Heavenly Jewel Change Chapter 191-200

Chapter 191 Fei Li God General!

“After weighing the balance, Zhou Weiqing had ﬁnally agreed. He had absolute conﬁdence in himself, his companions and his own Peerless Battalion. Such conﬁdence came from strength, and Zhou Weiqing believed that even if they had to go through this ‘three out of ﬁve’ competition, especially with a victory in hand, they could not possibly lose. Furthermore, so what if they really lost? Would they really be that disadvantaged in the negotiations? That would also have to see who was on the other end. After all, do not forget what our dear Zhou Little Fatty was best at? Would he really care too much about the winning or losing of this current bet?

Cai Cai was also looking at Zhou Weiqing. Just like how Zhou Weiqing felt a sense of high respect and esteem for her, she had also a fresh new appraisal of the youth in front of her. From the start of Cai Cai’s performance in turning the tide, Zhou Weiqing had stood there without any movement, just silently watching her as if he were just a bystander, as if he did not care about any of this.

As she spoke, Cai Cai had kept her focus on Zhou Weiqing’s eyes, but she was quickly disappointed. She was totally unable to read anything within them. Indeed, nothing at all. There was only a gentle smiling intent in there, as if he was reuniting with an old friend. Towards that previous victory, there was no pride or arrogance, as if it was just an ordinary thing for a six- Jeweled Heavenly Jewel Master like himself to defeat a nine- Jeweled powerhouse.

More and more, Cai Cai was starting to ratify Ming Yu’s judgement. This Zhou Weiqing was truly not any ordinary person. Was he really less than twenty years of age?!

However, this was clearly not the time to think too deeply into things. After a short time pondering, Cai Cai showed an apologetic look, saying: “For the sake of the Empire’s honour, I might have to let Commander Zhou suffer some slight trouble. Principal Huo Feng, would you please?” As she spoke, she inclined her body slightly, making an inviting gesture to her back.

A tall and thin old man walked out slowly towards Cai Cai’s side, bowing slightly. He smiled faintly as he said: “I’m happy to be of service, Your Highness.”

Cai Cai laughed heartily and said: “You ﬂatter me, we are all working for the glory of the Empire. I had no choice but to invite Principal to intervene, please forgive me.” Seeing this person, Zhou Weiqing was startled in his heart. He knew that Cai Cai was going all out now. This old man in front of him did not seem to have much Heavenly Energy reverberations around him, but the instant that he had appeared, Zhou Weiqing had sensed a powerful threat. This was not a person he could handle alone… which could only

mean one thing… this old man called Huo Feng was a Heavenly

King Stage powerhouse!

Zhou Weiqing had not imagined that in the welcoming party of Princess Cai Cai, there would be someone like this here. In an instant, a wary look entered his eyes, but he did not have any notion of backing down.

Cai Cai nodded apologetically to Zhou Weiqing and said: “Commander Zhou, in this second round, we will be sending Principal Huo Feng to act on our behalf. You should have heard of Principal Huo Feng right, he is in charge of the Fei Li Heavenly Jewel Academy.”

Hearing the introduction, only then did Zhou Weiqing understand. So this old man was actually the Principal of the Heavenly Jewel Academy… that was to say, he was Xiao Yan and Lin TianAo’s teacher! No wonder his presence was so strong. In that moment, Zhou Weiqing’s brow furrowed, and he turned to look at Lin TianAo. Both Lin TianAo and Xiao Yan’s face were strange, and they exchanged looks momentarily before stepping forward. Stopping behind Zhou Weiqing, they bowed towards Huo Feng.

Xiao Yan said respectfully: “Teacher.”

Lin TianAo also greeted him with Principal. As the two of them bowed, naturally the aura and momentum of Zhou Weiqing’s side dropped, while for the Fei Li Empire’s side, though they had dropped previously from Shen Wang’s loss, a large amount was regained.

This Cai Cai must have done this on purpose! That was Zhou Weiqing’s ﬁrst thought. His thoughts were indeed true; after all, how could Cai Cai not know Lin TianAo and Xiao Yan’s origin? Furthermore, ever since Zhou Weiqing and the Fei Li Battle Team had achieved victory in the Heavenly Jewel Tournament, Cai Cai had researched them all closely. Currently, sending out Huo Feng was a way of savagely beating down on the Heavenly Bow Empire’s morale.

Huo Feng swept his gaze past the two of them before saying passively: “I am not worthy of such greetings. Since you both have already chosen to join the Heavenly Bow Empire, you are no longer part of the Fei Li Empire. The title of teacher, I am no longer worthy of it.” Lin TianAo was still ﬁne; after all he had not been personally taught by Huo Feng. However, for Xiao Yan, upon hearing such words, he instantly knelt down on the ground, his head down as he was unable to say anything.

A cold light ﬂashed in Zhou Weiqing’s eyes, but he did not blame Lin TianAo or Xiao Yan. As the saying goes, one day as a Master, forever like a Father. If he were in their shoes, he would react the same way.

After a pause, Zhou Weiqing sighed and said: “For this round, we admit defeat.”

Hearing Zhou Weiqing’s words, Cai Cai smiled faintly, an expression of ‘as should be the case’ ﬂashing across her face. Nodding to Zhou Weiqing, she said: “Very well, then for the third round, Commander Zhou please direct us.”

Zhou Weiqing looked at Cai Cai coldly. Although he wanted to call her despicable, but in the end he did not say anything. This was after all a tactic, and if they could win, then it was a good tactic. In a clash between Empires, there was nothing more important than winning, and he knew that very well. Without any hesitation, Zhou Weiqing smiled and said: “Very well, for this third round, I would like to learn from your Empire regarding a clash between armies. As Your Highness has seen, we have seven hundred soldiers here with us in our party. How about you all send out seven hundred troops and we

can have a good group ﬁght? Of course, it will just be a duel, and we can cover all our weapons with thick cloth to ensure no serious injuries. We’ll see who can knock out more opponents to decide the victor. What do you think?”

Similarly, Cai Cai did not hesitate to agree, instantly nodding as she said: “Very well, then we shall meet again on the drilling ground. However, it will take some time for us to prepare that many thick cotton cloths. Commander Zhou, you and your soldiers can have a rest ﬁrst. Once we prepare everything, we can begin the third round.”

As both sides separated for the time being, Cai Cai returned to the VIP Stage. Once she was seated again, she immediately turned to one of her personal guards and said solemnly: “Quick, go invite General Ming Yu here, ask him to bring his personal guard.”

“Yes Ma’am!” As for Zhou Weiqing, he returned to the Peerless Battalion side. Lin TianAo and Xiao Yan had their heads down, a shamed look on their faces. They knew that it was for their sakes that Zhou Weiqing had admitted defeat.

It was still relatively okay for Xiao Yan; after all, in his eyes, although Zhou Weiqing was strong, but a Heavenly King Stage was a huge difference from a Upper Level Zong Stage. He did not think that Zhou Weiqing could defeat a Heavenly King stage powerhouse right?

However, Lin TianAo knew that for the second round, they deﬁnitely had a chance to win. For the Fei Li Empire to send out a Heavenly King Stage powerhouse, they could deﬁnitely respond with not just a single person, to make it a fair ﬁght. If Zhou Weiqing, Tian’er and Shangguan Xue’er joined forces against Principal Huo Feng, or even just two of them, it would not be easy to tell who would end up the ﬁnal victor.

Zhou Weiqing gathered his ofﬁcers to him, saying solemnly: “In this next round, we can only win. Try not to kill anyone, as long as we win it is ﬁne. This time, I will personally command the soldiers.”

Everyone quickly agreed, especially Lin TianAo and Xiao Yan. Their eyes were ﬁlled with resolution. They had been the cause of the previous loss, and this time, they would want to make up for that loss.

After speaking to his soldiers for a while and encouraging them simply for morale, Zhou Weiqing sat to the side, lapsing deep into thought. Towards this third round, he was absolutely conﬁdent in victory. Let alone the Fei Li Empire, even if the ZhongTian Empire wanted to ﬁnd a group of seven hundred who could defeat the seven hundred elite soldiers he had with him, it would be extremely difﬁcult. Towards this second victory, he was determined to get it.

However, the key was the ﬁnal two rounds, and that was what he was pondering about. If they won this third round, then the fourth round would be determined by their opponent. If they lost that round, then the ﬁfth round would once again fall to his choice. In that case, what could he use that would be a guaranteed victory?

As he thought up to that point, Zhou Weiqing subconsciously looked back at his own camp. All of a sudden, a strange smile appeared on his lips.

After Cai Cai returned to the VIP stage, she had also ordered her men to start preparing a large number of thick cloths. At the same time, she also lapsed into thought. Without question, it was regarding this current ‘three out of ﬁve’ competition. This third round could be said to be the most important round. After all, since Zhou Weiqing had won the ﬁrst round, he had a competitive advantage. However, if they could actually seize the third round instead, the advantage would be theirs.

He has chosen a group ﬁght… clearly he has much conﬁdence in his seven hundred soldiers. However, even if they are from the ZhongTian Empire, so what? Ming Yu’s personal guards have gone through hell and back, climbing out from piles of dead bodies. Added on to the fact that it was the Fei Li God General personally commanding them, she could not believe a youth like Zhou Weiqing without much battleﬁeld experience could possibly win.

After all, Zhou Weiqing had never been known for his strategy and tactics… even when he was studying in the Fei Li Military Academy, he had not participated much in classes…

However, just like how Ming Yu had appraised Zhou Weiqing when he ﬁrst met him, although in terms of speciﬁc tactics or strategy Zhou Weiqing was not outstanding, but he had a quality no one else could match. An unbelievably acute senses, judgement and a soaring imagination that was wild and unmatched. It was exactly because of this unique quality that had allowed him to build such a force like the Peerless Battalion in less than two years!

As orders were given out, Zhou Weiqing’s expression was relaxed and easy going. If the Peerless Battalion could lose to a mere ﬁght against equal odds, then he could just give up on trying to revive his Empire now. Furthermore, no matter what tactics or strategy, facing absolute strength, what use was it? So what if he was not well versed in those traditional strategies and tactics? As long as he knew how to ﬂourish their own strength, that was more than sufﬁcient.

…

Almost an hour passed before the large number of cloths had been gathered and sent to the drilling ground. At the same time, a large troop of soldiers had also silently entered the zone, arraying into formation under the cover of the Royal Family Cavalry.

However, Zhou Weiqing’s senses were extremely keen. As soon as the troop entered the drilling ground, he had already discovered them. Furthermore, he could clearly sense a thick smell of blood on these new soldiers.

Indeed, it was the smell of blood. Every troop of soldiers had their own unique qualities, and this quality aura was very connected to their ﬁrst commander and his character.

Just take Zhou Weiqing’s Peerless Battalion for example, it was full of a roguish air, almost mercenary in nature. Utilizing proﬁts and Zhou Weiqing’s instigations, no matter what enemies they faced, they would charge without fear. This was something that had developed under Zhou Weiqing’s inﬂuence. No matter that Zhou Weiqing seldom trained the soldiers personally, but as the commander of the Peerless Battalion, the one who came up with all the rules and regulations, his actions and words would greatly inﬂuence the entire troop.

This troop that had just arrived was also the same. Although their numbers were low, only about a thousand men in total, the sheer killing intent and smell of blood around them was enough to strike fear in any ordinary soldiers’ hearts. Without question, this was an elite force that had been forged in the ﬂames of battle, clambering up from a hill of corpses and sea of blood. Their commander was after all a daring and bloodthirsty general.

After making such a judgement, a cold smile crossed hou Weiqing’s lips. He thought to himself: This Principal Cai Cai is trying to suppress me with aura and momentum! However, can she really succeed?

Those fellows might have the aura of blood around them, but I have the lure of money. Just a while ago, Zhou Weiqing had proclaimed a good reward to all his Peerless Battalion soldiers if they achieved a victory, a gold coin each. Although it was not a large amount; after all it was just seven hundred gold coins for seven hundred men, but in the Peerless Battalion warriors’ eyes, seven hundred versus seven hundred was tantamount to giving them a free gift of a gold coin each! Zhou Weiqing’s only request to them was that they were not allowed to use their Consolidated Bow and Wings.

As for their strategy and tactics, Zhou Weiqing had already arranged it earlier. All they had to do now was to wait for everything to be prepared.

Very quickly, all the thick cloths had been prepared and sent over. Under Zhou Weiqing’s direction, all the Peerless Battalion soldiers began to wrap their weapons with the cloth. On the VIP Stage, another person appeared. It was Ming Yu.

Today, Ming Yu was dressed in a dark-red scale armour, which was adorned with spikes in many areas. In the distance, he almost looked like a huge porcupine, but once anyone got close to him, the scent of blood around him was more than enough to cause anyone to quail. As he walked up the VIP stage, most of the ofﬁcials started to scatter aside, distancing themselves from him.

Besides the nickname of God General, amongst the Fei Li upper echelons, Ming Yu had another nickname: God of Slaughter!

As Ming Yu walked up to the VIP Stage, it was clear that his brow was furrowed. When he saw Princess Cai Cai, his expression was not joyful at all. Removing his helmet, he walked up to her and bowed deeply, saying: “Ming Yu greets Your Highness.”

“General, no need for such formalities.”

Cai Cai quickly said as she supported him up. She waved her hands, ordering her attendants to clear out, leaving the two alone.

“I remember I told you not to provoke that Zhou Weiqing, why are you all ﬁghting now?!” Ming Yu asked questioningly as soon as they were alone.

Cai Cai smiled bitterly and said: “It is not that I went to provoke him, but he was the one who started causing trouble… what other choice did I have?” As such, she explained everything that had happened since the Heavenly Bow Empire diplomatic party had arrived.

Hearing Cai Cai’s words, Ming Yu’s brow furrowed even further. Cai Cai continued: “That little brat is clearly here to show off, he wants to use it as an opportunity to gain the advantage during negotiations, so that we have to give in more during the negotiations. I’m sure you can see that as well… but his requests are just too much. Although he has the support of the ZhongTian Empire, but even if the Heavenly Bow Empire were at full strength, they would never dare ask our Emperor to come receive them. I had no choice but to accept his provocation, thus resulting in this bet. Currently, both sides are now equal, but this next round is of critical importance towards who can gain the ﬁnal victory, or at least have the upper hand in doing so. Ming Yu, I will have to depend on you for this.” A cold light ﬂashed in Ming Yu’s eyes, but as he looked at Cai Cai’s pleading eyes, he couldn’t help but shake his head and give a bitter smile: “I can only try my best. Since you have already called me here, can I not go to battle? I’ll get my personal guards to bind their weapons with the cloth then.”

Upon hearing his words, Cai Cai was extremely surprised. “Against Zhou Weiqing, do you not have any conﬁdence? He did not even study for long in our Fei Li Military Academy, he shouldn’t be that good in command or tactics!”

Ming Yu looked at her meaningfully for a moment before saying: “Empty words are useless. I have already said everything I needed to tell you previously, but you did not listen to me. You shall see for yourself, he will prove my words to you with his own strength. Of course, you do not need to worry, I will use everything I have to try to defeat him, that is because I am also curious to see what level this little brat has actually reached, to test myself against him. One last thing I must remind you… What sort of existence is the ZhongTian Empire? The Heaven’s Expanse Palace? Just think clearly… if this Zhou Weiqing does not have something that impresses them or qualities they admire, do you think they will waste time supporting him? To actually make the effort to send word to the Fei Li Empire, to go through all the trouble just to revive that Heavenly Bow Empire? Why is that so? Although that little rascal is still young, he is far more complicated than you can ever imagine. You are truly underestimating him far too much.”

After speaking those words, Ming Yu drew his black cape around him before turning to leave.

Standing there, Cai Cai’s eyes were ﬁlled with shock. She was an intelligent person, and having been warned a second time by Ming Yu, she instantly thought of many things. Alas, the situation was already in motion, and they were like an arrow nocked on a bowstring, with no choice but to be shot out. She could only continue with this bet. Originally, her heart that had been ﬁlled with conﬁdence was now truly shaken.

The Royal Family Cavalry troop parted, and slowly a group of warriors dressed in black armour walked to the center of the drilling ground.

The moment they entered, all the Peerless Battalion soldiers who had been lazing around on the ground suddenly perked up. These fellows from the First Main Company were all soldiers who had been surviving on countless battleﬁelds, and as their opponent appeared, they could instantly judge how strong they were. Such a thick scent of blood and killing intent, they immediately sensed that the boring ﬁght that they thought they would have to go through was going to be interesting indeed. Of course, it was just interesting, not even dangerous!

Dressed in his dark red armour, Ming Yu was mounted upon his steed at the front of his troop. To Zhou Weiqing’s surprise, Ming Yu’s war steed was exactly the same as his own, a single- horned Ghost Demon Horse, and shockingly, the seven hundred cavalry soldiers behind him were all mounted on Ghost Demon Horses! This as the Cavalry troop that Zhou Weiqing had originally wanted to form! He had not imagined that Ming Yu had already beaten him to it.

Ming Yu did not wear a helmet, and thus Zhou Weiqing instantly recognized this Fei Li God General. Upon seeing his appearance, Zhou Weiqing also felt his heart grip with wariness and respect. As the saying goes, a man’s reputation was like a tree’s shadow 1, for Ming Yu to be able to lead the Fei Li Empire armies to withstand the WanShou Empire armies, he was truly an outstanding military genius.

Zhou Weiqing had personally witnessed the strength and power of the WanShou Empire forces, and he knew that it was difﬁcult for any ordinary human army to achieve victory over such powerful forces. However, he had gotten news that in the past few years, the Fei Li Empire’s border war losses were actually even lesser than the ZhongTian Empire’s. What did that prove? It showed that the Fei Li Empire was actually more than holding its own against the WanShou Empire! Of course, there was also the factor that the WanShou Empire focused more resources on the ZhongTian side, but at the same time, how could the Fei Li armies compare with the ZhongTian Empire armies? No matter what, the facts proved that Ming Yu truly lived up to his name.

As such, Zhou Weiqing would not underestimate Ming Yu at all, especially since he was leading such a troop of Ghost Demon Horse cavalry!

Nudging his horse with his foot, Zhou Weiqing rode forth all the way until he was about thirty yards from Ming Yu before stopping.

As he drew closer to Ming Yu’s troop, the more Zhou Weiqing could sense that inherent killing intent they had. It was not focused at him, but all of them had it hidden in their eyes, cold and indifferent eyes that seemed to pay no importance to life itself! Not only the lives of their enemies, but even their own! The weapons in their hands were long spears, and the black armour that they were was a strange hybrid between light armour and heavy armour. Although the spears had already been covered with the thick cloths, Zhou Weiqing could still sense their keen edge indistinctly. Facing such a troop, if one did not have a strong willpower, perhaps they would break down before even clashing.

Furthermore, for a troop to have such a air and quality about them, how could their combat prowess be weak?

“General Ming Yu, it has been a long time!” Zhou Weiqing smiled widely at Ming Yu, revealing a row of white teeth. However, his eyes were not that friendly, almost as if he was admiring a piece of art, wandering across Ming Yu from top to bottom.

Ming Yu smiled faintly and said: “It has only been a few years indeed, but you have changed so much that I almost did not recognize you. It looks like my foresight at that time was pretty accurate after all. I am starting to regret, why I didn’t take you directly from the Fei Li Military Academy. If I had done so, perhaps you would be my right hand man now.”

Zhou Weiqing laughed heartily and said: “That might not be so, why should I be your right hand man, you can be my right hand man instead right? Furthermore, even if you tried to take me from the Academy that time, I would never have agreed. Your troop does not have any beauties at all, why would I even bother going?” Hearing Zhou Weiqing’s shameless words, Ming Yu’s gaze couldn’t help but drift towards Shangguan Xue’er and Tian’er in the distance, and he said in admiration: “Well, in that regard I am truly no match for you. You are a master indeed, to be able to gain the love of such top beauties. I am impressed indeed, respect, respect. If there is any chance, you must teach me a few tricks. I am already forty years old, but still do not have a wife…”

Zhou Weiqing laughed heartily and said: “That is no problem at all. If General Ming Yu is willing to join my Heavenly Bow Empire, you can have the pick of women from the Empire!”

Ming Yu did not seem to hear the hidden meaning in Zhou Weiqing’s words, still smiling as he said: “Commander Zhou, I wonder where your Heavenly Bow Empire is!”

Zhou Weiqing smiled and said: “It will be back soon, no worries, it will not be long before the Heavenly Bow Empire is revived.”

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Literal translation, and pretty literal meaning as well. Basically means that someone’s name and reputation is based on his deeds, just like the taller a tree, the larger its shadow; if it is a crooked tree, it will have a crooked shadow Ming Yu looked at him with a ﬁery gaze. “As a puppet of ZhongTian?”

“No, of course not. The Heavenly Bow Empire will only belong to our Heavenly Bow citzens, we will never be puppets for anyone else.”

Ming Yu’s gaze turned to the warriors in the distance behind Zhou Weiqing. If his own personal troop was full of killing intent, then the Peerless Battalion warriors were ﬁlled with conﬁdence and vigor. Only a troop who had constantly won would have such a presence. Their aura was not piercing or forceful, but it was a stable conﬁdence that spoke of absolute victory.

“Is that troop yours… or does it belong to the ZhongTian Empire?” The smile on Ming Yu’s face disappeared, and he grew serious. Instead, as he asked that question, he actually used his Heavenly Energy to transfer his voice.

Zhou Weiqing smiled faintly and said: “With your Fei Li Empire’s intelligence gathering service, may I know if you have heard about the strange occurrences in this year’s ZhongTian Northwest border wars?” Ming Yu nodded and said: “Although the ZhongTian Empire has tried their best to lock any news from spreading, but we have heard some bits and pieces from the captured prisoners of the WanShou Empire. Peerless Battalion right? A troop consisting of a mere few thousand, but they actually managed to assist the Northwest Armies in routing their enemies, which outnumbered them several times over. More so, they actually managed to cause severe casualties to the WanShou Empire,

even alarming the Heavenly Snow Mountain.”

Zhou Weiqing’s smile widened even further, and he said one more line of words to Ming Yu using voice-transference, before turning back and heading to his own lines. This round of ﬁghting was about to begin.

When Ming Yu heard Zhou Weiqing’s words, he actually stood there for several more minutes, stunned into silence, before he had ﬁnally recovered himself. As he looked at the Peerless Battalion warriors opposite of him, there was something else new in his eyes.

Zhou Weiqing’s words to him were simple: “The Peerless Battalion was created by me, and is fully mine.”

Just that simple line, it had already disclosed a large amount of information to Ming Yu. As for why Zhou Weiqing chose to tell him that, it was naturally not because he was the Fei Li God General, but because of his background of the Heavenly Demon Sect.

He was about to begin the major undertaking of the revival of his Empire. Although he was conﬁdent in their success, he knew it was no easy task, and what he wanted was to gather and unite all possible powers he could. Since he had already had such relations with Little Witch, along with his Master’s promise, he was clear that there was now an undeniable link between him and the Heavenly Demon Sect. Furthermore, he did not hold any hate against the Heavenly Demon Sect; in fact there was some goodwill. After all, after the past time when he had been attacked once, the Heavenly Demon Sect had never done so again, instead helping him out several times and even letting him peruse their secret Demonic Manual without any repayment.

Currently, all Zhou Weiqing had was his Peerless Regiment. For the ZhongTian Empire not to stop him from taking the Peerless Regiment away, it was already a major support and giving him much face. He knew he could not expect any other material support besides their simple aid in contacting the Fei Li Empire. After all, that would be tantamount to declaring war on the Bai Da Empire. Although the Shangguan Brothers placed much importance on Zhou Weiqing, it was not so much that he could compare with an entire Large Empire now. As such, for Zhou Weiqing to revive his Empire from the yoke of the Kalise and Bai Da Empire occupation, he would have to face many trials and tribulations. As such, any bit of strength he could gather was of great importance.

Today, all that he had done against the Fei Li Empire was not for fun, or that he was too bored and was looking for trouble. The main reason was of course to build up his Heavenly Bow Empire’s reputation and respect, but at the same time, a secondary reason was perhaps the hidden anger and need for vengeance against the Fei Li Empire who had been allies yet did not lift a hand to help them in the past. All of this was on the foundation of the support of the ZhongTian Empire.

Towards Ming Yu, Zhou Weiqing had always had a good impression, and held some approval in his heart regarding him. It was not just because of the approval and acknowledgement that he showed previously, but because of their similar natures on the battleﬁeld that had been displayed at that time. Since Ming Yu was from the Heavenly Demon Sect, who was to say that he could not aid the Heavenly Bow Empire in the future? As such, Zhou Weiqing did not hide anything from him, directly letting him know about his Peerless Battalion. Ming Yu drew a deep breath, looking at Zhou Weiqing who had long since returned to his lines. His mouth turned up in a faint smile, but no one could know what he was currently thinking about.

After a moment of thought, Ming Yu shouted out. “Prepare for battle!”

An orderly, almost synchronous, sound of armour clashing, and the seven hundred Ghost Demon Horse cavalry troops raised the spears in their hands, a soaring killing intent bursting forth as if a giant spear ﬁlled with blood was about to pierce into an enemy’s chest.

On the VIP Stage, the watching group of Fei Li ofﬁcials were secretly shocked. Most of them had only heard of the Fei Li God General by reputation, but it was their ﬁrst time seeing him on a battleﬁeld. Witnessing the terrifying presence of the Ghost Demon Horse cavalry with their own eyes, their conﬁdence surged instantly towards this victory.

Shen Wang stood by Cai Cai’s side, a complicated look in his eyes. All along, he had always considered his own Royal Family Cavalry to be the ﬁnest elites in the Empire. However, as he looked upon Ming Yu and his personal guard today, he ﬁnally understood that the difference between him and Ming Yu was just so huge.

In terms of cultivation level, Ming Yu could not compare to him. However, in terms of leading troops, even a dozen of him could never compare to a single Ming Yu! No wonder Princess Cai Cai liked Ming Yu so much, not him! Who did not like a hero after all!

At this moment, Ming Yu had already drawn the long sword from the scabbard on his belt. Nudging his mount, the Ghost Demon Horse stepped forward three steps, and all seven hundred of his Ghost Demon Horse Cavalry behind him also did the same, in such an amazingly neat and orderly formation.

*Boom**Boom**Boom* Three sounds of all the horse hooves striking the ground simultaneously, causing everyone’s heart to grip abruptly.

These three steps were actually carefully planned. Firstly, Ming Yu was informing Zhou Weiqing that they were beginning their attack. Next, the three steps also instantaneously powered his personal guard’s aura and momentum to the max, and the killing intent grew suffocatingly. Facing Ming Yu, Zhou Weiqing dared not be careless. Solemnly, he shouted: “Enter formation” Behind his back, the Peerless Battalion warriors instantly entered the formation he had given the orders for previously.

The First Main Company of the Peerless Regiment was truly their strongest elites, and every single one of them had impressive personal strength. At the same time, they had also worked the hardest in the training and cultivation. Although their formation and movements were deﬁnitely not as tidy and orderly as their opponents, their speed was no slower. In an instant, a long snakelike formation emerged on the drilling grounds, a formation that seemed like such a joke to the watching Fei Li ofﬁcials.

The snake like formation here referred to all seven hundred of them gathered in a line, just like the number ‘1’. (TN: In case the description isn’t clear, it isn’t a single ﬁle towards the enemy, but a horizontal line with all of them facing the enemy)

The greatest beneﬁt of such a formation was its coverage and reach, but its ﬂaws were just too obvious – being too thin and frail! With just a single layer of soldiers, what kind of frail formation was that? As long as anyone could charge and burst through any portion of it, the entire snake like formation would be pierced through and broken apart, unable to join up with each other. Even the newest, greenest commander on a battleﬁeld would never use such a formation!

As the Peerless Battalion warriors entered their formation, Ming Yu and his troop had begun their charge.

Compared to the Peerless Battalion warriors, Ming Yu’s personal guard clearly displayed a whole different side. Their training in such matters had clearly far surpassed the Peerless Battalion soldiers, and as they charged, they maintained the same square formation neatly. However, after advancing around a hundred yards, the formation actually changed into a triangular formation; the entire process completed so smoothly without any hint of stalling or messing up.

To change formations so easily in the midst of a charge, how much training did that require to accomplish that? More so, no matter the training given, only the ﬁnest elites would be able to do so. Ming Yu used his own actions to teach everyone present a lesson, to tell what was the meaning of ‘crack troops’.

With Ming Yu’s experience in leading troops, the moment Zhou Weiqing used that snake-like formation, he instantly knew Zhou Weiqing’s goal. Very clearly, Zhou Weiqing had absolute conﬁdence in the power of his own troops to be able to choose such a formation, and his goal was to counter-surround Ming Yu’s troops once both sides clashed, allowing the personal combat strength of his soldiers to come into play.

The greatest conﬁdence of Zhou Weiqing stemmed from the two hundred super Heavy Cavalry troops. Towards this point, Ming Yu was conﬁdent that he had read the situation clearly. Of course, with his vision, he could also tell how powerful those soldiers were. However, so what about that? This was a battleﬁeld, a ﬁght of seven hundred against seven hundred, not single combat. Ming Yu did not feel that just those two hundred soldiers alone could inﬂuence the result of the entire battle. He, too, had great conﬁdence in his own personal guard.

You want to use that snake-like formation to show off your soldier’s personal strength? Very well, I shall breakthrough by striking on a single point!

A strange light ﬂashed in Ming Yu’s eyes. Although he held much admiration for Zhou Weiqing, it was exactly because of that fact that he wanted to use all his power in this ﬁght, to see how far this youth had grown. Powerhouses would always only respect other powerhouses.

As both formations closed in on each other, the snake-like formation started to move just like Ming Yu had expected. Under Zhou Weiqing’s command, both ends of the formation doubled the speed of their charging towards both sides, while the center started to slow. Just like Ming Yu had guessed, Zhou Weiqing wanted to make use of the advantage of the snake-like formation to attempt to surround his personal guard.

High up on the VIP Stage, Cai Cai subconsciously gripped her ﬁsts tightly. Her usual grace and poise was belied by the agitation in her eyes. Although this was not the ﬁrst time she had seen Ming Yu on the battleﬁeld, she still had that same excitement that set her heart on ﬁre. Ming Yu’s command and direction in ﬁghting just had such artistic appeal. She could almost envision his personal guards smashing through Zhou Weiqing’s warriors and gaining the victory, and Zhou Weiqing’s dejected look afterwards.

Both sides were on the verge of an explosive clash.

Just as Ming Yu’s triangle formation was less than ﬁfty yards from the central lines of Peerless Battalion, a drastic change occurred.

Ming Yu’s Ghost Demon Horse came to an abrupt halt, and his sword pointed to the right. In an instant, he had disappeared into the entire triangle formation that seemed to swallow him up. In the swift charge of the formation, they wheeled and turn to the right, arcing in a perfect small line towards the left ﬂank of Zhou Weiqing’s formation.

Chapter 192 Power vs Strategy!

This triangle formation gave off the impression that it was not an army troop, but like the body of a single person. Command, formation, movement, control, all of it was like someone moving his arm. This… was the Fei Li God General!

Without question, as he was facing Zhou Weiqing and his Peerless Battalion warriors, the Fei Li God General Ming Yu did not hold back at all, fully displaying the true power of his personal guard.

Changing formations mid-charge several times, abrupt changes in directions as they neared the opponent, having their leading commander vanish into the formation. All of these control and command were already individually considered top level skills on the battleﬁeld, let alone having them appear all at once. Although Ming Yu was only commanding seven hundred men, to be able to do so so smoothly and without any hint of messiness, he truly lived up to his name as the Fei Li God General.

In truth, Ming Yu’s strategy was also rather simple but effective. With a single look, he had determined that the backbone and core power of Zhou Weiqing’s seven hundred men were the two hundred heavy cavalry soldiers in the center. However, due to their sheer weight, even if they were mounted upon Unicorn Heavenly Beasts, it was without a doubt that their speed would be somewhat restricted. Since these two hundred were the toughest to deal with, Ming Yu instantly decide to change his direction of attack.

His goal was actually very simple, to create chaos, and this time he chose a single ﬂank of Zhou Weiqing’s formation to cause it. As long as he could come crushing down with the irresistible might of his speedy charge onto the relatively weaker ﬂank, then the Peerless Battalion formation would be thrown into chaos. Once that happened, with his elite troops and his own direction, he had absolute conﬁdence of slowly ﬁnishing off Zhou Weiqing’s troops by chewing off bits and pieces

Indeed, as Zhou Weiqing saw such movements and commands from Ming Yu, he couldn’t help but sigh in admiration. However, differing greatly from Ming Yu’s expectations, he was not panicked at all, instead giving a simple order – Charge!

By now, the snake-like formation had already turned into somewhat of an arc, almost forming a pocket that was about to be ﬁlled up with Ming Yu’s triangle formation. However, in everyone else’s eyes, the ‘fabric’ of the pocket was just too thin, and the ‘sharp point’ of the triangle formation looked like it could easily tear a hole through this pocket at any time, with just a simple charge. Currently, the left side of the ‘pocket’ was just about to receive a massive blow from Ming Yu’s personal guards.

Just as both sides were about to clash, all of a sudden, two ﬁgures sprang up and actually ﬂew into the air. Instantly, two balls of different coloured light started glowing around their bodies. Without question, they were trying to unleash Skills. Generally speaking, on a battleﬁeld, especially in a clash between large numbers, even if both sides had Heavenly Jewel Masters, they would not use any high powered Skills in such a fashion. The reason for that was because, unless that particular Heavenly Jewel Master’s power had already reached a terrifying level, they would actually be in a highly disadvantageous stage. For example, any AOE Skills could accidentally harm their own side, even causing a drop in morale. After all, for a Skill to actually have use in such a large scale battleﬁeld, it also meant that ﬁne-grained control was most difﬁcult. As both sides clashed, it was normally at close combat, and once that was so, any AOE Skills would deﬁnitely have a large chance of ‘friendly ﬁre’.

Besides that, if a Heavenly Jewel Master unleashed a large AOE Skill or any powerful Skill, it was without a doubt that he would immediately draw the attention of all enemies, becoming the main target. He would also come under ﬁre of all the opposing side’s powerhouses. In such a large scale battle, even if the Heavenly Jewel Master was very powerful, who knew what a stray arrow or sword could do? As such, without special tactics or protection, Heavenly Jewel Masters would never take the initiative to unleash such large scale powers, instead using their own Heavenly Energy to protect themselves while they fought and killed normally.

Yet, these two who ﬂew up into the air, they were actually attempting to unleash their Skills. Furthermore, by ﬂying up in the air to do so, weren’t they making themselves an easy target?

Ming Yu’s personal guards were truly the ﬁnest amongst elites. Instantly, amongst the seven hundred of them, forty bouts of light shot out towards the ﬂying duo. All of them were long ranged Skills! For a time, all the onlooking ofﬁcials were totally stunned. Forty bouts of long ranged Skills… that meant in Ming Yu’s formation, there were at least forty Heavenly Jewel Masters! Indeed, it was Heavenly Jewel Masters, not just Elemental Jewel Masters. The reason was because Elemental Jewel Masters would usually not become cavalry soldiers! For him to have over forty Heavenly Jewel Masters, how many Physical Jewel Masters would he have? At least a hundred estimated? For a moment, even Princess Cai Cai who perhaps knew Ming Yu the best was secretly shocked. She had not realised that the power that Ming Yu held had already grown to such heights.

Of course, the two that had ﬂown into the air was Zhou Weiqing and Tian’er. Currently, Zhou Weiqing was in his Dragon-Tiger Transformation State, and the large wings behind his back were unfurled and ﬂapping gently. His right hand was wrapped gently around Tian’er’s slim waist, and looking at them, it did not seem like they were on a battleﬁeld, looking more like a couple who were ﬂying in the air enjoying the scenery. Towards the over forty incoming attacks, they totally ignored them, almost as if they had not seen the attacks.

In a ﬂash, the Six Ultimate Godly Light Formation lit up below Zhou Weiqing’s feet, and in the next instant he lifted his right hand, causing a large patch of bluish purple light to cover the entire seven hundred personal guards charging at them. The most stunning thing was that the patch of bluish purple light also formed a triangle, and as it ﬂew towards the charging personal guards, it landed perfectly on their formation, with not a single possibility of harming his own soldiers.

This time, Zhou Weiqing was not just unleashing a Lightning Attribute Skill, but actually wielding lightning itself. His ‘Flying Lightning God Technique’ was not just restricted to those lightning pearls, but even lightning in its raw form. Of course, those lightning pearls were much stronger, a more compressed version that held a stronger explosive power. Once he was able to bring them into play in massive numbers, even those with cultivation levels higher than Zhou Weiqing would not be able to take them easily. In comparison, raw lightning had the superiority in terms of pure speed. Furthermore, currently Zhou Weiqing was unleashing it in an area of effect, and there was almost no possibility of dodging it.

Amongst Zhou Weiqing’s numerous Stored Skills, he had one called the Thousand Lightning Strikes, though it was not a very highly rated Skill. At this moment, Zhou Weiqing was actually using his Six Ultimate Godly Light Formation to mimic the Thousand Lightning Strikes at a far greater degree, and also with much ﬁner control. In terms of control, who could compare with his teachings Long Shiya? That was the core specialty of the Six Ultimate Heavenly Emperor indeed.

The most speechless thing about this attack was that this AOE lightning attack was not just an instantaneous one, but a continuous effect. If one looked closely, they would be able to clearly see that around the wings behind Zhou Weiqing’s back, there was a large whirlpool of faint bluish purple light, swarming into his body. As for the Six Ultimate Godly Light Formation at his feet, it was also fully glowing in that same bluish purple light. In such a state, Zhou Weiqing was almost using his own body as a conductor, drawing all the Lightning Attribute energy from the atmosphere and discharging it via his Six Ultimate Godly Light Formation. Such a constant and persistent AOE effect skill, it was truly terrifying indeed.

This was only the beginning. Right beside Zhou Weiqing, Tian’er was not idle. Without knowing when, a strange looking staff had appeared in her hands, about one and a half metres long, fully white in colour, with a strange purple gemstone right on the top of the staff, almost as large as an average man’s head. However, that purple gemstone was now glowing with a brilliant gold light.

