Volcanic Age

He lunged forward as soon as he answered.

The snow beneath his feet was deep, but he knew just how much strength to exert to avoid shifting it too much.

In front of him were nine Lama monks, five dressed in red, and four in white.

"You dare!"

A Lama monk in red sent out a palm strike, his palm expanding in size. Soon, the palm hurtled toward him.

Zhou Xuchuan, who had lunged forward, spun in mid-air, changing directions and swinging his sword.

Slash!

The Lama monk's head was severed, spiraling through the air before falling down the mountain.

"You!"

Four Lama monks became furious and circled him.

"Some monks you are."

Just moments ago, they had tried to kill Tsongkhapa, and now they were genuinely furious that a monk had been killed. Zhou Xuchuan found it ridiculous.

The killing intent that tickled his entire body was definitely not weak. This was a sensation he had felt a few times during the Era of War and Chaos.

There was also the fact that they were using killing moves without a shred of hesitation. Clearly, this wasn't their first time doing something like this.

He finally understood why the Lama Buddhists were considered apostate monks by Buddhists in the Central Plains.

"Die!"

The Lama monks attacked from all sides, their palms flying toward Zhou Xuchuan with deadly precision.

Zhou Xuchuan sidestepped to dodge a strike coming from the front. Then he charged toward the Lama monk at the front from the side. The monk flinched in surprise and tried to retreat, but Zhou Xuchuan was already close enough to grab him by the collars.

"Urgh!" The Lama monk cried out in surprise.

What brutish power…

Against his will, the Lama monk's body leaned to the right. He surged all his qi to resist, but he was powerless. Eventually, he was dragged by Zhou Xuchuan's grip and struck by the Great Palm Seal flying in from the right in place of Zhou Xuchuan.

"Ergh!" The Lama monk vomited blood.

"Oh no!" The Lama monk on the right panicked. The ones on the left and back also hesitated for a moment.

Zhou Xuchuan seized the opportunity, leaping above their heads and landing behind the Lama monk who had attacked him from behind.

They're skilled, but not undefeatable.

Zhou Xuchuan was surprised that they were all Peak Realm experts, but that was it. They were powerless in front of a Harmony Realm expert.

Before the Lama monks could recover, he swiftly swung his sword. All they could see was the trailing afterimage of his sword.

"Aaargh!"

The sword slashed through the Buddhist robes, flesh, and blood vessels with deadly accuracy.

The vast pure-white snow was stained with the blood of the Lama monks.

Four Lama monks had died in an instant.

"An expert!"

With only four of them left, the Lama monks grew visibly more nervous. They did not approach Zhou Xuchuan, instead keeping their distance. Despite their nervousness, their sweat froze before hitting the ground.

"Whoa!" Tsongkhapa couldn't hide his surprise either. I assumed his cultivation would be above average, but I did not know he would be this strong.

Zhou Xuchuan shrugged off the frosty chill of the Great Snowy Mountains, remaining unfazed after he handed over frost-resistant clothing.

Tsongkhapa was rather surprised after he realized that despite his young age, his companion was at least a Pealm Realm expert. It seemed that his assumptions were wrong.

The Lama monks had the numerical advantage, and had underestimated Zhou Xuchuan because of his age, but that wasn't enough to explain such an overwhelming outcome. After all, the ones Zhou Xuchuan killed were all Pealm Realm experts. It didn't make sense that they were killed without being able to fight back.

Zhou Xuchuan had to be an Absolute Realm expert at the very least!

"Who are you?" One of the Lama monks stared at Zhou Xuchuan warily. "I've heard that martial studies of the Central Plains are on a different level, but there can't be this much of a difference. How could you be so strong despite being only twenty?"

Zhou Xuchuan's movements weren't some sort of evil tricks, which made them even more wary.

"Who am I, you ask?" Zhou Xuchuan flicked off the blood on his sword.

He stood tall, raising his chin to look a little arrogant and squaring his shoulders to appear bold.

"I am Zhou Xuchuan of Mount Hua."

He felt satisfied after saying those words.

"Whoa, shit."

He immediately realized his mistake.

"Mount Hua? You mean the Mount Hua Sect of the Ten Major Organizations?"

"Why is the Mount Hua sect meddling with matters in Tibet?"

Their tone and attitude changed after they heard the mention of Mount Hua.

"You evil apostate monks!" Zhou Xuchuan accused, trembling in anger. "How dare you use your evil tongues to make me expose the things I have hidden until now! You must be demons!"

He imbued a lot of qi into his sword. The Lama monks were startled after seeing the sheer quantity.

"W-wait a moment, Great Hero. Please calm down. We can talk this out first."

"You're being deceived by the evil schemes of the apostate monk behind you."

"There seems to be a misunderstanding between us. If you could lower your sword and…"

The Lama monks desperately tried to talk to him, but they inched toward Zhou Xuchuan as they talked, revealing their true intentions.

"You have uncovered what you shouldn't have! I will have you all killed even if it's to protect the secret!"

