The sun hangs high in the sky, bestowing its light and warmth impartially upon the world, without favoring the old or the young, the noble or the humble. Its great love is as ruthless as it is indiscriminate.
Young deer wade through streams, and birds flit through the forests.
At first, only a dark red pinpoint of light appears on the horizon, swiftly drawing near.
A trail of flame forms a fiery line, like a deity's brushstroke slicing through the heavens.
The thousands of miles of mountains and rivers in the nation of Zhuang were almost brushed over by this fiery line when suddenly, a jet of dark light shot up into the sky, blocking its path.
A cold and ruthless connection was established between heaven and earth, with vital energy surging. From east to west, from south to north, deadly auras suddenly rose and connected!
In the northeastern corner of the sky of the nation of Zhuang, dark clouds gathered.
The clear day suddenly darkened.
A muffled grunt echoed through the air: "Nine Deadly Yin!"
The pinpoint of light only tangled with the dark clouds for a moment before plummeting from the sky.
The light point fell faster and faster, growing larger and larger until finally...
It roared like a meteor!
...
In the wilderness outside Maple Forest City, it is rare to see people. There is only a small Taoist temple, which has long been dilapidated and abandoned.
"Boom!"
The fire point hit the ground, creating a large, deep crater, but it seemed to be restrained by some kind of force, and the aftermath did not expand. When the rolling dust cleared, a man in a flame robe appeared.
This man had sword-like eyebrows that extended into his temples, a handsome and imposing figure, and a red flame robe that was both magnificent and elegant, exuding great nobility. However, at this moment, his hair was disheveled, and his robe had cracks, showing a bit of embarrassment.
"I never thought that I, Zuo Guanglie, would die in such a remote and desolate place..." The man in the flame robe glanced around and, with a sense of inexplicable melancholy, asked, "What is the name of this place?"
Once again, the day darkened, and a meteor fell. The few beggars living in the dilapidated temple were already at a loss, kowtowing in front of the temple gate. Hearing the question, one of them timidly spoke up, "S... Sir, this is the outskirts of Maple Forest City. We... we don't know the name of this temple."
The man in the flame robe's finger twitched slightly, about to erase these beggars.
In the current era of great contention, where nations are constantly waging wars, none of the recent conflicts have been as fierce as the grand battle between Qin and Chu. Both sides deployed nearly a hundred thousand cultivators, and the central battlefield, a river valley plain, was left barren, with the ground sinking for a hundred miles.
As a core figure of the losing side, especially since he single-handedly broke through the Hangu Pass and nearly reversed the situation, it was no surprise that he was being hunted down relentlessly by forces from all directions.
However, these beggars were also beggars of Zhuang. Zhuang had the audacity to secretly aid the tyrannical Qin, allowing them to set up ambushes and kill within their territory... These people deserved to die.
But he flipped his hand and extinguished the spark that had emerged from his fingertip.
"Zuo Guanglie, is this your capacity? To vent your anger on these pitiful people who are not cared about at all?"
After muttering to himself, Zuo Guanglie sighed, "You may leave."
He turned his back, already shifting his gaze to the ink-stained sky. Those powerful figures lurking in the shadows, closing in like a pack of wolves, were the ones he, Zuo Guanglie, should truly kill!
The beggars, feeling as if they had been granted a great pardon, got up and ran. Only the one who had first spoken hesitated for a moment inside the dilapidated temple, but his companions roughly pulled him off balance: "Do you want to die?"
These beggars sprinted as if they had never run for themselves in their entire lives.
Zuo Guanglie did not shift his gaze, but his brow furrowed slightly, "Not taking your companion with you?"
Within the range of his spiritual perception, there were no secrets.
The wooden statues of deities in the temple had long since vanished, perhaps burned as firewood by the beggars. But beneath the altar, there lay a weak, unmoving beggar child, likely counting the days until death—this was the reason for the beggar's hesitation earlier.
The words of the mysterious immortal could not be ignored by the beggars, and they even scurried back.
Exhausted and panting.
But in the eyes of some who were watching this place, they were no stronger than an ant, nor faster than a snail.
They were simply... too slow.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
The dense, shrill sounds that suddenly approached from the horizon...
Were countless semi-transparent water arrows flying like a swarm of locusts, gathered by some force to converge and shoot towards Zuo Guanglie.
