Wayfarer

The sight of Xiao Nanfeng crushing the yin body of Nalan Qiankun's avatar caused countless cultivators to gape.

"His Majesty is triumphant!" the Dazheng Immortals cried out, even as they continued to fight.

Their morale rose sharply, allowing them to suppress the Tianshu Immortals.

Xiao Nanfeng's avatar coughed out blood, clearly heavily wounded. He headed straight into the Divine Seal of Dazheng to recuperate there.

The angriest person on the battlefield had to be none other than Nalan Qiankun's main body, who had to watch on helplessly as his avatar was destroyed. His eyes were bloodshot, and his rage almost visceral.

"Xiao Nanfeng, take away your imperial seal. Let's fight one more match!" Nalan Qiankun's main body roared out.

Xiao Nanfeng had no intention of acceding to his request.

The fighting continued all around them, but it was clear that Xiao Nanfeng's party was gradually gaining the advantage. Once Xiao Nanfeng's avatar healed up, Nalan Qiankun would be done for.

Nalan Qiankun struggled furiously against the Divine Seal of Dazheng, but the seal's tremendous force left him completely immobile. He struggled in vain.

Just then, his Gourd of Divine Flame began to hum as the golden light across its surface began to dim.

"Is the potency of the Gourd of Divine Flame dropping? Am I going blind?" Nalan Qiankun exclaimed.

After another two hours, the gourd trembled again as the light dimmed further.

"It can't be. The flames within the gourd are draining rapidly! Could Xiao Nanfeng be absorbing them all?"

He suddenly recalled that the paper figure had once told him that Xiao Nanfeng had taken advantage of the flames within the Hundred-Beast Flaming Dome to advance his own cultivation. Although his Gourd of Divine Flame was the stronger relic, it had clearly still become nothing but food for Xiao Nanfeng.

"Xiao Nanfeng, you bastard! Stop it!" Nalan Qiankun roared.

He knew that he couldn't keep things going as they were. Otherwise, once Xiao Nanfeng grew stronger and stronger, he would lose all hope of victory.

"I'll have to use that approach, but..." Nalan Qiankun's eyes flared, unresigned as he was.

He eyed the gourd again, reluctantly. Then, he seemed to make up his mind. "Xiao Nanfeng, even if I have to destroy the Gourd of Divine Flame, I won't allow you to benefit from it. I might as well shatter your divine seal while I'm at it. Gourd of Divine Flame, explode!"

The gourd exploded in the air. A frightening burst of light illuminated the heavens as all the cultivators in the vicinity were blinded for a moment. The Immortals fighting in the vicinity gasped.

"Run!"

"The Gourd of Divine Flame has exploded!"

The Immortals screamed as they were completely drowned by what seemed like endless flames.

The frightening explosion even shattered the walls of distant Luoxing.

"Nalan Qiankun's crazy. He imploded one of the Spirit Emperor's peerless treasures!" Zhang Feifan exclaimed.

"Protect the people!" Zhao Yuanjiao howled.

"Hurry!" Lan Jiguang shouted.

The Taiqing Immortals erected barriers against the shockwaves that resulted from the aftermath of the explosion and protected the people.

Zhang Feifan shuddered at the flames at the heart of the explosion. "As expected of the Spirit Emperor's peerless treasure. The destructiveness of the explosion is truly frightening. Xiao Nanfeng might not have escaped..."

"Is that the Divine Seal of Dazheng? It was sent flying? What an incredible material—it doesn't look damaged at all," Lan Jiguang commented, glancing at a black dot flying off into the distance.

The flames slowly receded and vanished, revealing a figure in a silver robe—Xiao Nanfeng's main body.

"Your Majesty!" the Dazheng cultivators shouted, seeing their monarch alive.

Xiao Nanfeng flew out of the epicenter of the explosion, which had hurt him to the point that he was vomiting blood uncontrollably. He was badly injured. He had appeared with two unconscious figures around him.

"Those are..." Zhang Feifan gasped as he approached Xiao Nanfeng.

"The sect master!" Lan Jiguang exclaimed, flying over.

Xiao Nanfeng flew forward, keeping his injuries in abeyance by pure will. He tossed the two unconscious figures to the two division leaders. "The two sect masters are still alive, but they've spent too long in the Gourd of Divine Flame. They're terribly weak."

Lan Jiguang and Zhang Feifan immediately began to transfuse Immortal qi into their bodies. The two sect masters stirred weakly.

"Sect Master, you're awake!" Zhang Feifan exclaimed.

"Nalan Qiankun has turned traitor to the sect. Kill him!" the Taiqing Immortal Sect's sect master shouted weakly.

"Understood!" the gathered Immortals replied.

The demonic sect master had likewise awakened. He laughed bitterly. "Xiao Nanfeng, I should have taken your word for it. Ahem!"

"Sect Masters, please focus on recuperating," Xiao Nanfeng gasped out as he weakly coughed up blood.

"Nanfeng, are you heavily injured?" Zhao Yuanjiao asked.

Xiao Nanfeng's body flickered as his silver robe turned golden. Scorching heat radiated around his surroundings.

"Don't worry. Only my yin body is injured. My physical body is unharmed," Xiao Nanfeng replied.

