I Can Only Cultivate In A Game

The elder's palm swung out again as he spun around but this time, Victor ducked, causing the palm to sweep over his head.

Victor unleashed Wind Gale next, sending a concentrated burst of wind towards toward the elder's chest but was met with the same piercing metal sound.

He slid under the elder's arm to avoid another hit and drove Frost Bloom Palm into the old man's back.

Cold detonated through Qin Yao's robes causing a burst of white to flashed up the elder's meridians.

It wasn't a kill shot; it was a sabotage. Frost Bloom didn't just freeze skin; it bit qi. For a heartbeat, Qin Yao's channels seized.

Victor went to work in that heartbeat.

Two steps, heel-toe-heel, a half-spin: Phantom Moon Slash.

His blade blurred as it's edge sliced through the air in sequences, aimed at tendons and joints... the places Unmoving Body was least perfect.

He saw the elder's eyes narrow to a hair width as his blade painted three shallow lines across Qin Yao's wrist and one deeper one across his ankle.

The elder did not bleed. However, he took a quarter-step back.

Then the frost melted and the mountain moved.

Qin Yao's activated his other technique the moment he could move freely again...

He lifted both hands with his fngers crooked as if weighing something invisible, and slammed the air together.

Seal characters flickered between his palms like sparks. The surrounding got heavier as Victor's knees threatened to bend.

He responded with Dragon Breathing Arts, spitting out a flame not as bright as he would have liked but still clean.

He let a ribbon of flames wrap his blade and then folded a thread of Void through it, twisting the trajectory even as he swung.

The flaming dragon slash, swept forward from one angle but then vanished and reappeared from another angle.

Qin Yao's head turned a fraction too slow as the edge whispered through hair and left a line of black along his jaw.

The elder's eyes sharpened as he exhaled.

'This kid is not ordinary... I am more powerful but it would be best I drag this on no longer...'

Meanwhile Victor was also worried about dragging the battle on as well.

He knew light strikes wouldn't work since not even most heavy ones did.

The unmoving body was a technique meant to render Elder Qin Yao impervious to almost anything below his level, and even partially above it. A defense to anchor a clan.

Victor rolled his shoulders, feeling the ache of overdrawn qi gnawing at his veins.

There was no denying that he had a lot of techniques but every Shadow Blink, Shadow Cresent Strike, every Phantom Moon Slash, every Frost Bloom Seal—it was a drain.

Qin Yao had two techniques, maybe three, but each one was grand and tyrannical.

They clashed again.

Victor lunged forward with his sword layered with Dragon Breathing over the shadow arc...

Flame and darkness intertwined into a spiky crescent as he swung forward with intensity.

Qin Yao didn't dodge. He simply braced as his Unmoving Body technique flared like a mountain's outline.

The blade collided and detonated a storm of energy. Stone tiles exploded, dust billowed. Victor slid back three meters with his boots digging furrows.

As for Qin Yao? He only took a single step back.

Just one.

Victor gritted his teeth and forced his lungs to steady. He could feel the rumbling murmurs of disciples and elders ringing around the surroundings.

Satisfied that their Elder seemed to finally be handling things.

He had to end this quickly. He didn't have the reserves to keep throwing everything against an unyielding wall.

While his thoughts churned in that direction, Elder Qin Yao felt he couldn't allow this to go on any further because even a peak Nascent Soul Realm attack shouldn't have been able to move him by even an inch.

His aura sharpened as he barked out an order.

"What are you bunch of useless doing just standing around? Seal him!" He yelled to the elders in the surroundings.

In that same moment, Victor blurred and vanished as he activated Shadow Blink once more and attacked the elder's rear.

He used the Phantom Moon Slash to cut at knees.

Qin Yao spun around with a look of disdain and struck Victor's chest.

Victor was hurled sideways like a ragdoll. He twisted midair, slammed his palm against a pillar, and kicked back off it to land in a crouch.

The elders on the side crept closer and swiftly formed a circle.

