บท 171: Death is timeless.

The tornado gathering in the air above the area started to quickly descend, dragging with it the clouds themselves as it touched the ground and brought with it devastation. The strong winds tore up the trees and ground them into powder, the lightning energy gathered within them swallowed up by the countless bolts of lightning that roared around inside the tornado. The tornado acted like a plague, growing larger and larger as it swallowed everything in the area, only stopping when it spanned a total of 20 kilometers.

Qian Liao grit his teeth and did his best to resist the growing storm, countless hooks and chains of metal growing out of his body and digging into the ground, allowing him to resist until the area was covered by the eye of the storm, an eerie silence descending on the area. The roar of thunder suddenly broke the silence as the sole remaining tree in the area, the one where Liang Chen had been cultivating, shattered and unleashed a dull gray bolt of lightning that shot into the sky at a strangely slow speed.

Qian Liao followed the lightning with his eyes for a bit before his eyes suddenly shot up and his gaze lowered, landing on the spot right behind him where Yan Ling should still be lying. She had vanished from her previous position, only a pool of blood affirming that she had once been there. He quickly turned his head again, spotting a man with gray hair as well as one golden and one cyan eye carrying Yan Ling and looking at her with a worried expression.

There was a young girl with blue eyes and white hair sitting on the man's shoulders, making him seem rather out of place. But Qian Liao had already seen his image several times so he knew that the man standing a few tens of meters away from him was Liang Chen, the second target of his revenge. Yan Ling opened her bloody mouth to talk, but Liang Chen quickly stopped her, stuffing a few pills into her mouth.

"Don't say anything, your wounds might get worse if you try to talk, so just be quiet and focus on healing."

Yan Ling closed her mouth upon hearing his words, her lips curling into a smile. She stretched out her arms and hooked them around Liang Chen's neck, raising herself up and planting a quick kiss on his lips. It wasn't just a simple kiss, she was actually copying what he had done to her right after they arrived on this planet, transferring some of her memories to him by gathering them in her Qi and sending it to him. By the time she pulled back again, Liang Chen knew everything that had happened here while he was cultivating.

His expression didn't change much, but Yan Ling could feel his arms tensing up, his fingers twitching slightly. He put Yan Ling down against the shattered remains of the tree where he had been cultivating, removing some cloth from his interspatial ring and quickly wrapping it around her waist, inserting some poison into her body to numb her sense of pain. He picked up Lan Yun and placed her in Yan Ling's lap, taking out several tens of bottles filled with pills and paste from his interspatial ring, handing them all to Yan Ling.

"You take these, I'll take care of everything here."

Liang Chen turned around after handing over the medicines, his expression sinking and turning so cold it was practically freezing. As Liang Chen turned to face Qian Liao, the tornado wreaking havoc on the surrounding area suddenly moved, rapidly shrinking and vanishing into Liang Chen's body.

Qian Liao could feel an icy sensation run across his skin as Liang Chen looked at him, his bloodlust so strong it was almost corporeal. He could feel that Liang Chen was only at the middle stage of the Soaring Immortal realm in both body and Qi cultivation, but remembering how strong Yan Ling had been, he didn't dare be overconfident. Liang Chen raised his head slightly, his gaze landing on the wounded and weak Yumao, who spread his wings slightly and let out a low hiss in response.

Liang Chen nodded his head and turned his gaze back onto Qian Liao, stretching out his right arm as his white bow appeared in his grasp. He had a few weak spears in his inventory right now, but the bow was better suited for what he was planning on doing. Liang Chen took a step forward, lightning arcing around the bow as a gleaming brown arrow of lightning condensed on it. Qian Liao's body tensed up slightly as he prepared himself to face Liang Chen's assault, but Liang Chen sank into his own shadow the moment Qian Liao prepared himself.

Another sense of unease assaulted his body as he quickly raised his head, just in time to see Liang Chen appearing from the shadow that Yumao's wings cast. Standing on Yumao's back, Liang Chen drew the bowstring and took aim, firing the arrow while muttering coldly.

"Third step shatters mortality."

Fuelled by the final part of the Dragon Lord's Three Steps technique the arrow vanished from sight as it shot forward, the only sign of it's passing being a thin black line in the air. Zizi, Qian Liao's flying undead horned serpent, only had the time to turn its head slightly before the arrow pierced through its head, disintegrating a ten-centimeter wide hole in it as the arrow continued downwards and pierced into the ground a few kilometers away.

The arrow finally produced a sound shortly after it pierced into the ground, an earth-shaking explosion rocking the area as a five-kilometer wide stretch of land was thrown into the air as debris, leaving behind a two-kilometer deep crater. Liang Chen's Qi cultivation hadn't increased, but both his body and soul cultivation had reached the middle stage of the Soaring Immortal realm, allowing his strength to leap forward greatly.

The body of Zizi started to fall from the sky, its insides ruined by the concentrated lightning concentrated in the arrow. But before the body could fall too far, its own shadow stretched out and enveloped it, Yumao snatching the body so that they could keep it for later. Liang Chen let out a heavy breath after firing the arrow, the white bow he was holding crumbling away.

This was the final part of the strongest technique created by the actual Heaven Devouring Dragon, even a bow whose only redeeming feature was its toughness was unable to handle it. Qian Liao's expression was somewhat volatile as he looked at Liang Chen, who was already running low on energy after firing that one arrow.