He had been undergoing successive breakthroughs when he suddenly sensed something amiss with the Gourd of Divine Flame and immediately swapped over to his yin body. Otherwise, his physical body would have suffered tremendously.

He waved a hand, resummoning the Divine Seal of Dazheng that had flown far away. It reappeared in his hands.

"Good!" Zhao Yuanjiao nodded, then frowned. "I wonder if Nalan Qiankun's dead..."

"He's still alive. I could sense his aura through the flames. He doesn't seem to be injured. He might even have grown stronger," Xiao Nanfeng suddenly said.

"What? How could he have been uninjured by such a massive explosion?" the cultivators exclaimed.

The flames slowly receded. A huge pit had formed, and a group of charred and heavily injured Immortals fell to the ground as a result of the explosion.

At the heart of the explosion was a black figure, one that seemed to be like a shadow plastered against the ground. Then, it slowly stood up. A frightening aura emerged from it, causing waves of energy to billow forth.

"A shadow cursed effigy?" Zhao Yuanjiao exclaimed.

"No, that's Nalan Qiankun. Has he become a shadow cursed effigy? No wonder he hasn't been injured. In his shadow form, he has immunity against physical attacks!" Xiao Nanfeng exclaimed.

"A cursed spiritual avatar...? The Immortal body he forged as an Earth Immortal was melded with cursed effigies?!"

"Is he crazy? Such an Immortal body does grant him access to the powers of a cursed effigy, but once he's unable to suppress that cursed spiritual power, he'd be devoured by it! He'd become a vicious, bloodthirsty monster!"

Just then, Nalan Qiankun reached out and sucked the closest Immortal present toward him.

The Immortal landed in Nalan Qiankun's hand, somehow unable to move. The shadowy Nalan Qiankun suddenly opened his mouth wide to reveal sawtooth-like teeth.

"No, Your Majesty!" the Immortal cried out.

Nalan Qiankun bit off the Immortal's head, tossed his corpse away, and began to chew on his head with a ghastly grinding sound.

"That's the innate bloodthirst of a shadow cursed effigy," Zhang Feifan said, his face dark.

"He's just transformed into a cursed spiritual avatar and is yet mentally unsound. He needs to exhaust his cursed nature in order to wake up," Lan Jiguang added.

Nalan Qiankun clearly wasn't satisfied with just having eaten one Immortal. He reached out for more.

"No, Your Majesty! I'm one of your officials. Don't kill me!"

"Your Majesty, it's me!"

The Immortals in the distance cried out in panic, but Nalan Qiankun was unleashing indiscriminate slaughter while his mind was clouded.

"Zhao Yuanjiao, protect the two sect masters," Zhang Feifan said.

Then, Zhang Feifan and Lan Jiguang shot toward Nalan Qiankun with their swords. Xiao Nanfeng followed behind them.

Zhang Feifan and Lan Jiguang struck at Nalan Qiankun with their Immortal blades, but Nalan Qiankun evaded their attacks by temporarily dematerializing. Then, he punched them and forced them to retreat.

"We can't touch him!" Zhang Feifan roared. "How do we deal with him?"

"Cursed effigies can counter other cursed effigies. Do you have any cursed armaments, Zhang Feifan?" Lan Jiguang asked.

"I do. Again, then!" Zhang Feifan replied.

They stowed their Immortal swords and each retrieved an unusual armament. They blocked Nalan Qiankun's advance. Both of them were Earth Immortals, and their combined attack summoned a storm in the air.

Xiao Nanfeng rapidly guided the Dazheng Immortals out of the battlefield. Only when they were all safe and sound did he turn back.

By then, Nalan Qiankun seemed to have awakened a little. "Senior Brothers, why are you attacking me? I was simply disoriented because of my cursed transformation. I'm clear-headed now. Please stop!"

"Nalan Qiankun, evidence of your traitorous behavior has been exposed. Xiao Nanfeng has rescued the two sect masters. You won't be able to escape today!" Zhang Feifan shouted.

Nalan Qiankun turned to see the two Taiqing sect masters in the distance and frowned. He knew he wouldn't be able to hide the truth any longer.

"Nalan Qiankun, as you well know, traitors to the sect are punished with death!" Lan Jiguang declared.

Nalan Qiankun sucked in a deep breath, then grinned fiercely. "It's a pity. If not for Xiao Nanfeng pushing me to this extent, I wouldn't have transformed into a cursed effigy. However, now that things have come to a head, there's nothing more I need say. If you want a fight, you'll get it!"

With a hum, a wheel of light appeared behind him. The wheel was filled with stars that glowed resplendently. 361 stars appeared from the depths of the sky and sent beams of light down toward the wheel to his back. The wheel trembled and infused all that starlight into Nalan Qiankun's body, causing his aura to grow tremendously.

"The last of the Spirit Emperor's peerless treasures, the Star Map of the Complete Heavens!" Zhang Feifan exclaimed.

"The star map is itself a mobile formation that draws on the stellar energy of the countless stars in the sky. We need to defeat him, now!" Lan Jiguang exclaimed. "The longer we drag things out, the stronger he'll become!"

"Kill him!" Zhang Feifan shouted.

The three Earth Immortals began to fight in earnest once more.

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