24 You got me what!!?

The speaker just then was an absolute beauty. Long, purple hair, delicate, fair features and smooth skin, with a mesmerizing charm and fragrance, she was the First General of the World Tree, Hong Meiyun. Though she was a completely alluring and captivating fruit hanging on the Tree of Beauty, her personality made even the closet yet persistent lecher of a World Tree to proactively stay away at any cost.

"Why are you here? Aren't you supposed to be fighting at the Western Chaos Ravine for another week?"

Jun Meng Chen's countenance was completely cold, displaying his reputation as a cold-faced, stony man to its finest. Each and every opportunity she got, Hong Meiyun would tease him of his habits and shoddy interpersonal ability, introducing a formerly innocent and now bewitched female mortal to him every month with the defense of assisting his "manly ability". Furthermore, once she started talking, it was near impossible to shake her off, due to her innate ability!

Hong Meiyun was from the Clear Amethyst Domain, an immortal domain similar in strength of the World Tree Domain. With the innate ability of comprehending spatial distortions at the lowest and most indistinguishable frequencies, she could give chase to anyone if they attempted to escape without end. Combined with her chatty and nosy personality, she had given Jun Meng Chen a living hell during the five thousand years since the beginning of his assignment at the World Tree Domain.

"I finished early. The Demon Palace didn't even send anyone above the Heavenly Warrior rank, it actually finished in a day."

"Then what did you spend the remaining five years on? Don't tell me you cleared out the rest of the Demon Palace's troops, there's no way that would happen given your nature."

"Of course not. Who would be a good Samaritan in such a chaotic place? I'm not someone from the Buddhist Abode, those contradictory freaks of nature. Attempting to find your honeymoon residence is a better usage of my time."

"You!"

Observing the conversation between Jun Meng Chen and Hong Meiyun, the World Tree gave a light cough as soon as the tension had escalated to the point of Jun Meng Chen drawing his weapon in anger. Attempting to redirect the discussion towards adopting countermeasures for the Blaze Mountain's newly acquired airburst weaponry from the Rose Gold Blacksmith Coalition, the World Tree sent the projection towards Hong Meiyun.

"Little Hong, take a look at this, will you? What do you think?"

"I'd say, old tree, wouldn't it be a completely easy job for you to brush your hands and finish the deed within an instant? If you'd get a wife, that would curb the time consumption of that 'Solitary Yang' cultivation technique of yours."

"Just tie up Hong General and present her as a concession gift to the Blaze Mountain's young masters. Given Old Hong's temper, there's absolutely no way he'd let his precious only daughter suffer under the hands of those lechers. That's a considerably easy method of obtaining reinforcements, no?

Just as the World Tree was about to retort at Hong Meiyun with a scarlet red face, Jun Meng Chen's faint voice drifted over as he made his way towards the exit. Waving his hand towards the old man, Hong Meiyun was completely disregarded as he gracefully left, leaving behind a fuming Heavenly General and a disgruntled tree.

Watching the hopping mad Hong Meiyun chase after Jun Meng Chen, the World Tree sighed lightly before heading back towards his original position. As he tapped the ground with his staff, the figure of an old man vanished, leaving behind a despondent willow tree with drooping branches. A wistful voice echoed throughout the now empty amphitheater.

"Better contact the Divine Palace that the Third Fire Princess caused major trouble far exceeding her station. Aih, aih, what exorbitant fee shall I have to pay this time? I want a better salary, Lord Pavilion Head…"

-

It had been no longer than thirty minutes since Jun Meng Chen left that Hong Meiyun found him casually strolling through the streets of the Sun and Moon Plaza. Upon seeing his relaxed expression without any remorse towards her emotional damage, nonchalantly chatting with his subordinate Chi Yuan, Hong Meiyun's anger tore through the skies as she launched a full-powered assault towards Jun Meng Chen.

A golden spear of three meters in length sped towards Jun Meng Chen. Although its speed was rather slow, it seemed to possess an almighty strength capable of rendering an immortal into a millennium-long rehabilitation slumber, for it would attack the divine soul itself. Engraved at the heart of the spear was a delicately formed construct emphasizing dominance, strength, and the pre-configuration of a guaranteed strike, a pair of purple phoenixes coiled around the blade of the spear, exuding blinding light.

Sensing an attack through his peripherals, Jun Meng Chen quickly mobilized his spiritual core to its primary performance levels as divine essence coiled around his body in copious amounts, even becoming visible to the plain eye. A dense wall of divine essence coalesced into a golden Aegis engraving, which Jun Meng Chen threw it towards the incoming spear. Having known Hong Meiyun for such a long time, he knew her core abilities like the back of his hand. Called the <Repugnant Spear>, the golden spear was her most direct and fastest abilities at hand with merely divine essence.

The golden spear and the Aegis engraving collided head on without any hesitation; the phoenixes shrieked and spread its wings in anger, while the Aegis was silent yet imposing of noble dignity and wrath. The construct of strength and dominance within the spear was forcefully nullified by the construct of nihility within the engraving, creating a massive shockwave to sweep across the plaza.

Seeing that Jun Meng Chen had splendidly countered her signature attack, Hong Meiyun charged forward, crossing several zhang within an instant.

Appearing just a mere meter before Jun Meng Chen, her left fist struck out, of which divine essence was concentrated in a conical form meant for piercing manifested barriers constructed from divine essence.

