Chapter 53: Are You Playing a Rhythm Game Here? (Please Follow! I'm Begging You!)

What the hell is this nonsense?

Old Ghost Qingmo racked his brains, but he still couldn't figure out what the phrase "Haoran Negative Qi" meant.

However, the facts were right in front of him. That young girl, completely shrouded in black vapor, was indeed capable of neutralizing the orthodox spells channeled through his right hand.

"Aren't you an orthodox practitioner? How can you use this kind of trick? Even I don't know it!" Old Ghost Qingmo stared at his charred hands and roared with bloodshot eyes.

"Those who beat demonic cultivators are orthodox cultivators, and those who get beaten by orthodox cultivators are demonic cultivators!" Qin Xi's reasoning was sound and persuasive. "So I'm definitely an orthodox practitioner."

"In the end, it's just cheap parlor tricks... Even if you can evade it for a moment with such spells, can you evade it for a lifetime?!"

Old Ghost Qingmo let out a fierce shout and thrust out his left hand once more. The blood qi above it condensed, glowing as crimson as if he had just dug out a fresh heart.

"Galloping Demonic Hand!"

His crimson left claw swept horizontally at blinding speed. Judging by its momentum, splitting monuments and fracturing stones would be as easy as tearing paper!

At this moment, Jiang Baiqiu was only surrounded by Haoran Negative Qi. If she were to take this claw head-on, she would undoubtedly end up splattered in blood on the spot!

Just then, a figure suddenly darted out, shoved Jiang Baiqiu aside, and threw himself right into the path of the claw!

"Oh? Is this what the righteous paths call comradeship? It's still just a futile act of a mantis trying to stop a chariot. You can't block my technique with mere physical bodies..."

"Holy crap, Haoran Zhengqi (Awe-inspiring Righteous Qi)!"

Old Ghost Qingmo realized that the person blocking the young girl's path was none other than Qin Xi, and furthermore, he possessed the very Haoran Zhengqi that demonic cultivators feared the most!

Two Confucian cultivators?

The might of this claw was neutralized right at the contact point by the Haoran Zhengqi. Due to the mutual suppression between righteousness and evil, the demonic technique failed to unleash even one-tenth of its power!

Moreover, Old Ghost Qingmo's left hand once again experienced that horrifying burning sensation, exactly as if he had shoved his hand straight into burning red charcoal, sizzling audibly.

"Waahhhhh!!!"

Old Ghost Qingmo hastily pulled his hand back and blew out the Haoran Zhengqi clinging to it.

Were these two guys strong?

No, they weren't strong at all; they were very weak. As long as he could land even a single blow, these two brats would be torn to shreds.

Yet to Old Ghost Qingmo, they felt like a pair of hedgehogs. Even though he was far superior to them in every way, he simply didn't know where to grab them.

What an utter humiliation!

As a demonic cultivator, he was always the one to toy with others. When had anyone ever toyed with him instead?

"However, they are just children after all, lacking in real combat experience." Old Ghost Qingmo tended to his hands, which were now roughly five-tenths cooked, and once again assumed a forward-reaching stance.

"As long as I time it right and attack the little thing wrapped in black vapor with demonic arts, and attack the little thing glowing with white light with orthodox spells, I can easily break this predicament."

Even so, a sense of frustration lingered in Old Ghost Qingmo's heart. After all, facing a situation where he could have simply crushed them with raw cultivation base, he was instead forced to use his brain to resolve it.

He hated using his brain the most!

Thus, he channeled all this negative emotion into both of his claws, one radiating a golden-white light and the other emanating black-and-red blood qi, charging at the two figures before him simultaneously!

Attack the black with black, attack the white with white!

***

Yet Qin Xi's smile remained entirely unchanged, his expression devoid of the slightest ripple.

Old Ghost Qingmo subconsciously felt that something was amiss, but having already struck, hesitation in battle was a supreme taboo; he could no longer pull back.

Let's just assume this punk was merely putting up a bluff!

Just as Old Ghost Qingmo's blood-qi-infused claw was about to connect with Jiang Baiqiu, who was shrouded in black vapor, a blinding flash of white light erupted!

The Haoran Zhengqi and Haoran Negative Qi on Qin Xi and Jiang Baiqiu had actually swapped places at that exact instant!

"Huh?"

Old Ghost Qingmo's hands struck their respective kryptonite once again.

"Aaaaaahhhhh!!!"

Old Ghost Qingmo hurriedly pulled back his smoking hands, but it was already too late. This time, his hands were practically seven-tenths cooked.

His eyes were filled with broken blood vessels, and his painful expression was suffused with pure hatred.

