Chapter 266: Special stage! (6)

"What.. the heck just happened?" one of the audience said with a shocked expression, his mouth wide agape.

Pah!

"Ouch that hurts! This is really not a dream! Could it be.. are they staging the whole thing? This is too unbelievable!" cried another man beside him after he slapped himself in the face.

How in the holly-molly's name, did a cultivator three stages lower than their opponent, managed to make the latter a spinning top with just a simple back hand slap?

This is far too outlandish! We are no fools!

The Heavens may be blind, but we are not!

Hearing this, the other audience soon began to think that something was amiss and discussed it with each other as they became restless. Before long, they turned towards the Emcee and made their complaints as well as suspicions!

"Calm down everyone! I can assure you that everything is not staged here! In fact, we have just pulled out an information regarding the identity of this outstanding junior participant of us here tonight! Let me read it out loud for everyone!" the Emcee spoke out as the crowd pried open their ears.

"His name is Duan Li and a junior of the Jixue Knights Academy. Just last week, he went on an expedition with the academy along with the Subjugation Squads to eradicate an incoming monster stampede, en route to the Jiu Empire from the Blastwinter desert!" the Emcee continued.

"W-What? Monster Stampede? How come did we not know anything about this?" the crowd began to panic as they thought about their family and relatives that lived in villages and towns near the vicinity of the Blastwinter desert.

Typically speaking, a monster stampede would usually consists of thousands of monsters at one star and above, and their subjugation would take a total of one week at least.

Seemingly to understand their line of thoughts, the Emcee chuckled before he continued on. "There is no need to worry people, the monster stampede had already been eradicated in just a single day!"

The crowd once more turned to each other and surprised expression was apparent on their face.

"Is this for real? That's the first time I have ever heard a monster stampede was subjugated in a single day!"

"Perhaps it was only a few hundreds this time around?"

The audience continued to discuss the topic fervently before the Emcee interjected.

"The monster stampede from last week was probably the largest that our empire had ever encountered thus far! They numbered a total of more than 50,000!!"

Hisssss!!

The audience sucked in cold breath when they heard that numbers!

Fifty thousand?!

"En! While most of the monsters were subjugated by the Subjugation Squads, our junior here, while still in the Pinnacle stage of the Foundation Establishment realm, had managed to eliminate at least 7,000 of them by himself! Even His Majesty, our great Emperor Jiu Xian Ping was there and had personally witnessed it!" the Emcee said with excitement in his voice.

At first, he was also skeptical to trust this information, but when the acknowledgement came personally from the Empress Dowager herself, and that their Emperor himself was the witness, only a fool would still think that the information was falsified!

These lines of thoughts were also similar to the audience, and their previous expression changed from disbelief into excitement!

"A genius! Our Empire is finally blessed with a true genius!"

"I can see a golden age ushering to out Empire from this day onwards! Hahahahaha!"

Seeing that the crowd was now convinced, the Emcee sighed out in relief.

...

Down on the platform, everyone excluding Dong Jinghai and Wu Jin, each wore a surprised expression as they stared at Duan Li with mixed reaction when they heard all those.

"This fellow is that strong?" Ling Shin's pair of eyes flashed as his mind began to calculate.

If that is indeed the case, then Lu Bu is done for! I don't need to worry about him anymore!

"Heh! Hahahaha! Zhang Liao, you had fun before surprising me with your breathing technique eh? It's my turn!" he said as his lips curled into a sneer.

Eight Undulating Qi Technique!

Shaaa!!

Ling Shin's brawly figure slowly began to shrunk as his height was reduced from 2 meters to 1.85 meters!

"Your muscle density has become more compacted.. so your physical transformation is speed-based?" Zhang Liao said as he appeared unimpressed.

"Correct!" Ling Shin replied before continuing, "Let me warn you though.. although this transformation is originally meant to be implemented with a set of skill arts, it's still a little bit overkill if it was used in physical martial combat like this." he said with extreme confidence.

While the Eight Undulating Qi Technique was not meant to be showed on public outside of their empire, his partner Ruo Hen had already used it before, and they would be punished either way when they returned.

Therefore, since the cake had already been spilled, what is the use of standing on ceremony then? Thus he decided to activate the technique as well!

"Come then, do your best." Zhang Liao said with his eyes looking indifferent.

Ling Shin gritted his teeth. "You asked for it!"

