Chapter 896: Waste Three Emperors

His profound energy completely depleted, Duan Heisha was drenched in cold sweat, looking like a drowned dog just pulled from the water. His twitching limbs and face confirmed he was still alive.

With a single blow from Yun Che, Duan Heisha, the Master of the Seven Star Divine Palace, had his profound veins utterly destroyed and his profound energy completely drained.

"Pa... Pa... Pa... Palace Master..."

The elders who had been rushing forward froze in their tracks, their eyes wide with fear, their legs turning to jelly. Several of them collapsed directly to their knees, stunned into silence.

Outside the Seven Star Divine Palace, the disciples of the Heaven Crushing Sect and Flying Immortal Sword Sect also watched with wide, terrified eyes, their faces ashen. Even Zuo Hanshuo, the Heaven Crushing Sect Master, and Mu Yingchan, the Grand Sect Master of the Flying Immortal Sword Sect, were visibly shaken. As Duan Heisha's profound energy rapidly dissipated, Mu Yingchan even stumbled back a step in shock.

They had witnessed with their own eyes how Duan Heisha, the Master of the Seven Star Divine Palace, one of the three most powerful individuals on the Cangyun Continent and a ninth-level Emperor, had been utterly crippled!

And it was done with just a single blow… completely incapacitated by one strike!

"Palace Master... Palace Master!!"

The nearest Divine Palace elders practically crawled to Duan Heisha's side. They stretched out trembling hands to check for his breath, only to find his entire body had gone limp. There was no trace of profound energy left; even his profound veins had been utterly pulverized.

He was not merely crippled, but thoroughly and irreversibly so, to the point where he couldn't even begin cultivating again from the very first Profound Realm.

Duan Heisha was not dead; a flicker of consciousness still lingered within him. However, his eyes were dim and hollow, no different from those of a corpse, and his skin was visibly shriveling at a rapid pace.

To plummet from the pinnacle of power to a complete cripple was, for a peerless profound practitioner, far more cruel than a violent death. All this brutality unfolded so quickly and suddenly that he likely still believed he was trapped in a nightmare.

"Duan Heisha, you should thank my master," Yun Che said coldly, turning his back. "Were it not for his presence, you wouldn't even have this remnant of a life; not a single piece of your corpse would remain!"

Yun Gu was a healer, and a remarkably pure one at that, which is why he became the "Medical Saint" and possessed healing arts capable of snatching lives from the jaws of death. Yun Che's medical expertise was entirely inherited from Yun Gu, unmatched in either the Profound Sky Continent or the Illusory Demon Realm. Yet, Yun Che himself knew that he had only managed to learn five or six tenths of his master's skills.

If Yun Che's medical skills could save lives, Yun Gu could truly defy fate and reclaim life from death itself.

It was precisely because of his pure dedication to "saving lives" that Yun Gu never took a life and could never accept killing. Even the death of a villain would elicit his sorrow.

"You... you..." The Divine Palace elder kneeling beside Duan Heisha suddenly looked up, his initial surge of hostile energy quickly fading, replaced by profound terror in his voice. "Who... who exactly are you...?"

Yun Che offered no reply. His cold gaze pierced directly through Mu Yingchan and Zuo Hanshuo, whose expressions had completely shifted. "You two, will you end yourselves, or do I need to do it personally?"

Under Yun Che's gaze, Mu Yingchan and Zuo Hanshuo instantly felt a chilling dread seep into their very bones. To utterly cripple Duan Heisha with a single blow was a display of power they found utterly unbelievable and incomprehensible. They desperately tried to rationalize it by assuming Duan Heisha had merely been caught off guard, but even a fool wouldn't believe such an explanation.

As the reigning overlords of the Cangyun Continent, they understood better than anyone that completely crippling a ninth-level Emperor was far more difficult than killing him ten times over!

Let alone crippling him with a single strike.

