Chapter 201: The Crane Carries Wind and Rain Through the Night
Before that violent sacred power could fall into the courtyard, the wind arrived first.
The howling gale swept up the yellow sand from the ground, flinging it in all directions, as if they had come to a wasteland.
The Demon Lord stood amidst the swirling sand, his gaze profoundly dark, his face deathly pale.
Not from fear, but because in an extremely short span of time, he had made his blood boil, then begin to burn fiercely.
An aura, bitterly cold yet immensely dense, surged from his demonic body, rushing toward the sky.
His black hair hung loose, whipping wildly in the wind and sand like thousands of serpents.
His demonic robe shimmered with a faint light, its surface like flames burning without heat.
As this cold fire spread, demonic energy swiftly enveloped half the courtyard centered on that solitary tree.
The most obvious sign was that a patch of night had descended upon the scene.
That night was so cold, filled with the breath of extinction and darkness, representing the most murderous and ruthless order.
Yet that power of light was so warm, even scorching hot, sacred beyond measure, brimming with infinitely vibrant life.
This courtyard, adjacent to the Xiang clan’s estate, was not small, but compared to these two vast auras, it was utterly insignificant.
In an instant, the entire yard was consumed by these two forces.
On one side, endless night.
On the other, endless light.
Then they met.
By all logic, when two auras of such fundamentally opposite natures collided, they should have created a spectacular scene of heaven and earth shattering.
Yet that did not happen. Instead, everything was quiet, even peaceful.
Even the fish swimming in the mountain stream below the cliff outside the yard were unaffected.
Only the sheep on the hillside looked up at the sky in confusion, unable to understand why noon and deep night could appear at the same time.
Both auras were among the purest in heaven and earth.
What appeared grand on the surface was rooted in the most minute differences in the essence of things.
The true contest took place in the tiniest details—within a grain of yellow sand, or a wisp of cold wind.
At least for a short while, it was hard to see any spectacular imagery.
But this did not mean true peace.
The dangers hidden in those infinitesimal places, once revealed, could lead to catastrophic results.
Chen Changsheng knew this, and the Sea of Linghai King and the others knew it too, but they did not care, because at this moment, the power of light clearly held the advantage.
They just didn’t understand why the Demon Lord chose this response. Did he think his demonic arts could withstand the Li Palace Grand Array?
A crane cried out.
The white crane was a celestial bird, its spiritual sense extremely sharp. It sensed the danger in the field and flapped its wings to flee.
A zither stirred.
The blind zither master hugged his ancient instrument, lightly touched the ground with his toes, and leaped several dozen zhang away, his sleeves fluttering gently.
The zither’s tone suddenly soared, like tearing silk.
Half the night was torn open with a rift.
The light aura from the Li Palace Grand Array swirled around him.
From a distance, he looked like a crane charging into the underworld.
He was no longer a passing traveler retired in Wenshui City, nor a living corpse with a heart like dead ashes.
He was the Grand Elder of the Longevity Sect from a hundred years ago, gifted with extraordinary talent, profound cultivation, and terrifying combat power.
The zither sounded again.
Dozens of invisible waves left the strings with his fingers, rippling outward in all directions.
The edge of the night had already been torn open, and now the invisible zither notes pulled it wider.
When the night descended, the Demon Lord’s figure rapidly blurred, as if he would vanish into the darkness.
Everyone knew that even with the Li Palace Grand Array in place, once the Demon Lord entered the night, forcing him out would require far greater effort.
More critically, it would consume much more time.
No one knew the final outcome between the White Emperor and Lady Mu, nor whether the victor would intervene to stop the National Church from killing the Demon Lord.
They had to act quickly.
Among the human experts outside the yard, the blind zither master was undoubtedly the highest in strength and realm.
Thus, his reaction was the fastest.
Where the zither notes fell, the night faded slightly, and the Demon Lord’s blurred figure became somewhat clearer.
Dozens of extremely fine lights flashed in the Demon Lord’s pupils.
They were the projections of the invisible zither notes onto his mind.
Then, over a dozen black dots appeared in his pupils.
They were the projections of pitch-black shield armor in his eyes.
Countless dense, sharp cutting sounds rang out.
Over a dozen pieces of jet-black shield armor spun at high speed around the Demon Lord’s body, leaving no gaps.
The invisible zither notes and the blind zither master’s subsequent attacks were all blocked by those black shields.
Hundreds of dense spatial cracks formed on the shields’ surfaces, then vanished.
The swirling yellow sand, blackened by the night, drifted before the shields and was swiftly ground into finer dust.
Several gasps sounded outside the yard.
“The Seventeen Nether Armors!”
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As the master of the Northern Continent, daring to come alone to White Emperor City, the Demon Lord naturally had his backing.
Magical artifacts like the Seventeen Nether Armors, comparable to divine tools, might even be numerous on his person.
The blind zither master was not surprised. With countless rays of light trailing him, he pressed forward.
Seeing his opponent break through the night, the Demon Lord’s expression remained unchanged. He reached into the darkness and drew a sword.
The sword was entirely pitch-black, showing no edge, yet it seemed to devour all gazes and all light.
No gasps arose.
Those who recognized this sword were too shocked to speak.
The Sunset Sword.
This was the previous Demon Lord’s personal blade.
This sword had once met the Two-Break Saber and the Frost-Left Divine Spear outside Luoyang City.
Compared to this sword, Nanke’s Southern Cross Sword was nothing.
Compared to this sword, the Seventeen Nether Armors seemed dim.
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...
The Sunset Sword slashed downward.
The entire night seemed to drop hundreds of zhang with the Demon Lord’s motion.
An unimaginable pressure bore down from above onto the blind zither master.
Chen Changsheng didn’t know if the blind zither master could withstand the might of this legendary demonic sword, nor did he need to.
When the Demon Lord drew his sword, he also drew his.
His right hand still held the National Church’s divine staff, controlling the Li Palace Grand Array, suppressing the endless night, and preventing the Demon Lord from escaping.
He didn’t need to grip the hilt; with just a thought, countless swords flew forth.
Over seven hundred named swords roared out from the Hidden Edge Sheath, crossing over a hundred zhang in an instant to strike the Demon Lord.
Today, he was determined to kill the Demon Lord, so he naturally used his strongest means.
The grim sword intent pierced through heaven and earth, as if it would tear through both light and night.
The seven hundred swords reflected light, linked end to end, surging forward with an unyielding momentum.
Back in the Zhou Garden, he had once executed a technique called Ten Thousand Swords Forming a Dragon.
Since then, for various reasons, he had never been able to unleash such a powerful sword art again.
But today, this strike of his already carried some of that sword’s feeling and a fraction of its power.
Countless metallic scraping sounds echoed through the dim night, unbroken.
The seven hundred sword intents cut through everything in heaven and earth, several times sharper than the blind zither master’s notes.
Even the blind zither master himself had to temporarily step aside, waiting for this rain of swords to fall first.
Countless fragments sprayed in all directions. Countless tiny, unfathomably deep holes appeared on the ground.
The nearest wall silently turned to dust, scattered by the wind without a trace.
Both the sounds and the sights were eerie, even hair-raising.
After a moment, the storm of seven hundred swords briefly subsided.
The black shield armor around the Demon Lord was gone.
The legendary magical artifact, the Seventeen Nether Armors, had been destroyed. (To be continued.)