Chapter 331: Messy Uncle

A quick glance revealed tens of thousands of people suspended in the void. These individuals were collectively bewildered, hoisted upside down by an immense force. They had simply been walking along, seeing nothing, some not even getting a chance to eat their snacks, when suddenly... they were floating?

The double domain's barrier had, after all, absorbed most of the power. However, the instantaneous burst strength of "Passive Fist" was simply too immense. Even though Chong Dong had promptly expanded his domain, he still couldn't protect most of the people.

"Am I in heaven?" someone wondered aloud. But then they realized they couldn't even hear their own voices. All tangible and intangible mediums in the air had been completely cleared by that single punch! Everyone who realized this panicked. Even though the ground had absorbed the majority of "Passive Fist's" power, they had merely been thrown into the air. But falling from such a height... Not everyone was a Spirit Refiner!

"Help—"

The moment the vacuum restored, tens of thousands of gasps and screams assaulted their ears like a demonic chorus.

"Holy crap, this must be ten stories high! I've never flown in my life, and now suddenly I'm in the sky... ugh!"

"Commander, help!"

"Spirit Refiner, save me..."

Some called out to the Imperial Guards, some clung to the legs of nearby Spirit Refiners, and others simply dragged a convenient person to cushion their fall. Amidst the chaos, the suspended ground fragments finally plummeted, and the tens of thousands of people likewise fell back to the ground.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!

Just then, three ethereal figures—a man, a woman, and an elder—flew across the sky. As soon as they arrived, three domains instantly expanded from their Dantians. The domains folded and merged, transforming into a vast world that enveloped the descending crowd in the blink of an eye.

"Still!" the elder, who carried a large saber on his back, softly commanded. With a True Word of the Heavenly Dao, tens of thousands of people were instantly frozen in the void. Floating rubble, surging crowds, suspended in the void—the scene was magnificent.

Those watching from afar were stunned. This awe-inspiring scene, like a deity painting in the void, casually depicted a myriad of human emotions with a flick of the wrist: panic, unease, admiration, shock... A multitude of expressions appeared, and various thoughts surged from all directions. Only the elder carrying the saber in the void, with a pinch of two fingers, commanded the Heavenly Dao.

"Yuan Sandao, Elder Yuan?" How many years had it been since such a sight was witnessed? A King fighting in the city, and Elder Yuan Sandao, re-emerging into the world? Even Chong Dong, the Grand Commander of the Imperial Guards, was aghast upon seeing the elder and this scene.

"Elder Yuan really came?"

"The City Lord is truly prescient, to have predicted that the previous explosion wasn't the last one!" He felt a moment of dread, thinking what if the three reinforcements he had requested hadn't arrived at that very moment. Or if only Qiu Xuan and Liu Jing had come, the situation would have been far more serious. Kings could comprehend the Dao, but not sever it. How could they, with a flick of a finger, control the lives of tens of thousands of beings?

"Save them!"

Yuan Sandao didn't hesitate. Even for him, forcefully stabilizing this ten-mile expanse was no easy feat. After all, he didn't possess space attributes; his ability to do this relied purely on his formidable cultivation! Following his command, the other three Kings immediately dispersed, each taking charge of a section, leading the Imperial Guards to mitigate damage and rescue people from under the rubble.

Yuan Sandao remained still. He gazed towards the epicenter of the explosion. It wasn't empty; instead, there was a blurred spatial distortion.

"Hmm?" Yuan Sandao frowned. In his view, the previous power was capable of shattering even domains, yet the caster was completely unable to control its attack range. This meant that, at most, that person was a King; it was absolutely impossible for them to be a Dao Severer. But if not a Dao Severer, how could they interfere with his spiritual perception?

"Was there external interference?" This was the only remaining explanation. At the end of the explosion, perhaps even Chong Dong hadn't noticed that someone had slipped into the battle scene. And a powerful one at that!

