Liu Xing kicked off the ground and charged toward the headless former emperor. Gripping his stone blade with both hands, he swung it with all his might in a diagonal slash upon reaching his target. The former emperor deflected the blade and countered with a golden punch aimed at pulverizing Liu Xing.

As the punch closed in, he poured more qi into his Lightning Cloak Technique and dodge aside. The golden fist made the air explode, sending a ball of pure wind that struck one of the golden gates, toppling it. Liu Xing channeled qi from the Ethereal Pearl in his stomach to his gun, creating Exploding Fist bullets, and fired repeatedly. Six powerful explosions erupted around the former emperor, kicking up a cloud of dust and forcing him to step back. Seizing the opportunity, Liu Xing lunged forward and swung his stone blade again. The blow sent the former emperor flying backward, crashing into the advancing army like a baseball hit out of the park.

"He's tough!" Liu Xing shouted, glancing to the side.

Yang Hongyin floated in the air, surrounded by fire, as twelve flaming bird heads materialized above her. Each bird head opened its mouth, forming a ball of fire. One was orange, another blue, another as yellow as the sun, there was a white fireball, a black one, and many more shades of red and orange. When Yang Hongyin swept her hands forward, each fireball attacked. Some shot into the center of the rushing army and detonated in a giant inferno. Others turned into lasers or burst into thousands of tiny fireballs.

Prince Yang Jinyan slapped a talisman into the air, creating a giant firebird that swooped down on multiple humanoid abominations—some with writhing hair and long nail-blades, others that looked like disfigured, twelve-legged dogs.

Yang Suyin zoomed through the battlefield, clearly targeting the weaker abominations, while the rest of the clan used their treasures and techniques to attack.

Seeing that the former emperor had been thrown quite far away, he decided to maximize his time and targeted the enemies nearby. He moved like lightning. His gun fired repeatedly, each shot causing an abomination to explode. His stone blade sliced through the abominations like a sickle through grass.

As Liu Xing cut down an abomination with a head as big as a cow, he saw the former emperor at the edge of his vision, shining with a golden aura, crouching, and ready to jump. "Prince, give me some information about your father!"

Prince Yang Jinyan, who was controlling a firebird while spewing hundreds of fireballs at Lock Opening abominations, paused his attack and replied, "My father was a close combatant. He mastered three simple yet versatile techniques. First is Myriad Fire. It's fire compressed and controlled so perfectly that it almost looks like light. It makes him so durable he wouldn't die even if a mountain crushed him. Sun Fist is a fighting style incorporating explosive fire with his punches. He has hundreds of variants of this technique, and lastly—" A loud boom echoed as the headless former emperor shot toward them. "Careful! He creates space to set up an attack!"

As Prince Yang Jinyan hastily finished shouting, the former emperor was already in front of him. His right fist was coated in a thin orange fire. Seeing this, Liu Xing let his instincts take over and summoned his shield directly in the fist's path. The punch slammed into the shield the instant it materialized, sending it flying toward Liu Xing like a cannonball. Before the shield could hit his face, he dismissed it, only to see the former emperor's fist coming right for him.

Liu Xing instantly sent a surge of qi into the gauntlets on his left hand, lowered his stance, materialized a ball of lightning, and struck it with his palm. A torrent of lightning erupted from the ball, engulfing the emperor in a current so dense it looked like he had been swallowed by a horizontal waterfall. The lightning pillar swept into the army behind him, decimating abominations as collateral damage. Yet, the emperor's silhouette pushed through the torrent, his fist—no longer shining—emerging from the lightning, shattering the attack, and hitting Liu Xing straight in the face.

Liu Xing's mind rattled, and his body lifted into the air. The punch wasn't overwhelmingly strong; his nose didn't even break. But the fact remained that it had landed.

