Chapter 678: Coarse and Wild Baldie (III)
"Come back right now." Ye Weiyang grabbed her, "You're not reserved in the slightest? Weren't you just cursing at that bastard just a bit before? Why are you just so infatuated with such a muscle-headed guy? He's been gone for over four years, and did not give out the slightest news. If he doesn't look for you, it will mean that you already don't have any place in his heart. Even if he comes, you need to teach him a good lesson, or won't you just keep being played by him over and over again? So you'd better obediently sit there. You are not allowed to even look at him, understood?"
Feng Ling'er sat back to her seat miserably, declaring in a low voice, "Don't be like that, Sis Weiyang. See how strong he just became. He must have suffered quite a lot in the past years, don't you find him outstanding? Reaching the ninth step at the age of thirty, don't you see some potential in him?"
"Don't be so complacent. Hmpf, what if he doesn't want you anymore?"
Feng Ling'er shook his head, "That's impossible. He surely had planned to become an overnight celebrity in this Temples' Great Gathering, which is why he didn't come to see me, to avoid leaking their team's strength."
Seeing her confident look, Ye Weiyang couldn't help but laugh to her, "What a girl you are! What a little white flower, you're simply a little infatuated flower. I'm not regarding you anymore."
Sima Xian's victory gained the attention of all Six Great Temples, but the competition still had to go on. Very quickly, the spectators' lines of sight were attracted back to the stage.
A short time after Sima Xian set out to fight, the head of the Mage Temple Li Zhengzhi was picked to join the battle against a warrior. He only needed to launch one spell to achieve complete victory. His performance was very low-key, but clearly his opponent was not strong enough and was unable to force out any of his other abilities.
Almost a half of the contestants from the Six Great Temple were powerhouses of the ninth step. After battles between powerhouses of the ninth step started to take place, the competition became more and more intense, and a domain wielder even appeared in one battle.
On the thirty-fifth battle, the light of selection landed for the third time onto someone from Bright Glimmer of Hope, this time landing on the fifth man of the group.
That was a tall built man, looking even younger than the previous two, and wore his deep green hair long.
His appearance instantly rose comments on the side of the Mage Temple because many mages had recognized him. And on the side of the Knight Temple, a pink haired girl almost instantly clenched her fist, looking extremely sluggish just like the previous Feng Ling'er. Biting her teeth, with great difficulty she resisted the urge to cry out loudly.
Li Zhengzhi looked at Lin Chen on his side, an inquiring look on his face.
Lin Chen had a lifeless look right now, trembling intensely out of excitement.
Li Zhengzhi shifted back his gaze, able to see from Lin Chen's expression that he didn't know at all about his grandson coming to Holy City. That great excitement couldn't possibly be faked.
No mistake, this dark-green-haired and slender-built man looking handsome to the extent of being characterizable as a bit girly, was the only mage of Bright Glimmer of Hope, Lin Xin, nicknamed has-drugs-bro' by everyone else.
Lin Xin's opponent was a knight, so he walked into the stadium alongside this knight. Without leaving the knight the time to open her mouth, Lin Xin's figure flashed and shifted a hundred meters away, as if teleporting, before closing the distance to this knight.
The powerhouses from all Six Great Temples only saw Lin Xin's back flash in blue light before he accelerated to appear a hundred meters away.
When could a mage attain such speed?
That knight had shivers as well, but as he came to take part in the competition, he naturally wouldn't be frightened so easily. In a golden flash of light, a huge snow-white eagle with a golden horn appeared above him.
This gigantic eagle rose over ten meters, and right as it appeared, light essence kept surging in waves, pouring all the way inside the knight.
This knight was originally at the peak of the eighth step of cultivation, but the assistance of the gigantic eagle in the sky caused his imposing manner to rise sharply, rising to the realm of the ninth step in the blink of an eye.
Hias opponent Lin Xin did not chant but scratched the empty air in front of him with his right fist, immediately causing a one meter long thumb-shaped blue light-ray to come out, and be shot at that knight.
The blue ray did not emit the slightest sound, only advancing and tracing an arc.
What's that? That knight who just got boosted by his holy golden eagle dashed at Lin Xin with a greatly increased cultivation. Seeing that inconspicuous blue ray shoot out, as he raised his left hand, a deep golden color condensed instantly, turning into a golden shield in front of him, and he launched Divine Obstruction while coming to a stop in his dash.
A blue ray? Could his opponent be a water element mage?
