That seemingly fragile barrier suddenly erupted with a bizarre and astonishing Heavenly Dao rune the moment it blocked the Saint!
The Saint's blow descended, and the barrier intercepted it!
When the two collided, the void shattered, the heavens and earth shook, and the stars seemed as though they were about to plummet in a terrifying fashion!
"Hmm?"
"You, a mere ant of a nineteen-year-old cultivator, can actually block my fatal strike?"
Following that descent, Chen Qiye stood frozen in place. Yet from within the void, the voice of that supreme Saint-level giant who had suddenly appeared erupted with terrifying fluctuations.
The Saint, whose emotions should have remained unchanged for ten thousand years, was now looking at Chen Qiye with an expression akin to shock!
"Holy shit! It blocked it? The system didn't scam me? The Heavenly Dao Fifty-Fifty Card can really block a ten-thousand-year giant? Could it even pull off a heaven-defying fifty-fifty split if a Great Emperor appeared?"
Chen Qiye stood rooted to the spot, silent.
Yet cold sweat had already soaked straight through his back, and his heart was surging with turbulent waves.
In that very instant, Chen Qiye had panicked more than anyone. He had hurled out every single trump card at his disposal, but his opponent was simply too powerful.
Who the hell could have imagined that an unworldly, Saint-level supreme giant would suddenly appear right before him, wielding an Imperial Weapon?
Even his own master, the Sect Master of the Qingxuan Sect, probably never received treatment like this when being hunted down!
"It's you?"
While terrified, Chen Qiye also managed to get a clear look at the Saint in the sky.
This was the Junior Sister's maternal aunt?
Chen Qiye had always been well aware that his Junior Sister possessed a special identity: her biological father was the Sect Master of the Qingxuan Sect, while her mother was a supreme giant of the Yaochi Sacred Land.
Over the years, although the Junior Sister resided in the Qingxuan Sect, the person imparting her cultivation methods had always been someone from the Yaochi Sacred Land operating in the shadows.
Everyone within the entire Qingxuan Sect knew about this.
The Yaochi Sacred Land was a true primordial sacred land, existing on the same tier as the Yuhua Dynasty and the Tianqi Dynasty, towering a terrifying level higher than the Qingxuan Sect. Therefore, nobody dared raise any objections to someone from the Yaochi Sacred Land teaching cultivation techniques to the Junior Sister.
Because Chen Qiye was on relatively good terms with the Junior Sister, he had once accidentally overheard her addressing that hidden figure as "Aunt." Thus, he could be considered somewhat familiar with this giant.
However, Chen Qiye had never witnessed her make a move. He only knew that she wore a veil year-round, possessed a peerless, perfect figure, and resembled a mature fairy from the nine heavens, though he had never exchanged a single word with her.
Chen Qiye never would have imagined that she would one day turn her hand against him, nor did he expect her strength to have reached such a heaven-defying degree!
She had even brought along a breathtaking Imperial Weapon, the kind used exclusively by dynasties and sacred lands to suppress their destiny!
"S-Senior, did you perhaps mistake me for someone else? Your junior has surely never offended you, has he?"
Chen Qiye swallowed hard, wiped away his cold sweat, and asked in a somewhat bewildered tone.
At the same time, without the slightest hesitation, Chen Qiye gripped a second Heavenly Dao Fifty-Fifty Card! This thing was truly heaven-defying!
According to the system, a single card could contend with a Great Emperor for three minutes. Yet facing an existence of this caliber, Chen Qiye felt entirely devoid of safety. Even after gripping two of them, he was still feeling rather panicked!
"Answer my question first: are you truly hiding your strength, and how on earth did you block my fatal strike?"
"Even your master, Xu Qingyun of the Qingxuan Sect, who has cultivated for a thousand years, would suffer severe injuries under this blow of mine. How could you possibly block it?"
Chen Qiye was terrified, but suspended in mid-air, the supreme giant of the Yaochi Sacred Land wore a look of even greater shock in her eyes!
A nineteen-year-old youth!
He had blocked a heaven-defying strike from her ten thousand years of cultivation!
Despite walking the path of cultivation for countless ages, she had utterly failed to perceive how Chen Qiye had made his move just now! And she was, after all, a genuine ten-thousand-year giant!
She knew that Chen Qiye possessed astonishing talent and had even awakened the Heavenly Dao Double Pupils today, but she hadn't paid it much mind.
After all, the Eastern Wasteland was vast, and the proud prodigies of various top-tier factions and dynasties were as numerous as carp crossing a river. Yet the stronger a prodigy was, the more easily they tended to perish while contending for the throne of Dao!
The battles of top prodigies were invariably battles of honor, battles of life and death, and battles of the Great Dao!
