Chapter 169 Just a Little Bit Short

A brilliant light flashed in Liu Dan’s eyes, and his interest grew even stronger. Sensing Zhou Yi, who blazed like the scorching sun in his mind's perception, a trace of hidden excitement stirred within his heart.

"Such a display barely warrants the grand formation we’ve set up, but to be completely honest, it still falls just a bit short!" Liu Dan wore a stern expression, though his inner feelings did not show on his face in the slightest. Watching Zhou Yi soar into the air, charging straight toward him with saber in hand, Liu Dan suddenly brought his hands together, and a pair of massive palms materialized out of the surrounding heaven and earth, slamming down toward Zhou Yi!

Zhou Yi gripped his saber, leaping upward to meet Liu Dan head-on. When he had struck the Daoist with his third saber blow—a strike that should have cleaved the man in two, yet ultimately failed because the formation diffused its power—he hadn't understood why at the time. But later, when he was being suppressed by Liu Dan, the realization suddenly dawned on him!

The formation had already been completed. Everyone present, everything visible before their eyes, was no longer a separate individual; under the influence of the formation, they had merged into a single entity. Unless the formation was broken, it was impossible to harm a single one of them!

And without a doubt, the core of this formation was Liu Dan. Since he could find no weakness for a fatal strike, he would attack the very strongest point of the formation!

Generally speaking, the strongest place is also the weakest place!

As long as Liu Dan could be knocked down, everything else would collapse of its own accord!

The nineteenth landscape scroll of heaven and earth had given him matchless confidence. Feeling the towering momentum contained within the blade and that supreme sense of power, it felt as though he could shatter the very heavens if he wished!

Whether he could shatter the heavens remained to be seen, but for now, Zhou Yi wanted to shatter Liu Dan first!

Boom!

The twin palms converged, trapping Zhou Yi in the middle like a sandwich biscuit. Disliking this sensation, Zhou Yi paused in mid-air for a fraction of a second, traced a semicircle before him with his saber, and then surged his dharma power, propelling the ring formed by the blade's edge slicing through space outward into the surroundings!

At this moment, that circle truly looked like a physical ring, growing from small to large, and instantly intersecting with the phantom twin palms descending from Liu Dan!

Boom!
Swish!

The circle had been formed by the blade slicing through space and possessed the sharp, piercing aura of the edge. Upon intersecting with the palms, it cut through them as effortlessly as a knife slicing through tofu without a shred of resistance, instantly cleaving the twin palms apart, splitting each in two so that they became four half-palms.

With the palm prints shattered and their inner energy disrupted, the four half-palms lingered in the air for a brief moment before quietly dissipating into nothingness.

"Not bad!" Far from being annoyed by the destruction of his palm prints, Liu Dan instead looked somewhat excited. His clasped hands abruptly pulled apart, stretching them as though pulling noodles.

Simultaneously, following Liu Dan's pulling motion, a sphere of lightning materialized in front of Zhou Yi, growing rapidly from small to large. Crackling with violent electric arcs, it blocked Zhou Yi's path.

With a cold gaze and swift reflexes, Zhou Yi swept his saber across his front with his right hand, raised it high above his head, and pushed off fiercely with his feet, stepping into the void. As the dharma power within his body circulated, a surge of raw force was born naturally. His body bounced upward like a leaping ball, instantly soaring high into the sky and looking down with a condescending gaze at the rapidly expanding ball of lightning beneath him!

Swish!

Without a moment's hesitation, he gripped his saber, mobilized his dharma power, and made his body as heavy as a mountain as he plummeted downward. Boundless saber qi surged along the blade, forming a fifty-meter-long phantom saber that perfectly enveloped the entire thunder sphere, slashing straight down through its center!

Crack!

The lightning sphere was cleaved into two halves, parting to either side like a split egg.

Crack-crackle!
Crack-crackle!
Crack-crackle!

However, Liu Dan's attack was not so easily finished. After the lightning sphere was severed, the two halves tilting to the sides suddenly sparked with violent electrical arcs. These arcs lashed out to shred the remaining saber qi trapped within them, and then, as if receiving some command, they surged turbulently toward Zhou Yi, who was still descending!

"Hmm?" Zhou Yi possessed exceptionally sharp senses, a benefit of his attribute points that had empowered his spirit and granted him an extremely profound perception of the external environment. The moment the lightning sphere began to change, he had sensed it roughly. Looking up, he caught sight of the transformation in the two halves and let out a soft exclamation of surprise.

He hadn't expected such a twist!

Yet it was merely a moment of surprise. While the change in the lightning sphere was abrupt, it still posed no threat to him in his current state!

It was nothing more than a matter of a few extra saber strikes at most!

Swish! Swish! Swish!

With three consecutive saber strokes from bottom to top, Zhou Yi swept his blade toward the cascading torrent of lightning plasma that fell like the Milky Way cascading from the heavens. Amidst the crisscrossing saber qi, he swiftly pulverized it until not even dust remained!

Afterward, Zhou Yi looked toward Liu Dan, his eyes filled with piercing coldness: "You've been making all the moves so far; by any logic, it's my turn now!"

Twirling his body through a three-hundred-sixty-degree spin in mid-air to leverage the momentum, he grasped the saber with both hands and, completing the circle, lashed out with a single slash directly at Liu Dan!

Screech!

Only the sound of paper tearing echoed through the air, and nothing else accompanied it.

Neither visible saber qi nor any phantom blade existed!

Everything seemed as if nothing had happened at all, as though Zhou Yi's previous movements had merely been an empty flourish!

However, Liu Dan did not think so. His formidable strength allowed him to easily perceive the flash of the blade that appeared in the wake of Zhou Yi's motion; it was merely that the speed was so extreme it surpassed the limits of what the human eye could capture!

He leveled his right hand, palm open with fingers pressed together into a claw. A surge of internal dharma power welled up, churning within his palm until a three-petaled purple flower materialized in the center of his hand.

Snap!

Concurrently, in the void before Liu Dan, a giant version of the three-petaled purple flower appeared out of thin air. At the center of the blossom, a streak of white saber light darted back and forth like a fish.

Smiling faintly, Liu Dan glanced at Zhou Yi, closed his fingers, and gave them a gentle squeeze.

Crack!

The flower in his palm dissolved, and the giant flower in the void vanished along with it. Vanishing right alongside them was the streak of saber light released by Zhou Yi.

His own attack had been easily blocked by Liu Dan. It had not only failed to injure Liu Dan, but it hadn't even served the purpose of a probe.

Faced with such a situation, Zhou Yi felt a heavy weight in his heart. He hadn't expected that his opponent's strength would actually...

Zhou Yi wanted to say that Liu Dan's strength had exceeded his expectations, but then he immediately reflected that since he had never guessed Liu Dan's true strength from the very beginning, how could he make such a claim?

After a brief moment of thought, he still could not find the right words to describe his current sensation!

"This is no time to be dwelling on such things!" Shaking his head to fling away the chaotic thoughts, his gaze regained its calm. Without pausing his movements, he clasped his right hand with his left, gripped the saber with both hands, drove his heavy-mountain technique to the absolute limit, and flooded his entire body with dharma power.

While Zhou Yi treated him with grave solemnity, Liu Dan didn't care in the least, treating the whole affair as nothing more than a game. With a playful demeanor, his fingers rippled through the air before him like water waves, causing his dharma power to flow through them like swimming fish.

Corresponding to this, the void in front of him truly seemed to transform into an ocean; space itself appeared to spring to life, undulating like water waves in rhythm with the movement of his fingers!