This being the Temples' Great Gathering, even through the opponent's attack looked inconspicious, he couldn't afford to be careless. As a Guardian Knight, he had to attach the most importance to safety and put emphasis on consolidation. In a battle between a Guardian Knight and a mage, the Guardian Knight would frequently need the mage to exhaust his magic power to achieve victory. After all, Guardian Knights were not expert in speed and had rather weaker attack power, putting them in no good position against mages using their spiritual wings to achieve flight.
Bang.
When the blue ray accurately landed onto the Guardian Knight's shield, against all expectations, that soft looking blue ray with a presence far from comparable to the awe of a fireball suddenly exploded upon contact with the Guardian Knight's shield.
The Guardian Knight was suddenly pushed close to ten meters away, and blue ashes were created on the shield. Immediately, his Spiritual Highlandized Holy Shield disappeared in the midst of the blue ray, as the air surrounding him became clearly distorted.
That was not water, but fire. But what kind of magic was that?
The Guardian Knight lost his shield under the state of Divine Obstruction, and that burning hot stream of air caused his spiritual energy to deplete at a massive speed. With great difficulty, he finally managed to counteract the massive remainder produced by the blue ray.
Although his cultivation was raised to the ninth step thanks to his mount, in the end he hadn't reached the ninth step for real. Facing the instant blast of the opponent's fire spell of the ninth step, he knew that his chances were pretty scarce.
This time, Lin Xin launched yet another attack. Behind his back, his dark hair fluttered slowly on the side of his left arm as his right hand was raised once again, and this time, two such blue rays were shot again.
The Guardian Knight's complexion had become very unsightly. In a situation with no useable equipment, his shield could only be materialized by relying on his own spiritual energy, and adding that to Divine Obstruction made up his greatest defensive state. But the previous blue ray just pierced through his defense, and this time, two of them would certainly be even harder to defend against.
In a large shout, the Guardian Knight strode forward and traced an arc in a movement. In the meantime, a holy light rose from his whole body, sending him into a sanctified mode. His hands crossed each other in midair, and a shield even thicker than the previous one appeared. Incandescent flames formed this heavy shield used to block the incoming attack.
That was still Divine Obstruction, and his only current hope was that this instant spell Lin Xin unleashed actually expended a great amount of magical power, so that the the mage opposing him would have a greater depletion of ressources than he did.
When the blue rays exploded in succession, the Guardian Knight realized once again his mistake. These two blue entities had blasted in succession, causing this shield using holification and Spiritual Highland as basis to actually get split once again, a scorching blue fire rising around the knight's body. Some of it was already on him and caused vast expenditures of spiritual energy to keep gushing out, all of which was just caused by these terrifyingly scorching blue rays of light.
So a real powerhouse of the ninth step was actually such a terrifying thing?
This match looked far more relaxed than before, no flashy magic, no powerful ability, and none of the disdain and coarse wildness showed by Sima Xian.
But true powerhouses were able to discern a lot from this. That simple looking blue ray of light was not simple at all.
Li Zhengzhi looked at Lin Xin with a look full of shock, murmuring, "Such condensed spiritual highland already goes beyond the scale of magic. An easy looking yet extremely complicated control over spiritual energy!
Just what terrifyingly deep level does this child Lin Xin's understanding of fire already reach?
Lin Chen's shock went even beyond Li Zhengzhi's. Was that still that same grandson of his? The previous attack was something he had no way at all to reproduce. Even though Lin Chen's cultivation made a final breakthrough after so many years of bottleneck to finally reach the ninth step after the end of the Holy War, he still felt totally unable to reproduce that control over fire. Moreover, Lin Xin's Heart of Fire gave him a control over fire far beyond any ordinary mage. After his grandson went missing for over four years only to return so powerful, how could he not get excited?
Right at this time, Lin Xin's next display of skills shook the whole audience.
His left foot stepped forward a bit, as he wore an extremely focused look on his face, his eyes flickering in sincerity. Raising his left hand, this time he exerted control using only his forefinger.
Blue rays appeared brazenly in the air, looking even shorter than the previous two, but did not immediately go for the Guardian Knight, only staying condensed at Lin Xin's side.
In a blink of an eye, Lin Xin flamboyantly gave rise to twelve of these blue rays of light, causing the opposite Guardian Knight to look totally blank.
Since two blue rays already exhausted him to such extent, how could so many of them even spare his life? By chance the Temples' Great Gathering had set rules, that killing the opponent is in no way allowed, or else he was afraid he would already be fleeing in great panic.
