The system is the proficiency panel

Raymond knelt in the void, and the red holy stone embedded in his chest made an ominous hum. Cracks spread on the surface of the holy stone like spider webs, and with each expansion, blood like magma oozed out from the cracks. His skin began to peel off in large pieces, revealing the squirming flesh underneath - the flesh was glowing golden red like lava, and it kept twisting and expanding.

"Uhhhhhh-!"

A painful roar came out of Raymond's throat, and his spine made a teeth-grinding "crackling" sound, stretching and deforming section by section. Carter Doyle staggered back two steps, and the black energy dissipated uncontrollably.

He watched as the bones of his teacher's arms pierced through the skin and turned into sharp red bone blades; the flesh at the end of the spine tore through, and a long tail covered with barbs grew out; the head was stretched and deformed, and the frontal bone bulged to form horns - what finally appeared before his eyes was a three-meter-tall, red-flame beast shaped like a fire unicorn!

"Teacher...you..."

Carter's voice choked in his throat. Raymond had completely lost his human form, only his blood-red eyes still retained a trace of familiar madness. The Red Flame Beast raised its head and roared, tearing a huge hole in the clouds. Carter was blown hundreds of meters away by the shock wave, and blood oozed from his seven orifices.

Lin Ji's pupils shrank suddenly, and the Canyang Sword automatically flew back to his hand. The monster in front of him exuded an aura more dangerous than the Flame Snake - it was a twisted creation that combined the essence of the Holy Stone and the flesh and blood of the Martial Saint, and every inch of its body was surging with destructive power.

Roar--!

The four legs of the Red Flame Beast stepped into the air, and blood-red flames ignited on the soles of its feet. It suddenly pounced on Lin Ji, and its speed was hundreds of times faster than the speed of sound. Lin Ji fully opened the space-time domain and retreated quickly, but saw the Red Flame Beast's long tail sweeping across his chest, and the barbs on the tail tip scratched across his chest.

scoff!

The Taoist robe was torn like a piece of paper, and three deep blood scars appeared on Lin Ji's chest. What was even more terrifying was that blood-red flames ignited at the edge of the wound, burning his spiritual power!

Lin Ji groaned, and water spirit power rushed to the wound frantically, but it could only delay the spread of the flame. The flame continued to burn and could not be extinguished. Its nature was somewhat similar to the Yangyan he had been practicing.

Raymond didn't give Lin Ji a chance to breathe, and spit out a lava fireball. The fireball suddenly split in mid-air, turning into hundreds of meteors that blocked all the retreat routes. Lin Ji turned his sword sharply, slashing out sword shadows all over the sky, and shattered the meteors in front of him.

Lin Ji gritted his teeth and used the space-time domain to the limit. The space within a radius of ten kilometers solidified like amber, and the movements of the Red Flame Beast suddenly stopped.

He clenched his left hand, and the Settling Sun Sword turned into green vines that wrapped around the body of the Red Flame Beast. His right hand pointed like a sword, and a starlight condensed at his fingertips.

Split the sky!

The moment the sword light was slashed out, Lin Ji could no longer maintain the time stop, and the time in the field began to flow again, but the sword light was already close at hand, and Raymond had no way to avoid it.

Suddenly a black shadow appeared. Carter Doyle was covered in blood, and the black energy was burned out, but he still rushed towards Raymond without hesitation, knocking him off angle.

The dark crack swallowed Carter, leaving only one sentence.

"Teacher... let's go..."

In his last sight, Raymond was rolling and screaming in pain. The space crack had destroyed half of his body, but the blood light gushing out of the holy stone was quickly repairing it.

Lin Ji looked at the Red Flame Beast while panting, and suddenly alarm bells rang in his heart.

The monster stopped rolling, half of its body healed quickly, and a dazzling light like the sun instantly burst out from its body. Its body expanded again, and white flames spurted out from the gaps between its scales. Its aura actually broke through to the peak of the fifth-level martial saint!