Therefore, before leaping over the dragon gate and truly becoming a giant in their own right, prodigies were mere ants in the presence of true, ancient supreme giants!
A single emperor achieves success while ten thousand prodigies become skeletons—this was by no means an empty phrase!
Consequently, she hadn't cared before attacking, nor had she intended to kill Chen Qiye. Originally, she had simply wanted to teach him a lesson.
From her perspective, Chen Qiye pushing open the door to invite Xu Bingyun in just now meant he harbored evil intentions toward Xu Bingyun!
Xu Bingyun was both her own niece and her direct disciple. Given that Chen Qiye already had a fiancée, he had still dared to pull such a stunt. As both her aunt and her master, it was entirely reasonable for her to fly into a rage and make a move.
As for why she had chosen to use the Imperial Weapon, it was because several ancestors who had slumbered for ten thousand years resided in the back mountain of the Qingxuan Sect, and she could not see through their strengths.
When launching her attack, she had no choice but to use the Yaochi Sacred Land's divine artifact, the Imperial Weapon, to seal off all auras.
Yet never in her wildest dreams had she expected that a heaven-defying, terrifying strike—unleashed merely to casually discipline and intimidate Chen Qiye—would actually be blocked by him!
Though she hadn't used her full strength, it was still a Saint-level strike nonetheless!
How could she possibly fail to be utterly shocked when Chen Qiye had blocked such a blow with a casual parry?
In her view, even the former Primordial Great Emperor would have found it impossible to heaven-defyingly block this fatal strike of hers during his youth!
"Chen Qiye, if you ever dare harbor ideas about Xu Bingyun again, no matter how heaven-defying your talent may be, I will definitely take your life next time!"
Amidst her extreme shock, the giant of the Yaochi Sacred Land had originally intended to continue questioning him about something.
At that moment, however, as if sensing something, her expression shifted slightly.
With a wave of her hand, she directly scooped up Xu Bingyun, who had fallen unconscious at some point. At the same time, she withdrew the heaven-defying, eternal Imperial Weapon, and with a flash of her body, vanished from Tongtian Peak.
The night was cool as water, the moonlight clear as jade.
Watching the giant of Yaochi depart, Chen Qiye was left not only terrified, but utterly bewildered!
What was the meaning of this?
She left?
What did she mean just now by saying my motives toward the Junior Sister were impure and that I was harboring designs on her?
Could it be that my pushing the door open to invite the Junior Sister inside earlier had caused that supreme giant of the Yaochi Sacred Land to misunderstand?
Chen Qiye suddenly recalled that although the supreme giant of the Yaochi Sacred Land had launched a terrifying attack earlier, and had been carrying anger, she hadn't contained all that much killing intent. The more he thought about it, the more Chen Qiye felt his deduction might actually be correct.
Holy shit!
Realizing this, Chen Qiye suddenly felt his heart give a violent wrench!
Damn it all, he was even more wronged than Dou E!
When he came out of seclusion three days ago, he had indeed glanced at something large and white... but that was absolute an accident! And just now, he had purely acted out of good intentions! How on earth did he end up becoming a lecher in the eyes of that Yaochi Sacred Land giant?
"Still... is that Heavenly Dao Fifty-Fifty Card really this heaven-defying?"
Amidst his lingering fear, the shocking, heaven-defying collision between himself and the woman from the Yaochi Sacred Land flashed rapidly through Chen Qiye's mind.
"Huh? In the netherworld just now, I felt as though some unusual activity occurred in the direction of Tongtian Peak. Has it stopped now?"
"Perhaps it was just an illusion. Having slumbered for so many years, there are always times when stillness breeds restlessness, giving rise to illusions. However, I should be emerging into the world soon myself. An era of great prosperity that can truly break through limits is perhaps about to arrive. Recent anomalies have also stirred within the Heavenly Abyss Forbidden Zone..."
Just as Chen Qiye's heart was giving a violent wrench, deep within the endless, ten-thousand-year-old ancestral tombs at the back mountain of the Qingxuan Sect, beneath an ancient and mysterious locust tree, a voice drifted out faintly.
As the voice echoed, several pitch-black, wordless stone tablets within the ancient graveyard of the Qingxuan Sect's back mountain stirred in response.
At the very same moment, on Xiaozhu Peak of the Qingxuan Sect.
The giant from the Yaochi Sacred Land, her white robes surpassing the snow and her face half-concealed by a veil, gently laid Xu Bingyun down upon a bamboo bed.
"Chen Qiye... is he truly not just an ordinary prodigy?"
"Did he block that strike of mine because he possesses some heaven-defying item, or because he has truly grown strong enough to withstand my fatal blow?"
The white robes of the Yaochi Sacred Land giant fluttered slightly. Within her eyes, which resembled deep autumn pools, a trace of lingering shock still remained.