Those twenty plus rays in the sky formed two large words, "Xin'er."[1]
[1] The affectionate way of calling Li Xin's name, Xin'er, is written with the Chinese characters "馨儿" which are drawn with 20 and 2 strokes respectively
Chapter 679: Light God Domain (I)
Xin'er.
Seeing these words, surges of tears began to flow on Li Xin's cheeks, from the terrace. He has returned, and although he hasn't come to look for me first thing, he still remembered me!
Immediately, Lin Xin raised his hands up, and used his terrifyingly powerful light rays to form a heart symbol surrounding the name Xin'er'.
"This bastard!" Lin Chen's eye immediately reddened beyond his control, finding for the first time his grandson's shows not so repulsive.
The muscles on the face of the opposite Guardian Knight twitched immediately, the opponent was actually making a love declaration in a match of the Temples' Great Gathering. This simply caused him to bury his face in his palm! Finding the shame no longer bearable, the Guardian Knight turned his head and left. What use was there to even keep the match going further? He had visibly already lost anyway.
That Xin'er looked even more terrifying than even an ordinary forbidden fire spell.
Lin Xin faced upwards, looking at the blurry outline of his heart drawing, before a resonant phoenix cry suddenly rang out, the blue rays immediately gathering in his chest to disappear in the blink of an eye. Then he left the field, picking up his cloak as he returned to his comrades.
In this competition, watchers were in no way allowed to come into contact with the contestants. Sitting there, Li Xin was already crying bitterly. So he finally came back, and didn't forget about me!
Looking at the previous scene, even the lead referee Chen Zidian had a monstrous look on his face, thinking to himself, Nowadays' youngsters are really getting more and more daring. But Lin Xin's act was in no way against the rules. He had already proved the power of his blue rays to the whole audience before writing out these two words. What a mystery! The most important for a powerhouse of the ninth step was to find a path to walk on his own, and Lin Xin undoubtedly had found this path. He broke away from traditional magic casting and found an alternative, creating his own route. Perhaps he may seem a bit inferior in terms of the scales of his attacks, but the power of his attacks was definitely amongst the top of the fire mages. And more importantly, his instant release of such magic made his survivability in the battlefield undoubtedly extremely great, and gave him no need for the assistance of other vocations.
Three of the ten people forming Bright Glimmer of Hope had set out, all of whom achieved victory, and all won in style, especially Sima Xian and Lin Xin who left extremely deep impressions.
The light of selection reappeared, but against all expectations, another of the light of selections once again illuminated someone amongst Bright Glimmer of Hope's ranks, as well as someone else on the side of the Spiritual Temple.
Seeing that person illuminated on the side of the Spiritual Temple, a lot of people couldn't help but gasp, because that was actually the auxiliary head of the Spiritual Temple, Sanshui Popo.
The Holy War may have caused immense damage to the Alliance, but also gave rapid rise to powerhouses. Just like Lin Chen, Sanshui Popo managed through her great efforts to achieve a breakthrough and rise to the ninth step, raising her strength greatly. Moreover, being the wife of the head of the Spiritual Temple, Chen Zidian, she held a decisive role in the Spiritual Temple.
Bright Glimmer of Hope was unexpectedly running into such a powerhouse. This time no one was optimistic for them, since this was, after all, the first powerhouse of the ninth step they were meeting.
But at the time the contestant on the side of Bright Glimmer of Hope removed her cloak, a great commotion arose!
She was just too young! How could this Demon Hunt Squad Bright Glimmer of Hope actually be formed with so many of these freaks? Could they have special techniques to change their appearance? How could each one of them just look so young?
Her long hairdrifting lightly in the breeze as she carried an eccentric smile on her face, Chen Ying'er entered the stadium.
Sanshui Popo had a helpless look when seeing her, and did not soar up in excitement when seeing her. Very clearly, Chen Ying'er had already met her grandfather and grandmother before the start of the Temples' Great Gathering.
After Chen Ying'er entered the stadium, she did not immediately chant her incantation, but gave a miserable look to her own grandmother, as if telling her, Do as you see fit, but just don't make it hurt too much please.
Sanshui Popo let out a light sigh. A loving look on her face, she helplessly shook her head, and spoke the words, "I concede." After speaking these words, she immediately turned back to exit the field.
Chen Ying'er stuck out her tongue and exited the stadium vivaciously, with a smile on her face.
What? Sanshui Popo just conceded? The overwhelming majority felt as if they had heard wrong. How could the auxiliary head of the Spiritual Temple just give up against such a young girl? In fact, that was a knock-out competition: just by losing one match, one wouldn't have any more chance to participate in the rest of the Temples' Great Gathering.
