Chapter 53 Watching the Shattering

Xie Yali did not expect Li Xuan to disregard convention entirely, launching a lethal strike right from the start. Caught completely off guard, she instinctively dodged, but a piercing pain shot through her mind. Her momentary hesitation allowed several blades to pierce deeply into her face.

The remaining blades embedded themselves into her instinctively raised arms.

Truly a wicked heretic!

Xie Yali’s pupils darted back and forth as she reached out and pulled the blades from her flesh, blood welling up.

Holding her hands in a flicking gesture, she scattered a barrage of silver-tinted dust that instantly filled the entire hall.

Li Xuan knew this was the exact method Xie Yali used to deal with Huang Huo-tu in the film's climax, and this fungal dust was likely even more potent than the kind used to mesmerize ordinary believers.

Holding his breath, he blasted out the remaining eighty-odd blades stored within his gourd all at once!

A cold flash of light erupted!

Like heavenly maidens scattering flowers!

Panic finally crossed Xie Yali’s face. She swept her hands like oars, deflecting a few of the blades, while her body intercepted the overwhelming majority of the rest...

Over fifty blades were lodged into her abdomen, chest, neck, and face, making her look precisely like a hedgehog.

Although the force behind the blades was not tremendous, they were razor-sharp, sinking an average of one to two centimeters deep into her flesh as blood began to stream down...

Drawing the Tiangeng Ruler with his left hand, Li Xuan closed in abruptly, raised it high, and smashed it across Xie Yali’s face with all his might, sending her spinning into a dazed constellation of floating stars.

With her face covered in blood, Xie Yali endured the blow, feeling a strange glimmer of relief amidst the agony—this path-blocker was nothing special after all, merely resorting to vulgar, mortal tricks...

As long as the fungal spores took effect.

Clenching her teeth tight, she crossed her fingers over her chest to commune with the fungus, attempting to accelerate her invasion of Li Xuan's body!

A cold glint flashed across her ten fingers!

Her ten fingers dropped to the floor!

Holding a gleaming watermelon knife in his right hand, Li Xuan gazed at her indifferently, thrusting the blade forward into her abdomen. Letting go of the hilt, he retrieved a body-cleansing talisman and slapped it onto Xie Yali’s forehead, chanting the Cleansing Incantation: "Lingsbao Heavenly Venerate, pacify form and body. Disciple's soul and spirit, the five viscera in profound mystery. Azure Dragon and White Tiger, banners and guards in disarray. Vermilion Bird and Black Tortoise, guard and protect my body, hasten like the law and command!"

The talisman burned away, purging the fungus from Xie Yali’s body.

The last trace of color drained completely from her face. Using a palm missing its fingers, she gripped the blade handle protruding from her abdomen, stumbled backward several steps, and pressed her back against the central altar table in the main hall.

She wanted to form hand seals and recite incantations, but her fingers were entirely gone.

Xie Yali’s expression was a mix of shock, rage, and sheer terror, tears involuntarily welling up in her eyes from sheer bodily trauma. She had grown somewhat afraid of this taciturn, utterly ruthless demon who had entered killing without a word.

Her speech became somewhat disjointed: "You... listen to me, don't come any closer, just listen to me!"

As if performing a magic trick, Li Xuan reached into the mouth of the gourd and pulled out yet another gleaming watermelon chopping knife. This capability was far more bizarre and unfathomable than the powers of Xie Yali's past life.

Acting as though he were deaf, he simply brandished his blade and, maintaining the posture of one wary of a dying enemy, slowly closed in.

Defend against your mother!

Xie Yali's mental defenses nearly shattered. She was in this wretched state, and he was still being this cautious.

Swish!

The blade left his hand, piercing Xie Yali’s abdomen once again!

Xie Yali’s eyes widened to their limits, glaring fixedly at Li Xuan as she nearly ground her teeth to dust: "You..."

He was still throwing them...

This man was simply outrageous!

Li Xuan produced yet another watermelon knife...

Xie Yali felt a wave of despair. Having lost too much blood and suffered severe internal injuries to her abdomen, her legs could barely support her weight.

She looked up toward the ceiling and screamed at the top of her lungs, her voice tearing with anguish: "Sister, save me! Sister, save me!"

