Chapter 48: Dragon-Blooded Protagonist Power Fantasy (47)

The beast tide was led by the Void Horned Dragon.

"Halt!"

The Void Horned Dragon shouted in a booming voice.

Having reached the Great Completion of the Tribulation Realm, the Void Horned Dragon held a status second only to the Demon Lord within the Demon Domain. It narrowed its eyes, lowered its dragon head, and looked down from on high at the thousands of Snow Sprites standing upon the snowfields.

"The Snow Sprites occupy the Extreme Northern Land and have always remained aloof from the world. Yet now, the realm of cultivating immortals is on the verge of collapse, and we act under the Demon Lord's command to expand our territory."

It laughed heartily. "Xueling, have you finally weighed the pros and cons and brought the Snow Sprite clan to surrender to the Demon Lord?"

The Snow Sprite Saintess stood at the forefront of her people. Her eyelashes, formed of pristine snow, flickered slightly, like a light mist rising over an icy blue lake.

She said indifferently, "The Demon Lord? Nothing more than a puppet of the Zhulong."

"You demonic beasts possess brute strength alone, yet your minds are utterly foolish. You think that helping the Zhulong overthrow the Heavenly Dao will bring you endless benefits, but do you have any idea who that Zhulong truly is?"

The Void Horned Dragon lowered its head, its voice turning deep and cold. "You intend to help those cultivators?"

"You Snow Sprites were born within the Demon Domain and have never stepped a single step outside the Extreme Northern Land. Yet now you bite the hand that feeds you, stepping beyond the Extreme Northern Land today seemingly just to oppose the Demon King?"

The Void Horned Dragon's gaze turned icy as it looked back at the vast army of demonic beasts behind it.

"It is time this Extreme Northern Land learned who its true master is."

"Kill!"

The moment the Void Horned Dragon uttered the word "kill," a long sword cleaved through the wind and snow, flying straight toward it.

The Void Horned Dragon let out a cold snort, expelling a three-foot stream of flame.

Unlike cultivators who subjugated foreign flames, demonic beasts at the Tribulation Realm often had the opportunity to awaken an innate flame comparable to rare heavenly fires.

The Void Horned Dragon's innate flame was the Netherworld Poison Fire.

As the speeding sword was on the verge of being swallowed by the Netherworld Poison Fire, blue flames suddenly erupted across its entire body.

The icy blue flame cut through the poison fire with the unstoppable momentum of a spring sprout breaking through soil, raising countless cold glints in the pitch-black night, and then swept swiftly across the blade, extinguishing the Void Horned Dragon's Netherworld Poison Fire then and there.

At the same time, the beast tide standing ready behind the Void Horned Dragon let out deafening roars, surging forward to bite and slash at the encampments of the Snow Sprites and the cultivators.

A trace of shock flashed in the Void Horned Dragon's yellowish-brown dragon eyes.

However, the Suzhao Sword did not stop. The Void Horned Dragon tilted its head, yet still was grazed by that sword qi, causing its dragon scales to fracture and split, gushing forth gouts of fresh blood.

The Suzhao Sword spun in mid-air and landed steadily in the palm of a girl in white.

Seeing their commander attacked, the Thunder-Patterned Lion was consumed by rage. The moment Su Bai came to a stop, the Thunder-Patterned Lion opened its blood-fed maw, pressed its hind legs down, and scratched the ground with its front paws, charging forward like an arrow released from a bowstring.

Su Bai turned her head slightly to see the Thunder-Patterned Lion hurtling toward her, wrapped in dark purple thunderbolts.

She tightened her grip on the sword hilt, her toes condensing frost as she leaped up into the air. On the other side, the Golden-Winged Roc seized the opportunity, lowering its spine and diving downward, flapping its wings to whip up successive hurricanes in an attempt to launch a sneak attack while Su Bai was airborne.

The Golden-Winged Roc let out a miserable scream.

With a flick of her hand, Su Bai brought her blade down, severing and felling the Split-Spirit Realm Golden-Winged Roc with a single sword stroke.

