Without hesitation, the giant's body didn't stop for a moment. Without saying a word, he lifted the giant sword in his hand, and the sword body immediately emitted a dazzling blue sword light, slashing straight ahead.
Unexpectedly, the two fireballs that seemed to be heading straight forward suddenly veered to the sides, trying to bypass the sharpness of the giant sword along two arcs and directly hit the horse-faced giant.
Seeing this, the giant's eyes turned cold. The giant sword in his hand trembled cleverly and swiftly, slashing out to both sides almost simultaneously.
Instantly, two blue sword lights curled out almost at the same time, meeting the two fireballs respectively.
"Bang!" "Bang!" Two explosions sounded!
The two fireballs exploded and vanished upon slightly touching the sword lights, while the two slightly dim sword lights still flew out for a few feet before dissipating.
At the same time, the horse-faced giant had rushed to Tang Jian's presence, his face turn into a fierce expression as he suddenly swung the sword down.
Seeing this situation, Tang Jian didn't use the long sword in his hand to counterattack. Instead, his body stumbled and fell to the ground, rolling along with the momentum, narrowly dodging the sword slash from the front. One hand, however, inconspicuously hid behind his back, with his fingers tightly clenched.
The horse-faced giant's body flashed, swiftly approaching like a ghost. The giant sword in his hand moved again, slashing straight down towards the young man.
Unexpectedly, Tang Jian's right hand, hidden behind his back, suddenly swung out. A handful of yellow sand wrapped in a layer of faint flame light turned into an arrow-like projectile, shooting obliquely upwards.
At such a close distance, the horse-faced giant couldn't stop in time. In a hurry, he swung the sleeve of his other hand to block most of the yellow sand, but quite a bit still sprinkled on his face.
Sizzling sounds erupted!
Each grain of this yellow sand was like a red-hot iron particle, instantly burning the giant's horse-like face, causing it to become bloody, and a scream of pain escaped his mouth.
At this moment, Tang Jian flipped up like a carp leaping, and the long sword in his hand trembled suddenly, slashing out like lightning. A blood-colored sword shadow, like a snake emerging from its hole, went straight for the giant's vital heart area.
When the tip of the long sword was less than half a foot away from the other's chest, the giant suddenly held the giant sword horizontally in front of him, and the half-foot-wide sword body emitted a surge of blue light.
"Clang!" There was a crisp sound.
In the collision of blue and red light, sparks splashed from Tang Jian's long sword. It didn't hurt the other's skin at all, but instead, it was shaken away by the giant sword.
His attack failed, and without hesitation, he immediately retracted his forward momentum, quickly turning around to retreat.
"I'll tear you apart!"
Ignoring the fiery pain on his face, the horse-faced giant roared and slashed the giant sword diagonally down towards Tang Jian's head, who hadn't escaped far enough.
Facing away from the giant, Tang Jian seemed to have anticipated this. His body suddenly crouched low, his single foot pushed hard, and he almost stuck to the ground, springing out several feet. Then, with a quick turn, he dashed several more feet away before stopping.
At this moment, his chest was heaving, panting continuously, his face somewhat pale, and beads of cold sweat had seeped out on his forehead.
Although he had dodged the giant's counterattacking sword, the red hair tie on his head was sliced off by the sword's edge, making him look disheveled and quite harried.
He was already injured, with little residual magical power in his body. The series of moves he had just executed had exhausted most of his remaining strength, and the last life-saving move had caused significant strain on his leg muscles.
The situation was getting worse.
But he took a deep breath, trying to relax his body while still lifting the long sword in his hand, pointing the tip forward, posing in an offensive stance.
"Tang Jian, you kid have a tough life. Not only did you survive the sandstorm in the Burial of Immortals Desert for several days, but you can also persist until now under my attack. I have to say I admire you. But do you think you can escape from me in your current condition? It's better to surrender obediently and suffer less," said the horse-faced giant, who didn't rush forward to attack but instead took out a talisman, slapped it on his forehead, and stopped the wound on his face with a flash of green light before suddenly calming down and speaking.
"Hey, have you gone mad from the heat? Why are you talking nonsense?" Tang Jian, upon hearing this, looked up at the scorching sun in the sky and asked back with a cold smile.
"You're looking for death!"
Upon hearing this, the giant's forehead tendons twitched. Without saying more, he leaped forward, and before his body landed, the giant sword in his hand suddenly slashed down from top to bottom through the empty space, immediately unleashing a blue sword light several feet long, covering Tang Jian's body underneath.
Tang Jian gritted his teeth and poured the magical power in his body frantically into the long sword in his hand. Then, his sword-holding arm suddenly swung, and the long sword immediately glowed blood-red, rushing forward like a blood-red rainbow.
"Bang!" The blue and red lights suddenly exploded!
The long sword in his hand directly snapped into two pieces.
