The battle in the city was a landslide victory.
And the battle outside of the city was a Roland for an Oliver.
Nie Changqing untied the knot in his heart in Daoist School and achieved the Internal Organs Realm simply with a thought. Meanwhile, Li Sansi, helped by the Torch Dragon, also achieved the Internal Organs Realm after experiencing some horrible tortures.
Both of them were in Internal Organs Realm, a realm beyond the ability of most cultivators in the world.
Therefore, in the heavy rain, when the battle between the two broke out, it was not a surprise at all.
The level of the battle between Internal Organs Realm cultivators was beyond that of Qi Core Realm cultivators. Nie Changqing and Li Sansi were just beginners in this new realm, and neither of them had refined any part of their internal organs yet.
However, their fighting power was beyond compared to those in the Qi Core Realm.
The Spirit Qi in their Qi Cores was twice as many as when they had been in the peak of Qi Core Realm. And with the Spirit Qi in their Qi Cores flowing to all parts of the body, both their bodies and their strengths had significantly improved.
When Li Sansi brandished his wooden sword horizontally, the curtain of rain was cut in half. Sword energy rushed straight at Nie Changqing as if it had turned into a dragon.
The butcher knife in Nie Changqing’s hand was spinning at high speed. Despite the heavy rain, his white robe was still blowing, as if it was windy.
The butcher knife was thrown over quickly like a bolt of black lightning.
In an instant, Li Sansi lightly thrust his wooden sword forward six or seven times in a row.
The tip of the wooden sword touched the tip of the butcher knife.
However, the recoil from the butcher knife forced Li Sansi to take several steps back.
Splashes of water rose and fell, splattering everywhere, every time his foot hit the ground.
Li Sansi’s pupils constricted as he pulled the wooden sword from the ground in front of him. Then water suddenly splattered and turned into sharp arrows floating in the air.
Spirit Qi gushed out. Li Sansi kept brandishing his wooden sword. The water around him gradually moved into a circle and formed a pattern.
The butcher knife was floating in front of Nie Changqing.
His body shook, and Spirit Qi gushed out, creating a massive outline of the butcher knife.
The somewhat vague outline of the butcher knife became more pronounced little by little.
“Fish and dragon dancing with the sword,” Li Sansi called in a quiet voice.
With his Daoist robe fluttering, he threw his sword over.
“Knife Control,” Nie Changqing said in a plain voice.
He flung his arm forward. The now pronounced outline of the giant butcher knife moved into an arc before him, like the shape of a half-moon.
It cut the curtain of rain in half.
Li Sansi felt his body seemed surreal as if a fish and a dragon were dancing with him. He whipped the butcher knife with his sword again and again.
However, Nie Changqing’s Knife Control Technique didn’t lose any power.
Bang!
The knife’s radiance landed where Li Sansi once stood.
The ground cracked open, allowing the water to flow directly into the cracks, producing loud noises.
Nie Changqing did not stop attacking just because he was at an advantage. Instead, he attacked even more violently like a fierce tiger.
He waved his arm to control the knife in the distance. Droplets of rain were all cut into pieces.
Rain prattled on his body and his face. When the droplets of rain had been cut into smaller drops, a humid mist arose and then was vaporized by the heat from the Spirit Qi running through Nie Changqing’s body.
Li Sansi was trying to fend off Nie Changqing’s attacks with his wooden sword but with great difficulty.
He could not even speak under Nie Changqing’s attack.
Nie Changqing’s knife kept coming from all directions like a black dragon.
He barely staved off the coachman’s attacks with his wooden sword.
It seemed every blow exchange would consume a considerable amount of Spirit Qi in him.
Li Sansi was actually isolated from the rain. He was very pale under the attack. He kept retreating. His Daoist robe had been stained with muddy water.
Li Sansi was actually isolated from the rain. He was very pale under the attack. He kept retreating. Mud had stained his Daoist robe.
Nie Changqing frowned.
They were both in Internal Organs Realm.
Yet Li Sansi seemed to be weaker than he had imagined.
All of a sudden…
Nie Changqing—enjoying an overwhelming superiority over Li Sansi—and Li Sansi, being overwhelmed, both looked up into the city.
A plain voice echoed all over Beiluo City.
“I would like to pay homage to your era with the sun shining after the rain and the peach blossoms on the island.”
When that had been said…
Everybody trembled.
Nie Changqing took his butcher knife back and retreated. He lifted his head in astonishment. It was the Young Master’s voice.
Li Sansi couldn’t stop panting. Flopping onto the ground, he could not help but look up at the sky.
Meanwhile, a horse-drawn carriage was nearby. The horse was neighing uneasily.
There was oppressive energy under which people could not even breathe. Everyone was startled.
Dong!
In the sky, a deafening explosion came from a distance.
It was like a massive semitransparent palm of a hand had reached into the clouds and slapped aside those dark clouds, which suggested a storm was brewing.
