As they crossed the street in front of Prince Yue’s residence, countless arrows suddenly flew in from all directions. The strength of these arrows was so strong that they produced faint whistles, and their number was so great that they seemed to have blotted the entire sky. Shockingly, they were not weaker than the attack of ordinary warriors.
“Protect Young Master Yun and Master Jia!”
Bai Mou’s pupils constricted as she leaped from her horse after giving out an order and performed a hand incantation gesture. A beam of green light shot out of her right hand and exploded into countless small sharp objects in the air, shooting in all directions.
Immediately, miserable cries could be heard coming from all around them.
Countless arrows rained down at Bai Mou, who was in mid-air, but they seemed to be blocked by an invisible force and all fell to the ground. After the first attack, she stepped on the incoming arrows and quickly went to the distance, beginning to slaughter the enemy.
All the people she brought to escort Yunxiao were from the State Guardians, each with at least the cultivation base of a Martial Master. Although the rain of arrows was deadly, it could not hurt them at all. After a moment of confusion, they were able to deal with the sudden attack in an orderly manner.
Under Ji Meng’s protection, Yunxiao and Jia Rong were also unscathed. Yunxiao picked up an arrow from the ground and broke it in half, throwing it away casually as he said, “This is an arrow made of green iron bamboo, a standard weapon equipped with the crossbows used by the military.”
Ji Meng said while frowning, “Do you mean all these people are under Prince Qin Yang?”
Yunxiao nodded, “I’ve no doubt about it. Be careful, they won’t just send these minions. The real enemy is approaching.”
Sure enough, after repeated screams were heard from the distance, Bai Mou seemed to have met her match. From that direction came a constant fluctuation of energy as if she was fighting some powerful enemy.
Suddenly, a ferocious voice rang out from behind Yunxiao, “Kill these people and leave no survivors!”
In the blink of an eye, dozens of figures poured over from all directions. Each of these men was clad in black with their faces covered, and their skills were extraordinary—they were all Martial Masters! As soon as they rushed into Yunxiao’s group, they plunged his protectors into a chaotic battle.
When Yunxiao looked at the owner of the voice, he burst out laughing. “So it was you, Old Eight.”
Li Yi flew into a rage. Pointing at Yunxiao, he gnashed his teeth and said, “You are lucky to have Luo Yunshang save you the last time, but you will not be so lucky this time! Senior brothers, help me keep others in check. I will kill this bast*rd myself!”
The two men behind him were the Baizhan experts who had been lurking beside him, and they were also his senior brothers from the same sect. They were Guang Yuanjia and Yu Yuanwen, both Martial Lords.
Guang Yuanjia was the man who helped Li Yi escape from the Li Family’s courtyard that day. Staring at Ji Meng, he laughed disdainfully and said, “Junior brother, rest assured, none of these dogs will disturb me. You can concentrate on cutting off the boy’s flesh piece by piece.”
Yunxiao said lightly, “I knew you had betrayed us. Well, as the saying goes, once a servant, always a servant. Since you were a servant of my family, I, as the young master of the Li Family, have the obligation to get rid of the trash personally.”
“I’ve had enough of your nonsense! I’m going to kill you!”
Li Yi could no longer stand it. As soon as he saw Yunxiao’s carefree expression, his heart was filled with a monstrous anger! He wished he could tear that face to pieces and step on it countless times! At this moment, the anger accumulated in his heart for days finally exploded out. The sword in his hand suddenly let out dragon roars as he leaped into the air and slashed down at Yunxiao’s vital parts.
Just as Ji Meng was about to rush over to protect Yunxiao, an extremely domineering pressure poured toward him.
“Little Great Martial Master, your opponent is me!” Guang Yuanjia laughed. “Show me all the martial techniques you know and let me have a good time. Don’t die in one move, or it will be too boring.” As he said that, he thrust his spear through the air with its tip pointing straight at Ji Meng’s forehead. Specks of ice flickered across the spear, and the temperature in the surroundings dropped sharply.
Ji Meng’s heart sank. Not daring to be careless, he quickly turned his sword and swept it at the shaft of the spear!
