Mortal Alchemy

"Bang!"

A sword aura blasted into the sea, shattering the mist ice spewed out by the ice fish king. The sharp sword aura struck the ice fish king's head, leaving only a small dent, not even shattering its skull or seriously injuring it.

Chen Ping took a deep breath: "This is a mutated demon king?"

His sword strike would be difficult for ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivators to withstand, yet it failed to harm this mutated ice fish king.

Instantly, he understood the gap between his combat power and those cultivators from the Eastern Xuan Sect's Punishment Peak.

"Roar!"

The ice fish king beneath the water's surface roared in anger, causing the water's surface to tremble violently. It opened its bloody maw, and an extremely terrifying ice mist surged from beneath the water, heading towards Chen Ping.

Chen Ping hurriedly retreated, but the ice mist, like a fountain, relentlessly pursued him.

Chen Ping unleashed a backhand sword strike.

"Clang clang clang clang!!!"

Piercing metallic sounds echoed continuously, as if Chen Ping had been immediately put at a disadvantage by the ice fish king's attack.

Madam Guo on the flying boat, wearing a veil, frowned, her beautiful eyes revealing a hint of worry: "...Should I help him?"

"But he hasn't spoken, so he should still be able to handle it, and there are probably Foundation Establishment cultivators secretly watching this battle."

The ice fish king's magic power filled her with fear and trepidation. If she were to fight it, she would definitely not be its match.

Chen Ping's eyes were cold: "Good beast!"

He immediately used the first move of the Azure Lotus Swordplay—Azure Lotus Taiyi!

While rapidly retreating, he pressed one hand on the body of the Yaoyue Sword.

"Buzz buzz buzz!"

The sword hummed loudly, and at the same time, azure lotuses emerged, a total of eight, scattered in the eight directions—east, west, north, south, up, down, left, and right—under Chen Ping's control of his divine sense, like a sword formation.

Then, petals fell from each of these azure lotuses, transforming into hair-thin sword auras.

And then, they erupted simultaneously!

All the sword auras erupted instantly, heading towards the ice fish king.

"Splash!"

The sharp and terrifying sword auras immediately tore through the ice mist surrounding the ice fish king, attacking without any blind spots.

"Roar!!!"

A large amount of icy mist demonic blood seeped out from the wounds, causing the ice fish king to roar in anger.

Chen Ping sneered: "So, the hardest part of this beast is its head, while the other parts are quite fragile. I just didn't choose the right spot earlier."

This sword aura condensed into threads, and dozens of sword auras attacked simultaneously. Its power was truly terrifying. With this one move, the ice fish king suffered a considerable injury.

Chen Ping thought to himself: "This beast has vast magic power, a powerful attack, and a hard head. Ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivators probably can't break its defense, and once entangled by this fish king, ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivators would probably only end up dying. At the very least, they would be severely injured by the ice mist and eventually forced to sit and await their death."

This kind of mutated attribute demonic power is extremely difficult to deal with. Once it seeps into the bone marrow, you can just wait to sit and die.

Even Chen Ping didn't dare to be careless.

Thus, he understood the plans of the four great Foundation Establishment families.

"Then, I'll slowly grind it down, and it's not appropriate to expose more methods and techniques."

Chen Ping formed hand seals, and the spiritual sword in his hand detached and moved towards the ice fish king to grind it to death.

'Bang', 'Bang', 'Chi'!

The biggest difference between a spiritual weapon and a magic weapon is that a spiritual weapon can store a portion of Chen Ping's spiritual power. Because it has been refined, using the sword technique to assist the divine sense means that you don't necessarily have to use sword aura every time.

Controlling the spiritual sword in this way to grind away the ice fish king's vitality was also a relatively good method.

With hundreds of crisp sword sounds, the sea surface was already stained red, and many places had formed mist ice.

And the ice fish king's wounds became more and more numerous, its injuries became more and more serious, and its movements became slower and slower.

"Roar!!!"

This mutated ice fish king roared unwillingly, as the Yaoyue Sword pierced its heart, ending its life.

"Buzz!"

The Yaoyue Sword flew back into Chen Ping's hand, and then he tied it to his waist.

"It...it's dead?"

Madam Guo, watching the battle from a hundred zhang away, was pale and shocked.

If she were to fight the ice fish king, she would probably be exhausted to death by it, but Chen Ping, who had established his foundation more than ten or twenty years later than her, was actually able to easily kill the ice fish king.

Seeing Chen Ping's methods, she was even more stunned:

"What exquisite swordsmanship, is this the technique passed down from a great sect?"

Chen Ping used a large hand of magic power to pull the huge ice fish king out of the sea and placed it on the deck, panting slightly. He quickly took out a few pills and swallowed them to restore his state.

Madam Guo, disguised as a maidservant, did not speak, for fear of being discovered.

Chen Ping said:

"In the sea area we are responsible for, there is only this one second-order sea monster for the time being. The rest are all first-order. Let the Qi Refining cultivators take action, and we can return to the market to rest for a while."

This second-order ice fish king is worth a lot of money.

The meat of this mutated fish king must taste good.

Madam Guo controlled the white jade flying boat to return to the market from the sea area a hundred miles away.

Zhang Daosheng, who was in charge of the sea area next to Chen Ping, saw Chen Ping returning and was a little surprised. He leaned over to investigate Chen Ping's state, and soon, he was suddenly shocked:

"The remaining aura of the second-order ice fish king..."

Zhang Daosheng looked incredulous: "Shopkeeper Chen...you killed the mutated ice fish king?"

Chen Ping looked at him coldly: "What, does Family Head Zhang want to express something?"

Zhang Daosheng was extremely shocked, his heart was like a stormy sea. He took a deep breath and squeezed out a smile:

"No...I don't mean anything..."

It hadn't been long, and Chen Ping had killed this ice fish king unscathed.

If combat power could be exchanged, wouldn't he be able to kill a Foundation Establishment cultivator in a short period of time?

Thinking of this, Zhang Daosheng felt horrified, his heart sinking to the bottom of the sea.

Zhang Daosheng asked: "Shopkeeper Chen has killed a great enemy, what are your plans next?"

Chen Ping pondered for a moment, and then said: "Let the Qi Refining cultivators clean up the first-order sea beasts and search for treasures."

"After I have rested, I plan to explore the third-order sea spiritual vein, and also take a look at the demon beast that wants to advance to the third-order."

The four great families said that a demon beast wanted to advance to the third-order, which caused the once-in-ten-year tidal surge, but Chen Ping had never seen it with his own eyes, so he didn't quite believe it.

Seeing is believing is more reliable.

Zhang Daosheng cupped his hands and said: "Shopkeeper Chen is amazing."

Then he returned to his responsible sea area and passed the news to the heads of the other three great families.

Back at the market, Madam Guo said with a concerned and worried expression: "Are you planning to use yourself as bait?"

Chen Ping sneered, his eyes cold and gloomy: "I can kill the mutated ice fish king, forcing them a bit."

The only thing between him and the four great Foundation Establishment families was a formal falling out.

He didn't want to be held back by the affairs of the Floating Light Market for too long, since the local Foundation Establishment families regarded him as a thorn in their side and wanted to use the tidal surge to get rid of him.

He might as well give them a chance, let's meet each other halfway.