Republic of China Era: Entering the Dao through Divine Strike.

He couldn't see the details from a distance, but he saw the young man in the blue robe walk out of the government office, without a single drop of blood on him.

"Qing Dynasty people! No matter how skilled you are in martial arts, you can't outrun a bullet..."

He didn't finish his sentence. Li Xin's figure had already disappeared the moment he uttered the first word.

Only a faint blue shadow remained, scattered by the sea breeze.

The soldiers all widened their eyes and aimed their guns haphazardly.

A young soldier in the front row collided with the butt of his comrade's rifle in the back row, and the two pulled the trigger at the same time, sending bullets flying into the sky.

A soldier in the back row was so frightened that he threw down his gun, scrambled to his feet, and ran back. He tripped over his military cap on the ground and fell face-first into the mud.

On the wall, two hidden Red Lotus cultists had just raised their talismans when they were struck between the eyebrows by two pebbles that flew from nowhere.

The stone was extremely powerful, piercing directly through the skull and drawing out two plumes of blood mist.

The two fell off the wall, and the talisman paper floated into the ditch, where it became soaked and turned into mud.

Li Xin's figure reappeared on the roof of a rice shop on the street.

He stood on the rooftop, holding a musket, looking down at his prey, shooting them one by one.

The soldiers kneeling in the front row were shot in the head, and without a scream, they collapsed to the ground.

The soldiers standing in the back row immediately panicked, unable to stand steadily, hunching over, aiming and firing wildly as they ran.

When Li Xin ran out of musket bullets, he casually threw them away and picked up another one.

Shoot these ordinary gunmen, especially in urban street fighting.

He sees further than others and acts faster than others.

It was another case of bullets killing.

He simply couldn't imagine what threat these dozens of people posed to him.

When Li Xin threw away the last empty gun.

Not a single soldier remained standing.

The remaining few, not quite dead, were still rolling on the ground, wailing in agony.

Smith stood in the middle of the street.

His legs were trembling, and he had a gun in his hand, but he didn't dare to raise it at all.

Because he saw that the moment someone raised their gun to aim, they were immediately hit by a bullet and died.

Li Xin walked past him without even glancing at him.

As he walked by, a gust of wind rose up. Smith stood motionless for a long while before his head rolled off his neck and rolled a long way in the blood-soaked street before coming to a stop.

A soft gasp escaped from the surrounding crowd.

But no one dared to step forward and search the body.

……

Li Xin walked a few dozen steps, and the street in front of him suddenly became quiet.

All the shops on both sides were closed, and the seals on the doors were flapping loudly in the wind.

There were no pedestrians or vendors on the street, and even the stray dogs had disappeared.

A man sat cross-legged in the middle of the street, wearing a green robe and with a long beard, his face as withered as wood; it was none other than the Fish-Dragon Taoist.

At the end of the street stood a man in a red robe, looking sinister, holding a jade talisman in his hand; it was Quan Longyuan.

The aura emanating from the Fish-Dragon Taoist is very strange.

It's not the qi and blood power of a martial artist; it's a different feeling altogether.

It is cold and damp.

It's like a piece of rotten wood that's been soaking in a stagnant pool for decades.

He sat there cross-legged, the ground within a radius of three zhang around him was damp, water seeping from the cracks in the bluestone slabs, gleaming with a cold, eerie light in the sunlight.

His eyes were closed, and his lips moved silently.

Quan Longyuan stood at the end of the street, the jade talisman in his hand already showing several fine cracks.

The true essence of karmic fire within the talisman was leaking out, and with each leak, his face paled a little more.

"Scholar Li".

The Fish-Dragon Taoist slowly opened his eyes.

His pupils weren't black; they were a dark green, like some kind of deep-sea fish.

“I have been waiting here for a long time… You have come all the way from the capital to Guangping, destroyed my branch altar, and killed my followers. Today, let us settle this once and for all.”

He reached out and drew the peach wood sword. The blade was covered with dark green moss, and something was wriggling beneath it.

With the sword tip pointing skyward, he made a hand seal with his left hand. Suddenly, water began to seep into the ground along the entire street.

It seeped out simultaneously from the cracks in the bluestone slabs, from the fissures in the walls, and from the gaps in the roof tiles.

The water seeped in more and more, and in the blink of an eye, it overflowed the soles of the shoes and submerged the ankles.

The water was dark green and emitted a strong fishy smell.

At the same time, flames lit up at both ends of this water street.

Karmic Fire Burns the Heavens Formation.

The jade talisman in Quan Longyuan's hand shattered completely, and the fragments turned into dust in his palm.

The chanting of the Rebirth Sutra changed, turning into a hoarse, inhuman growl.

Twisted human faces began to emerge from the water, howling and rolling in the turmoil of the water and fire.

Li Xin stood in the middle of the street.

The dark green liquid, which reached above his ankles, separated on its own when it touched his trouser legs.

He looked down at the water, then looked up at the blazing fires burning at both ends of the street, and suddenly smiled.

“The Silver Bottle Monk once set up a Saha White Bone Array in the capital, which is much stronger than your Karmic Fire Burning Heaven Array.”