His slender soft sword darted repeatedly like a serpent, piercing those ice specks. Suddenly, a beam of sword light struck at the spear, causing a blast of ice to burst out of it.
As a result, Guang Yuanjia’s spear was immediately knocked to the side. ‘How is this possible! I’m a genuine Martial Lord, so how could a Great Martial Master knock my spear away?’ After a brief lapse of concentration, he saw Ji Meng’s sword flash, and then countless flowers seemed to fall from the air and sweep toward Li Yi.
Shocked, he quickly raised his spear and brought it down at Ji Meng.
Yunxiao took out a pill and threw it to Ji Meng. “Take this pill. Help me hold these two Martial Lords and I will help you after I kill this servant!”
“Hold two Martial Lords? Haha! Do you think Ji Meng is a Martial King? You really don’t know the height of the sky!” Li Yi sneered. “How are you going to kill me with the mere strength of a warrior? I am a Great Martial Master of the Three Powers realm! You’re such a joker!” Without Ji Meng’s interference, he shook out his sword again and thrust it at Yunxiao.
With a calm expression, Ji Meng took the pill Yunxiao threw to him and swallowed it without even looking at it. Suddenly, a strange force began to rotate in his dantian and quickly circulated throughout his body. The meridians inside him were expanding under this surging force, and his body swelled slightly as if he had been inflated.
Jia Rong stared nervously at Ji Meng. He was not concerned about Ji Meng’s life or death, but wanted to know the effect of the pill. He had witnessed Yunxiao refine this pill—it was an enhanced version of the origin blasting pill!
Guang Yuanjia sneered disdainfully, “An origin blasting pill? No matter what kind of medicinal pill you take, it can’t change the fact that you are a Great Martial Master. Under the realm of Martial Lords, you are nothing but an ant.”
At this moment, Ji Meng noticed the abnormality of the pill. He was a nine-stars Great Martial Master. Normally, he could at most have the strength of a peak nine-stars Great Martial Master after taking an origin blasting pill, because the pill had a unique property—its purity determined the level that a warrior could break through after the energy surge. However, no matter how pure the pill was, it was absolutely impossible for a warrior to break through into the next realm.
In other words, even if a peak nine-stars Great Martial Master took this pill, his strength could never break through to the realm of Martial Lords.
But to Ji Meng’s great surprise, his Primordial Qi was still rising after soaring to the peak level of a nine-stars Great Martial Master, regardless of whether his body could bear it. And in a few blinks of an eye, it had arrived at the bottleneck of Great Martial Masters.
An unspeakable sense of oppression made his whole body red, and his muscles grew larger than before, giving him a feeling that he was about to explode and die while waves of powerful aura kept spreading from him. Even Guang Yuanjia and Yu Yuanwen were staring at him in astonishment as they thought, ‘This fella will not die like this, will he?’
“Roar!”
“Roar!”
“Roar!”
All of a sudden, Ji Meng threw his head back and let out three deafening roars, and his aura soared once more. Then, the red all over him was gone, and his muscles stopped bulging as well. He was completely back to normal, but a murderous aura was quietly spreading from his eyes.
“What? This aura!” Guang Yuanjia cried out in disbelief, his eyes full of horror.
Yu Yuanwen’s eyes widened as he blurted out, “Martial Lord! He has reached the realm of Martial Lords! Heavens! What pill did he take just now? Why can it make a warrior break through a realm?”
With a gloomy face, Guang Yuanjia said ferociously, “So what if you break through to the realm of Martial Lords? You are merely having the Primordial Qi level of the realm, and your understanding of martial arts is still far from enough! Today, I’ll show you the huge difference between a genuine Martial Lord and a fake Martial Lord!”
He shook out his spear and cried out softly, “Mountain Wings, unseal!”
Waves of energy burst out of the spear. In a flash, the spear that had been gray all over turned silver, with rings of silver light rippling out of its shaft. Just the aura of the spear alone had made many Martial Masters in the surroundings feel uneasy and retreat in horror.