The Void Horned Dragon let out a cold snort, its dragon tail whipping about to stir up a flurry of snow granules, carving a crescent-shaped arc through the air.

Three Gale Falcons seized the opportunity, but before they could enter the fray, Xueling—who was locked in combat with the beast tide—swirled around, raised her hand, and swept out crescent-shaped ice blades, effortlessly slicing through the throats of the three Gale Falcons.

"Daring to touch my master, you are truly courting death."

Xueling's typically clear and melodious voice was laced with anger.

Gathering spiritual Qi in her palm, she struck out into the void. The spiritual Qi stirred up fine ripples, and the wind and snow gathered rapidly in the air, condensing into a massive vortex that fiercely crashed into the Void Horned Dragon's lashing tail.

The Void Horned Dragon raised its head and let out a long howl. The dragon roar shook the heavens and earth, its sound waves rippling outward like water and sweeping all the atmospheric Qi in its path into the vortex.

Then, the Netherworld Poison Fire emerged once more.

"No wonder the Snow Sprite clan has long resided in the snow domain, yet now insists on risking their lives for mere humans."

The Void Horned Dragon suddenly understood. "This Heaven-Swallowing Ice Flame actually recognizes you as its master!?"

On the other side, Shen Xing flew up to the watchtower where the Supreme Elder was stationed. "Master."

With a panicked expression, he reported in rapid succession, "This beast tide is coming for us! The Snow Sprites and the cultivation world stand on the same side!"

Su Bai had already charged sword-in-hand into the beast tide, exchanging several blows with the Void Horned Dragon in mere breaths of time. The sentries stationed on the watchtower seemed stunned by the chaotic scene, momentarily unable to tell whether the beast tide was directed at the cultivation world or was merely an internal brawl among the demonic tribes.

The Three-Headed Flood Dragon joined the melee, condensing two clones. Lacking a sense of pain, the two ice flood dragons gleefully plunged into the beast herd relying on their sheer size, adding a few dragon tail-swings to turn the beast tide completely upside down.

Yet amid this hesitation, many demonic beasts bypassed the Snow Sprite clan, running on all fours or flapping their wings to charge straight toward the watchtower.

The Supreme Elder's pupils constricted, and making a prompt judgment, she shouted urgently, "Disciples below the Nascent Soul realm among the sword cultivators, raise the sword array to break out! Disciples above the Nascent Soul realm, form pairs; every spell cultivator will cover a team of sword cultivators to slaughter the demonic beasts. Array masters, form the first team to deploy the Spirit-Gathering Array to amplify the cultivators, the second team to deploy the Trapping and Killing Array to stall the demonic beasts from breaking through the defensive barrier raised by the Eastern Emperor Taiji Bell, and the third and fourth teams to deploy the Nine Heavens Frost Array and the Torrential Blazing Flame Array to relieve pressure on the frontlines..."

The voice of the Tribulation Realm cultivator amplified across a thousand miles, and all the disciples standing by on the watchtower sprang into action.

"Furthermore—"

The Supreme Elder cast a deep look ahead.

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The icy blue sword qi was exceptionally striking amidst the pitch-black beast tide. Several bloody gasps were slashed into the Void Horned Dragon's serpentine body, and the pressure of the Tribulation Realm instantly rippled outward alongside its towering fury.

Meanwhile, the Snow Sprite Saintess, who possessed an equally formidable Tribulation Realm presence, firmly guarded the young girl's flanks.

The Void Horned Dragon was a major general under the Demon Lord.

Endowed with dragon bloodline, awakened to the Netherworld Poison Fire, and renowned for peerless skills such as Void Shattering, Horned Dragon Breath, and Star-Shattering Sky-Piercing, it was one of the few demonic beasts to have penetrated spatial skills. Although the Netherworld Poison Fire awakened by the Void Horned Dragon upon entering the Tribulation Realm was not a rare heavenly fire, its flame density and temperature were thousands of times denser and hotter than ordinary flames, reputed to be capable of incinerating all things.