"Let's die together... cultivators..."

Raymond's remaining consciousness roared in the flames. Its four legs seemed to crush the void, and its entire body turned into an unstoppable meteor, its speed reaching a thousand times the speed of sound.

Lin Ji's pupils contracted to the extreme. The speed was too fast and he had to move in space to avoid it.

When Lin Ji just moved to 500 kilometers away, he found that the meteor had changed direction and was in front of him again in an instant.

Knowing that this attack was unavoidable, Lin Ji grasped the Canyang Sword with both hands, poured all his spiritual power into it, and the sword body emitted an unprecedented light.

Time and space · condense light!

This was Lin Ji's new understanding of the use of the space-time domain after he learned how to split the sky. He condensed a translucent glazed light film on the surface of the sword.

The speed of time flow inside and outside the light film differs by hundreds of times. A moment of time in the outside world is stretched into a long preparation time, allowing the power of this sword to accumulate.

"cut!"

At the moment when the sword blade collided with the meteor, with a low shout from Lin Ji, the space-time light film shattered, and the sword light that had been accumulated to the limit poured out like a galaxy, emitting a power comparable to the fifth realm of mind.

The Red Flame Beast collided with the galaxy with a loud bang. The world fell silent, and then a white light burst out that annihilated everything. The mountains collapsed silently, and the clouds were torn into pieces by the shock wave.

The white light lasted for ten breaths. When the light faded, only a shaky figure remained in the sky. Lin Ji's Taoist robe had been torn into pieces, his body was covered with burnt wounds, and his right arm was twisted unnaturally.

“Won…?”

As soon as this thought came to mind, Lin Ji felt extremely dizzy. His eyes went dark and he fell from the sky like a bird with broken wings.

……

Outside the battlefield at the north gate of Hongxia City, Ye Qingyu's knuckles turned white as he held the telescope. He looked at the piles of corpses in the battlefield at the north gate - many of them were his men who had followed him for many years, but now they were crushed into the blood mud like rags by the cultivators and the mecha army.

He punched the edge of the sand table, causing wood chips to fly. The model of Hongxia City on the sand table remained motionless, but the flag representing the coalition forces was in pieces.

"If we continue to fight like this, our elite troops will be wiped out!"

He gritted his teeth, veins bulging on his forehead.

Yan Xuan silently stroked the hilt of his sword, with blood still stained on his armor. More than half of his 3,000 heavy-armored warriors were killed in today's charge. Those alloy armors that were supposed to be invulnerable to swords and guns turned out to be as fragile as paper in front of the cultivators.

Helian Teng suddenly sneered and placed the wine bag heavily on the table.

"Where is the 'sure victory' promised by the Holy Church? Lord Raymond went to intercept the leader of the cultivators in person, but now there is no news. However, the formation in Hongxia City is getting brighter and brighter!"

There were hurried footsteps outside the tent, and a messenger stumbled in with burn marks on his face.

"Report! Something unexpected happened at the North Gate battlefield. Three monsters that spit fire appeared. Our vanguard troops... were completely wiped out!"

"what!"

Ye Qingyu suddenly grabbed the messenger by the collar.

"Where are the two Martial Saints sent by the Holy Church?"

"Both martial saints were eaten by that monster, and now the battle line is retreating."

The messenger's Adam's apple rolled.

Yanxuan suddenly drew his sword and cut off the corner of the case, and a cold light flashed amid the flying wood chips.

"We are being treated as abandoned pawns."

The tent was dead silent. In the distance, above Hongxia City, the light of the city defense formation was like an inverted galaxy, but the "reinforcements" promised by the Holy Church were nowhere to be seen.

As the three of them looked at each other, not knowing what to do, a blinding white light suddenly appeared in the distance. They looked up in panic, only to see a short-lived sun appearing in the sky, somewhere unknown how far away from Hongxia City.