# Chapter 90: Flying Sword?
From the spectators' perspective, the man in his berserk assault seemed to hold an absolute advantage. But no one knew that this figure of overwhelming might was inwardly cursing his luck.
With every punch, he drove the golden light inward, making the entire golden barrier tremble—as though tearing through this layer of defense was merely a matter of time.
Yet who could have guessed that every time his fists or feet made contact with the golden light, a tenacious force of rebound surged back? And the harder he struck, the more vicious that rebound became. His hands and feet throbbed with such agony that once he ceased his cultivation technique, they would swell immediately.
Moreover, the golden light possessed extraordinary resilience. Every depression his blows carved into it sprang back to its original shape the moment he withdrew, as though it had never been struck at all. Even when he hammered the same spot relentlessly, he could only maintain the indentation—unable to drive it a fraction deeper.
And so the burly man's assault dragged on, the golden shield still swaying and shuddering as if it might shatter at any second.
But by now, everyone's perception had undergone a complete reversal. They understood—this man could not breach the shield. His colossal strength could at best rock it, never truly destroy it.
Not only did Jia Tianlong abandon the notion of sending reinforcements, but even the dwarf himself grew calm once more.
Yet with his prior humiliation, Gold Light Immortal's expression carried an edge of mortified rage, his gaze toward the man turning ever more venomous. Between the relentless barrage and his inability to stand steady, his spellcasting kept faltering. So he abandoned the hand seals entirely, instead fixing his opponent with a murderous stare while muttering curses in a dialect no bystander could comprehend.
The man seemed oblivious to all of this, still attacking the golden barrier with abandon. Just when everyone assumed he would not stop until his strength was utterly spent—
*Bang! Bang! Crump!*
After throwing every ounce of his power into two final punches and a kick, the man suddenly spun around and bolted backward. For such a massive frame, his speed was astonishing.
The man's abrupt retreat startled the onlookers, who erupted into an uproar.
Gold Light Immortal was momentarily stunned, then exploded with fury. He hastily sat cross-legged, laid the black box across his lap, and began chanting under his breath. His fingers rose before his chest, twisted into strange positions, and trembled with visible strain. The effort was so great that it seemed each finger were shouldering a thousand jin.
By now the man was only a few steps from the Sect of Seven Mysteries' formation, nearly back among his companions. Then a thunderous shout of *"Rise!"* rang out behind him. He saw Wang Juechu and the others' faces drain of color; almost in unison they cried, *"Watch out!"*
Heart lurching, the man threw himself to the left and glanced over his shoulder.
A streak of gray luminescence—faster than a flash of lightning—blazed past the very spot where he had stood an instant ago.
A chill gripped him, but relief followed immediately. Having dodged the projectile, he could now regroup with his two sect brothers and be safe.
This thought had barely formed when a searing pain tore through his right arm. He looked down—before he could see clearly, another wave of cries erupted, his two brothers' voices among them, trembling with anguish.
The man froze, momentarily baffled. A flash of radiance bloomed before his eyes, and a gray beam pierced clean through his chest—identical to the projectile he had just evaded.
Shock and rage warred on his face. He opened his mouth to speak, but his body crumpled to the ground with a heavy thud. Only then did he discover that his right arm had been severed clean at the shoulder at some unknowable moment, blood gushing freely.
"What—what happened?" Clutching a belly full of questions and defiance, his vision went black, and he knew no more.
Even in death, the man never understood what had transpired. But the onlookers from the Wild Wolf Gang and the Sect of Seven Mysteries saw everything with perfect clarity.
After the dwarf completed his seals and incantation, the word *"Rise!"* still hanging in the air, a bar-shaped gray radiance shot forth from the black box. It circled once above the dwarf's head, then arrowed straight toward the man, tracking the direction of his outstretched finger.
Though the man had nimbly tilted his body to avoid the first piercing strike, the gray light grazed his shoulder and his arm detached as if of its own accord—so sharp the light was that he had not even felt it happen.
What followed horrified the crowd even more. After being dodged, the gray beam pivoted on the dwarf's finger-flick, executed a sharp U-turn roughly three zhang beyond the man, and hurtled back toward him. Caught utterly off guard, he met his end with terrible ease.
Everyone stood rooted in stunned silence, their gazes inevitably drawn to the gray luminance that spiraled above the dwarf's head.
The words *flying sword* surfaced unbidden in most spectators' minds. Though these people knew nothing of cultivators, tales of legendary swordsmen and their sentient blades were familiar to many. This gray streak bore an uncanny resemblance to the flying swords of those storied masters—practically identical.
Could this unassuming dwarf truly be a legendary sword immortal? Most of the onlookers now regarded Gold Light Immortal with undisguised awe; the title *sword immortal* carried enough weight to awe a great many mortals.
Gold Light Immortal now stood tall and imperious, showing off as he manipulated the gray radiance above his head. It danced and coiled, fashioned into the shape of a long, undulating gray serpent. The Wild Wolf Gang side erupted in exclamations of amazement, while the Sect of Seven Mysteries fell deathly silent, their spirits drained.
If Jia Tianlong's camp had been buoyed by the sword immortal's backing while the Sect of Seven Mysteries wavered, its fighting will sapped by this unforeseen turn, then Han Li alone among all present was the sole person who felt a surge of wild elation at the sight of that gray light.
For he had discovered that the incantation and hand gestures Gold Light Immortal used to command the gray beam were identical to the Object-Drive Art he himself had learned. Though he could not say for certain whether the beam was a flying sword, the Object-Drive Art was designed to command exactly such objects—of that there was no doubt.
In Han Li's mind, thoughts of killing and seizing treasures now swarmed without restraint. His fascination with the world of cultivators, it seemed, only continued to deepen.