Another AOE Skill, but the one that Tian’er was unleashing was even more brilliant and resplendent than Zhou Weiqing’s. A large area of gold light descended from the skies, landing on all the Peerless Battalion soldiers on the right ﬂank, who were just about to clash with their opponents. In that moment, these soldiers enveloped in the gold light felt as if there was something burning in their bodies, ﬁlling them with strength and power. This included the Unicorn Heavenly Beasts below them, all of which were glowing with a layer of dim gold light. Their Heavenly Energy burst forth explosively, and in that moment, it was as if all of their strength had grown by at least twenty percent. On the battleﬁeld, was was more terrifying than an AOE attack Skill? The answer was simple… an AOE support or boosting type Skill! Of course, the chances that such a Skill could appear on the battleﬁeld was also like the hair of a phoenix and the horns of a qilin, nearly impossible! Although the Water Attribute had some healing effect Skills, they did not have any large scale boosting abilities. Only the Light Attribute and Life Attribute had some, but they were extremely rare and also very difﬁcult to Skill Store, with only some of the rarest Heavenly Beasts having such Skills. Furthermore, most of the Light Attribute boosting Skills were in terms of defending against Darkness or increasing morale. As for the Life Attribute, it was not too bad, with large scale AOE heals. However, that was also only possible after the nine-Jeweled stage and with Heavenly Energy reaching the Heavenly Dao Energy stage.

In Ming Yu’s long military career, he had seen a few AOE offensive Skills in his time, but this was truly the ﬁrst time he had seen an AOE boost Skill! Furthermore, it was clear that this was no ordinary Light Attribute or Life Attribute Skill!

This Skill that Tian’er had unleashed was called Angel’s Blessing, an AOE ‘Boosting’ type Skill, able to boost the stats of all living creatures by twenty percent within a certain area. The length of effect and exact strength of boost had a direct correlation with Tian’er’s personal strength. Besides healing, this was the true superiority of the Divine Attribute.

The most frightening thing about such an AOE Boost Skill was not just that its effect was so strong, but its drain on Tian’er’s Heavenly Energy wasn’t too large. That was because Tian’er drew heavily upon the atmospheric Divine Energy, even priming some from solar energy. In such a case, she was just the inducing force, not the main source of the Divine Energy that was released, and thus it was only a minor drain on her own Heavenly Energy. However, such a Skill would also have an extremely long cooldown time before she could use it again. Just as Zhou Weiqing and Tian’er unleashed their respective Skills, the forty attacks from Ming Yu’s personal guards had also reached them.

A massive shield rose up from below the duo, and as it appeared, it had a diametre of two metres. However, as it rose, it actually started growing, and by the time it reached Zhou Weiqing and Tian’er, it had already expanded to a diametre of ﬁve metres, fully covering both their bodies behind it. Attack after attack smashed into the massive shield as it glowed with a thick yellow light, but besides a ripple in the light, all the attacks did not seem to have any other effect.

Naturally, this was the work of Lin TianAo. As Zhou Weiqing’s Follower, his greatest effect was to be his shield and protection on the battleﬁeld, how could he miss out at this critical time?

Lin TianAo’s cultivation level could be said to have improved by leaps and bounds, faster than he had ever imagined. Ever since he had Followed Zhou Weiqing, he had never lacked for resources. The best food, drink, cultivation resources, Heavenly Cores, even Storing Skills and Consolidating Equipment Scrolls. All of it was provided for him, and he no longer needed to worry about them, allowing him to focus fully on training and cultivation. Currently, Lin TianAo was just a small step away from breaking through to the seven-Jeweled stage, and the six Jeweled Assembly Set Shield he unleashed was naturally with a considerable defensive power.

Previously, even the attack of a Heavenly King Stage powerhouse had not been able to break through his defenses with just a single blow, let alone these mere forty casual ranged attacks whose power had to have dissipated slightly from the distance. Furthermore, though there were quite a few Heavenly Jewel Masters, barely any had even reached the six- Jeweled stage. After all, if one was that strong, who would be willing to be just an ordinary soldier? It was only because he had the support of the Heavenly Demon Sect that he was able to have so many Jewel Masters in his personal guard!

So many things happened at once, but all of it had actually occurred in a few blinks of an eye. Both sides almost clashing, Zhou Weiqing and Tian’er’s Skills, the boosts, Lin TianAo helping them block the attacks… the next instant the two armies ﬁnally clashed at last.

The attack of the Peerless Battalion soldiers were simple and direct. Although their previous battles were mostly fought with bow and arrow, that did not mean their close combat skills were lacking. On the contrary, having been drilled so hard by Shangguan Fei’er, it could be said that the blood and sweat they poured into close combat training was even more than their archery training. After all, up to a certain point, it was hard for the ordinary soldier to improve further in archery; whereas close combat skills was always requiring countless experience.

As both sides were about thirty yards from each other, the Peerless Battalion soldiers began their ﬁrst round of attacks. Throwing javelins.

Each of the Peerless Battalion soldiers were equipped with six javelins. Previously, they had all bound these javelins with thick cloth to prevent any serious injuries. Currently, with that distance of thirty yards, it was the perfect range for throwing javelins. At once, nearly three hundred javelins ﬂew out straight towards the incoming crazed charge of Ming Yu’s personal guards.

Intense, violent sounds of clashing rang out constantly. The impetus and force of impact of these javelins were not weak, and do not forget what the Peerless Battalion was most known for? It was not their great strength, but their shamelessness. Previously, Zhou Weiqing had given them the instructions that for their ﬁrst salvo of javelins, the aim was not to injure their opponents, but to slow them down, to give him more time to unleash his Skills. As such, for this ﬁrst salvo of javelins thrown, all the Peerless Battalion soldiers actually did not use any Heavenly Energy at all!

Ming Yu’s personal guards were indeed strong, and they had quite some number of Physical Jewel Masters, and others who had some level of Heavenly Energy. If the Peerless Battalion soldiers infused their Heavenly Energy in this ﬁrst salvo of javelins, they might gain some beneﬁt, but it would undoubtedly cause their opponents to be wary. As such, they shamelessly decided to play the act of pigs to devour tigers.

Their plan was a success indeed. Although these javelins did not have any Heavenly Energy infused, their weight was not light, and the soldiers were strong and well trained in the art. Add on the fact the javelins were laced with titanium alloy, and were extremely tough… this salvo actually managed to slow the charge of the incoming personal guards. At the same time, Zhou Weiqing and Tian’er’s Skills had managed to land.

Ming Yu’s personal guards were undoubtedly decent at withstanding the offensive Skills, with some Heavenly Jewel Masters even releasing some area of effect defensive Skills. However, the actual area, range and control of their Skills were far weaker than Zhou Weiqing’s, especially since his Skill was a continuous one. For a time, quite a few of the charging warriors felt their bodies go numb slightly, affecting their offensive capabilities.

On the reverse side, the opposing Peerless Battalion warriors were all getting boosted by Tian’er’s Skill. Their offense and defense were boosted to the maximum, even increasing their charging speeds.

Unicorn Heavenly Beasts had the Light Attribute, and with the Angel’s Blessing, it was as if they had been injected with stimulants, the boost having an even greater effect on them. All the Unicorn Beasts immediately used their own innate abilities – the Gliding Charge.

Lowering their heads, the tough horns in the front, the wings on their sides spread open, their charging speed accelerated instantly, bringing their riders in a valiant charge towards the triangular formation.

…

At last, it was time for the actual clash. In a massive explosive crash, both sides smashed savagely into each other. It was at this very second that Zhou Weiqing’s ‘Flying Lightning God Technique’ halted abruptly. All the other Peerless Battalion soldiers also began accelerating their charge, bearing down on their opponents.

In most of the audience’s eyes, for the entire of Ming Yu’s triangle formation to smash into such a narrow portion of the snake-like formation, it should be easy for them to pierce right through. However, as both sides clashed, everyone, including Ming Yu, suddenly realised that they were very wrong.

In that abrupt crash, the front of the triangle formation was actually whittled off shockingly. The charge of the Peerless Battalion soldiers line had actually forcefully blocked the entire triangle formation.

In Ming Yu’s strategy, the most important point was for them to pierce right through a single point, using their superior maneuverability to move back and forth to continually pierce through the snake-like formation and causing chaos to break out in their opponent’s formation.

Alas, the events and results were contrary to their expectations. The piercing of the formation had been forcefully stopped in their tracks, failing spectacularly in an inconceivable fashion. The instant before the clash, all the Peerless Battalion soldiers abruptly burst forth in violent Heavenly Energy reverberations, especially the dozen or so who were right in front to receive the main vanguard of the triangle formation. Their Heavenly Energy reverberation were clearly at least of the Upper Level of the Heavenly Shen Energy (six Jewels), with one even at the Heavenly Xu Stage (seven or more Jewels)!

The ﬁve in front were even Heavenly Jewel Masters!

Originally, Ming Yu’s personal guard formation was also extremely powerful. To be able to be the vanguard of the triangle formation, they were naturally the strongest and ﬁnest elite of his troops. In terms of cultivation level, they would not lose out to the Peerless Battalion soldiers. Alas, they had been taking harassment from Zhou Weiqing, while on the other side their opponents were not only boosted by the Angel’s Blessing, but their Unicorn Heavenly Beasts’ Gliding Charge!

With such a disparity, in the savage clash, the ﬁrst several dozen of Ming Yu’s personal guard vanguard were all knocked off their mounts. Even their Ghost Demon Horses were sent tumbling by the excited Unicorns, many sustaining some injuries. This was also because of the powerful defenses of the Ghost Demon Horses, otherwise any ordinary horses might have been killed instantly.

What the… Ming Yu had been directing the clash right in the center of the formation, and he was shocked to realise that the formation was actually halted. He instantly knew something was wrong, and in a ﬂash he stood up right on horseback, looking at the Heavenly Energy reverberation and glows in the distance.

This… this… this was…

Physical Jewel Masters? They were all Physical Jewel Masters! From the looks of things, there was not a single one below the ﬁve-Jeweled stage!

In that split second, even the Fei Li God General was struck senseless. Although he had already given a high appraisal of Zhou Weiqing’s Peerless Battalion soldiers, he had never in his wildest dreams thought that this would happen.

In his entire Personal Guard, he had three hundred Physical Jewel Masters, and that number was inclusive of the forty Heavenly Jewel Masters. This was already a major point of pride for Ming Yu, and this strength was also because of heavy support from the Heavenly Demon Sect, with several of his guard being from the sect. All along, it had also been this core backbone that had allowed Ming Yu to sweep victory after victory.

However, it seemed like the Peerless Battalion soldiers in front of him all had even greater individual strengths! Ming Yu’s Physical Jewel Masters were all on the average at the three-Jeweled stage. Although they still had room to grow, but that would require a large amount of time and effort. However, their opponents were already at the ﬁve-Jeweled stage or higher!

In the next instant, Ming Yu had already formed a judgement. These seven hundred soldiers were even tougher to deal with than seven hundred WanShou Empire cavalry soldiers!

The next few moments truly displayed Ming Yu’s impressive tactics and command abilities. Although they had been greatly disadvantaged by this clash, Ming Yu instantly reined in his troop from imminent disaster, dragging them back from the the brink of the precipice. In a matter of seconds, the rear guard suddenly turned into the vanguard, a miraculous turn in formations as they began their retreat. It was impossible not to retreat. At this time, the advantages of the snake-like formation were starting to come into play, and they were about to be surrounded. Once they were fully surrounded, and the two hundred Heavy Cavalry troops joined the ﬁght, they would no longer have any chance at all.

Ming Yu’s on the spot command had always been known for having the strongest point of being absolutely calm. No matter what he faced, no matter how much losses they had suffered, he would still be able to calmly make the most accurate judgements and decisions in the shortest possible time.

Ming Yu’s personal guard was actually forced to retreat… from just a single clash?!

Up on the VIP stand, Cai Cai could only watch with her jaw agape with shock.

Currently, the Peerless Battalion warriors gave the impression of magniﬁcence and glory; especially the ﬂanked soldiers who had been the ﬁrst to withstand the furious primary clash. Their titanium mail was glowing silver in brilliant resplendence, added on to the golden glow of the Angel’s Blessing, they suddenly seemed like divine troops descended from the heavens. Flying in midair, Zhou Weiqing was now being ignored. He grinned widely, ﬂying across in the skies.

The wings that the Dragon-Tiger Transformation brought to him gave him an extremely powerful ﬂying ability and speed. At full power, it was truly a terrifying speed. All the others could see was a purple-red streak ﬂash through the skies, and Zhou Weiqing had already risen to a much higher vantage point. This time, his ﬂight destination was the path that Ming Yu’s personal guard were retreating in.

Large patches of lightning pearls descended from the skies, under the ﬁne control of the ‘Flying Lightning God Technique’, ﬂoating in the air before their paths. His goal was not to actually attack them, as he did not wish to kill anyone. Zhou Weiqing’s intention was simple, just to block them.

The ﬁrst patch of lightning pearls smashed down onto the ground, exploding with much sound and dirt, spinning dust into the air. As the terrifying explosions blew up, this was the ﬁrst time that Ming Yu’s personal guard were thrown into disarray. Perhaps humans could still quickly adapt to such a state, but could their mounts? Even though the Ghost Demon Horses were far superior and stronger than any ordinary warhorses, they were still startled by the massive sounds of explosions. Just like that, the speed of their retreat was forcefully slowed drastically, almost stopped.

Ming Yu lifted his head to look at Zhou Weiqing in the skies, and couldn’t help but scold inwardly: Is that little brat really human? How much Heavenly Energy does he have to waste away?! After all, for a six-Jeweled Heavenly Jewel Master to defeat a nine-Jeweled Heavenly Jewel Master, it was already an impressive feat. Yet, he was still able to release a continuous stream of AOE offensive Skills just now… and even to the extent to use those lightning pearls here again! This was truly inconceivable. In Ming Yu’s mind, only a Heavenly King Stage powerhouse could do something like this, even a nine-Jeweled stage powerhouse should not be able to last so long in throwing out so many high powered Skills! Indeed.. The regenerative power of the Six Ultimate Godly Light Formation, the wings of the Dragon-Tiger Transformation, and the Immortal Deity Technique… all of this combined to bring about the monstrous sustained ﬁghting capabilities of Zhou Weiqing. This was something that truly deﬁed logic and common sense! In the ﬁrst place, the speed of the Peerless Battalion soldiers was not slow, and with this short delay from Zhou Weiqing, the encirclement was complete and Ming Yu’s personal guard formation was fully surrounded.

For the ﬁrst time, the Peerless Legion revealed its fangs in the Fei Li Empire, leaving a truly lasting impression indeed.

Charge! Charging as one!

The Berserker and Gold Crow Tribes had been held back for just too long. In terms of cultivation level, they were perhaps no match for the Peerless First Main Company elites, but in terms of strength and overall power… these two powerful tribes could laugh all the way!

The scene of the battle turned somewhat strangely funny. The reason was simple – the weapons of these two powerful Tribes. No matter the great spiked maces or the massive battle axes, when they were wrapped with a large amount of cloths, they all looked like giant cotton candies being held in the hands of the Peerless Battalion Heavy Cavalry soldiers. Yet, these funny-looking giant candies had a truly terrifying effect. In the front of Ming Yu’s personal guard, there was one four- Jeweled Heavenly Jewel Master with the Strength Attribute, and he had always been proud of his own physical strength. However, the moment he clashed with one of the female Gold Crow Tribe warriors, he ﬁnally realised what the true meaning of strength was.

As both sides smashed into each other, there were only two words that could describe it: Absolute Suppression. Indeed, absolute suppression.

For either the Gold Crow or Berserker Tribes, none of their warriors even bothered defending themselves. The unbelievable thick and sturdy armours they were wearing could not even be broken through by ﬁve, six-Jeweled Heavenly Jewel Masters easily. On the other hand, as they struck out with their weapons at will, nothing could stop them and their pure physical prowess.

The difference in equipment alone was just too huge. The ﬁnal result of the ﬁght was might be slightly surprising, but the true surprise was in the sheer gap and disparity between both sides… that was something that was truly unexpected. Perhaps the gap in power alone was not too huge, but it was the addition of power and equipment that made the true distinction. Besides Zhou Weiqing, who would actually be willing to splurge so much money on a single troop of soldiers? To use titanium like ordinary metals? Let alone that terrifying cost of those heavy cavalry soldiers… every time any of them struck out, it was like a blow of over a thousand jin!

In the time after both sides actually clashed into each other… the entire battle ended in a mere ﬁve minutes.

An outright absolute victory, with no suspense or doubt about the result at all.

In terms of close combat, the Peerless Battalion soldiers would never try and snatch a ﬁght away from the heavy cavalry soldiers. These fellows were all rufﬁan soldiers, and their observation skills were just too deadly. Naturally, they could see that these personal guards of Ming Yu’s were not easy to deal with, especially since they had so many Jewel Masters. If they were not careful, they might even sustain some injuries.

As a result, these shameless fellows only did what was required of them, to prevent their opponents from breaking free of their encirclement. As for the actual ﬁghting, they left it to the two tribe’s Heavy Cavalry, whom they now called affectionately as ‘Tin Cans’. This was the ﬁrst time that the Heavy Cavalry had ventured upon the battleﬁeld since they had been fully outﬁtted. Indeed, this ﬁrst appearance did not disappoint Zhou Weiqing at all. Their combat prowess on the battleﬁeld, along with that terrifying armour, even if they were to clash against the elite

Mammoth Regiment, he was conﬁdent they could hold their own.

What kind of existence was the Gold Crow Tribe? Their average weight alone was more than six hundred jin, their bones weighing as heavy as gold but much tougher. Their strength was as herculean as their weight.

What about the Berserker Tribe? They were also nicknamed the ‘Titan’ Tribe. In terms of height, ﬁgure and stature, they were even more terrifying than the Gold Crow Tribe, with their average height an astonishing two point one metres, with the tallest here even reaching two point seven metres! Their weight was not comparable to the Gold Crow Tribe, but was not to be scoffed at as well. Perhaps the most monstrous thing was that their pure physical strength was even greater than that of the Gold Crow Tribe, and even more so when they used their innate Berserk skill!

In summary, both Tribes had their own strengths and advantages, but the most common point was physical strength. Pure, unadulterated strength.

When Zhou Weiqing had outﬁtted them with that heavy armour, they could be considered absolute killing machines on the battleﬁeld. Even if their weapons were all bound with thick cloths, by the time the battle ended, all seven hundred of Ming Yu’s personal guard, including Ming Yu himself, were injured.

Ming Yu’s current look was rather miserable and wretched. When Zhou Weiqing appeared grinning in front of the Fei Li God General, he saw his armour was in shambles, even the Heart Mirror at his chest had disappeared, looking shabby and disconcerted. Even his helmet had disappeared, and half of his face was swollen and bruised. Without question, he must have been ‘nudged’ by one of the ‘tin cans’.

Luckily, he did not seem to have any serious injuries. In truth, Ming Yu was a six Jeweled Heavenly Jewel Master, and if he were to ﬁght with any of the ordinary Gold Crow or Berserker Tribe members on a one versus one ﬁght, he would likely still be able to win. Of course, that was if he did not face any of their rare Heavenly Jewel Masters, who were even more terrifying.

After all, Ming Yu had many other Consolidated Equipment and Stored Skills. Alas, on the battleﬁeld, it was just too different. When two hundred heavy cavalry soldiers charged together as one, it was like a small mountain bearing down upon them, not something that a single person could inﬂuence. The sheer imposing momentum and unyielding force was such that the strength of a single person was just a token triﬂe. Zhou Weiqing’s strength was just as tyrannical and overbearing as any of the Gold Crow or Berserker Tribe members, perhaps even more. However, even if it were him, he would not be willing to face the charge of ﬁfty of his own Heavy Cavalry soldiers easily. That was a terrifying momentum and impact of over tens of thousands of jin! Even if he had the ‘Hate Ground no Handle’ Legendary Set, there was a limit to how much his personal Heavenly Energy and strength could do. If ﬁfty of them smashed into him, it would not be an easy thing to take.

…

At last, the ﬁght had ended, and the Peerless Battalion soldiers reformed into their usual tidy formation, standing behind Zhou Weiqing once more. At this point, the entire drilling ground was ﬁlled with an eerie silence, and the scene in front of them was a horrifying sight.

‘Horrifying misery’ was a pretty apt phrase to use to describe the current Personal Guard Battalion of Ming Yu’s. Although with the bound cloth and Zhou Weiqing’s orders for them to hold back and ensure no casualties, none of the Personal Guards had died, they had all sustained some form of injuries, and none of them were in full gear anymore. All their ﬁne looking equipment, how could they compare with the Peerless Battalion’s, instead seeming more like paper. Most of the gear had been broken or ruined in the clash. As for injuries, no one knew how many broken bones there were, or perhaps more accurately, no one knew how many broken bones there weren’t! Less than a third of the personal guard could stand, and even with the Ghost Demon Horses’ strong defenses, many of them were lying on the ground. Who knew how much medical expenses they would have to spend before they could be used as warhorses again.

This was not the only thing. Currently, Ming Yu was right in front of Zhou Weiqing. This time, he was walking on his on feet. More accurately, he had been captured… on his shoulders there were still two large spiked maces resting there. Ma Qun was looking at this Fei Li God General with a wicked smirk on his face.

Zhou Weiqing jumped off his mount, landing right beside Ming Yu, grinning as he said: “Heh heh, how is it? Sir God General, my Peerless Legion isn’t too bad right?” To Zhou Weiqing’s surprise, Ming Yu did not seem at all depressed by this loss. Instead, he was looking at the Peerless Battalion warriors like a pervert looking at beauties, swallowing his saliva as he did so. When he heard Zhou Weiqing’s words, he did not hesitate to nod eagerly. “They are not bad indeed! What kind of equipment are those? What material did you use? How come their defense is so strong? Did you create them yourself? How much money did you spend! No wonder you little rascal, were so bold as to challenge Princess

Cai Cai, you had such an ace up your sleeve. Not bad indeed… in front of absolute strength, any dominance that good strategy and tactics grant is greatly weakened. However, this is after all still on the drilling grounds, not an actual battleﬁeld. If it were on an actual battleﬁeld, and I had sufﬁcient time and information to prepare, I would still be able to defeat these warriors of yours. After all… they only number seven hundred…”

As Ming Yu was rambling on, Zhou Weiqing suddenly laughed heartily and said: “Did I say that they only number seven hundred? Furthermore… do you really think that you have seen all the power that they have?”

Hearing his words, Ming Yu started momentarily. After a while, he stared at Zhou Weiqing with a ﬁery gaze. “You have more of such warriors? How many more? What kind of full power are you referring to? Quick… tell me…” Zhou Weiqing looked at Ming Yu’s urgent yet eager look, and he couldn’t help but smile inwardly. He had ﬁnally found Ming Yu’s weak spot. This fellow truly had an intense obsession regarding military matters, especially offensive powers of soldiers on the battleﬁeld! “That is a top secret of my army,

why should I tell you? As for numbers… well I guess that part is ﬁne to tell you. Our total numbers… as compared to those I have brought… should be about ten times or so…”

“Impossible…” Ming Yu exclaimed subconsciously, his eyes ﬁlled with shock.

To groom and train such a group of seven hundred, it must have already cost an astronomical amount. That was not the only thing, he had already seen how all seven hundred soldiers were Jewel Masters, and their average cultivation level was already at the ﬁve-Jeweled stage! To ﬁnd such a number of people of this quality, it was already terrifying…. Ten times more?! What kind of notion was that?

Zhou Weiqing laughed heartily and said: “If you don’t believe me, then so be it. Anyway, I do not need you to believe me.”

Ming Yu refused to let the matter drop, and in a low tone, he asked urgently: “You really have ten times this amount of warriors like this?! If that is really true, wouldn’t you be able to sweep through the entire mainland?”

Zhou Weiqing laughed heartily and said: “It isn’t that exaggerated. The ones I brought with me here are naturally the ﬁnest elites.”

Hearing his words, Ming Yu heaved a sigh of relief. He had trained troops for so many years, and he knew how hard it was to form an army of true strength. It was not just a matter of gold and supplies! In the ﬁrst place, it was even more difﬁcult to ﬁnd so many talented warriors!

However, Zhou Weiqing’s next words almost caused him to puke out blood.

“Those ordinary warriors of mine… when compared to my elites… should be about twenty to thirty percent difference I guess? They should be about three to four Jeweled cultivation level on the average. Hmmm… oh yes, after some calculation, I think the number should be slightly more than ten times. Didn’t you hear Princess Cai Cai introduce me earlier, I am now a Regiment Commander? Our overall strength of numbers is close to a proper formation of a Regiment… our Peerless Regiment!”

Chapter 193 Compete in Creating Consolidating Equipment Scrolls?!

Spasming. Ming Yu’s entire body and heart were convulsing.

“No… impossible… I … I don’t believe it.” Ming Yu stared hard into Zhou Weiqing’s eyes, as if trying to read something within.

Alas, he could not see anything, not even any rheum.

Currently, Princess Cai Cai’s expression was rather ugly as she led the ofﬁcials back down into the drilling ground.

Originally, she had thought that when they won this round, she would ‘invite’ Zhou Weiqing up to the stage. Alas, with the current situation, she would have to move down personally.

Ming Yu turned his head back to look at Cai Cai walking in, and he took in a deep breath. In a low tone, he said to Zhou Weiqing: “I’ll look for you later.” After saying that, he walked back to Cai Cai, saying a few lines before turning back with an embarrassed look towards his Personal Guard Battalion. It was not going to be an easy task or a short time for his Personal Guard Battalion to regain combat effectiveness, and more importantly, to regain their morale. For a troop that had always lived with victory, it was a huge blow to them to suffer such a huge loss. Ming Yu had to personally return with them to comfort and console them and also guide them to enlighten them.

Cai Cai stabilized her own emotions before heading towards Zhou Weiqing once more. In her eyes, besides shock and awe, there was a hint of fear. She knew that although there were several thousand Royal Family Cavalry soldiers here with them, if Zhou Weiqing truly wanted to make a move against them, with the power he had displayed, they would have no chance at all.

As an onlooker, perhaps Princess Cai Cai could see many more things than Ming Yu. Even though he was the commander, he was also deep in the midst of things after all. If she was forced to use a sentence to describe that ﬁght, just a few simple words would sufﬁce: “Just too terrifying!”

Indeed, the only thing that ﬁght brought her was a sense of utter terror.

Cai Cai had never seen such a frightening army in her life. Although she had never actually been on the battleﬁeld to see the WanShou Empire armies with her own eyes, she was certain that even they did not have any such dreadful warriors.

Seven hundred men, just seven hundred men. Yet, when they burst forth with all their strength, the stiﬂing feeling their presence brought was like that of a immense army of a million strong! Their ﬁghting capabilities were just too terrifying.

All of them were Jewel Masters. This one thing was clear in Cai Cai’s heart. Amongst the seven hundred, besides the two hundred heavy cavalry soldiers she had not been able to perceive clearly, the rest of the ﬁve hundred cavalry soldiers were deﬁnitely Jewel Masters. As for those two hundred she could not see through clearly, the power they unleashed on the battleﬁeld seemed even more terrifying than any Jewel Master held. A crushing victory over the strongest and most elite troop of the entire Fei Li Empire! Facing such absolute chance, there was no chance… just like when Shen Wang faced up against Zhou Weiqing!

Such a troop of seven hundred… if they appeared on any battleﬁeld, it would deﬁnitely bring about a sweeping victory. How could the ZhongTian Empire possibly be willing to pass such a troop to Zhou Weiqing? Could it be a direct core troop of the Heaven’s Expanse Palace? Currently, Cai Cai’s heart was in a mess, and her usual composure had been thrown off. She ﬁnally understood why Zhou Weiqing had been so conﬁdent as to provoke her so easily. If this seven hundred soldiers truly belonged to the Heavenly Bow Empire, then he deﬁnitely had the right to do so.

Although these seven hundred was far from sufﬁcient to allow the Heavenly Bow Empire to restore their Empire, but their existence was tantamount to the Heavenly Bow Empire having a key to do so. Let alone the Kalise Empire, she was conﬁdent that even the Bai Da Empire would not have any troop that could block these seven hundred without a massive numeric advantage.

Zhou Weiqing smiled faintly as he received Cai Cai, saying: “Your Highness, this third round should be considered our victory right?”

Cai Cai was quickly brought out of her thoughts. With a complicated look at Zhou Weiqing, she said: “This troop of yours… they will accompany you all the way in reviving your Empire?”

Zhou Weiqing laughed: “Of course, this is my own troop after all. Your Highness, have you forgotten my self introduction? I am the Peerless Regiment’s Regiment Commander, Zhou Weiqing. Brothers, tell Her Highness, what is our motto?”

A deafening roar as a united shout rang out instantly: “PEERLESS IN THE WORLD!”

If it had been before that battle, such a motto would have caused all the Fei Li ofﬁcials to scoff contemptuously. However, the four words now just sent a shockwave in their hearts.

Peerless in the world. Such proud and arrogant words… yet they truly had the power to back it up. At least, in Cai Cai’s memory, she had never seen such a troop with such terrifying combat prowess.

All of a sudden, Cai Cai’s entire body shuddered slightly. Peerless…Regiment? Could it be…he had an entire Regiment of such warriors? But… If that was true…

Seeing that amused look in Zhou Weiqing’s eyes, Cai Cai forced her breathing to calm down. Finally, she smiled with her usual grace. Although it seemed a tad forced, at least she had not lost her composure. “If Commander Zhou really has an entire Regiment ﬁlled with such warriors, the hopes of revival of your Empire is truly high indeed.”

Zhou Weiqing did not pretend to be modest, nodding his head as he said: “I do think so myself. In any case, since this third round is considered our victory, then may Your Highness please come up with the next round’s topic?”

Cai Cai’s mind went into a whirl. Originally, she had planned that if Ming Yu won the third round, she would invite the Heavenly King Stage powerhouse again to clinch the ﬁnal round. After all, they had not set any rules previously against re-doing a round’s topic. In that case, she would have been able to clinch the ﬁnal victory with relative ease. Alas, the current situation did not allow her to use that plan any longer. Even if they won like that, then for the ﬁfth and last round, Zhou Weiqing could also do the same as request for another seven hundred vs seven hundred ﬁght. Who could possibly take on those Peerless Regiment soldiers?

Biting her lip lightly, Cai Cai thought for a while before saying: “Commander Zhou, previously our bet should have some restrictions that I forgot to mention. For those topics that we have already competed in, we shall not repeat them alright?” Currently, Zhou Weiqing could be said to hold the pearl of wisdom. Having won the third round, he had an absolute advantage. Even if he failed in this upcoming fourth round, it was a strong chance he could still win the ﬁfth since he could control the topic. As such, he did not mind Cai Cai’s little tricks like this, nodding his head generously in agreement. Of course, he knew it was because Cai Cai was afraid of his Peerless Regiment soldiers.

Cai Cai secretly heaved a sigh of relief before smiling as she said: “If I remember correctly, Commander Zhou should be a Consolidating Equipment Master right? In that case, shall we set the topic of the fourth round to be creating Consolidating Equipment Scrolls? Just a single piece, and the side who creates the higher quality Scroll will be the victor. What do you think?”

Zhou Weiqing started momentarily, his mouth starting to twitch slightly as his expression grew strange… “Your Highness, could it be the Fei Li Empire has somehow succeeded in recruiting a God Tier Consolidating Equipment Master?”

Cai Cai ﬂushed deeply. She thought that Zhou Weiqing was making a snide remark to mock the fact that she was using the entire resources of an empire to suppress a small diplomatic party. She thought to herself: You are the one who forced this Princess to such a state, what other choice do I have?

“… How could it be so easy to recruit a God Tier Consolidating Equipment Master? Their numbers are extremely limited in the entire Mainland, and though I wish it was so, I’m afraid that our Fei Li Empire does not currently hold such abilities. However, we still do have some Grandmasters in the Royal Palace. Master Han Gao, I will have to trouble you for this round.”

As Cai Cai spoke out, a middle aged man walked out from the group of ofﬁcials, looking to be around forty years of age. As the man walked to the front to stand beside Cai Cai, Zhou Weiqing’s heart gripped in slight shock.

The man’s gaze was peaceful and calm, as if he had not seen Zhou Weiqing. His eyes seemed to be far off, as if deep in thought, though no one knew what he was thinking about. Even when he was facing Princess Cai Cai, he only gave her a slight nod of greeting.

Towards his looks, Zhou Weiqing did not really pay attention. From this man’s eyes, he could clearly sense… this was one of those stubborn lunatics! Zhou Weiqing had seen such eyes many times before, and he instantly knew those who held such gazes were extremely stubborn, holding all their faith and belief in a single subject, spending all their lives working towards that single target.

Everything else, they could ignore. Using the phrase ‘stubborn lunatics’ was truly just too apt. This was without question a very talented Consolidating Equipment Master, and his stubbornness and resolve was deﬁnitely in that area. In such a case, his abilities in creating Consolidating Equipment Scrolls should not be low.

Although Zhou Weiqing was a Consolidating Equipment Master in his own right, he had not spent much time on it. In the past year and more, he had spent all of his time focusing on his training and cultivation, and any remaining time had been dealing with the matters of the Peerless Battalion. By now, even Yun Li had far surpassed him in terms of Consolidating Equipment Master skills. If he personally tried to face off against this middle aged man in front of him, the result was not going to be pretty. In his heart, he knew it was a sure loss.

Cai Cai looked at Zhou Weiqing and said: “Commander Zhou, will you be personally taking on this fourth round? Or will someone else in your party participate?” Cai Cai suddenly laughed. The reason he had a strange expression on his face when Cai Cai had come up with this fourth topic was very simple – it had actually been his plan to use this as the ﬁfth topic! In this regard, perhaps it had been a strange wordless linked fate.

“…Your Highness, please wait a moment.” As he said that, Zhou Weiqing turned and walked towards the horse carriage where Princess Difuya was seated.

As he walked to the front of the horse carriage, he bowed respectfully in a full ninety degree bow. “Senior Uncle, could I please trouble you.”

Zhou Weiqing had used his Heavenly Energy voice transference, so Cai Cai could not hear what he was saying. However, as she watched him bow down, she was very curious. Could it be, Zhou Weiqing was asking Princess Difuya to come out? Or was he looking for instructions?”

From the horse carriage, Long Shiya’s exasperated voice rang out in his ears. “You little brat, how could you trouble your Senior Uncle over such a trivial matter?” Duan Tianlang’s lazy voice rang out right after. “Enough about that Fatty Long, don’t act in front of me. Don’t think I do not know your character so well. If I refuse to help this round, would you go and compete in the next round? Haiz… Weiqing, I have to say, you are after all the heir to our Legacy of Strength Sect, the sole legacy carrier of the ‘Hate Ground no Handle’ Legendary Set. Your Senior Uncle’s ‘Hate Sky no Handle’ Legendary Set designs I also plan to impart to you in the future. I can help you now, but I hope that you can put some time to focus on your Consolidating Equipment skills.”

Indeed, in the large horse carriage, it was not just Princess Difuya seated within. Long Shiya and Duan Tianlang had also come along. Zhou Weiqing was only bringing a few hundred soldiers to the Fei Li Empire, and Long Shiya was a little worried. Since he did not have anything else to do, he decided to just come along, even dragging Duan Tianlang along with him. Although on the surface he had insisted that he would not intervene in the revival of Heavenly Bow Empire, with him along, it was tantamount to Zhou Weiqing having a god bodyguard with him. This was also the reason why Zhou Weiqing had acted so arrogantly… that little rascal had absolute conﬁdence!

How many know what this actually is. I actually had to google for the technical term for ‘eye boogers’, in fact in the term in mandarin literally translates to that Be in the position where he can cope with all schemes and strategies The door of the horse carriage opened momentarily, and Duan Tianlang appeared from within.

Duan Tianlang was dressed in simple cloth clothes. Besides being clean, there was no other merits that anyone could see in those clothes.

From the surface, he looked to be just an ordinary middle aged man. He did not display any power at all, as he walked slowly towards the center of the drilling ground. Zhou Weiqing quickly led the way respectfully. Towards this Senior Uncle of his, he truly had utmost respect within his heart.

As Cai Cai saw the scene before her, her mouth opened slightly. She was perhaps even more surprised than when she saw the terrifying power of the Peerless Regiment. As a member of the Royal Family, she was extremely familiar and placed high value upon the etiquette of nobles. For Zhou Weiqing to actually invite a middle aged man from Princess Difuya’s carriage, what was going on? It had to be known, at least in title, Princess Difuya was still known as Zhou Weiqing’s ﬁancee, and the two of them were not married yet. For an outsider to be seated in the same carriage, especially a man, it was rather improper. According to proper noble etiquette, even if it were Princess Difuya’s father, the Heavenly Bow Empire’s Emperor, he would not sit in the same carriage as his daughter during travel!

Led by Zhou Weiqing, Duan Tianlang soon arrived in front of Cai Cai. Towards this middle aged man that Zhou Weiqing had brought forward, Cai Cai was totally unfamiliar. However, she did not think that she would lose this round. In terms of aura and presence, this middle aged man seemed like a totally ordinary person, with not even a sense of Heavenly Energy reverberations without him. His age did not even seem as old as Master Han Gao beside her, how could his Consolidating Equipment Scroll creation skills possibly compare? After all, Master Han Gao was a renowned talent, to be able to reach the Zong Stage Consolidating Equipment Master at the young age of forty ﬁve. He was not just hired by the Royal Palace, but was actually Cai Cai’s personal Consolidating Equipment Master, one of Cai Cai’s most trusted talents. Previously, she had spent so much time and effort to be able to recruit such a master.

“Ehhh?” Right at that moment, Duan Tianlang gave a surprised noise. It seemed like he had recognized this Han Gao in front of him. At that point, Han Gao’s head was still lowered, perhaps still pondering on some tough problems of a Consolidating Equipment Scroll. However, the surprised noise that Duan Tianlang made shocked him out of his reverie, and he subconsciously looked up.

At the side, Cai Cai smiled faintly and said: “Master, do you also recognize Master Han Gao? Master Han Gao is renowned to be one of the most talented geniuses in the last ﬁfty years of the Consolidating Equipment Master world, with the Spatial and Wind Attribute Elemental Jewels. He has already become a Zong Stage Consolidating Equipment Master at a young age of forty ﬁve.”

Zhou Weiqing stood at the side, smirking coldly to himself. Cai Cai’s introduction was clearly targeted at him in a demonstration.

Upon hearing Cai Cai’s introduction, Duan Tianlang nodded in satisfaction and said: “Very good, already reaching the Zong Stage! Ahhh, very good indeed.”

