Longevity by Grinding Skills

Chapter 551: Chapter 551: Extinguishing a Person and Their Fortune

’This person’s destiny is indeed profound. Given enough time, he might have had a chance to rise.’

Especially after what had just transpired.

Xu Yunfan would never allow him to grow strong enough to become a threat.

Above Qi Hanfeng’s head, his once-profound, cyan-gray destiny was now a swirling vortex, spinning wildly as it collapsed inward.

The very font of his fate, once brimming with infinite possibilities and vigorous vitality, was being violently disrupted, extracted, and plundered.

Though Xu Yunfan had only given the Celestial-Eroding Netherworld Talisman a cursory study, he found it came to him with ease. He had previously mastered two arts for evading calamities and concealing one’s karmic ties: the Cyan Dragon Thunder Pearl Locking Tribulation and Calming Fortune Technique and the Turtle Breath Concealing God Technique from the True Martial Demon Suppressing Scripture. As a result, he could already perform the new Secret Technique’s rudimentary applications.

The vitality and destiny Xu Yunfan stripped away did not dissipate into the heavens and earth. Instead, under the power of the Celestial-Eroding Netherworld Talisman, they were instantly catalyzed, refined, and condensed.

They then solidified into a "Tribulation Seed" that emanated an ominous aura of deathly stillness.

The Tribulation Seed descended without a sound, precisely branding itself onto Qi Hanfeng’s already faint and dimming Life Soul.

The cyan-gray radiance of his destiny vanished completely, replaced by a thick tribulation cloud suffused with Death Qi.

Destiny scattered like smoke; calamity would arrive in an instant.

His finger, which had moved but a moment ago, now hung naturally at his side, as if nothing had ever happened.

Xu Yunfan couldn’t even be bothered to look back. His gait remained steady as he walked straight toward Divine Sky Peak.

For someone who had only scratched the surface of the Celestial-Eroding Netherworld Talisman, the feat had been no small burden and had taxed him mentally, but the results were immediate.

Meanwhile, Qi Hanfeng was still slumped on the ground. The flames of vengeance in his heart had not yet been extinguished, but his body was the first to react, seized by a sudden, bone-piercing chill. An indescribable, suffocating sensation that tasted of rust gripped him.

He shook his head to cast aside the strange sensation and pushed himself up on his arms, trying to get to his feet. He had to at least get out of this humiliating place alive.

’As long as I’m alive...’

Qi Hanfeng subconsciously touched the ring on his finger.

"ROAR!!"

A sudden roar, filled with savagery and hunger, exploded like a thunderclap above the plaza.

Everyone jumped in shock. Even the hidden Divine Senses that were spying on the area fluctuated violently.

At the edge of the plaza was a small, shaded grove where disciples usually meditated, shielded by a weak protective array. Suddenly, the space there seemed to be torn asunder by invisible claws,

and an Exotic Beast covered in dark-cyan scales, shaped like a hyena but as large as a calf, with eyes as red as blood, smashed through the fragile barrier and charged out.

"Huh? Why is there a Shadow-devouring Mane in the Sect?"

a disciple proficient in the Beast Taming Skill exclaimed in surprise.

The Shadow-devouring Mane was no Spiritual Beast tamed by the Sect, but a variant of some Low-Tier Fierce Beast. It was bloodthirsty, incredibly fast, and an enemy that only a disciple at the Great Perfection of Qi Cultivation could hope to match.

It was supposed to be found at the edges of the wilderness trial grounds for Outer Disciples. Yet somehow, it had instantly bypassed the Sect’s complex wards and appeared here, in the plaza of the Scripture Pavilion, a core area of the Sect.

What was even stranger was its trajectory. From the point where it broke through the barrier to where it landed, it followed the shortest, straightest possible path—and at the end of that path was none other than Qi Hanfeng, who had just struggled back to his feet.

It all happened so fast that everyone’s minds went blank.

Qi Hanfeng only felt a foul wind blast his face. Before he could even see what was charging at him, his entire vision was filled by a massive maw, bristling with fangs and dripping with putrid saliva.

SQUELCH!

A sickening sound of tearing flesh and grinding bone echoed through the plaza.

A spray of blood erupted into the air.

