Chapter 13: Whip your face until it’s bloody!
Chao Yuanlong reached out with his hands, using his bare palms to catch the naked blade. He clapped down on the green sword-light.
Yet, to his surprise, the streak of green light suddenly erupted with countless streaks of green sword essence!
Almost as if it was a real dragon, all of the armor on his body began to rattle—just like a dragon rattling its scales!
Green dragon in the sleeve*, true dragon rattles its scales!
At this moment, the green sword light resembled a flesh and blood dragon!
As the green sword essence split apart, it collided against the golden needles and broke them apart!
Chao Yuanlong was forced back a step, his expression becoming grave.
He spat out each word one by one: “YAN!” “ZHAO! “ GE!”
A shadow flashed past the eyes of the crowd, wearing a suit of white clothes and a blue changpao—this was indeed Yan Zhaoge!
The unworried countenance of Yan Zhaoge, which did not seem any different than if he was going for a leisurely walk, all of the Broad Creed Mountain disciples suddenly felt the tension in the hearts loosen as the previous suppression from Chao Yuanlong was entirely swept away. At the same time, all of the Sun Saint Clan disciples—without exception—found their hearts tightening. Even though they were used to acting with arrogance and looking down upon the world, at this moment, their haughty manner became downcast.
Without any tension or hurriedness in his voice, Yan Zhaoge walked in front of Chao Yuanlong and said, “I am here. However you want to conclude this, why don’t you say it?”
Chao Yuanlong intensely started at Yan Zhaoge and shouted in a heavy voice: “You’ve come!”
His entire body began to light up with golden light, millions of golden needles like a boundless radiance, illuminating everything in all four directions like the sun.
In the next breath, Chao Yuanlong struck out towards Yan Zhaoge with his palm.
He was a blazing sun, comparable to the celestial sun at noon!
This was different from the previous time when he was intimidating Sikong Qing, whose level he far surpassed. Chao Yuanlong, aside from using the Solar Lily technique, also forcefully exerted the might of the Heaven Striking Palm.
The combined might of these two techniques made him even more imposing than before.
Just the palm wind generated from the technique was similar to the sharp, cold aura of a blade.
Chao Yuanlong’s palm attack engulfed the entire region within his vicinity, causing an enormous cloud of silt to rise up. With the force of his attack—even the dust particles became frozen in midair!
With the force of this palm attack, even sealing the circulation of air was able to be accomplished! Training the qi to be as hard as stone—his fleshly body would be capable of deforming metal like mud!
Without changing his expression, Yan Zhaoge waved his sleeve and sent an azure light flying out towards Chao Yuanlong.
The sound of the dragon once again rang out, sending azure light exploding outwards. These thousands rays of green sword-light whistled through the air, resembling the manifestation of a divine dragon.
Immediately after attacking with his sword, following the sword essence dragon, his entire person seemed to transform into an green dragon diving into the sky, breaking apart the millions of golden needles!
Dragon from an unparalleled technique, causing an apparition of a prancing dragon among the clouds!
The apparition of a dragon appearing in the clouds, rising upwards towards the heavens, would cause all the grand figures of the world to take notice!
“Bang!”
A crisp sound echoed. The golden qi and the green qi collided, and then dispersed.
Chao Yuanlong hurriedly flew backwards several steps. After steadying himself, his eyes betrayed a hint of confusion.
As he regained his wits, his expression became incomparably hideous. He fixed his gaze on Yan Zhaoge. On his face, streaks of dark red blood were clearly visible. Clearly, they were caused by Yan Zhaoge using some mysterious technique to lash Chao Yuanlong.
Yan Zhaoge clasped his hands behind his back and serenely looked at Chao Yuanlong without speaking. However, the intent was clear—“Do you still want to fight back?”
Chao Yuanlong was so angry that his spirit almost left his body* and let out an angry roar. Without care for his injuries, he once more threw himself at Yan Zhaoge.
(TN Note: Lit. in Chinese is “One Buddha rising to heaven, Two Buddha escaping from the body”. Don’t understand it but I thought it was interesting—basically, it just means that he is really angry!)
Within the murkiness of the Sealing Dragon Abyss, flashes of green light would appear, followed by the roaring sound of a dragon.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The crowd of Sacred Sun Clan disciples, witnessing the scene before them, were entirely tongue-tied. Before their very eyes, they clearly saw the vigorous Chao Yuanlong being lashed over and over again, leaving a criss-crossed pattern of bloody marks all over his face. Witnessing this sorry sight, they felt like weeping.
Chao Yuanlong was beaten until his head was spinning and his entire face was swollen, and his eyes turned blood red.
He stimulated his entire reserve of aura-qi, condensing it all in the center of his palms, and once again leapt out towards Yan Zhaoge.
At this time, he had entirely abandoned his defenses and concentrated all of his power on attacking, raising his attack power to the very peak. Even if he exhausted all his power, he wanted to return this humiliation and beat Yan Zhaoge to death!
