Rather than being a simple combat art, Qing Ting’s sword curtain was closer to a king’s forcefield. It was a kind of existence that combined both sword formation and combat art. This was further proof that her potential far exceeded her brother’s—she’d comprehended the existence of something like a forcefield while still a half step king.

  Her sword curtain was nigh invincible; no one would be able to defeat it unless they were definitively stronger than her.

  She hadn’t dared deploy her sword curtain against opponents in Cloudexit City as there’d been numerous ghost kings there. A simple twitch from a ghost king would immediately dismantle the sword curtain.

  But now, no kings could join the fights in Dragonsea City and her strength was vastly improved from before. Thus, she quickly deployed a sword curtain spanning ten thousand kilometers across and fired off attacks from multiple angles at the same time. She didn’t stay in one place and knocked down cultivators one after another.

  ……


  Qing Ting detonated Crimsonclad’s attack with a combat art and blew all of the cultivators around them into a stupor, but didn’t damage her own sword curtain. Roughly eight hundred cultivators sprawled on the ground with blank expressions.

  “That’s some unbelievable control!” Azureclad jumped with surprise. When had his sister grown to such heights?

  The eight hundred were affected to the point of losing their mobility, but none of them were in danger of losing their lives. Azureclad, at least, wouldn’t be able to exercise this fine degree of control.

  Though Qing Ting could already defeat him before the Dragonling Assembly, he’d held back in many areas since he naturally wouldn’t use full force against his sister. Who would’ve thought that Qing Ting had also held back, and to a greater magnitude than him?

  Most importantly was that Qing Ting had yet to use her golden body since arriving in the city!

  Crimsonclad was likewise dumbfounded and Qing Ting was hardly willing to fight her brother. She swiftly slipped away to another spot and continued attacking cultivators that’d managed to survive the blast.

  There were less than two thousand standing of the thirty-three hundred half step kings!

  At a loss, Crimsonclad and Azureclad remained dumbly where they were.

  “Perhaps… you really are wrong,” Crimsonclad murmured. “She’s not your shadow or a marionette…”


  “My baby sister’s finally grown up and filled out her wings, but she needs to experience some challenges before she can soar into the sky. C’mon, let’s go take out that Champion Duke and then partner with the other half step kings to teach the lass a lesson!” Azureclad broke into easy laughter. He didn’t mind that his sister had overtaken him.

  Crimsonclad was mystified, but nodded in agreement with his plan. She’d chosen to forget his reaction toward Qing Yu.

  ……


  In one of the highest towers at the center of Dragonsea City.

  Numerous kings sat in arrangements as befitting their status, gazing down with amusement at the happenings in the city.

  “Large scale slaughter happens in all Dragonling Assemblies, and there is always so much blood and gore flowing through the streets that one can wade through it. But what an interesting turn of events has taken place this time!” A young girl with black hair, black lips, and wearing a black silk dress scanned everything in the city with interest.

  “The Trueriver King well deserves our respect for raising someone like the Champion Duke!”


  The Trueriver King was part of the list of invitees, but hadn’t headed out of town to attack foreign cultivators since he wasn’t a king of Azure Dragon Region.

  Qing Yu and the little fox were also among present company—though Dragonhollow Mountain had invited Lu Yun, not them. He’d responded with the excuse that he was refining a treasure and sent the Intrance King instead. Qing Yu was here purely out of curiosity.

  There were several other heavyweights present as well, all of them notable figures in the realm. The weakest among them was peak sixth step kinghood and quite a few seventh step kings could also be glimpsed among the crowd.

  To the ordinary cultivators of the Hongmeng, sixth step kings were lofty presences not to be offended at all costs. Seventh step kings were furthermore legendary characters who rarely appeared in the realm.

  Some powerhouses appeared only when a cultivator reached a certain height—as the saying went, the higher one stood, the further one saw. There were many high level kings in the Hongmeng, but they socialized among their own circles and rarely bothered to show themselves in the public eye.

  “The Robber Couple is quite merciful—they only take possessions and not lives. How interesting,” chuckled a young man with a beautiful piece of jade embedded between his brows.

  “If they really set out to strike with full force, your precious Seven Slaughters Duke would be deader than dead,” teased someone else.

  “One should be prepared to die at the Dragonling Assembly. If he dies to a peer, that only means he was inferior to his opponent,” the young man responded calmly. “But Coiling Dragon City’s lucked upon some good helpers this time. If we include that Crimsonclad Duke, all six of them possess the battle strength of titled dukes. It looks like Coiling Dragon’s about to become the strongest city of the region.”


  “Not necessarily.” A man in long azure robes shook his head. “As strong as their helpers are, their foundations are not enough. They don’t stand a chance of surpassing my Azure Dragon City.”


  The man was plainly from Azure Dragon; their lead representative, the Crippled Dragon King, had already charged out of the city to commence a killing spree. Hence, this man in long robes was in charge of the faction for now.

  Given that Coiling Dragon’s Mountain King didn’t have the right to participate in the gathering, that meant this man’s status and strength was even greater than the Mountain King’s. Azure Dragon was the only faction of Azure Dragon Region who had the right to sit down with all of these heavyweights.

  “Azure Scaled-Dragon King, do you think there is someone from your Azure Dragon City who is the match of that Qing Ting or Champion Duke?” the young man grinned.

  “Just wait and see.” The Azure Scaled-Dragon King remained noncommittal.

  Qing Yu and the little fox looked at each other, both of them remaining silent. The Trueriver King fidgeted uncomfortably—he had well and truly become a scapegoat for everything that the Immortal King did.

  But ever since the Trueriver Sect left Multitude City, it’d received boundless support from the Immortal Pagoda. Their strength had grown by leaps and bounds, and the king was on the verge of setting foot into seventh step kinghood.

  Bah, it’s just being a goat. Fine then.

  ……


  The fighting in the city was about to reach its climax. Lu Yun and Qing Ting had diligently practiced self control and restrained the power of their combat arts to the best of their abilities. Though they refrained from taking a life whenever possible, fatalities were inevitable when fighting a pitched melee against more than three thousand opponents.

  Qing Ting’s sleeves were dyed with blood and Lu Yun had killed two titled dukes. The arrival of Azureclad and Crimsonclad increased his pressure manifold, making it impossible to perfectly control his blows.

  Qing Ting was also beginning to buckle and released her golden body to forcefully withstand the attacks. However, it was also broken several times.

  Hummm.

  Azure-golden splendor exploded from her body and melded into her sword curtain.

  “Chaaaaarge!” she roared, releasing a piercing dragon croon from the Azuresky Sword and sending out an azure-golden dragon from it.