Li Zhengzhi furrowed his eyebrows, seemingly wanting to say something, but finally bearing it. With his understanding of the squad Bright Glimmer of Hope, she naturally knew about the relationship between Sanshui Popo and Chen Ying'er.
Situations of conceding in the Temples' Great Gathering were very rare, but not absolutely absent. For instance, there had been once in the previous Temples' Great Gathering two formerly separated Demon Hunters that encountered each other. Just after meeting, one of them took the initiative to concede. No matter what, no rules forbid conceding, so although Sanshui Popo's move raised questions, no one stopped her from doing so. Mysteriously, the contestants on the side of the Spiritual Temple all had tranquil looks, and none of them even went to comment on Sanshui Popo's act.
Seeing this scene, Li Zhengzhi suddenly had an uneasy feeling. The calm of the Spiritual Temple seemed to have another meaning. Although the Spiritual Temple and Mage Temples' relationship was not as close as the Assassin Temple and Knight Temple, the Spiritual Temple could be considered a backer of the Mage Temple for a long time now. Only, their cooperation was achieved in more professional manners.
The competition kept going.
The matches of the Temples' Great Gathering went for a short time, first because there was no struggle of life or death, and because the contestants being at the ninth step for some, and at the eighth step for others, gaps in strength would appear extremely easily, making most matches very short.
In the morning, over forty matches were concluded. Based on this speed, the first rounds of the first stage should terminate by the evening.
Out of the five participating great Temples and the Demon Hunt Squad Bright Glimmer of Hope, the latter was the only one to only keep winning from beginning to now. Five of them had already set out: Yang Wenzhao, Sima Xian, Lin Xin, Chen Ying'er, as well as Duan Yi who also reached the peak of the eighth step, and won thanks to a perfect collaboration with his mammoth mount in that match.
Out of the five, only Duan Yi had a rather difficult time, having been confronted with a fierce battle against a mage for a quarter of a hour, achieving victory by relying on his great defense and personal skills. Achieving victory aside, the others all had a rather easy time.
The Temples' Great Gathering didn't include any lunch pause. The participating powerhouses would have no trouble even spending ten days or half a month without eating, so the competition still kept going.
At the time of the fourty-eighth match, the sixth candidate of Bright Glimmer of Hope was the target of the light of selection, and was this time the one standing in the leftmost of their ranks.
At the time the light of selection came to a stop, the looks of all higher-ups of the Six Great Temple were concentrated on him, because all knew that the first position of a Demon Hunt Squad would always belong to their captain. And Bright Glimmer of Hope's captain was no one else than Long Haochen.
So after over four years passed, Long Haochen finally reappeared.
Long Haochen's luck was very lacking, because the other one selected was astonishly the head of the Warrior Temple, Qiu Yonghao, number one powerhouse of the Warrior Temple.
Qiu Yonghao became blank upon seeing the light of selection reflect upon him. Long Haochen, am I actually going to cross hands with you in such a manner?
His figure flashing, Qiu Yonghao entered the filed, and on the other side, Long Haochen became, after removing his cloak, the target of all lines of sight.
Before even entering the field, he turned back to perform a knight salute in the direction of his grandfather Long Tianying before heading to the field.
Clad in a simple white martial attire, his long golden hair draped over his shoulder and his crystal clear eyes seemingly able to see through anything, in addition to a handsome to the peak appearance, he had a steady disposition like no one else.
But no matter how one would look, with his face he just looked to be in his twenties or so. Yet those other traits caused everyone to forget about his young age.
Looking to him would subconsciously give the feeling of a cleansing breeze. He dispersed no fluctuations of spiritual energy, but just by standing here, he immediately became the focal point. Even the head of the Warrior Temple Qiu Yonghao was not such a target of attention.
Within the Knight Temple, all Golden Foundation Knights got up and returned Long Haochen's salute. No matter for how long he was missing, that was still the Saint Knight Head of their Knight Temple until the Knight Temple would remove that announcement, as well as the commander of all Golden Foundation Knights and Mythril Foundation Knights.
Not only the Knight Temple recognized Long Haochen, but the Assassin Temple, Priest Temple, Warrior Temple, and Mage Temple all had a lot of people recognize him.
Although Long Haochen did not appear for a long time during the Holy War, he left a deep impression in the Assassin, Warrior, and Mage Temples. And in the bloody battles in the southern mountain pass, he was even the hero who saved the fort. History wouldn't get forgotten so easily. No matter how long the time that passed would be, they still recognized the handsome features on Long Haochen's face.