As Cai Cai’s gaze was ﬁxed upon Duan Tianlang, she had not realised that when Han Gao’s head lifted up to see Duan Tianlang, his jaw had dropped. The indifferent eyes which had been lost in thought were currently ﬁlled with shock and joy. “May I know Master’s name please?” Cai Cai asked Duan Tianlang courteously. No matter whose side they were on, a Consolidating Equipment Master was always deserving of respect. Although in the past the Heavenly Bow Empire did not even have a single Consolidating Equipment Master, not even a Low Level one, and though Cai Cai did not think that Zhou Weiqing could recruit any outstanding Consolidating Equipment Master, she could not be discourteous at all.

Right at that moment, Han Gao abruptly knelt down on the ground with a sudden thudding sound. *Peng**Peng**Peng* He kowtowed to Duan Tianlang three times. “This unworthy disciple Han Gao greets Master. Master, I have missed you so much!”

As he said that, Han Gao remained on his knees, clambering a few steps forward to hug Duan Tianlang’s leg. Tears were streaming from his eyes as he sobbed bitterly, looking as if he was deathly afraid that Duan Tianlang would run off without him.

Cai Cai’s voice trailed off slowly as she watched the sight before her with her jaw agape. Let alone her being stunned into silence, even Zhou Weiqing was totally dazed and shocked. Duan Tianlang gently stroked Han Gao’s head as he smiled and said: “Chi’er, Chi’er… It has been ten years, and you have already become a Zong Stage Consolidating Equipment Master. Come, stand up and we shall speak.”

Han Gao continued holding Duan Tianlang’s leg tightly, refusing to let go or get up. Sobbing, he said: “Master, this time, you can’t abandon me please. If you do not agree, I will never get up.”

Duan Tianlang’s eyes also reddened, and he sighed softly. With both hands, he supported Han Gao and pulled him to his feet. “I agree, I agree.”

Hearing those words, Han Gao was overjoyed, and he used his hands to wipe the tears off his face. Alas, he had just been kowtowing on the ground, and his hands had been supporting him then and were covered with dirt, and his face was now covered in dirt. However, no one would laugh at him, as they could clearly sense the natural innocent joy of him reuniting with his Master, the sheer joy and respect he held.

However, including Cai Cai, the entire Fei Li ofﬁcial contingent were all so shocked that their eyes were widened to the max. Towards Han Gao, not many of them actually recognized him. However, Princess Cai Cai had already introduced him as a Zong Stage Consolidating Equipment Master! To be a teacher and master of a Zong Stage Consolidating Equipment Master… what level was he at personally?! Could it be…”

Duan Tianlang drew out a handkerchief, personally wiping his disciple’s face clean. As for Han Gao, he just stood there staring at his Master, tears still streaming down his cheeks as his mouth was trembling, the joy in his eyes unmistakable.

Duan Tianlang was also extremely overjoyed. Turning to Zhou Weiqing at his side, he said: “Weiqing, let me introduce you. This is your Senior Brother Han Gao, your Senior Uncle’s First Disciple. He is also my ﬁnest disciple. Previously, I sensed that my time was up, and I just left quietly. This child, he is too emotional, so I did not want him to be too heartbroken.”

Zhou Weiqing quickly walked up, smiling as he said: “Greetings, Senior Brother.”

Han Gao looked at Zhou Weiqing, before turning back to Duan Tianlang. “Master, he is…?” Duan Tianlang smiled faintly and said: “Weiqing is also a member of our Legacy of Strength, an offshoot legacy holder. If not for him, your Master would have probably left the world more than a year ago.”

Hearing Duan Tianlang’s words, Han Gao’s look at Zhou Weiqing instantly changed. Turning around, he actually knelt down once more, and was just about to kowtow to him as well.

Zhou Weiqing was given a fright. How could he possibly accept such a kowtow. Quickly, he stepped forward to support Han Gao, preventing him from doing so. “Senior Brother, please do not do so. For Senior Uncle Duan to live well, it is both our wishes. I dare not claim credit.”

Han Gao looked at him with gratitude and said: “Junior Brother, Master has never spoken a word of untruth or even exaggeration in his life. Since he has said that you were the one who saved him, then it must be true. However, you are right, such great kindness cannot be expressed through words alone.”

As he ﬁnished speaking, Han Gao turned to Cai Cai and nodded to her, saying: “Your Highness, I have ﬁnally found my Master. Remember my words previously when I agreed to become your Consolidating Equipment Master? I would leave when I found my Master. Apologies Your Highness, it is time for me to take my leave.” After speaking his piece, he directly walked over to Duan Tianlang’s side, his face ﬁlled with joy and respect.

Cai Cai stood there, her mouth open, but in the end she was just unable to speak. Currently, she was totally ﬁlled with regret. It was truly a case of losing one’s wife as well as one’s soldiers . Not only had she lost the ﬁnal bet, she had also lost a Zong Stage Consolidating Equipment Master! What was going on!? However, Cai Cai was still Cai Cai in the end, and though she had suffered such a huge loss, she managed to calm down after a short time. Bowing towards Duan Tianlang, she said: “Greetings Master, it was this Junior who was too rude just now.”

Duan Tianlang smiled faintly and waved his hand gently. Pulling Han Gao’s hand, they moved off to the side to catch up on old times, neither picking up the thread of discourse.

Zhou Weiqing looked at Cai Cai in an amused fashion. “Your Highness, shouldn’t this mean our bet has been settled?”

Cai Cai glared angrily at Zhou Weiqing. “Commander Zhou, that Master previously is…?” Zhou Weiqing did not attempt to hide anything. With a wide smile, he said: “Just as you think.”

Cai Cai’s expression was serious and respectful as she said: “Since Master has been gracious enough to come visit our little Empire, no matter what, our Emperor will deﬁnitely come personally to welcome him. Commander Zhou, please bring your men to the Ambassadorial Guild Hall to rest ﬁrst, I will be back with His Majesty in a while.”

His goal had been met. Although Cai Cai had subtly avoided the topic about their bet, and ascribed the Fei Li Emperor’s welcoming to that of a God Tier Consolidating Equipment Master, Zhou Weiqing did not mind. His goal of showing the power of the Heavenly Bow Empire had been met, and that was sufﬁcient.

Zhou Weiqing’s personal strength, the hidden Heavenly Emperor behind his back, the support of the ZhongTian Empire, the terrifying strength of the Peerless Regiment… and ﬁnally a God Tier Consolidating Equipment Master to complete the package. Each of those accomplishments were considered impressive in their own right, but when they were all gathered together… this was truly something that the Fei Li Empire had to place great importance on. They would no longer dare to treat Zhou Weiqing and Princess Difuya like they were just from a mere dead empire.

Furthermore, others might not have perceived the Divine Attribute that Tian’er had used. After all, it was so rare that a Saint Attribute was seen. However, how could that Heavenly King Stage powerhouse not see through it? It was an Attribute that was only found on those direct bloodlines of the Heavenly Snow Mountain! The Heaven’s Expanse Palace… Heavenly Snow Mountain… two Great Saint Lands that should be like oil and water which do not mix… they had actually subtly shown their support for this Zhou Weiqing. This sense of mystery was perhaps even more shocking than anything else.

…

The following negotiations and talks were much simpler from then on. With his shameless thick skin, his silver tongue, tactics of asking prices as high as heaven, and offering payment as low as the earth, with just seven days, he had managed to gain sufﬁcient support from the Fei Li Empire.

Princess Difuya had only showed her face once when the Fei Li Emperor had come personally to welcome then. Otherwise, everything else from that point onwards had been completed by Zhou Weiqing. Of course, on the Fei Li Empire side, the negotiating party was still Princess Cai Cai.

…

A room in the Royal Embassy.

Zhou Weiqing stood at the window of his room, looking outside with an air of content and satisfaction about him. Currently, Shangguan Xue’er and Tian’er were both in the room as well.

These few days, Zhou Weiqing could be said to have everything go smooth sailing, at least in terms of all the major events and goals. From the show of power, to the negotiations… Although he was still young, his intelligence, cunning and mostly his silver tongue had truly given a headache even to someone as shrewd as Princess Cai Cai. Alas, in terms of ‘internal family’ matters, our dear Zhou Little Fatty was in the midst of a tragic drama.

Shangguan Xue’er had come up with a great plan of her own. You are cultivating and training with Tian’er right? Very well, I will also cultivate together with you two; while I’m at it, I can keep watch on a certain person! As a result, this strange scene of the three of them staying in a single room had occurred.

In the eyes of the Peerless Regiment warriors, their Commander was just too awesome. Two top level beauties! Ahhh… it was truly enough to make one envious, jealous and hate!

However, only Zhou Weiqing truly knew what kind of life he was currently living… the phrase ‘deep water and scorching ﬁre’ was sadly too apt here.

Neither Tian’er or Shangguan Xue’er were the sort to have a sharp tongue, but living in the atmosphere where both of them constantly glared at each other with killing intent, added to the fact that he was highly tempted yet never dared to be overly intimate with either of the two… if not for the fact that Zhou Weiqing’s skin was sufﬁciently thick, he would have gone crazy by now.

痴⼉or Chi Er, basically ‘er’ is an endearment, while Chi here means a person who is so persistent and stubborn. In this case, he is calling his disciple Han Gao by a term of endearment, not his actual name/nickname This is a literal translation, basically it means suffering a double loss. The idiom comes from the Three Kingdoms era – Sun Quan wanted to gain back a city, and Zhou Yu came up with a plan to fake a marriage proposal with Sun Quan’s sister and use the opportunity to seize an important hostage. Alas, Zhuge Liang saw through his plan and brought Zhao Yun in accompanying him to visit Zhou Yu’s Father in law instead, who arranged for them to visit the Empress Dowager. Instead, she agreed to really marry Sun Shangxiang to Liu Bei. This resulted in Zhou Yu and Sun Quan being laughed at in future with the term ‘Losing the wife and still Losing the soldiers/ﬁght’. (In actual history, this never happened – It was an actual political marriage not a result of a failed plan)

In this case it is ⼤师 (a more generic term for Master) not ⽼师 (someone’s actual teacher)

Basically bargaining heatedly/unreasonably

Living in suffering/misery ‘See, not touch’. Zhou Weiqing truly understood the meaning of that simple phrase now, and how torturous it could be. Currently, he was actually praying that Shangguan Bing’er, Shangguan Fei’er or even Little Witch would suddenly appear, somehow changing the equilibrium of this terrible stalemate. At this moment, he no longer held any foolish dreams about enjoying any threesomes, things were bleak enough that such fanciful dreams were just a thing of the past. If this continued, how could he even continue living!?

“*Cough**Cough*, you two, are you practicing some secret eye techniques?” Zhou Weiqing leaned back on the window sill, looking at the two ladies who were glaring at each other without backing down. Helplessly, he gave a cough as he exclaimed tentatively.

Shangguan Xue’er gave a cold humph and said: “Your negotiations are already over, when are we leaving this place?”

Zhou Weiqing said: “Very soon. There are some things that need to happen… at least I need to ascertain… before we can leave. Furthermore, I am still waiting for someone.” Tian’er said: “In that case, isn’t it time that

return to their homeland. A somebody is the Great Heir

of the Heaven’s Expanse Palace, what’s up with them following us loving husband and wife?”

Shangguan Xui’er said coldly: “Husband and wife? Have you two ofﬁcially married yet?”

Tian’er gave a humph and said: “When we rescue Little Fatty’s father and mother, we shall.”

Shangguan Xue’er said coldly: “Then I will break you two apart. Even if you both marry, my little sister has to be ﬁrst. You can only be a concubine.”

“You want to ﬁght?” Tian’er sprang up abruptly, glaring at Shangguan Xue’er.

Shangguan Xue’er gave a disdainful sniff. “Just with you?” “You…” Tian’er looked like she was about to explode. These

two ladies were unwilling to accept each other, and both were

extremely recalcitrant. If not for the fact that Zhou Weiqing was there in the middle of them, perhaps they would have already come to blows long ago. In terms of power, Tian’er was originally no match for Shangguan Xue’er. However, in the past few weeks, she and Zhou Weiqing had been cultivating together with the Four Saint Attributes, and her cultivation level had improved much quicker. At the same time, she had also gained a fresh new insight into her two Saint Attributes. Naturally, her conﬁdence had also grown along with her power, and she was not afraid of Shangguan Xue’er.

Zhou Weiqing interposed his body between the two ladies, smiling bitterly as he said: “You two Grand Aunts, do we have to go through this same scene every day? How about you both beat me up instead. Isn’t that better?”

“No.” This time, both Shangguan Xue’er and Tian’er were united, as they spoke in unison.

Finally, Zhou Weiqing blew up. These past few days, he had been enduring and tolerating it the best he could, and at last he couldn’t take it anymore. Angrily, he said: “Fine, you both ﬁght then. Just you both wait. One day, when I have the power to beat you both up at once, I will Seal you both and take turns in ‘taking’ you both!”

This time, both ladies had vastly different answers. Shangguan Xue’er’s snapped: “Get lost…”

On the other hand, Tian’er smiled sweetly and said: “Sure!

Sounds good!”

Draping an arm around Zhou Weiqing’s shoulder, Tian’er giggled and said: “Little Fatty, do you want me to help you? She is deﬁnitely no match for the two of us together. I’ll help you do ‘that’ to her… hee… see if she dares to throw her temper around in the future. If I don’t suppress her now, once both her sisters come, won’t I be bullied to death by the three of them?”

Zhou Weiqing turned his gaze to Shangguan Xue’er, muttering to himself: “That sounds like a very good idea!”

Shangguan Xue’er said angrily: “You dare! If you dare to bully me together with her, I will never forgive you.” After saying that, she blushed a deep red before quickly continuing: “Fei’er and Bing’er will never forgive you too.”

Tian’er giggled once more. “Well, didn’t you want to cause trouble between me and Little Fatty? Fine, come on then! Your Mother, I, will go ahead and risk everything. If you want to watch, please feel free!” As she said that, she displayed the forthright valiance of the beastmen, actually turning around to unbuckle Zhou Weiqing’s pants.

“You… you… shameless!” A piercing sword qi instantly burst out towards Tian’er’s hands.

“#*$&^@(#*$” Zhou Weiqing paled instantly. If that sword qi accidentally sliced that important part of his, what would he do? Immediately, he abandoned the entire situation, using a Blink Skill to escape.

Just as they were bustling in argument, a sudden voice rang out from outside. “Commander, there is someone outside the Embassy looking for you. He says he is your acquaintance.”

Zhou Weiqing acted like he had struck the jackpot. Grumbling, he said: “Alright, stop causing trouble now, it is time for proper business. He is ﬁnally here, I’ve waited so long even. Bring him here.”

Before long, one of the Peerless Regiment soldiers led a man into the room from the outside. The man was dressed in black robes, a cowl hiding his face. From his looks, it was truly a strange and garish sight, especially since he still had another black cloth covering his face even despite the cowl. This was clearly a person in disguise.

Although Zhou Weiqing could not see any of his features, he grinned and said: “Why did you only come now? I have been waiting for so long.”

A clear male voice rang out from behind the cowl. “No choice, as soon as you all moved into the embassy, there have been people keeping watch. It has not been convenient for me to make any moves. It was only after the negotiations ended that the surveillance was removed. At least, the only watchers left are on your soldiers. It is only now that I managed to ﬁnd an opportunity to come.”

Zhou Weiqing laughed heartily and said: “Alright alright, come on, have a seat my dear God General.”

The black clad man removed the hood, revealing the features of the Fei Li God General, Ming Yu. His gaze naturally swept between Tian’er and Shangguan Xue’er, and he did not hide his envy as he exclaimed: “You are truly blessed indeed!”

Zhou Weiqing was not able to retort otherwise, else the two ladies would be offended. As such, he could only nod his head with a faint smile.

Ming Yu smiled in return and said: “I will not beat around the bush then. Let us be direct. You plan to revive the Heavenly Bow Empire… do you require our help? Of course, that will not come without some conditions.”

Zhou Weiqing also smiled, a calm and deliberate smile. “If the help is unconditional, I deﬁnitely welcome it. However, if there are any attached conditions, then I’ll have to give it a pass. As long as you all do not come causing trouble to me, I am ﬁne with anything.”

Ming Yu started. He had not expected that Zhou Weiqing would actually give such a reply. For a moment, he fell silent.

At last, he asked: “You really have such conﬁdence?”

Zhou Weiqing laughed heartily once more. “Why would I not have conﬁdence? You have already witnessed, even tested out, my Peerless Regiment for yourself. Did you think I was lying to you? There is no need for me to do so. As soon as I begin my counter invasion, you will deﬁnitely get news of it. Furthermore, do not forget that although my Heavenly Bow Empire is a small country, we have several hundred years of history. Do not underestimate the power of the heart of the citizens. Furthermore, I have also gained the support of the Fei Li Empire, and my backline supplies should not be a problem. I do not foresee any problems in reviving my homeland.”

Ming Yu furrowed his brow and said: “Don’t you at least want to hear our conditions ﬁrst before deciding?”

Zhou Weiqing shook his head and said: “I am a person who does not react well to threats. To me, your so-called conditions have no meaning to me. The Kalise Empire is nothing in my eyes, and the main enemy I have would be the Bai Da Empire. If I do not remember wrongly, your current headquarters should be in the Bai Da Empire right? If you were to tell me that you all do not have any connection with the Bai Da Empire, heh, do you think I would really believe that? However, you all have at least still been wise and logical. As far as I know, your connection to the Bai Da Empire is not deep, and at least I do not have to direct my attention to you all as well.”

“Direct your attention to us? Do you really think you have the power?” Ming Yu scoffed.

Zhou Weiqing did not reply, but Tian’er who had been standing harmlessly beside him actually replied instead. “Do you think we don’t have the power? You should know best what kind of status your Heavenly Demon Sect truly has in the mainland. The only reason the other three Great Saint Lands do not join forces to wipe you out is because the threat of our Heavenly Snow Mountain is just too great. Since there was no chance of joining forces, the Heaven’s Expanse Palace would not take action lest we act up. However, if our Heavenly Snow Mountain actually takes the lead in the matter, I am sure the Heaven’s Expanse Palace would not reject it.”

Hearing the words Heavenly Snow Mountain, Ming Yu’s expression changed. As he looked at Tian’er, he instantly remembered the AOE Boost Skill that she had unleashed during their ﬁght. Could it be… it was really the Divine Attribute like he had guessed?

That day, after Ming Yu had returned to his base, he had started analyzing every single detail of the ﬁght. At the same time, he had consulted many people regarding the strange six- coloured formation below Zhou Weiqing’s feet, as well as the AOE Boost Skill that Tian’er had unleashed. The ﬁnal conclusion that he had arrived at was that Zhou Weiqing’s formation was truly unknown, and that Tian’er’s boost skill could possibly be the legendary Heavenly Snow Mountain’s Divine Attribute. Upon coming to such a conclusion, Ming Yu was rather dismissive of it. Naturally, he had already received news that Zhou Weiqing had close connections to the Heaven’s Expanse Palace. As a result, how could he possibly have someone from the Heavenly Snow Mountain beside him? Even if he did… the Divine Attribute was only from the core bloodline of the Heavenly Snow Mountain, the Divine Heavenly Spirit Tigers!

Yet, currently, from Tian’er’s words, he could deﬁnitely read the underlying meaning. How could he not be shocked? One of the young ladies beside Zhou Weiqing should be the third Young Miss of the Heaven’s Expanse Palace, Shangguan Bing’er, while the other… was actually from the Heavenly Snow Mountain? No matter how intelligent and cunning Ming Yu was, in this moment, all his thoughts had been overturned.

Zhou Weiqing grinned and said: “You do not to ﬁnd it so strange. I am a loner without any clan or sect, and my Heavenly Bow Empire also does not belong to any camp. Since I am not the Heaven’s Expanse Palace’s enemy, why should I make myself the Heavenly Snow Mountain’s enemy?”

“You… you all…” Ming Yu looked at Tian’er, then back at Shangguan Xue’er. In that moment, he was truly struck speechless. He realised that since he had faced Zhou Weiqing, although that little rascal had not spoken many words, this negotiation that he was representing for the Heavenly Demon Sect was already at a severe disadvantage.

Ming Yu was not a man who was willing to give up easily, but against Zhou Weiqing who constantly played outside the conventions, he was truly given a huge headache.

Shangguan Xue’er said coldly: “You just need to be clear of one thing. Although our Heaven’s Expanse Palace are enemies with the Heavenly Snow Mountain, but there is one thing we have in common. Both of us support Zhou Weiqing and his efforts in reviving his homeland. By speaking like this, it should be clear to understand for you.”

Ming Yu couldn’t help but gulp down his saliva. His brow furrowed deeply as he was lost in thought.

Zhou Weiqing was not in a rush, sitting there calmly and sedately. Looking at the two beauties before him, he was also highly satisﬁed. In this negotiation, he had successfully borrowed the inﬂuence of others in a striking manner. At the same time, both Tian’er and Shangguan Xue’er had not disappointed. Despite them being at loggerheads, they had supported him perfectly in this matter. Literal translation. It’s slang for girls with ‘Young Miss’ or ‘Princess’ attitudes throwing tantrums

Chapter 194 Crescent City!

Of course, this was also because it was ofﬁcial business indeed. In truth, their support for Zhou Weiqing was not just because he had become the son-in-law of both the Heaven’s Expanse Palace and Heavenly Snow Mountain. No matter the Peerless Regiment that he had created, or the stunning display of talent and future potential that he had shown, added to the fact his Master was Long Shiya… it was sufﬁcient for both the Heaven’s Expanse Palace and Heavenly Snow Mountain to want to draw him to their side. As such, it had ended up in such a strange delicate but amazing situation.

Ming Yu sighed and nodded towards Zhou Weiqing, saying: “Alright, you have won. I can represent the Heavenly Demon Sect to make a direct guarantee to you. During your efforts to revive your homeland, we will deﬁnitely not provide any aid to the Bai Da Empire or Kalise Empire. We hope to gain your friendship. However… we would like to know what is your ﬁnal goal… is it just to revive your Heavenly Bow Empire, or do you have greater ambitions?”

Zhou Weiqing laughed heartily and said: “Regarding that, I can’t say for sure as I shall not have the ﬁnal say. That will have to wait until our Heavenly Bow Empire’s Emperor to make the ﬁnal decision. Of course, all of that will have to wait until we succeed in reviving our homeland.” Ming Yu couldn’t help but scold him inwardly. This little rascal was truly ‘waterproof’ indeed! Looks like I must give him some strong medicine ﬁrst.

“Commander Zhou, let us end our ofﬁcial business here then. I have some other personal matters, can we discuss them now?” Ming Yu’s expression resumed to his normal, calm and unﬂurried state.

Zhou Weiqing started momentarily. “What personal matters?” All of a sudden, he had a strange ominous feeling, as he saw a thread of delight in Ming Yu’s eyes.

Ming Yu laughed heartily and said: “Nothing much, just that Commander Zhou shouldn’t have forgotten about what you have done previously right? Although I do not know what Godly Technique Commander Zhou was cultivating at that time, but our dear Princess had aided you in a heavy price. Wouldn’t Commander Zhou make some time to visit our little Princess? After all, after she returned, she has been thinking about you day and night!”

Zhou Weiqing’s body froze instantly. At the same time, he abruptly sensed an aura of ill intent from both sides around him. “My Dear God General, you are truly savage! Let us return to ofﬁcial business. If I am willing to let you command my Peerless Regiment, would you be willing to leave the Fei Li Empire to join our Heavenly Bow Empire?”

Zhou Weiqing instantly changed the topic, and he quickly brought up a topic that he knew Ming Yu was most interested in. He knew that would deﬁnitely cause Ming Yu to change his focus instantly.

Ming Yu stared at Zhou Weiqing in surprise. “You are willing to let me be in charge of your Peerless Regiment?”

Zhou Weiqing laughed heartily and said: “Not be in charge of, but be in command to direct it. I believe that if the Fei Li God General becomes our Heavenly Bow God General, the Peerless Regiment would be able to better ﬂourish their combat prowess… to become even more terrifying.”

Hearing those words, Ming Yu’s breathing grew rapid and urgent. As a military commander, who would not dream of commanding such a gloriously powerful troop? He had witnessed the terrifying power of the Peerless Regiment with his own eyes, and his own body. If he were to become their Commander, he truly believed that they could be forged into an invincible force. Zhou Weiqing continued: “Furthermore, I am even more interested to know… If I wish to earn the support of the Heavenly Demon Sect, what price do I need to pay?”

Ming Yu took a deep breath and said: “Very simple. We have two requests before we can place ourselves fully in your camp. Firstly, the Heavenly Bow Empire needs to actually acknowledge our Heavenly Demon Sect publicly. That is to say, once the Heavenly Bow Empire has been restored, you will not resume following the world in declaring us an Evil or Heretical Sect. Instead, you must recognize us as a legit party and our status in the Mainland. This is our ﬁrst, and most important request.”

Zhou Weiqing laughed and nodded: “I am already considered friends with the Heavenly Demon Sect. Originally, I have even perused through your Demonic Manual. This ﬁrst request, I can personally agree to it. In the ﬁrst place, I also have the Demonic Attribute and the Demonic Change State, how can I not recognize the Heavenly Demon Sect?”

Ming Yu nodded, both delighted and gratiﬁed. “Since Commander Zhou has already said that, our chances of working together are deﬁnitely very high. Well, as for the second request, we hope that after the Heavenly Bow Empire has been revived, it can become the asylum or shelter for our Heavenly Demon Sect… allowing us to go through a full migration to your Empire.”

Hearing those words, Zhou Weiqing started momentarily. “You all want to become the background supreme ruler of our Heavenly Bow Empire?” How could he not understand what the Heavenly Demon Sect was implying? Without question, they were looking at the Heaven’s Expanse Palace and its relation with the ZhongTian Empire, or the Heavenly Snow Mountain and its status in the WanShou Empire.

The greatest weakness of the Heavenly Demon Sect was that they had no place to set roots, with no Empire which would support them and allow them to grow. This greatly restricted their basic safety and also their growth potential. However, in the current state of things, it was impossible for them to choose and large empires to forge such a relationship, and targeting a small Empire was actually a realistic goal.

It was clear that the previous goal of the Heavenly Demon Sect was the Kalise Empire, but the Kalise Empire was far too deep in control under the Bai Da Empire. As such, the Heavenly Demon Sect had not succeeded after several tries, leaving them still in the Bai Da Empire with an awkward status. After all, although the Heavenly Demon Sect was considered one of the Great Saint Lands, their overall power was far from comparable to the Heaven’s Expanse Palace or the Heavenly Snow Mountain. It was impossible for them to directly clash with a large Empire.

A faint light ﬂashed in the room, and Zhou Weiqing’s face turned icy cold. His hands were held before his chest, his eyes narrowed and clearly ﬁlled with anger and ill intent.

Ming Yu smiled bitterly and said: “What background supreme leader? All our Heavenly Sect needs is a place to stay and place down roots. As you know, it is extremely difﬁcult for us to even survive in the entire mainland. We do not have any intentions of controlling your Heavenly Bow Empire at all. Furthermore, even if we wanted to, your Master alone isn’t someone our Heavenly Demon Sect dares to offend.”

Looking at how Ming Yu was placing the Heavenly Demon Sect in such a position of weakness, Zhou Weiqing smirked coldly in his heart. Indeed, they might not have intentions currently, or rather, they were not capable of doing so… but in the future? If he allowed the Heavenly Demon Sect to enter the Heavenly Bow Empire and set up their headquarters, it could end up as a cancerous growth that might blow up in his face at anytime. When the Heavenly Demon Sect gained second wind and recovered their true strength, who was to say what they would do in future? Looking at Zhou Weiqing’s eyes, Ming Yu sighed in his heart. It looks like this negotiations will most likely be falling through. This Zhou Weiqing is just too intelligent and astute, it will be just too difﬁcult for him to agree to such a request.

However, to Ming Yu’s shock, the next moment Zhou Weiqing actually nodded towards him, even smiling as he said: “Very well, I agree to your second request as well.”

Ming Yu almost thought he had heard wrongly. “What… what did you say?”

Zhou Weiqing nodded once more and said: “I said, I can agree to both terms that your Heavenly Demon Sect have come up with. Are you that surprised?”

Ming Yu did not even bother trying to hide his thoughts, nodding as he said: “Indeed, I am very surprised. With your intelligence and astute thoughts, how could you easily agree to such terms? This makes me somewhat ill-at-ease.”

Zhou Weiqing laughed heartily and said: “You do not need to feel so ill at ease. I can explain my thoughts to you to assuage your curiosity. There are three reasons why I would agree in the end. Firstly, I do not have any malice or ill intentions towards the Heavenly Demon Sect, maybe because I also have the Demonic Attribute. Secondly, I do not think that the Heavenly Demon Sect will be of threat to our Heavenly Bow Empire in the future, that is because as long as we can our strength sufﬁciently high, there is nothing to be afraid of. Thirdly, with the Heavenly Demon Sect stationed within our borders, that will also be a great aid for us in growing stronger… perhaps more so… your existence would always be a constant whip behind us, an impetus for us to keep growing and to never slacken off.”

Although Zhou Weiqing was smiling as he spoke, those words and the strong conﬁdence behind them caused Ming Yu’s heart to ripple agitatedly.

He was actually using the Heavenly Demon Sect as his own whetstone? To grind the blade of himself and his Empire?! Indeed, what Zhou Weiqing said was true, if one’s strength was sufﬁcient, why would he be afraid of the Heavenly Demon Sect? At least, currently, with the Six Ultimate Heavenly Emperor by his side, he did not need to fear anything. Furthermore, in the future, who could say whether or not Zhou Weiqing would also become an existence like the Six Ultimate Heavenly Emperor, or even greater? Ming Yu stood up, actually bowing slightly towards Zhou Weiqing as he said: “I represent the several hundreds of my Heavenly Demon Sect brethren in thanking Commander Zhou’s magnanimous generosity. Currently, on the surface we still aren’t able to actively help you in terms of reviving your Empire. After all, even if we tried it would not be a good thing for you. However, regarding Commander Zhou’s ﬁrst proposal, I am highly interested. However, I would need some time to prepare to do so. When you begin your counterattack into the Heavenly Bow Empire to begin the revival of your homeland, I will deﬁnitely ﬁnd a way to do so. Alright, shall we end our discussion here? I shall take my leave now.”

After saying that, Ming Yu once again pulled up his cowl before heading out. Zhou Weiqing walked him to the doorway, and just as Ming Yu was about to descend the stairs, he suddenly turned around and said to Zhou Weiqing: “Remember, leave that position for me. I am looking forward to it. Hahaha.”

The Fei Li God General had left, but not long after, Zhou Weiqing’s room burst into dangerous excitement once more. Alas for Little Fatty, regarding his own connection with Little Witch, he had no choice but to come clean now.

… The next morning, when Zhou Weiqing woke up, he had obvious black eyes. (Zen: I think this is referring to dark circles from lack of sleep, not getting beaten up?) With a gloomy and overcast face, he gave the order to move out from the Fei Li Empire, heading towards the original Heavenly Bow Empire territory.

At last, Zhou Weiqing led his Peerless Regiment to begin working towards the revival of his Empire.

…

At the same time, the entire Mainland was not quiet at all.

Chaos had began to rear its ugly head.

To the north, the WanShou Empire had just ﬁnished with its annual border wars, and there was not much action there. However, for the rest of the Mainland, sudden unrest ensued. Amongst the most obvious was the Dan Dun Empire situated far to the south. Just as Zhou Weiqing had actually reached the Fei Li Empire previously, the Dan Dun Empire had suddenly launched an attack against its neighbour, also one of the larger Empires in the Mainland, the Geritimo Empire. War broke out just so suddenly, so much so that by the time the ZhongTian Empire received news of it, both sides had already been embroiled in major battles. The most shocking thing for the ZhongTian Empire was that, in such a short period of time, the Geritimo Empire had already lost one third of its land!

It had to be known that although the Dan Dun Empire had always been stronger than the Geritimo Empire, it should not be to such a standard. Yet, the Geritimo Empire just hadn’t been able to withstand the pressure.

Instantly, the ZhongTian Empire and the Bao Po Empire sent a joint Regiment to the Dan Dun Empire to mediate and try to stop the war. By this time, the war had already gone on for more than a month, and some of the Geritimo Empire’s most fertile lands had already been conquered by the Dan Dun Empire.

According to the ZhongTian Empire’s investigations, the cause of the war was because of some minor scufﬂes on the borders. Using this as an excuse for revenge, the Dan Dun Empire had launched an abrupt invasion. It was clear that this was actually a premeditated attack from the Dan Dun Empire, that had been planned for a long time. In such a short period of time, they had gathered a massive army of more than a million strong, charging directly into the Geritimo Empire to conquer some of the choicest bits.

In terms of geography, the Dan Dun Empire was at the absolute south of the continent, while the Geritimo Empire was more of a Central South. The two Empires shared quite a border, but to their north, there was a large patch of several smaller Empires that separated them from the ZhongTian Empire! It was exactly because there were these small Empires blocking the way, added on to the fact that the Dan Dun Empire had launched its attack so suddenly and so swiftly, so much so that even though the ZhongTian Empire and the Bao Po Empire wanted to send aid, they were not in time.

As for the Northwest of the Dan Dun Empire, it actually had a shared border with the Bai Da Empire. To everyone’s surprise, although the Dan Dun Empire had been ﬁghting so violently with the Geritimo Empire, the Bai Da Empire did not react at all, remaining extremely silent, as if it had nothing to do with them.

In the end, the war ﬁnally ended under the mediation of the ZhongTian Empire, with the Dan Dun Empire withdrawing some of its forces. However, the ZhongTian Empire was after all situated very far away, and they could not really inﬂuence this area of the continent too greatly. As such, although the war ﬁnally ended with the Dan Dun Empire stopping its advance and promising to return half the conquered territories, it had successfully kept the other half of the conquered territories as its own. In truth, actually getting the Dan Dun Empire to return the promised half was not an easy task as well. Although they had agreed to it verbally, it remained to be seen whether or not they would actually go through with it.

This casual demonstration of the Dan Dun Empire’s capability in war also rang many alarm bells for the ZhongTian Empire. This strong Empire situated in the South which had always stayed out of any wars previously… it seemed like they would no longer be as quiet and restrained as they used to be. In this matter, what role did the Blood Red Hell of the Dan Dun Empire play, no one else could know for sure.

However, it was without question that the Dan Dun Empire’s overall strength after this major war and invasion could only grow, far beyond the Fei Li and Bai Da Empire, and perhaps even slightly edging over the Bao Po Empire now. Although the Passion Valley was also extremely strong, in terms of overall combat powers, they were not as ferocious as the Blood Red Hell.

The Dan Dun Empire’s greatest advantage was that situated far in the south, they had no other natural threat. With their backs facing the ocean, they also had one relatively protected border in that sense. Furthermore, access to the oceans provided another source of wealth if used properly. After all these years of peace, their calm and unhurried advancement allowed them to have perhaps nearly as much wealth as the ZhongTian Empire.

…

Heaven’s Expanse Palace.

“What are the Dan Dun trying to do exactly?” Shangguan Tianyue’s brow was furrowed deeply as he stalked back and forth in the grandhall.

Shangguan Tianyang remained seated in his main seat, his brow also furrowed as he remained deep in thought.

“Big bro, what are we going to do? To the north, there is that old tiger in the WanShou Empire, and now in the south the Dan Dun Empire is also starting to cause trouble. Should we teach them a lesson?”

Shangguan Tianyang looked at Shangguan Tianyue calmly before shaking his head, saying: “How are we going to teach them a less? Unless we make a show of force with the Heaven’s Expanse Palace, it will be extremely difﬁcult to do so. All this while, we have neglected the Dan Dun Empire too much! This time, they have shown their fangs, and only now we have seen the true strength of the Dan Dun Empire. You and I know very well how strong the Geritimo Empire is, and to be able to successfully conquer such a vast territory in such a short time, what does that prove? It can only show the Dan Dun Empire’s power and combat abilities.”

“All along, we have thought that the Dan Dun Empire and Geritimo Empire at the south should not pose much threat. After all, although they are able to advance and grow peacefully, it is also the lack of wars that does not allow them to have any chance to train their troops in actual battle. In terms of ﬁghting capabilities, their soldiers should technically be far weaker than ours. However, it looks like we have greatly underestimated them, and that is truly a mistake. The combat prowess of the Dan Dun Empire is far above our original judgement. I believe that has to do with the support of the Blood Red Hell, only then can such events occur. These few years… the entire Mainland has truly not been peaceful at all! First, the destruction of the Heavenly Bow Empire, now the invasion of the Geritimo Empire. If this goes on, even if the WanShou Empire does not attack us, our Human Empires will be embroiled in chaos and internal ﬁghting. At least, currently it seems like the Dan Dun Empire has grown to big to be effective… but even so, since most of our troops are focused on the north, and the Dan Dun Empire already has an army that numbers more than a million strong, it will be too difﬁcult for us to move troops over to suppress them.”

Shangguan Tianyue also sighed. “Indeed! It is truly too difﬁcult for us to extend or move our forces. However, can we really just sit back and watch the Dan Dun Empire create havoc in the south?”

Shangguan Tianyue furrowed his brow once more, saying: “If it is just the Dan Dun Empire, it isn’t a big deal. At the most, we both can personally move over to take some action. The worrying thing to me now is that it isn’t just the Dan Dun Empire causing trouble alone. Haven’t you seen something weird in the current situation? In this matter, the Bai Da Empire was just too quiet right? They are also direct neighbours to the Dan Dun Empire, and it should normally be impossible for them to not protest over such a serious incident. If… the Bai Da Empire and Dan Dun Empire have allied themselves in an effort… then … the south might truly be in trouble… Do not forget the ambitions the Bai Da Empire had shown previously with the Kalise Empire…”

Hearing Shangguan Tianyang’s analysis, Shangguan Tianyue’s expression also changed. Far off in the south, if the Bai Da Empire and the Dan Dun Empire joined forces, they would literally be unbeatable in the region. If they were willing to do so, they could easily invade and crush the dozen or so smaller Empires around them, and the Geritimo Empire would not pose any threat to them. Once these two Empires continued expanding, they could possibly start posing a direct threat to the ZhongTian and Fei Li Empires. Yet, these two Empires would still need to face their main enemy, the WanShou Empire. Despite their strengths, facing such a situation where they were pincered between two groups of powerful enemies, that would truly be a dangerous situation.

Shangguan Tianyang said solemnly: “Call Third Brother over as well. We need to prepare for the worst. It looks like we will have to increase our support for that little fellow Zhou Weiqing. He can be a sharp nail for us, striking savagely into the south.”