"One scarier than the other, you two truly suit each other. But now that you've wasted all your energy, how will you f..."

Qian Liao's mouth was closed shut in shock before he got to finish his sentence. He saw Liang Chen raise his right arm high, causing the clouds that had started to return after the tornado vanished to unleash thick bolts of azure lightning, all of them striking his outstretched arm. And as the bolts of lightning struck him, Qian Liao could tell that his drained energy was rapidly restoring itself.

Liang Chen lowered his head after restoring his energy, giving Yumao a few pats on the head with a softened expression. Yumao let out a somewhat weak but content hiss, descending to the ground and allowing Liang Chen to step off before he flew over to Yan Ling to rest up alongside her. Liang Chen's gaze landed on Qian Liao after he sent Yumao away, his mouth opening as he spoke up for the first time.

"An eye for an eye, that's the kind of 'justice' you believed in, no?"

Liang Chen took a step forward, a thunderous booming sound rocking the area as the ground beneath him shattered and he shot forward like a furious bolt of lightning. And for the first time since arriving here, Qian Liao raised his guard to block the attack. It wasn't that Yan Ling had been too weak for him to try to block, it was that her strength had been so great that he was starting to get worried about just how strong Liang Chen was.

Liang Chen arrived in front of Qian Liao in the blink of an eye, wreathed in brown lightning and pure white poison as his right fist smashed towards Qian Liao's chest. Qian Liao managed to block the punch by crossing all four arms in front of his chest, but he could feel his tough skin sizzle and melt under the white poison, his flesh scorching and twitching thanks to the lightning.

But before he even got to feel good about blocking the attack, he saw that Liang Chen's left arm had been stretched out at the same time as his right arm. The hand easily moved past Qian Liao's guard, which was fully focused on blocking Liang Chen's right fist. The fingers on Liang Chen's left arm stretched out, his index finger and middle finger piercing into Qian Liao's right eye.

Qian Liao grit his teeth and tried to pull back his head, but a burst of horrendous pain coming from his right eye suddenly assaulted him. And for the first time in the last 211 years, Qian Liao couldn't hold it in and screamed in agony. His body acted on instinct, his lower left arm no longer bothering to block and lashing out, connecting with Liang Chen's chest and sending him flying backward with four cracked ribs, Qian Liao's sharp nails leaving cuts on his chest.

Qian Liao quickly sucked up the lifeforce of the surrounding land to heal his arms and left eye, but he quickly noticed that something was wrong, his left eye wasn't healing. No matter how much lifeforce he poured into it, his vision simply wouldn't return. His lower left arm also felt strange, causing him to quickly look down at it with his still healthy right eye. The arm had been torn clean off at the base, only a few jagged strings of flesh remaining. Qian Liao grit his teeth when he saw the scene, he could regenerate the arm, but there was a reason he didn't want to regenerate that specific arm.

He raised his head and saw Liang Chen standing a few tens of meters away, his chest somewhat dented as blood leaked out from the wounds. But as he was looking at Liang Chen, a bolt of light once again descended from the sky and struck him, his wounds rapidly healing as the lightning sank into his body. Liang Chen was holding onto Qian Liao's lower left arm, his fingers grasping it so tightly that they pierced into it. Liang Chen looked at Qian Liao, his gaze eventually landing on his left eye, a sneery creeping up on his lips.

"Embodiment of death? Don't make me laugh. Death is timeless, you are not."

The moment Liang Chen's finger pierced Qian Liao's eyes, he had increased the flow of time within the eye as much as he could, not caring about how much Qi he wasted on it. As a result, Qian Liao's eye had withered away, reaching the end of its lifespan and truly dying. It didn't matter how much lifeforce he tried to pour into it, it didn't matter what he did to heal it, unless someone managed to turn back time, that eye would never work again. Liang Chen's gaze moved down to the spot where Qian Liao's left arm used to be, his face still carrying the same sneer.

"Why aren't you regenerating your arm? You regenerated your right arm just fine when Ling'er cut it off earlier, didn't you? Go on, regenerate that arm."

Qian Liao's expression distorted and twisted as he heard Liang Chen's taunts. They were simply too specific, he guessed that Liang Chen had already guessed just what his lower left arm was by seeing the memories of Yan Ling. And just like he feared, Liang Chen's lips curled up even further.

"Heh, as I thought, you won't regenerate it. You regenerated your head and severed arm just fine, but that lower left arm is different. When Ling'er cut it off, you re-attached it instead of regenerating it. This left arm, it contains the bones of that mutated Nethersky Wyrm Emperor, no? You're able to regenerate your flesh, but those bones will not be regenerated, losing the arm would make future cultivation a bit harder, no?"

Qian Liao remained silent, his expression volatile. But Liang Chen didn't need him to affirm his guess, he knew that he was correct. He put the arm into his interspatial ring, taking a step back and turning into a blur, arriving next to Yan Ling. He picked up all three of the ones resting there, carrying the two smaller ones on his shoulder while carrying Yan Ling in his arms. His gaze remained on Qian Liao, a cold voice escaping his lips before he dashed deeper into the Thunder Saint's Last Breath.

"I can't kill you right now thanks to your law of death, but your head is already mine. It doesn't matter whether you try to run or hide, I'll find you no matter where you are, and I will kill you, no matter who tries to protect you."