C33 Killing Swordsmanship Red Lotus

After defeating the Heavenly Soldier for the second time, Qin Buyi felt the killing intent that had been suppressed within him completely unravel and begin to intensify.

He devoted all his focus to combating the surging killing intent. Despite his best efforts to suppress it, the desire to kill began to fiercely retaliate.

Wave after wave of killing intent battered Qin Buyi's psyche, and just as he was on the brink of losing control...

The relentless onslaught of killing intent ceased to escalate, leaving his mind and the murderous impulses in a deadlock. Qin Buyi couldn't afford even a moment's lapse in concentration.

The slightest slip could lead to dire consequences.

Two hours passed, yet the killing intent showed no signs of abating, and Qin Buyi's eyes were suffused with blood.

His mind raced with thoughts, realizing that standing his ground against the killing intent was not the wisest strategy. Rather than squander time in a futile standoff, it was better to press on.

He glanced at the spot where the Heavenly Soldier's body had lain, only to find it had vanished once more.

Gripping the Killing Saber, Qin Buyi resumed his journey. By the time he reached the end of the corridor, he was braced for another encounter with the Heavenly Soldier.

Unexpectedly, the adversary did not materialize.

He crossed the corridor's end without incident and was met with three paths leading to different palaces.

The left path was in ruins, the right path was blocked a short distance away, leaving only the middle path navigable.

Without hesitation, Qin Buyi chose the middle path and proceeded unscathed.

The absence of danger only heightened his vigilance. The previous two challenges had left him gravely wounded, and he was still grappling with the ever-present threat of his killing intent spiraling out of control.

Qin Buyi was certain that the Awakening Secret Realm wouldn't be so easily conquered.

Upon reaching the end of the path, a grand hall came into view.

The hall's plaque bore the inscription: "Firmament Soaring Hall."

"To think, this is the fabled Firmament Soaring Hall!" Qin Buyi marveled inwardly.

The doors of the Firmament Soaring Hall stood ajar. Peering inside, Qin Buyi saw nothing but emptiness.

He stepped into the deserted grandeur of the hall.

Upon stepping into the Firmament Soaring Hall, Qin Buyi was struck by the sensation of entering an entirely different realm. The once barren hall now unfolded before him, filled with rows of prayer mats laid out for the various deities of the Heavenly Court, their arrangement signifying rank and stature.

At the very end of this orderly array stood Qin Buyi, his gaze traveling upward along the mats to the grand seat at the pinnacle of the hall, intricately adorned with a five-clawed golden dragon. To his astonishment, a woman in red sat upon the throne, her eyes closed, her garments seemingly woven from the very essence of blood and malice.

Her eyes snapped open, locking onto the wary Qin Buyi below. A flicker of murderous intent betrayed her otherwise casual demeanor, as if she were merely conversing with an old friend. "You've arrived," she said.

The woman's familiarity was perplexing to Qin Buyi, who, after a moment's contemplation, ventured cautiously, "Who are you?"

Amused by his guarded manner, the woman dropped her pretense, her tone shifting sharply. "Me? After all this time, you still don't recognize me? That's truly unfortunate."

Before Qin Buyi could respond, she was suddenly before him, her right hand reaching out to gently tap his chest. "Why suppress such exquisite killing intent? Let me help you set it free," she mused, a mix of wonder and curiosity in her voice.

From her palm surged a wave of lethal energy, piercing straight into Qin Buyi's heart. The internal struggle he had been fiercely containing now overwhelmed him, the dam of his restraint bursting forth.

With a thunderous cry, "Ah!" Qin Buyi's roar echoed as the killing intent ravaged his senses. The woman, observing his struggle, nodded in approval and with a delicate flick of her finger, summoned the Killing Saber. It soared gracefully into her grasp, as if called by an old acquaintance.

"Clang!"

The woman drew the Killing Saber, her fingers, delicate as green onions, caressed the blade's edge.

"My name is Honglian, practitioner of Killing Swordsmanship. If you wish for me to serve as your weapon, you must first survive," she said, her voice as cold as ice.

Qin Buyi felt engulfed in a landscape of death, surrounded by a sea of blood. Everything was tinged with crimson.

Through the haze of his consciousness, he heard Honglian's words and instantly recognized her. She was the Killing Saber that had always been by his side.

A surge of killing intent burst forth from Qin Buyi, cloaking him in a garment of blood.

Upon closer examination, the red garb enveloping him was indistinguishable from Honglian's attire, save for a slightly paler shade of red.

With the killing intent erupting, Qin Buyi's skin turned the color of a boiled shrimp, a deep, searing red.

It felt as though a million ants were gnawing at his flesh, sending waves of agony through his brain.

Qin Buyi clenched his jaw and endured, but the waves of killing intent grew stronger, rapidly whittling away at his waning sanity.

Drowsiness overtook his body, and a seductive whisper seemed to echo from within: "Sleep, succumb, abandon this futile struggle."

"I cannot... I must not fall," Qin Buyi declared with unwavering resolve. "I will not give up, never!"

"I... I still possess Divine Consciousness!"

Qin Buyi was reluctant to resort to his Divine Consciousness unless absolutely necessary. The repercussions of it being contaminated by the killing intent were unknown and potentially dire.