“Ice erodes the soul!” Guang Yuanjia cried out. The natural Primordial Qi within a radius of ten meters seemed to have been drained away, turning into streams of cold air and raining down from the sky. Then, the spear pierced through the air with a jolt of his arms and went straight at Ji Meng.
The attack was delivered with all his might. Although Ji Meng’s strength had reached the realm of Martial Lords by relying on a medicinal pill, he did not dare to be careless.
After stepping over the threshold of the Martial Lord realm, Ji Meng felt a kind of strength and state of mind he had never felt before. At this moment of breakthrough, his cognition and comprehension of martial arts reached a new level. The poem left by Yunxiao in the Alchemist Association once again appeared in his mind, and a brand-new understanding also emerged in his head, giving him a feeling of enlightenment.
It was not only strength that had advanced for him at this moment!
“Spirit Snake, unseal!”
Ji Meng’s eyes sparkled and his face was calm. He completely forgot that his strength had improved because of the medicinal pill. He felt as if he had really broken through, and no matter who the enemy was ahead of him, he had full confidence in winning!
After the Spirit Snake was unsealed, it turned into a small snake, slithering through the ice flakes all over the sky. Wherever it passed, a sharp sound of ice breaking could be heard, and pink peach blossoms fell out of the thin air. It was as if the spring breeze was gusting across the land, blowing away all the ice and snow and making the peach blossoms bloom.
“Clang!”
Suddenly, Mountain Wings was caught by Spirit Snake, which wrapped around the shaft like a long ribbon and then wound upward rapidly.
Guang Yuanjia was shocked. He could not believe that his ice energy was broken by Ji Meng’s inexplicable sword intent, and that the spear in his hand was entangled by the sword and could not move at all. The snake-like sword kept climbing up with an intense murderous aura, and was about to cut off his arm.
“Extreme ice, detonate!” He cried out while pouring all the energy in him into the spear and detonating it instantly!
The spear let out a miserable wail as streams of icy force blasted out of it, sweeping out in all directions. Under the impact of the force, Ji Meng’s sword quickly shrank back. But wherever it passed, it still sliced through the icy air, causing the surrounding temperature to rise again.
As they crossed the street in front of Prince Yue’s residence, countless arrows suddenly flew in from all directions. The strength of these arrows was so strong that they produced faint whistles, and their number was so great that they seemed to have blotted the entire sky. Shockingly, they were not weaker than the attack of ordinary warriors.
“Protect Young Master Yun and Master Jia!”
Bai Mou’s pupils constricted as she leaped from her horse after giving out an order and performed a hand incantation gesture. A beam of green light shot out of her right hand and exploded into countless small sharp objects in the air, shooting in all directions.
Immediately, miserable cries could be heard coming from all around them.
Countless arrows rained down at Bai Mou, who was in mid-air, but they seemed to be blocked by an invisible force and all fell to the ground. After the first attack, she stepped on the incoming arrows and quickly went to the distance, beginning to slaughter the enemy.
All the people she brought to escort Yunxiao were from the State Guardians, each with at least the cultivation base of a Martial Master. Although the rain of arrows was deadly, it could not hurt them at all. After a moment of confusion, they were able to deal with the sudden attack in an orderly manner.
Under Ji Meng’s protection, Yunxiao and Jia Rong were also unscathed. Yunxiao picked up an arrow from the ground and broke it in half, throwing it away casually as he said, “This is an arrow made of green iron bamboo, a standard weapon equipped with the crossbows used by the military.”
Ji Meng said while frowning, “Do you mean all these people are under Prince Qin Yang?”
Yunxiao nodded, “I’ve no doubt about it. Be careful, they won’t just send these minions. The real enemy is approaching.”
Sure enough, after repeated screams were heard from the distance, Bai Mou seemed to have met her match. From that direction came a constant fluctuation of energy as if she was fighting some powerful enemy.
Suddenly, a ferocious voice rang out from behind Yunxiao, “Kill these people and leave no survivors!”
In the blink of an eye, dozens of figures poured over from all directions. Each of these men was clad in black with their faces covered, and their skills were extraordinary—they were all Martial Masters! As soon as they rushed into Yunxiao’s group, they plunged his protectors into a chaotic battle.