Under the Shadow-devouring Mane’s terrifying bite force, his head and half his shoulder were crushed and ripped away in a single motion, as easily as tearing into a ripe fruit.

The headless torso was sent spinning half a circle by the sheer force of the impact before it collapsed heavily to the ground. Scalding blood gushed from the stump of its neck, splashing a glaring patch of scarlet across the black flagstones.

With Qi Hanfeng’s head clamped in its jaws, the Shadow-devouring Mane scanned the plaza with wary, crimson eyes. Then, without a moment’s hesitation, it turned and disappeared into the shadows of the forest at the edge of the plaza in a few powerful leaps.

It left behind only the acrid stench of blood, the twitching headless corpse, and a dead silence that fell over the plaza.

A few of the quicker-witted Outer Disciples cried out and took an instinctive step back.

The Inner Sect Disciples who had been maintaining order from a distance rushed over, but only in time to see the Demon Beast’s retreating form and the grisly scene on the ground. They looked at each other in dismay, unsure of what to do.

The spying Divine Senses paused for a moment, then quietly withdrew, each observer lost in their own thoughts.

Some were indifferent, some were mildly surprised, and some retreated with a cold, disdainful sneer.

In the Primordial Sect, the death of a Qi Cultivation disciple was a common occurrence. But for it to be so sudden, so coincidental, and to happen to a disciple who had just offended a Foundation Establishment Daoist Master...

The plucked string of cause and effect was formless and intangible, but its chilling intent was plain to see.

’For a foolish "talent" like him, who thought himself favored by destiny, to try and play the "the tables will turn" game in the Primordial Sect... He was truly born in the wrong era and came to the wrong place.’

’The moment he shouted those words at Xu Yunfan, his fate had been sealed.’

’If it had been any other Foundation Establishment Daoist Master in the Primordial Sect, their methods would have been far crueler than Xu Yunfan’s.’

...

Xu Yunfan returned to his grotto-abode on Divine Sky Peak. He walked straight into his Quiet Chamber, sat cross-legged, and calmed his mind until it was as still as the water in an ancient well.

To him, the recent incident was nothing more than a minor interlude.

’Whatever fortuitous encounter that boy had, he was most likely some hidden figure’s guinea pig,’ Xu Yunfan mused. ’Now that I’ve dealt with him, someone is bound to come knocking.’

Xu Yunfan, however, was not afraid.

’As long as a True Monarch doesn’t intervene, we’ll only know who’s stronger after we fight.’

His Divine Thought sank into his Qi Sea Dantian. The first thing to appear in his mind’s eye was the phantom of a great purple pill, constantly rotating as it rose and fell.

This was the core of his life-bound Dao Foundation, as well as the Grotto Heaven Embryo forged by the Divine Sky Nine Heavens Profound Vault Undying True Scripture.

Deep within the core of this Great Pill, nine fine yet substantial chains of purple lightning coiled around each other, forming a profound and intricate array. This array firmly locked a jade-green Thunder Bead within it, inside which one could faintly see the image of a dragon swimming.

The Cyan Dragon Thunder Bead Locking Tribulation and Calming Fortune Technique.

This technique was for neither offense nor defense; it was an Escape Technique bestowed by True Monarch Qing Yuan. Ancestral Master Chunyang had once offered a piece of crucial insight about it, but since Xu Yunfan had not cultivated it himself, its origins were unimpeachable.

At its core was the Profound Vault Thunder Bead, which he had nourished and condensed from his own life-bound lightning.

The "Cyan Dragon" Imagery symbolized the unpredictable nature of a dragon’s movements—its ability to appear and vanish at will. This represented the technique’s sharp sensitivity to shifts in calamity and causality, and its power to evade them.

The words "Locking Tribulation" pointed directly to the technique’s core function.

It locked one’s own Destiny and fate, preventing calamities from striking at will.

As for "Calming Fortune," that meant stabilizing one’s fate and destiny. It suppressed any unexpected turbulence, making oneself a pillar of stability, like the legendary Stabilizing Needle.

Plucking Qi Hanfeng’s insignificant Cause and Effect Line had seemed effortless. In truth, he had employed a subtle aspect of this very technique in concert with the Celestial-Eroding Netherworld Talisman. It allowed him to effortlessly absorb the plundered destiny and calamity into the river of his life-bound lightning, without causing the slightest ripple.

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