The water element energy surged wildly in this world.
The semi-transparent arrow rain formed a huge funnel shape, covering half the sky!
This was a highly representative large-scale lethal Taoist technique of the Qin military department, the Ten Thousand Flowing Arrows Rain.
"Here it comes!"
Zuo Guanglie looked up at the sky, the strong wind stirring his flame robe and long hair. He raised his right hand high. The wide sleeve of his red flame robe slipped down, revealing an arm carved like jade.
Pale yet powerful.
A red light ball was born in the palm of his hand, and in the next moment, it shone brightly. Intense light radiated in all directions.
It was as if Zuo Guanglie had single-handedly lifted a sun!
This was a unique Taoist technique he had created, which made him famous at the age of fifteen at the Yellow River Conference.
Blazing Sun!
The countless semi-transparent water arrows refracted the sunlight falling from the sky into a riot of colors, and in the next instant, they were dyed red.
It was an incredibly fierce, blazing red.
With Zuo Guanglie's right hand as the center, a hundred meters of sky in all directions were covered in red, and the Ten Thousand Flowing Arrows Rain was completely nullified.
This scene was so magnificent that it was hard for anyone to notice the faint ink traces at the edge of the painting.
Before the Blazing Sun spread, countless arrow rains had already escaped and fallen. The group of running beggars fell one after another. Their bodies were covered with dense, penetrating holes.
They didn't even have the chance to let out a scream before they died.
Life is so fragile.
"Indiscriminate killing, is this also your way?" Zuo Guanglie's lips curled into a sneer, his words seemingly addressed to no one in particular, but his eyes, as bright as stars, gradually turned cold.
"Whoever hesitates to kill Zuo Guanglie is a complete fool."
A cultivator in a frost-patterned dark robe descended from the sky.
This man had a gaunt face and pale skin.
His narrow eyes stared intently at Zuo Guanglie: "A mere ant, are you even worth his attention?"
As he spoke,
A line of dark-robed cultivators who descended with him had already sealed off the four directions, manipulating their techniques. Eighteen semi-transparent water snakes suddenly took shape in the air, screaming and lunging towards Zuo Guanglie.
Their movements were astonishingly uniform, wasting no time from their appearance to their attack.
The low-level technique of the Water Snake Bind was exceptionally fierce and deadly under their skillful manipulation.
Zuo Guanglie remained unfazed, pulling his hands apart to form a blade of flame in his palm.
"Gong Yang Bai!"
He casually grasped the flame blade, spinning through the air several times, and sliced the approaching water snakes in half.
"Since you've even brought out the Nine Deadly Yin Formation, why waste our lives with such trivial techniques?"
"Boring? Do you still think..." Gong Yang Bai spread his hands, which had been clasped in front of him, and suddenly lifted them upwards, "This is your game?!"
The bodies of the fallen water snakes did not dissipate; instead, they leaped up in the next moment, regrowing heads from severed tails and reattaching broken parts.
One split into two, two into four...
This was a new variation of the Water Snake Bind, giving the technique a new lease on life and expanding its application.
It became the Chaotic Water Snake Pit.
Hiss~ Hiss~ Hiss~
The sound was grating and piercing.
Dense, ferocious water snakes surrounded Zuo Guanglie, with no gaps visible to the eye.
But the cacophony of snake hisses could not drown out his clear and resolute voice.
"Ying Wu has even dared to deploy the Nine Deadly Yin Formation; I should rightfully die. But this dilapidated temple, not even named... How can such an unnamed place qualify to bury me, Zuo Guanglie?!"
Flames suddenly burst from Zuo Guanglie's body.
Raging and ferocious.
This fire ignited anything it touched, spreading rapidly.
At the age of seventeen, he used this conflagration technique to burn and kill thousands of demons, shaking the borderlands with his might!
The entire Chaotic Water Snake Pit was set ablaze, with countless water snakes writhing and screaming in the flames, turning into steam.
In the billowing, howling steam, Zuo Guanglie rose into the sky, his long hair flaring out, his momentum fierce.
At that very moment, an eagle's cry suddenly rang out!
A massive black eagle swooped down from the high sky, facing Zuo Guanglie directly, its wings flapping abruptly.
