Chapter 4959 — Just Die in Peace

The sandstorm howled without cease, and what went on inside it was impossible to tell from without. Not only could the naked eye make nothing out—even divine sense recoiled from it. In truth, probing with divine sense was no kindness to oneself; there was every chance of being devoured by backlash.

After a long while, a sword aura of heaven-splitting force suddenly clove the whirling sandstorm in two. Out flew Liu Ziqi in her white robes, blood spilling from her lips, a slender silver softsword of unknown provenance now in her hand.

Wei Zhao's heart lurched. But in the next instant he saw that Chang Minghui, too, had been wounded—a vast gash across his chest, deep enough to show bone, bleeding without stop, a sight to make the blood run cold. By the look of it, the heaven-splitting sword aura just now had done the work.

"Hmph. I see I did underestimate you after all. Never in my life have I seen a woman push things this far—you, Liu Ziqi, are the first." Chang Minghui snorted. It was not merely that her strength had forced him to look at her differently; what left him speechless was that in a fight this woman was more ruthless and overbearing than he was himself. What in the hell kind of woman was she?!

"That only means you've seen too little of the world." Liu Ziqi sneered, unimpressed. Strong as she was, and few other female cultivators could stand against her, few did not mean none. The Isle Mistress of the Western Isle, Ning Shanghe, for one, was far above her in true strength.

"Is that so?" Chang Minghui closed one hand on empty air, neither accepting nor denying, and curled his lip. "All you can do now is talk tough. Your Nine Palaces Sand Formation is broken. What comes next is your death. Go in peace."

As the words fell, a crescent wind blade appeared in Chang Minghui's hand. At a glance it looked no different from the moves he had used before, but once it left his hand, Liu Ziqi and Wei Zhao, watching from afar, both went wide-eyed.

Bang! A gash deep enough to show bone opened on Liu Ziqi's body, and she was hurled dozens of zhang backward, disbelief written across her face. The wind blade had arrived in an instant!

Wei Zhao's scalp prickled at the sight. Fast as the wind blade truly was, even at his level and with the jade pendant's warning, he could hardly have dodged it cleanly—but with Liu Ziqi's strength she should never have been reduced to such a sorry state. She was, after all, a mid-Kaishan expert, and by Wei Zhao's judgment she ranked at the very top among her peers; otherwise she could never have held Chang Minghui off this long on the strength of a single Nine Palaces Sand Formation.

The trouble was that the wind blade left no flight path at all. One instant it was flung from Chang Minghui's hand; the next it was already on Liu Ziqi's body. How was anyone supposed to dodge that?

A move like this had all but transcended spatial speed. The last time Wei Zhao had seen such godlike skill was when he received the lightning inheritance of the giant electric eel, when he had watched a human swordsman's sword aura arrive in the very same instant.

Judged purely by presence, Chang Minghui of the late-Kaishan stage was far from that human swordsman's equal—that one had been a being who could cross blades with a giant electric eel. Yet the essence of their moves was cut from the same cloth, proof enough that Chang Minghui's reputation was no empty wind, and that he was a force to be reckoned with.

"How does it feel? Not so pleasant, being grazed by my wind blade, is it?" Chang Minghui grinned in satisfaction, baiting her into talk and distraction while his other hand, hidden in his sleeve, quietly gathered power—and soundlessly loosed another wind blade that arrived in an instant.

Bang! This wind blade cut straight across Liu Ziqi's throat, and her head dropped to the ground.

For an instant, everything between heaven and earth froze. Wei Zhao's eyes nearly split with rage, and he roared in grief and fury, "Aunt Liu!"

"Hmph. Strong or not, she was only a woman. Nothing more." Chang Minghui laughed in triumph. But before the laugh could leave his throat, Liu Ziqi's corpse, once it hit the ground, crumbled into a heap of yellow sand—she had been a yellow-sand clone all along!

This turn left Chang Minghui dumbstruck, and even Wei Zhao failed to react for a moment. He had not been far from Liu Ziqi's position, yet even he had not caught the slightest hint of when she had swapped in a yellow-sand clone. The technique itself was nothing world-shaking, but to wield it with such flawless precision made Liu Ziqi the finest he had ever seen.

Pfft! Liu Ziqi appeared of a sudden behind Chang Minghui, her sword running him through the chest. Chang Minghui's face turned all the more aghast; he stared blankly at the bloodied blade jutting from his chest, his expression one of utter incredulity.

Wei Zhao found it just as incredible. Liu Ziqi had given the impression of broad, open, head-on force, but from the moment she silently conjured the yellow-sand clone to the moment she silently appeared behind Chang Minghui, her entire fighting style had changed completely. Gone was the earlier ruthlessness and dominance; now she was more like an assassin who lived by the oblique and the unexpected.

"You spoke too soon, sir, with all that 'nothing more' foolishness." Liu Ziqi's breath came a little ragged.

That whole sequence had flowed like cloud and water. It lacked the godlike instantaneity of the enemy's wind blades, but to bring it off without a single flaw—and above all to fool a man of Chang Minghui's caliber—had cost an astronomical drain of stamina and true qi. And that was to say nothing of the first wind blade, which had left a very real wound deep enough to show bone.

To run Chang Minghui through the chest like this was already the fullest result Liu Ziqi could wring from all her strength. Before, even with the Nine Palaces Sand Formation to aid her, she had been pressed and pummeled; only now, in this desperate all-or-nothing strike, did her true strength show.

"Is that so?" Chang Minghui did not fall after taking the sword. Instead, in an instant, the aura of his whole body grew more savage and more powerful, and visible gusts of force streamed off him without cease, swiftly coiling around Liu Ziqi behind him.

These gusts were like iron chains without form or trace, binding Liu Ziqi tight from head to toe and suspending her in midair. Her face flushed crimson at once. Not only could she not move—one of the gusts had cinched around her throat, and she was suffocating.

The tables turned in the blink of an eye. Liu Ziqi's softsword was still buried in Chang Minghui, but with the heaven-defying vitality of a late-Kaishan titan, a single sword thrust at most wounded him; killing him outright was simply impossible.

Liu Ziqi, by contrast, now hung in mortal peril. Not only was she being strangled into suffocation, the worse danger was what came next: any one of Chang Minghui's wind blades could take her life. She had no strength left to resist.

"I said 'nothing more,' and nothing more is what I meant. Go in peace and die." Chang Minghui sneered, ready to finish Liu Ziqi off. As for what consequences killing her might bring, he feared none of them. A mere Morning Pride Academy was beneath his notice.