“The venerated enforcer?!” Qing Di suddenly registered a ray of sharp light behind him, one that threatened to slice him into two!
Unbidden, he gave up on his target and changed the direction of his sword, slashing out behind him.
Clang!
Two swords viciously bit into each other and a muffled feeling crushed Qing Di’s chest. He spat out blood, his eyes dimming somewhat.
“So strong!” He slid backward a hundred and fifty kilometers before stabilizing his body.
Wearing a cold sneer on his frosty face, the venerated enforcer came at Qing Di with a second move.
“I’ll help you!” Qing Ting bounded forward.
“Out of my way!” Qing Di roared back. “This is my battle!!”
Qing Ting screeched to a halt, surprised.
“The Dragonling Assembly is an occasion to test geniuses—I am one of the greatest geniuses of the realm! There is no need for me to avoid fighting with the once greatest half step kings of the realm! This is my fight!!”
His king-grade flying sword lit up correspondingly and a proud battle intent flared from his body. He clashed thirty thousand times with the venerated enforcer as he spoke, losing out on each exchange. It wasn’t just that he possessed weaker strength, but that his techniques, cultivation methods, and combat arts were also of comprehensively lower caliber.
Though Qing Di was no match for the venerated enforcer, he set his jaw and refused to back down. This was the Dragonling Assembly, this was his fight. Even if he couldn’t rival the venerated enforcer, he would never back down or admit defeat!
Qing Ting nodded and retracted her sword, watching their fight with cold eyes and preventing anyone else from interfering.
However, mobbing the two was the furtherest thing from the minds of the surrounding cultivators and arcane beasts. They quietly observed from the sides, like they had for the venerated enforcer and the Jade Dragon Duke.
Qing Di was infinitely close to Jade Dragon, but he was still a hair’s breadth away from matching her. It was a minute gap that took shape as a chasm for the venerated enforcer.
Jade Dragon could return his blows and even cause him some trouble, but Qing Di could only suffer a beating when facing the venerated enforcer. The latter saw through all of Qing Di’s combat arts before he deployed them and destroyed them while they were still being crafted.
……
“The venerated enforcer… is still the venerated enforcer,” sighed the previous dragon lord. “If it wasn’t for him wanting to pursue the great dao and desiring to ascend to titled kinghood at the loftiest heights possible, he would’ve reached our levels long ago.”
“Your level, not mine… I’m just a half step king,” Lu Yun mumbled.
“Ahem!” coughed the dragon lord. “Since you are also a half step king, would you be a match for the venerated enforcer if you fought him in fair combat?”
“With pure battle strength, you mean?” Lu Yun blinked.
“Yes.” The previous dragon lord nodded. “See how sword dao brims around the venerated enforcer’s movements, but he wields neither treasure nor flying sword. He utilizes only his innate force to project sword qi, and just that is sufficient to thoroughly trounce a Qing Di wielding a king-grade flying treasure.”
“Eh, that’s because I took his flying sword.” Lu Yun flipped his hand over and materialized a hazy purple flying sword—the venerated enforcer’s flying sword.
The dragon lord: ……
“As for whether or not I’d be a match for him… we can verify that.” Lu Yun nodded.
“Verify? How?” The dragon lord blinked. “The rules say that you cannot descend the mountain after I’ve brought you here.”
Lu Yun gathered energy from their surroundings with a beckon of his hand and formed an ancient seven string zither with classic lines. He sat down cross-legged and placed the zither on his knees, gently stroking the strings.
Twang twang twang—
Gentle zither music flowed out of the instrument in front of him.
……
“I’d always thought that I was relatively on par with the venerated enforcer. It looks like my assumption was incredibly wrong,” sighed the Bloodclad Duke as he watched the fight. “My defeat at Morningstar Dusksnow’s hands was well deserved. He could take three moves from the enforcer!”
“He does indeed deserve his reputation.” Purpleclad’s expression was far from pleasant. Though he was loathe to admit it, it would be almost impossible for him to surpass the venerated enforcer.
“Qing Di is very strong too, he’s only losing because his opponent is who he is.” Li Yiran, Zhang Lingge, and others of the top one hundred found this an unwelcome discovery.
Though the venerated enforcer was once hailed the foremost powerhouse beneath titled kings, that still left a bit of room for imagination. They could daydream about defeating or surpassing him one day. But now…
He’d fought twice on the mountain—once perfectly defeating Dragonhollow’s greatest genius, the Jade Dragon Duke, and later dominating Azure Dragon City’s greatest genius, Qing Di. The latter had taken countless Pills of Creation, which vaulted his strength to new heights, but he was still no match for the venerated enforcer.
He was far from even coming close!
“I wonder what it’d look like if the Champion Duke fought the venerated enforcer,” Li Yiran suddenly wondered. “Would he be able to put up a fight?”
“Just wait for it. Even if his so-called disciples block all of us from scaling the mountain, that doesn’t mean the end of the Dragonling Ranking battles. We still have the chance to challenge anyone on the ranking, so there’s bound to be a battle between the Immortal King and venerated enforcer at some point.
“If his name is the only one on the ranking, then he can prepare himself to suffer endless rounds of fights.”
……
As conversation flew thick and fast, a pleasing zither note suddenly echoed in their ears. Everyone paused.
“Is someone playing a zither?” Qing Ting cocked her head, not understanding why the sound had come from the mountain’s peak. There should be more people than just Lu Yun at the peak, so they didn’t know who was the player.
“This zither…” Completely outmatched, Qing Di readied to retreat when the music note flowed into his ears. His mind sharpened with focus and he discovered with great shock that this melody seemed to be some sort of guidance. It was teaching him how to fight and utilize his combat arts!
“It’s the Immortal King!” Qing Di lit up and relaxed his mind, concentrating fully on the marvelous tones and following its instructions to release his potential.
The crowd immediately discovered a notable difference in his fighting style. Up until now, Qing Di had been fending off his opponent by the skin of his teeth, but he was suddenly able to counterattack the moment the zither sounded!
“Since martial grandfather wishes to test my cultivation, then I humbly make a fool out of myself.” The venerated enforcer immediately grasped what was going on and murmured inaudibly to himself. A hazy purple sword shadow descended from the skies in the next moment—his flying sword that Lu Yun had taken!