Hundreds of iron feathers, each carrying a blade-like light, howled towards Zuo Guanglie. Each blade of light was a different style of swordsmanship, some fierce and some venomous, yet all blended into one.
The blade light rained down like a downpour, forcing Zuo Guanglie back into the snake pit.
The Ink Sect's mechanical beast, the Blade-Feathered Eagle.
On the back of the flying eagle, a barefoot man with a mask covering his face and a copper box on his back stood resolutely in the wind, silent. Or rather, his words were already in the blade light.
With the support of the Nine Deadly Yin Formation, the ten thousand snakes grew wildly, constantly being reborn. The conflagration technique, lacking endurance, was slowly being dissipated.
After a long defense, water snakes continuously dug wounds on Zuo Guanglie, bringing out blood flowers. Zuo Guanglie at most grunted, wielding his flame blade with one hand to fend off the snakes attacking his vital spots.
Ten thousand snakes biting the body, the Yin soul being flayed.
Such pain was not something ordinary people could endure.
But Zuo Guanglie, with one hand holding the technique and the other wielding the blade, showed no hesitation at all.
Clearly, his forehead had already bulged with blue veins!
Gong Yang Bai interlocked his ten fingers, raised them in front of him, and his long hair moved without wind: "Zuo Guanglie, if you surrender now, you can still have a whole body sent back to your homeland!"
The temperature dropped sharply, and a layer of white frost condensed on his eyebrows. The entire chaotic water snake pit was frozen into an ice sculpture.
This was the secret technique of the Qin state's prestigious Gong Yang family, called the Mystic Ice Dungeon.
Those who entered this dungeon, one breath of air would condense into frost, two breaths of blood would freeze, and three breaths the body would stiffen and die.
Water snakes froze into ice snakes, and Zuo Guanglie was also covered with white frost.
Gong Yang Bai silently watched all this, and the next moment, it would be the blood freezing.
But!
He suddenly heard the sound of a river rushing, the surging and turbulent like a raging wave, that was Zuo Guanglie's blood boiling!
How could great rivers and rivers be frozen by winter frost!
The process of the blood violently boiling seemed to explode into an ancient voice, like pain and fervor—
"Boil! Blood! Burn! Soul!"
The flame robe was burning, the long hair was burning, the eyebrows and eyes were burning, the flesh and blood were burning, the soul... was burning!
Body and mind, life and soul, everything was burning.
Whether it was the Water Snake or the Mystic Ice, they all collapsed in an instant. In the white mist, Zuo Guanglie was bathed in flames.
He looked down at his blazing hand, as if to feel the power of the imperial technique.
Then he suddenly looked up at the Blade-Feathered Eagle in the sky!
The moment their eyes met, the iron-faced man decisively fell.
That precious Blade-Feathered Eagle... was instantly burned to ashes!
Zuo Guanglie clapped his hands, and flame flowers bloomed in the air, instantly forming a sea of fire.
The raging flames, scorching the sky and the earth.
Even the deadly clouds of the Nine Deadly Yin Formation gathered in the high sky, seemed to become the firewood for the raging fire!
This flame flower incineration technique can be said to be Zuo Guanglie's most talented creation. At the age of nineteen, he broke the city with this technique in one battle!
The flame flowers are extremely beautiful and have extremely powerful power.
The iron-faced man fell with his hands wide open, his ten fingers spread, each finger connected to a semi-transparent thread, the other end of which was deep in the copper box, and was suddenly pulled out!
Puppet Crow!
His ten fingers were like weaving flowers, and dense puppet crows flew out of the copper box, rushing towards those flame flowers. Each puppet crow could extinguish a flame flower, but the flame flowers seemed endless, while the puppet crows were limited.
Gong Yang Bai couldn't afford to be counteracted by the breaking of the Mystic Ice Dungeon. He pressed his index finger against his chin and suddenly opened his mouth! A white mist gushed out of his mouth, and wherever it gushed, the flame flowers were extinguished.
The Gong Yang family's bloodline secret technique, exhaling breath into frost.
The eighteen dark-robed cultivators he brought also pinched the technique accordingly.
The white mist formed by the collision of flame flowers and white frost in the high sky gathered into clouds.
Suddenly, a downpour, screaming through the air.