He used the momentum to rotate himself and send two crescent qi attacks toward the former emperor. When they struck, the emperor crossed his arms and blocked them, but their energy pushed him back, dragging both of his feet on the ground. This gave Liu Xing time to slash around, sending more crescent qi into the army while rapidly firing Exploding Fist bullets and shrinking the enemy's numbers.

A glance at the battlefield told Liu Xing they could actually win. More than half of Lihuo's army was now slashed, burned, charred, or reduced to pools of blood. Not all of them were Core Splitting abominations; some were merely at the Lock Opening realm. The only problems were the former emperor, Lihuo himself, who barked orders but did nothing, and the Sun Refining abomination that stood beside him. Still, Liu Xing suspected the emperor was weaker than in his prime. Lihuo could be defeated, and even the disturbing, four-headed abomination seemed beatable.

And so, the battle raged on. From above, the fight appeared to be happening inside a large crater. Liu Xing made sure his gun fired non-stop at the surrounding abominations, rapidly reducing their numbers, while he battled the former emperor with his stone blade.

Though he hadn't scratched him yet, the fight was even, and several of his attacks had thrown the former emperor far enough to give him time to attack the army. Yang Hongyin's twelve firebird heads were also decimating the horde, turning the ground molten, while the group led by Yang Jinyan fought fiercely, using their treasures to fight above their weight class.

Fewer than a hundred enemies remained, but each one was quite strong and durable.

"You useless little brother, I'll kill you with my bare hands!" Yang Jinyan shouted while moving around several pillars of earth he had raised with his talisman.

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Lihuo growled like a mad dog, his snail eyes twitching crazily.

"Bastard!" he shouted, then, unexpectedly, swung his arm toward the Sun Refining abomination at his side, easily decapitating one of its heads.

The sight stopped Liu Xing dead in his tracks, his eyes widening.

Was this guy so strong he could kill a Sun Refining abomination, or was that creature as soft as tofu?

Before the question could be answered, Lihuo grabbed the decapitated head by its hair and began eating it as if it were a simple snack. Each bite splattered his lips and cheeks with blood, and the head, which belonged to a man with his tongue lolling out, looked horrified beyond measure. With each bite, qi surged around Lihuo, strengthening him by the second.

As his eyes widened seeing this bizarre view, Liu Xing instantly realized this Sun Refining abomination wasn't specialized in fighting. That was why it hadn't attacked. It was mere food for Lihuo, which was absurd.

"Behind you!" Yang Suyin shouted at him.

Liu Xing whirled around to see the former emperor—wreathed in shining light—swinging his hand at him. He dodged to the side as the air next to him exploded, then tried to slash the former emperor in return. Usually, his slashes landed, even if they didn't scratch his target. The emperor never dodged, probably because he lacked ears, eyes, or a nose to sense his surroundings. But to Liu Xing's surprise, the former emperor leaned to the side, and the stone blade cut only air. A crescent of purple qi shot from his blade and accidentally slashed an abomination that was opening its mouth wide.

The former emperor unleashed another punch with his left hand, which Liu Xing dodged by jumping to the side. The emperor followed, and Liu Xing leaped from shield to shield to evade his attacks. As he did so, the light around the emperor began to darken from yellow to a slight orange, and his movements became faster, his attacks swifter and more efficient. The former emperor was like an engine that needed to warm up, and now it had reached its peak.

Liu Xing shot a dozen smaller crescent qi attacks while his gun fired rapidly at the former emperor. He moved side to side, dodging attacks that were too wide and deflecting or punching those he couldn't. He now needed his full attention just to fend off the emperor's assault. The emperor's body was big and muscular, yet he moved faster than Liu Xing himself. In hindsight, it was obvious. He was a Sun Refining abomination. Luckily, he probably wasn't a completed one. There were no obvious modifications on his body, so he was likely weaker than he should have been.

Lightning blue and dark-yellow light streaked through the air. Their attacks riddled the former underground level of the golden castle with more holes. The earth churned, hundreds of gashes dotted the walls, and the ground trembled with every second.