When the blade of the Suzhao Sword ignited with towering flames and effortlessly consumed the Netherworld Poison Fire, combined with the sudden intervention of the Snow Sprites in the demonic tribe's assault on the cultivation world, the Supreme Elder finally awoke to the truth.

She actually possessed a rare heavenly fire!

And after the conclusion of the Three Thousand Dao Dharma Assembly, not a single person had noticed she possessed a heavenly fire because she was unimaginably clever, actually conceiving the idea of fusing the heavenly fire directly into this sword.

This was also one of the reasons why the Suzhao Sword was able to establish a connection with the Divine Weapon Ranking the moment it was forged, forcefully squeezing out the Dragon-Singing Sword.

A stormy upheaval surged within the Supreme Elder's mind as countless thoughts flashed past.

There had once been speculations that the Snow Sprite clan could maintain neutrality among the Three Realms not because they obeyed the Demon Lord's commands, but thanks to that heavenly fire born in the Extreme Northern Land. However, the illusions of the Extreme Northern Land spanned tens of thousands of miles; the illusionary realms were treacherous and had claimed the lives of quite a few Tribulation Realm masters, leaving no one with the leisure to verify a potentially baseless rumor.

The Heavenly Fire Ranking was compiled by cultivators, and since the Extreme Northern Land lay within the Demon Domain where cultivators found it difficult to tread, the ranking of the Heaven-Swallowing Ice Flame was not particularly high on the list. But if that rumor was not a rumor—if the entire Snow Sprite clan took the Heaven-Swallowing Ice Flame as their head, and the Snow Sprite clan had existed within the Demon Domain for tens of thousands of years—then perhaps the Heaven-Swallowing Ice Flame had already gained sentience tens of thousands of years ago!

Back then, Shen Xing, Yue Nianxin, and Yun Zhu had stayed in the Extreme Northern Land alongside Su Bai for a full four years. Upon their return, every single one of them advanced at a god-speed that terrified the disciples of the Wuji Sect. The Wuji Sect disciples had merely assumed they had encountered rare fortunes in the Extreme Northern Land, such as stumbling into some master's secret realm, but what if—

An alarming thought floated into the Supreme Elder's mind.

Was the Extreme Northern Land truly a perilous realm to them at all?

Using tens of thousands of miles of continuous illusionary realms to hone their skills, exploring the undeveloped rare treasures of the snow domain, plus having disciples hailing from the Rejuvenation Valley—no wonder every member of this four-person squad could advance with such terrifying speed.

"The Snow Sprites are fellows of the cultivation world; remember well not to harm friendly forces!"

The Supreme Elder paused and said with absolute certainty.

The Void Horned Dragon's Horned Dragon Breath was broken, and sword light sped forth. The girl in white slipped about like an eel; although the Void Horned Dragon used its dragon claws to tear the fabric of space and achieve instantaneous movement, she could always accurately predict where its next move would land.

After exchanging merely dozens of blows, the Void Horned Dragon realized it could no longer fight this way.

Possessing a heavenly fire, moving with effortless ease amidst the beast tide, able not only to trade blows equally with him but also to slay with a single sword strike any demonic beasts attempting to ambush the Snow Sprites and cultivators so as to relieve their pressure—

Even a Split-Spirit Realm demonic beast perished beneath a single strike of her sword.

This girl was a variable—a variable that needed to be erased in time!

The Void Horned Dragon's serpentine body twisted, winding and coiling across the firmament like intertwined branches and gnarled roots. It opened its dragon mouth, and the sound of its roar echoed through the clouds. Between its dragon head, a void vortex dripping with bottomless darkness emerged.

The inner layer of the vortex was like a massive black hole, while the outer layer of light churned like a tidal wave, forming a colossal storm. Then, it drove its head downward deeply. The center of the vortex trembled, and an incomparably powerful energy fluctuation instantly exploded. The vortex cleaved forward like a giant axe until a patch of the void was torn open.

"Not good!"

The Supreme Elder cried out in alarm. "This is actually Void Shattering!"