Suuu!!

With a single dash, tens of after images formed surrounding Zhang Liao in an instant! This was evidence of the former's supersonic speed!

"Die!!" Ling Shin bellowed out as all of his after images converged onto Zhang Liao at the same time, locking the other party in the center!

"At this speed, I can detect when he would use his Gongzi's Breathing technique by observing his chest! In that moment, I will back step and dash again, aiming for an opening!" Ling Shin thought as he planned it all inside his mind.

BAMM!!

"He.. did not use his breathing technique?"

Ling Shin's fist connected. However, contrary to his expectation, his fist went through the other party!

"This!" he finally realized as his eyes widened and sweat trickled down his temples.

He was punching through an after image!!

"Hmph. Finally realized it?" a voice spoke out coldly behind him, it was Zhang Liao!

BAMM!!

Puhe!!

A mouthful of blood was spatted out from Ling Shin's mouth as he flew across the fighting platform!

Crash!

"Y-You.. how is your speed.. faster than mine.." Ling Shin struggled to look up as he groaned on the floor, his vision began to blur.

"I never breathed out after I sucked in that mouthful of air before. Therefore, my physical body is exponentially lighter while my muscles has explosive strength right now." Zhang Liao replied as he gazed down on the latter with the moonlight behind his back, appearing like a real dark phantom in the cold night!

"Damn.. it.." Ling Shin finally collapsed, knocked unconscious.

Huuu..

Just after Zhang Liao was sure that Ling Shin was incapacitated, he breathed out. At this moment however, a dark silhouette abruptly appeared behind him silently, delivering a hand chop to the back of his neck!

It was Bai Li!

"I knew you were waiting for this golden opportunity." Zhang Liao instead, smiled upon the latter's appearance!

"!!" Bai Li realized that he fell into a trap and was about to retreat before his lungs stopped working!

"Kkrrukk!!" he clutched onto his chest!

The air in the surrounding had become a vacuum! This caused his body to stop moving for a brief second out of the brain's natural reaction towards the lack of oxygen, but this small opening was enough for Zhang Liao to throw a solid punch onto the latter's stomach!

BAMM!!

Puhe!!

Just like that, Bai Li was knocked unconscious as well. While he excelled in speed and stealth, his body was far more fragile than others. After all, his main occupation was an assassin!

Turning to his friend, Lu Bu, whose countenance was slightly better now, he said, "Brother Lu Bu, we need to take out the rest of them before we can deal with him."

His meaning was clear in that, they needed to crush Dong Jinghai, Wu Jin and Wang Dong completely so that they will not be distracted when fighting against Duan Li later on.

Lu Bu nodded.

Suuu!! Suuu!!

Their figures vanished on the spot before two 'Puhe!!' was heard. Dong Jinghai and Wu Jin was taken out like a paper bag just like that!

Seeing this, the audience cheered!

"Damn! Their speed are so fast that my eyes couldn't catch up! Teacher, who do you think are faster?" a person from the crowd said as he asked his teacher whom was a Pinnacle stage Golden Core realm expert!

His teacher went silent for a moment before he replied, "Both Lu Bu and Zhang Liao's speed are probably faster than mine.." and sighed.

"Eh? How can that be? Teacher are stronger than them by an entire realm!" the student said in disbelief. In his opinion, no matter how powerful a cultivator were, a difference in realm was like a gap between the width of a river to that of an ocean!

The teacher shook his head. "While my realm is indeed higher than them, my heritage and skill arts can only be considered as low-spec when compared to what those two had practiced. After all, there is an insurmountable difference between our Jiu Empire, and the Qin and Wei Empire!"

"Both their empire's resources combined together could destroy our Jiu Empire tens of times over and they will still be able to spare some resources to go to war with the other seven empires around the Tian continent!" his teacher continued with a grim look on his face.

This was the reality of the current cultivation world. The stronger empire possesses absolute firmness in their heritage and foundation. Therefore, a cultivator from a strong empire could outlast stronger opponents if they were to deploy all their skills in life and death combat!

"This.." the student was rendered speechless upon this revelation.

Then, he heard his teacher let out a light chuckle.

"Don't worry, while they are indeed strong, I can still see their movements. However, that junior they called Duan Li.. I reckoned that, if he goes all out, even your teacher here would be totally helpless against him!"

...