A fierce glint flashed in Li Xuan’s eyes as he sprinted forward, slashing horizontally with the watermelon knife. Even if it meant getting bloody, he was going to chop off Xie Yali’s head...

Whoosh!

A strange tactile sensation traveled up through the blade.

The blade that should have cleaved through Xie Yali’s neck suddenly deflected upward at an angle, missing her vital spots and hacking off one of her ears instead...

The sister had arrived!

Alarm bells rang wildly in Li Xuan’s heart!

He slashed frantically with the watermelon knife, but every single stroke veered off course, hitting empty space!

He had opened his Yin-Yang eyes well before entering, specifically to guard against the sister. Yet at this very moment, he could see nothing at all, forced to rely entirely on his sixth sense to detect that "someone" was present...

Had she truly attained immortality?

Li Xuan refused to believe this sort of entity was an immortal. He whipped out the Fengdu Treasure Seal and slapped it onto Xie Yali’s forehead: "With the summons of Fengdu, evil souls take the road, by the Northern Emperor's decree, the merit officer..."

Before he could finish the incantation, he was struck by an invisible force and sent flying!

He tumbled across the floor several times, and just as he fought through the intense pain to stand back up, the gourd lying on the ground suddenly levitated, as though picked up by an unseen person...

Suddenly, though no sound could be heard, he "sensed" someone letting out a "silent" scream!

A wondrously bizarre sound...

The gourd dropped back to the ground.

It seemed the sister had recognized the gourd as a precious magical treasure and attempted to snatch it away to cut off Li Xuan's means of offense...

Only to find that the gourd still recognized its master, injuring her—this self-proclaimed "immortal."

Without a second thought, Li Xuan pulled out the Mount Tai Emperor Token. Raising it high, he chanted the Mount Tai Demon-Subduing Incantation. His magical power was rapidly drained as the token emitted a majestic golden radiance!

Bang!

The invisible sister seemed startled, crashing wildly about the main hall. The walls shattered, and countless cracks spiderwebbed across the ancient Taoist temple.

Without a second thought, Li Xuan turned tail and ran!

He could tell that this sister was terrified of the token and had resorted to dirty tricks, attempting to destroy the temple and bury him alive within it.

The Taoist temple had looked immensely sturdy, yet after just a minor battering of the walls, it began to collapse like shoddily built tofu. Blue bricks and grey tiles rained down amid a deafening, earth-shaking roar...

Li Xuan burst out of the temple, charged into the stairwell, and bolted downward with the greatest speed of his life!

The vibrations continued directly overhead...

By the time he burst out of the building, his heart was still pounding frantically.

Avoiding surveillance cameras and crowds of people, he stripped off his outer clothes and trousers, stowed them away in the gourd, and changed into a completely different set.

Then, he strolled out nonchalantly, "passing by" to blend into the crowd, gazing up at the billows of thick smoke rising from the eighteenth floor of the Huang-Lin Building while listening to the shocked, gossipy discussions of the people around him...

The building was sturdier than he had imagined; the collapse of an entire Taoist temple had merely smashed through a single floor slab.

Because aside from the eighteenth floor, a massive amount of dust and debris had also poured out onto the seventeenth level, along with small stones raining down from above to strike a few "lucky" bystanders.

Though the True Immortal Temple had been eradicated, Xie Yali had not died on the spot—a minor point of regret for Li Xuan. However... her blood, spattered when she was injured, had landed on his clothes.

As long as she remained human, Xie Yali could not escape.

Li Xuan retreated behind the crowd and vanished into the darkness...

The following day, the Taipei newspapers ran an explosive headline: "Ancient Taoist Temple Concealed Within IC Building Collapses in the Dead of Night, Numerous Casualties Reported—What Is the True Story Behind This Incident?"

Inside a breakfast shop, Li Xuan held the newspaper, reading through the rescue operations captured by the reporters.

True enough, all those believers were dead.

In reality, the only ones he had personally slain last night were Huang Yi-feng, Lin Dao-sheng, and a handful of believers driven mad by the special fungus who had tried to hack him to pieces.

The photograph in the newspaper showed a row of body bags laid out at the entrance of the Huang-Lin Building, with numerous grieving family members standing or kneeling beside them, weeping...