…

Fei Li Empire. South Border. The zone where the original Heavenly Bow Empire was about to begin.

From the Fei Li Empire borders, in the southwest direction slightly more than a hundred li away, there was a small city, almost a town. This small city originally belonged to the Heavenly Bow Empire, and its name was the Crescent City. The city was not large at all, but its position was extremely good, with its back towards the Fei Li Empire, rolling hills and mountains to its right, and to its left was the largest river in the Heavenly Bow Empire which ﬂowed through the entire Empire. As such, it was very well connected in terms of trafﬁc, and was considered one of the more prosperous cities in the entire north of the Heavenly Bow Empire. The population of the city was about two hundred thousand families, numbering slightly more than a million citizens in total. Although their city area was not large, the population density was one of the highest in the entire Heavenly Bow Empire, behind only the capital city Heavenly Bow City, and another important city to the far west of the Heavenly Bow Empire.

Twenty Li from the Crescent City, in the depths of a forested region.

Zhou Weiqing led his Peerless Regiment soldiers, silently hiding amongst the trees as they waited. There were advantages to having a small number. Since they only had seven hundred men, all of them cavalry soldiers as well, it had not been a difﬁcult task to sneak past the borders via the Fei Li Empire and entering the (ex) Heavenly Bow Empire without being discovered. The Peerless Regiment soldiers were all resting on the spot. All of a sudden, a ﬁgure rode in from the distance, heading directly towards Zhou Weiqing.

“Boss! Oh, uhm, Commander, I have returned.” The person was not tall, but looked shrewd and capable. He was dressed in commoner’s clothing, and he ran all the way to Zhou Weiqing before he ﬁnally stopped.

“How was it? Kou Rui, what is the situation in the XianYue City?” Zhou Weiqing asked smilingly.

The one who had arrived before Zhou Weiqing was his old classmates in the Fei Li Military Academy, Kou Rui. As the Heavenly Bow Empire diplomatic party arrived in the Fei Li City, Zhou Weiqing had prematurely ended the three-year promise he had with his classmates, bringing those willing along with him. His war to revive his Empire was about to begin, and all sorts of talents were of great importance to him.

Kou Rui had always been adept at intelligence gathering, and he was a great scout. However, this was still the ﬁrst time that he had actually been on an actual scouting mission that wasn’t a lesson, and he couldn’t help but feel extremely excited. “Commander, I have investigated the situation in the Crescent City in full detail. I’m not sure if it is because the Kalise Empire thinks that the Fei Li Empire would never attack them, or for some other reason, the defenses in the Crescent City are far weaker than we had even expected. The garrisoned troops in the city number only three Battalions, three thousand in total. Furthermore, they usually cycle their rounds for guards, and the normal number of soldiers guarding the gates and walls would be only a thousand men. They are all the Kalise Empire soldiers.”

As he said that, Kou Rui squatted down, grabbing a small twig on the ground and drawing a simple diagram of the layout of the defenses and the normal positions of the enemy soldiers.

“According to the information that I heard, the nearest camp or garrison to the Crescent City is at least a hundred li away, there is an entire Regiment of soldiers there. However, from the time for them to send news and return, the fastest possible time they can get here would be four hours. Possibly more.”

Kou Rui displayed his talents as an outstanding scout, acquiting his duties with conscientious professionalism. Furthermore, he only provided the information that he had scouted out in detail, not mixing in any of his own opinions. That was not the job of a scout.” Zhou Weiqing thought for a moment, then said: “Alright, very good. Thank you. Since we have already fully veriﬁed the situation, then it is time for us to take action. Lei Zi.”

“Here.” The First Main Company’s Company Leader Lei Zi appeared swiftly before Zhou Weiqing. The wild and intractable nature he had when he had ﬁrst entered the Peerless Battalion had now vanished. It was not that he had taken too many blows, but because he truly loved the atmosphere and environment of the Peerless Regiment. Although the training was tough, their treatment was also top notch, so much so that he had never even heard of such a thing. Of course, the greatest attraction was still the Consolidating Equipment Scrolls and Stored Skills.

More importantly, towards this young Commander of theirs, Zhou Weiqing, he truly felt a strong sense of respect and heartfelt admiration. Even a nine-Jeweled stage Heavenly Jewel Master, he was still able to take him down. Lei Zi knew he would not be able to do such a thing.

In the entire Peerless Regiment, Lei Zi’s power was deﬁnitely one of the top ranked. Not long ago, he had just broken through to the seven-Jeweled stage, being a Low Level Zong Stage Heavenly Jewel Master. “Lei Zi, I want you to choose ﬁfty of the strongest brothers with high cultivation level. Disguise yourselves to enter the Crescent City. When we launch our attack from outside, your mission is to lead these brothers to open the city gate.”

“Understood!” Lei Zi was overjoyed. Such an auspicious job, he was more than happy to do so. It was after all just a small city, and with the opponents likely being only three thousand ordinary soldiers, most likely without even any Jewel Masters… as a Low Level Zong Stage Heavenly Jewel Master, he was conﬁdent of completing this mission even alone, let alone with ﬁfty of his strongest brothers.

Zhou Weiqing glared at him and said: “Do not be too complacent. This is an extremely important ﬁght, and we cannot afford to make any mistakes. Not only do I want you to open the gates, I want you to ensure that all ﬁfty one of you are unharmed. Otherwise, you can wait to be punished by the military code. If your mission is completed well, once we occupy the city, any gold we gain from the three thousand soldiers, the bunch of you can get ﬁve percent.”

Lei Zi grinned and said: “Heh heh, Boss, do not worry. We are all tough ones who treasure our lives so much, with these trash from the Kalise Empire, are they even capable of injuring us?” Lei Zi headed off to prepare, and Tian’er moved beside Zhou Weiqing with interest. “Little Fatty, how are you planning to invade this city later?”

Zhou Weiqing smiled faintly, looking composed and conﬁdent as if he had an ace up his sleeve. “This commander naturally has my own brilliant schemes.”

One hour later, when the Peerless Regiment warriors were starting to move out, Tian’er stared at Zhou Weiqing with her jaw agape as she listened to him give the order. “This is your so-called brilliant scheme?…”

The order that Zhou Weiqing had given was unbelievably simple. Two words. “Charge!”

Zhou Weiqing grinned and said: “Silly girl, sometimes people over-complicate things… it is exactly when they start thinking too much that things become complicated.”

Quite an interesting name (弦⽉City, or XianYue. Together it means crescent, but Xian refers to bow or bow string, and Yue refers to moon, just thought it was poetic for the Heavenly Bow Empire to have such a city name 😀 I suspect a play on words here, the phrase for auspicious is literally ‘ 开门红’ or ‘Open door Red’ It can also mean ‘a good beginning’

It’s two words in mandarin (冲锋) “In truth, to invade such a small city who are not even prepared for us, do we really need any strategy? Let me ask you… can their arrows penetrate our defenses? It is most likely a resounding no. Furthermore, the city gates will soon be open from within… besides charging as fast as we can, what else can we do?”

Under Zhou Weiqing’s command, the Peerless Regiment soldiers entered their formation. The Gold Crow and Berserker Tribe Heavy Cavalry soldiers were in front, and the four hundred and ﬁfty Peerless Cavalry behind. Zhou Weiqing and the classmates that he had brought from the Fei Li City remained behind the main troop. For this particular ﬁght, they would not even be needed to join in. Zhou Weiqing wanted to let them familiarize themselves with how the Peerless Regiment soldiers fought, at the same time displaying to them the sheer power of their Peerless Regiment.

…

Crescent City. City Walls.

A group of patrolling soldiers strolled about lazily on the city walls. Technically, they were supposed to be on shift for eight hours before the guard would change, but in truth, it was already considered very good when there were three or four Companies in total on guard. Most of the Kalise soldiers were complacently resting in their barracks.

The Crescent City was a prosperous city with good positioning, and thus there were many visitors, especially traveling merchants, and it was without doubt that income was good. Taxes aside, which had to be sent back to the Kalise Empire, just the soldiers charging for entrance fee was already a rather large sum of gold and income for them.

“Eh? Did you all hear something?” One of the soldiers with sharper ears suddenly asked.

“I think so as well, rolling sounds of thunder… is it going to rain?” Another soldier said, even looking up into the skies. However, it was currently mid afternoon, and the skies were clear, bright and sunny with not even a cloud in sight. The weather was deﬁnitely good… what rain was there?”

The Kalise soldiers were all puzzled, as the sound of rolling thunder grew more and more obvious. All of a sudden, one of the soldiers’ expression changed. “Could it be… cavalry soldiers?!”

As he spoke those words, in the distance, a brilliant glint of reﬂected sunlight ﬂashed into their eyes.

It was the titanium mail of the Peerless Regiment Cavalry soldiers, reﬂecting light as they charged! More so, the two hundred Heavy Cavalry soldiers right in front were like majestic beasts charging forth.

The speed of the Unicorn Heavenly Beasts were far superior than any ordinary warhorses, even if they were carrying the thousand jin Gold Crow and Berserker Tribe warriors.

“Enemies…! We are under attack!!” Screams and shouts began to rang out from the city walls, and the alarms soon began to ring as well.

For a time, chaos reigned upon the city walls. Ever since they had invaded and conquered the Heavenly Bow Empire, these Kalise soldiers had enjoyed peace and quiet in the Crescent City for too long. This sudden surprise attack from these unknown cavalry soldiers caused them to fall into a panic, the city walls thrown into confusion. One of the Company Leaders was relatively calm. “Do not panic, hurry up, remember your training! Prepare the ballista, archers get into position! Hurry, hurry! You there, get the brothers below to shut the city gates immediately!”

Just as he was shouting out a ﬂurry of commands, all of a sudden, a soldier beside him stared wildly into the skies, point as he yelled: “Wha… What is that?!”

A few dozen ﬁgures had somehow ﬂoated in the skies. They had wings behind their backs, and in that instant, a shower of death rained down from the skies.

In just a single salvo of arrows, all the soldiers around the eight ballista lined up along the city walls fell down. Some of the Kalise Empire soldiers with quicker reactions raised their bows returned ﬁre.

Alas, shooting arrows down from a vantage position was different from ﬁring it upwards at such a distance. Let alone with most of their range was insufﬁcient to reach the ﬂying ﬁgures, even if their arrows could reach them, how could they possibly break through the titanium mail of the Peerless Regiment soldiers? For the sake of stability and safety, to prevent the ballista from causing any potential problems, Zhou Weiqing had specially arranged for another ﬁfty Peerless Regiment soldiers to ﬂy into the air to give the soldiers on the city wall a heavy blow. Furthermore, it would also be a good distraction for Lei Zi’s force inside.

Almost at the exact same time, the city gates below was also in a mess. At this moment, Lei Zi was leading his ﬁfty Peerless Regiment soldiers, clearing away the Kalise Empire soldiers guarding it like they were cutting melons and cabbages. Fifty Jewel Masters, what kind of notion was that? That was already the sum of the Heavenly Bow Empire’s total number of Jewel Masters in the past! Towards ordinary soldiers, it was akin to wasting talents on trivial tasks, with not the least bit of suspense at all towards the completion of the task.

Zhou Weiqing’s voice suddenly rang out in all the Peerless Regiment soldiers’ ears. “All of you better listen carefully. Once we enter the city, besides the Kalise soldiers, you are not to kill anyone or rob anyone. Otherwise, you will be strictly dealt with in our military code. It is not that Your Father, I, am unreasonable, but this is my homeland. Once we revive my homeland, and it is time to counterattack and invade the Kalise Empire, or even the Bai Da Empire, there will be chance for you to loot and plunder all you wish. Now, charge with all your might! Those who attempt to stop you, slaughter them all!” Suppression from the air, control of the city gates… In the end, the Peerless Regiment soldiers’ charge did not meet with much resistance at all. The arrows from the few Kalise archers who actually managed to shoot at them were just like a mere joke, so much so that the Heavy Cavalry soldiers in front did not even bother swinging their weapons at the arrows, allowing the arrows to bounce off their armour.

By the time the garrisoned troops in the Crescent City had begun to react, the Peerless Regiment had already charged into through the open city gates. What followed next was just a pure one-sided slaughterfest.

Towards these Kalise Empire soldiers who were occupying his homeland, Zhou Weiqing did not hold any thoughts of being lenient. If one came, he would kill one. If two arrived, he would slay the pair.

Even the powerful WanShou Empire armies and their terrifying combat prowess had failed against the Peerless Regiment, let alone these ordinary soldiers from the Kalise Empire. Within a short period of a mere hour, more than a thousand of the garrisoned Kalise Empire soldiers had died, with the remaining surrendered. For Kou Rui, Yan Zhexi, these classmates that had followed Zhou Weiqing from the Fei Li Military Academy, they were all staring at the sight before them with their mouths agape, totally dumbfounded. This battle had totally overturned the military knowledge they had learned in the past few years!

Just like Zhou Weiqing had told Tian’er, this was a battle which needed no strategy. Simple, direct, a headon clash. Yet, the result was a complete victory, perhaps ‘crushing’ victory would even be more apt. As the saying goes, what you hear may be false, but what you see is true… Zhou Weiqing had used actions to prove to them that following this big bro was deﬁnitely a right choice.

After taking care of all the defending troops, Zhou Weiqing immediately issued a series of fresh commands. “Close all the city gates, and I want ﬁfty men each stationed on all four walls. Do not let anyone leave the city at all. Lei Zi, lead a squad of brothers to the Governor’s Abode. Bring all the ofﬁcials of the Crescent City to see me. All of you, when you are acting on these orders, shout out this slogan as you do so. As loud as you can. ‘Princess Difuya has returned, along with the Heavenly Bow Empire’s Peerless Regiment to revive our homeland! Heavenly Bow has returned!’” Previously, even when he had ﬁrst set up the Peerless Battalion, Zhou Weiqing had already started to prepare for the future, of possible avenues of attacks for reviving the Heavenly Bow Empire. Indeed, though the Heavenly Bow Empire was considered small, they still had quite a number of cities. This

Crescent City had been specially chosen by Zhou Weiqing to be his ﬁrst target. Of course, the caveat for that was that he needed to gain the support of the Fei Li Empire ﬁrst. In this way, the Crescent City would have the Fei Li Empire to its back, and supply lines ensured, leaving it a good place to be a primary base.

Although the Peerless Regiment was extremely powerful and seemingly glorious all around, they deﬁnitely had their own weak points as well. The most glaring one was that they did not have their own logistics and supply team. In the ZhongTian Empire’s Northwest Army camp, that point was an issue as they had the full support of the Northwest Army. However, now that it was a full campaign to revive the Heavenly Bow Empire on their own, it was not possible to hope that the ZhongTian Empire would continue to send them supplies, and they could only depend on themselves. Everything else aside, even having their daily meals would be a problem.

As such, Zhou Weiqing’s ﬁrst plan was to set up a stable base and foundation for them to take care of any supplies and logistic issues. At the same time, it would serve to begin announcing themselves to the Heavenly Bow Empire borders, to recruit the warriors and ﬁghters of the Heavenly Bow Empire who were scattered throughout. Gradually, as their foundation stabilized and they grew, they could continue with

further plans and follow-up actions.

As for the orders he had just issued, it could be said to be rather simple but ingenious. Firstly, not allowing anyone to leave the city would delay the arrival of any enemy troops. As for the slogan he had his men yell out, it was naturally to calm the populace down, and to sow the seeds of his recruitment plans. After all, he currently only had seven hundred men, and if he had to use them to maintain law and order, it was rather insufﬁcient for an entire city. He couldn’t possibly use the Gold Crow and Berserker Tribe members as a policing force either, their size and stature would give most ordinary people a scare. As such, shouting out such a slogan was a relatively effective method. In the ﬁrst place, the Kalise Empire’s occupation of the Heavenly Bow Empire was not that long yet, and the Heavenly Bow Empire had always treated its citizens well. Zhou Weiqing believed that the overall sentiment of the people would still be slightly inclined towards the Heavenly Bow Empire.

Breaching and occupying a single city could be said to be very simple for the current Peerless Regiment soldiers. However, the continued control and maintenance of said city was a very different matter, especially to use it as a stable base; that was truly not an easy task. However, Zhou Weiqing was not in a rush at all. All he needed to do with his seven hundred men was to fortify their defenses and spread the news that Princess Difuya had returned together with him, leading a strong army to revive the Heavenly Bow Empire. At the same time, he would have to establish supply lines with the Fei Li Empire. Once all of that was arranged, only then could he begin the actual ﬁghting to revive their homeland.

With the city coming under attack so suddenly, citizens would usually learn of such news later. Most of them only realised the Crescent City had been under attack when they heard the shouts of the slogan.

Princess Difuya of the Heavenly Bow Empire had returned with an army? They were looking to revive the Empire? Very quickly, the news spread in a short time over the entire Crescent City.

The effect was even better than Zhou Weiqing had expected. Before long, the entire city had calmed down, and there were no disturbances at all. However, the trafﬁc in the city had almost disappeared, all the houses with closed doors and sealed windows, as if afraid that they might be caught up any ﬁghting or battles.

With Zhou Weiqing’s strict orders in mind, the Peerless Regiment soldiers only guarded the city gates and walls, and did not violate any of the people’s interests. Of course, the exception were the three thousand Kalise Empire soldiers. Besides their arms and weaponry, all of their gold was also seized. Zhou Weiqing did not keep anything, splitting everything between his men.

The Peerless Regiment had after all come from the Rufﬁan Battalions, and though their loyalty to him was already extremely high, and he no longer needed to use wealth as a binding tool, he did not remove any good treatments to them.

Very soon, the Governor of the Crescent City and the other ofﬁcials were brought in front of Zhou Weiqing. After some questioning, Zhou Weiqing quickly understood the current status and situation that the Crescent City was in, and he ordered for these ofﬁcials to be kept under guard for now. At the same time, he got some ofﬁcial notices to be made and posted throughout the city.

The notices were very simple, listing all the ofﬁcials of the Crescent City. He had men stationed at the notices, allowing the citizens to make reports on how good or bad these ofﬁcials were. At the end, he could use that information to decide who he could continue using, or if any were traitors or did too many ill deeds, he would kill them. It was as simple as that.

In terms of governing and maintaining a city, Zhou Weiqing did not know anything about doing so. However, many of the current ofﬁcials in the were not from the Kalise Empire, and many of the middle to lower ofﬁcials were originally from the Heavenly Bow Empire. As such, he would only need to remove some of the Kalise ofﬁcers in the upper echelons, as well as weeding out some of the other rotten ones. What Zhou Weiqing needed was for the entire city to resume its usual operations perfectly, and not just a simple occupation. At the same time, he also sent news that under their new command, the taxes in the entire city would be waived for a year.

Previously the information Kou Rui scouted out was the ‘technical’ shift of 1000 guards, so they are saying only 300-400 are actually present at most times

Literal translation, basically means with great ease

Chapter 195 Peerless Heavy Cavalry!

From the Crescent City ofﬁcials, Zhou Weiqing had learned that when the Kalise Empire had occupied the Heavenly Bow Empire, they had greatly increased the tax rates. All the commoners and merchants were extremely angry about it, but under military suppression, they dared not even protest. This was also the reason why the entire city had been relative quiet even after learning about the Heavenly Bow Empire’s counterattack and reoccupation.

As Zhou Weiqing’s orders came into play one after the other, the citizens of the Crescent City slowly calmed down and they ﬁnally dared to come out of their houses. Without question, the Peerless Regiment soldiers had given them a very good impression in these past days.

By the time the Kalise Empire received news about the Crescent City, it was already three days since the attack. In this three days, although Zhou Weiqing couldn’t say that he had already gained full control over the city, at least it was tentatively back in working order. Of course, that was still only within the city. For now at least, he still kept the gates sealed, not allowing anyone to leave. The governor’s mansion had now become Zhou Weiqing’s temporary headquarters. As for Princess Difuya, Zhou Weiqing left Xiao Yan to take care of her. As long as she did not interfere in his matters, he did not need to bother with her.

“Commander, our scouts have spotted an entire Regiment of Kalise Empire forces camped about thirty kilometres from our Crescent City. They might attack us at anytime.” Kou Rui brought in the latest news.

Zhou Weiqing nodded and said: “Roger. Thank you. Kou Rui, bring a few brothers to detour around and scout them carefully. I want you to see the surrounding areas as well. Take care to check if they have really only sent a single Regiment.”

Kou Rui nodded as he received the orders, leaving to execute them.

Currently, in the main hall that they were using as an administrative assembly room, besides Zhou Weiqing, Shangguan Xue’er, Tian’er, Lin TianAo, Lei Zi, Crow and Ma Qun were all there, as well as Yan Zhexi and the other elite classmates of Zhou Weiqing’s class. At this moment, Yan Zhexi had assumed temporary leadership of the class of military students. Zhou Weiqing’s gaze turned to Yan Zhexi and he said: “Zhexi, what do you think about the current situation?”

Yan Zhexi said: “From the current situation, I believe that the Kalise Empire has only sent that single Regiment. After all, the Bai Da Empire aside, the Kalise Empire only has a total army strength of ten Regiments. Furthermore, they would be separated to the various parts of the Empire, as well as their own homeland. This time, our attack must have come as a great surprise to them, and we have managed to seal any news of the attack. They should not know our current numbers or strength. I believe that we currently do not need to worry about any of their reinforcements for now. What we need to do now is to entrench ourselves and fortify our position, to defend it until the Fei Li Empire can send their logistic troops with supplies.”

Pausing for a moment, he continued: “However, this is only a short term solution. Commander, should we begin recruiting troops? Although our army is extremely powerful, we only number seven hundred in total. If more enemies come, and that is an eventual outcome, they can attack us from all directions. Once our forces are split up, it will be extremely difﬁcult for us to withstand a sustained attack. I propose that we begin recruiting soldiers, and with the core of the Peerless Regiment soldiers leading some new recruits on each wall, we will be able to put up a proper full defense.” Hearing Yan Zhexi’s analysis which was reasonable, clear and logical, Zhou Weiqing nodded in satisfaction as he said: “Your suggestion is not bad. However, the current hearts and minds of the people are still not stabilized, and it is not a suitable time to begin recruitment yet. In terms of military command, I am no match for you all, but do keep in mind that in the long run, the hearts and minds of the citizens is the most important. To put it simply, if you are currently just a normal citizen, and your city has just been invaded by a group of soldiers. Even if

these soldiers were once belonging to the city, before you can ascertain their strength, whether or not they have a future, whether or not they can provide you with safety, to protect your city… would you actually be willing to join up with them? When the enemy comes to attack, that will be the time for us

to prove ourselves and start building the Crescent City citizen’s conﬁdence in us.”

Hearing Zhou Weiqing’s words, Yan Zhexi nodded slowly, as if deep in thought. At last, he asked: “In that case, Commander, what should we do?” In terms of military studies, even ten Zhou Weiqing’s could not compare with him. However, he had never been on an actual battleﬁeld, and he deﬁnitely needed actual combat experience, to marry his theoretical knowledge along with experience to have a truly comprehensive understanding and mastery of military matters. Zhou Weiqing said conﬁdently, as if he had already thought everything through: “Lei Zi, get some men to invite two hundred citizens as representatives. If you are not able to get enough volunteers, grab and ‘persuade’ them to do so. However, I do not want you to injure anyone. I want these two hundred citizens to be able to watch our incoming battle from a good vantage point of the city walls, so try to make sure that there are representatives from all walks of life, hopefully every trade and industry as well. Crow, Ma Qun, this is time for you to shine. If I were to get you two to lead your two hundred Tribesmen to charge and defeat an entire enemy Regiment, do you all dare to do so? Would you have conﬁdence in victory?”

Ma Qun laughed heartily and said: “Boss, in that case, does that mean that if we achieve victory, we will be able to gain a larger percentage of loot?”

Zhou Weiqing laughed heartily as well, saying: “of course, you all will get forty percent of it all, with the rest split amongst the other ﬁve hundred brothers. I want you to achieve a resounding and beautiful victory, to charge and show the might of our Peerless Regiment. More importantly, I want the morale of our people! As for how you two wish to conduct the battle, I’ll leave it to you two to command. However, do remember not to charge into their camp, in case of any traps or unforeseen ambushes. At the same time, make sure you all do not overextend and leave energy to return safely.” “For the retreat, I will have our top archers to cover you. This ﬁght, I want to build our reputation and prestige, not only to boost our morale, reputation amongst the citizens, but also to crush the enemy’s morale.”

Ma Qun thumped his chest conﬁdently. “Boss, leave it to us. Ever since our Peerless Heavy Cavalry has been set up, we have never met a ﬁght too tough for us. Isn’t it just a Regiment? We might not be able to slaughter them all, but to charge in and out seven times is not a big deal.”

Zhou Weiqing nodded and said: “Very good, you two go and prepare then.”

Ma Qun and Crow strode out in large steps, and Zhou Weiqing smiled faintly as he looked at the others, saying: “Come on then, brothers, follow me to the top of the city walls.”

Yan Zhexi could not hold back, saying: “Commander, are you really asking Ma Qun and Crow to lead two hundred out of the city to attack the enemies? They have an entire Regiment!”

Zhou Weiqing laughed and said: “No matter how many ants there are, they can never kill an elephant with their bites. Although the current strength of our Peerless Regiment is not actually a full formation of a normal Regiment, these trash from the Kalise Empire I do not really take into account. Just wait and see, this time, you will truly witness the real strength of the Peerless Heavy Cavalry. I want the Kalise Empire to truly fear our Peerless Regiment, to tremble from just the sound of our names.”

The last sentence, Zhou Weiqing said grimly with great resolution. He truly hated the Kalise Empire men for invading his homeland, forcing his father to use such a desperate skill that would harm himself. As his own cultivation level grew, Zhou Weiqing began to understand the price his father would have to pay to use such a Sealing Skill. Perhaps, in the future, Zhou Weiqing might be able to remove the Seal, but as the user of the Darkness Consolidated Fate Denying Seal… even Long Shiya did not have the conﬁdence to keep Admiral Zhou alive.

This was also an important reason why Zhou Weiqing wanted to keep close ties with the Heavenly Demon Sect. All other reasons aside, he knew that the core of the Heavenly Demon Sect had the Life Attribute. Tian’er’s Divine Attribute and Long Shiya’s power could perhaps have a chance to keep his father alive, but if he truly wanted to help him recover, he would deﬁnitely need the support and aid of the Life Attribute. Even if it were just this reason alone, Zhou Weiqing would deﬁnitely keep good terms with the Heavenly Demon Sect. Of course, for negotiation’s sake, he would not reveal this fact to them too early.

After all, Zhou Weiqing had never been an ambitious person. One could even say that his character was rather lazy. For him to have his current achievements, a lot of it was forced out of him through all sorts of different pressures and strresses. Especially the fall of the Heavenly Bow Empire and his parents and godfather’s loss, that was a massive inﬂuence on him.

Lei Zi’s working efﬁciency was high, and since Zhou Weiqing had allowed him to use more ‘persuasive’ forceful means, he had sent all ﬁve hundred of his Peerless Regiment First Main Company out to do as ordered. In just a short period of time, they had succeeded beyond even his requirements. Just a short while after Zhou Weiqing and the others had ascended the city walls, at least three to four hundred citizens had been grabbed up onto the wall as well.

“Boss, mission accomplished.” Lei Zi grinned as he sidled closer to Zhou Weiqing.

Zhou Weiqing glanced at him and said: “This is far more than two hundred eh? Well, get all the brothers up on the walls. I want each one to personally be in charge of a single citizen. Ensure that they open their eyes wide and watch everything that happens outside the city walls. Tell them who our Peerless Regiment fellows are. At the same time, be prepared to receive Ma Qun and the others when they return.”

Lei Zi said in a slightly upset tone: “Boss, why don’t you let us go! It’s just a mere Regiment, it wouldn’t be a problem for us ﬁve hundred as well! Just kiting them alone, we are conﬁdent of killing them all.”

Zhou Weiqing said: “The art of kiting takes a lot of skill, but for ordinary citizens, the visual impact and shock of it will not be as impressive. Furthermore, if anything amiss occurs, do you think the Heavy Cavalry and their speed will able to support you in time? On the contrary, you all will be able to support them if anything comes up. Alright, enough. Follow your orders.”

“Yes sir.”

Yan Zhexi had followed Zhou Weiqing all the way and was standing by his side. Looking at the enemies in the distance, he muttered: “Commander, if we truly have sufﬁcient power to take these enemies on directly, it is a good way to prevent them from surrounding us and causing us trouble by splitting our forces.” Zhou Weiqing laughed heartily and said: “Indeed, that is also my goal. Well, once our main forces arrive, we will also be relieved of such an awkward position. Oh by the way, how goes the recruitment of temporary army cooks and other logistical positions?”

Yan Zhexi said: “Basically we have gathered enough army cooks. The Heavenly Bow Empire does indeed hold the hearts of the populace. Although many still maintain a suspicious attitude, but there are those who already accept us and are willing to give us help in our ﬁght against the Kalise Empire. In fact, there are already some who wish to join up in the army, which is the reason why I was asking about actual recruitment.”

Zhou Weiqing nodded and said: “Good, but there is no rush for recruitment yet. Let’s wait until everything is stabilized before we discuss it. I want every single citizen of the Crescent City to know that not only is the Heavenly Bow Empire back, we also have a powerful army that can crush the Kalise Empire. When they have true conﬁdence in us, full acceptance of us, that will be a cohesive unity that will reforge the entire Crescent City. In truth, our return is already a lot earlier than all my previous expectations, so I am not too worried or urgent. Taking things a step at a time is the best method currently. Before long, all the preparations had been made. The ﬁve hundred archers of the Peerless Regiment First Main Company stood in a row along the wall. The citizens which had been brought up stood along with them, not knowing why they were here. All of them stood there with mixed emotions, many

trembling in fear as they looked at the warriors in gleaming mail armour beside them.

“Send orders to Ma Qun and Crow, set up formation outside the city!”

The city gates opened, and the two hundred Heavy Cavalry soldiers rode out. For a small city like the Crescent City, there was no moat, and naturally there was no need for any drawbridge. The citizens on top of the wall saw the massive bodies appearing outside the city, and they couldn’t help but stare dazedly. In the distance, the Kalise Empire soldiers also saw the movement. Those warriors in heavy armor was just too huge and robust looking, and standing together they seemed like a wall of metal… and their warhorses… why did they have wings!? Those mounts were so huge, and they also had their own armour… Were they Heavy Cavalry? But… that didn’t seem exactly right…?

Right at that moment, Zhou Weiqing’s voice rang out across the entire city wall, loud and clear. An idiom that references the famous scene in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms novel where General Zhao Yun charges seven times through the ranks of Cao Cao’s armies

This is actually an idiom, but I was curious and went to research about army ants, though it looks like the horror stories I heard about them were greatly exagerrated 😀 “My dear brethren of the Crescent City, I apologize if any of my soldiers were rude or rough when they were inviting you up to the walls. The reason I have invited all of you here is to witness a victory that belongs to us all, a victory that belongs to our Heavenly Bow Empire”

“First of all, let me introduce myself. My name is Zhou Weiqing. Perhaps most, if not all, of you will not be familiar with my name. However, I am sure all of you know another name… the Admiral Zhou of our Heavenly Bow Empire… who is my Father. In order to protect the rest of the Royal Family, my old man used his strongest self-sacriﬁcial Sealing abilities to Seal the entire Palace.”

“Now, Princess Difuya has returned, and I have also returned by her side as her General. These Kalise bastards have invaded our homeland, and only blood can wash away that disgrace and humiliation. I am sure you fellow brethren will have some worries about our power, and as the saying goes, it is best to see for yourselves. Currently, beyond our walls, you all can see that the Kalise Empire has sent a full Regiment of soldiers to attack our Crescent City once more. Now, we will use our actions and absolute power to let you know that… our Heavenly Bow Empire is back. We will deﬁnitely revive our homeland once more! Our previous ofﬁcial notices have already been posted, and taxes will be waived for a year. This… right here… shall be the beginnings of our Empire’s revival. Today, not long from now, the Crescent City’s name will be inscribed in the history books, and you will soon be proud to be the citizens of this city!”

With his Heavenly Energy voice transference, Zhou Weiqing’s voice clearly transmitted to every single one of the citizens’ ears. When he said that he was Admiral Zhou’s son, the original frightened citizens clearly calmed down. In the entire Empire, Admiral Zhou could be said to be one of the most famous… everyone knew him to be the previous great guardian of the previous Heavenly Bow Empire, and he had fought off the Kalise Empire for decades. The reputation of Admiral Zhou was extremely high and well respected amongst all the citizens, and at least now, in their eyes, there was less fear and some hope rekindled.

“Ma Qun, Crow, move out.” As he said that, Zhou Weiqing’s foot tapped lightly on the ground, launching him off the city walls. As the citizens cried out in surprise, he abruptly entered the Dragon-Tiger Transformation state, the massive pair of wings spreading out behind his back, keeping him aloft in midair. This would be their ﬁrst real ﬁght since their return. As the commander, how could Zhou Weiqing stay out of this one? With a few ﬂaps of his wings, he appeared right above the two hundred Heavy Cavalry. Under Ma Qun and Crow’s command, the two hundred Heavy Cavalry soldiers formed another snake like formation, moving out slowly as they bore down towards the Kalise Empire army lines.

Kalise Empire Sixth Regiment. Temporary Headquarters.

“Have you all managed to check who these people are who attacked the Crescent City?” The Kalise Empire Sixth Regiment Commander Zeng Jian said with a gloomy and overcast expression on his face.

“Regiment Commander Sir, from the looks of the ﬂag on the city walls, it looks to be those conquered fools from the Heavenly Bow Empire.”

“They managed to seal the city gates in time, and none of the garrisoned soldiers guarding the city managed to escape. As such, we currently do not know their actual numbers. If not for the fact that some of our men who were supposed to return from the Crescent City did not come back, we might not have gotten the news of the Crescent City being attacked and occupied until much later.” “Trash. What a bunch of trash! Just a mere Crescent City and they weren’t able to defend it.” Zeng Jian said angrily as he slammed his palm on the table. As the Commander of the Kalise Empire Sixth Regiment, he had naturally been part of the original invasion of the Heavenly Bow Empire. In the Kalise Empire, he had a nickname of ‘Fox’, and was a cunning presence on the battleﬁeld. On the surface, he might seem like he was in a rage, but in truth, when he heard his scouts’ reports, he had secretly heaved a sigh of relief. The thing he was most afraid of was actually that the attacking force was from the Fei Li Empire. After all, this was still very close to the Fei Li Empire borders. He did not think just the mere force of a single Regiment was enough to face off against the Fei Li Empire.

Before they had rushed here to the Crescent City, Zeng Jian had already dispatched a large number of scouts all around the Fei Li Empire border. It was exactly because of his worry that the Fei Li Empire had invaded them in force that he dared not directly launch a counterattack against the Crescent City. However, from the current looks of things, the Fei Li Empire border was extremely quiet, with not a sign of any military activity. If it was just a group of Heavenly Bow Empire survivors who had seized a chance to launch a surprise attack, even if they had succeeded once, he was not worried at all. In fact, during the period which the Kalise Empire had occupied the Heavenly Bow Empire, such a situation had already happened a few times, though perhaps not to such a degree. Even so, it was just a matter of surrounding and destroying them, and it would even reap him some military achievements.

“Report.” A scout ran in front outside, kneeling down on a single knee.

“Yes, speak.” Zeng Jian said coldly.

“Regiment Commander, the Crescent City seems to have some movement. Two Companies of Heavy Cavalry soldiers have moved out from the city and are headed towards our camp. Currently, we are not sure what their goal is.”

Even the scout did not think that their opponent would send a mere two hundred soldiers against them. Wasn’t that tantamount to suicide?

“Heavy Cavalry soldiers?” Zeng Jian started momentarily, a hint of nervousness on his face. Naturally, heavy cavalry soldiers were beyond any ordinary soldiers, usually elites who had been chosen and formed with piles of gold.

“What designation do they hold? Are they from the Fei Li Empire?” Zeng Jian asked with slight tension. “No Sir, the designation they display seems to be that of the old Heavenly Bow Empire.” The reply came.

Zeng Jian gave a cold smirk and said: “Very good, it’s good that they aren’t from the Fei Li Empire. In that case, it seems like these two hundred soldiers are here to negotiate? Fools! Would their Father, I, actually be willing to negotiate? No matter what, let’s ‘eat up’ these two hundred heavy cavalry soldiers before we do anything else. Heh heh heh, two hundred sets of heavy cavalry equipment… heh heh.” Pausing a while, he continued: “Send my orders, I want four of our strongest Heavy Cavalry Companies to move out against them, with light cavalry Companies ﬂanking the sides as support. I want to annihilate all two hundred of those enemies with a crushing victory. Move, let us hold the fort on the side and watch.”

As he gave the order, Zeng Jian led the group of Sixth Regiment ofﬁcers as they left their temporary headquarter tent.

The Peerless Heavy Cavalry soldiers did not advance quickly. Firstly, it was to conserve energy so that they could burst forth with power later, and also to hide the capabilities of their mounts. As they grew closer to the enemy camp, Zhou Weiqing was still ﬂoating above them in midair. His heart felt like it was aﬂame, burning with righteous rage. It was these Kalise Empire bastards who had invaded his homeland, and it was time for them to pay in blood.

Right at that moment, the gates of the Kalise Camp opened wide, and a large number of soldiers charged out. The ﬁrst out of the gate were four Heavy Cavalry Companies, totally four hundred soldiers. Right after them came an entire Battalion of light cavalry soldiers, charging swiftly to catch up with their compatriots in a ﬂanking maneuver, as the entire group bore down upon Zhou Weiqing and his two hundred men.

For a small Empire like the Kalise Empire, for a Regiment Formation to have four Heavy Cavalry Companies was already considered very good. It could be said that Zeng Jian had dispatched the strongest of his core elite soldiers directly, with the goal of minimizing losses. As for Zeng Jian himself, he led two thousand ordinary infantry soldiers and four Companies of Heavy Infantry soldiers numbering four hundred, advancing behind the cavalry party as a backup support to hold the lines.

“Commander, things do not seem right! Look, the opposing Heavy Cavalry soldiers seem to look very different.” All of a sudden, Zeng Jian’s Vice Commander at his side said to him quietly. Since the Vice Commander had already noticed it, Zeng Jian had also seen it for himself. After all, he was an old hand on the battleﬁeld, and as the Peerless Heavy Cavalry entered his view, he couldn’t help but draw a deep cold breath.