"Who... who exactly... are you?" Mu Yingchan's voice trembled distinctly.

"There's no enmity between us... why would you strike so harshly?" Zuo Hanshuo quickly added, his words clearly laced with fear and concession.

"No enmity? You gathered in Fusu Nation to seize my master's possessions. Had I not intervened, given my master's disposition, he would have been... he would have been forced to his death by you! And now you claim there's no enmity between us?"

Yun Che's teeth clenched slightly, as the boundless hatred from years past was subtly reawakened within him.

"You're a disciple of the Medical Saint Yun Gu?" Zuo Hanshuo shook his head. "Impossible! We've never heard of Yun Gu having any disciples! You... you clearly just want the Sky Poison Pearl for yourself!"

Yun Che's eyes narrowed slightly, and he murmured, in a voice only he could hear, "My master's debt, Ling'er's debt, my own debt... My master dislikes killing, and Ling'er is soft-hearted, so I'll just collect a little interest..."

He extended three fingers towards Zuo Hanshuo and Mu Yingchan, stating with utter indifference, "I'll give you three breaths of time. Don't worry, I won't take your lives. Either you cripple your own profound power within three breaths, or I will personally cripple your entire bodies!"

"You..." Zuo Hanshuo and Mu Yingchan's pupils simultaneously constricted.

"One!" Yun Che lowered his first finger.

"Two!" Yun Che lowered his second finger, and the aura around him, previously as still as stagnant water, surged abruptly.

Before today, anyone suggesting that Zuo Hanshuo and Mu Yingchan would be scared senseless would have been met with disbelief across the entire continent; they themselves would have found it utterly laughable. But now, with Duan Heisha — their peer just moments ago — reduced to a worthless husk, they faced Yun Che's outstretched fingers with a profound, heart-shattering terror.

"Three!"

Zuo Hanshuo and Mu Yingchan simultaneously soared backward into the air, roaring, "Kill him! Attack! All of you... kill him!"

The elders and disciples of the three great sects clearly sensed the fear in Zuo Hanshuo and Mu Yingchan's voices. If even their leaders were terrified, and a figure like Duan Heisha had been instantly crippled, then the person before them must be truly formidable. However, a sect master's command could not be defied. As their leaders frantically fled, the disciples were forced to steel themselves and charge Yun Che.

Yet, nearly half of them—especially the disciples of the Seven Star Divine Palace—turned and fled, just like their sect masters.

Yun Che glanced at the direction Zuo Hanshuo and Mu Yingchan had fled, but instead of immediate pursuit, his form blurred, appearing hundreds of feet high in the sky as a beam of blue light descended.

Crackle, crackle, crackle...

The blue light spread with the sound of rapidly forming ice, instantly freezing everything within several miles. When the sound of ice crystallization ceased, the entire world fell silent, all screams vanished.

Forty Emperor-level cultivators and hundreds of disciples from the three great sects, with the exception of the fleeing Zuo Hanshuo and Mu Yingchan, were all encased within thick layers of ice.

The extraordinarily strange sound made Zuo Hanshuo and Mu Yingchan, mid-flight, subconsciously turn back. The sight that met their eyes terrified them to their core. However, as they scanned the area, Yun Che's figure was nowhere to be seen.

Zuo Hanshuo's unease intensified. Gritting his teeth, he pushed his speed to its absolute limit. The instant he turned his head, he suddenly saw Yun Che standing silently and calmly directly in front of him.

This shock utterly terrified Zuo Hanshuo. Moving at full speed, he found it impossible to escape, or even to stop. With no path of retreat, he roared in fright, thrusting both arms forward. He desperately channeled all his profound energy, rapidly forming a blue-purple profound formation between his hands, and unleashed it directly towards Yun Che's chest.

Though small, the profound formation in Zuo Hanshuo's hands was the Heaven Crushing Formation, a top-tier profound skill renowned throughout the Cangyun Continent's profound world, capable of shattering the heavens and rending the earth. Yet, Yun Che paid it no heed, expressionlessly throwing a punch against the wind directly at Zuo Hanshuo's chest.

