"Ahhhhhhhhhh—"
Puh!!
With a sickening crunch, Su Xiaobai pulled Li Gong's head from his body, Li Gong screamed like crazy, his eyes red with pain, yet the sheer force tearing flesh and snapping bone, took away last of his life.
Splurt!
Splurt!
Splurt!
Blood erupted like a geyser, staining the earth in a crimson arc.
Thud!
The sight was horrifying, yet awe-inspiring, as Li Gong's lifeless body collapsed beneath him, his blood pooling on the ground.
The crowd recoiled in shock, their voices rising in a chaotic chorus.
"Did he just… rip his head off?"
"This can't be real… this guy is a monster!"
"Li Gong… the second young master of Li family… is dead…! Patriach Li would kill everyone! Run!"
But Su Xiaobai had no time to savor the victory.
The two Meridian Expansion experts, though crippled and burning with flames, roared.
Their eyes blazed with the last vestiges of their life force as they brandished their swords, charging toward Su Xiaobai with a final, desperate fury.
"Die, you fiend!" they screamed, their voices raw with rage and pain.
Su Xiaobai felt the drain of energy as he pushed his body to the limit.
But he refused to let up.
He knew that one final strike would decide everything.
Whoosh!
He summoned the Infernal flames to his feet, and a vortex of scorching fire erupted from where he stood.
The flames spiraled upward like a massive pillar of destruction, engulfing everything in their path.
The temperature spiked, melting the very ground beneath him, turning it into a pool of molten rock.
"Impossible… these flames are not normal? It can burn through my armour!" one of the Meridian Expansion experts gasped, his voice breaking as the flames closed in.
"Ah—"
Their bodies were reduced to ash in moments, the Infernal flames leaving nothing behind but the lingering scent of charred flesh and molten earth.
But that was only the beginning!
Whoosh!
In the next moment, a sinister black smoke began to ooze out, curling upward like a living entity.
The source of this mist was a handful of black beads that had been scattered across the ground.
As they hit the earth, they began to emit thick, swirling smoke that rapidly expanded, engulfing the area in an inky shroud.
The remaining four Qi Condensation Realm cultivators, already trembling with fear after witnessing the brutal end of Li Gong and two meridian expansion realm experts, were now utterly paralyzed as the darkness closed in around them.
"W-What is this?!" one of them stammered, his voice quivering as the black mist obscured his vision, reducing everything to a shadowy blur.
"I can't see anything!" another cried out, panic tightening his chest.
The smoke was so dense it seemed to suffocate the very light.
"Stay together!" their leader shouted, trying to rally the others, but the fear in his voice betrayed his own uncertainty.
'Black smoke? Does this guy belong to dark church?' he thought, desperately searching the darkness for any sign of Su Xiaobai.
The crowd, too, was unsettled, but inbetween the fear and awe, whispers of confusion began to spread.
"How is he able to control the elemental qi with such precision? Isn't he still in the Qi Refinement Realm?"
"Exactly! He's not even in the Qi Condensation Realm yet! How is this possible?"
"Isn't the Qi Condensation Realm supposed to be the stage where a cultivator truly learns to harness the elements? This shouldn't be possible at Qi Refinement!"
To understand their confusion, it's important to know the different stages of cultivation:
The first stage, Qi Awakening, is where a cultivator begins their journey by awakening the dormant qi within their body.
At this stage, the cultivator focuses on sensing and gathering qi from the environment, slowly accumulating it within their dantian (a core energy center within the body).
However, their control over qi is still rudimentary, and they can only perform basic techniques.
Once a cultivator has amassed enough qi, they advance to the Qi Refinement Realm.
At this stage, they refine and purify the qi within their dantian, increasing its potency.
This is the stage where Su Xiaobai currently is, having reached the peak of Qi Refinement.
Cultivators in this realm can enhance their physical abilities and perform more advanced techniques, but their ability to manipulate the elements—like fire, wind, or lightning—is still limited.
It's only upon reaching the Qi Condensation Realm that a cultivator gains the ability to fully condense and control elemental qi, enabling them to harness the power of the elements with precision.
This realm represents a significant leap in power, where the cultivator's qi becomes denser and more potent, allowing them to perform techniques that can influence the world around them.
Given this understanding, it was no wonder the crowd was bewildered.
Su Xiaobai was still at the peak of Qi Refinement, and yet he was displaying powers that should only be possible at the Qi Condensation Realm.
Inside the shroud of black mist, the four Qi Condensation Realm cultivators huddled together, their senses on high alert.
But all they could hear was eerie silence, broken only by the distant crackling of flames from the earlier battle.
Then, a cold, mocking voice echoed through the darkness, as if coming from every direction at once.
"You thought you could escape the fate?" Su Xiaobai's voice reverberated, disorienting the cultivators. "You were wrong. This is where your pitiful lives end."
"Show yourself, coward!" one of the cultivators shouted, his voice cracking with fear.
He swung his sword wildly into the blackness, but it was futile.
The mist swallowed his movements, leaving him flailing at nothing.
Damn it!
he cursed inwardly.
I can't fight what I can't see!
Without warning, the darkness around them began to crackle with energy.
The air itself seemed to tremble as lightning surged through the black mist, illuminating Su Xiaobai's silhouette.
His hands sparked with blue and white arcs of electricity—his Thunderbolt ability, a manifestation of his control over the lightning element through his Skyfather lineage.
"Die!" Su Xiaobai declared, his voice carrying the authority of a storm.
Whizzzzz!
In a flash, Su Xiaobai raised his hand, and a bolt of lightning shot from his palm, arcing through the air with deadly precision.
Snap!
The lightning struck the first cultivator in the chest, piercing through his body like a spear of divine wrath.
"Ah—"
The man's scream was brief as the electricity coursed through him, frying his insides before he collapsed to the ground, lifeless.
"Brother Liu!" another cultivator screamed, but his voice was lost in the chaos.
Su Xiaobai didn't give them time to react.
His eyes glinted as he channeled his Aeolian Command ability, drawing upon his mastery of the wind element.
The air around him began to swirl violently, forming a vortex of cutting winds.
With a simple flick of his wrist, the winds surged forward, slicing through the black mist like invisible blades.
The second cultivator barely had time to raise his weapon before the wind blades struck him.
The force of the attack was powerful, shredding his defenses and leaving deep gashes across his body.
Puchi! Puchi!
Blood sprayed into the air as he was torn apart by the wind's fury, his body falling in pieces to the ground.
The crowd, who could see only glimpses of the battle through the fading mist, watched in horror.
"He's controlling lightning and wind? How is that even possible?"
"That's no ordinary qi! He must have some kind of divine lineage!"
"He's… he's like a lightining god!"
The remaining two cultivators were frozen in terror, their minds unable to process the speed and ferocity of the attack.
The darkness was alive with the crackle of lightning and the howl of the wind, and it was coming for them next.
"Please… spare us!"