When Lin Huang returned to the Great Heaven Palace, Bai and Teng Ran were checking out in detail the changes that had taken place within them.
Lin Huang did not rush them; he waited patiently for them to finish their examination.
After some time, Teng Ran was the first to withdraw his consciousness from within him.
When he saw Lin Huang, he could not help smiling as he said, “I truly never thought that I would be able to achieve this in my lifetime.”
Nobody knew whether he was talking about elevating to Pure Spirit rank, or lord-level, or perhaps even both.
“This is still a far cry from what all of you will be able to achieve in the end,” Lin Huang responded with a smile.
As they were chatting, Bai had finally withdrawn his consciousness from within him as well.
“How are you feeling?” Lin Huang asked with a smile.
“I feel… very powerful.” All along, Bai never did have a boastful personality. “I’m under the illusion that I’m in control of everything.”
“I’m under the same illusion too,” Teng Ran said with a smile from where he was standing off to one side.
However, after speaking, Bai was now scrutinizing Lin Huang closely. He shook his head a moment later, “Unfortunately, I’m still not powerful enough. At present, I still don’t have sufficient abilities to protect Master.”
From where he stood on the sidelines, Teng Ran’s expression was full of confusion when he heard Bai say this. “I thought Master hasn’t yet elevated to become a Lord?”
Clearly, he had not sensed the abilities that Lin Huang was concealing.
“As expected, our Xiao Bai saw through me,” Lin Huang teased with a smile, “Teng Teng, you should learn from Xiao Bai.”
“What sort of nonsense nicknames are these?” Teng Ran covered his face with one hand.
Standing where he was to one side, Bai remained expressionless from beginning to end.
“Would you like to experience the gap between our abilities?” Lin Huang looked at the two of them with a cheeky grin.
For one, he was truly bored, and for another, he did not want these two to enter the Abyss again without being aware of their own abilities.
When he heard Lin Huang’s invitation, Teng Ran’s expression was full of puzzlement.
Even Bai, who had always been impervious to strong emotion and desires, displayed some interest.
He was the imperial monster who had been with Lin Huang the longest; this was not the first time Lin Huang had invited him to spar. However, it had been a long time indeed since he had last sparred with his master.
“You can both attack together. Also, under no circumstances must you hold back at all. If you don’t give it everything you’ve got, there’s a chance I might kill you right away.” Lin Huang chuckled, and the Great Heaven Palace instantly transformed into a sky full of stars.
Bai and Teng Ran locked eyes for a moment, then went into action at practically the same time.
They had developed this rapport over the last few months.
A blood-red mist shrouded the area behind Bai’s figure almost immediately. An instant later, countless blood-colored tentacles shot out of the blood-red mist like lightning, aiming straight at Lin Huang.
On every blood-red tentacle was a complex bright red Dao seal. Over twenty thousand Dao tattoos swirled on each bolt of lightning like hot molten iron.
There were over a million tentacles.
Meanwhile, on the other side, Teng Ran’s entire body was enveloped in golden scales. Golden battle spear in his hand, the pair of wings on his back stirred suddenly, and he charged forward at a speed faster than even that of the tentacles.
On the point of the golden spear was a shining Dao seal as well, with over twenty thousand Dao tattoos swirling on it.
He was like a golden star hurtling at Lin Huang head-on.
Lin Huang’s lips quirked up very faintly. He raised both hands slightly, and two blood-red arcs of lightning shot out.
One of them seemed to have a consciousness of its own, moving furiously through the sea of blood-red tentacles.
The tentacles were destroyed wherever it passed through.
The sensation was that of plastic being scorched by high heat, melting quickly and vanishing.
The other lightning arc collided directly with Teng Ran’s spear.
With a loud boom, Teng Ran’s body was flung backward at a speed over several times faster than before.
Bai’s pupils contracted slightly because he noticed that Teng Ran’s body was now headless as it hurtled backward.
Teng Ran’s head had exploded in the collision with the flying dagger. His powerful life force was instantly annihilated.
Only at that moment did Bai realize that Lin Huang’s ability was much more powerful than he had expected.
Bai was only distracted for a moment but immediately sensed an immense threat coming his way.
He lifted his eyes and saw the flying dagger that had crushed Teng Ran’s head turning around and coming straight at him.
Bai’s expression changed slightly, but his hand movements were not slow in the least.
He performed hand seals rapidly with both hands. A blood-red shield with many layers consolidated instantly.
The giant shield had twelve layers and was three meters tall. Like an iron city gate, it formed a barrier between Bai and the flying dagger.
There was a lava-like Dao seal carved on each layer of the giant shield.
Over twenty thousand bright red Dao tattoos filled almost every corner of the shield.
A second later, the blood-red lightning arc collided with the shield.
Subsequently, like the point of a needle piercing through a sheet of paper, the lightning arc easily pierced through all the layers of the giant shield. The Divine Telekinesis flying dagger did not slow down in the least. It pierced right through all twelve layers of the shield’s defenses and shattered Bai’s head.
The illusory scene in the Great Heaven Palace faded quickly as the headless body toppled to the ground.
In the Great Heaven Palace, Bai and Teng Ran stood where they were, faces pale, unable to speak for a long time.
Although they had only been fighting in an illusory simulated battle earlier, both of them knew that it was no different from what would happen in actual combat.
In the illusory simulation, Lin Huang had killed the two of them instantly.
In the real world, he would be able to do the same thing.
“Master, have you truly not elevated to lord-level yet?” Teng Ran asked with a gloomy expression. He felt that Lin Huang was concealing his combat strength from them.
“I definitely haven’t elevated to lord-level yet.” Lin Huang nodded and smiled.
“You didn’t use full force earlier, did you?” Bai, on the other hand, lifted his head to look at Lin Huang. “I’d like to know how much of your actual ability you did use.”
“Approximately ten percent or so,” Lin Huang answered after giving this some thought.
In reality, he had only used a Sword seal compounded with thirty thousand levels of god sequence chains. This was not even one-tenth the number that his Godly Right contained. He had only used middle-rank lord-level Divine Telekinesis to power the two flying daggers.
Overall, that was far less than ten percent of his actual ability.
However, he was genuinely worried that he would crush Bai and Teng Ran’s confidence.
“I’m more of a special case though,” Lin Huang added, “In reality, both of you aren’t considered weak at all among lower-rank Lords.
“With your current ability, apart from the Abyss, you can explore most of the regions of the great world.”
Despite what Lin Huang said, Bai and Teng Ran’s moods did not improve very much.
“Don’t be so gloomy; it’s not embarrassing to have lost to me. Come on. I’ll take you both for some good food.” Lin Huang put his arms around their shoulders and teleported back to the Ricky Star.
He then treated the two moody imperial monsters to a sumptuous meal.
Although Bai and Teng Ran were not in high spirits, they could not resist when they saw good food.
After the meal, they were clearly less upset now.
Lin Huang reminded them not to go to the Abyss again before sending them off.
It was already past 3 p.m. when he saw Bai and Teng Ran off.
Right as Lin Huang returned to his hotel room, he sensed a message being transmitted from Sword1.
“Lord Swordmaster, Yang Ling is asking to see you.”
As messages from the communicators were unable to be sent to Lin Huang from the inside of Lin Huang’s God Territory, Yang Ling had no option but to go to Sword 1 and get him to send a telepathic voice transmission message.
Lin Huang was aware of this as well. After receiving Sword1’s voice transmission, in a flash, he returned to the God Territory within his body straight away.