Yuan Sandao meticulously observed the distorted spatial surface. Logically, to obstruct vision, a domain would be best. Why go to such great lengths? Distorted space? This consumes even more energy than he expended to stabilize space!

"Could it be that the person inside isn't a King, doesn't know domains, but is simply... a powerful space-attribute individual?" Yuan Sandao quickly dismissed his own thought, because he suddenly noticed that on the spatial surface, there was an extremely faint trace of...

"Sword intent?"

"Am I going to die?" Xu Xiaoshou lay sprawled on the ground, unable to make the slightest movement. Though his body outwardly appeared somewhat intact, internally, it had been pulverized by "Passive Fist." "Endless Life" was desperately regenerating, but the aura of death around him grew increasingly dense.

"Heh!" He suddenly let out a self-deprecating laugh. He never expected that at the very end of his life, he would die by his own hand! Indeed, even the final frantic slashes from a King-level expert like Red Dog couldn't instantly kill him. Given time, he could still recover. But "Passive Fist" didn't allow for that! That punch was too powerful; it was simply beyond his current level of cultivation to unleash. Or, to put it another way... he had damn well accumulated "Passive Fist" for too long! He had thought that a charge value of just over three points was nothing, but he never imagined that this very amount would be what killed him!

He slowly closed his eyes, his six senses gradually fading.

Bang!

Beneath the ground, rubble was pushed aside, and a body, more than half severed, stood up. What kind of person was that! He could barely be called a human anymore. His right arm and entire torso had been pulverized, half his skull blown away, and the remaining body joints dangled limply. Yet, even with such grievous injuries, he still stood.

Red Dog laughed. His laughter was utterly inhuman.

"Xu Xiaoshou..."

"Hahaha, you are too strong!"

"I, Red Dog, have killed tens of thousands of geniuses, but you are the only one who, with only Xiantian cultivation, could do this to me!"

"But... so what?" His one remaining eye, its eyeball dislodged, furiously contracted and gathered spiritual essence in that instant. "The power of a King is beyond your imagination!" he roared.

Xu Xiaoshou was startled awake by these words. In the image relayed by his "Perception," Red Dog was still alive?

"He's still alive?" Xu Xiaoshou was utterly astonished. What incredibly tenacious vitality and an unwillingness to die! On this point alone, Xu Xiaoshou had completely lost. If someone else could endure being beaten to such a corpse-like state, how could he be forced to lie down just because of his own punch?

"Get up!" At that moment, his strong will to live drove him to try and twitch his fingers. Because Red Dog was crawling towards him, prostrating himself! The mad dog first fumbled for a dagger fragment, then slowly writhed forward, inch by inch, relentlessly closing the distance. In such a weakened state, Xu Xiaoshou felt that even if a baby tripped and fell onto him, he might instantly kick the bucket. How could he withstand a dagger?

"Enough," a soft sound interrupted the struggle of the two injured individuals. Both looked over to see a figure of a middle-aged man emerge from the spreading dust. His hair was like greasy noodles, drooping, and his face, though rugged, was extremely dirty. He dragged a large burlap sack, and as he walked, scrap metal-like objects inside clanked and rattled.

"Who are you?" Red Dog was shocked. How could a mere Xiantian, no, not even Xiantian—just a Houtian peak cultivator—intrude into the battle? What was wrong with this world? The lower the cultivation, the more formidable the person?

Red Dog grew furious. This battle belonged to him, and the spoils could only be his. No one could lay a finger on Xu Xiaoshou! His Dantian stirred, his domain reactivated, and in an instant, he was about to push the scruffy man out of the fight. However, as the domain was about to touch the man, it seemed to crash into an endless array of swords, instantly tearing it to shreds.

Red Dog was dumbfounded. "This is Houtian?"

"I said, enough," the scruffy man repeated. As he spoke, he extended a hand with only four fingers from his excessively wide sleeve. He folded his fingers, shaping them into a two-fingered sword gesture, and a faint sword intent attached to them. With a single swipe, Red Dog was decapitated.