Despicable! Absolutely despicable!

How could anyone come up with such a despicable tactic!

Qin Xi shook his head and let out a couple of chuckles. "How is it? How do you like this polar reversal trick?"

For Qin Xi and Jiang Baiqiu, wielding Haoran Zhengqi was as natural as moving their own fingers, and Haoran Negative Qi wasn't particularly difficult either. As long as the two maintained tacit coordination, achieving a rhythm of alternating back and forth between positive and negative was entirely effortless.

Visually, it manifested precisely as the scene unfolding before Old Ghost Qingmo's eyes.

Old Ghost Qingmo forced himself to calm down. The spells of these two brats were not entirely unbreakable.

He was at the peak of Foundation Establishment; both his reaction time and his striking speed were far beyond what the two of them could withstand.

As long as he remained calm and unhurried, catching them off guard when they failed to react, he could slaughter them both in one go!

Old Ghost Qingmo was, after all, an old hand who had roamed the Foundation Establishment realm for a long time. His combat experience was quite mature, and it took him only a moment to figure out how to resolve his predicament.

"Calm down, calm down, calm down..."

He silently recited a heart-clearing mantra, fixing his gloomy eyes on Jiang Baiqiu and Qin Xi, waiting for the right opening.

"Hurry up." Qin Xi pointed a finger straight at Old Ghost Qingmo.

"?"

Old Ghost Qingmo frowned. What on earth was this brat doing now...

"Ahhh!!!"

Before he could even finish reciting his calming mantra, an anonymous fire blazed upward from his toes straight to his crown, instantly driving his temper into the red.

"I'm going to tear you two ants to pieces!"

"You're in a rush." Qin Xi pointed at Old Ghost Qingmo, flashing a brilliant smile.

The "Hurry" mantra was truly useful.

"Aaaaaahhhh!!!"

***

Even though he knew he ought to remain calm at this moment, Old Ghost Qingmo found himself completely unable to control the fury raging within his chest. He began launching wild, indiscriminate attacks forward, no longer caring whether his assaults would be neutralized by the opponent's Haoran Zhengqi.

And doing so, naturally, came with a price.

"I'll pull out your tendons... Oh, aaaaaahhhh!!!"

"I'll rip out your bones and chop them to pieces... Ugh, yuck, yuck, yuck, aaaaaahhhhh!!!"

"I'll peel off your skin to make shoes... Hiss, woo woo woo, woooahhhhh!!!"

Every time Old Ghost Qingmo finished shouting his fierce threats, his claws would strike Qin Xi and Jiang Baiqiu, immediately followed by a burst of heart-wrenching screams.

Those were his hands speaking on his behalf.

By now, his hands were, for all intents and purposes, thoroughly cooked.

Meanwhile, Qin Xi and Jiang Baiqiu bounced back and forth, their positive and negative qi constantly swapping places, taking turns to absorb the damage.

The scene was deeply bizarre. One might even say that with Old Ghost Qingmo's attacks matching the alternating footwork of the duo, it actually carried a rather rhythmic beat.

It felt just like playing a rhythm game with God.

*Don't tap the white tiles.jpg*

Watching Old Ghost Qingmo's agonizing expression, Qin Xi couldn't help gloating, "Yes, all correct! All combo!"

The two spectators from the Penglai Immortal Gate nearly dropped their jaws all the way to the ground.

What kind of divine ability was this?

Even though they had traveled the jianghu for many years, they had never witnessed such a maneuver.

As for the surrounding villagers, they were rendered utterly dumbfounded, one and all.

So... so this was what a battle between supreme experts looked like?

Initially, everyone assumed that battles between immortal cultivators simply involved flying swords splitting the heavens and earth or demonic sabers sweeping across the cosmos... but looking at it now, there was an indescribable weirdness to it all.

Is... is this right?

Unlike the others, however, Li Wu's eyes were filled with yearning. He thought to himself that indeed, summer insects cannot speak of ice; how could a mere mortal ever imagine that battles between cultivators would turn out like this!

The path of cultivating immortals was truly wondrous!

Unaware that he had severely warped the mortals' perceptions of immortal cultivators, Qin Xi only intensified the torture inflicted upon Old Ghost Qingmo.

Snot and tears streamed down Old Ghost Qingmo's face. He had never imagined he could suffer like this; the sensation of having his hands baked to a golden brown was sheer torture!

Yet Qin Xi also understood that this merely tormented the opponent. Wanting to defeat him through this method alone was far from enough!

They needed decisive combat power!

Qin Xi shouted, "Bu Weiwei, A'ling, charge!"