Chapter 64: Spiritual Pressure

"Kill them!"

The chaotic melee within the imperial palace raged on.

Ever since unleashing that single sword strike, Lin Zhen had vanished completely.

Most of the rebellious soldiers had been blinded by the wealth and opulence of the imperial palace, forgetting even their faith, and thus paid no further attention to their leader.

As a royal family that had ruled the Yue Kingdom for over four hundred years, the accumulation within the palace was unimaginable.

How could the rebel soldiers have ever witnessed such a spectacle? Even prying a single golden brick from the floor would be enough to secure a lifetime of ease and comfort.

Initially, they slaughtered one another due to opposing factions, but eventually, they fought purely for treasure, sparing not even those of their own side.

"Mine, it's all mine!"

A rebel soldier, his arms stuffed with jewelry, collapsed in a pool of blood, his dying breath still consumed by obsession.

His companion kicked the corpse aside, yanked the jewelry from its grasp, and spat contemptuously.

"Damn it, you aren't worthy!"

"I saw it first! Let go of it!"

A crazed general swung his blade, hacking off the arm of his own subordinate simply because the man had touched a golden glazed pagoda.

"Hahaha!!"

Clasping the pagoda to his chest, the general laughed like a madman.

Boom!!!

Because rebel soldiers had pried away the supporting pillars, a sealed palace hall collapsed, burying dozens of people beneath the rubble, their fates unknown.

Scenes like this played out in every corner of the imperial palace.

Desire was a beast, once unleashed, it could no longer be controlled.

Blood red became the dominant hue of the palace...

***

Yu Xian followed the tide of battle deep into the palace, but instead of doing anything, he lay motionless in a corner, playing dead.

A short while later, the corpses of two unlucky fellows landed squarely on top of him.

He opened his eyes and found himself staring directly into the unblinking, dead gaze of one of the unfortunates.

"Brother, I didn't kill you. Glaring at me won't help; I'm just going to borrow a bit of your blood."

Yu Xian smeared a little blood on his face. The already perfected Qi-Suppression Art sealed away every trace of his aura, making him indistinguishable from the countless corpses scattered across the ground.

Directly ahead of him, roughly three hundred meters away, stood an understated palace hall.

According to the palace layout map given to him by Ding Le, that was the emperor's bedchamber, and also the place where Prince Fu had been seen soaking in a pool of blood.

Yu Xian estimated this would be the final battlefield, so he had secured a vantage point with a clear view in advance.

Having witnessed that sword strike from the Lin family cultivator, he held no illusions about picking up scraps, yet he still desperately wanted to witness this great battle.

At this moment, he began to understand why, in martial arts novels, when experts duel—especially top-tier experts—there is always a large crowd of martial artists who disregard their lives, willing to be killed by the shockwaves just to witness it in person.

To hear the Dao in the morning, one could die content in the evening.

He was too attached to life to die, but his thirst for witnessing the Dao was no less intense.

Rebel soldiers streamed in and out in a chaotic mess, wandering about as if on a sightseeing tour.

However, the main gates before the bedchamber remained firmly shut. A group of death-defying rebels who dared step onto the stone steps instantly dissolved into pools of blood.

After this happened several times, no one dared to approach again.

With so many treasures elsewhere in the palace, there was no need to fixate on this single spot.

Amidst Yu Xian's long wait, rhythmic, uniform footsteps suddenly echoed from outside the palace walls, and a group of rebel soldiers clutching treasures were forced retreating inward.

"My lord, spare my life!"

"This humble one is willing to surrender all the plundered treasures!"

"No, please!"

Peering through the gaps between the corpses, Yu Xian saw a group of soldiers clad in silver armor and yellow headbands expressionlessly drawing their swords and cutting down the retreating rebels, as casually as slaughtering stray dogs.

"These are the Cult Master's imperial guards. Have the Lin family cultivators arrived?"

The next moment, a scholar-like cultivator walked out, surrounded by a throng of bodyguards.

"It's him!"

Despite the passage of several years, Yu Xian recognized at once that this scholar-like cultivator was one of the three Lin family cultivators from the gathering on the boat that day.

The scholar cultivator walked up to the bedchamber, but the moment he took a step forward, a wisp of white smoke rose from his body, and he recoiled as if struck by lightning.

Faced with this situation, the scholar cultivator frowned with a pang of reluctance and produced a talisman. With a flick of his finger, the talisman shot forward, only to be blocked by an invisible barrier in mid-air.

With a muffled pop!

The talisman ignited without fire, and simultaneously, a grid-like blood-red barrier materialized in midair, crackling with electrical sparks.