Victor's senses lit up as he spotted their hands flickering through seals while the ground glowed as they took positions.

A binding ritual...

A combined sealing technique that would fuse their qi and lock his meridians long enough for Qin Yao to finish the job.

Victor sprang forward to break the formation, but three elders moved in sync, hurling overlapping energy nets.

Threads of binding qi slapped into him, laden with oppressive weight.

He slashed them away, but more came.

They were like sheets of seal scripts swirling like paper storms.

They were choking off his escape.

Qin Yao planted his foot as he stepped forward slowly causing the air to shudder.

Victor spat blood as the oppressive qi of Qin Yao's higher cultivation realm pressed upon him.

His body couldn't take much more due to the seals being put in place.

He leveled his sword and whispered, "Come on then."

Seals wrapped around his limbs, his torso, even his neck. Ethereal chains appeared, locking on like iron shackles.

His qi flow sputtered and in a moment, he could barely circulate it.

For a heartbeat, he was stuck... frozen in place.

Qin Yao's palm rose.

A massive imprint of energy formed above it, creating a crushing, mountain-sized version of his hand which blazed with golden-brown qi

"It is time you met your end," Qin Yao stated.

Just as his palm was about to descend, the world dimmed...

Literally... Like the sun had gone out.

A figure dropped from the sky blur-fast and without any warning.

He hit the ground with so much force the jade tiles cratered inward and a blast of wind swept across the surroundings.

His peak Soul Transformation Realm aura flared like a black sun over the vicinity.

Every disciple dropped to their knees as if gravity had doubled. Even Qin Yao's eyes widened with a look of disbelief.

He was the most powerful cultivator in the entirety of Lingyun Town so how was it possible that someone at the peak Soul Transformation was in here of all places?

"Get off him," Tarkos stated with a casual tone as killing intent gleamed in the whites of his eyes.

Elder Qin Yao wasn't even given a moment to respond before Tarkos moved...

One punch rammed into his chest causing a loud bang to ring out.

Elder Qin Yao didn't stagger... no... the force of the one punch was so heavy that even with his Unmoving body, he flew acrkss the air.

His body crashed through a pavilion, a wall, and two buildings beyond, painting a half-mile line of destruction.

The elders holding the seal gasped.

Silence fell. It lasted the amount of time it takes for a human heart to beat four times.

Then sound returned like a wave.

Their concentration broke and the seals fizzled.

In the next moment, the chains snapped.

Victor felt qi rush back into his meridians like air into burning lungs. He wrenched his arms free, ripped the last talismans off his body, and fell forward onto one knee, coughing.

The crowd erupted in shouts, screams, prayers. And then another sound joined them—

The thump of feet. Gongs. The gate of the estate had been crowded and now figures were stepping in...

It wasn't the disciples... no... it was the town. Bakers, smiths, traders, boys with slings, women with cudgels.

Men and women who had bent their backs in the iron veins and had not forgotten it. They filled the outer court and spilled into the inner like a flood breaking a rotten dam.

Some wore old armor pieces that didn't match; some wore nothing but anger and rope and the dust of the roads. They didn't look at Victor. They looked at the Qin banners, and their mouths were set.

Bai Xue landed like a falling petal at the edge of the dais with her face half obscured by a net and her hair bound.

She turned her masked face toward Victor for a beat, then toward the elders.

She was still as breathtaking as Victor remembered even though he didn't understand how she was suddenly present at this moment.

"Enough," she with a loud voice.

Chen Wu stood behind her with a splintered spear in his hands.

Apparently, he and a bunch of the other former slaves had done all they could to locate her while she was on her missions outside the town.

They had told her of the current situation and about Fang Chen.

All of this had been carefully orchestrated.

"We used to have integrity... we used to treat everyone with dignity and respect regardless of status and strength but look at us now," she turned to the Bai Elders.

"We merged with filth and became filth ourselves... is this the legacy we wish to pass on to the next generation?"