"The ten deadly sins... all ten deadly sins pinned on me?"
On the Qiu Clan Immortal Mountain, Qiu Xundao's gaze went blank for a moment.
Then, pointing at his own nose, he said, "Me? Laughable, hahaha! If you want to condemn someone, you can always trump up a charge. Who would believe you?!!"
"You know this logic too?" Li Xinghuo frowned.
"I..."
Qiu Xundao's voice choked.
The Li Clan, using this framing tactic against him, made him inwardly curse, but he still said,
"It's useless. The Imperial Dynasty wants to encircle and annihilate your Li Clan. Adoptive Father wants your Li Clan exterminated!"
Hearing this, Li Xinghuo frowned.
For a god-like existence such as the Grand Tutor to harm their Li Clan truly only required a single sentence.
He took a deep breath and said,
"Your information is outdated. Most of my Li Clan's descendants have come to the Northern Border.
Both you and I are commanders under the Adoptive Father, originally meant to be swords for killing.
Yet you insisted on acting unorthodoxly, resorting to these behind-the-scenes schemes."
"Who did you manage to outscheme?"
Qiu Xundao was left speechless.
Li Xinghuo smiled. Thinking of his uncle in the Imperial Capital, his tone softened considerably.
"You couldn't outscheme my uncle. He has been in the Heavenly Palace for hundreds of years.
In the royal court, he witnessed with his own eyes the death of a City Lord who attempted to speak the truth about the Western Border.
From that moment, he knew the Imperial Dynasty would absolutely never allow such secrets to be made public."
"Therefore, to erase the matter of the ten deadly sins, they will let my Li Clan off the hook.
After this battle, they will learn that Crown Prince Fei Heng did not wreak havoc in the Western Border, but rather died by the hands of your Qiu Clan.
Since he was never in the Western Border, everything concerning the Western Border will vanish like smoke in the wind."
"In this way, they will be more than eager for us to destroy your Qiu Clan. They want every last one of you dead, leaving no survivors to testify."
"As for the Northern Border, those friends of yours... they will be even less willing to come."
"My elders are in the Western Border; they cannot bear the consequences of angering my Li Clan.
Your Qiu Clan serves as a warning.
When we arrive in the Northern Border, you factions will actually have to protect our clan.
Adoptive Father will personally issue an order to prevent the matter from escalating, because even he is unwilling to have the dirty water of the Crown Prince's death splashed onto him."
"..."
Looking at the booming explosions across the entire Qiu Clan Immortal Mountain, and the family experts pulled into Void Refining battlefields in the cloudy sky, Qiu Xundao was utterly crestfallen, devoid of even a shred of anger.
He had lost.
He truly understood the Grand Tutor's intention now; the Grand Tutor genuinely wanted him to exterminate the Li Clan.
Just as Li Xinghuo said, he was merely one of the Grand Tutor's swords.
The four words the Grand Tutor had written, "Beast's Heart at Present," had made him go mad, like a beast seeing fresh red flesh—seeing the hope of breaking through to the Dao realm, the hope of leading his family to a higher level.
Unfortunately, he wasn't the 'uncle' Li Xinghuo spoke of; he didn't understand the so-called politics.
"The Crown Prince's corpse... hahaha, a corpse!"
Qiu Xundao laughed heartily at the sky, yet it seemed so desolate.
He had become a sword, but the one who failed wasn't him, it was the Grand Tutor.
The Grand Tutor was clearly the one who made a wrong move on the chessboard, yet he was the one who had to bear the consequences.
And the entire Qiu Clan... the fresh blood of his clansmen spilled on this snowy day was the only thing he needed to carry.
"You originally didn't need to enter this game, yet you insisted on bringing such massive trouble to my Li Clan," Li Xinghuo said coldly.
"Everything Anran said before he died was correct."
After his loud laughter, Qiu Xundao appeared dejected, as if he had vented all his emotions, his eyes lowered.
"I thought Adoptive Father was finally favoring me. I went to ask Adoptive Father, and he still refused to taint himself with karma.
At that time, I had a choice.
But simultaneously, moved by greed upon seeing the profound foundation of your Li Clan, I wanted to break through to Body Integration.
I wanted to lead the Qiu Clan to become the Li Clan."
"And now?" Li Xinghuo tightly gripped the spear in his hand.
Behind him, the ferocious Dharmic Avatar roared at Qiu Xunfa.
The one hundred and eight demonic beast tattoos on his body flickered, and demonic beast seals appeared in the cloudy sky.