On the battleﬁeld, there were just some things that were afraid of being compared and contrasted. Both sides were Heavy Cavalry soldiers, but just from outward appearance alone, the four hundred Heavy Cavalry soldiers on the Kalise side paled in comparison to the Peerless Heavy Cavalry soldiers!

The simplest comparison would just be in terms of their height. Though both were Heavy Cavalry soldiers, the mounted Kalise Empire soldiers barely came up to their enemies’ chest. It had to be known that these were the strongest elite forces of the Kalise Empire armies, and they were specially chosen for stature and strength. Seeing those Peerless Regiment warriors mounted upon Unicorn Heavenly Beasts, looking like demonic warriors or gods, Zeng Jian’s expression changed. Where had these monsters come from? He had never even heard of such a force, not even from the Fei Li Empire! These fellows were at least two metres tall? More so, their armour looked to be just too heavy… what kind of weight was that?! Heavens! What on earth were they holding in their hands! Were those weapons even logical? Wasn’t the standard weaponry of Heavy Cavalry soldiers the long lance? What… what are they carrying in their hands?! Oh my mother! Are those huge spiked maces? Are they fully solid? How heavy would that actually be?!

The Berserker Tribe soldiers were indeed all carrying an extra-large spiked mace. That novel weapon was even heavier than Crow’s Legendary Axes. Of course, the Gold Crow Tribes had their heavy battle axes in hand as well.

Both sides had not even clashed, and in terms of aura and presence, the Peerless Heavy Cavalry soldiers had already fully suppressed their enemies.

Almost in the next instant, the Heavy Cavalry soldiers of both sides smashed savagely into each other.

Crow and Ma Qun were right in the front of their respective troops, and naturally they were the ﬁrst to slam into their foes. A terrifying sight ensued immediately. Ma Quns twin huge spiked maces moved simply, but directly. Sweeping in front of him, he totally ignored the heavy lances that the two Kalise Empire Heavy Cavalry soldiers had pointed at him.

In the entire Boundless Mainland, all Heavy Cavalry soldiers were normally outﬁtted with heavy lances as their weapons. For the Kalise Empire soldiers, their heavy lances were almost four metres long, as thick as a normal human’s arm. Only the strongest elite could be chosen to become Heavy Cavalry soldiers, because only they were able to hold these lances while charging. When charging, the weight and momentum of such a weapon, along with their strength, this was the reason why Heavy Cavalry soldiers had such destructive powers that no other type of soldiers could compare to.

Such a pity that the current enemy they were facing were also Heavy Cavalry soldiers… the Peerless Heavy Cavalry! The two heavy lances slammed into Ma Qun’s chest, but their owners could not feel excited or happy at all. Their usual unstoppable charge was instead halted, and they felt as if they had slammed into a giant hill, the force of impact actually forcefully stopping their charge. Their mounts actually continued running forward, but their bodies had been lifted off their mounts, pushed off with their own heavy lances! Right at that moment, Ma Qun’s spiked maces struck.

*Bam**Bam* The ﬁrst spiked mace slammed into the heavy lances, actually breaking both in that single blow. The next spiked mace slammed into the chests of the two Kalise Heavy Cavalry soldiers.

Like two tin cans being smashed, the Kalise Heavy Cavalry soldiers’ armour totally caved in. Following that came the creaking sound of the armour breaking apart and blood gushed out of all the gaps of the armour. Like two cannonballs, the two corpses slammed to the side, each knocking over another Heavy Cavalry soldier.

A similar sight duplicated itself for every single one of the Berserker Tribe members. With their defensive capabilities, they totally ignored the ineffectual attacks of their foes, as they sent their enemies on a free trip to heaven instantly.

The Gold Crow Tribe’s attacks was a different beast altogether. Crow was not far from Ma Qun as she slammed into the enemy formation. On her end, she did not allow her enemies to strike at her at will, instead the Legendary Axes in her hands striking out in two directions. A single swipe of the ﬁrst axe cleaved apart the heavy lances striking at her, while the swipe of the second axe ﬂashed across the two Heavy Cavalry soldiers facing her, instantly leaving two lower bodies that had lost their top half.

If one had to use a phrase to describe the sight of the two Heavy Cavalry forces slamming into each other, then perhaps ‘a massacre with ﬂesh and blood ﬂying in all directions, bodies blown to pieces’ was a long winded but most apt description.

Both sides might be Heavy Cavalry soldiers, but as both sides met, the Peerless Heavy Cavalry soldiers charged into Kalise formation like a hot knife cutting through butter, as if they were tigers pouncing upon a ﬂock of sheep. On the battleﬁeld, blood, ﬂesh and broken armour sprayed in all directions, and screams of death and agony rang out throughout.

Within a matter of moments, the clash between the Heavy Cavalry soldiers had ended. Alas, behind the Peerless Heavy Cavalry soldiers, there wasn’t even a single living Kalise Heavy Cavalry soldiers. In just that short period of time, the Peerless Heavy Cavalry soldiers were like a meat grinder machine, totally wiping out their enemies, leaving only their scattered remains behind,

The Kalise light cavalry soldiers who were surrounding the Peerless soldiers, the infantry and archers behind the Heavy Cavalry soldiers who had been supporting them, and the distant ofﬁcers including the Regiment Commander Zeng Jian…all of them were stunned silly by the sight before them.

When had they ever seen such terrifying killing machines in their entire lives? Those were four hundred elite Heavy Cavalry soldiers! In a matter of a dozen breaths, they had been slaughtered as if they were mere cabbages being harvested in the ﬁeld. This… This……

Just as Zeng Jian was still dazed, the Peerless Heavy Cavalry soldiers did not even slow their charge. Having wiped out the enemy Heavy Cavalry, they continued barreling on the path right towards the archers and infantry soldiers.

If one could liken the Kalise Empire Heavy Cavalry soldiers’ performance just now as sheep, then the poor Kalise archers were now little white rabbits. The mass of tigers charged into the herd of rabbits, almost able to even just scare them to death! Furthermore, these tigers were armed to the teeth with those horriﬁc looking massive weapons.

A Battalion of archers… alas they could not even slow the Peerless Heavy Cavalry down for a split second. As the two hundred men… no, tigers… thundered past, in moments they had left behind a patch of red on the ground. Let alone the enemies being stunned silly… even Zhou Weiqing who was ﬂying above ready to support his men at any time was also staring in shock.

What kind of equipment have I given these fellows? Are they really Heavy Cavalry soldiers? I… I have created monsters! They are literally killing machines! An entire Regiment, and almost instantly a tenth of them were wiped out. For the ﬁrst time, the Peerless Heavy Cavalry had truly shown their power on a real battleﬁeld, unleashing their full might, and the sheer terror of the combat prowess had already far surpassed even Zhou Weiqing’s grand expectations.

Atop the city walls, the watching citizens were also dazed. Was this really a ﬁght? It looked just like a simple slaughter. Two hundred soldiers… just two hundred soldiers… and yet it looked like their enemies did not stand a chance at all. Such a powerful troop… does it really belong to our Heavenly Bow Empire?

Lei Zi was standing there moving his arms around, muttering to himself: “Impressive, just too impressive.” From the way he looked, he was itching to be on the battleﬁeld himself, hating the fact that he was stuck up here. Although watching the ﬁght was indeed enjoyable, he was also slightly depressed as it meant their First Company Air Force had no chance to take action at all.

Heavy Cavalry soldiers were always the most terrifying killing machines on the battleﬁeld, and amongst them, the Peerless Heavy Cavalry were truly gods amongst the killing machines.

Seeing his advance forces wiped out so quickly, Zeng Jian ﬁnally came to his senses. Currently, his expression had changed drastically, fear in his heart. In such a situation, there was no time for him to ponder slowly. Instantly, he gave the orders. “Retreat! Retreat back to camp and fortify it! First, Third Infantry Battalions, set up your spears on the ground in the anti-cavalry formations. Second Battalion, return immediately to the camp to prepare the anti-cavalry traps.”

After giving the series of orders, he led his personal guard and rushed back to camp. These… these were not humans, they were devils! How could they possibly stand against them!

Although the Kalise Empire soldiers were in shock, their training overtook them. As orders from their superior was passed down, they subconsciously followed the instructions almost woodenly. The two Battalions of Infantry soldiers quickly set up their spear formations. The anti-cavalry formation, as the name suggested, was specially designed against the charge of enemy cavalry soldiers. Pushing the butt end of their spears into the ground with the points forward in an angle, and their weight to hold position, such a formation in numbers was not designed to damage their enemies, but to stop their mounts from charging past them.

Alas, although this technique which was extremely effective against all cavalry soldiers, they were currently facing the Peerless Heavy Cavalry. Not only were the soldiers heavily armoured, even their powerful Unicorn Heavenly Beasts were also armoured fully!

Just like crushing dry weeds and smashing rotten wood, the two hundred Peerless Heavy Cavalry soldiers smashed savagely into the two Battalions. Up until now, the whole Battalion of surrounding light cavalry soldiers had not even dared to send a single soldier in attack!

A thousand versus two hundred? It was a large numbers advantage. However, in the face of such terror, what was the use of numbers? The hearts of the light cavalry soldiers quailed as they dared not even attack. In the past, when the Berserker and Gold Crow Tribes were still in the Fei Li Empire, they had been forced to ﬁght so many times against the WanShou Empire on the frontlines. They only had simple weapons, not even given proper armour, but they had caused much damage to the WanShou Empire armies. Now, with Zhou Weiqing sparing no cost to develop them and outﬁt them fully with such unimaginable equipment, their terrifying combat strength had already caught up and perhaps surpassed the Mammoth Regiment! How could these ordinary Kalise soldiers compare to them? Despite numbering a mere two hundred, when the gap between strengths was just too far apart, numbers no longer meant anything.

As the saying goes, an inﬁnite number of ants could bite even an elephant to death. However, no matter what, they had to actually be able to bite through for that to happen. The Peerless Heavy Cavalry armour was just too terrifying, the thickness and toughness. Ordinary people could not even wear it, let alone penetrate through it!

Zhou Weiqing watched from his vantage position in the air. He knew that there was no need for him to even take action any longer. He did not think of being able to kill all the enemies. Firstly, he did not need his men to do unnecessary killing, but more so, it was to conserve his strength. After all, the main force of the Peerless Regiment had not arrived, and stability was the key for him now. That was the reason why he gave the strict order for Ma Qun and Crow not to lead their troops directly into the enemy camp.

His lips curved in a cold smirk. Today’s ﬁght had more than accomplished all the goals that he had set. With this single charge of the Peerless Heavy Cavalry, how could the Kalise Empire Regiment still have the guts to attack the Crescent City? If not for the fact that he wanted to hide the power of his Peerless Regiment, as long as the ﬁve hundred Peerless Air Force joined in the ﬁght, it would not have been a problem for them to wipe out the entire enemy force.

Although he had his Peerless Regiment that seemed invincible in combat, Zhou Weiqing was still extremely careful as he began the revival of his Empire. He had his own thinking… if he revealed too much of his strength too early, then the Kalise Empire would quickly send a large number of reinforcements here, even the Bai Da Empire might be alerted to send reinforcements. However, for the rest of the Peerless Regiment to arrive, it would take at least two more months. In this window of time, with just his seven hundred men, if he had to face the onslaught of several Regiments, it would still be tough for them. After all, his main goal was still to stabilize the Crescent City and develop it as his base of operations and launching pad. According to Zhou Weiqing’s current understanding of the Kalise Empire’s army deployments in the Heavenly Bow Empire, for the next two months he would at least have to deal with two more waves of enemies before the rest of his Peerless Regiment would arrive. Of course, this was not counting his Master, the Six Ultimate Heavenly Emperor Long Shiya.

Long Shiya had already indicated to Zhou Weiqing that he would not join their ﬁght on the battleﬁeld. In truth, there was an agreement amongst all powerhouses that any Heavenly Emperor stage powerhouse and above would not be allowed to interfere in the wars of man. At their level, if they took action against ordinary humans, it could possibly lead to widescale destruction and possibly even the extinction of men! As such, it was strictly forbidden for Heavenly Emperor Stage powerhouses to join in such battles, otherwise all their peers would surround the one in question to kill him.

Yes, this should be the actual saying. I believe that TJSS is using it (last chapter’s version) as two sides of the same coin, depending on which is the stronger party

Chapter 196 The Sudden Assassination

When they had reached the Crescent City, Long Shiya had actually left silently. Even Zhou Weiqing did not know where his Master went or what he was up to. In fact, in Long Shiya’s eyes, in the Heavenly Bow Empire borders, there should not be anyone that could pose a threat to Zhou Weiqing. The Kalise Empire did not have any Heavenly King Stage powerhouses, and thought the Bai Da Empire should have some, they would deﬁnitely be holding the fort in the Bai Da Empire. At least in the near future, there was no possibility of them appearing. As such, Long Shiya felt relaxed in leaving.

In the ﬁrst place, Long Shiya had always been a person who loved freedom. Since Zhou Weiqing had already mastered the Six Ultimate Godly Light Formation, it could be said that he had already gained his full legacy. The only thing he was lacking was experience and attainment in the skill, as well as cultivation levels. Long Shiya had already passed on all the techniques and the path he needed to take. Now, for the revival of his own Empire, it would be up to Zhou Weiqing as an exercise for him.

After being run through by the Peerless Heavy Cavalry, the two Kalise Empire Infantry Battalions had barely a third of them surviving. The thick smell of blood lingered in the air, and in the back, the Kalise light cavalry retreated even further, not wanting to become the egg that threw itself on the rock. Set after set of Anti-Cavalry traps were rolled out, with four Heavy Infantry soldiers and a large number of ordinary Kalise soldiers setting them up in position and taking up their formation behind the traps in preparation.

Zeng Jian’s heart was spasming and bleeding. He had never imagined that he would ever meet such a terrifying army. Just two hundred enemy soldiers, yet they seemed just like two hundred devils, instantly destroying nearly a third of his entire army. More importantly, that had included his most precious four Companies of Heavy Cavalry soldiers!

Just the two hundred Heavy Cavalry soldiers in front of him gave him a strong sense of powerlessness. More importantly, their enemy had only sent out these two hundred men… and he did not even know how many more enemies there were in the Crescent City. In the military world, information was always key, and the unknown was to be feared. Since these enemies dared to come and actually successfully take the Crescent City, it showed a level of preparation and power… that deﬁnitely was not limited to these two hundred soldiers. To send out only this small force against him, there could only be one goal… to reduce their own injuries or deaths. Indeed, how could one deal with this Heavy Cavalry force? Even if he was a six-Jeweled Physical Jewel Master, if he charged forward, he would not have any use. These super heavy cavalry units were just like a moving fortress of metal, unstoppable in his eyes.

In midair, Zhou Weiqing had already spotted Zeng Jian. In any army, the outﬁt of the commander was deﬁnitely different from all his soldiers. Furthermore, Zeng Jian had his personal guards in formation around him.

“Ma Qun, Crow. Clear the battleﬁeld. Do not advance any further.” Zhou Weiqing’s order came from above. He could see that the Peerless Heavy Cavalry’s bloodlust had been incited in the ﬁght, and he was worried that they might just rashly charge into the enemy’s base. There were just too many obstacles and obstructions around the camp, especially the anti-cavalry traps, and it was not a good ground or position for the Heavy Cavalry soldiers. Of course, he did not think they could be defeated, but if they were entangled within, it would be unnecessary trouble.

As he spoke, Zhou Weiqing drew back the Overlord Bow, a long arrow made out of pure Heavenly Energy suddenly coalescing into existence.

Taking a deep breath, Zhou Weiqing raised his Ice Cold Perception to the max. His gaze was like a bolt of lightning, locked upon Zeng Jian’s body. As long as he could slay this commander, this Kalise Empire force would have no choice but to retreat.

Zeng Jian was after all a relatively high leveled Physical Jewel Master. As soon as Zhou Weiqing locked onto him with his Overlord Bow, he immediately sensed danger. Lifting his head, he spotted Zhou Weiqing in midair, and instantly saw the strange hexagon-star formation glowing with a brilliant bluish purple light. All around Zhou Weiqing’s body, a thick lightning was arcing around, causing the entire air to reverberate around him.

He wants to kill me! Zeng Jian paled instantly as he realised what was happening. Swiftly, he unleashed his three Consolidated Equipment. At the same time, he jumped off his warhorse, darting deeper into the midst of his soldiers’ formation.

All this while, though he ﬂew In midair, Zhou Weiqing had not taken action. However, these Heavy Cavalry soldiers were already so strong, could this person be weak at all? Furthermore, that hexagon formation below him was so strange, who knew what unique powers it had? Dodging? Zhou Weiqing smirked coldly. Do you think that hiding in a crowd would be of any use?

Thick Heavenly Energy, abruptly solidifying, and the now- bluish purple arrow gave off a terrifying energy reverberation. Within this arrow, there were no special effects or ﬂourishes, just a pure terrifying amount of Heavenly Energy that had been consolidated through the Six Ultimate Godly Light Formation. If one were able to examine it closely, they would discover that this arrow was truly strange looking. Three inches behind the arrowhead, there was a strange bluish purple round ball, fully made out of pure energy.

With the Overlord Bow drawn to a full crescent, Zhou Weiqing raised his personal spirit and energy to the maximum, and in that instant, he unleashed his arrow.

As his cultivation level had increased, his understanding towards archery was also no longer as simple as before. Within this arrow, it did not just hold energy alone, but it was highly compressed and transmuted to lightning elemental power.

An ear-piercing screech rang out in that moment, and across the skies, all could only see a bolt of lightning ﬂash across. The bluish purple light as if the heavens had thrown down a bolt of lightning, smashing down into the Kalise Sixth Regiment camp.

However, right at the same time as he shot out the arrow, all of a sudden, Zhou Weiqing’s expression changed. In the next moment, his entire body ﬂipped and rolled in midair, and he followed it up with an instant Blink Skill.

That was because, in the instant that he had shot out the arrow, he sensed a sudden cold that he had never felt in his entire life, descending upon his entire body. An ambush!

This foe’s choice of attack timing was just too perfect. Zhou Weiqing’s arrow had been fully focused on chasing an effect of guaranteeing an instant kill, consolidating that arrow from a massive amount of Heavenly Energy, and more so bringing his spirit and focus to a maximum point. As he shot out that arrow, in that instant when he released such a powerful blast of Heavenly Energy, his entire body was in a short temporary period of weakness. It was in this instant that this hidden foe had seized the opportunity to launch his attack.

A thick black light that was almost like ink ﬂew towards Zhou Weiqing’s body from below. Almost as Zhou Weiqing rolled away, it crossed paths with his body, bringing a bead of blood away from him. Right away, the black light seemed as if it had been locked onto its target, in a ﬂash it swooped around and chased up to Zhou Weiqing who had blinked away… a black sword point striking towards Zhou Weiqing’s throat.

At the same time, Zhou Weiqing’s arrow had reached its target. The thick bluish purple light drawing a beautiful arc in the skies, seeming to worm its way across all obstacles, ﬂickering as it did so. It was almost as if the arrow had eyes as it ﬂew past several soldiers, striking onto Zeng Jian’s Consolidated Shield with unbelievable accuracy.

The bluish purple light ﬂashed brightly upon the hit, seeming to lance right into his body through the shield. The next instant, a violent explosion rang out from Zeng Jian’s body. With that ball of lightning attached to the arrow blowing up from within his body, how could Zeng Jian survive?

This critical arrow of Zhou Weiqing’s, it had taken all his power, spirit and planning to launch it. Let alone Zeng Jian, who was a six-Jeweled Physical Jewel Master… even an ordinary six-Jeweled Heavenly Jewel Master would have been hard pressed to defend himself against it.

However, although Zhou Weiqing had successfully killed Zeng Jian, he had now fallen into extreme danger. Ever since he had become a Heavenly Jewel Master, Zhou Weiqing had experienced his share of close shaves. However, this was truly the ﬁrst time that he had felt so close to death. No matter even when he had faced the Lion Prince Gu Yingbing for the ﬁrst time, he did not have such a feeling. After all, Gu Yingbing did not have a strong killing intent at that time, and he had not been trying to kill him.

However, this enemy in front of him only gave Zhou Weiqing a single sensation. A simple one that could be described with one word. Death.

A feeling of death. That icy cold feeling. There was only one single goal he had – to kill Zhou Weiqing. This was an assassin. An absolutely powerful assassin. A terrifying Heavenly Energy reverberations ﬁlled the entire air with the scent of death.

The moment Zhou Weiqing fell into trouble, on the distant city wall, Shangguan Xue’er, Tian’er and Lin TianAo immediately leaped off the wall, charging at their top speeds without any hesitation. Alas, they were just too far from him now, at least a few li away, and in a short period of time they would not be able to rescue him. Zhou Weiqing’s heart was ﬁlled with fear. He was already in the Dragon-Tiger Transformation state all this while, and his Ice Cold Perception was at its maximum. For him to have such feelings in such a state, one could just imagine how much danger, how serious this attack truly was.

This was the ﬁrst time the Ice Cold Perception had failed him. Even in the instant that his enemy had struck out at him, Zhou Weiqing did not even sense his presence. One could just imagine how skillful he was at concealment. Currently, Zhou Weiqing only had one thought. To live! To survive!

As he rolled around in midair, the Ward of the Demon God had already sprang into existence, along with the automatic Immortal Deity Shield. Added to his Six Ultimate Godly Light Formation’s lightning screen around him, as well as his body’s power physical defense in the Dragon-Tiger Transformation state, Zhou Weiqing could be said to be already in his strongest possible defensive state that his body currently possessed.

Despite all of that, the black rapier which darted about like a venomous snake had still managed to leave a deep trail of blood on Zhou Weiqing’s chest area. If not for the fact that his instinctive sense of danger had allowed him to roll away at the last second, his heart would have been pierced through in that strike.

What terrifying offensive capabilities! Zhou Weiqing felt that even if it were his Master, just comparing the instantaneous burst of power in a single point, this assassin might even be slightly higher!

His Blink Skill only gave him a split second of time to catch a breath, and the rapier that was like a disease which had invaded deep into one’s bones had already reached his throat once more.

In the face of such critical danger, Zhou Weiqing’s depth of potential erupted once more. Five bouts of dark-gold light instantly sprang into existence nearly simultaneously. One after the other, they exploded in a horrible scraping sound, but they had successfully blocked that terrifying black rapier for the split second that he needed.

Only at this point did Zhou Weiqing ﬁnally see what this assassin looked like. It was an ordinary face, ordinary to the point that no one would be able to pick him out of a crowd. He looked to be around twenty years of age, fully expressionless, and it was almost clear that he was wearing a mask. He was dressed in a set of ordinary Kalise Empire Infantry Soldier’s uniform, which was covered in fresh blood. Clearly, he had been hiding within the Kalise Empire Infantry Battalion previously.

Zhou Weiqing did not have the time to think about where this foe had come from, and who had sent him to kill him. All he could do now was try to stay alive.

A giant black tiger’s illusory ﬁgure formed behind Zhou Weiqing’s back. However, it was not the Dark Demon God, as it did not have the scorpion’s tail or the massive wings. Instead, it was the Entropic Nether Tiger!

As that formed, the black rapier had ﬁnally pierced through the ﬁve Consolidating Equipment God Protective Aura. Unbelievably, the ﬁve protective shields had barely lasted a split second, only managing to slow the attack slightly before it once again pierced towards Zhou Weiqing.

The Ward of the Demon God and the Immortal Deity Shield had turned back on, but once again they were torn aside just so easily. Like a small bolt of lightning, the black rapier pierced right through Zhou Weiqing’s throat. At this point, Zhou Weiqing’s ‘Hate Ground no Handle’ Legendary Set did not yet cover his head or neck, and he also did not have any chance to dodge such a swift blow.

“NOOO!!!” In the distance, both Shangguan Xue’er and Tian’er howled in sorrow. Instantly, both of them used their respective secret arts to increase their speed to the maximum. Alas, they were still not in time.

However, the subsequent scene caused this powerful assassin to stare dazed for a moment.

That was because, though the black rapier had pierced through Zhou Weiqing’s throat, it did not draw any blood at all. Instead, Zhou Weiqing’s Legendary Hammers smashed out savagely towards him.

A powerful glow of lightning burst forth as the Six Ultimate Godly Light Formation circulated to its maximum. Zhou Weiqing gathered almost all his remaining Heavenly Energy onto his Hammers. The black rapier was just too quick, so much so that Zhou Weiqing did not even have the time to release any Skills. All he could chase for was for his strike to land, as he knew that this would likely be his only chance. If he missed it… perhaps the only result for him would be death. Facing the Legendary Hammers’ attack, the black clad assassin’s reaction was equally fast. Lifting his left hand, palm outwards, he struck out in a parrying motion to clash directly with the Dual Legendary Hammers.

A massive explosion, as if a bolt of thunder in the skies, and Zhou Weiqing’s entire body ﬂew back.

The terrifying strength of the ‘Hate Ground no Handle’ Legendary Set proved its worth once more. Although the cultivation level and power of the powerhouse assassin was far higher than Zhou Weiqing, but facing the full power of the Legendary Hammers, his entire body which had been moving swiftly was actually stalled in midair, his upper body actually forced to snap back from the massive impact. Zhou Weiqing also seized the opportunity and the throwback of the impact to allow himself to be ﬂung back, temporarily escaping the black rapier’s attack.

It could be said that Zhou Weiqing’s abundant combat experienced had saved him. All his efforts had given him just enough time to release his next step at the last possible second. The Heavenly Skill Image he had summoned earlier was the secret defensive Skill of the Entropic Nether Tiger, the ‘Nether State’, granting him the temporary immunity to physical attacks which had allowed him to survive that lethal blow to the neck. At the same time, the power of the ‘Hate Ground no Handle’ Legendary Set and the blow of the Legendary Hammers was just enough to give him time to catch his breath.

At this moment, Shangguan Xue’er was charging right at the front, barely three hundred yards from Zhou Weiqing. Tian’er was close behind her, but Lin TianAo had fallen behind, as his speed was not his strong point.

His reinforcements were clearly arriving soon, but Zhou Weiqing did not dare relax at all. The moment his foe had struck out at him, he had sensed that it was a Heavenly King Stage powerhouse. However, this was no ordinary Heavenly King powerhouse, but one trained in the arts of assassination. For a Heavenly King to actually use such ambushing tactics against a mere six-Jeweled Heavenly Jewel Master… Zhou Weiqing could count his lucky stars that he had managed to survive!

However, this Heavenly King Stage powerhouse’s cultivation level was already at the max, and even despite Zhou Weiqing’s sheer power, his foe had been able to shunt it off in time.

Besides the black rapier in his hands, this Heavenly King powerhouse did not seem to have any other Consolidated Equipment. As Zhou Weiqing used the time that his Legendary Hammers had earned, the wings behind his back ﬂapped crazily, increasing the momentum he had from being thrown back as he attempted to ﬂy away. At the same time, he used the Silver Emperor Lightning Pierce to increase his speed by three times as he ﬂew off.

Facing a Heavenly King stage powerhouse, especially one with such terrifying offense, with even all his powerful defenses seeming like paper in front of him… Zhou Weiqing was clear that in order to survive, he would need to join up with Shangguan Xue’er and Tian’er, only then would they have a chance. Otherwise, despite his previous success, it would barely take a few more blows for his foe to take his life.

Ever since he left the Heavenly Snow Mountain, Zhou Weiqing had been extremely conﬁdent about his own strength. After all, even the Heavenly Snow Mountain’s disciple, prince of the Lion Tribe, had not been able to defeat him. As a result, his own conﬁdence had perhaps grown too inﬂated. Right at this moment, he truly understood that in this world, there were just too many things unknown, too many things he had to learn. Just like how he had taken so many people by surprise, if he was too overconﬁdent, he would pay that same price that those who had fallen to him did. This Heavenly King stage powerhouse in front of him was indeed terrifying, far beyond what he could manage on his own. The short pause did not cause the the Heavenly King Stage assassin to slow down much, and he certainly did not stop. Even as his left hand had been knocked away by the sheer force of the impact, another series of black lights sprang out from his body. As Zhou Weiqing unleashed his Silver Emperor Lightning Pierce, he was shocked to suddenly ﬁnd himself

slamming into a web of black, and in moments, the terrifying

keen piercing edge seemed to approach from behind.

This…? This is the Touch of Darkness?! Could the Touch of Darkness could be used in such a manner? Zhou Weiqing was truly taken aback. This black web that had blocked his way, wasn’t it the Touch of Darkness that was so familiar to him? The Darkness Skill that was one of his earliest Skills and had served him so well. The twelve tentacles of the Touch of Darkness had instead formed a large web in the skies, instead of trying to grab or grapple him, it was just used to forcefully block his way and prevent him from ﬂying with his Silver Emperor Lightning Pierce’s boosted speed. In this way, no matter all his ﬂying speed, he was actually unable to move forward even if he had not been actually Controlled.

The black clad assassin was just too fast. Just as Zhou Weiqing had stalled for an instant, a cold chilly sensation gushed through him as the point of the rapier pierced right through his back and out his chest. The black rapier had struck so craftily, piercing right through the tiny gap of Zhou Weiqing’s currently incomplete ‘Hate Ground no Handle’ Legendary Set, from his upper back neck area all the way to the front of his chest. Although it did not pierce through the Consolidated Equipment at all, the terrifying frigid cold caused Zhou Weiqing’s heart to sink to the depths.

Luckily, the ‘Nether State’ was still in effect. With the physical immunity, once again the black rapier did not take his life and destroy his body. However, the terrifying darkness energy within the rapier still burst forth, raging crazily within him.

The ‘Nether State’ was truly worthy of the Heavenly God Tier Skill that it was. Even under such a supreme disadvantageous situation, it still managed to barely protect Zhou Weiqing. It brought a total physical immunity, and though energy attacks were not immune, they would still have to erode the Nether State’s energy before actually being able to harm Zhou Weiqing. As such, Zhou Weiqing could sense that the time of the ‘Nether State’ lasting was rapidly reaching its end before its normal time. From the looks of things, it would no longer be able to save him for much longer. The black clad assassin was currently behind Zhou Weiqing, slightly above in a vantage position. His mouth curved in a mocking smirk as he looked down on the youth. Although he had truly been impressed by Zhou Weiqing’s reactions and skills over the past few seconds in reacting to his attacks, that

did not stop him from killing Zhou Weiqing. In truth, the reason why he only had a single black rapier in his hands and no other Consolidated Equipment was actually very simple. The black rapier in his hand was not a single Consolidated Equipment, but an Assembly Set Sword! Just like how Lin TianAo had created an Assembly Set Shield, this black rapier of his was actually formed out of eight Consolidated black rapiers in an Assembly Set. He was just one step away from reaching his ninth and last one, where it could be considered a Legendary Set!

Ordinarily speaking, a set of eight could already be barely considered a Legendary Set. However, for Assembly Sets, they were an exception. That was because their earlier pieces were all lower quality and weaker, that was the only reason they could continue stacking on in an assembly. Even so, a rapier that consisted of eight Assembly pieces… one could just imagine how terrifying the offense was. In a stark contrast and reversal from Lin TianAo’s aspirations, this black clad assassin had chased after an ultimate offense. A direct translation. Basically means an enemy which is hard to deal with

Chapter 197 Dragon-Tiger Transformation – 2nd Form!

The mocking look still on his face, the Heavenly King Stage assassin shook the black rapier in his hand slightly. A massive surge of Darkness Heavenly Energy raged into Zhou Weiqing’s body. He was not in a rush; towards Tian’er and Shangguan Xue’er ﬂying towards him, it was as if he did not even see them.

Zhou Weiqing’s ‘Nether State’ body and his various skills in protecting himself had truly given him a surprise. However, this assassin was extremely experienced, and he had even seen stranger Skills than the ‘Nether State’. He was even clearer than Zhou Weiqing how to make use of strength, and he was sure that with Zhou Weiqing’s six-Jeweled cultivation level, that strange defensive skill would not be able to last a long time. With his Darkness Attribute Heavenly Energy surging into this youth, he was conﬁdent he could wipe Zhou Weiqing off the surface of the earth before Shangguan Xue’er and Tian’er could reach. Furthermore, in the ﬁrst place, he did not even care if the two could reach in time. Even for these young ladies, their highest cultivation level were only seven-Jeweled, what threat could they pose to him?

This assassin was actually really lucky. His employer did not tell him that Zhou Weiqing had a Heavenly Emperor stage powerhouse by his side, and more so, Long Shiya had also left Zhou Weiqing’s side just a few days ago, thinking there should be no trouble for him. Otherwise, no matter how short the time was, as long as Long Shiya was nearby, he could easily rush over in time, and how could the assassin escape then?

Ice cold sensations ﬂooded his entire body, the feeling of his soul being ripped from him was truly a terrible one. Zhou Weiqing could clearly sense death encroaching upon him. He knew that once he lost the ‘Nether State’, he would immediately be destroyed by the black rapier.

His lauded physique and innate defense, facing that black rapier, it was just like a joke. In the end, cultivation level was cultivation level, and his level was just not sufﬁcient! If he was also at the Heavenly King Stage, even if it were just the nine- Jeweled stage, how could that black clad assassin even hurt him?

All this while, Zhou Weiqing had thought that with all his various boosts, his many attributes and skills, his strength was still not too bad. However, at this point, he knew that though those had carried him thus far, the gap of cultivation level was still his limiting factor in allowing himself to be an actual powerhouse. As the black rapier had pierced into Zhou Weiqing, the large net that Touch of Darkness had formed wrapped down around him, enveloping him totally. With the difference in cultivation level, it would be very difﬁcult for Zhou Weiqing to break free of it just by struggling, at least while it lasted. Furthermore, as

that happened, the black clad assassin placed his left palm on Zhou Weiqing’s head.

Darkness – Nether Seal.

The Darkness Attribute was perhaps best in Sealing Arts, and such a powerful Seal instantly caused Zhou Weiqing to temporarily lose his ability to use his Skills. Of course, this Nether Seal was no match for his own Demonic Dragon God Seal, but it was still able to ‘silence’ him for almost three seconds, more than enough time.

Three seconds… could his Nether State even last three more seconds? The Nether State might grant him physical immunity, but it would not grant immunity of the effects of Stored Skills! The mocking look on the assassin’s face was because Zhou Weiqing had truly fallen in a state of sure death.

Am I really going to die now? Currently, Zhou Weiqing was facing in Shangguan Xue’er and Tian’er’s direction. Although in the past few days, he had been having a terrible headache due to the two ladies arguing, but as he looked at the ladies he loved, looking at the Crescent City in the distance that was the beginnings of his plan… in Zhou Weiqing’s heart, a ﬂame rose. He was not reconciled to this, he would not take this defeat just like that! He still had not revived his homeland, his loves were in front of him… No! I cannot die like this! I still have to save

Father, have to destroy these invaders and chase them out of

my homeland! How can I die just like this?

Such strong feelings of vexation, turning into the deepest resolution. Zhou Weiqing’s eyes lit up, and his body which was unable to move suddenly changed… evolved…

The ﬁrst change was Zhou Weiqing’s eyes. Originally, when he was in the Dragon-Tiger Transformation state, his eyes were a deep purple. Currently, they had changed abruptly, his left orb turning fully grey, not just the pupils but even the whites of the eyes, a cold strange black. The right eye had also warped, ﬁlled with red, not the usual bloodshot but a billowing ﬁery red.

Zhou Weiqing’s strong and robust body actually expanded further. He had always been large in stature, especially when in the Demonic Change State or Dragon-Tiger Transformation, but he now grew even larger. At the same time, the Six Ultimate Godly Light Formation actually warped into a strange star-hexagon, silently imprinting into in chest area, hiding within the ‘Hate Ground no Handle’ Legendary Set.

As his body grew, scales began to rise up from below his skin. In contrast with the usual Dragon-Tiger Transformation state, currently Zhou Weiqing was giving forth a wild and violent aura from within.

What is going on? The assassin’s senses on Zhou Weiqing was extremely sensitive. After all, his black rapier was still in Zhou Weiqing’s body, and he could sense that the Nether State was just about to end. Yet, at this ﬁnal juncture, Zhou Weiqing’s body exploded with that aura that caused even him to feel his heart palpitate in sudden fear.

What was that?!

In just that short moment of time, Zhou Weiqing’s body had actually expanded into a ﬁve metre tall giant. To be more accurate, he now looked more like a giant demonic beast with a vague humanoid shape. Even more strangely, along with his body expanding, the entire ‘Hate Ground no Handle’ Legendary Set had vanished. No, the only thing that vanished was the external appearance; not just the ‘Hate Ground no Handle’ Legendary Set, but even all of Zhou Weiqing’s energy seemed to have vanished, or perhaps kept within. His clothes burst apart. Luckily, his pants were still relatively elastic enough, and a certain portion was still relatively hidden.

Currently, Zhou Weiqing’s entire body was ﬁlled with a layer of deep purple scales, even his wings. His entire body was glowing purple, and on his forehead, a black tattoo of the ‘King’ word appeared, extremely eye-catching. In that instant, the assassin suddenly felt a powerful explosive strength from within Zhou Weiqing’s body, just in the instant that the Nether State ended, forcing his black rapier out.

Abruptly turning around, Zhou Weiqing’s grey and red eyes were ﬁlled with a strange yet terrifying aura. An unbelievably strong energy reverberation exploded out, as if it were about to tear the entire world apart.

In the skies, a strange vision appeared. The entire sky turned half red, half grey. On the red side, along with a loud dragons’ roar, a massive illusory dragon appeared. On the grey side, a giant black illusory tiger with wings also appeared.

“Heaven and Earth Anomaly, Heavenly God Tier?!” For the ﬁrst time, the assassin’s expression actually changed. He could not believe his eyes. This Zhou Weiqing was a mere six-Jeweled Upper level Zun Stage… how… how could he possibly give forth the aura of a Heavenly God Tier? Furthermore, that strange anomaly in the skies were just too weird… impossible!

In his impression, the only person who could cause such an anomaly was the Heavenly Snow Mountain Lord Xue AoTian. When Xue AoTian unleashed his full power, the skies would turn white, and an illusory ﬁgure of a huge white tiger would appear, fully covering the entire skies. However, the current anomaly in the skies might be large, but it covered only a thousand metres in area… and it also had two illusory ﬁgures. Even so, despite the smaller size, it was still an impressive sight indeed.

Instead of retreating, Zhou Weiqing advanced in a ﬂash. Currently, he was not able to unleash any Skills. Perhaps more accurately, he was not even fully conscious.

