Naked Sword Art

Chapter 476: Death Waiver

"Fang—"

Xun Wei and Xiao Hei could hardly last more than a minute against an injured Yu Hanlin, but it seemed that was all the time Xiao Fang needed.

’He’s here~’ Xiao Hei grinned weakly, before coughing up another mouthful of blood.

In the next moment, a shocking sight occurred. Xiao Fang threw Yu Liangcheng down to the Earth crashing next to the crater his Dragon Dynasty spear made earlier.

The air still crackled with electricity as Xiao Fang descended, each step upon the shattered earth sending ripples of Qi across the battlefield. The storm above rumbled like a living thing.

Lightning flickered over his shoulders as he touched down beside Yu Liangcheng’s battered body, his sabers humming faintly in the silence that followed. Liangcheng’s golden Heavenly Fate Shields were shattered since he used it to break his fall, but his chest was still heaving with shallow, ragged breaths.

He began to crawl, slowly dragging his body across the dirt. He no longer had the ability to get up, much less continue fighting. Luckily Xiao Fang seemed to be distracted by something so he was able to pull away a few meters before he felt Xiao Fang’s killing intent once again.

The reason Xiao Fang froze upon landing next to his spear was because the moment he did, he suddenly felt a wave of nourishing filtered Qi enter his body. And it was coming from Yu Shenyi’s body.

Typically, whenever he killed someone, he’d absorb their Death Reaper Qi to nourish his Death Reaper method, and their souls to nourish his Soul Devourer method. However, he didn’t know if it was because his Death Reaper method manifested a new Dantian or because he was absorbing the soul of a Heavenly realm cultivator, either way, the nourishment he felt now was remarkable. He knew if he used it to cultivate any of his Spirit Cultivation methods, he’d make several breakthroughs in no time.

Looking at the crawling Yu Liangcheng, he wanted to test if his theory was true.

A golden aura flared behind him.

"Don’t move," Yu Hanlin’s voice boomed, sharp and venomous.

Xiao Fang turned his head slightly, his jaw tightening as he saw it — Xun Wei and Xiao Hei, both battered and bloodied, standing at Hanlin’s mercy.

A shimmering golden chain extended from Hanlin’s hand, wrapped tightly around their bodies like serpents of divine light. Xun Wei’s sword lay broken beside her; Xiao Hei’s arms were bound, her knees forced to the dirt.

"You want them to live don’t you?" Yu Hanlin said as he stared at Xiao Fang’s cold face. "Then let us live."

"You trust me to let you leave?"

"Of course I don’t," he replied before drawing a golden scroll into existence — ancient characters glowing faintly upon its surface.

"This is a Divination Death Waver, press your hand to it and sign it with blood. As long as we all live, nobody else has to die."

Yu Hanlin’s voice trailed off as he saw Xiao Fang’s empty expression. At that moment, he didn’t feel like a cultivator, he felt as if he was nothing but food. And the fact was, in Xiao Fang’s eyes, he really was, he was a Divine realm cultivator, the nourishment he could gain by killing him was too tempting, to suggest letting them go even though they were right in front of him was like expecting a tiger not to devour his kill.

"So do we have a dea—"

Yu Hanlin’s words cut off in an instant.

A low, guttural growl rumbled through the air.

Before his eyes, Xiao Hei’s form shimmered, her human body twisting and expanding in a surge of black Qi. Bones cracked, muscles stretched — and in the next heartbeat, a massive black panther stood where she once was, its golden eyes burning with feral fury. Standing nearly two meters tall at the shoulder, her presence alone made the ground tremble.

With a deafening roar, the golden bindings shattered into glittering fragments. The shockwave that followed split the dirt beneath her paws. Then — she vanished, a blur of shadow and lightning.

Yu Hanlin’s eyes widened in disbelief. "A... beast form!?"

He barely had time to react. Instinctively, he tightened his grip on Xun Wei, pulling her close and pressing his hand to her throat. He couldn’t afford to lose his last bargaining chip. His gaze snapped back toward Xiao Fang — expecting the man to charge, to retaliate, to make a desperate move.

But what he saw made his blood run cold.

Xiao Fang hadn’t moved toward him at all.

Instead, he stood over Yu Liangcheng’s broken body, his expression calm... empty. His right arm was buried deep in Liangcheng’s chest.

There was a faint, wet, bone-chilling sound — then silence.

Xiao Fang’s hand emerged, slick with golden blood. Liangcheng’s eyes were still open, frozen in disbelief, before his body went limp.

"Liangcheng—!" Hanlin’s voice cracked. His pupils shrank to pinpoints. ’He didn’t even try to save her,’ he realized in horror. ’He chose to kill him instead.’

At that moment, Yu Hanlin understood — Xiao Fang wasn’t negotiating. He was hunting.

A cold dread crawled down his spine. This wasn’t a man driven by anger or desperation or fun, he killed purely for the sake of murder. And know that calm murderous gaze was locked back onto him.

A warm fluid spilled down Yu Hanlin’s thighs and sullied his pants, but he was too shaken to notice.

Meanwhile, Xiao Fang’s expression didn’t change. As golden blood dripped from his fingers, a dark mist began to coil around his arm — the unmistakable essence of Death Qi.

His body drank it greedily.

Then — he felt it.

A pulse deep within his core. His Death Reaper dantian stirred to life, absorbing the deathly essence and refining it into pure, unsaturated Qi. It coursed through his meridians like molten fire, as if it was ready to be used for cultivation.

Xiao Fang exhaled slowly, his breath steaming in the cold air.

"This feeling..." he murmured to himself, his tone darkly satisfied.

This was better than any cultivation hunt in the Ancestral Training Grounds.

He raised his head toward Yu Hanlin — his eyes still closed, lightning faintly rippling across his skin.

"Give me the waver," Xiao Fang said, his tone flat and unreadable.