Daily life of a cultivation judge

Lai Lei asked as he rapidly stabbed the sword user over a dozen times. The sword user managed to deflect those stabs, however, they looked to be struggling as the stabs grew. Muffled grunts and a pained look appeared in their eyes during the terrifying onslaught where the sword user felt if they let up as much as an inch, Lai Lei's sword would easily cleave them apart.

The sword user didn't know for how long they would be able to maintain their defense before an opening showed up, but lucky for them, they didn't have to find out as the remaining six members all swarmed Lai Lei, alleviating the pressure on the sword user who looked to be the leader of the group.

The fan user created a sandstorm to surround the entire battlefield. Other than having life-draining properties, it seemed to have slight effects on one's senses, especially the spiritual sense and obscuring vision. The black-robed attackers clearly hoped to limit Lai Lei as much as they could as they seemed to have a way to easily maneuver within the sandstorm.

Unlucky for them, with his ignited bloodline, Lai Lei could easily see them, including even the flows of their qi. He had the thinnest bloodline of the graceful kirin, however, it was thin to the point that he was no different than a person without it, except for the various immunities and sensitivity to qi manipulation it gave him. But after the tireless efforts by the Order, even though, they couldn't increase his blood purity due to how mythical and mysterious the kirin was, they did find a way to force out the latent abilities contained within his bloodline, similar to atavism.

Through a special technique, Lai Lei was able to assume a pseudo-atavic state of the kirin and gain the abilities contained within his bloodline. When he started, he could only sustain it for three minutes, then with arduous training, his growing cultivation base, and improvements continuously made to the special technique, he was now able to hold it for thirty minutes. 

One of the abilities he gained was something called unveiled spiritual light sight. He was able to see the flow of qi, including its characteristics within a given. The characteristics ran from its elementary composition down to its state and or concentration. The seven black-robed attackers stuck out like fireflies in the dark within that sandstorm.

But with launching that state, came the drawbacks, such as being in a severely weakened state for the next two hours, and if he were to forcibly prolong the state beyond thirty minutes, his foundations and life would very well be put at risk, which was why he hoped to handle the whole ordeal within twenty minutes and use the remaining ten to find a safe location to ask for reinforcements, in case the shadow flame hawk wasn't able to.

Lai Lei feigned that his senses had been affected somewhat to lull the enemy to complacency which it did, as he was able to kill the one sword user who was missing an arm.

The group on realizing the sandstorm likely had no effect on Lai Lei, launched a desperate struggle against him. A rain of different nature and color of attacks were launched on Lai Lei including deploying talismans that contained the power of a palace realm cultivator. Luckily Lai Lei still had two of his own, and his were superior. He used one of the remaining two to deflect their talismans and used the slight opening created to deal heavy blows to them.

Despite being surrounded and walking a tightrope where a single misstep could end in his death, Lai Lei gracefully interwove between attack and defense. He skillfully dodged their attacks like a fish swimming through a current as he counterattacked just as first. Ten minutes in, none of the seven attackers remained uninjured, with a few dismemberments among the group. The only reason they held on for so long was because of the dagger with black lightning.

The backlighting borrowed the domain created by the sandstorm to crisscross and pinpoint Lai Lei. Luckily for Lai Lei, he had the unveiled spiritual light vision, and with it, he was able to detect minute fluctuations as the lightning was about to target him. Whilst he was able to dodge them, it was by a tiny margin. His robes were singed, and he had a few burn marks that could not heal from secondary contact with the lightning.

"This can't go on much longer.." Lai Lei muttered as he felt something dangerous brewing from the dagger.

Kirin's fang of judgment

Lai Lei suddenly exploded with energy as a sharp piercing light burst from his sword. Lai Lei like a specter, crisscrossed around the battlefield slashing and piercing without stop.

The black-robed group that was already struggling, was immediately drowned in an avalanche of radiant sharp tearing attacks from Lai Lei who turned into a reaper within seconds. 

The black-robed group started dropping like flies. The spear user was split in half from head to toe, the fan user had a pin-sized hole through their forehead, one of the sword users from sliced apart from their torso, while the other received a clean decapitation, the saber user already had one of the eyes blinded and non dominant arm dismembered, leaving only the dual dagger wielder and the leader, in any fighting form, but even they were not long for the world as they had numerous injuries on their bodies.

Despite the one-sided massacre that was happening before them, they seemed apathetic about it, all working with a single-minded devotion of slaying Lai Lei. The dual wielder was the next to fall as Lai Lei blitzed in between their attack and sliced them cleanly through from shoulder to shoulder.

Lai Lei's desperation grew when he felt whatever was brewing from the black lightning dagger was about to be completed. It was then that the surviving sword user and saber user did something inexplicable and pretended to attack Lai Lei, only to simultaneously detonate their bodies when they were within a certain range of him.

Lai Lei managed to dodge just in the nick of time, thanks to detonating one of his last remaining talismans that took the brunt of the attack, however, he took some damage as the force shifted his internal organs causing him to cough up blood.

The slight disorientation left him open and the black lightning attack managed to strike him on his left foot, searing it off at the ankle, causing Lai Lei to leak gold blood.

However, Lai Lei was in no mood to care about his missing foot when he saw a presence materialize behind the dagger as the life aura in the eight dark-robed experts started to dwindle.

"Are they awakening its spirit.." wondered Lai Lei as the temperature of the area suddenly plummeted that even the ground below was encased in black ice. 

A stifling atmosphere filled the area like that of a terrifying slumbering beast awakening.

A dark silhouette of a double-headed snake appeared from the background of the now floating dagger. One of the heads had dark blue eyes that released a frigid chillness that could freeze the soul for eternity while the other had dark eyes that seemed to be the picture of endless desolation.

"I can't hesitate.." 

Lai Lei immediately vomited gold blood on the last talisman he had, the purple talisman with black golden runes.

The gold blood was immediately swallowed by the runes that let out a blinding glow and terrifying pressure that seemed to match the one released by the double-headed snake.

Lai Lei's hand that was holding the talisman immediately became emaciated and within seconds it was nothing but bones, as his skin grew paler with his golden scales disappearing one after the other, but even then he didn't flinch as he detonated the talisman with whatever remaining strength he had left.

The world seemed to turn still as all the spiritual qi within a 10-kilometer radius of the purple talisman was immediately sucked by the cracking talisman.

Lai Lei weakly opened his eyes to see some sort of projected image. It was of a dagger being born and inviting a black lightning tribulation that seemed to temper it. Immediately after it dropped and sliced through the monolithic double-headed snake and absorbed them.

Lai Lei suddenly felt like he was the double-headed snake, however, that sensation was warmly and gently washed away when a white ocean appeared and then shrunk to the size of a pearl. The pearl compressed to the size of a needle radiating a terrifying presence that made the space quake. 

In an instant, a blinding dawn was created as it charged towards the dagger.

Lai Lei instantly crashed a dove amulet he had on him the moment he saw the two attacks were about to collide as he made a desperate dash to his right.