The wings behind his back had expanded to almost twice their normal size, along with that terrifying scale armour and the right leg that had warped into a massive black hook. Zhou Weiqing looked like a demonic god that had risen from hell.

Both his hands looked different. The right hand was a tiger’s paw, while the left hand was a dragon’s claw. As his body ﬂashed, his movement was so fast that it could even rival a Spatial Blink. In that moment, his speed was even faster than the Agility Type assassin!

Facing absolute death, with that powerful unreconciled feelings in his heart, Zhou Weiqing’s deep inner potential ﬁnal burst forth. The Dragon-Tiger Transformation was the fusion of the Solidiﬁed Dragon Spirit and his Dark Demon God Tiger Bloodline. With such powerful bloodlines, and suffering so much for so long, could it be just so simple? The wings were just brought about from the bloodline power of the Dark Demon God Tiger, while the hidden scales were just a surface addition from the dragon bloodline. Originally, the Dragon- Tiger Transformation already had a powerful boost to Zhou Weiqing, but it was far from truly using the full power of the fusion. The reason was simple – Zhou Weiqing’s cultivation level was just too low, not able to truly harness their power.

However, at this current moment, in the face of death, the hidden bloodline powers and energies in the depths of his body had exploded out. The Dragon-Tiger Transformation entered a second advanced stage.

Dragon-Tiger Transformation Second State: ‘Like Dragon Equivalent Tiger’. The current Zhou Weiqing had all his energy, including his Consolidated Equipment and Stored Skills, fully fused into his Dragon-Tiger bloodline. The profound secret behind the second state was exactly that, to transform all energies into actual physical power. That was to say, no matter his Consolidated Equipment or Stored Skills, all his Heavenly Energy, the original Dragon-Tiger Transformation state, Immortal Deity Technique… all of it were incorporated

together as if thrown together in a cauldron and fused

together, spreading into his body and boosting his physical strength and toughness. In that in instant, his body had reached a new terrifying level.

In such a state, Zhou Weiqing was only left with simple hand to hand combat and brawling. However, his strength in that area was also raised to the maximum, no matter offense or defense.

The assassin was after all an old hand on the battleﬁeld, and though he had never heard or seen of something like this, after a moment of surprise he quickly regained his calmness. As an assassin, no matter what happened, even if facing death, he would not panic.

His body ﬂew back in a burst of speed. His ﬂying speed was just dependant on the normal Heavenly King powerhouse’s ﬂying abilities, but in a short period of time he could explode in an astonishing speed. As he retreated, the black rapier pierced forward, a glint of sword ﬂurry as it pierced towards Zhou Weiqing’s chest once more.

Zhou Weiqing’s left dragon claw lifted, grabbing towards the eight-Jeweled Assembly Set Sword. An earsplitting grinding sound rang out, and to the assassin’s shock, his weapon that had an offense close to that of a Legendary Set was actually grabbed and held onto by Zhou Weiqing’s left claw. Next, a terrifying power that was far beyond a Heavenly King Stage traveled from the rapier, and Zhou Weiqing actually forcefully pulled the assassin back towards him. The assassin gave a cold humph, his entire body tensing as white light burst forth, instantly increasing his Heavenly Dao Energy to the maximum. In terms of physical strength, he was naturally far from Zhou Weiqing, but as his Heavenly Energy exploded to the max, he could temporarily raise his strength to a terrifying level. At the same time, the Darkness Attribute energy in the atmosphere welled over to him and surging into the black rapier. In that short moment, the Assembly Set Sword’s power raised even futher.

This was the power of the Heavenly Dao Energy, able to use the energies of the heavens as his own.

As Zhou Weiqing pulled back, the assassin did not try to go against it, instead in that burst of power, he pierced forward instead. With the burst of terrifying power, the rapier actually broke free of Zhou Weiqing’s left claw, striking straight towards the heart in his left chest.

That assassin’s offensive power was just so terrifying, but in that lightning speed strike, Zhou Weiqing’s body actually managed to twist slightly. However, the following scene actually caused the calm heart of the assassin to no longer maintain his tranquility.

Although Zhou Weiqing managed to twist his body slightly, he was still unable to fully dodge the sword. A horrible scraping sound rang out as the rapier pierced right into his left chest. Although it was to the side and not directly at the heart area, in the assassin’s viewpoint, it was still more than enough to kill Zhou Weiqing. Without that strange physical immunity skill active, he was conﬁdent that once his blade pierced through Zhou Weiqing, its destructive power was more than enough to destroy his innards.

However, would Zhou Weiqing really die to this sword? To the assassin’s shock, his eight Jeweled Assembly Set Sword actually struck on the scales of Zhou Weiqing’s chest, causing many sparks to ﬂy, but he was actually unable to pierce right through, only leaving a deep white scar.

The force of the impact caused Zhou Weiqing’s body to ﬂip back and sent him ﬂying, but that sword that should have slain him instantly had been unable to take his life!

This… how could this be? Even if it were another Heavenly King stage powerhouse, if he managed to pierce that person with his eight-Jeweled Assembly Set Sword, he would deﬁnitely be severely injured! A little six-Jeweled Zun Stage fellow… he had.. He had actually taken the blow just like that with just barely a scar to show for it?!

Despite his sheer shock, the assassin continued attacking, perhaps from instinct alone. In his mind, as long as his enemy did not die, he would not stop, only using an even greater explosive power on his target.

The rapier whistled in the air as it pierced out once more. The Heavenly King stage Agility Physical Jewels burst out in full speed, and his ﬁgure could not even be seen in the skies at the speed he was moving. Another earsplitting explosive sound rang out as Zhou Weiqing barely managed to use his left palm to block the sword, but was still pierced by it. However, this time, he was better able to block and dodge the main blow, and the rapier was only able to pierce his shoulder.

A stronger explosive power, forced into just a pinpoint blow, causing Zhou Weiqing to grunt in a mufﬂed cry. Once again, he was blown backwards in the impact, but as the rapier pierced into his shoulder, it was barely half an inch, barely seeing the scales dent inwards. As the assassin tried to unleash his explosive Heavenly Energy into the wound, he was shocked to ﬁnd that he was unable to even push his Heavenly Energy into Zhou Weiqing’s body. This was a total upheaval about everything he knew. The defensive power of Zhou Weiqing’s scale had reached a whole other level. Even if it still wasn’t able to fully block all of his attacks, but if he wanted to kill Zhou Weiqing, he was actually unable to do so in a short amount of time.

The greatest surprise was that the small white notch which had been caused by the ﬁrst blow was now healing rapidly.

The Heavenly King Stage assassin refused to believe it, and his body ﬂashed forward in another attack. However, just as he did so, he was met with a sudden burst of snow white light. An unbelievably powerful sword intent instantly encased his body, and with a clang, the white ﬁgure that had charged at him was knocked back, blood spurting out from its mouth. However, the terrifying sword intent from that white sword also caused the black clad assassin’s body to halt, as the white ﬁgure fell back down to the ground.

At last, Shangguan Xue’er had arrived. Previously, in that instant, she thought that Zhou Weiqing had been killed, but he had somehow entered the second stage of the Dragon Tiger Transformation and held on past the last few attempts of the Heavenly King Stage assassin. Tian’er also came right on her heels, but both of them did not have the capability of ﬂight. Even more worrying, Zhou Weiqing in midair did not seize the chance of being knocked back to ﬂy down to them, instead charging towards the Heavenly King assassin once more.

*ROOOAAARRR* High up in the sky, the entire air shook and vibrated as an angry howl that shook the world burst forth from Zhou Weiqing’s mouth. Currently, that roar gave the impression that ten thousand tigers were snarling angrily, the terrifying sound waves causing the Heavenly King Stage assassin to actually be stunned in midair for a split second.

The rapier pierced forward yet again, and the Heavenly King assassin’s entire body was encased with a layer of black, his Heavenly Energy circulating throughout his body and pushed outwards, an explosive surge of Heavenly Energy causing the entire black rapier to be ﬁlled with a destructive aura. This time, the target was Zhou Weiqing’s throat.

Both tiger paw and dragon claw crossed in midair. This time, Zhou Weiqing did not attempt to dodge. Instead, with a loud clang, the sword actually pierced onto his throat, causing the scales there to cave in. Zhou Weiqing ignored it totally, instead his hands had already smashed down together, grabbing onto the sword. The rapier with all the power of the Heavenly King assassin gathered in his greatest blow, all of his strength, yet it was still unable to pierce through Zhou Weiqing’s throat. At the same time, his black rapier had been fully locked onto by his dragon claw and tiger paw.

Instantly, the Heavenly King assassin shook his arm, trying to use his power to destroy Zhou Weiqing’s dragon claw and tiger paw.

To his surprise, he was unable to do so. Not only were they unbelievably tough, they were like steel traps, fully locking onto his black rapier. A massive strength traveled through it once more, pulling his entire body along.

Such disgusting strength! That was equal to any Heavenly King Stage powerhouse with the Strength Attribute right?

Just as the Heavenly King STage was lost in shock, from below another terrifying sword intent rose once more. Shangguan Xue’er’s body vanished, and all that remained was that huge Boundless Inﬁnitum Sword.

At its side, a giant white tiger also sprang up. She was unable to ﬂy, but with that leap, she was able to charge towards where Zhou Weiqing and the assassin were. In midair, Tian’er’s purple eyes suddenly glowed as two bouts of purple light shot out. At the same time, a resplendent golden light rushed out from her body, forming a golden tiger of energy, speeding towards the Heavenly King assassin.

In that instant, both Tian’er and Shangguan Xue’er had burst forth with their strongest attacks, as if pitting their entire lives in a single blow. In their hearts, they only had one notion. Little Fatty, you must hold on! If not for the sudden attacks from the two ladies, perhaps the assassin could have continued with his blow, and using all his might he might have ﬁnally pierced through Zhou Weiqing’s throat eventually. After all, even though Zhou Weiqing’s body was at another level from the second stage of the Dragon-Tiger Transformation, he was still after all still a six-Jeweled Heavenly Jewel Master. There was quite a large element of luck for him to even enter this second stage; under normal circumstances he should have only been able to do so after reaching the ninth-Jeweled cultivation level.

No matter how conﬁdent this Heavenly King assassin was in himself, he did not dare to allow the two attacks from Shangguan Xue’er and Tian’er to land on his body. His greatest strength was his offense, not his defense. Left with no choice, he had to draw back his eight-Jeweled Assembly Set Sword, and the black rapier vanished from between Zhou Weiqing’s claws. At the same time, his body spun around in midair, and the rapier appeared once more in his hands, and in a swing, a black arc of light struck out.

This was truly a display of power for a Heavenly King powerhouse. If it had been Lin TianAo, with a similar Assembly Set Equipment, once he dismissed his Assembly Set Shield, within a short period of time he would not be able to summon it out and reassembly it so quickly. However, for this assassin, it looked as if it disappeared, and in the next instant reappearing, as if it had been an illusion.

The black arc of light was so wide that it could reach all three of the youths.

Shangguan Xue’er’s terrifying Body and Sword as One ﬁrst struck the black light, causing a massive explosion as she was thrown back down on the ground. Next, Tian’er’s gold light struck, and the gold tiger was also shattered by the black light.

If it were any ordinary Heavenly King stage powerhouse, Shangguan Xue’er and Tian’er’s attacks would deﬁnitely not be dissipated so easily. However, this Heavenly King assassin was truly a master at the peak of his powers, fully focused only on offense, offense and offense. His offense was truly at the level that he could destroy his enemies’ attacks as well. A powerhouse who actually used all his eight Jewels in an offensive Assembly Set, that offensive power was just too disgusting. In terms of pure offensive power alone, it far surpassed the Boundless Inﬁnitum Sword… and both girls’ attacks were dissipated just like that.

Even so, the assassin was not able to fully withstand their attacks. After all, he had been forced to disassemble and reassemble his sword so swiftly, and that instant of time had barely been enough. As such, the Spirit Attribute attack that Tian’er had shot out from her eyes still landed upon him, causing him to freeze in midair for a split second, slowing his movement.

Right at that instant, Zhou Weiqing’s attack reached. This time, it was his right leg, the enormous black scorpion tail that it had warped into.

Still, the Heavenly King assassin was just too power. Even under that massive onslaught and disadvantageous position, he was still barely able to move his sword in the last second, somehow able to use the last dredges of the black arc of light to block his right leg. *Puuuu* Blood sprayed out from the assassin’s mouth. He had never imagined that the abrupt attack from Zhou Weiqing’s right leg could even reach such a level. At least six of his ribs were broken, and a strange cold energy invaded his body, warping into three icy cold auras that started to spread throughout his body.

Not good!

The Heavenly King assassin had rampaged throughout the entire continent for so many years, and he had faced countless dangers and slain countless opponents. In the shortest time, he made the most accurate choice. Sensing the invasion of the cold evil power, he instantly judged that the sheer toxicity of the poison was not something he could handle. Once it truly spread through his body, he would be in serious trouble with endless disastrous possibilities.

As such, he made an instant snap decision that not many else could. In an instant the black rapier spun around, striking deep into his own chest. A pierce, and a ﬂick, meat and blood sprayed out as he forcefully dug out. The blood sprayed in midair, forming a strange blue, black and grey colours, before dissipating in the air.

With such a powerful will to live, the Heavenly King assassin had unbelievably managed to counter the tri-element venom of the scorpion tail hook of Zhou Weiqing’s evolution.

It could not be said to be luck, instead a more accurate description would be power, guts and vision. With his sword blocking, he was able to avoid the majority of the blow from the scorpion’s tail, and in the shortest possible time he had sealed his meridians, and ﬁnally he used his own sword to cut himself and force out all the venom. Only with all of that was he able to survive that onslaught. However, that also had a heavy price, as this assassin had ﬁnally suffered a serious injury, greatly sapping his vitality. To be fair, he had not lost to Zhou Weiqing, but he had lost to the sudden arrival of the two girls and more importantly, his lack of understanding of this new state of the Dragon-Tiger Transformation.

After entering the second state of the Dragon-Tiger Transformation, Zhou Weiqing was only able to ﬁght in close combat. However, in such a state, his melee capabilities had already risen to an unbelievably terrifying height, especially his defense. Even that Heavenly King assassin was not able to break through such a defense with ease, and that had been the most important adjustment that caused the series of snowballing changes leading to a different ﬁnal result.

Without any hesitation at all, a thick black tail of ﬂames spurted out from the Heavenly King assassin’s back. In an instant, he warped into a stream of light, disappearing into the distance within moments.

An icy cold voice rang out in the air. “I’ll be back.”

Tian’er and Shangguan Xue’er both landed on the ground at the same time, both their eyes showing their shock. This was especially for Shangguan Xue’er; with her pride, her heart was currently ﬁlled with fear. It had just been too dangerous. It had truly been a ﬁne line then, and Zhou Weiqing had almost lost his life so many times. Although the assassin was only at the Heavenly King Stage, his assassination skills and offense… especially even when trying to kill someone so much lower level than himself like Zhou Weiqing, he still chose to ambush and launch a sneak attack, in the best possible time. It could be said that it was a lot of luck that Zhou Weiqing had survived.

In the air, Zhou Weiqing did not attempt to chase. Instead, he levitated there, wings spread out, as if a Demon King who had achieved victory. By now, the battle on the ground had long ended. Currently, the two hundred Heavy Cavalry soldiers were below Zhou Weiqing, staring up at him with shock and awe in their eyes.

No matter the Berserker or Gold Crow Tribe soldiers, they were extremely proud and conﬁdent in their own combat abilities. However, that ﬁght in the sky was truly something they had never witnessed before. Only at this time did they realise how terrifying a true powerhouse really was. Especially for the Heaven and Earth Anomaly that Zhou Weiqing had somehow activated, it had truly left a lasting impression in their hearts. What kind of horrifying strength was required to do such a thing! As for that assassin who had attacked Zhou Weiqing, they might not know what cultivation level he was, but for a Heavenly Jewel Master to be able to ﬂy with just his own body and without any Consolidated Equipment, that already proved a serious problem. Yet, even under such a situation, Zhou Weiqing had still succeeded in forcing his enemy to retreat. It was clear that when the assassin had ﬂed, he had been severely injured.

All of a sudden, a massive shout rang out, reverberating through the skies. “PEERLESS THROUGH THE WORLD!” The two hundred Heavy Cavalry Soldiers had howled out with all their might without any prompting, draining off all the feelings in their hearts as they did so. With such a powerful Commander leading them, they were ﬁlled with even greater conﬁdence.

In midair, Zhou Weiqing’s wings slowly folded as he descended, landing on the ground. The tall, muscled body and brilliant scales, causing some of the Gold Crow Tribe female warriors to look at him with a glint in their eyes.

Tian’er and Shangguan Xue’er rushed to Zhou Weiqing. They were far more familiar towards the powers and limits of Heavenly Jewel Masters, as compared to the Peerless Heavy Cavalry soldiers. Zhou Weiqing had indeed survived, but the sheer power he had burst out with, no matter in terms of defense and offense, that was already enough to rival that of a Heavenly King Stage powerhouse. That was deﬁnitely not normal, and for him to gain such strength in a short period of time, they knew it was not possible to not pay a heavy price.

Zhou Weiqing looked at both girls with his strange eyes, one grey one red. As his spoke, his voice was clearly lower and hoarser than usual. “I’ll head back ﬁrst. Ma Qun, Crow, retreat back to the city as well.”

After saying that, the wings behind his back ﬂapped hard, and his entire body warped into a purple light as he disappeared as well. None of the others had even seen how he had entered the city, that speed was no lower than the Heavenly King assassin just now.

“Not good, let’s go back as well.” Shangguan Xue’er said softly to Tian’er. Both girls did not hesitate, quickly ﬂying back towards the Crescent City as well. Currently, they no longer fought amongst themselves like normal, seemingly highly in sync.

As the Peerless Heavy Cavalry headed back for the Crescent City victoriously, the three hundred citizens on the city walls had already been stunned by the series of events.

They had witnessed the sheer power of the Peerless Heavy Cavalry with their own eyes. To them, these soldiers did not even seem human, as if they were divine soldiers descended from the heavens. Those Kalise Empire soldiers were scary enough to these commoners, and their numbers had surpassed the Peerless Cavalry many times over. Yet, in front of them, they had just seemed so weak and fragile. With such an army protecting the Crescent City, what was there to worry about?

What followed next with the ﬁght in the air was even more shocking to them. Although Zhou Weiqing’s ﬁght with the Heavenly King assassin had happened at lightning speed, ﬁnishing in a short period of time, but in just that short process, the shock that it brought about was perhaps even stronger than that of the Peerless Heavy Cavalry. The changes in Zhou Weiqing’s body, the Heaven and Earth Anomaly, to ordinary people like them, it was like a miracle from the gods.

Furthermore, they were at such a distance. From their perspective and knowledge, they could not tell that Zhou Weiqing had been at the disadvantage all the time. After all, at the speeds both had been ﬁghting at, they could not see any details. All they knew was that ﬁnally Zhou Weiqing had sent the assassin ﬂying with a single kick, and the enemy had ﬂed.

Currently, besides the shock on the three hundred citizens’ faces, there was no longer the fear which had been there previously. That had been replaced with excitement and joy. Le Zi laughed heartily, shouting out to them: “All of you have seen for yourselves. That is our Peerless Regiment Commander! That is the strength of our Commander, and our Peerless Regiment! I am not afraid to tell you all, all of us here are just merely the vanguard party. You all should know how many people a Regiment has, and they are all elite soldiers almost as strong as us. With us here, the Crescent City will be paradise on earth. No longer will you have to fear our enemies! Alright, that is all for today, you all are free to leave now. Remember to let your friends and families know about our Peerless Regiment and our strength. Our Commander has invited you here to witness our battles, so that you can dispel the fears and worries in your hearts. Now, you can see for yourselves, there is nothing to worry about right?”

It could be said that Zhou Weiqing’s plan and goal had been completed to perfection, far beyond all his expectations. When these three hundred citizens returned to their homes, the word would spread and the sheer increase in public opinion could be foreseen. However, while that part was successfully, Zhou Weiqing was currently in huge danger.

…

As he dashed into his room, Zhou Weiqing abruptly crashed down on the ground. His entire body was shuddering violently, the red and black of his eyes appearing and disappearing in an unstable fashion, while each and every scale on his skin was trembling with a disruptive energy along with his movement.

He felt an intense pain in his body, as if his entire innards were being shredded apart, far beyond even the previous time where he had been immersed in lava! Every single cell of his body screamed in agony, as if bits of him were being disintegrated inside. Previously, when he had entered the second stage of the Dragon-Tiger Transformation, he had felt his entire body heating up to a blazing intensity, as if he was ﬁlled with inﬁnite strength. However, such a state only lasted for only ten seconds. That was to say, for the rest of the ﬁght, especially that last kick that sent the Heavenly King assassin ﬂying, he had already been in the midst of enduring such pain.

As the heat dissipated, came the horrifying pain. However, with the endurance and willpower that Zhou Weiqing had trained from his years of cultivating the Immortal Deity Technique, and the time he had spent in the lava, only then had he managed to barely hold on, forcing himself to not give himself away as he ﬂew back to the city as quickly as he could.

He could not allow anyone else to see the current state he was in. Firstly, it was in case the Heavenly King assassin was hidden somewhere nearby, who knows if that fellow had really left. He did not want the assassin to be able to seize the opportunity to kill him. Secondly, he had spent so much effort in impressing all those citizens, a state that he could not allow to fail at the last moment. At last, he managed to hold on until he reached his room before he could no longer withstand it any longer, collapsing onto the ground as waves of pain rolled within him. The power of the Dragon and Tiger rampaged crazily inside his body. Originally, the dual energy had been balanced when he had achieved the Dragon-Tiger Transformation, but now they had gone berserk. If not for the layer of scales outside, perhaps the terrifying energy would have burst out of his body, destroying him totally. Pain… Pain!! It was not just his body,

even his soul felt like it was being ripped apart. From below the

scales, blood started to seep out all over his body, and the surface of the scales also began to change colour, growing dimmer… as if they were slowly in the process of disappearing. At this point, one could vaguely see that on Zhou Weiqing’s actual skin, there were shockingly cracks all over. His entire person looked like he was drenched in blood, and as the dragon tiger energy within his body raged all about… once the outer layer of scales disappeared, he could possibly implode and die.

Having his inner potential burst forth like that before its time in a forced entry to the second state of the Dragon-Tiger Transformation might have seemed like a good thing, and it had certainly saved his life. However, that also meant that Zhou Weiqing’s body had to endure levels of energy that it could not handle… how could he not pay the price now? He had chased away his enemy, but now the problems he was facing could just lead to his death. At this moment, any Skill was useless… not any amount of healing. After all, the source of this was internal, from within to without, a far more chilling destructive capability. The intense pain had caused Zhou Weiqing to even lose his capability of thought, he could only lie down on the ground, trembling as the energy rocked his body, without the strength to even thrash around.

Chapter 198 Breakdown! Rescue! Devour!

Zhou Weiqing did not know that this state he was in was known as ‘Breakdown’. That was to say, his entire body was in the midst of breaking down and collapsing from within.

When he had triggered the energy that his body could not withstand, he had gained a temporary boost to his combat abilities, saving his life in front of the Heavenly King assassin. At the same time, the backlash was not something his body could withstand.

The Dragon-Tiger Transformation could be said to be a power that had come about through the mutation of his bloodline. Such a mutation was extremely rare, or perhaps even totally non existent in the entire Boundless Mainland. After all, the Dark Demon God Tiger bloodline was not from this world, and added to it the rare phenomenon of the Solidiﬁed Dragon Spirit… the fusion between the two had caused such a unique mutation that only Zhou Weiqing had.

When he had ﬁrst achieved the Dragon-Tiger Transformation, Zhou Weiqing had actually only managed to tap into a small portion of the power of the bloodline, but it was in perfect balance. At the same time, as Zhou Weiqing continued growing, the bloodline power would continue being unlocked and triggered. According to normal growth, if Zhou Weiqing cultivated to the nine-Jeweled stage, the second stage of the Dragon-Tiger Transformation should naturally come to him, giving him a huge boost to his combat abilities, also mimicking the innate ﬁghting style of dragons or tigers. That

formidable might alone would have been astonishing indeed.

However, he was after all currently only at the sixth Jeweled stage. No matter his body, its strength and toughness, as well as his Heavenly Energy, his Legendary Sets, all of it could not meet the requirements for the perfect fusion of the second stage of the Dragon Tiger Transformation.

The bloodline power had been invoked by him, but he was only able to maintain that state for a very short period of time. What followed next would be the power attempting to settle back down, and this process would need his entire body to be strong enough to re-forge itself and fuse with the new bloodline power. This was a process just like when he originally ﬁrst Awakened his Demonic Change State.

However, it was clear that Zhou Weiqing did not have the power, toughness and stability to settle the abruptly awakened bloodline, resulting in the clash of energies in his body now, as it raged through his body in an attempt to ﬁnd a place. Once his body was unable to withstand it, then the energy would burst through and he would be utterly disintegrated. Even the Resurrect Skill of the Divine Attribute would not be able to bring him back, as Breakdown meant he would instantly be disintegrated into nothing.

Currently, the sheer amount of power was no longer something he could control. It was not just a simple matter of willpower that could allow him to tide through.

Perhaps if the Six Ultimate Heavenly Emperor Long Shiya was here, he might have a slight possibility of using his Heavenly Emperor energy to suppress the bloodline power, forcing it to settle down… but Long Shiya wasn’t here!

*PENG* The door slammed open and two graceful ﬁgures entered. At this moment, both Shangguan Xue’er and Tian’er were extremely worried, and they had rushed here urgently at top speed.

As soon as they entered, the two girls immediately saw Zhou Weiqing’s current condition. His body had not shrunk back to his original state, still stuck in the second stage of the Dragon- Tiger Transformation, stout as can be. However, by now, the scales on his body were already indistinct, a very thin layer that seemed to disappear and reappear like an illusion. It was clear that it was about to vanish, and they could clearly see the horrible cracks and tears on Zhou Weiqing’s skin.

Both girls were heirs of the two most powerful Great Saint Lands, and at this moment, neither of them panicked, instantly making their judgement of the current situation.

Tian’er was the ﬁrst to spring into motion. In a ﬂash, she appeared beside Zhou Weiqing, her hands outstretched and Divine Attribute Heavenly Energy bursting out of them, warping into a thick gold light which enveloped Zhou Weiqing’s body. With all her might, she focused on the healing and boosting effects of the Divine Attribute.

The Divine Attribute was truly one of the four Saint Attributes, and the healing effect was one of the top in the world. The horrifying cracks on the surface of Zhou Weiqing’s skin, all the way down to the tears in his meridians, started to heal. The involuntary shuddering of his body also calmed slightly.

For Zhou Weiqing, lost in the violently intense pain, he suddenly felt a soft warmth encompass him, lowering his pain slightly. Shangguan Xue’er stood by Zhou Weiqing’s side, looking urgently at Tian’er. She did not have any healing capabilities, and she was unable to help besides watching Tian’er save Zhou Weiqing.

“What is his current status?” She asked urgently with worry.

Tian’er’s brow was currently furrowed. As her Divine Attribute energy entered Zhou Weiqing’s body, she instantly sensed his current condition.

In this world, in terms of knowledge of Zhou Weiqing’s body, no one could surpass Tian’er. She had the most intimate relations with him so many times, and they often cultivated together with the four Saint Attributes. As such, no matter his meridians, his bloodline energy, how he circulated his Heavenly Energy, down to all parts of his body, Tian’er was extremely clear of everything. As such, she directly discovered the tremendous danger he was currently in.

“It’s his bloodline energy exploding forth and acting up. I believe his current state is due to that excessive bloodline energy, initiated when he was facing death… but the problem now is that his body is unable to withstand such a level of energy, resulting in a severe backlash. He is in danger of Breakdown at anytime.” Tian’er said urgently. Her Divine Attribute could only help Zhou Weiqing suppress the energy for a short period of time, but it would never be able to help him settle it down. After all, it was still an external source of energy, and while the healing might help, it was no long term suggestion. Once Tian’er’s energy ran out, then the

suppressed bloodline energy would burst out once more.

“What do we do then?” Shangguan Xue’er asked worriedly. Tian’er bit her lip, hesitating for a moment before saying:

“Help me, circulate your Heavenly Energy into my body to support me. I will have to try using my two Saint Attributes to invoke his two Saint Attributes. There is nothing we can do directly… Perhaps now the only chance is for the four Saint Attributes to fuse together, and hopefully that will help the raging bloodline energy calm down and settle.”

In a ﬂash, Shangguan Xue’er appeared behind Tian’er’s back. Placing her palms on Tian’er’s back, she took a deep breath and said: “Be careful. We must deﬁnitely succeed now!”

Tian’er nodded and said: “We will.”

Shangguan Xue’er began to slowly infuse her Heavenly Energy into Tian’er’s body. Without any instructions, she automatically knew what to do. She puriﬁed her own Heavenly Energy, ensuring there was no Attributes within, only the purest form of Heavenly Energy. This would enable Tian’er to better use it for her own purposes.

With Shangguan Xue’er’s help, Tian’er’s spirit perked up, and the circulating of her Divine Attribute Heavenly Energy also increased.

The Heavenly Energy cultivated with the Boundless Inﬁnitum Technique had one unique point, that was a vast amount, boundless and long lasting. With such a strong support of sustainable Heavenly Energy, Tian’er clearly heaved a sigh of relief.

A faint purple light rose slowly from Tian’er’s eyes, and a thick spirit energy ﬂuctuation appeared. Tian’er took a deep breath. Abruptly, the purple light shot out from her eyes, but not directly onto Zhou Weiqing’s body. Instead, it spread out, forming a faint purple shield of light enveloping Zhou Weiqing, starting to merge with the Divine Attribute energy that she was infusing into his body.

No matter Tian’er or Shangguan Xue’er, they were now extremely nervous. To be honest, Tian’er did not know whether this last ditch method could work. After all, in all the time that she had cultivated together with Zhou Weiqing, though they had done so with the fusion of the four Saint Attributes, they had never succeed in actually using the fused Saint Attributes or understanding the underlying profound secrets. The reason they did so was because with such cultivation, it was much faster than if they did so individually.

Currently, Tian’er was facing two problems. Firstly, she did not know how or if using her two Saint Attributes would actually invoke Zhou Weiqing’s two Saint Attributes as well. Secondly, even if it worked, she did not know if it would actually be of help in suppressing and settling his bloodline energy.

If any one of those problems ‘failed’, then she would have no way of saving Zhou Weiqing.

The Divine and Spirit Attributes surrounded and enveloped Zhou Weiqing’s body, but his body actually seemed to tremble even more violently. Just as Tian’er was surprised by that, a grey coloured light rose up, along with a faint energy reverberation that seemed to warp the world around.

The four Saint Attributes were indeed able to attract each other, and she had successfully invoked Zhou Weiqing’s two Saint Attributes as well. The four Saint Attributes fused together, forming the usual whirlwind shape it took, spinning right above Zhou Weiqing’s body. At the same time, the violent shuddering of his body slowed down, his ragged breathing having a better turn.

Miraculously, as the four fused Saint Attributes swirled in the whirlpool, the raging bloodline energy in Zhou Weiqing’s body actually seemed to calm down slightly, at least not smashing around violently. Under Tian’er’s control, the fused energies slowly entered Zhou Weiqing’s body, slowly entering his over twenty energy whirlpools of his Death Acupuncture Points, as they too whirled along.

Both Zhou Weiqing and Tian’er did not know that when the four Saint Attributes gathered and fused together, the unique product from it was only one – Nature’s Fortune Stealing Heaven and Earth.

The Nature’s Fortune Stealing Heaven and Earth was actually the key to breaking through the human limits that everyone faced, that was the Heavenly God Tier stage. Of course, the great improvement in cultivation speed that Zhou Weiqing and Tian’er enjoyed was just one of the beneﬁts that the Nature’s Fortune Stealing Heaven and Earth granted. Currently, it was this Nature’s Fortune Stealing Heaven and Earth that was above all other forms of energy. The four Saint Attribute’s fusion energy forcefully suppressed the ebullient bloodline power.

Tian’er’s desperate choice had been accurate. With Zhou Weiqing’s current situation, even if Long Shiya had been here, using his powerful Heavenly Energy to suppress his bloodline powers, even if he managed to save Zhou Weiqing, there would deﬁnitely be terrible side effects. Only the fusion of the four Saint Attributes, entering the Nature’s Fortune Stealing Heaven and Earth state… the critical key was the ‘Nature’s Fortune’ words. Facing the fusion energies that was above all, even the great mutated bloodline of the Dragon and Tigers had no choice but to submit.

It could be said that Zhou Weiqing’s Dragon-Tiger Transformation was the strongest bloodline in the entire world today, but the four Saint Attributes’ fusion energies was the strongest attribute power in the world. The actual strength of both was difﬁcult to actually compare, but the two energies were not actually clashing. Instead, the fusion Saint Attribute energies were guarding, protecting, restoring and repairing. Along with the fact that not all of the bloodline powers had been invoked out, and by chance it had deﬁnitely been a case of ‘applying the right medicine to the problem’. Zhou Weiqing’s body was steadily taking a turn for the better. Time passed, seconds, then minutes. Outside the door, Lin TianAo, Duan Tianlang and the others were gathered. Previously, Lin TianAo had also quickly realised that something was wrong with Zhou Weiqing, just that his speed was much slower. When he rushed back, he had quickly went to look for the person with the highest cultivation level in the entire Crescent City, Duan Tianlang, inviting the God Tier Consolidating Equipment Master to help.

Although Duan Tianlang had never seen the four Saint Attributes fusion before, his experience was far stronger than any of the others. Instantly, he realised that Zhou Weiqing was currently slowly easing past the crisis under the help of the four fused Saint Attributes. As such, he had held Lin TianAo back, and both of them waited outside the door. As soon as Shangguan Xue’er’s Heavenly Energy was not sufﬁcient to support Tian’er, he would immediately move forward to replace her to aid Tian’er.

Gradually, Zhou Weiqing’s body turned back to his original look, the scales vanishing, his legs and hands resuming their human form. The horriﬁc cracks and tears on his skin also started healing with the help of the Divine energy, though his skin still looked pale and pallid. Luckily, his breathing was still relatively even.

“I’m alright now, Tian’er. Thanks…” Taking a deep breath, Zhou Weiqing slowly stood up. The raging bloodline energy within his body had ﬁnally calmed down. He was out of danger, but his vitality was greatly sapped, his face looking terribly pale.

Tian’er and Shangguan Xue’er slowly reduced their Heavenly Energy infusion before fully withdrawing. Seeing Zhou Weiqing’s ashen face, Tian’er leaped into his arms, crying out: “Little Fatty, you scared me to death!”

Zhou Weiqing quickly embraced Tian’er tightly, a bitter look on his face. “I wonder who had such power wealth and resolution to do this, to actually hire a Heavenly King assassin to take care of me. I was truly lucky this time, if not this time I would have been killed for sure!”

Shangguan Xue’er stood at the side, looking at Tian’er in Zhou Weiqing’s embrace. A hint of envy ﬂashed in cold her eyes momentarily; as she saw that Zhou Weiqing was all right, she also relaxed. Previously, when she saw that Zhou Weiqing was so close to death, the urgency and worry in her heart was no lesser than Tian’er’s. Tian’er’s tears soaked Zhou Weiqing’s shoulder, but at the side, Shangguan Xue’er said coldly: “Hey, shouldn’t you at least wear some clothes ﬁrst?”

Tian’er lifted her head to look at Zhou Weiqing. Earlier, due to her worry and nervousness, she had not even realised that due to the Dragon-Tiger Transformation, besides a few critical areas still covered by the remaining shreds his pants, most of Zhou Weiqing’s body was revealed. With a faint blush on her face, her tears ﬁnally stopped.

Embarrassed, Zhou Weiqing took out a large overcoat from his Spatial Ring and draped it on himself. At that point, Tian’er said viciously: “I wonder who is that bastard who hired that guy… this Heavenly King assassin looks to be extremely professional. In the world of assassins now, I would guess he is at least the top three… if not the top. A Heavenly King stage assassin, it is truly too terrifying. If I ﬁnd out who that employer is…” A powerful killing intent shot out from Tian’er’s beautiful eyes. She had never been a gentle or peaceful person, and now that someone was targeting her man, how could she not be enraged?

In deep thought, Zhou Weiqing pondered out loud: “It is hard to say for sure. However, I am at least quite certain that it isn’t the Kalise Empire or the Bai Da Empire. They should not have such information at hand. We have only just arrived here, and the assassin already reached. He clearly has access to information about me, and at least has a clear understanding of my movements, besides wanting to ensuring my death.”

Shangguan Xue’er said: “Whoever you threaten, that would be the greatest possibility in wanting to kill you.”

Hearing her words, Tian’er’s brow furrowed in slight anger: “What do you mean?”

Shangguan Xue’er ignored her anger, not afraid of her at all. “When Weiqing set up his Peerless Regiment, it was the greatest threat to your WanShou Empire. For someone to be able to hire a Heavenly King assassin, one must at least have the requisite connections and status… who else could it be?”

“Don’t make such dirty unfounded accusations. Weiqing is my husband, how could our Heavenly Snow Mountain take action against him? Father has already agreed to our wedding, and he also knows about our four Saint Attributes fusion. Hmph, if he wanted to kill Weiqing, he could have done so personally when we were on the Heavenly Snow Mountain.” Shangguan Xue’er glanced at her before saying: “Use your brains please? Did I say the Heavenly Snow Mountain?”

Tian’er started, before saying slowly: “You mean… the Royal Family?”

A pondering look on his face, Zhou Weiqing said: “Indeed… to be able to know my current location with such accuracy, and to actually take action against me… I can only think of two possibilities. One is the WanShou Empire… Since I stole you away, even if the Lion Price Gu Yingbing is not willing to take action, the Lion King Gu Site hates me to the core. A possibility is that he sent this assassin instead of his own powerful tribe members is because he fears your Heavenly Snow Mountain, especially your father. The other possibility is… the Fei Li Empire. Our diplomatic party could have also caused them to feel threatened… However, I personally think that the Lion King is the greater suspect.”

Tian’er took a deep breath, gritting her teeth with anger as she said: “I’ll write to Father!”

Zhou Weiqing shook his head and said: “There is no use, we do not have any concrete evidence. There is no point in telling him about mere guesses. Currently, the most important thing we have to deal with is that assassin. Furthermore, if I can’t even handle such matters, how can I say that I will protect you, to be your husband? Let me handle this matter.”