Eighteen cultivators combined their techniques to form this storm of pearls!
Flame flowers, ice frost, and sudden rain, the three coexisted briefly in the air, forming a splendid and strange scene.
In this scene, the handsome man in the flame robe suddenly looked up and howled: "The power of extreme fire, scorching the sky and boiling the sea, the true ancestor of Zhurong, come into my body!"
Inside him, a firelight that was different from the others suddenly expanded.
Just this expansion alone, the crows self-ignite, the dark clouds suddenly disperse, and the storm is gone!
In an instant, all the colors are taken away!
Gong Yang Bai's face changed dramatically: "Where did he get the seed of Zhurong! How could he possibly activate the true body of Zhurong?"
"This is Zuo Guanglie..." The iron-faced man unfolded a pair of mechanical iron wings on his back, hovering beside Gong Yang Bai, and his voice was also heavy and indissoluble: "A person who almost single-handedly killed through the Hangu Pass!"
In the infinitely expanding fire power, Zuo Guanglie's seven orifices are burning flames.
"Come on! Mo Jingyu!"
"Gong Yang Bai!"
He casually waved his hand, and the fire dragon tore the air, forcing Gong Yang Bai and others to keep retreating.
"What kind of famous family! Aristocratic family! Genius! In front of me, do you still dare to claim it?!"
He seemed to be burned crazy by the Zhurong seed, lost his mind, and his emotions were intense.
"The family shame and national hatred, it is hard to wash with rivers and seas!"
The battle in the valley has already failed, and he seems to hear the wailing of ten thousand families in the state of Chu.
It also seemed as if in the flames, he saw his father who died in battle at the age of fourteen... as if he was saying something to him.
Saying... what?
Zuo Guanglie laughed, laughed so hard that tears flowed out of his eyes, but the tears were instantly scorched dry.
"Here is a good head, who can cut it?"
Behind him, there is a majestic and supreme divine shadow holding a fire dragon.
He finally burned everything and melted into the fire.
"Only I can kill myself, only Zhurong can burn my soul!"
His fiery eyes finally lost all emotions.
Only the coldest killing intent was left on these people who surrounded him.
"Die!"
Mo Jingyu turned his hand back, wanting to open the copper box on his back and use the last means of saving his life. But his hand kept trembling and couldn't squeeze out a bit of strength.
In his spiritual perception, there was no wilderness, no broken temple, and even no one. There was only fire, only endless flames. The violent flames almost twisted space and almost burned his mind.
In front of such a powerful force, what is the difference between him and those beggars who died earlier?
...
On the horizon, a cold light came from the west.
Just a glance at this scene, Gong Yang Bai had the illusion that his eyes were cut!
There was no time to investigate, because in the moment he saw, the cold light had already reached in front of Zuo Guanglie and passed around!
Zuo Guanglie's roar suddenly stopped.
"Too noisy."
A young man in white suddenly appeared.
He had an extremely cold face, standing sideways, as if always keeping a distance from the world.
He slowly sheathed his sword, and his voice was as calm as a still pond, without any ripples.
Zuo Guanglie's head suddenly fell, rolling on the ground for a few turns, but because of the use of the boiling blood and burning soul, there was no blood to spray.
It was not until this moment that the ear-piercing, thunderous scream sounded in the air!
It was the sound of the young man in white coming from the west and cutting through the sky with one sword!
...
Gong Yang Bai and Mo Jingyu looked at each other, both seeing the immense horror in each other's eyes.
"Li Yi, I was ordered by Prince Ying Wu..."
But Gong Yang Bai only said this much and then shut up, immediately picked up Zuo Guanglie's head, and turned around and fled.
Because the young man in white had already turned his gaze to him.
His hair, his eyebrows, his eyes, and even the corners of his lips were as sharp as swords. His eyes were as calm as lukewarm water.
But in this lukewarm, there was a chilling indifference.
Whether it was a genius from the ancient Mo Sect or a prestigious family lineage in the world.
No one dared to ask why, no one dared to say another word.
...
Zuo Guanglie died, but the Zhurong fire seed inside him did not dissipate, but continued to expand slowly.
This power was not something Zuo Guanglie, who was exhausted, could control. He was just a fuse, a medium, using his genius and determination to let the great power of the true body of Zhurong have a moment of release in this world.