Anticipating Hong Meiyun's attack, Jun Meng Chen quickly dodged to his right, the incoming fist almost grazing his left ear. Taking advantage of the momentary delay mid attack, he chopped at her extended elbow, then rammed her body with his left shoulder, infused with a delayed array sequence primed for internal detonation. Throwing her off guard, Jun Meng Chen quickly sent her flying, his actions showing no mercy for the fairer sex.

Regaining her balance, Hong Meiyun adopted a balanced combat stance when her expression changed drastically, her right palm slapping at the location where Jun Meng Chen's shoulder had struck. Constantly circulating divine essence within her body to ensure that the malignant array had been removed, she bristled with rage and shame, loudly complaining.

"Jun Meng Chen, you intolerable pervert! You dare set a detonation sequence on my body, do you dare take responsibility if my reputation was sullied by you!?"

"You're a Heavenly General, and the Clear Amethyst's precious maiden. Such a hastily constructed array would be easily removed by you in a blink of an eye. Besides, what reputation do you have?"

Jun Meng Chen coolly retorted as he manifested a slender sword, elevating his spiritual core's performance to its peak. Pointing it towards Hong Meiyun, the thin blade edge glowed a pale azure light as divine essence began to encompass the sword. His actions no longer seemed casual; instead, they radiated the splendor and indomitable will of a seasoned military general.

Noticing Jun Meng Chen's provocation, Hong Meiyun gave a shrill cry as a pair of crystalline phoenix wings appeared on her back, and a thin glass rapier gripped in her left hand. Her whole body emitting increasingly intense and frequent pulses of divine essence, it merely took seconds before her <Phoenix Domain> had been established.

Once the <Phoenix Domain> had taken effect in the plaza, the circulation of divine essence began to stagnate, causing the onlookers' expressions to distort and pale as they rapidly attempted to stabilize their conditions prior to spectating the battle. Feeling the increasing difficulty of circulating divine essence, Jun Meng Chen snorted coldly, before stepping forward with his left foot, his blade slashing forth. In response, Hong Meiyun reversed her grip on her rapier, before stabbing into the ground.

"<Seraph's End>!"

"<Rage of the Ancient Phoenix!>!"

Jun Meng Chen first swept his blade downwards in a diagonal, before sweeping it upwards, then concluding with a downwards vertical slash, directly rupturing the divine essence in the plaza. <Seraph's End> was a simple blade technique that tore and temporarily disrupted the circulation of divine essence, creating a chaos domain that crippled an immortal's strength to their absolute minimum. As a pseudo-domain technique, <Seraph's End> forced a mortal duel until Jun Meng Chen disengaged his blade.

On the contrary, Hong Meiyun's <Rage of the Ancient Phoenix> was a pure domain technique that forcefully converted divine essence in vast quantities into a pure fire attribute, creating a volcanic explosion of heat to spew in every direction. As this conversion was a permanent realignment of the divine essence's composition, <Rage of the Ancient Phoenix> created a restrictive domain that constantly increased its temperature until even divine essence began to collapse and disintegrate.

Compared to <Seraph's End>, Hong Meiyun's technique far exceeded it in pure destructive potential, but was not very suitable for prolonged battles. As the two techniques collided, the distortion of the divine essence threw everyone of the surrounding crowd into the recesses of the plaza. Under the blistering cover of spewing magma, the fighting duo's figures could not be visualized even under copious application of the elementary <Heaven's Eye Technique>.

Within the blaze, Jun Meng Chen cloaked himself with unceasing amounts of divine essence as he swung his blade towards Hong Meiyun in unpredictable approaches, for he would be unaffected by the <Rage of the Ancient Phoenix>'s supplementary restrictive domain as long as <Seraph's End> was maintained. Otherwise, if he disengaged his blade even once, he would have to deal with the frighteningly hot and viscous magma, which would be difficult to escape from.

<Pulsar Blade Technique>'s third slashing technique, <Moon Viewing>'s first and fifth styles, <Creation Spring Arts> ninth blade technique, <Silver Road>'s second style, Jun Meng Chen crazily alternated among countless blade techniques to force Hong Meiyun to react defensively. His blade darting about with unprecedented control, Jun Meng Chen displayed absolute superiority in a mortal duel with blade techniques against Hong Meiyun who specialized in divine essence attacks.

Eventually, Hong Meiyun grit her teeth before giving up. Ducking under Jun Meng Chen's overhead crescent slash then hastily evading his consecutive diagonal sweeps, Hong Meiyun dashed out of her domain at maximum speed, leaving afterimages as she cried out, "I give, I give!"

Hearing Hong Meiyun's concession, Jun Meng Chen paused before leaving the sea of magma. Withdrawing his blade and letting it dissipate into strands of divine essence, he sent an inquisitive look towards the ragged Hong Meiyun, before turning around to leave.

"You're too scary in close combat with that <Seraph's End> technique of yours, nobody wants to fight you! You better not treat your wife in that fashion as well, such an adorable little girl needs to be treated kindly and with gentleness!"

Hearing Hong Meiyun's yell behind him, Jun Meng Chen who was in the middle of departing, suddenly stopped, his countenance ashen. Impervious to Chi Yuan's confused cries of "Boss?", Jun Meng Chen was frozen stiff and detached from reality, with only a single phrase resounding throughout his mind, incessantly wreaking havoc everywhere.

'She got him what!? Not even introducing a woman to him, but a wife!!??"