“You’re quite a talker, little girl.” Instead of flying into a rage, Zhan Lingge smiled faintly. “I can take three battle servants, so I claim you, the Azureclad Duke, and the Crimsonclad Duke!”
He turned around to look at Purpleclad and Bloodclad.
These four dukes were listed together in the Hongmeng. Since he wanted to take two of them as his battle servants, that was setting himself against the other two. At the same time, Zhan Lingge was well aware that some minute changes had occurred in Purpleclad and Bloodclad’s mentality.
The latter two were listed in the top one hundred of the Dragonling Ranking while Azureclad and Crimsonclad were not. A gap had thus opened up between the four—possessing the same level of strength was the prerequisite for being birds of a feather.
In other words, Azureclad and Crimsonclad no longer had the right to be on the same footing in the other two’s hearts. Everything that’d been expressed earlier had been the final vestiges of their shared histories. Now that the battles of the Dragonling Ranking were about to begin, any friendship that once existed was dust upon the wind.
Purpleclad and Bloodclad would soon select their battle servants as well, so there was no need to offend Zhan Lingge right at this very moment. The two dukes’ backgrounds were much less than the youth from Ingress Blood Island.
Zhan Lingge smirked to see the two dukes remain unmoved.
“The three of you can come at me at the same time. I’ll beat you until you’re satisfied and wholeheartedly willing to be my battle servants.” He crooked his finger at his chosen targets. In his eyes, the remaining two dukes were the strongest out of the titled dukes present.
Bam!
A fist smashed heavily into his eyeball the moment he stopped talking. Zhan Lingge shrieked with agony and flew backwards.
Azureclad shifted into motion the second the youth was flung back, but a tiny foot stuck itself out and sent him flying as well.
“That fellow’s mine.” Qing Ting had knocked Zhan Lingge away with one punch and swiftly turned on her own brother with a kick.
Azureclad hadn’t suffered any actual harm. He nodded with a rueful smile, returning to Crimsonclad’s side. She didn’t show any intention of moving. With Qing Ting’s currently strong personality iteration, Zhan Lingge was in for a painful time.
He’d struggled up from the ground and dabbed at the traces of blood by his lips.
“It appears I’ve underestimated you…”
Bam!
Qing Ting stepped forward and kicked him in the face. He shrieked again and hurtled backward.
The scene immediately quieted down. This was a stunning genius in the top one hundred of the Dragonling Ranking, one of the strongest beneath titled kinghood!
Yet he’d been sent flying twice by a seemingly harmless little girl??
“Didn’t your parents teach you to shut your mouth when you’re fighting?” Azuresky’s sword light glowed dimly at the tips of her fingers. She seemed to have made her moves casually, but she’d already called upon the sword’s power.
Zhan Lingge was an absolute powerhouse who could possibly stand toe-to-toe with a third step king. Qing Ting had to face him with everything at her disposal.
He stood up and took a deep breath. “Little girl, you’ve successfully made me—”
Bam!
Qing Ting stepped forward with sword light circling around her body. She lifted her foot and kicked out at Zhan Lingge’s face.
“You little bitch!” he roared. Having been sent flying twice, he would just as soon die of humiliation if he fell to the same thing a third time.
Blood-red radiance blossomed around him as a bloody halberd materialized behind his back and fell into his hand. He swept it at Qing Ting’s diminutive form a second before her blow arrived.
Clang!
Azure light and bloody sparks sprayed in all directions. Zhang Lingge stumbled three steps backward, almost losing his grip on the halberd in the recoil.
“She’s crazily strong!” he gasped, incredulity brimming in his eyes. As strong as the little girl might be, he’d thought that she wouldn’t be on the level of the top one hundred in the Dragonling Ranking. The power she was displaying, however, wasn’t that much weaker than his!
Qing Ting had popped Pills of Creation like candy over the past seven days and absorbed Lu Yun’s tutelage when he instructed the other cultivators. Gleaning what she needed from the lessons, her cultivation had bounded forward.
More importantly, she’d been able to trade insights with Lu Yun as well.
Top one hundred in the Dragonling Ranking?
Perhaps she’d reached that long ago.
After taking the upper hand with her move, she didn’t let up and rained a furious storm of blows onto Zhan Lingge, attacking him from all directions. Every attack was lethal and every blow targeted his vital points.
They couldn’t kill on these premises, but her attacks were so harrowing that the red-haired youth was deeply afraid the rules would miss one of them and allow him to end up dead.
He snarled with fury, wanting to swing his halberd around and counter attack, but Qing Ting was always one step ahead and scattered the trajectory of whatever combat art he wanted to bring to bear.
“AHHHHHHH!!” Zhan Lingge was almost out of his mind. He hadn’t been on the losing side of a fight since he became a titled duke, whether he faced ghosts or Immortal Region cultivators. He’d never been so worse for the wear!
Most frightening was that the little girl in front of him seemed to be able to predict what combat arts he wanted to use!
She tapped a critical point on several occasions before he could deploy his combat art, forcing him to stop and almost suffer the backlash of a hastily aborted technique.
After exchanging roughly three hundred moves, Qing Ting seized upon a weakness and bashed her opponent’s left shoulder. Zhan Lingge cried out with pain and barely avoided having his shoulder flayed open.
Qing Ting darted forward and kicked him down to the ground, placing her foot on his chest.
“I… lost?” Zhan Lingge couldn’t believe it. He’d lost to a battle servant when he’d tried to select her?
“You lose.” Qing Ting’s breathing was uneven and her long black hair in a bit of disarray, but her bright eyes were locked grimly on her opponent.
“Do you… want to claim me for your battle servant?” he forced out through gritted teeth. If he was taken as a battle servant instead, he would be firmly nailed to the pillar of shame.
“What do I want a battle servant for? I’m not one of the esteemed top one hundred geniuses.” Qing Ting tapped her foot on his chest.
Zhan Lingge’s face burned. The words “esteemed top one hundred geniuses” seemed to slap him like a giant hand.
“This is a robbery!” she suddenly yelled in his face. “Hand over your seed storage and all of your treasures!”
Zhan Lingge’s expression froze.
I think LY definitely needs to take some responsibility for Qing Ting’s current personality lol.