The young man in white took out a black token and looked at it in silence.
The black token was silent for a long time, and then a domineering voice sounded - "Two clear."
As soon as the voice fell, this extraordinary material token seemed unable to bear this voice, and instantly shattered into countless black fragments, slipping through Li Yi's fingers and falling like snow.
It was not until all the Taoist practitioners left, and the token in his hand shattered, that Li Yi slightly tilted his head and looked at the expanding Zhurong fire seed.
He stretched out a long, fair hand, and his five fingers formed a pocket shape.
Only at this moment, when no one could notice, did he show a bit of childish innocence in his usual lukewarm and indifferent demeanor.
He gently shouted: "Boom!"
The moment his five fingers opened was exactly when the Zhurong seed exploded.
An invisible force restrained the explosion, preventing it from spreading, and only turned Zuo Guanglie's corpse into countless pieces of flesh.
The bright red flame flowers bloomed in the small world, dazzling in an instant, and gathered brilliance in one place.
This extreme beauty was only for him to enjoy alone.
Li Yi's lips curled up slightly, but only for a moment before he reined it in.
The fireworks were over.
He didn't even look at what was left of Zuo Guanglie's corpse, nor did he have the slightest reluctance. He leaped into the sword light and disappeared in an instant.
...
From beginning to end, in the battle outside the nameless broken temple, no one paid the slightest attention to the inside of the temple.
For powerful cultivators, the weak Zhuang country is not worth a glance. For the three thousand miles of land of Zhuang country, Maple Forest City is as small as dust. And even in the small Maple Forest City itself, this broken temple in the suburbs has long been forgotten.
But this dilapidated Taoist temple was not empty.
There was a beggar child who was barely alive and waiting for death.
He had already prepared to die and was waiting, but he was not dead yet, and he "heard" the whole wonderful battle from beginning to end.
When the battle ended and everything returned to silence.
He was still alive.
He might be lucky, but the word "lucky" was so inconsistent with him. His tattered clothes, emaciated and sickly appearance, and even his nearly fainting breath all defined the meaning of misfortune.
But he was still alive after all.
He thought for a moment, struggled to turn over, and rolled out from under the altar.
He gritted his teeth, using all his strength, and struggled to stand up, swaying.
He finally stood up.
There were one hundred and thirty-seven steps from the altar to the outside of the Taoist temple.
There were three hundred and twenty-four steps from the temple gate to Zuo Guanglie's corpse.
The beggar silently counted the steps he moved, constantly telling himself that it was almost there.
Almost there.
Every muscle in his body was protesting and trembling.
No one knew where the strength came from to keep him moving forward.
His amazing perseverance had no audience.
Now he stood in front of Zuo Guanglie's corpse, and this journey finally came to an end - if that pile of minced meat could still be called a corpse.
He slowly, slowly squatted down. Squatting was too tiring, so he simply sat down.
He was really very sick, and even through the dirt that made his face unrecognizable, one could still see the pale, miserable color of weakness.
His hands were trembling too.
Trembling to grope in that pile of minced meat, groping.
Minced meat, minced meat, bone chips, broken metal of some kind, minced meat, finger bones, unrecognizable half of a wooden skeleton...
A bottle!
Flipping through the unrecognizable blood meat, he found this half of a jade bottle!
The mouth of the bottle was completely blown off, leaving only half of the bottle belly.
The beggar suppressed his slightly heavy breathing and brought the jade bottle in front of him.
He carefully took out a piece of minced meat that was blocking the bottle and looked into the bottom of the bottle.
He saw the only remaining, a dark, round pill in the bottle, and his breathing stopped.
He recognized it. It was the pulse-opening pill he had longed for, once obtained and then lost.
I have been focused on writing for several years, and my strength, softness, love and hate, confusion, and confusion are all closely related to it.
I know that many people leave, many people forget, many people are busy with work, and many people are tired of life.
I hope this novel will make you fall in love with me again.
I hope it can give you the courage to face life, give you strength in distress, and give you direction when you are confused.
At the very least, it can keep you company when you are lonely.
The update schedule is as follows: two updates per day, at noon and 8 p.m., with each chapter being at least two thousand words. On weekends, there will be a single update at 8 p.m.