The bright golden sunlight shone through the dark clouds and spilled on the ground.
The sun was out.
“It’s over.”
Holding the butcher knife, Nie Changqing looked at those scattered dark clouds with a complicated feeling.
The Young Master’s strength was as unfathomable and as dreadful as always.
This palm strike put Nie Changqing extremely uneasy and frustrated.
He had assumed the gap between him and the Young Master had been closed since he had achieved a breakthrough to the Internal Organs Realm. But now, he realized that gap between them was still as vast as the sky.
Meanwhile, Li Sansi had been gazing at the bright sky, somewhat in a trance, for some time.
The sun was shining brightly, sunlight spilling on his worn-out face and body. He could not help but shiver.
He felt like an era had ended.
There was no need to drag the battle between him and Nie Changqing further.
After all, he, Li Sansi, had been overwhelmed.
In the carriage in the distance…
Mo Beike lifted the curtain to look at the golden rays of the sun shining through the dark clouds. It was like the most cordial congratulation received when the curtain was being slowly brought down.
Mo Beike’s wrinkled face looked a little astonished.
And he was not the only one. In the opposite carriage, the Imperial Advisor Kong Xiu also lifted the curtain to look at the bright rays of the sun spreading in the sky.
They could imagine those unregretful faces of Xie Yunling and the others in Beiluo City.
Would it matter even if they died? At least they had been gloriously triumphant and gone all out.
Mo Beike and Kong Xiu brought their curtains down almost at the same time.
“Go back.”
Two voices, seemingly older, came from the carriages.
They were old, after all.
“Yes,” Mo Ju and Mo Tianyu replied simultaneously.
They were regretful that they had not witnessed the battle that mattered a lot to two eras.
However, from this day on, the era of the Hundred Schools of Philosophy had somehow ended.
The new era, the era of White Jade City’s cultivators, would start. The whole world would be excited about it.
The wheels of the carriages started to roll, splashing the muddy water on the ground.
One carriage headed east, and the other headed west.
The two carriages went in opposite directions, one toward North County and the other toward the capital city.
Nie Changqing took his butcher knife back and leaned against the carriage.
He glanced at Li Sansi, stained with mud, and gave the latter a small nod.
Then the horse drew the carriage toward the city gate of Beiluo slowly.
It was time to reunite with his family.
Holding his wooden sword, Li Sansi stood outside of the city.
The ordeals from society really caught him unprepared.
At the lakeside of Beiluo Lake…
Even the waves in the lake seemed to carry the dreadful Spirit Pressure.
Many martial arts practitioners, scholars, and Confucian students who had come here to witness this great fight turned pale. The waves were washing the shore like a fiercely growling beast.
Lu Changkong had complicated feelings.
Behind him, Luo Yue and Luo Cheng were also quite emotional.
The Hundred Schools of Philosophy somehow ultimately failed in Beiluo City.
Starting with Wei Luan, the philosopher of Yinyang School, Beiluo seemed to be an unlucky place for the Hundred Schools’ philosophers.
Tang Yimo was standing by the lake.
His gaze was fixed on the lake surface—which was covered in thick fog—as if he could see the dread on Lake Island through the mist.
This was the first time ever Tang Yimo felt despaired.
Since he got the Immortal encounter and opened his first meridian…
He had almost been invincible.
Except for the terracotta warriors he met in the Dragon Gate in the Secret Realm. He didn’t fear them, because he could handle them.
However, at this moment…
The pressure from Lake Island.
It even took away his courage to fight back. He could feel how powerful that pressure was even though there was a lake between him and the island.
Let alone the man who released the pressure.
“Young Master Lu from Beiluo!”
Tang Yimo swallowed his saliva.
It turned out he, Tang Yimo, still had a long way to go.
A carriage approached.
Tang Yimo looked back.
He saw a white-clothed middle-aged man, carrying a butcher knife at the waist, helping a Daoist nun get off the coach with care and affection.
“Ru’er, watch out,” Nie Changqing said.
The Daoist nun looked dumb. She was grasping the white-clothed man’s hair.
The white-clothed man came to the shore carrying the Daoist nun on his back. He found a boat and jumped onto it.
Tang Yimo stared at the middle-aged man.
All of a sudden…
On that boat, grasping the pole, the middle-aged man looked back at Tang Yimo.
Bang!
Tang Yimo felt like he had been struck hard by a hammer.
He took several consecutive steps back.
He felt blood was about to gush out of his chest.
“Powerful!”
Tang Yimo was startled. It was only a look, and he felt so threatened as if that butcher knife could decapitate him anytime.
“Who is that?!”
Tang Yimo took a deep breath.
“Carrying a butcher knife at the waist. That must be Young Master Lu’s coachman,” a martial arts practitioner said.
Tang Yimo trembled.
Coachman?
He was only a coachman?
How could a coachman be so strong?
The pride in Tang Yimo was completely shattered at this moment.
******
On Lake Island.
It was sunny.