When Yunxiao looked at the owner of the voice, he burst out laughing. “So it was you, Old Eight.”
Li Yi flew into a rage. Pointing at Yunxiao, he gnashed his teeth and said, “You are lucky to have Luo Yunshang save you the last time, but you will not be so lucky this time! Senior brothers, help me keep others in check. I will kill this bast*rd myself!”
The two men behind him were the Baizhan experts who had been lurking beside him, and they were also his senior brothers from the same sect. They were Guang Yuanjia and Yu Yuanwen, both Martial Lords.
Guang Yuanjia was the man who helped Li Yi escape from the Li Family’s courtyard that day. Staring at Ji Meng, he laughed disdainfully and said, “Junior brother, rest assured, none of these dogs will disturb me. You can concentrate on cutting off the boy’s flesh piece by piece.”
Yunxiao said lightly, “I knew you had betrayed us. Well, as the saying goes, once a servant, always a servant. Since you were a servant of my family, I, as the young master of the Li Family, have the obligation to get rid of the trash personally.”
“I’ve had enough of your nonsense! I’m going to kill you!”
Li Yi could no longer stand it. As soon as he saw Yunxiao’s carefree expression, his heart was filled with a monstrous anger! He wished he could tear that face to pieces and step on it countless times! At this moment, the anger accumulated in his heart for days finally exploded out. The sword in his hand suddenly let out dragon roars as he leaped into the air and slashed down at Yunxiao’s vital parts.
Just as Ji Meng was about to rush over to protect Yunxiao, an extremely domineering pressure poured toward him.
“Little Great Martial Master, your opponent is me!” Guang Yuanjia laughed. “Show me all the martial techniques you know and let me have a good time. Don’t die in one move, or it will be too boring.” As he said that, he thrust his spear through the air with its tip pointing straight at Ji Meng’s forehead. Specks of ice flickered across the spear, and the temperature in the surroundings dropped sharply.
Ji Meng’s heart sank. Not daring to be careless, he quickly turned his sword and swept it at the shaft of the spear!
His slender soft sword darted repeatedly like a serpent, piercing those ice specks. Suddenly, a beam of sword light struck at the spear, causing a blast of ice to burst out of it.
As a result, Guang Yuanjia’s spear was immediately knocked to the side. ‘How is this possible! I’m a genuine Martial Lord, so how could a Great Martial Master knock my spear away?’ After a brief lapse of concentration, he saw Ji Meng’s sword flash, and then countless flowers seemed to fall from the air and sweep toward Li Yi.
Shocked, he quickly raised his spear and brought it down at Ji Meng.
Yunxiao took out a pill and threw it to Ji Meng. “Take this pill. Help me hold these two Martial Lords and I will help you after I kill this servant!”
“Hold two Martial Lords? Haha! Do you think Ji Meng is a Martial King? You really don’t know the height of the sky!” Li Yi sneered. “How are you going to kill me with the mere strength of a warrior? I am a Great Martial Master of the Three Powers realm! You’re such a joker!” Without Ji Meng’s interference, he shook out his sword again and thrust it at Yunxiao.
With a calm expression, Ji Meng took the pill Yunxiao threw to him and swallowed it without even looking at it. Suddenly, a strange force began to rotate in his dantian and quickly circulated throughout his body. The meridians inside him were expanding under this surging force, and his body swelled slightly as if he had been inflated.
Jia Rong stared nervously at Ji Meng. He was not concerned about Ji Meng’s life or death, but wanted to know the effect of the pill. He had witnessed Yunxiao refine this pill—it was an enhanced version of the origin blasting pill!
Guang Yuanjia sneered disdainfully, “An origin blasting pill? No matter what kind of medicinal pill you take, it can’t change the fact that you are a Great Martial Master. Under the realm of Martial Lords, you are nothing but an ant.”
At this moment, Ji Meng noticed the abnormality of the pill. He was a nine-stars Great Martial Master. Normally, he could at most have the strength of a peak nine-stars Great Martial Master after taking an origin blasting pill, because the pill had a unique property—its purity determined the level that a warrior could break through after the energy surge. However, no matter how pure the pill was, it was absolutely impossible for a warrior to break through into the next realm.