In his battle against Qiu Xundao, he had been defeated in a mere 15 minutes.
"Now..."
Qiu Xundao raised his head, his face contorted with ferocity.
Two ice spikes radiating intense coldness suddenly appeared in his hands, freezing the surrounding air. The cold was bone-chilling.
He grinned savagely, "I still have a choice. To kill all of you, take your heads to see Adoptive Father, and let him know that I am the sharpest sword in his hand!"
"Killing you requires only ten breaths!"
But right after he spoke, a resonant voice sounded beside Li Xinghuo, who had already prepared to fight to the death.
A robust man, bare-chested to reveal smooth, muscular lines and wild hair, stood in front of Li Xinghuo, resting a long saber on his shoulder.
"Then what about killing me?"
The man grinned. Under the Spiritual power of Qiu Xundao's techniques, which froze the cloudy sky and summoned a blizzard, a surge of black Qi rippled from his waist, and everything around them began to transform.
With him as the starting point, a square Void Refining space expanded.
Using the simplest rules of vital blood energy, the ground turned bright red.
Before long, the entire Void Refining space merged with Qiu Xundao's Void Refining space.
The blood on the ground froze, and the space took on the appearance of ice crystals.
Snowflakes fell within the Void Refining space, creating a scene of ultimate beauty.
Qiu Xundao had already vanished.
In front of the rugged man who had just appeared, a snowflake expanded, actually transforming into Qiu Xundao's figure along with white mist.
Two ice spikes pierced through the man's ribs.
All the surrounding snowflakes condensed, transforming into ice spikes imbued with the rules of 'Flying Snow', continuously impaling the man!
"Killing you... one breath!"
Qiu Xundao frowned and turned around.
He had no idea who this person—who possessed a space of ordinary rules of Darkness and had suddenly appeared to block in front of Li Xinghuo—was.
After dealing with this trash, he had to go find Li Xinghuo.
He was certain that with his Half-Step Body Integration strength, such inexplicable trash would die, his Dao perishing, merely under his freezing attack.
But suddenly...
A burst of mocking laughter came from behind.
"Brother, don't act so tough. The family gave me so many pills and blood to break through to Void Refining.
If I really died by your hands in one breath, I'd be laughed to death by those seven fools."
Looking over, Qiu Xundao's expression changed.
Blood flowed down the ice spikes. The rugged man, skewered beyond recognition, had his body twisted, and even his head was contorted.
However, beneath the man's impaled head, blood circulated. Elevating his head, it slid off the ice spikes.
Flesh and blood remained connected to his head until it reached his original height.
Then, the blood on the ice spikes condensed at a visible speed, subsequently forming his body.
His robust endowment flaunted itself arrogantly at Qiu Xundao.
"How is this possible?"
Qiu Xundao muttered, finally realizing the terror of this person.
Not only his body, but his Spiritual power had also recovered.
His Spiritual power, which had been frozen by the rules of 'Flying Snow', couldn't trap this person's rules at all.
This person's rules dissipated like smoke, only to suddenly reappear in the world.
Undeath, no...
Even rules of Undeath would be sealed by his rules of 'Flying Snow'.
Such rules could only act recklessly below the Void Refining realm, and they also had weaknesses.
Unless...
"Immortal, Eternal!"
Qiu Xundao's face stiffened involuntarily.
Only this kind of rule possessed such an effect.
He had seen it among the secrets in the Grand Tutor's study.
Those who grasped such a rule were exclusively those gifted by heaven and earth.
Within the Imperial Dynasty, there had only been one such person, existing over a hundred thousand years ago.
He was divided into Three Corpses and suppressed by the Human Emperor... allowing the purest essence of time to slowly grind him away from the mortal realm bit by bit.
That was why when the Mountain of Esoteric Stratagems and the Grand Tower stole the body and head, the Imperial Dynasty never panicked.
Instead, it was to let these two major factions research a method to destroy the physical body.
"Who are you?!!" Qiu Xundao shouted sternly.
Impossible. If it was truly that person, let alone him, a Mahayana realm expert or even a Great Emperor would have to personally appear to suppress him.
"Me?"
The Mad Blood Demon Lord frowned, unable to understand why Qiu Xundao was so terrified.
He simply flicked the long saber in his hand. The crisp sound of the blade echoed within the Void Refining space.
"I am your grandfather, you turtle's grandson."
As he spoke, he swept his blade horizontally.
It was a saber art learned from the inheritance of the Saber Dao masters of the Zhao Clan, such as Zhao Tingyu!