Where the barrier and the talisman met, it looked as though a circuit had shorted out and burned; a black, palm-sized void appeared, which then rapidly expanded until it formed a portal large enough for a person to pass through.

"Charge in! The Tier-1 Barrier-Breaking Talisman won't hold for long!"

Without rushing in himself, the scholar cultivator issued a command to the silver-armored soldiers behind him.

Faced with an order that was clearly a death sentence, not a single person flinched. Instead, fanatical light burned in their eyes as they surged forward in a mad scramble.

The moment the first silver-armored soldier stepped through, a silver wolf the size of an ox lunged out, tearing him to shreds with a single swipe of its paw.

"Roar!"

The silver wolf let out a low growl, faint blood-red light flickering across its fur as if to intimidate them.

Yet the silver-armored soldiers showed no fear, rushing in one after another.

A flicker of human-like annoyance crossed the silver wolf's eyes, seemingly enraged by the reckless foolishness of these mortals, but the next instant, astonishment replaced its gaze.

It even instinctively stepped back.

But it was too late.

Boom!

Flames erupted from the bodies of the silver-armored soldiers, followed by a thunderous roar as they literally exploded.

Before the silver wolf could dodge, it was blasted into a dusty mess, patches of its magnificent silver fur scorched to an ash-gray color.

It shook its head, its eyes burning with even greater fury.

"Roar!"

It opened its mouth and spat out a wind blade, which spun through the air, causing several approaching silver-armored soldiers to explode prematurely.

A look of mockery flashed in the silver wolf's eyes.

Yet the scholar cultivator, standing outside the formation, merely wore a sneer.

These three thousand silver-armored soldiers were the elite guards of the Mahayana Cult, thoroughly brainwashed by the previous Cult Master. Every last one of them was a religious fanatic who felt no fear of death whatsoever.

On the contrary, they actively embraced death, for the Cult Master had promised them that to die for the cult was to ascend to the Paradise of Bliss upon death.

Wave after wave of silver-armored soldiers pressed forward relentlessly, showing not a shred of fear even as their comrades perished before their eyes.

Finally, the silver wolf grew terrified.

Its demonic power was limited, and the environment of the mortal realm ensured that its rate of recovery fell far short of ideal.

Even if a single wind blade could kill ten or twenty men, dozens of wind blades had only accounted for a few hundred.

To stop the remainder, it had to resort to close combat, only to be blown up repeatedly.

Once or twice was like a mosquito bite.

What about being blown up a hundred times, two hundred times?!

Whimpering, the silver wolf, covered in wounds, began to back away. No matter how noble its bloodline, it was ultimately just a Tier-1 demonic beast, not an immortal entity.

Lying in the back, Yu Xian mentally screamed in disbelief.

They actually invented human-suicide-bombers.

Though they had been setting off firecrackers just last New Year, it seemed logical enough to modify gunpowder, though the destructive power was somewhat lacking.

It had exploded so many times without managing to kill a single wolf.

Whether it was an issue with the gunpowder formula or the way this world suppressed technological-side rules, he would have to test it out given the opportunity.

Just as the silver-armored soldiers prepared to press their advance further—

"Hum!"

A faint pressure materialized in the air, and then...

Bang, bang, bang!!

The heads of the silver-armored soldiers began to pop one after another, like wheat being mowed down by a scythe.

The silver wolf had expended great effort to eliminate three or four hundred men.

Yet now, every single one of the thousands of silver-armored soldiers stationed within a two-hundred-meter radius of the bedchamber had their heads instantly explode, crashing to the ground.

Those standing beyond the two-hundred-meter mark felt their heads swell painfully, and many collapsed in agony.

The scholar cultivator before the formation instantly turned deathly pale.

Just as he fished out a cyan spirit talisman, his entire body froze stiff, like a mosquito trapped in amber, leaving only his eyeballs capable of movement.

Even so, blood streamed from his seven facial orifices.

Then, he crashed heavily to the ground!

The doors of the bedchamber swung open abruptly. An elderly man with white hair and white robes walked out with unsteady steps, seating himself unceremoniously upon the stone steps. The silver wolf shrunk in size and curled up at his feet, letting out aggrieved whimpers.

"Useless creature."

The old man chuckled and scolded the wolf before speaking in a clear, resonant voice toward the empty air:

"I am old, truly old. Just a single burst of extreme spiritual pressure leaves me gasping for breath. I wonder which friend from the Lin family has graced us with their presence? I failed to meet you at the border, a grievous discourtesy indeed."

"A junior of the younger generation, Lin Zhen of the Lin family, pays his respects to Senior Jiang Xu."

Ripples formed in the air as if a transparent curtain had been torn away. Lin Zhen stepped out from the void, landed lightly on the ground, and bowed with cupped hands toward the old man.