He clasped his hands together, then separated them.

Golden flames overflowed from his palm.

The flame wasn't big, only about the size of a fist.

But it was so bright that it shone so brightly that the water surface of the entire street was turned golden.

The remnants of the jade talisman from the entire Dragon Abyss emitted a wisp of green smoke from his palm before exploding into powder.

He was thrown backward by an invisible gust of air, his back slamming into the stone wall at the end of the street, leaving a dent in the wall.

He coughed up blood, his palms were charred black, and his ten fingers trembled as if struck by lightning.

Staring intently at the ball of golden flame, his lips trembled: "True fire..."

Yulong Daoren was in a worse state than Quan Longyuan.

His peach wood sword began to burn the instant Li Xin's golden flames ignited.

It doesn't start burning from the tip of the sword, but from the moss on the sword itself.

The wriggling creatures let out a very faint, piercing scream under the golden flames, then curled up, scorched, and turned to ashes.

The peach wood sword was broken in two, and the broken ends were charred black.

Blood seeped from the fingernails of all ten fingers of the Fish-Dragon Taoist at the same time.

He cultivated the Water Path Technique for forty years, rising from an ordinary fisherman to the half-step True Qi Realm, relying on using water to control the spirit and the spirit to transform into a dragon.

He believed that in this sea area, his water formation was the ultimate authority.

But his sky was burned through by a ball of fire.

"Impossible... Water and fire are mutually exclusive. My Xuan Yin Water comes from the depths of the sea eye, how could it be dried up by fire?"

"The Sea Eye?" Li Xin looked down at his palm, the golden flames in his palm still flickering gently, casting a half-light, half-shadow on his face. "My fire can boil the Sea Eye dry."

He clenched his fist.

True Qi boiled and roared...

It burst outwards from its body.

Golden flames suddenly erupted.

An extremely hot aura spread in all directions.

All the karmic fire talismans laid out by Quanlongyuan were extinguished at the same time.

The true meaning of karmic fire within the talisman was directly crushed by the power of the golden flames.

Quan Longyuan's body slid down the stone wall and collapsed to the ground, still chanting the Rebirth Sutra, coughing up blood with each verse.

The Taoist Yulong lay sprawled on the bamboo mat, panting heavily.

His blue robe was soaked with steam, his hair clung to his face in strands, and his fingers trembled on the bluestone slab with a cracking sound.

He is waiting.

This street connects to the pond of the Wang Family Compound, and beneath the pond is an underground river that flows directly to the sea.

Given even a moment, he could transform into water and escape through the underground river.

The water was his domain; he had lived in the water for forty years, and all he needed to do was return to it…

Li Xin gave him no chance to breathe.

He emerged from the mist, and the water beneath his feet parted on its own where he stepped, revealing the bluestone slabs underneath.

He walked up to the Fish-Dragon Taoist, looked down at the withered old Taoist, and extended a finger to touch the Fish-Dragon Taoist's brow.

This finger strike was executed with minimal force, yet it was as fast as a phantom.

Even though the Fish-Dragon Taoist had clearly seen it, the thought of hiding from him crossed his mind.

But it couldn't move an inch at all.

Before he could react, his brow had already furrowed.

The entire skull caves inward from the center of the forehead, as if an invisible mountain has pressed down on the forehead.

His body began to convulse violently, and the skin exposed outside his robe turned red rapidly, as if he had been thrown into a pot of boiling water.

That was the Burning Sea True Fire burning him from the inside, burning the water essence in his meridians.

The essence of water was the foundation of his forty years of cultivation, and it was being burned away inch by inch.

His pupils began to dilate, and he exhaled a series of indistinct bubbles. Then his head lolled to the side, and he went limp.

His body slammed onto the bamboo mat, which was scalded by the residual heat and began to smoke.

The white mist had not yet dissipated. At the end of the street, Quan Longyuan leaned against the wall, still chanting the Rebirth Sutra.

He gasped for breath after each sentence, and the skin on his lips peeled off in pieces.

“You’re different from your senior brother.” Li Xin walked up to him. “He was cursing me when he died, but you were chanting sutras for yourself.”

Quan Longyuan stopped chanting and looked up at Li Xin.

His face was no longer pale, it was translucent, and you could see the bluish veins beneath his skin. His lips were purple, and his eyes were sunken. "When a person is about to die, they always need some thoughts. If they can't live, it's good to be a ghost in the afterlife."

"Have you ever thought about how you'll explain this to those you turned into Karmic Fire Talismans after you die?"

Quan Longyuan's calm expression shattered. His lips trembled violently... He extracted the soul of a living person, sealed it in a talisman, ignited karmic fire with resentment, and then used the karmic fire as the power source for the formation.

He told himself that this was spiritual practice, a way to deliver the deceased.

But he knew in his heart that a soul burned to ashes by karmic fire had nothing left.

Clean and spotless, like dust blown away by the wind. There is no afterlife, no reincarnation; even the right to be a ghost has been stripped away.

"There is karma in this world, isn't there?"

Li Xin did not answer. He turned around, his back to Quan Longyuan, and paused for a moment.

"I don't know if others have received retribution, but you have."