Facing the impending giant sword, Tang Jian didn't dodge or block. Instead, he lifted his other palm, and a fireball about the size of a bowl appeared, flying towards the giant.
This was the last trace of magical power remaining in his body.
The giant naturally didn't intend to fight Tang Jian, who was making a last-ditch effort, to the point of mutual destruction. He swung the giant sword in his hand to slash towards the fireball.
With a "puchi" sound, the fireball, under the roll of the blue sword Qi, turned into sparks and dissipated.
"Bang!"
As the giant's body landed, he lifted one foot and kicked Tang Jian to the ground, and the half-broken sword flew out of his hand.
The young man lay on his back, with the blazing sun illuminating his face. His chest was heaving violently, panting heavily, sweat dripping into his eyes, and his vision becoming somewhat blurry.
A black shadow flashed, and the giant stood over him, his fierce horse-like face replacing the scorching sun.
The young man stared blankly at the other, with no expression on his face.
Seeing this, the horse-faced giant didn't get angry but instead laughed, "Want to die? It's not so easy. I'll cut your tendons and make you suffer, unable to live or die!"
Saying this, he hoisted the giant sword onto his back shoulder, drew a sharp boning knife from his waist with his left hand, and his eyes revealed a fierce glare. The dazzling sunlight reflected on the tip of the knife, casting a chilling glint that made people's hearts palpitate.
Tang Jian tried to struggle, but the giant lifted his foot and directly stepped on his right arm with such force that he felt a heart-wrenching pain.
In the next moment, the giant raised his knife and brought it down, aiming at the young man's right wrist.
Tang Jian let out a somewhat hoarse roar. Unknown where the strength came from, he suddenly twisted his body, and his waist bent like a snake in an unbelievable arc. His left hand's five fingers stretched out like lightning and grabbed the descending boning knife.
Blood overflowed from between his fingers, trickling down along the knife and his arm, instantly dyeing most of the young man's chest red.
The horse-faced giant sneered, and the force in his hand increased again as he was about to thrust the boning knife forward.
However, at this moment, the young man seemed unaware of the pain. His left hand's five fingers were like an iron hoop, firmly restraining the sharp knife, preventing it from stabbing down or being withdrawn.
Seeing this, the giant's anger in his eyes intensified, but suddenly he was startled.
"Boom!"
A clear and unmistakable rumble suddenly entered his ears, resembling the heartbeat of some giant beast while it slumbered, shaking people to the core and making the giant shudder.
"Boom, boom—"
The heartbeat sounded continuously, each time more forcefully, as if the giant beast was about to awaken.
The giant looked down in shock and suspicion at the unconscious young man who was still tightly gripping his sharp knife. His whole body's skin was abnormally flushed, and there was a faint trace of gold mixed in the blood left by his fingertips.
At this moment, Tang Jian, who was already somewhat dazed, only felt an unusual heat in his chest. Then, a hot stream rapidly flowed along his body's meridians towards the palm grasping the knife's edge.
"Puff!"
A wisp of pale golden flame suddenly erupted from the young man's left fingertips, leaping onto the sharp knife like a golden snake. In the next moment, it "boomed" and turned into a two-zhang-high golden fire wave that spread out in all directions.
The horse-faced giant roared, quickly released the sharp knife, and used his feet to forcefully leap backward, but it was too late.
"What is this? ... No!"
The horse-faced giant only had time to let out a惨cry before his entire body was engulfed by the raging flames.
The giant's flesh and blood instantly turned to ashes under this strange flame. Even the giant sword and the boning knife melted into a pool of molten iron in no time.
All of this happened in the blink of an eye. The violent flame eruption only lasted for a few breaths and then silently retracted, transforming back into a wisp of golden flame that flashed and disappeared into the young man's fingertips.
Tang Jian shakily lifted his left hand, looked at it with strange eyes for a moment, and his mouth twitched as if he wanted to smile. However, in the next moment, his neck tilted, and he directly fell unconscious.
Just then, at the junction of the distant horizon, where the sand had calmed down somewhat, several tornadoes suddenly rose, carrying a sky full of raging sand, resembling ferocious yellow dragons as they roared and swept in.
The sand and dust from all directions boiled again. In an instant, the sky was once again obscured by the swirling yellow sand, becoming dark.
The young man's figure was swallowed by it in the blink of an eye.
...
Almost simultaneously, in the former Tang Mansion, now renamed "Li's Mansion," located tens of thousands of miles away within the city of Tanzhou, inside a pavilion situated at the center of a lotus pond,
Li Xiaoxiao, holding a black lacquered bait box in one hand and grasping a handful of bait in the other, was about to cast it towards the densely populated area of koi fish in the pond when her body suddenly stiffened, halting her action.
Her figure slowly turned, gazing towards the vast expanse of the sky outside the pavilion, her expression blank as she murmured to herself,
"The target imprint has been activated..."