Chapter 80 — The Eighth Chapter

The faces of the Four Great Masters of the demon cult changed drastically. In the blink of an eye, almost everyone around them had been wounded beneath this inconceivable and wondrous formation. The Immortal-Slaying Sword Formation fell like rain, and the seven-colored master sword in the sky kept splitting off ever more single-colored qi swords, its covering range growing wider and wider, until it seemed about to envelop the entire summit of Receiving Heaven Peak.

King Ming waved a hand to deflect a qi sword that came stabbing down, and felt his whole body shudder violently. The baleful spiritual power contained within that qi sword seemed inexhaustible. It appeared, indeed, just as Daoist Cangyan had said: having absorbed the heaven-and-earth spiritual energy of the seven mountain peaks of Mount Canglan, it was truly beyond what human strength could withstand. And this was merely a single-colored qi sword; if that terrifying seven-colored master sword were to strike, every soul there would likely find no place even to die in peace.

Among the Four Great Masters, King Ming had always been the most resourceful. In this moment of peril, his thoughts raced, and he suddenly noticed that in the sky Daoist Daoyan's body was swaying without pause, clearly straining to the utmost. He cried out urgently: "Everyone! The old thief Daoyan is gravely wounded and cannot fully control this formation. We must join forces and strike at a single point at once!"

The demon cult's people had been in utter chaos, fending off the deadly rain of swords falling from midair almost by instinct alone. Now, hearing King Ming's shout, they thought no further. With King Ming at their head, nearly every demon cult expert on Receiving Heaven Peak flew into the air and charged toward the easternmost place, where the single-colored qi swords were fewest.

Along the way, miserable screams never ceased. The qi swords in the sky, like demons' grinning faces reaping human lives, churned up one after another dreadful yet garishly bright blossom of blood across the heavens. The people of the Canglan Sect and the Fanyin Temple were stunned into stillness, forgetting even to block the demon cult's people. And even had they remembered, they likely would have lacked the strength: with swords falling like rain across the whole sky, any rash movement on their part would likely leave them wounded first amid that sword rain.

At last, after leaving behind nearly a hundred corpses, several dozen demon cult experts broke through from the easternmost side. The Four Great Masters, Daoist Cangyan included, were all wounded, yet in the end they still escaped.

The rain of swords across the sky finally began slowly to weaken, and gradually to cease.

Countless scattered blossoms of blood drifted quietly down and transformed into a scene of bloodshed so shocking to behold that it shrouded Receiving Heaven Peak in a single pall of crimson.

The qi swords in the sky gradually vanished, and Daoist Daoyan descended slowly together with the Water Qilin. Tian Buhui and the others only now awoke from their trance and hurried forward to meet him, but they had barely caught hold of Daoist Daoyan when, before a single word could be exchanged, they saw him slump sideways and collapse into Tian Buhui's arms, unconscious.