Yan Zhaoge cast a sidelong glance at him and waved his right arm, sending a sword attack towards where his finger was pointing—straight at Chao Yuanlong’s incoming palm.
An earth-shattering dragon roar boomed out, followed by a wretched shriek.
In the next moment, the spectators could see the aftermath of the clash. Chao Yuanlong had a bloody hole through the center of his palm, pierced through by Yan Zhaoge’s single sword!
Yan Zhaoge unenthusiastically asked, “Are you satisfied now?”
Facing the bewildered gazes of the onlookers, Yan Zhaoge’s expression once again became tranquil. Waving his sleeve, he exposed a piece of turquoise jade. Scrutinizing this scene, only now were the onlookers able to get a good look at the weapon Yan Zhaoge had been using throughout the entire fight.
Yet, this only made the onlookers draw in a breath of cold air. Chao Yuanlong, upon seeing this scene, had his eyes turn black momentarily, and almost fainted.
It did not even resemble a sword—rather, the slim and delicate piece of turquoise jade was actually a thin bamboo branch.
Yan Zhaoge grasped the branch with his right hand, while his left hand pinched the other end of the stick. Bending the branch between his fingers, he made a slight arc with the branch. This branch—it actually still had some fresh and tender bamboo leaves still attached to the top of it!
Even though they were seeing these events play out before their very eyes, many of the onlookers could not believe what they were seeing.
Countless thoughts and justifications began rising up in their minds.
“This…what kind of fearsome artifact is this? Perhaps…it is some secret and mysterious inheritance—that must be why it resembles a regular bamboo branch!”
As soon as some people came up with these ideas, Yan Zhaoge swung his hand. The bamboo stick stuck into ground as if it was a sharp sword, and gently swayed back and forth.
Yet, after losing the reinforcement of Yan Zhaoge’s aura-qi, that bamboo stick instantly began to wither from the corrosive atmosphere in the Sealing Dragon Abyss.
“Even metal cannot bear the pressure, how could a simple plant?”
“Having the finest control, reaching the summit of precision, lifting the heavy as if it were light.” Sikong Qing’s pupils flashed with astonishment. “Before making his move, he only accumulated the minimum aura-qi, and did not use spirit qi from an artifact. Yet, wielding his qi so acutely, I thought it was a common sword…but did not think that it was actually just a bamboo stick…”
Sikong Qing attentively observed Yan Zhaoge: “He must have broken through the bottleneck, and reaching the outer aura Martial Scholar realm—I have never heard of an inner aura Martial Scholar cultivator being able to achieve meticulous control over their aura-qi to such an extent.”
“Yet, this control; even an initial completion outer level Martial Scholar would not be able to achieve it. After all, he….”
For a moment, all of the people present felt a momentary despondence.
Even though their individual cultivation bases might not be outstanding, each and every one of them was from a renowned sect and was widely experienced. Due to this, they were all able to see the just how extraordinary that last sword strike was.
Using a piece of bamboo as a sword, yet still displaying such power—what if he had been using a real sword?
If it was a common weapon, then how would it have been like if he had used a magical treasure instead?
Even the Broad Creed Mountain disciples became silent at this point.
Chao Yuanlong stared at Yan Zhaoge, laboriously inhaling and exhaling, as the ripples of a magical treasure’s spirit qi began to undulate on his body.
Previously, he hadn’t been using this magical treasure.
Yan Zhaoge still seemed to not care as he disinterestedly looked over: “So you want to compare whose weapon is better?”
Chao Yuanlong started, his face turning scarlet, but did not dare to continue activating his artifact.
Yan Zhaoge stopped, swept his sleeve, and caused the nineteen low-grade artifacts that had been lying on the ground to soar up. With the sudden activation of aura-qi, these treasures regained their spiritual link, and in an earth-shaking manner all charged straight at Chao Yuanlong.
The Broad Creed Mountain disciples let out cries of alarm, for at this moment the might displayed by these magical treasures far surpassed their original power.
Chao Yuanlong did not dare to continue stiffly resisting, and found himself forced to hurriedly retreat as he was smashed by lightning and buffeted by winds.
The crowd of Broad Creed Mountain disciples all began to laugh loudly, while the Sun Saint Clan disciples could do nothing but look on dejectedly.
The majority of these magical treasures were all protective ones—armguards, shields, armored suits—yet at this moment, they were all being used to rush Chao Yuanlong. They resembled a giant smashing down again and again.
Yan Zhaoge finally started boxing from the sky with a magical shield. The shield bashing down broke through Chao Yuanlong’s defense and smashed him on the head. This direct hit caused the Heaven’s favoured son from the Sacred Sun Clan to be knocked unconscious and keel over on the ground.
After having knocked Chao Yuanlong unconscious, Yan Zhaoge carelessly moved to massage his shoulders. His gaze happened to fall on the remaining Sacred Sun Clan disciples, who immediately felt cold sweat pour down their backs.