Yet, given the circumstances, if he didn't use his Divine Consciousness to quell the killing intent, it was only a matter of time before his own mental fortitude would be overwhelmed.

His Divine Consciousness cascaded like a waterfall, colliding with the killing intent within him.

It was a deadlock, the Divine Consciousness grappling with the killing intent in a relentless tug-of-war.

The pain inside him escalated once more, and Qin Buyi gasped for air, teeth gritted in determination.

With time slipping by, the Divine Consciousness slowly but surely began to overpower the killing intent, cornering it.

And just as Qin Buyi was on the cusp of purging the killing intent from his body entirely...

Honglian approached Qin Buyi once more, channeling an even more ferocious killing intent from her palm into his body.

Qin Buyi's blood-red eyes met Honglian's as she whispered with a voice laced with icy disdain and murderous resolve, "I refuse to be your weapon. The reason is simple—I have no respect for you."

Qin Buyi burst into loud laughter.

"What's so funny? Delighted to know your end is near?" Honglian asked, puzzled by his reaction.

Qin Buyi remained silent. Inside him, the situation had drastically changed; the killing intent had cornered his Divine Consciousness.

"With no other options, I might as well take a risk," Qin Buyi mused.

He dropped his defenses and began to draw in the killing intent with all his strength.

Killing intent is fundamentally a form of willpower, and absorbing such will is one way to enhance Divine Consciousness.

But killing intent is notoriously perilous. Throughout history, those who have attempted to harness it have either perished or lost their sanity.

That's why no one dares to try.

Seeing Qin Buyi's bold move, Honglian sneered, "Eager for death, are you? Trying to take a shortcut to the grave?"

"Silence, you're grating on my nerves!" Qin Buyi snapped back at her.

Honglian's eyes narrowed, her expression as frosty as an iceberg. "Kid, if it weren't for these accursed rules, you'd be dead for that comment alone."

Qin Buyi returned her gaze with scorn. "You never intended to spare me. If you could have killed me, you wouldn't waste time with idle threats."

"Hmph, seeking your own doom!"

Honglian gripped her Killing Saber and swung it at Qin Buyi's head.

But as the blade made contact, a hair-thin bolt of purple lightning cracked through the sky.

"Crack!"

The lightning struck Honglian, sending her crashing to the ground, her aura thrown into disarray.

It took a while before Honglian could rise, her eyes brimming with lethal fury as she glared at the heavens and bellowed.

"Hmph, only a handful of people can wield the Purple Cloud Divine Lightning, and judging by your aura, you're not one of them. Do you have the courage to show yourself?"

The sky remained still for a long while after those words.

With a sneer of contempt, Honglian taunted, "Such a timid creature, too scared to even show your face."

"Rumble!"

A peal of thunder echoed through the sky, and a purple lightning bolt, now as thick as a finger, struck down at Honglian once more.

"Crack!"

Honglian lay on the ground, motionless for an extended period.

Qin Buyi observed the purple lightning, initially as fine as a hair, now magnified many times over to the thickness of a finger.

He couldn't help but feel a sense of schadenfreude, thinking, "The system sure doesn't pull its punches!"

As Qin Buyi pondered whether Honglian had been struck dead, she staggered to her feet.

Wiser this time, she kept her mouth shut and refrained from looking skyward.

Seeing this, Qin Buyi mocked her, "Come on, you came to kill me, make your move. Turns out you're just a bully who cowers before the strong."

"Humph!"

With a cold snort, Honglian turned her head away, refusing to give Qin Buyi another glance.

It wasn't that she was scared of him; she simply didn't want to endure the relentless strikes of the Purple Cloud Divine Lightning without any chance of defeating Qin Buyi.

Meanwhile, the Divine Consciousness within Qin Buyi had absorbed most of the murderous intent, the once purely golden aura now flecked with blood-red.

Once all the murderous intent was absorbed, his Divine Consciousness was a mix of gold and red.

Feelings of madness, bloodlust, coldness, and the urge to kill flooded Qin Buyi's mind.

Previously, it had been a struggle between Qin Buyi and the murderous intent. Now, having fully absorbed it, the battle was with himself.

The murderous intent had seamlessly integrated into Qin Buyi's subconscious, an instinct so ingrained it went unnoticed, as natural as breathing.

It was akin to a person who had never taken a life suddenly believing that killing was justified, transforming overnight from a pacifist to an executioner.

Qin Buyi sat cross-legged on the ground, straining to summon the memories of his past in an effort to combat the killing instinct that had become second nature to him.

A month had passed...

Throughout this month, Qin Buyi had been like a man possessed, lucid one moment and in the next, his eyes would blaze red with a terrifying urge to kill.

"Kill! Destroy everything, eliminate any obstacle in my path!" Qin Buyi, consumed by the urge to kill, growled with bloodshot eyes.

"Stay focused, don't succumb to the slaughter, don't lose yourself," Qin Buyi whispered to himself when clarity prevailed.

Honglian had been observing Qin Buyi oscillate between clarity and chaos for a whole month, yet he hadn't given up or been overtaken by the madness.

A thought, so surreal it surprised even her, began to take root in her mind.

"Could he truly overcome this?"