For now, Liu Xing didn't intend to win the fight. He was occupying the former emperor's attention while sneakily attacking the abominations with his gun whenever he successfully threw his main opponent away. He was amassing a great deal of qi inside his Ethereal Pearl; some of it was used by his gun, while the rest he sent to his consciousness. The qi flow was large and continuous. Although he still had a long way to go to break through, his core grew larger by the second.

Right now, about two minutes into the battle, Yang Jinyan and his group, accompanied by Yang Hongyin, had successfully decimated all the abominations except Lihuo, the Sun Refining abomination whose only role was to be food, and the jellyfish Lihuo used as a platform. It was only a matter of time before Prince Yang Jinyan ripped Lihuo's throat out.

"We can do it. We can win," Liu Xing muttered.

Not splitting up had been the right choice. If he had moved away from the group, Yang Hongyin would have had to deal with the former emperor, and Prince Yang Jinyan's group would have had to fight the entire army by themselves.

As he used his shield to accelerate and thrust his stone blade toward an oncoming punch, he glanced at the sky for less than a second. The giant ball of meat now had scales around it and was bathed in qi that flowed up from the Emperors' Tomb below.

When the tip of his blade collided with the punch, a massive shockwave ruptured the ground around them. Purple and fully red light spread outward like a ripple in a lake. Liu Xing was pushed back. The power of the former emperor's punch was immense, but Liu Xing didn't mind. Instead, he made his gun float above his head, sent it a torrent of qi from the Ethereal Pearl until it brimmed with power, then infused his bullets with Lightning Palm and fired them all. When six lightning bullets struck the former emperor's chest, large, tentacle-sized arcs of lightning danced around him, paralyzing him as if he had been struck by a lightning bolt. He froze for a moment and Liu Xing used this opportunity to charge a massive amount of qi into his stone blade and take a stance.

After getting the stone blade, his gun had taken a backseat, which left Liu Xing a little dissatisfied. His gun was still the best weapon in the world, more valuable than his stone blade—both potentially and emotionally—yet its attack capability was overshadowed by his Thunderstrike Gauntlets and now his sword. He had struggled to balance all his attacks, but now he had finally found a combo with perfect synergy.

The stone blade could unleash a stronger attack the more qi he sent to it, but to do that, he needed time. Coincidentally, one variant of his bullets could paralyze an enemy, enabling him to stand still and charge his attack. It only worked one-on-one, but it was still a great combo.

After a full five seconds of charging, the purple qi around his stone blade glowed so brightly he had to hold it with both hands.

"Eat this!" He shouted as he unleashed his attack.

The crescent purple qi that leaped from his blade was only three meters long and as thin as paper, yet it was undoubtedly the strongest attack he had ever unleashed. It moved so fast it seemed to teleport. One moment it was on his stone blade, less than a blink of an eye later, it was right in front of the former emperor. The emperor tried to catch it with both hands, which were glowing so red they almost looked encased in blood, but he failed. The attack collided with his body, trying to slash him diagonally. Liu Xing had hoped the sheer power of the attack would split him in two, but his hopes were too high. Still, the crescent of purple qi bit into his skin, creating a shallow cut before the force sent the emperor flying like a cannonball into a wall.

Seeing this, Liu Xing nodded slightly. While the attack hadn't killed him, the fact that he had successfully wounded him meant he had a chance to win—an absurd thought, considering he was a Core Splitting cultivator with only one core. What he needed to do now was repeat the same attack dozens of times, until the emperor was truly split in two.

But before he could execute his plan, a loud shout reverberated through the air. He snapped his head toward Prince Yang Jinyan, and his blood ran cold.

A decapitated head—its hair a writhing mass of black snakes, its eyes burning with a golden aura—was now biting into Prince Yang Jinyan's neck. Its white teeth sank deep into his throat, drenched in blood.

"F-father," Prince Yang Jinyan muttered, his eyes wide with horror.

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