Peach flowers bloomed on one side of the island. Their pink petals looked like teenage girls flushed faces, shy and attractive.
With their Spirit Qi surging on Lake Island, the Spirit Qi was even richer.
Heaven Facing Spiritual Chrysanthemums were emitting Spirit Qi, and so were Biluo Peach Blossoms.
The two Spirit Plants were competing with one another.
Lu Fan was sitting in the Thousand Blades Chair close to the rail. His white robe and hair were blowing.
Standing quietly next to him, Ning Zhao closed the umbrella.
Lu Fan was tapping on the armrest of the wheelchair. The clear sound of it was echoing on the island.
On the island…
Xie Yunling looked at the disappearing dark clouds and the golden sunshine with love.
With the sunshine spilling on his face, he felt warm. And the humid air from the rain felt dryer.
The Sword Saint Hua Dongliu was looking at Lu Fan fanatically as if he had been possessed by the devil.
He just could not forget about that amazing sword.
“Peach flowers are blooming on one half of the island. My peach flowers can form a Spirit Qi storm. Don’t waste this precious opportunity,” Lu Fan said calmly.
His voice echoed all over the island.
When that had been said…
Everyone on the island was shocked.
Jing Yue sat down cross-legged to execute his cultivation method to take in Spirit Qi.
Yi Yue also started to cultivate immediately, conscientious about every detail.
Nie Shuang ran out to the chrysanthemums. He practiced a fist method under the flowers. His young body was steaming during the practice. Spirit Qi surrounded him.
Lil Phoenix One climbed out of Bai Qingniao’s collar. The little chick jumped down and sprang and tumbled on the ground like a furry ball.
Then it started to run on the island like crazy as if there was a party for it.
Spirit Qi flowed into Lil Phoenix One’s body.
Bai Qingniao was surprised. Seeing what others were doing, she also executed Nine Phoenixes Transformation. Qi flows were clinging to her body.
On the boat, Lv Dongxuan, lying on his back, finally stopped playing dead. He hurried to sit up to take in Spirit Qi.
Xie Yunling was stunned, but he also started to take in as much Spirit Qi as he could.
Hua Dongliu and Gongshu Yu didn’t have cultivation methods, so they had no idea how to take in Spirit Qi. They only looked at the others who were busy doing it, but at least they were bathing in Spirit Qi.
Unusual changes were happening to them with the nurture of Spirit Qi.
On the second floor of the pavilion…
Lu Fan looked at Ning Zhao. “Go. Although you are already in Internal Organs Realm, don’t miss such a great chance.”
“The Spirit Qi storm started by the blossom of peach flowers on half of the island is rare. No one knows when will be the next time.”
Ning Zhao was tempted.
With her red-lipped mouth slightly open, she bowed at Lu Fan.
“Yes.”
Then, with her white dress fluttering, Ning Zhao turned to go downstairs.
She sat down cross-legged to take in and refine Spirit Qi.
Lu Fan was alone on the second floor of the pavilion.
Leaning on the back of the Thousand Blades Chair, he was gently stroking the armrest transformed by the Phoenix Feather Sword.
On the stone stairs of White Jade City Pavilion…
The sound of the pipa was like a pelting rainstorm. The usual sound of large and small countless beads falling onto a jadeite plate seemed to be more pressing and freer.
Mingyue, with her red lips pressed, held the pipa with one hand and played with the strings with the other, sometimes a light pluck, a slow stroke, a strum, or a pick. She had gained some insight from the battle between the philosophers and Lu Fan. In the Spirit Qi storm, she also seemed to have activated the Spirit Qi in her.
And the sound of the pipa grew even more encouraging. It seemed to have Qi and blood mobilized.
Lv Mudui didn’t take advantage of the Spirit Qi storm to cultivate like others.
Instead, he took out a piece of paper and a writing brush. He stomped his chest hard to cough up blood.
Using the blood as ink, he wrote a letter.
“Raining. Lake Island, Beiluo.”
Four philosophers from Daoist School, Sword Sect, Jiguan School, and Tianji School challenged White Jade City’s leader Lu Ping’an. They lost.
Lu Ping’an made the peach flowers bloom on one half of the island with his mind, drove dark clouds away, and made the sun reappear with a single hand.
Celebrating the end of the era of Hundred Schools of Philosophy. Exclaiming for the change of eras.
Lv Mudui wiped the blood off the corner of his mouth. He was thrilled and excited.
His shivering hands, which looked like dead wood, tied the secret letter to a Tianji Pigeon.
Coo. Coo.
The Tianji Pigeon flapped its wings. A white feather fell. Shrouded in Spirit Qi, it turned into a white light and instantly vanished in the thick fog.
When Lv Mudui was sending the Tianji Pigeon away…
Leaning against the wheelchair, Lu Fan squinted slowly.
Before his eyes, a system prompt that he had been expecting for a long time finally popped up.
[“Congratulations, Host. You have completed the side quest…”]