HUMMMMMM—CRACK!
In the middle of the ruined Imperial Palace courtyard, a violent, blood-red light swelled inside Perfected Nine-Swords’ lower belly.
Inside his dantian, his nine-layered silver Foundation Platform was cracking apart as he forced his remaining eighty percent liquid Qi to run backward through his meridians!
The ground within fifty yards began to shake and split. Even General Tie Zhan’s heavy steam-mech suit was pushed back three steps by the scorching shockwave radiating from Nine-Swords’ body!
“Hahaha! Cough—cough!” Perfected Nine-Swords laughed like a madman, blood dripping from his mouth as his body puffed up like an overinflated pigskin bladder. “Pei Xuan! You ruined my two hundred years of cultivation, stole my fire vein, and buried my nine lifeblood swords in chamber pots! Did you really think a dignified inner-sect elder of the Azure-Sword Sect would put on a yellow vest and dig railway tunnels for you?!”
His eyes glowed blood-red as a white wisp of his soul prepared to shoot out of the top of his skull the moment his body exploded.
“I will detonate my Rank 5 Peak Foundation Platform right here!” Perfected Nine-Swords shrieked. “This explosion will vaporize the entire Imperial Palace, blow up your iron tanks, and leave a half-mile crater in the center of your precious capital! While my body turns to ash, my soul-ghost will fly back to the Azure-Sword Sect in the Central Continent and bring our Golden Core Ancestors down to wipe your Dry-Well Village off the face of the earth!”