Using a portion of its life force as a sacrifice, it tore apart space to form a void vortex, devouring all enemies near the vortex. Tribulation Realm cultivators might still be able to preserve themselves, but anyone below the Tribulation Realm sucked into the vortex would undoubtedly die.

At the center of the vortex, endless nothingness unfolded like a massive scroll, and ripple after ripple of energy spread outward from the fractured cracks of the void.

At the same time, the water droplets controlled by the Azure Sea Tides instantly spread along the void. Before one knew it, heavy snow began to fall between heaven and earth, and sword qi coiled, lighting up the dark night inch by inch. The wind and snow rolled into individual whirlpools, guided by the sword qi like vortices, gradually forming a massive vortex storm.

The body of the Suzhao Sword in her hand trembled slightly, and countless runes lit up.

First guide the soul, then fix the soul.

The Azure Sea Tides condensed her Dao.

Upon the sword, too, was her Dao.

Su Bai raised her hand.

The sword light merged with the wind and snow, forming a mighty torrent of sword qi that instantly spread outward. That vortex storm seemed drawn by this peerless sword qi, spinning rapidly like a suppressed tornado, bound to a single line by countless tiny water droplets.

The third form of the Water Cloud Arts commenced.

The moment her words fell, the water droplets floating in the air hummed in contention, emitting a dazzling white light in the snowy night. Meanwhile, the tip of the Suzhao Sword did not unleash rampant sword qi, but rather a surging, sea-blue flame that raced forward, echoing from afar with the Azure Sea Tides.

The Water Cloud Arts and the Tianyan Sword Technique shared the same lineage.

First shatter, then stabilize.

Hence named "Pacifying the Wind and Waves."

Using the Azure Sea Tides to expand her spiritual sense infinitely into space, connecting the sword qi through countless water droplets, and finally employing that last strand of sword qi, she used the Azure Sea Tides to pacify the mountains and rivers and fill the void.

The moon-white sword light mixed with the nether-blue flame, nearly obscuring the sight of all humans and demonic beasts.

Amidst the vast torrent of sword qi, the Void Horned Dragon's eyes held shock.

Heaven and earth seemed to tremble for a brief instant.

Then, abruptly, the sword light receded like a retreating tide.

The void rift—where the infinite storm had condensed like a black hole—dissipated, the massive energy generated by spatial turbulence completely vanished, and even the increasingly rampant wind and snow ceased along with it.

The coiled dragon hovering beneath the firmament and the sword-wielding girl both vanished into the boundless night together.

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"What... what is happening?"

Yue Nianxin murmured. "Where is Junior Sister?"

The heavens and earth fell silent for a fleeting moment before the sounds of slaughter erupted once more.

Taking advantage of Yue Nianxin's momentary daze, the Two-Winged Cloud Lion launched a Thunder-Control Technique.

The Thunder-Control Technique was swift and fierce, but three inches away from Yue Nianxin, ice and snow rapidly condensed, instantaneously forming an unbreakable barrier that sent a violent surge of energy rippling outward.

The Thunder-Control Technique unleashed by the Split-Spirit Realm Two-Winged Cloud Lion was thus effortlessly parried away with a mere wave of Xueling's hand.

The Two-Winged Cloud Lion spat a mouthful of blood, flapping its wings as it fled in a panic. Ice blades pursued it relentlessly. Xueling gathered Qi in her palm to blast away several baring, lunging demonic beasts, distracted herself just enough to manipulate the ice blades, and cleanly and neatly sheared off the Two-Winged Cloud Lion's wings.

The Two-Winged Cloud Lion let out a miserable shriek, plummeting downward from the air.

Yue Nianxin, Shen Xing, and Yun Zhu had stayed in the Extreme Northern Land for four years, and Xueling knew the three of them were the most esteemed guests.

She landed beside Yue Nianxin. Even though she had just experienced a fierce battle, Xueling remained as spotless as snow from head to toe, looking quietly and prettily like a fragile snow doll.

Yet how could a Snow Sprite who had lived alongside an illusion-affecting rare heavenly fire like the Heaven-Swallowing Ice Flame for thousands of years be an ordinary character?

"Lady Yue, do not worry."