*BOOM!!!!!*

With a resounding crash, Yun Che's punch tore through the Heaven Crushing Formation, which had contained all of Zuo Hanshuo's power. The immense recoil instantly shattered Zuo Hanshuo's arms. Yun Che's fist, its momentum unchecked, continued its trajectory, slamming directly into Zuo Hanshuo's chest. Amidst the roar, a burst of fiery light erupted from Zuo Hanshuo's back.

"Ugh..." Zuo Hanshuo's eyes bulged. He had never in his wildest dreams imagined that the power he had wielded as invincible his entire life would be so utterly fragile before this one person.

In that instant, he could no longer sense the presence of his profound veins.

"Who... who exactly... are... you...?"

Zuo Hanshuo uttered the question with great difficulty, his entire body, like Duan Heisha's before him, transforming into a balloon pierced by countless needles, as all his primal profound energy wildly drained away.

Similarly, Yun Che spared his life... though for a continental overlord, death might have been a release.

With a flick of his arm, Yun Che flung Zuo Hanshuo dozens of miles away, where he landed precisely beside Duan Heisha. Then, with a flash of fiery light, Yun Che vanished, pursuing Mu Yingchan who had fled in the opposite direction.

As Mu Yingchan frantically fled, he sensed the aura of Zuo Hanshuo unleashing the Heaven Crushing Formation behind him. Despite his terror, he felt a slight relief. Since he and Zuo Hanshuo had fled in opposite directions, he reasoned that if Yun Che pursued Zuo Hanshuo, he would have no chance of catching him.

However, in the very next instant, he suddenly felt the aura of the Heaven Crushing Formation vanish completely, followed by a rapid weakening of Zuo Hanshuo's aura. Mu Yingchan instinctively turned his head, only to see Yun Che's figure less than ten miles behind him.

"Wha... what!?"

Mu Yingchan's entire body felt as if it had plunged, his face instantly drained of color from shock. He frantically drew breath, sprinting forward as if his life depended on it. When he looked back again, he discovered Yun Che was now less than three miles behind him.

This time, Mu Yingchan was so terrified he nearly burst his gallbladder—his full-speed movement as a dignified ninth-level Emperor seemed utterly static before Yun Che!

Knowing that further escape was utterly pointless, Mu Yingchan gritted his teeth, suddenly pivoted, and grasped a seven-and-a-half-foot-long, gleaming white sword. The surging sword intent he instantly released caused the surrounding space to violently constrict.

If Xuanyuan Wentian was considered the foremost sword expert in the Profound Sky Continent, then Mu Yingchan was the Emperor of the Sword Dao on the Cangyun Continent. His Jade White Dragon Emperor Sword was the supreme blade of the Cangyun Continent; with profound energy infused, a light swing could unleash a sky-shaking dragon's roar.

"Ugh! Flying Immortal Sword Formation!"

The Jade White Dragon Emperor Sword danced gracefully in the air as a massive circular sword formation rapidly materialized. Just as Mu Yingchan completed his three hundred and sixtieth sword, with only six more strikes needed to fully form the Flying Immortal Sword Formation, Yun Che, who had been pursuing him, suddenly vanished.

Simultaneously, the sword in Mu Yingchan's hand also vanished.

Mu Yingchan froze completely, his mind a blank. Not only could he not perceive how Yun Che had vanished, but he also had no idea how the sword in his own hand, which felt almost like an extension of himself, had disappeared.

It was as if it had been suddenly swallowed by the void.

"What a waste of time."

A cold, indifferent voice drifted from behind him. As the words registered, an immeasurably vast force slammed into his back.

*Thud!!*

Mu Yingchan bled from his seven orifices, his profound veins shattered, and his consciousness disintegrated as he tumbled and fell.