Tian’er said urgently: “But… that fellow is a Heavenly King stage powerhouse, and not any ordinary one. Furthermore, that weapon of his is truly strange, my guess is it is an Assembly Set weapon, otherwise it is impossible for him to have such a powerful offense.”

Zhou Weiqing sighed and said: “Originally, when I brought you down from the Heavenly Snow Mountain, I had such conﬁdence in myself. At least, I had imagined that my current abilities weren’t too bad, that I could be considered strong. However, today’s lesson, while painful, has allowed me to understand that… no matter what, six Jewels are still six Jewels. Although my instantaneous explosive power and other boosts can grant me power far beyond my cultivation level, but if I face a true powerhouse, then it all amounts to nothing. The most important thing now is for me to raise my Heavenly Energy cultivation level!”

Tian’er comforted him gently: “Little Fatty, don’t be so hard on yourself. You are demanding too much from yourself. After all, you are not even twenty years old yet! In the entire mainland, to be able to reach such a cultivation level at your age, that number can be counted on one hand. Don’t think too much…”

Zhou Weiqing shook his head and said: “It’s not that I want to think too much! I have never been an ambitious person, and if I were alone, I would not care about all that. However, now I have to command the Peerless Regiment to revive my Empire. In the future, the enemies that I will have to face will only be stronger and stronger.”

“From the news that the Fei Li Empire had sent, the Dan Dun Empire attacked the Geritimo Empire, and if that doesn’t have the Bai Du Empire’s shadow behind, that would be too strange. In the future, I will deﬁnitely clash with the Bai Da Empire, and maybe even the Dan Dun Empire. In that case, I would be facing powerhouses from the Blood Red Hell… that is the power of a Great Saint Lands. The only one I can depend on is myself… as long as my own power is sufﬁciently strong, only then can I face all these enemies. It looks like I should not be too urgent in attacking, we will focus on stabilizing the Crescent City for now. The ﬁrst priority for me is to quickly raise my cultivation level and power.”

Shangguan Xue’er nodded and said: “Your thinking is correct. However, if it is just yourself alone, it will deﬁnitely not be enough. Let me write back to the Heaven’s Expanse Palace for them to send some manpower…”

Without hesitation, Zhou Weiqing waved his hand in rejection. “No, in reviving my Empire, I can only depend on myself, not on others. If I just depend on your Heaven’s Expanse Palace, or even Tian’er’s Heavenly Snow Mountain’s power. Then, in the future, could my Heavenly Bow Empire still remain autonomous? You do not need to rush to deny it, no matter what, especially in terms of strategic positioning, if either of the two Great Saint Lands move out to aid us, they will deﬁnitely have some terms. Even if I were the leader in their position, I would do the same. In this world, there is no such thing as a free lunch.”

Tian’er pursed her beautiful lips as she said hufﬁly: “Little Fatty, don’t put everything in such realistic terms, what about me, how do I count?”

Zhou Weiqing laughed heartily and said: “Both of you are not the same of course, you are my women, we are a family.”

Tian’er gave a satisﬁed smile, a look of bliss on her face. On the other hand, Shangguan Xue’er turned red and muttered: “Who’s your woman…” Zhou Weiqing blinked at her innocently and said: “You lost to me to become my wife right! Have you forgotten? At that time, I said that you didn’t have to follow that oath, but you weren’t willing to do so. So, aren’t we a family? Not just you, Bing’er, Fei’er, we are all a family. In fact, since we are all here

now, I have some words to speak to you both.”

As he spoke up to that point, Zhou Weiqing’s expression turned serious and stern. “As the saying goes, before one can start on an external expedition, the internal must be settled ﬁrst. If both of you keep ﬁghting between the two of you, it is truly not easy for me to pass the days. I love both of you, and perhaps Xue’er might have came later, and we may not have gone through as much together as Tian’er. However, you already have a position in my heart. So, I ask you both now seriously, can you try to accept each other?”

“In others’ eyes, having such two great beauties like you beside me, I should be enjoying a great life. However, I have to tell you both now, in the past few days, enjoying is the last thing I have experienced. All I have felt is suffering, and more suffering.”

“Behind every successful man, there are women who have supported him. I truly hope that you all can get along well. In this way, no matter what I am doing, when I think of you all I can be ﬁlled with happiness, be ﬁlled with motivation. If this continues, when Bing’er and Fei’er returns, it will become worse. I won’t be able to pass my days any longer. If that really happens, once I revive my homeland, I will run away forever and not allow you all to ﬁnd me again.”

“No!” Both Shangguan Xue’er and Tian’er exclaimed simultaneously. Both girls exchanged looks, a strange expression on their faces. However, Zhou Weiqing’s threat seemed to have taken effect, and they did not snipe at each other like they would have, only glaring at Zhou Weiqing.

“If you all are willing to be with me, then please try to accept each other. I thank you both.” Zhou Weiqing said with a bitter smile.

Tian’er looked at his pitiful look, thinking about how he said he had been suffering all these days, her eyes turned slightly red as she muttered: “I’ll… I’ll try my best.”

Zhou Weiqing turned his gaze upon Shangguan Xue’er and said: “What about you?”

Shangguan Xue’er glared at him exasperatedly, but in the end she gave a soft ‘En’ of assent. Zhou Weiqing smiled happily. Standing up slowly and shakily, he grabbed onto each other their hands respectively. “That is great. We will soon be facing stronger enemies, and if we can unite and work together, I believe that we can face all difﬁculties head on.”

As he said that, he pulled both girls into his embrace overbearingly. Tian’er submitted happily, but Shangguan Xue’er struggled slightly, unaccustomed to it at all. However, almost instantly, Zhou Weiqing staggered to the side, swaying unsteadily as a line of fresh blood trickled down the side of his mouth. Instantly, Shangguan Xue’er dared not move, allowing him to hold her slim waist.

As she truly leaned into Zhou Weiqing’s embrace, feeling his rather feeble body against her now, she suddenly felt a sense of peace in her heart, an indescribable feeling growing.

…

Zhou Weiqing rested for three whole days before he barely recovered his vitality. This was also because of his strong physique and the miraculous recovery rate of the Immortal Deity Technique.

When the Peerless Heavy Cavalry had retreated victoriously, it had barely taken two hours before the Sixth Regiment of the Kalise Empire to retreat, almost ﬂeeing away. Although Zhou Weiqing had almost died to the Heavenly King assassin, the arrow that he had launched prior to that had indeed slain the Sixth Regiment Commander. As the battle ended, the entire process of the ﬁght had also started to spread from the three hundred citizens. Within the day, the entire city knew all about the ﬁght.

In general, populace and general opinions could be liked to water. Water could bear a boat and keep it aﬂoat, but it is also the same water that could overturn and swallow it. Zhou Weiqing’s speech, his waiver of tax for a year, added to the great spectacle of the Peerless Heavy Cavalry’s power, all of that added together to allow the Crescent City to restore itself to its original state in a short period of time. The city gates opened, trade resumed and the panic in the city soon dissipated. Towards the return of the Heavenly Bow Empire, the grand majority of the populace were deﬁnitely extremely happy.

The dealings of the city ofﬁcials had also ended. Along with all the citizens’ votes, some of the original ofﬁcials had been killed, some promoted, and the administration of the city was now in good order.

However, in a contrast to the smooth sailing of the Crescent City administration, Zhou Weiqing’s personal condition was not as favourable. During the few days when he was resting and healing up, the upper echelons of the Peerless Regiment were all extremely nervous. A professional Heavenly King assassin who could appear at any time, that was deﬁnitely sufﬁcient cause for anyone to be afraid. Tian’er and Shangguan Xue’er remained in Zhou Weiqing’s cultivating, while Duan Tianlang personally moved to the room next door just in case. At the same time, Lin TianAo and the others also moved closer, and the atmosphere around was rather nervous.

Even after Zhou Weiqing’s injuries had fully healed, the aura of nervousness did not disappear. The greatest problem was that Heavenly King assassin’s terrifying offensive power. Under normal circumstances, if any of his attacks landed on any single member of the Peerless Regiment, it would deﬁnitely be a lethal blow.

That second stage of the Dragon-Tiger Transformation, Zhou Weiqing was not able to enter it at all. Previously, that time was truly godsent luck, and if he had to go through such an attack again, he was not sure that he would be enter such a state again. Of course, the previous time was also when he had been fully focused on attacking an enemy, before being ambushed. If he were to be prepared and on guard, with his extraordinary senses, he should at least sense something amiss. Furthermore, Zhou Weiqing also knew that the assassin had been severely injured that day, and it would take him some time to fully recover. “Weiqing, it will not do to keep going on like this.” Shangguan Xue’er said as she looked at Zhou Weiqing with her brow furrowed deeply.

Tian’er nodded ﬁrmly in agreement, saying: “I also think that we cannot continue on like this.” That day, after that talk with Zhou Weiqing, the relationship between the two girls had indeed eased up. At least, they no longer argued all the time. Of course, due to worry for Zhou Weiqing’s safety, the three of them had been staying together, and Tian’er had not been able to be intimate with Zhou Weiqing for days, and she was not too happy in her heart, and she naturally agreed with Shangguan Xue’er’s words.

Shangguan Xue’er glanced at Tian’er before saying: “We can’t possibly keep maintaining such a high level of alert forever. We do not know when that enemy will appear once more. For a Heavenly King stage powerhouse trained in the assassination arts, he is clearly well versed in keeping hidden. It is just too difﬁcult for us to deal with him.”

Zhou Weiqing nodded and said: “Indeed. That assassin’s offensive power is truly something I’ve never seen in my life. Besides entering the second state of the Dragon-Tiger Transformation, none of my other defensive abilities are of much use. In terms of attacks alone, his offensive strength is already at the Heavenly Emperor stage. His weak point would be his defenses, since he is chasing an absolute offense, his own defense would deﬁnitely be weak. No defensive Consolidated Equipment armour, and I guess he doesn’t have any defensive Stored Skills as well. However, he has trained so much that he can use his offensive attacks as a sort of parrying defense. What a shame, he was actually able to force out the venom that was injected into him with my kick, otherwise it would be enough to cause him trouble for some time.”

Speaking up to that point, Zhou Weiqing fell silent for a moment, his eyes glinting in a ﬁery light. “In the end, it all comes back down to the same point. Our strength is just not sufﬁcient. If my cultivation level was at the nine-Jeweled stage, I would be able to enter the second stage of the Dragon-Tiger Transformation at will… if he dares try to assassinate me then, who knows who will be the one who dies.”

Although the Heavenly King Stage was still considered high above the nine-Jeweled stage, Zhou Weiqing had the Dragon- Transformation state, all his other boosts, as well as his six Attributes. If he truly grew to the Upper Level Zong Stage, he was conﬁdent of challenging any Heavenly King Stage, even one as strong and unique as this assassin. Shangguan Xue’er said: “Since that assassin had failed his ﬁrst time, he knows that we will be prepared for any follow up attacks. My guess is that unless he sees a perfect chance, he will not easily attack again. At the same time, the Kalise Empire has just lost a large percentage of their Regiment before they ﬂed, and in a short period of time they shouldn’t be able to gather too strong an army here. At the same time, they also need to consider if we have the Fei Li Empire at our backs. Also, by now, the news of our reoccupation of the Crescent City should have reached the Fei Li Empire, and I’m sure that it will not be long before their promised supplies reach us, along with the batch of logistic units to aid us.”

“With our previous crushing win, the situation in the Crescent City is at least growing towards our intended goals. I believe that it is time to start recruitment, at least to prioritise setting up our own logistics and supplies unit… only then will our Peerless Regiment be able to ﬂourish their full power on the battleﬁeld without too much worries.”

“As for that assassin, we currently do not have any better plans, and all we can do is to be careful. If Senior Six Ultimate Heavenly Emperor returns in time, I believe that assassin would not even dare come again.” Zhou Weiqing gripped his ﬁst tightly and said: “I can’t keep relying on Master alone, we also need to focus on our strength and power. However… what possible route is there for my Heavenly Energy to grow quickly?”

Shangguan Xue’er glared at him exasperatedly and said: “You’re not even twenty yet and you are already at the six- Jeweled stage. How much faster do you want to be?”

The Shangguan Sisters were three years older than Zhou Weiqing, but even for an outstanding genius like Shangguan Xue’er, when she was at Zhou Weiqing’s age, she had barely reached the six-Jeweled stage. Furthermore, with Zhou Weiqing’s current strength, could he really be considered as an ordinary six-Jeweled Heavenly Jewel Master? That day, with that Heavenly King assassin, if he had attacked any other nine- Jeweled Heavenly Jewel Master instead of Zhou Weiqing, she believed that it would still have resulted in a death. Perhaps, even an ordinary Heavenly King stage powerhouse, if careless, might have also sustained serious injuries or even death.

Hearing Shangguan Xue’er’s words, all of a sudden, Zhou Weiqing’s eyes lit up brightly. Lowering his head to look at his hands, he muttered: “Raising Heavenly Energy… it’s not exactly impossible…” As he said that, he silently released his Heavenly Jewels, and a grey light glowed around his palms faintly.

In that moment, he had abruptly thought about the Demonic Manual and the writings within. Demonic Attribute… Devour Skill… the heralded top Skill of the Demonic Attribute. Perhaps a Skill that could even exceed those Heavenly God Tier Skills with their Heavenly Skill Images… how could it simply be just a minor aid in battles?

According to the records in the Demonic Manual, in the history of the Heavenly Demon Sect, there had only been one Heavenly God Tier powerhouse… the Founder of the entire Heavenly Demon Sect, who had Awakened the Demonic Attribute and also had the innate Devour Skill like Zhou Weiqing.

Six Jewels. It was not only the Six Ultimate Skill Manipulation Formation that had such a boundary limit. Towards the Devour Skill, it was also a boundary limit! However, Zhou Weiqing had read the Demonic Manual a long time ago, added on to the fact that he had been extremely busy during this period ever since he reached the six Jeweled stage, along with the addition of the Dragon-Tiger Transformation, he had neglected this Skill. Currently, he abruptly recalled it once more, and how the Demonic Change State and Devour Skill would upgrade and evolve after the Heavenly Jewel Master reached a six-Jeweled cultivation level.

Sensing the Demonic Attribute around Zhou Weiqing’s palms, Tian’er was still ﬁne, but Shangguan Xue’er on the side shuddered involuntarily, an unknown strange of danger overwhelming her.

This sensation was an involuntarily one that rose from the depths of her heart, perhaps it was her natural instincts, as if something terrifying was about to happen with the source being Zhou Weiqing’s palms.

“You…” Shangguan Xue’er had experienced the Devour Skill before when they fought, but not knowing why, this time the sensation was totally different.

*Swoosh* The wings billowed out from Zhou Weiqing’s back as he entered the Dragon-Tiger Transformation state, his eyes glowing purple. Zhou Weiqing clapped his hands onto his chest, his Heavenly Jewels spinning around his wrist. In a ﬂash, his entire body was covered by a swirling layer of grey air. Currently, in Tian’er and Shangguan Xue’er’s eyes, Zhou Weiqing had disappeared, there was only a massive whirlpool.

That massive whirlpool had a terrifying suction force that caused their very souls to tremble, automatically causing their Heavenly Energy in their body to well up, even their soul and spirits, as if about to be dragged out of their bodies.

What, what was that?

The Devour Skill had not appeared for just too long. As such, even amongst the other Great Saint Lands, they did not have much records left about it.

Zhou Weiqing’s mind ﬂew at top speed as he tried to remember everything he had read in the Demonic Manual. After the six-Jeweled stage, the Heavenly Xu Energy was able to better invoke the Devour Skill, allowing the Demonic Attribute energy to spread throughout his entire body. With his entire body drawing in energy from his palms, all the atmospheric energy being sucked in at a crazy rate, almost like a soul eater.

Almost similar to what Shangguan Xue’er and Tian’er were feeling, Zhou Weiqing could clearly sense like he had warped into a giant whirlpool. In such a state, he found that the other ﬁve Attributes in his body seemed to be suppressed and hidden, and he could only sense the Demonic Attribute. In this state, his Ice Cold Perception was also raised to the max.

Chapter 199 To be conﬁrmed!

Along with the raising of the Ice Cold Perception, Zhou Weiqing suddenly realised a miraculous happening. At that point, he could actually vaguely sense the inner circulations of Heavenly Energy for both Shangguan Xue’er and Tian’er.

“Little Fatty, your Devour Skill evolved?” Tian’er asked in surprise.

Zhou Weiqing nodded, his voice still cold from the change. “It seems like when my Heavenly Energy cultivation level reached the six-Jeweled stage, it automatically evolved, just that I had never really noticed or activated it.”

Without hesitation, Tian’er extended her hands out. “Come, let’s try it.”

Looking at that scene, Shangguan Xue’er suddenly felt her heart race. She had never had a favourable impression of Tian’er, but in that instant, that feeling changed. Without question, Zhou Weiqing’s current state and the Devour Skill was extremely terrifying, but Tian’er did not hesitate to offer herself as a test subject. What kind of trust did that require? It might just be a simple detail, but from that alone Shangguan Xue’er was sure that Tian’er was willing to sacriﬁce everything for Zhou Weiqing.

Zhou Weiqing nodded. He had absolute conﬁdence in his control, and his hands grasped on Tian’er’s hands.

As their hands met, Tian’er’s entire body started shuddering violently like she was being electrocuted. Standing at the side, Shangguan Xue’er could clearly see a circle of eye-piercing light burst out of Tian’er’s body, ﬂying right into Zhou Weiqing’s body.

Heavens! That was…

Shangguan Xue’er widened her eyes in surprise. The Boundless Inﬁnitum Technique she cultivated in was extremely sensitive towards even minor changes in energy ﬂow, especially at such close proximity. She could clearly sense Tian’er’s Heavenly Energy ﬂowing crazily into Zhou Weiqing’s body. Not only that, it was as if Tian’er’s entire body had been Sealed, and besides Devouring the Heavenly Energy, even her life energy and vitality were being drained out of her. Originally, Tian’er’s smooth silky skin was starting to darken, even her soul and spirit were trembling violently. What a terrifying Skill.

As the actual parties concerned, both Zhou Weiqing and Tian’er had an even stronger sense of that. The instant that Zhou Weiqing held onto Tian’er’s hands, he immediately felt as if his body had become a bottomless pit, a crazy suction force bursting out, crazily devouring everything from Tian’er. He felt a strong sense of satiation as the Devouring began.

The Devoured Heavenly Energy ﬂowed in through his hands, beginning to circulate all around his body, starting to merge with his own Heavenly Energy. Although this external Heavenly Energy was still not his, he would be able to quickly reﬁne it with the Devour Technique to purify it and make it his own. Althugh only the ﬁnest core of it would remain, perhaps only a tenth or so, that was still far faster than his own cultivation speed.

However, Zhou Weiqing was not at all pleased by that. Instead, fear ﬁlled his heart, as he was shocked to ﬁnd that as soon as the Devour Skill started, his own control started to slip. Attempting to stop the Devouring process, he found it extremely difﬁcult, almost impossible. Furthermore, he could sense the life force draining out of Tian’er, and it was also because the Devouring process included this life force that allowed him to reﬁne the Heavenly Energy so easily. If this continued, when Tian’er had been drained dry, nothing would remain of her but a dessicated corpse.

Just like the Forest Direwolves all those years ago.

“Tian’er, activate your Saint Attribute!” Zhou Weiqing shouted out loud. At the same time, he channelled all his might into trying to control the Devour Skill, attempting to stop or at least slow it down, and also invoking his Time Attribute Heavenly Energy simultaneously.

As soon as the Devour Skill started, it was as if it was never- ending, with all his other Attributes now actually being suppressed. Only his Time Attribute, as the other equal Saint Attribute, was barely able to be invoked out.

Currently, Tian’er was also ﬁlled with surprise. However, she did not feel any fear in her heart; even if she were to die at Zhou Weiqing’s hands, she would not regret it. In this case, at least she would forever be with Zhou Weiqing, a part of him. Sometimes, a girl who is lost in love just thinks differently from ordinary humans. Of course, after hearing Zhou Weiqing’s words, she immediately began to attempt using her two Saint Attributes. Divine and Spirit, the two Saint Attributes slowly began circulating under Tian’er’s control. However, they were still began Devoured into Zhou Weiqing’s body. One could imagine, for both Saint Attributes to actually be Devoured in failed resistance, what what the other Attributes?

Naturally, the reason for this was because Tian’er’s cultivation level was not much higher than Zhou Weiqing’s, and more importantly she had allowed him to Devour him without resistance earlier, and now she was unable to break free anymore. If it were a powerhouse with far higher cultivation level than Zhou Weiqing, as long as he discovered and broke free as quickly as possibly, it was deﬁnitely no problems. Of course, even then it had do be done quickly; if one underestimated the Devour Skill and allowed it to go on for some time… well, it would be hard to say who would end up the victor.

Currently, the grey swirl of air around Zhou Weiqing grew even stronger and obvious, his entire body glowing with grey light. The original purple looking scales that had emerged over his skin also turned a crystalline grey, as if a layer of grey water was now covering him.

As the Divine and Spirit Attributes entered his body, Zhou Weiqing immediately reacted. He had cultivated with Tian’er so many times, and towards any change in energy between the two of them, control, he had much experience. Instantly, he started activating the Time Attribute energy and a small portion of the Demonic Attribute energy to move over and meet the incoming energy.

This time, the four Saint Attributes gathered inside Zhou Weiqing’s body, and under his control, they began to spin faster and faster, forming the usual whirlpool which now blocked in front of the Devour Skill.

Instantly, now blocked, the speed of Devouring slowed drastically. No matter Zhou Weiqing or Tian’er, both gave an inner sigh of relief.

The more they experimented and tested with the fused Saint Attributes, the more they realised how unique it was. The fusion of these four Saint Attributes was at a level above any other Attribute, even a single Saint Attribute.

However, it was also because of this knowledge that Zhou Weiqing realised with such clarity how terrifying the Devour Skill truly was. Even facing the blockade of the four Saint Attribute whirlpool, the Devour Skill continued, not halted but just slowed immensely. Just as Zhou Weiqing was prepared to forcefully break the connection between the two of them and end the Devour Skill, a miraculous sight happened next.

The four Saint Attribute whirlpool that formed in Zhou Weiqing’s body was spinning faster and faster, and all the Heavenly Energy that had been Devoured and not reﬁned by Zhou Weiqing was actually being drawn into the whirlpool. At the same time, Zhou Weiqing’s own Heavenly Energy was also drawn into it at an almost equal rate of Tian’er’s energy and his own. Originally, the tiny whirlpool began to grow larger and larger, and somehow the Devour Skill did not slow down further from there. Instead, it seemed to form a strange equilibrium with the whirlpool, continuing to draw energy and life from Tian’er.

What was this?! Zhou Weiqing was totally shocked. However, the next instant, that shock would be multiplied many times over.

As the whirlpool grew larger, the strange new Energy, power to the extreme, seemed to form at the very tip of the whirlpool, dropping down.

It was just a single drop, pure white liquid, clean and crystalline, glowing with a faint shimmer like it was an unparalleled treasure.

As soon as the pure white liquid that was as smooth as jade entered Zhou Weiqing’s body, he felt an indescribable sensation. The sheer power held within this single drop of unknown energy was even stronger than his original Heavenly Energy, and many times purer.

When his cultivation level had reached the Heavenly Xu Energy stage, Zhou Weiqing’s Heavenly Energy had already reached a liqueﬁed state. However, this strange new liquid energy that had been a product of the four Saint Attribute fusion whirlpool was just so much purer and reﬁned than his own Heavenly Energy, a level that seemed to be utterly impossible. That was to say, given the same volume, this drop of liquid held the maximum possible amount of energy density.

Even more miraculously, as soon as the drop of liquid entered his body, it became his own, part of him. He was able to take command of it and move it around. Furthermore, as the liquid slowly ﬂowed to his DanTian, it did not merge with his own Heavenly Energy, instead taking its own position at the side, as if establishing a system of its own.

Within the drop of liquid, it not only held an unbelievable amount of Heavenly Energy, it was also full of life force. This was not something either Zhou Weiqing or Tian’er actually had originally. It was as if their life force had upgraded and evolved itself within the whirlpool. Zhou Weiqing felt as soon as he was joined with that drop of liquid, a sense of euphoria overcame him.

The second drop formed, much slower than the ﬁrst one. Right at that moment, an urgent voice slammed into his soul in a shocking fashion, right into his mind.

“ZHOU WEIQING, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! ARE YOU

TRYING TO KILL HER?!” The voice was Shangguan Xue’er’s, her urgent and frantic voice rang out in his soul, reverberating throughout his mind, instantly snapping Zhou Weiqing out from his reverie.

Opening his eyes, Zhou Weiqing was given a huge fright. Tian’er’s hands were still in his grasp, and her eyes were currently closed. Her skin was dim, almost dark, and her life force was unbelievably weak, and continuously dropping down. Her Heavenly Energy was almost fully drained. It was clear that under Zhou Weiqing’s Devour Skill, Tian’er was on the verge of death.

Oh no! Not good! Cold sweat streamed down Zhou Weiqing’s back as fear and shock overwhelmed him. Subconsciously, he circulated his own Heavenly Energy, surrounding the fresh new drop of silvery white liquid, forcing it into his mouth. At the same time, he pulled Tian’er into his embrace, lowering his head and giving her a kiss on her pale red lips.

Just like that, the drop of liquid passed through their lips into Tian’er’s mouth, and a strange spectacle occurred next. Standing at the side, Shangguan Xue’er could only stare with her jaw agape as she watched the two kiss, and from their mouths, an utterly pure form of energy seemed to diffuse all around, instantly engulﬁng Tian’er within. She could clearly see a faint light shine forth, starting from Tian’er’s head, slowly moving down. Within moments, her entire body was glowing, and a large Heavenly Energy reverberation began. All the Heavenly Energy and life force that Tian’er had lost seemed to return, and her eyes began to open… ﬁlled with surprise and shock.

The whirlpool in Zhou Weiqing’s body continued spinning, continuing to draw upon his and Tian’er’s original Heavenly Energy… and as it spun… more drops of the white liquid continued to be generated.

Slowly, Zhou Weiqing began to get the hang of it. He would leave one drop of the white liquid for himself, one drop to Tian’er, and so on… In this way, an intriguing but marvelous loop began.

At the side, Shangguan Xue’er had a totally different sensation. All the energy aside, in her eyes, all she saw was Zhou Weiqing holding onto Tian’er, their bodies pressed against each other. Every once in awhile, Zhou Weiqing would lean forward to kiss Tian’er deeply.

The strangest thing was that everytime they kissed, a brilliant light would appear around Tian’er, as if the precious light of treasure. Originally, Tian’er was already a great beauty, and each time that happened, it was as if she was evolving, her beauty shining forth even more, even her skin purifying. Looking at that, Shangguan Xue’er was not only shocked, but also slightly envious. How are they doing that? Wasn’t it the Devour Skill? How did it end up like this?

As the process continued, the amount of the silvery white liquid in Zhou Weiqing and Tian’er’s bodies grew steadily, and their original Heavenly Energy also continued dropping.

Zhou Weiqing and Tian’er had cultivated together with the four Saint Attributes fusion so many times before, but this was the ﬁrst time something like this had occurred.

In the past, when the cultivated together, they would release their Heavenly Energy, allowing the four Saint Attributes to gather between or above them. In that way, the Saint Attributes would begin to spin and form the whirlpool, drawing in energy. As their Heavenly Energy slowly increased, it would be drawn back into their bodies and made their own.

Such a cultivation technique, it was already far faster than if they were to cultivate individually and separately. However, this strange silvery white liquid had never appeared before!

In this moment, a vague understanding slowly came to Zhou Weiqing. The profound secret should be the difference between the fusion occuring outside the body and within the body.

Perhaps, the current situation happening in his body was the truest form of the cultivation with the four Saint Attributes. Furthermore, he guessed that the true key to this miraculous event was not the Devour Skill, but the life force of both of them fused together.

The Devour Skill had only been the tool to bring all of their energies together into Zhou Weiqing’s body to form such a new whirlpool. When their life forces had joined together due to the Devour Skill, they had also fused together to join into the four Saint Attributes fusion. Under such a circumstance, the fusion of the four Saint Attributes had been ignited, causing such a miraculous chain reaction.

Indeed, Zhou Weiqing’s guess was pretty accurate, but still incomplete. As he had imagined, when the four Saint Attributes gathered together, life force was the key to activating and igniting the change. However, at the same time, it was also due to the fact that when the four Saint Attributes fused outside of their bodies, it would draw in all forms of energy from the atmosphere. At that time, Zhou Weiqing and Tian’er had thought it was naturally a good thing to draw in the atmospheric energy… after all, it could only be a boost right?

However, the truth was actually the reverse.

The four Saint Attributes were the highest quality Attributes in the world, and within them was a vast potential and miraculous force. When they fused together, how could they require the addition of other weaker and mixed energies? All they needed was absolute purity, not additional quantity of other unnecessary energies. When they were fully puriﬁed, the four Saint Attributes would grow in synergy, interpromoting reciprocally and having mutual generation, resulting in a all around growth and evolving.

Currently, the four Saint Attribute fusion was right in Zhou Weiqing’s body, and it was a strangely favourable condition endowed by nature… with the Dragon Tiger Transformation, his body had a natural pure XianTian or primordial force. This was something that the four Saint Attributes needed. Furthermore, within his body, as they gathered an spun, they would not come into contact or draw in the various mixed atmospheric energies that were full of other impurities. Under such a circumstance, with the mix of Zhou Weiqing and Tian’er’s life forces, only then had the true profound secret of the four Saint Attributes been revealed. It could be said that Zhou Weiqing and Tian’er’s luck was truly good. If not for all of these unique circumstances coming into play, perhaps in their entire lives they would never discover this profound secret.

By going through this process, not only was their entire Heavenly Energy going through a fresh round of puriﬁcation and reﬁning, it was also going through the evolving of the four Saint Attributes fusion. In this manner, their original Heavenly Energy without going through their Elemental Jewels, had not transformed into the purest energy in the world, with the aura of the four Saint Attribute fusion energy. This was truly the purest form of energy in the world that any Heavenly Jewel Master could have.

A human’s DanTian had its limits, and before reaching the Heavenly King stage, this limit would not be broken. As for the Heavenly King Stage? This was actually one of the greatest bottlenecks of this stage. Only when one was able to break past this major limiting factor, transforming their energy to a whole different level, only then would a Heavenly Jewel Master be able to reach the next stage. However, the size of the DanTian and the Ki Ocean would not change. That was to say, even for a Heavenly God Tier powerhouse, besides having his meridians and internal organs stronger and more ﬂexible, his ‘load bearing’ and capacity was actually no different from an ordinary Heavenly Jewel Master. Although their meridians were widened, there was deﬁnitely a limit, and it was impossible for it to continually widen forever. If that really happened, wouldn’t the person just explode?

Now, this silvery white liquid that Zhou Weiqing had formed from this round of cultivation was totally different. The inherent energy held within was more than ten times that of the Heavenly Energy liquid of the same level. That was to say, Zhou Weiqing could store more than ten times the energy in his body. Furthermore, that was a qualitative change, not that he had compressed the energy. This would mean both he and Tian’er, when compared to a Heavenly Jewel Master of the same level, their energy purity and density was far stronger than anyone, and their sustainability would be on a whole new level. Furthermore, once they could enter the Heavenly King Stage, that would be yet another concept altogether. The true profound secret of the four Saint Attribute would only come into play fully then, and the future beneﬁts it would bring them was not something they could even dream about now, far beyond the limits of their mortal comprehension.

Time passed, seconds and minutes. Nearly an entire day and night passed before all their Heavenly Energy had been fully reﬁned and transformed. Although Shangguan Xue’er was rather envious and even jealous, she still kept guard by their side. She knew that such unique opportunities were few and far between for any Heavenly Jewel Master, and once they missed it, it would be a regret that they would have to live with forever. Zhou Weiqing

and Tian’er’s cultivation level did not seem to have much changes, but the aura and presence they gave off, it was as if they had been born anew.

Finally, the last bits of their Heavenly Energy entered the whirlpool, and the last drop of silvery white liquid formed.

Currently, Zhou Weiqing and Tian’er both had the feeling like their DanTian and meridians were so empty. The originally feeling of being ﬁlled with energy had disappeared, and all they had within each of them was a mere over twenty drops of that silvery white liquid. Even then, they could sense that their total amount of Heavenly Energy was actually more than previously. Although it was all contained within that twenty plus drops of liquid, it was without a doubt their inherent energy was terrifying. The strangest thing was that it was not a condensed or compressed form as well, and they did not need to focus on controlling it.

The whirlpool slowly dissipated silently. At this moment, Zhou Weiqing also discovered something else strange. That was… despite the sheer power of his Devour Skill, it was unable to draw anything from Tian’er’s body any longer. That was to say, the silvery white liquid Heavenly Energy was totally immune from his Devour Skill.

Towards this point, Zhou Weiqing was rather pleasantly surprised. It was without question that the silvery white Heavenly Energy was on a whole different level, not something that any existing cultivation technique could cultivate or reﬁne. After this strange cultivation process, a whole new door had been opened to both him and Tian’er, and they were slowly starting to realise the true potential of the four Saint Attributes.

The Devour Skill also stopped at last, as the whirlpool within Zhou Weiqing’s body ﬁnally stopped. The cultivation of the two of them had also ﬁnally stopped after an entire day and night. Tian’er had also been kissed so many times by Zhou Weiqing.

In truth, during the cultivation, as the time passed and it reached the later stages, the time between the production of each drop of the silvery white liquid began to take longer and longer time. In Zhou Weiqing’s senses, it was due to the fact that their ‘raw materials’ were running out, thus the cultivation speed had also slowed dramatically. However, despite that, before the entire process was complete, how could Zhou Weiqing bear to stop? Who knew if there would be a future chance like this, and if he passed it up, they might regret it in the future.

“Xue’er, come here a while.” After ending this round of cultivation, that was Zhou Weiqing’s ﬁrst words.

Seeing Zhou Weiqing with brimming with energy and almost radiant in complexion, Shangguan Xue’er who was extremely tired started momentarily, but she still walked towards him.

Just as Shangguan Xue’er reached Zhou Weiqing, in that instant, Zhou Weiqing suddenly grabbed hold of her waist without warning, lowering his head to give her a kiss.

“Wuuuu…” Facing such a sudden intimate violation, Shangguan Xue’er was caught off guard, embarrassed fully. If it had just been her and Zhou Weiqing, perhaps she would not have resisted, or not struggled so much. However, Tian’er was right there! With her character, how could she not be embarrassed?

However, before she could struggle too violently, she suddenly realised that a shameless scoundrel had actually stuck his tongue into her mouth.

Filled with sudden anger, Shangguan Xue’er bit down onto Zhou Weiqing’s tongue.

In shock and pain, Zhou Weiqing quickly withdrew his tongue. “Aiiiiyaaa, that hurts! Xue’er, what are you doing!”

The tongue was perhaps one of the weakest spots in the entire human body, and having it bitten, how could it feel good? Furthermore, Shangguan Xue’er had been in a state of anger and embarrassment, and that bite had been stronger than she realised. Right at that moment, Shangguan Xue’er froze in shock. She clearly sensed that as she bit Zhou Weiqing, a burst of pure energy instantly ﬁlled her mouth, streaming down her throat. Within moments, that pure Heavenly Energy entered her body, ﬁlling her entire body with a soothing cool, a comfortable, almost euphoric feeling extending through every inch of her body.

This… this was the secret behind him kissing Tian’er? Shangguan Xue’er was extremely intelligent, and she immediately realised what had happened. Previously, every time Zhou Weiqing had kissed Tian’er, she had glowed with that light of treasure. So, that was because of this strangely pure energy entering her body. Although Tian’er did not know how this energy had come about, but she could sense it held its sheer purity and the massive amounts inherent, with the aura of the four Saint Attributes as well… what kind of valuable treasure was this! He… he actually gave me a drop, but I bit him instead. Instantly, Shangguan Xue’er’s face turned red, looking at Zhou Weiqing apologetically.

At this moment, Tian’er opened her eyes, looking at Zhou Weiqing pained look, she couldn’t help but giggle out loud. “Serves you right, who asked you to just take advantage of her without explaining anything. Couldn’t you just spit it out and give it to her?”

Zhou Weiqing looked at her exasperatedly: “Why does it sound so disgusting when you say it like that! What do you mean spit it out!? Without my aura protecting it, once it comes into contact with the atmosphere, it will quickly dissipate and vanish.”

Shangguan Xue’er said apologetically: “I’m so sorry, I… I didn’t know.”

Zhou Weiqing shamelessly stuck out his tongue once more, showing the slight teeth imprint. “Give me some more kisses and it won’t hurt anymore.”

“Bah…” Shangguan Xue’er blushed deeply, subconsciously dodging behind Tian’er, saying in a low tone: “In the future, you do not need to do so again. This is the energy that you both risked your lives for, and gone through so much trouble to cultivate, how can you just give it to me?”

Tian’er giggled and extended her hands, pulling Shangguan Xue’er to her side and saying: “Sister Xue’er, I haven’t even thanked you properly yet. Earlier, if not for your intervention in reminding some particular scoundrel, I would have been drained dry and killed now. Little Fatty is right, we are a family, why should we be so particular about sharing?”

Although she had argued a lot with Shangguan Xue’er, in that previous instant earlier, she had ﬁnally truly accepted Shangguan Xue’er in her heart. Without question, they were rivals in love, but in that point of critical danger, Shangguan Xue’er had still been willing to save her life. Not just willing, but anxious. Although there was still the possibility that Zhou Weiqing might have come to his senses in time, it was still without a doubt that Shangguan Xue’er’s reminder had saved her, and Tian’er had been extremely touched by that. The previous ill feelings she held towards Shangguan Xue’er had vanished.

At the same time, Tian’er was no fool. She knew Zhou Weiqing’s feelings for Shangguan Bing’er was the strongest; not to mention there was still another Shangguan Fei’er. The three of them were sisters, triplets. No matter what, the three sisters added together would have a higher place in Zhou Weiqing’s heart than her. If she continued on this path of constantly arguing with Shangguan Xue’er, just like what Zhou Weiqing said, the days ahead would not be good at all. It was a good opportunity at hand in closing the gap between the two of them, and at least they would not have such a sense of enmity towards each other. Shangguan Xue’er looked at Tian’er with a slightly startled expression before she ﬁnally shook her head lightly, saying: “Although I do not like you much, but we are not enemies after all. If it had been you, you would have also done the same thing.”