Xueling said gently, "The Void Horned Dragon has merely been pulled into my master's domain."

Forming hand seals, she erected a semi-circular protective barrier across the battlefield, isolating the roaring demonic beasts outside, before turning to look at Yue Nianxin and explaining, "The Void Horned Dragon stepped into the peak of the Tribulation Realm many years ago, and its strength is unfathomable. To kill it right here, much like that Void Shattering just now, would risk whatever desperate life-or-trade methods it might deploy."

Yue Nianxin let out a breath of relief. "Thank you, Saintess."

Xueling smiled gently at her, then pinched a hand formula, projecting a streak of blue light directly into the center of Yue Nianxin's brows.

"You are Master's senior sister, and protecting Lady Yue is my duty."

"I have left a wisp of my spiritual sense upon your person. If you encounter danger amidst the beast tide, I will arrive at the very first instant."

Xueling withdrew the protective barrier and once more flew toward the most ferocious depths of the beast tide.

The cultivators had never laid eyes upon Snow Sprites before.

For one, Snow Sprites rarely stepped beyond their thresholds, and secondly, the illusionary realms of the Extreme Northern Land were treacherous, with rumors claiming they were the handiwork of Snow Sprites who presumably disliked disturbance. Although the Supreme Elder had proclaimed the Snow Sprites to be friendly forces, the majority of cultivators still adopted a mentality of avoiding extra trouble, maintaining a certain distance from the Snow Sprites whenever possible.

Yet these Snow Sprites—some transforming into human forms, others into nine-tailed white foxes—not only lacked any ferocious demeanor, but actively took the initiative to protect cultivators. Their manipulation of snow was exceptionally proficient, and with a mere wave of their hands, they could freeze low-tier demonic beasts into shards of ice.

Realizing the situation, the cultivators immediately turned to cooperate with the Snow Sprites: sword cultivators took the lead, spell cultivators provided cover in the center, and Snow Sprites guarded the rear, barely managing to hold back the onslaught of the beast tide.

However, the momentum of the beast tide did not flag due to the Void Horned Dragon's abrupt disappearance.

The strength of the Void Horned Dragon was plain for all to see in the Demon Domain, and a spatial-type demonic beast possessed countless ways to preserve its life and counterattack.

A streak of blue light, spanning nearly the entire dome of heaven, flashed past, tearing an opening out of thin air.

The Void Horned Dragon was cleaved in two, its corpse tossed out from that rift, falling heavily from tens of thousands of miles high and emitting a dull, weighty thud.

A vacuum of dead silence fell across the previously chaotic battlefield.

Shen Xing clicked his tongue, severed the head of a Golden Core demonic beast, and praised, "Simple and brutal—that is so my Junior Sister's style!"

Then, a streak of white light plummeted violently to the ground with a thunderous crash right before the corpse of the Void Horned Dragon.

Even as fierce as demonic beasts were, they could not help but take a step back in unison.

The battle had barely begun, yet the leading Void Horned Dragon had already been slain?

But...

To reiterate the old saying—

That was one of the few high-tier spatial-type demonic beasts!

The sword-wielding girl straightened her posture.

Her face was spattered with blood, making her look like a carnage-bathed Asura, yet her phoenix eyes were supremely cold—cold as the thousand-foot-deep frost of a freezing pool in the dead of winter.

The girl took a single step forward, and those demonic beasts collectively retreated a step in response.

The sword blade hummed. Standing atop the battlefield now turned into a sea of blood, she resembled a towering, rugged mountain peak built of swords, able single-handedly to force back those tens of thousands of demonic beasts.

With sword in hand, she alone could serve as a mountain peak.

"Who else dares to violate our borders?"

She asked coldly.

Silence reigned for a breath all around, leaving only the sound of long winds sweeping across heaven and earth.

The disciples gazed with burning eyes at the sword-wielding girl, involuntarily recalling the time when the Holy Venerable had slain the Zhulong single-handedly, carving out ten thousand leagues of boundaries for the Three Realms—

Thinking back on it now.

It must have been precisely this very scene.

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