Zhou Xuchuan uttered rather cliche lines as he rushed toward the Lama monks.

"Kill him at all costs!"

After one of the monks shouted, the remaining Lama monks all charged at him with killing intent.

Zhou Xuchuan had anticipated this, and indeed, they had no intentions on talking. They were only talking about calming down to distract him.

He and the Lama monks clashed. A middle-aged monk sent a palm toward him. The size of the palm was several times larger than what the Lama monks that had been killed used. Naturally, the qi behind the attack was much more than before.

Zhou Xuchuan countered with his sword, aiming for the center of the Lama monk's gigantic palm.

What a fool! The Lama monk sneered inwardly at Zhou Xuchuan.

This kid in front of him from Mount Hua seemed to be an expert, but he was just twenty in the end. There was a difference in the qi they had accumulated. The clashing of the sword and the palm would mean a clash of qi, which meant the palm strike would disintegrate this young man's guts.

"A battle of qi?"

Zhou Xuchuan sneered at the Lama monk.

"What?" Suddenly, the Lama monk felt a searing heat coming from his palm. Before he could react, Zhou Xuchuan's sword pierced through his palm and aimed toward his eyes.

Psh!

Zhou Xuchuan pierced a hole in the palm, then drove the sword through the middle of the monk's forehead, exiting from the back of his head.

"Nooo!" A wail broke out, filled with sadness, rage, killing intent, and finally, hatred.

From the look of things, the Lama monk who just died wasn't simply a fellow monk of the same school. Zhou Xuchuan felt a rage-filled palm aimed at his face.

Whoosh!

Although it was a desperate attack, he didn't get hit. Zhou Xuchuan swiftly withdrew, pulling his sword out just before the attack could land. He then, without hesitation, slashed his sword in a vertical arc.

Slash!

The enraged Lama monk had his arm chopped off. The cut was so clean that not a single drop of blood flowed out from the cross-section.

As the Lama monk screamed at the sight of his falling arm, Zhou Xuchuan swung his sword again to chop his head off.

"You will absolutely fall in hell!"

He heard a furious voice behind him. When he hurriedly turned around, he saw the last Lama monk in red.

The monk was attacking with both hands, sending two palm attacks toward him. The monk was quite close.

Hmm.

It was a bit surprising, but he didn't panic. There wasn't enough time to swing his sword, so he held it horizontally instead.

It's over!

The Lama monk sneered. He had put all of his qi into his attack, even at the risk of sustaining internal injuries. Moreover, he was even attacking with both palms.

Zhou Xuchuan held his sword horizontally without being able to defend properly. The outcome seemed obvious to him.

Slash!

The Lama monk couldn't believe his eyes.

Martial arts training at the Potala Palace began with hardening the hand. When combined with qi, most of the monks would be able to deflect swords with their bare hands. Otherwise, they would not be able to fight properly against swordsmen.

Therefore, clashing with a swordsman head-on usually became a battle of attrition between qi. If the swordsman's qi ran out first, the monk would strike both the swordsman and the sword.

However, that knowledge shattered before his very eyes. There was no battle of qi. The moment his hands touched the sword, they were sliced in half without the slightest resistance. Half of his hands, with his fingers attached, flew into the air.

No way, he's actually…

There was only one explanation—something would have to be able to cut through something embedded with qi, a method only attainable in a realm that every cultivator dreamed of reaching.

Augmented sword qi at such an age? That's impos—

Slash!

The Lama monk's thoughts ended abruptly as his body fell forward, his head severed.

Neither the last Lama monk, nor Tsongkhapa could find words. They couldn't see what had happened because it was so fast. Zhou Xuchuan also retracted his augmented qi as soon as he was done using it.

The reason they were surprised was because nine experts of the Potala Palace had died in moments.

Clack, clack, clack!

The last Lama monk was shuddering, his teeth clattering.

"H-hieek!" His face paled, matching the pale white snow around him.

Zhou Xuchuan slowly approached the Lama monk. The sound of soft footsteps treading on snow echoed gently.

"May Buddha—"

"Oh, Primeval Lord of Heaven!"

Slash!

Zhou Xuchuan interrupted the monk's words by chopping off his head.

"Ugh."

It turned out that Tsongkhapa wasn't such an eccentric monk after all. He seemed displeased by the sight of the killed monks and looked away with his eyes closed in agony.

"Don't you tell me stuff about mercy and whatnot." Zhou Xuchuan sheathed his sword. "Earlier, these guys tried to kill me while pretending to strike up a conversation. Killing them was inevitable."

It was one of the lessons he had learned on the battlefield. If he wanted to show mercy, he had to assess who he was showing it to.

"Benefactor, you are truly…" Tsongkhapa opened his eyes again, looking into the young Daoist's eyes. "...quite strange."

He only looked to be around twenty on the outside, but the glint in his eyes did not belong to a boy or a young man. Instead, it belonged to an old veteran of many wars.

"It is as though… I am looking at Buddha's incarnate…" the old monk muttered.

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