The fleeing Siren and Ducat Hallsam both spat out a mouthful of blood simultaneously, a searing pain lancing through their minds as if someone were savagely hacking away inside their skulls with a chainsaw. They were so agonizingly afflicted they nearly blacked out. (For the complete text novel, visit Shiliu Literature Network) The Silver Winged Angel and the Destroyer had expended their final reserves; both their spiritual seas were nearly desiccated. Had they not possessed exceptionally resolute willpower, they would have collapsed long ago.

The instant Ducat Hallsam started bleeding, Gu Xichen was already diving toward his head. The Snow Soul Divine Claw manifested, ten streaks of claw energy descending with soul-piercing shrieks. These ten visible white arcs of vital energy formed a massive net that swept down. The ambient temperature plummeted; the abundant moisture in the dense woods instantly transformed into flakes of snow. These light flakes were violently whipped into rapid motion by the ferocious claw strikes, and somehow, these minuscule specks of snow generated a heart-rending sonic boom as they scythed through the surroundings.

The nearby Roman warriors, keeping their energy shields deactivated to conceal their presence, were suddenly pelted by countless snowflakes firing like bullets from a chamber. Nearly a hundred Roman warriors standing beside Ducat Hallsam cried out in agony as the snowflakes pierced their faces. They instinctively reached up to touch the wounds carved into their features, but before they could even lift their heads, the Snow Soul Divine Aura clinging to the snowflakes froze their heads into icy lumps. Nearly a hundred elite warriors stood stiffly on the spot, their vital essence vanishing in an instant.

Gu Xichen's ten fingers were just moments from puncturing Ducat Hallsam's crown when a small, pale green figure suddenly leaped up from beside Ducat. A crisp, melodious shout pierced the air, and two rapier-like blades, condensed from strange, dark green smoke, stabbed directly toward Gu Xichen's brow and chest. The two rapiers carried a bizarre soul fluctuation; in that instant, Gu Xichen felt that if these blades struck him, his very soul might be instantly annihilated.

His left claw continued its descent toward Ducat Hallsam, while his right claw shifted its trajectory to slash at the attacking green figure.

However, the speed of this green figure's approach was terrifyingly fast, and Gu Xichen had somehow failed to detect its hiding place before the assault. The figure seemed to be an apparition clinging to Ducat Hallsam, having literally sprung forth from Ducat’s shadow. Gu Xichen could never have dreamed that such an exquisite art of concealment and vanishing could exist. As his right claw, trailing bone-chilling cold, began to pivot, the green figure abruptly accelerated in mid-air, the two rapiers threatening to brush against Gu Xichen's body.

Claw palms contracted and expanded in sequence. The Snow Soul Divine Aura condensed in Gu Xichen’s palm shot out from his fingertips. Five brilliant, white-silver streaks of light flared; the temperature dropped sharply, causing the grass on the ground to instantly freeze into shards of ice. Gu Xichen’s focus, about seventy percent of it, was drawn by the pale green silhouette. He unleashed five claw strikes, then transitioned his claws into fists, retracting his five fingers to unleash a concussive blow toward the figure across the distance.

The Snow Soul Divine Claw morphed into the Snow Soul Divine Fist. Behind the five dispersed claw strikes followed a single, cohesive torrent of Snow Soul Divine Aura solidified into a fist blast—its power more than ten times greater than the scattered claw strikes.

The two dark-green rapiers disintegrated, and a cloud of dark green mist enveloped the pale green figure. Gu Xichen’s claw strikes and fist blast whistled through the smoke, but they struck nothing solid. Gu Xichen’s eyes widened in astonishment. A sharp light flashed across his pupils as he concentrated all his vision, finally discerning faint threads of pale green mist woven through the surrounding flora, subtly interacting with the mass of dark green smoke. The dark green smoke was immediately absorbed entirely by these ambient green tendrils. In the blink of an eye, the cloud of smoke reappeared tens of meters away amidst a thicket of bushes, and the pale green figure materialized alongside it.

"Heh, an Yimu Escape Technique? Hmph, poor mastery, utterly amateurish!" Xin Jia's muffled roar echoed from not far away, accompanied by three heavy twangs that resonated deep in the chest, sounding like the string of a massive bow being drawn. Three colossal arrows tore through the void with screeching sonic booms, hurtling toward the small, pale green figure.

Ducat Hallsam suddenly bellowed, "Lilly, evade!" Ducat violently lifted his head and channeled all his remaining strength into a punch aimed at the downward-striking claw attack from Gu Xichen.

Gu Xichen’s attention had been completely fixated on the bizarre pale green figure. Ducat Hallsam, having been ambushed, was surely doomed. Gu Xichen never imagined that the energy-depleted Ducat still possessed the power for a counterattack. Layers upon layers of flowing, liquid silver material continuously poured out from Ducat’s body, assembling themselves into an exquisitely detailed, formidable suit of heavy armor around him. The claw strikes, amplified by the Ruyi Gloves, tore through Ducat's armor layer by layer, but as soon as one layer shattered, a new layer instantly regenerated.

In just one ten-thousandth of a second, the claw strikes had shredded thirty-six layers of armor, finally shattering against the nascent thirty-seventh layer. Four small, cone-shaped metal spikes emerged from Ducat's knuckles, and he drove his heavy punch straight into Gu Xichen’s lower abdomen.

With a tremendous boom, Gu Xichen’s body, which had been nearly suspended in the air, was driven straight upward by Ducat’s punch for over five hundred meters. Gu Xichen clearly felt that this punch contained not a shred of internal energy—it was purely brute physical force! This Ducat Hallsam possessed an almost unbelievable physical might. Gu Xichen felt as if he had been broadsided by a locomotive. He had no doubt that if it were only his own body, he would have been punched clean through.