In other words, even if a peak nine-stars Great Martial Master took this pill, his strength could never break through to the realm of Martial Lords.
But to Ji Meng’s great surprise, his Primordial Qi was still rising after soaring to the peak level of a nine-stars Great Martial Master, regardless of whether his body could bear it. And in a few blinks of an eye, it had arrived at the bottleneck of Great Martial Masters.
An unspeakable sense of oppression made his whole body red, and his muscles grew larger than before, giving him a feeling that he was about to explode and die while waves of powerful aura kept spreading from him. Even Guang Yuanjia and Yu Yuanwen were staring at him in astonishment as they thought, ‘This fella will not die like this, will he?’
“Roar!”
“Roar!”
“Roar!”
All of a sudden, Ji Meng threw his head back and let out three deafening roars, and his aura soared once more. Then, the red all over him was gone, and his muscles stopped bulging as well. He was completely back to normal, but a murderous aura was quietly spreading from his eyes.
“What? This aura!” Guang Yuanjia cried out in disbelief, his eyes full of horror.
Yu Yuanwen’s eyes widened as he blurted out, “Martial Lord! He has reached the realm of Martial Lords! Heavens! What pill did he take just now? Why can it make a warrior break through a realm?”
With a gloomy face, Guang Yuanjia said ferociously, “So what if you break through to the realm of Martial Lords? You are merely having the Primordial Qi level of the realm, and your understanding of martial arts is still far from enough! Today, I’ll show you the huge difference between a genuine Martial Lord and a fake Martial Lord!”
He shook out his spear and cried out softly, “Mountain Wings, unseal!”
Waves of energy burst out of the spear. In a flash, the spear that had been gray all over turned silver, with rings of silver light rippling out of its shaft. Just the aura of the spear alone had made many Martial Masters in the surroundings feel uneasy and retreat in horror.
“Ice erodes the soul!” Guang Yuanjia cried out. The natural Primordial Qi within a radius of ten meters seemed to have been drained away, turning into streams of cold air and raining down from the sky. Then, the spear pierced through the air with a jolt of his arms and went straight at Ji Meng.
The attack was delivered with all his might. Although Ji Meng’s strength had reached the realm of Martial Lords by relying on a medicinal pill, he did not dare to be careless.
After stepping over the threshold of the Martial Lord realm, Ji Meng felt a kind of strength and state of mind he had never felt before. At this moment of breakthrough, his cognition and comprehension of martial arts reached a new level. The poem left by Yunxiao in the Alchemist Association once again appeared in his mind, and a brand-new understanding also emerged in his head, giving him a feeling of enlightenment.
It was not only strength that had advanced for him at this moment!
“Spirit Snake, unseal!”
Ji Meng’s eyes sparkled and his face was calm. He completely forgot that his strength had improved because of the medicinal pill. He felt as if he had really broken through, and no matter who the enemy was ahead of him, he had full confidence in winning!
After the Spirit Snake was unsealed, it turned into a small snake, slithering through the ice flakes all over the sky. Wherever it passed, a sharp sound of ice breaking could be heard, and pink peach blossoms fell out of the thin air. It was as if the spring breeze was gusting across the land, blowing away all the ice and snow and making the peach blossoms bloom.
“Clang!”
Suddenly, Mountain Wings was caught by Spirit Snake, which wrapped around the shaft like a long ribbon and then wound upward rapidly.
Guang Yuanjia was shocked. He could not believe that his ice energy was broken by Ji Meng’s inexplicable sword intent, and that the spear in his hand was entangled by the sword and could not move at all. The snake-like sword kept climbing up with an intense murderous aura, and was about to cut off his arm.
“Extreme ice, detonate!” He cried out while pouring all the energy in him into the spear and detonating it instantly!
The spear let out a miserable wail as streams of icy force blasted out of it, sweeping out in all directions. Under the impact of the force, Ji Meng’s sword quickly shrank back. But wherever it passed, it still sliced through the icy air, causing the surrounding temperature to rise again.
