grudges and new hatred, Ming Diao reached out with a claw-like hand, aiming for the crown of Reyn's head to rip his soul out by force. Just as the hand was about to descend, the despair in Reyn's eyes vanished, replaced by a terrifying, predatory gleam.

His left hand balled into a fist, striking toward Ming Diao's chest. Simultaneously, a razor-sharp streak of Gengjin Sword Qi erupted from the ring on his finger with the speed of a falling star! Ming Diao's lips curled in a mocking sneer. He was prepared.

"Still struggling? Die!" He shifted his stance, summoning a heavy, square-shaped seal treasure to crush Reyn's skull. According to the laws of physics, Reyn's head would be reduced to a red pulp long before his fist could touch Ming Diao. Squelch. Ming Diao's sneer froze. He stared down in dazed horror at the thumb-sized hole that had appeared in the center of his chest. He tried to speak, but only a wet, gurgling sound emerged as blood bubbled from his throat. The light in his eyes flickered and died.

Only then did the pitch-black barrier around Reyn's body finally shatter into dust, and the 'Zhen' Jade Pendant at his waist crumbled into fine powder. It had bought him the split-second he needed. Suddenly, a one-foot-tall, translucent figure erupted from the top of Ming Diao's head. It was his Primordial Spirit. It cast a single, venomous look at Reyn before shrieking in terror and bolting toward the horizon.

"You think you can escape?" Reyn's voice was a rasp from beyond the grave. He had sacrificed everything to bring this old monster down; he would not leave a single spark of his existence alive. He slapped his storage bag, and a streak of obsidian light shot out.

"Soul Devour!" Reyn's fingers blurred through a series of complex mudras. The obsidian light revealed its true form—the Shura Secret Bone. The skeletal frame expanded to the size of a grown man in an instant, its speed eclipsing the fleeing spirit. In a heartbeat, it lunged behind Ming Diao's soul, its skeletal claws wreathed in dark, soul-tainting flames as it clamped down on the screaming spirit. The dark light acted like acid on the soul.

Ming Diao's Primordial Spirit wailed in agonizing torment, its form rapidly shrinking and withering under the skeletal grip. With a thought from Reyn, the Shura Secret Bone dragged the captive spirit back to his side, its task complete.