Fortunately, Gu Xichen was clad in the Daoist robe and mantle left by Daoist Wo Chen. The moment Ducat’s punch landed on the robe, a faint light, barely visible to the naked eye, subtly spread from within the garment. Ninety-nine percent of Ducat’s force was absorbed by the robe. The physical impact on Gu Xichen’s body was negligible; he was merely terrified by Ducat’s raw strength.

In less time than it takes to narrate, as Gu Xichen was being flung away by Ducat, the pale green figure was tracing a strange hand seal. With a sharp whistle, three figures resembling inky-black, malevolent lightning bolts shot out from the faint green mist swirling around them. Three bizarre black hawks, each no bigger than a palm, lunged toward Gu Xichen’s face at speeds several times that of sound. Their six razor-sharp talons aimed directly for his face, while their three pale-gold beaks thrust toward Gu Xichen’s brow and temples.

Caught off guard, Gu Xichen hastily managed to raise both hands to shield himself from the three black hawks. With three sharp pats, the three hawks were smashed into bursts of pulp and spray by the Ruyi Gloves. The immense kinetic energy of the hawks, launched upwards by Ducat’s blow, propelled the already soaring Gu Xichen another two hundred meters skyward. In the blink of an eye, Gu Xichen was already soaring above a thousand meters.

The Roman warriors simultaneously raised their halberds. As the 'hissing' sound of miniature engines charging within the weapons intensified, thumb-thick arcs of electricity began to wrap around the front ends of the halberds. But preceding the charging of their weapons, the energy armor of the Roman warriors flared, a layer of blue light firmly enveloping their bodies.

Every Roman warrior sensed the terrifying threat of Gu Xichen. Nearly a hundred of their comrades lay dead on the ground, dispatched with no resistance, annihilated almost effortlessly by Gu Xichen. The assembled Roman warriors simultaneously decided to strike and kill Gu Xichen while he was exposed at high altitude. No matter how tough his skull or arms, facing the concentrated barrage of over a thousand high-energy particle streams, he would surely be reduced to ash.

With a crisp clang, an iron chain as thick as a bowl suddenly shot up from the nearby woods, rearing its head like a massive black python. In an instant, the chain reached Gu Xichen’s feet. Gu Xichen roared toward the heavens, using the chain as a springboard with a light touch of his toes. His body shot downward like a gale, scrambling up the chain back toward the ground. Over a thousand high-energy particle streams whistled past him, but not a single one managed to graze his form. The dense streams converged high in the air into a colossal beam of light, a hundred meters thick, shooting out past the atmosphere of Heaven Star, resembling the mythical arrow shot by Hou Yi against the sun.

The small, pale green figure turned around; Xin Jia’s three arrows were already upon her. With a crisp bang, the figure dissolved into wisps of mist, melding into the surrounding plants and trees, only to reappear instantaneously on the opposite side. The three arrows plunged into the ranks of the Romans, sending dozens of warriors flying backward like bowling pins.

The energy shields vibrated violently as the three immense arrows were pulverized. The three Roman warriors taking the brunt of the impact spat blood simultaneously.

Hundreds of Roman warriors aimed their halberds toward the direction from which the arrows had originated. They had also seen the impossibly long iron chain rising into the sky from that same direction. Hundreds of high-energy particle streams shrieked forth, the blinding light illuminating the dark, dense forest. But the source point was empty—nothing remained there. Large swathes of the forest were leveled into bare earth by the explosive muzzle flashes. Xin Jia had long since vanished.

Gu Xichen was already descending rapidly using the chain, reaching less than a hundred meters above the ground in the blink of an eye. He inhaled deeply; his heart rate instantly accelerated to over six hundred beats per minute. Vast reserves of energy surged from his Dao Core. Innate Vital Qi, mixed with the pure energy from the core, flooded his right arm meridians, ultimately concentrating in the middle finger of his right hand.

Gu Xichen extended his right middle finger straight out, the other four fingers curled into his palm. The middle finger was nearly an inch longer than normal. His once fair finger had transformed into a gorgeous, transparent crystal, with wisps of pure white mist shuttling and compressing between the translucent digits. Gradually, a needle-point of blinding white light coalesced at the fingertip.

The higher-level technique of the Snow Soul Divine Claw, the Snow Soul Divine Finger—Gu Xichen employed it without reservation, using his current peak strength. This technique concentrated the vital energy of five fingers into a single point, an attack of astonishing destructive power.

Had Gu Xichen not completed the Meridian Transformation Chapter of the Hanyuan True Codex, he would never have dared to execute the Snow Soul Divine Finger, which placed immense strain on the meridians. The vital energy, normally distributed across five fingers, was now compressed into one erupting stream. If the meridian within the finger had been insufficiently resilient, the meridian of Gu Xichen’s right middle finger would have already been shattered. Even with the Meridian Transformation Chapter completed, the bone of his right middle finger suffered fine cracks from the surging, chilling Snow Soul Divine Aura, sending waves of piercing pain up to his brain.

Yet, Gu Xichen paid no heed to the agony in his finger bone; all his concentration was fixed upon Ducat Hallsam.

I was terrified early this morning; outside it was thunderstorms, lightning, and a fierce gale... Tsk, tsk, especially those two massive thunderclaps—they were immense! One strike made the entire room flash brilliant red light... Uh, comrades, please smash those recommendation votes! Don't forget!

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