He bore an inscrutable smile, his gaze fixed forward, as if he had no intention of reacting, letting the sword qi slash toward his neck.
The cultivators, though shocked, couldn’t help but feel a touch of schadenfreude.
Nobody knew what grudge the Four Seas Commerce held against the Five Hidden Sword. Just yesterday, Xinfang Hermit had personally stepped in to mediate, yet a single night later, the conflict had escalated to an intent of complete annihilation.
Elder He Guo shook his head helplessly. If the cultivators from the Four Seas Commerce were wiped out, unraveling the Corpse Wine Recipe would not be so easy.
Currently, the black markets where the Four Seas Commerce operated were all aligned with the Sub-Device Sect.
Risking danger for benefit seemed unrealistic.
The foundations of the Sub-Device Sect could rank among the top three of mid-tier Immortal Sects, and the Outer Heaven Meteorite Crater was a perilous land with harsh conditions.
Elder He Guo’s forehead veins bulged as he suddenly noticed Li Mo extending an arm, seemingly intending to block the sword qi directly with his physical body.
"Are you kidding me?"
Even Xinfang Hermit found it hard to believe.
The title of Sword Cultivator, with its fearsome reputation, was carved out of epitaphs of countless lives lost under their swords, their aura far surpassing the ordinary.
Li Mo’s skin showed signs of petrification as his right arm swelled to over two meters, transforming into a majestic and towering miniature mountain.
The sword qi slammed heavily into his palm, but the expected scene of it slicing through like tofu did not occur.
Li Mo’s body staggered backward, his right hand firmly gripping the sword qi. Sparks erupted, and the shockwave roared through more than half the city.
The Primordial Dao Body was similarly a fragment of the Incomplete Immortal Body.
Although its completion could not rival Feihong, with the integration of the leakless body, it allowed Li Mo’s right hand to prematurely experience the might of an Immortal Body.
The cultivators broke into a clamor.
How could Li Mo show any signs of the frailty his outward appearance suggested? The sheer idea that a physical body could withstand sword qi was akin to a fake magical treasure, wasn’t it?
Bing You Taoist inhaled sharply, staring at Li Mo in contemplation.
"What kind of Taoist Body could allow a Beast Cultivator to challenge Feihong?"
"I don’t know, this is..."
"No wonder a Nascent Soul-tier Beast Cultivator could emerge—truly, heaven favors them."
Beast Cultivators were exceedingly rare, and it was even scarcer for a sect with Taoist inheritance to produce one. No one had ever connected the two before.
But Li Mo’s performance forced them to believe that raw talent could bridge vast chasms.
Li Mo himself endured an unspeakable hardship.
The sword qi seemed to take on a life of its own, forcibly penetrating his muscles and bones, continuously exuding fire poison that scorched his flesh. His right arm had already begun to wither.
Feihong started gathering energy for a third wave of sword qi as her divine sense locked onto Li Mo.
"One day, I will master the Heavenly Sword Sect’s cultivation techniques. The offensive prowess of Sword Cultivators truly transcends all other cultivation systems in the world."
The cancer cells in his body boiled, causing his right arm to swell with mutated muscle.
With the Five Dao Body reinforcing his flesh against Feihong’s sword qi, he managed to gain a slight upper hand. The sword qi clearly began to lose its momentum.
Li Mo crushed the sword qi in his hand, channeling the medicinal energy of the Nourishing Yuan Fruit to nourish his wounded arm, recovering most of it before the Ghost Tiger’s shadow engulfed him.
He planted his feet firmly on the ground.
The Ghost Tiger coiled around his body, its size instantly swelling to over seventy meters. Its grotesque flesh and anomalous limbs exuded a different kind of Beastification.
The mutated Beastification was fundamentally distinct from the tattooed Beastification; Li Mo could barely control it only with the help of the Chaos Beast Infant.
The oppressive aura emanating from his semi-human, semi-beast colossal form was almost tangible.
The contrast with Li Mo’s previously decrepit and dying appearance made the impact of this transformation on the cultivators all the more suffocating.
The street beneath him collapsed, cracks spreading outward like a spider web from him as the center.
Li Mo vanished from his spot, his massive form descending upon Feihong like a celestial eclipse.
The clash of their titanic forms caused the entire area of Five Temples Town to quake violently, and the bronze giant gate marking the Secret Realm’s entrance nearly toppled as a result.
Li Mo’s laughter echoed through the chaos.
"Hahaha, marvelous! After a thousand years in seclusion, it’s been so long since I’ve felt such exhilaration."
Li Mo landed heavily, the buildings beneath his feet crumbling. To him, the formation array set up by the Five Hidden Sword seemed as fragile as if made from mud sculptures.
Feihong was truly enraged now, her heartbeat quickened. The temperature within a ten-mile radius climbed to where jade could liquefy and metal turn molten.
The cultivators, though feeling the searing heat, couldn’t stop cold sweat from trickling down their backs.
On one side was Feihong, the Sect’s Flying Sword of the Five Hidden Sword. On the other was the enigmatic and powerful Beast Cultivator elder. If the fight continued, even the entrance to the Secret Realm could get obliterated.
They were deeply apprehensive. The techniques Li Mo had displayed were largely reliant on his lifebound spirit beast—at no point had he even revealed the depth of his Nascent Soul Stage yet.
He still seemed to have the situation well in hand.
What the cultivators didn’t know was that Li Mo’s Beast Cultivation Nascent Soul had never mastered spells.
Li Mo stood with his hands behind his back, his sword wounds healing rapidly. On the surface, there was not even a trace of burns left, though inside, his body was a chaotic mess.
His blood vessels were desiccated, and the Da Ai Mi Tian ravaged what remained of his blood, retreating to his Five Internal Organs.
The fire poison concentrated its assault on his Three Elixir Fields, while his Nascent Soul worked alongside his Mountain Spider to suppress it. The Innate Five Dao Body had already been pushed to its limits.
Li Mo could now tangibly feel the torment of being incinerated in a melting furnace.
Feihong’s flames, tied to Immortal Bodies, bore a resemblance to the legendary Samadhi Fire: once clinging to something, they would not cease burning until it turned into ash.
"The Heavenly Sword Sect’s research into Taoist Bodies undoubtedly surpasses all other sects."
It was chilling to imagine what the Heavenly Sword Sect could become if allowed to develop for another ten thousand years—perhaps the entire sect would ascend to the heavens in unison?
Xinfang Hermit’s face turned pale.
He had not foreseen things escalating to this level. If Feihong struck one more time, the entirety of Five Temples Town would be reduced to ruins, and refining swords would become nothing but a dream.
Xinfang Hermit closed his eyes, desperately trying to calm the Flying Sword’s emotions through his connection to Feihong.
A ray of sword qi pierced through the air.
"I... no... Feihong..."
Xinfang Hermit raised his palm, trying to shield his eyes from the blinding light, only to realize his entire body was already engulfed in flames, his vitality fading away slowly.