Chapter Forty-Five: I Knew It

Not only Flower Missing Moon, but nearly everyone was stunned at that moment, for an overwhelming aura suddenly emerged—so powerful that its presence was felt deeply without needing to witness it firsthand.

Swordless Willow unleashed a sword strike, a single strike that was like ten thousand swords.

The sword at his waist never moved, nor did his body, yet he had already struck. An immense sword intent emanated from him, forming sword energy in the void, which then condensed into a gigantic sword of light.

The blade of this massive sword pointed directly at the Sacred Qilin. Once formed, it shot toward the Sacred Qilin like an arrow loosed from the bowstring, piercing through an ice crystal, slicing another, shattering a swath of them...

In its furious rage, the ice crystals the Sacred Qilin unleashed were shattered one by one by this dazzling white sword formed of sword energy.

With a flash of white light, the sword seemed to transform into countless blades, obliterating every ice crystal in the air before converging again into a single white sword, though its body was now much smaller, yet the brilliance it radiated was even more intense, almost tangible.

Again a flash of white light, and the sword vanished.

With its disappearance, the Sacred Qilin let out a cry of agony—a massive wound stretched from the edge of its mouth down to its neck, white fluid gushed from the wound like a spring, dripping relentlessly upon the ground.

Shock.

Everyone present was instantly dumbfounded: Swordless Willow had actually wounded the Sacred Qilin with a single stroke!

Even in legend, the Sacred Qilin was an existence of immense strength, nearly invincible, yet now it howled in pain. A pure white glow shimmered around its wound, the flowing white liquid gradually lessened, and the wound began to shrink perceptibly before their eyes.

Swordless Willow frowned slightly and stepped forward again. The grand sword intent returned, and once more a massive sword of light condensed above him.

The sword struck again.

The Sacred Qilin roared, spewing ice crystals, which shot ceaselessly from its injured mouth. They collided with the giant sword of light, each consuming the other—yet the sword pressed forward, and the ice crystals shattered.

As the sword advanced, its body grew smaller, but the Sacred Qilin kept producing ice crystals in an endless stream. When the sword reached about thirty feet from the Sacred Qilin, it finally halted and began to retreat slightly.

Just then, Skywalker brought his hands together, forming a bridge with his palms, and thrust them forcefully toward the Sacred Qilin. An invisible wave issued from his palm bridge, striking the Sacred Qilin's chest and abdomen.

This air cannon was Skywalker's exclusive technique, compressing spiritual energy within his body to turn air into projectiles for attack. Throughout his life, hundreds of masters had fallen to this air cannon. Its formless nature made it difficult to defend against, and since the world was filled with air, theoretically the attack was inexhaustible—unless Skywalker exhausted his spiritual energy.

By using air as a weapon rather than directly attacking with cultivated power, he greatly conserved his spiritual energy, making him unstoppable in battle.

To others, Skywalker's air cannon seemed most advantageous because it saved energy without sacrificing power, but only those who had tasted its force knew this was not true.

Indeed, the air cannon could conserve energy, but Skywalker never hesitated to expend it, so his air cannon always consumed vast spiritual power, making it a lethal strike—not a feeble attack meant to prolong the fight or drain his opponent.

This particular air cannon consumed more than half of Skywalker's spiritual energy, and in an instant it pierced through the Sacred Qilin's chest and abdomen.

A transparent hole appeared in the Sacred Qilin's body.

The crowd was once again astonished—the seemingly lumpish Skywalker not only withstood the Sacred Qilin's attack, but with a single move, had punched a hole straight through it.

This was not merely an attack—it was a killing blow!

With its chest and abdomen grievously wounded, the Sacred Qilin’s stream of ice crystals ceased; the retreating sword of light surged forward again, smashing through the last of the ice crystals, then accelerated like a beam of white light and stabbed deep into the Sacred Qilin’s mouth.

After suffering three consecutive devastating blows, the Sacred Qilin’s immense body swayed and then crashed heavily to the ground.

Its mountain-sized bulk slammed onto the icy surface of the lake, making the entire sheet of ice tremble and splitting the place where it fell into countless web-like cracks.

The white fluid from the Sacred Qilin’s wounds flowed with chilling cold across the ice, merging into a small stream that ran through a fissure and into the water below. As soon as the fluid touched the lake, it froze the water beneath the ice, adding another yard of thickness; countless fish, already stunned by the sudden cold, were now fully frozen into icy statues.

A gust of cold wind carried up shards of ice, launched skyward by the Sacred Qilin’s fall, toward Swordless Willow and Skywalker.

Skywalker withdrew his hands, his gaze complex as it fell upon Swordless Willow's back. "Why did you strike again?"

Swordless Willow did not turn, his voice utterly devoid of emotion. "I simply did not wish to see you forced to withstand that beast’s attack to protect these useless trash, only to be frozen to death."

"If you must die, you will die by my hand," Swordless Willow added after a pause.

The cultivators who had fled saw the Sacred Qilin was down; after a brief shock, they all began to rush back. With their lives secure, there was no longer any reason to run.

A few clever cultivators, as they turned back, eyed the black-robed demon and Swordless Willow, weighing their chances. Though one was as uncanny as a ghost and the other peerlessly powerful, they had numbers on their side, and with Flower Missing Moon, Gold Unchanging, and Skywalker in attendance, all advantages were theirs—so what was there to fear? Thus, the cultivators surged back like a tide.

A snowflake drifted from somewhere, landing softly on Flower Missing Moon's face. The warmth of his skin melted it into a trace of water, which vanished.

He felt that slight chill, and a faint smile appeared at the corner of his lips. The green radiance on his left hand gradually faded. He reached out to catch a snowflake, murmuring to himself, "I knew it."

"I knew he’d want to kill anything powerful he saw. He even killed such a well-behaved little white dog—so cruel, tsk tsk..." The black-robed demon shrieked at the motionless Sacred Qilin sprawled on the ground.

Zhou Yu was also gazing at the fallen Sacred Qilin, when the voice of Baidu echoed in his mind: "That attack was still within the B-class range, so the two of them should still be B-class powerhouses."

Zhou Yu seemed not to hear Baidu, staring blankly at that colossal being in the distance, like a mountain of snow.

"Is it dead?" Zhou Yu asked uncertainly.

The old man cursed, "I’d damn well like to know!"

South Wind Wave smoothed her jet-black hair, tousled by wind and snow, her breath weak. "Hard to say. Though still a juvenile, it's a sacred beast, after all. Sacred beasts are essentially incarnations of energy—death doesn't come easily."

Only Baidu could answer Zhou Yu’s question, so though he directed it to Baidu, his shock made him blurt it aloud.

"The life force is extremely faint—even if it’s not dead, it’s lost all fighting strength," Baidu replied in his mind.

Zhou Yu gradually recovered from his shock, and suddenly realized that, at some unknown moment, snow had begun to fall thickly from the sky.

Large snowflakes, dense as goose feathers, fluttered down, and the ever-tightening western wind swept countless flakes into an obscuring blur.

Zhou Yu reached out to catch a few snowflakes, feeling their weight. Looking closely, he found these were unlike any he’d seen before—they were snowflakes formed from ice crystals.

For some reason, Zhou Yu felt a deep sense of foreboding in his heart. He looked up, gazed into the Sacred Qilin’s eyes lying on the ground, and was suddenly filled with terror.