Tian’er giggled and said: “It isn’t as simple as not being enemies right. Because of a particular rascal, we have been forced to become sisters. For the sake of Little Fatty, and for our own sakes, we should indeed try to accept each other. What do you say?”

Both girls could be said to have extremely stubborn characters, each with their own strong personalities. It was not easy for either of them to admit defeat at all. At this moment, with Tian’er taking the initiative to ease the relations between them, it instantly broke the thin barrier between them that was the most difﬁcult ﬁrst step to take.

Shangguan Xue’er slowly nodded. Looking at Tian’er, she slowly smiled faintly. For a person who was cultivating the Boundless Inﬁnitum Technique to actually smile, it was not an easy feat!

Only then did Tian’er turn her gaze to Zhou Weiqing, whose tongue was still stuck out as he stared at the two of them with wide eyes. “Little Fatty, what was all that about? What is that liquid energy? How did you gain such a thing?”

Due to the fact that the leading force was Zhou Weiqing, as such although Tian’er had accepted the pure energy and beneﬁted from it during their long cultivation, she was actually just as confused as Shangguan Xue’er, not knowing what had happened at all.

At that time, Tian’er had discovered that her body was almost drained dry, even her life force was about to vanish. In her heart, there was some fear and panic, but at that very moment, she sensed Shangguan Xue’er’s shout of warning towards Zhou Weiqing, the voice that shook down to the very soul even managed to cause her dazed thoughts to rouse slightly. The next instant, Zhou Weiqing had pulled her closer and kissed her lips.

In that instant, Tian’er could sense a vital life force entering her body, fully replenishing all of her drained life force. Next, the silvery white liquid of pure energy fused fully into her body. Tian’er’s senses were no lesser than Zhou Weiqing’s, and within moments she discovered the power of the liquid. As the involved party, her curiosity about it was deﬁnitely even higher than Shangguan Xue’er. Zhou Weiqing grinned and said: “Heh, Tian’er, we have just been too lucky. I’d say we were blind cats that caught a dead rat.”

Tian’er said exasperatedly: “You are the one who’s the blind cat.”

Zhou Weiqing laughed heartily and said: “If only we can meet such good luck all the time, so what if I’m a blind cat. Hahaha.”

Tian’er said, full of curiosity: “Hurry up, tell me and Xue’er, what was actually going on? Why was there that pure energy whenever you kissed me? How come all my Heavenly Energy was totally transformed in the process?”

Zhou Weiqing began to describe the entire process of that cultivation simply, and as the two girls listened to his story, their expressions changed several times.

Previously, Tian’er was still bashful and irritated about Zhou Weiqing’s choice of words with blind cat, but after hearing his description, she could only shiver with fear on how close she had come to death several times. Indeed, she had to admit that the phrase was rather apt in the circumstance. “That was a true mix of time, luck and life. Sometimes, when luck comes, one can’t even reject it! It looks like we have to thank that assassin, otherwise we might not have such a miraculous encounter.”

Tian’er said: “Don’t get too excited, this is just the beginning for us. Now that our Heavenly Energy has all been transformed, how are we going to cultivate in the future? Without our original Heavenly Energy… could we continue cultivating with this pure and reﬁned energy? This is already the fusion of the four Saint Attributes.”

Zhou Weiqing nodded and said: “This is also what I am worried about, so we will need to continue experimenting in all the cultivation techniques for the four Saint Attributes. This is something we have to fumble about before we can ﬁnd a right path. However, what you mentioned just now should not be possible. When the Heavenly Energy was reﬁned and transformed to that silvery white liquid, I was no longer able to affect it with the Devour Skill, not able to draw upon it. As such, it cannot be used as our Devour Skill cultivation. We will have to try on other areas.

Shangguan Xue’er stood at the side, her heart ﬁlled with envy. However, she did not have any Saint Attributes, and naturally could not cultivate together with them in a similar fashion.

Zhou Weiqing laughed heartily and said: “That is the reason why I infused a drop of the fused power to Xue’er. Since we are going to experiment, we need to conduct many different tests with many different variables. I have a thought to try out later… I will begin Devouring Xue’er’s Heavenly Energy instead this time, and Tian’er you and I will start forming the four Saint Attribute fusion whirlpool within my body like the last time, and we shall see if we can help Xue’er to transform all of her Heavenly Energy as well… as well as what difference there might be in such a process, or what we can gain from it. With that drop of the silvery white energy protecting her, no matter what happens, at least Xue’er will not be in danger.”

Shangguan Xue’er blushed deeply, but her heart was secretly rejoicing. At least, Zhou Weiqing had not forgotten her, and such an unbelievable treasure, he was still willing to think of her.”

“You both haven’t eaten for a whole day and night, aren’t you hungry?” Shangguan Xue’er asked concernedly.

Zhou Weiqing and Tian’er exchanged looks. Indeed, such a long time had passed, yet neither of them felt any sense of hunger.

Zhou Weiqing said: “Perhaps it is because of the four Saint Attributes’ fusion and that sheer massive amount of energy that it holds, that it even settled all issues of hunger and thirst. Alright, it is rather tiring to keep calling it that, how about we give it a name. Hmmm… a simple one… our original energy is called Heavenly Energy, and this is the product of the four Saint Attributes… shall we call it Saint Energy then?”

Shangguan Xue’er said: “Weiqing, I think your idea of experimentation is in the right step. However, I think that you should not rush to start on that ﬁrst, especially in using the Devour Skill in training for now. That is because you still have not fully grasped this Saint Energy yet, understanding it fully and being able to control it. I feel that you both should begin cultivation ﬁrst, try to learn how to cultivate it on your own and also how to control it, and also begin sharing your thoughts and understanding. With that, you can begin to fully understand it, the underlying principles and control. Only then should we start experimenting with the various training methods.”

Zhou Weiqing’s eyes lit up and he nodded in agreement. “That is true, I am being too eager to try that out.” At the same time, his heart was secretly rejoicing. Everything else aside, it was at least clear that Shangguan Xue’er’s attitude towards him had changed. This could be seen just from the fact on how she addressed him compared to previously. Furthermore, it looked like the relationship between Tian’er and Xue’er was starting to improve as well. This was amazing news for him! At least, with this improvement, his days would no longer be plagued with suffering!

…

Although they weren’t particularly hungry, Zhou Weiqing and Tian’er still decided to rest up and have a meal ﬁrst, along with Shangguan Xue’er. While doing so, the three of them began to have a simple discussion regarding the four Saint Attributes. Only then did they begin the fresh round of cultivation, entering a meditative state.

Zhou Weiqing sat there cross legged, starting his attempt to circulate this new Saint Energy of his. What Shangguan Xue’er had said was indeed true, he had to learn and understand it, and to do so, he would have to start actually using it and trying it out. Only then would he be able to understand the underlying profound meanings behind it, and to truly make it his own. Literal Translation of chinese idiom, pretty much means unbelievably lucky

Chapter 200 Saint Energy Whirlpool!

As he circulated the energy with all his might, it all seemed smooth, and there was no sign of it being hard to control just because the energy was of a higher state. Just like in the past when he circulated his old Heavenly Energy, Zhou Weiqing managed to circulate the energy without any issues all the way to his Death Acupuncture point energy whirlpools. To his joy, although there were only about twenty drops of the Saint Energy liquid, he found he was able to easily break them apart, not needing to keep to the size of the droplet of water. In this way, he was able to spread the Saint Energy evenly between all of his Death Acupuncture Point energy whirlpools.

As the silvery white Saint Energy entered the energy whirlpools, a strange sensation, almost unprecedented in its strength, ﬂooded Zhou Weiqing’s entire body.

All of the energy whirlpools turned the similar silvery white colour instantly, but their spinning did not actually increase, instead slowly down. Despite that, under such a circumstance, Zhou Weiqing felt as if he was in the midst of using the Devour Skill, Heavenly Energy pouring in from the atmosphere at a crazy rate. With the guidance of the Saint Energy, his cultivation level was almost three times faster than normal. However, before long, Zhou Weiqing realised a new problem. This Heavenly Energy that came from the atmosphere would not be transformed into Saint Energy from his own personal energy whirlpools, remaining as the same state of normal Heavenly Energy. Furthermore, as he drew in more and more Heavenly Energy, the energy whirlpools which had been activated by the Saint Energy grew slower and slower.

Perhaps a more accurate description would be that as the energy whirlpools grew less pure, the cultivation speed also dropped.

Zhou Weiqing discovered that this Saint Energy was extremely sensitive. He had only cultivated for such a short period of time, and though the rate of it was indeed much faster, how much total Heavenly Energy could he actually draw? Yet, the slowing of the energy whirlpool was already quite substantial.

Zhou Weiqing sighed inwardly at that. In the end, it was because he did not have the four Saint Attributes by himself! With his own strength, he was not able to generate the Saint Energy, and it seemed like that could only be done together with Tian’er.

At this point, he suddenly had a strange thought. If he and Tian’er had a child in the future, would he or she have all four Saint Attributes? Wouldn’t that be truly a talent that deﬁed the heavens? If one wasn’t possible, then I’ll have more children… Heh Heh Heh.

Naturally, Tian’er did not know that a certain person was thinking of such things while cultivating. As for her, she had also discovered the same problem that Zhou Weiqing had run into. Although both their cultivation techniques were very different, the end result was about the same. No matter how they cultivated, they were not able to generate Saint Energy by themselves, only having the new Heavenly Energy cultivated having a strand of aura of the Saint Attributes.

Before long, the three of them opened their eyes slowly, one after the other. When they had all ended their cultivation, Shangguan Xue’er looked at Zhou Weiqing and asked: “How was it?”

Zhou Weiqing shook his head and said: “No, it isn’t possible to directly cultivate the Saint Energy by myself. Although my cultivation speed has increased for a time, but as the original type of Heavenly Energy increases, the cultivation speed will begin dropping. From what I see, the best way would be for us to cultivate individually for a period of time, to maximize the Heavenly Energy we have, then cultivate together to reﬁne and transform the energy into Saint Energy. At least, we need to have sufﬁcient Heavenly Energy to generate a drop of Saint Energy before that is worth doing, probably more.”

Shangguan Xue’er thought about it for a moment and said: “In that case, what if you Devour my Heavenly Energy before cultivating again?”

Zhou Weiqing said: “I’m afraid that isn’t possible. That is because I deﬁnitely need Tian’er and her other two Saint Attributes to be able to form the Saint Energy whirlpool. If I only Devour your Heavenly Energy, it will only be simply draining you to death. Furthermore, currently the majority of energy in Tian’er’s body is the Saint Energy, and I am totally unable to Devour anything to start the process.”

Tian’er said: “How about this… I will use the Saint Energy to activate just my two Saint Attributes and infuse them into your body. At the same time, you do the same with your two Saint Attributes to receive it. In this way, I can hold one of your hands to do so. While we do that, you can use your other hand to Devour Xue’er’s Heavenly Energy, and begin the process of transforming her Heavenly Energy into Saint Energy and infusing it back into her, and we can see if we are able to fully complete the process of purifying her Heavenly Energy. If that is possible, you can even start considering using this against enemies, Devouring, Transforming, Puriﬁcation and making it all our own.”

“Good idea.” Hearing Tian’er’s words, Zhou Weiqing’s eyes lit up. In theory, that all seemed possible. The Saint Energy was extremely pure, and it held the aura of the four Saint Attributes, holding a massive amount of energy. Each and every drop was very precious indeed, and even if Shangguan Xue’er could just gain a few drops, it could come in handy in critical moments, as the power in using it should be extremely different. After pondering for a few moments, Zhou Weiqing said to Tian’er: “Let us ﬁrst try if we can form the Saint Energy whirlpool in my body again. If it succeeds, then we can ﬁrst attempt to cultivate like that. My thought is with the Saint Energy whirlpool, we can directly begin to draw Heavenly Energy from the atmosphere to reﬁne and transform. The Devour Skill should only be hastening the entire process.”

Tian’er nodded and said: “Good, let’s try it then.”

Using a single hand, Zhou Weiqing held onto Tian’er’s hand. As the two exchanged looks, they began to circulate their Saint Energy.

Using the Saint Energy to invoke their respective Saint Attributes, as soon as they began to do so, they immediately had a totally different feeling. It was clear that it was extremely different from their previous usage of the Saint Attributes. With just a single thought, the Saint Attributes were easily activated, rising instantly, and the ‘fuel’ of the Saint Energy glowed brightly in their bodies. However, to both Zhou

Weiqing and Tian’er’s surprise, the rate of consumption of the Saint Energy was also extremely fast, far beyond their expectations. Although the Saint Energy held more than ten times the energy of their original Heavenly Energy, the rate of consumption was actually about the same. This continued all

the way until the Saint Energy whirlpool started forming in Zhou Weiqing’s body, before the consumption began to lower slowly. As soon as the Saint Energy whirlpool formed, the normal Heavenly Energy that Zhou Weiqing had just cultivated earlier was drawn in and transformed. However, the amount

was just too little, and new Saint Energy was not formed. Still, as they had hypothesized, when they tried cultivating new Heavenly Energy, it would instantly be drawn into the Saint Energy whirlpool.

After a while, both of them ﬁnally stopped. Exchanging glances, they asked: “Why is the energy consumption so high?” They began to describe what they had gone through to Shangguan Xue’er.

As the saying goes, ‘The spectators see the chess game better than the players.’ Shangguan Xue’er said: “Hmm… it is possible that in this case, the high energy consumption, or rather similar rate of energy consumption means that this Saint Energy is not just a compressed form or to save energy. On the other hand, it means the output or quality of Skills used would be

correspondingly much larger. Why don’t you try using the Saint Energy to use a Skill. Just now, when you were circulating the Saint Energy, the aura that you both gave forth caused me to feel such a powerful presence, even that of awe.”

Zhou Weiqing nodded and said: “Let me try.” As he said that, he focused his will to activate the Demonic Attribute, releasing the Ward of the Demon God silently. Instantly, a strange anomaly occurred. Originally, the Ward of the Demon God was just a single layer of faint grey light shield. However, this time, when Zhou Weiqing used the Ward of the Demon God with the Saint Energy, a crystalline layer of grey light burst out of his body. For a grey colour to actually glow with such resplendent magniﬁcence… they did not even need to test it out to know how terrifying the defensive capabilities of this new Ward of the Demon God brought. It gave Zhou Weiqing the feeling similar to that of his second stage of the Dragon-Tiger Transformation. However, Zhou Weiqing quickly ended the Skill, as he was shocked to ﬁnd that in just that short moment he had it up, he had almost used up an entire drop of Saint Energy. “The consumption rate is just too high!” Zhou Weiqing said in shock. The increase in power was clear to everyone, but if the consumption rate was so fast, with just a mere twenty drops of Heavenly Energy, how could he even ﬁght ordinarily?

Tian’er also gave it a try of her own, but the result was the same as Zhou Weiqing. Furthermore, they realised that after using up a drop of Saint Energy, it would not automatically recover as time passed or even with their own cultivation.

The two of them joined hands once again to experiment. This time, they discovered another few profound secrets of the Saint Energy. Indeed, as they used the Saint Energy to unleash their Skills, the consumption was a direct link to the increase in power. However, when they had formed the Saint Energy whirlpool before using the Skills, then the consumption of Saint Energy would allow them to recover some of the Saint Energy, and as they drew in more energy from the atmosphere, it was reﬁned and transformed until they reached their ‘theoretical max’ once more.

After several tries like this, the three of them exchanged looks. Zhou Weiqing smiled bitterly as he said: “What is this… after transforming our energy to Saint Energy, we aren’t even able to ﬁght normally anymore. What kind of sustainability do we have? This is even worse than I had imagined! Even with my Immortal Deity Technique, I can’t sustain such a massive drain. Even when we are joined together with the Saint Energy whirlpool, we can’t even do many normal attacks. The most we can do is to ensure that our Saint Energy doesn’t totally vanish… but that is still far from having a sustained ﬁghting

capabilities.”

After some musing, Shangguan Xue’er comforted them, saying: “This world is a fair one after all. The Saint Energy would give a massive burst in power in a short period of time. If it could really be used like ordinary Heavenly Energy, wouldn’t your current cultivation level be equivalent to tearing down the heavens? In my opinion, this Saint Energy should be used like an ace up your sleeve, a hidden trump card.”

“As for normal ﬁghting, I also have some thoughts about that. Why don’t you try to see if you can transform the Saint Energy back to normal Heavenly Energy. If that is possible, then you all can maintain the majority of your Heavenly Energy, with a small portion transformed into Saint Energy as your aces. After all, your cultivation level is still far from true powerhouses. Perhaps, we can only uncover more of the profound secrets of this Saint Energy when we reach the Heavenly King Stage or higher…” Zhou Weiqing’s eyes glowed in sudden inspiration. “You mean to say… reverse the Saint Energy whirlpool?”

Shangguan Xue’er smiled faintly and said: “Well, not exactly reverse. In truth, our body is limited in its own ways, no matter your DanTian or your meridians. When we reach the Heavenly Xu Stage in cultivation, isn’t it exactly because we have liquiﬁed our Heavenly Energy so that we can hold more of it? More so, when we continue cultivating, we are further compressing and consolidating the liquid Heavenly Energy, so that when we breakthrough to the Heavenly Dao Stage, we can form a Heavenly Core Nucleus to enter the Heavenly King Stage.”

“If you think about it in that fashion, your current bodies do not have any Heavenly Energy to ﬁll up, let alone being able to compress and consolidate the Heavenly Energy. As such, you can try to directly draw the atmospheric Heavenly Energy to ﬁll yourself up right? You do not need to think about transforming these into Saint Energy. In the future when you cultivate, only when you ﬁnd you are unable to continue compressing the Heavenly Energy, then you can start transforming them into Saint Energy… eventually you can reach a point where your entire body and meridians are ﬁlled with Saint Energy… and you can use that Saint Energy to form the Heavenly Core Nucleus… I think that would be the point you can start cultivating the Saint Energy on your own individually.” The Boundless Inﬁnitum Technique was known as the top cultivation technique in the world today, and it was far more complete than even the monstrous Immortal Deity Technique that Zhou Weiqing had. As such, in terms of cultivation and techniques, experience or theory, Shangguan Xue’er was deﬁnitely the strongest amongst the three.

Hearing her suggestions, Zhou Weiqing and Tian’er were both delighted. Although their bodies currently did not have any Heavenly Energy, it should not be too tough to recover it. After all, they could still use their Saint Energy to activate their normal cultivation. Currently, all they needed was to ﬁll themselves up once more. However, in order to preserve their sustained combat abilities, they could no longer just blindly transform everything into Saint Energy, leaving their majority Heavenly Energy to ﬁght with, and just some Saint Energy as their trump cards.”

In the following time, even for the Peerless Regiment warriors, Zhou Weiqing, Tian’er and Shangguan Xue’er all disappeared. No one else knew what they were doing, and it was as if they had vanished into thin air. Once in awhile, some orders would come from the governor’s mansion, and that was the only sign they were still around. However, even with Zhou Weiqing’s leadership, the current Crescent City was already in proper normal operations, as Zhou Weiqing had already passed on the temporary leadership to Lin TianAo. As for the three of them, they were currently undergoing closed door cultivation under the protective watch of Duan Tianlang.

…

Very soon, a month had passed. Within this month, the Crescent City had not yet been attacked by a second wave of Kalise Empire troops, and the Heavenly King assassin also hadn’t showed himself.

On their end, Zhou Weiqing was naturally wary and afraid of this assassin. However, this assassin was no fool as well. That kick of Zhou Weiqing’s had deﬁnitely given him a lasting impression. In the end, assassins were just like a cold venomous snake, even if they had to lie in ambush and wait for a year without moving, they would do so, and not take risks where they had no conﬁdence. Furthermore, during this period of Zhou Weiqing and the two girls were in closed door cultivation, Duan Tianlang did not hide his Heavenly King stage aura at all.

Zhou Weiqing’s weird powers, along with Tian’er and Shangguan Xue’er who had certainly surprised him, and the unknown Heavenly King Stage powerhouse (Duan Tianlang)… such a formation staying together, even if this Heavenly King assassin was the top assassin in the world, he dared not act rashly. Of course, during this month, he had also spent most of it healing and recuperating. Currently, he was silently hiding nearby, waiting for another perfect time to strike.

This month was not just silent for the Crescent City. The rest of the entire Mainland was also extremely silent, the various large Empires not showing any movement. The Kalise Empire also did not show any large movements. According to Kou Rui and his scouts, the Kalise Empire had already stationed another large troop of armies in another city that originally belonged to the Heavenly Bow Empire, the closest one to the Crescent City about three hundred li away. However, there were currently no signs that they were about to move out.

At the same time, Kou Rui, who had been left in charge of scouting and general information gathering, had strengthened their checks at the city gates of the Crescent City, and they had already caught several dozen spies.

Conscription of soldiers was perhaps the most troublesome job, and currently Yan Zhexi was in charge of it. As the Fei Li Empire sent the ﬁrst batch of supplies as well as a troop of ﬁve thousand logistics personnel, the critical state their forces had been in was at least solved. Currently, besides the requisite training they did everyday, the Peerless Regiment soldiers would undergo some patrolling investigations or interrogation missions.

In the hidden room where they were cultivating.

Zhou Weiqing slowly opened his eyes. Instantly, it was as if two cold bolts of lightning pierced through the room, ﬁlling it with a strange aura.

As he opened his eyes, Shangguan Xue’er and Tian’er each at his side respectively also opened their eyes.

Shangguan Xue’er’s face had a faint blush on her face, and as she looked at Zhou Weiqing, she turned her head around. On the other hand, Tian’er was smiling happily as she said: “We did it! An entire month, but it was truly worth it. Our Heavenly Energy has ﬁnally recovered to our original standards. This cultivating of the Saint Energy is truly not easy at all.”

Indeed, they had used an entire month to transform the cultivated Saint Energy back to their Heavenly Energy, resuming their usual strength. In truth, this entire month could be said to be extremely dangerous for Zhou Weiqing’s trio. If the Heavenly King assassin had snuck in secretly, perhaps he would have had a great chance. Of course, that was no certainty as well, even without their Heavenly Energy, their Saint Energy was not to be underestimated. The instant explosive power was more than enough to shock even the Heavenly King stage powerhouse Duan Tianlang.

This Saint Energy was truly one of a kind. However, at this moment, it was not just Zhou Weiqing and Tian’er who had it, even Shangguan Xue’er had it now.

According to Zhou Weiqing’s hypothesis previously, Shangguan Xue’er’s Heavenly Energy had been fully transformed to Saint Energy after he combined forces with Tian’er. In this month, Shangguan Xue’er had joined them in the process of recovering her Heavenly Energy. The reason she blushed upon seeing Zhou Weiqing just now was because during the transformation process of the Saint Energy, she had been kissed by him so many times. Towards such a method of using their mouths to infuse the Saint Energy, our dear shameless Little Fatty was more than happy to enjoy it.

However, during the process of transformation, Zhou Weiqing also discovered that for Shangguan Xue’er without her own Saint Attributes, they actually had to spend more energy to reﬁne and transform into the Saint energy. As such, she actually had less Saint Energy than Zhou Weiqing or Tian’er. This was even after the fact that she was at a higher cultivation level than the two of them, and the Boundless Inﬁnitum Technique was known for its thick and stable Heavenly Energy. Do not forget that Shangguan Xue’er also had the Alexandrite Cat’s Eye Elemental Jewel, and though it was not as monstrous as his six Attributes, she still had four Attributes!

Zhou Weiqing had done a simple calculation. If an ordinary Heavenly Jewel Master were to fully transform their Heavenly Energy, assuming he was at the same level as them, being able to have four to ﬁve drops would likely be the norm.

Also, after their investigations and calculation, they estimated that if they wanted to ﬁll their entire bodies with the Saint Energy, it was deﬁnitely a long road ahead of them, as it would likely take them around three thousand drops to complete the entire process.

However, in this month, they did not just simply spend it recovering their old Heavenly Energy. Besides the fact that all their cultivation had improved, strengthening the overall amount of Heavenly Energy. In terms of controlling the Saint Energy and ﬁnding a balance, they had also discovered several tricks.

For example, with all three of them, it was no longer just a simple matter of ‘storing’ the Saint Energy.

Although none of them had all four Saint Attributes individually, the Saint Energy itself was consisting of all four Saint Attributes! As such, after much experimentation and testing, they were able to form a very tiny whirlpool of Saint Energy in their bodies, silently spinning away. This whirlpool was actually modelled after the original energy whirlpool that formed in Zhou Weiqing’s body after he joined hands with Tian’er and their four Saint Attributes actually fused together.

Do not underestimate this tiny whirlpool within their bodies. In fact, it could be said that the majority of the time and efforts of this entire month was spent developing this one thing, and it was also their greatest progress. With this tiny whirlpool in their bodies, they no longer needed to worry about permanently using up their Saint Energy.

Unlike the original fused one, this whirlpool would not automatically reﬁne and transform their Heavenly Energy, only maintaining its own form and the Saint Energy within. However, once they circulated and started using their Saint Energy, as long as this whirlpool existed, the Saint Energy would slowly recover and not be used up totally like in their ﬁrst few tries.

Zhou Weiqing had tested the limits of this many times. Any Saint Energy he used up would be slowly recovered at the rate of about one drop per day. However, there was also a caveat for that. The tiny whirlpool could only be maintained with at least ten drops of Saint Energy, and Zhou Weiqing called it the base requisite amount. That was to say, unless Zhou Weiqing and Tian’er joined forces to ensure their Saint Attributes fused again, otherwise if any of the three used their Saint Energy individually, they had to hold back half of it to maintain the whirlpool.

In this month, with the sheer amount of talent between the three of them, and their cultivation speeds, they had only just recovered their Heavenly Energy and only improved slightly in that sense. However, all three of them felt as if they had been fully reborn and remoulded. That was because they truly had a new power within them, the true profound secrets of the four Saint Attributes!

This was especially so for Shangguan Xue’er. In truth, she felt a great sense of gratitude towards Tian’er, though she might not show it externally. After all, according to normal circumstances, it would have been impossible for her to have this Saint Energy. However, Tian’er’s generosity greatly touched Shangguan Xue’er. The conﬂict between the two had long disappeared, and their relationship had improved dramatically. Many times during breaks of their cultivation, Zhou Weiqing would joke that this was actually his greatest reward in the entire month.

Stretching his arms and doing a few simple exercises, Zhou Weiqing grinned and said: “Heh heh, now, if that bastard really comes, he will not have the chance to easily kill me anymore. With the current Saint Energy I have, I can at least ensure he will not be able to kill me within ten seconds. With this time, we should be better be able to deal with him.”

Tian’er giggled and said: “Now, I am actually thinking that perhaps the best cultivation method for us is to return to the WanShou Empire. As long as we have enough Heavenly Beasts to let us Devour… Heh heh, our Saint Energy can increase quickly. At least, it will be faster than if we cultivate it ourselves. Once we can ﬁll our entire bodies with Saint Energy, to consolidate our Heavenly Core Nucleus, then we will be the strongest Heavenly King powerhouses in the entire world. At that point, I think that we can even stand up to ordinary Heavenly Emperors.” Zhou Weiqing laughed and said: “How can it be so easy to consolidate and form the Heavenly Core Nucleus? Each of us needs at least three thousand drops of the Saint Energy, how many Heavenly Beasts would that take? Furthermore, those Heavenly Beasts aren’t going to stand there quietly to let us Devour them.”

Tian’er stuck her tongue out at him and said: “However, Weiqing, you must promise me one thing. Even if we use the Devour Skill on Heavenly Beasts to help our cultivation, we must not kill or severely injure them. I know that your Devour Skill also Devours life force, and in doing so the speed of cultivation is much faster. However, unnecessary killing is also acting against the heavens, we cannot kill large numbers of Heavenly Beasts for selﬁsh reasons. Otherwise, I will not be able to accept it.”

Zhou Weiqing laughed heartily and said: “Don’t worry, I never planned to go kill Heavenly Beasts. After all, my wife is the King of the Beasts right? Furthermore, if we just depend on killing for our cultivation, it will deﬁnitely leave a shadow in our hearts. It will actually be a detriment to us in the long term and possibly limit our potential.” “Thinking about it, if we really use Saint Energy to form the Heavenly Core Nucleus, perhaps it shouldn’t be called that anymore, but a Saint Core Nucleus. No one has ever gone down this path before, and we still have to explore it bit by bit ourselves, so it isn’t going to be as easy or smooth sailing all the time. However, once we actually succeed, just like Xue’er said, forming that Saint Core Nucleus, we will ﬁnally truly be part of the top echelon powerhouses in the world.”

Their learnings and gains in the month was deﬁnitely substantial, but they also knew that they had barely seen the tip of the iceberg regarding the deepest profound secrets of the Saint Attributes and the Saint Energy. However, if they wanted to do more tests, they also needed a greater amount of Saint Energy. Furthermore, the current recovery rate of the Saint Energy was just too slow, and only when Zhou Weiqing and Tian’er joined hands to form the original large whirlpool, would the recovery rate be faster. As such, they truly did need a large supply of Heavenly Energy to reﬁne and transform into Saint Energy, as they delved deeper into the secrets.

Shangguan Xue’er stood by the side, listening silently. In her heart, she was quite envious of Tian’er, but she would never excluse her from Zhou Weiqing’s side any longer. Compared to their three Sisters, perhaps Tian’er was the most compatible with Zhou Weiqing.

Both of them had the top tier Tiger bloodlines, one with the Dark Demon God Tiger bloodline and the other with the Divine Heavenly Spirit Tiger bloodline. More importantly, their energy was perfectly complementary into forming the four Saint Attributes.

At last, Zhou Weiqing said: “Come on, let’s go. It’s time for us to end the closed door cultivation and move out. Regarding the Saint Energy, this is a secret between us. Tian’er, Xue’er, I hope that this secret will remain ours alone. I know that you both are from your respective Great Saint Lands, and you have to consider your families as well. However, in this matter, the fact of the matter is the lesser people who know about it, the better. After all, as the saying goes, the greater the wealth a man has, the greater the greed it can spark in others… and it can only lead to our possible ruin. If anyone else knows about this power of ours, it might cause the entire world to cast greedy eyes upon us. At that time, we would be in deep trouble.”

Towards Tian’er’s earlier suggestion, it would be a lie to say that Zhou Weiqing wasn’t tempted. Without question, it would be impossible for them to actually gain a massive amount of Saint Energy with their normal cultivation speed. Zhou Weiqing vaguely sensed that the Saint Energy was actually not something that people of their current levels would usually be able to access. Even with the four Saint Attributes fused together, it was his conjecture that perhaps only when one had consolidated their Heavenly Core Nucleus, then they would start to learn about this, slowly transforming the Heavenly Core Nucleus into the Saint Core Nucleus. However, they now had gained access to it much earlier, and were also able to start cultivating it. The key to the entire matter was actually Zhou Weiqing’s Devour Skill.

Only with the Devour Skill would they be able to gain sufﬁcient energy to support such an impossible cultivation target. To get so much energy, it was not realistic to Devour other Heavenly Jewel Masters, unless Zhou Weiqing wanted to go on a killing spree around the world.

As such, Devouring Heavenly Beasts’ Heavenly Energy could possibly be the best choice. However, there were just too many things for him to do right now, and he was unable to just run off to train like that. Zhou Weiqing made a hidden resolution that once he had established everything onto the right path, he would make a trip down to the WanShou Empire together with Tian’er, entering the Ten Thousand Beast Heavens to raise their Saint Energy. Once they gained large amounts of Saint Energy, one could just imagine their power in the future. Furthermore, in terms of breaking through to the Heavenly King stage, they would not have any bottlenecks at all. Everything else aside, with the Saint Energy, their cultivation speed would be greatly increased. There were still many underlying secrets waiting to be discovered, just like a grand door to a mountain of gold had been opened, awaiting their arrival. How could he not be ﬁlled with a great ﬁghting spirit?

Both girls nodded instantly. Although they did not speak much else on the matter, the resolution in their eyes gave Zhou Weiqing the answer he wanted. At least, before they consolidated their Saint Core Nucleus, if anyone knew of this miraculous power, it would bring about unnecessary trouble.

As the three of them left their cultivation room, Duan Tianlang in the next room was immediately alerted. Opening the door, Duan Tianlang came out of his room to greet them.

“How is it, you three little fellows have ﬁnally ﬁnished your closed door cultivation?” Duan Tianlang smiled faintly as he said, a hint of teasing in his voice as well.

Both Shangguan Xue’er and Tian’er both blushed, and only Zhou Weiqing with his thick skin did not mind at all, only assuming a smug and gloating expression. “Senior Uncle, thank you so much for this past month. We have greatly troubled you.” Zhou Weiqing bowed respectfully towards Duan Tianlang. His respect towards Duan Tianlang was no less than his Master, the Six Ultimate Heavenly Emperor Long Shiya. This God Tier Consolidating Equipment Master deﬁnitely held a respected position deep in Zhou Weiqing’s heart.

Duan Tianlang laughed heartily and said: “There is no need for thanks, after all, Senior Uncle is not an outsider! That damn fatty, your Master, isn’t here, and meeting such a tough circumstance, how can I not intervene? That fellow Fatty Long, if he knows some assassin dares to touch his disciple… heh heh, no matter what remote corner of the world he is hiding in, he will still dig out that assassin and destroy him.”

“Towards the profession of assassins, I am really not too familiar. However, for one to reach the Heavenly King stage like that one, I am sure he is one of the top of that profession. Previously, there was a certain level of luck for you to be able to escape death at his hands, so during this next period of time, you all better not let your guard down. Fatty Long has been gone for quite some time, so I am sure he will be back soon. We need to keep our guards up at least until he has returned, so wherever you go in this period of time, Senior Uncle will follow you.” Zhou Weiqing also laughed heartily and said: “Then many thanks to Senior Uncle.”

As they exited the cultivation chamber, Zhou Weiqing immediately gave the order for the Peerless Regiment ofﬁcers to gather for a meeting. They had been in the Crescent City for over a month, and he had been in closed door cultivation for all this time. There were many things to handle, and he also needed ﬁrst hand news before he could make further decisions.

Before long, the Peerless Regiment ofﬁcers that were currently in the Crescent City all gathered in the governer’s mansion grand hall.

Lin TianAo was the ﬁrst to arrive. Towards the assassination attempt on Zhou Weiqing, he was the one who was most self- castigatory. He had always treated himself as Zhou Weiqing’s Follower, even though Zhou Weiqing had already lifted the Seal. He was also adept at defense, yet under such a circumstance, he had failed in his personal mission to defend and protect Zhou Weiqing. How could he not feel vexed and depressed?

However, it was perhaps also this matter and the feeling of vexation that had incited a strong ﬁghting spirit within him. In this month, he had ﬁnally broken through to the seven- Jeweled stage, and with the Consolidating Equipment Scrolls that he had gained from the Heavenly Jewel Island previously, he managed to complete his seventh Consolidated Assembly Set Shield piece. His overall defense had grown to a startling degree. Lin TianAo was conﬁdent that even if that assassin

came once more, he could at least help Zhou Weiqing block one

attack.

Zhou Weiqing sat at the head of the table, and for the others, this was the ﬁrst time in the entire month they had seen their Commander. Their eyes were ﬁlled with some surprise, as they realised that no matter Zhou Weiqing, Tian’er or Shangguan Xue’er, they seemed to be very different from a month ago.

This was mainly in terms of their presence and aura. No one could clearly say what the change was, but the feeling was deﬁnitely different.

Zhou Weiqing laughed heartily and said: “I’m truly sorry everyone. During this period of time, I have been slacking off due to recovering from my injury. However, I am back now. What is our current situation like, everyone please let me know. Bro Lin, you go ﬁrst.”

Lin TianAo was his usual stable self, nodding as he said: “Currently, things are going very well, almost the ideal path we were hoping for. The targets we have set have all been met. Currently, in the entire city, besides our Peerless Regiment warriors, we have also recruited three thousand new soldiers. Of course, these soldiers are still fresh, their combat abilities are nothing much, and they do not have much training yet, let alone any experience in ﬁghting. They will not be much use on

an actual battleﬁeld, but at least in terms of everyday guard

duties, it is still ﬁne. At least, this greatly solves our manpower issues. After all, though the Crescent City is not considered large, it is still an entire city, and the populace is pretty high.”

“As for the Kalise Empire, they currently do not seem to have plans to attack us yet. However, they have already started gathering troops in the Xinyue City three hundred li from here. Currently, our scouts estimate they have already gathered three Regiments of troops by now, one of which is from the Bai Da Empire. Once they start moving out, they can reach the vicinity of the Crescent City within three days to begin attacks on us.”

“On the logistics end, the ﬁrst batch of supplies from the Fei Li Empire have already reached, and is sufﬁcient for us in the near future. More importantly, the supply lines between the Fei Li Empire have also been established and being maintained. Our main force of the Peerless Regiment has already started moving out, and are currently marching from the ZhongTian Empire to the Fei Li Empire, where they will pass through the Fei Li Empire to meet with us. The Fei Li Empire has been informed of their arrival to prevent any misunderstandings. Although it is a major movement of troops, since they are all cavalry soldiers, they should be able to arrive within a month or so. By that time, even if the Kalise Empire can amass an entire Legion of troops, we are conﬁdent in ﬁghting them off.

The Fei Li Empire will also be helping supply our main Peerless

Regiment force as they move through their borders, and Vice Commanders Wei Feng and Hua Feng are in command.”

“The main troop is moving out a lot earlier than we had planned. Although their outﬁtting is not fully complete, the ZhongTian Empire has already promised us that they will be aiding us in sending us our orders once they are completed. They have also given us aid in terms of supplies and gold. At the same time, the ZhongTian Empire has given you a letter, only for your eyes.”

After saying that, Lin TianAo retrieved a sealed letter, passing it to Zhou Weiqing.

A letter from the ZhongTian Capital City? Towards this point, Zhou Weiqing was rather surprised. Immediately, he opened the letter to read it, right in front of everyone. This letter from the ZhongTian Empire was not short. First of all, it described the current situation in the south, especially the attacks and disorder of the Dan Dun Empire, pointing out clearly the possible alliance between the Bai Da Empire and Dan Dun Empire. There was also a greater description of all the Bai Da Empire armies and their formations. At the same time, the ZhongTian Empire expressed that they would be willing to increase their support for the Heavenly Bow Empire, both in terms of supplies and gold, and it would be sent to them via various unique channels. However, they had one request, for the Heavenly Bow Empire to hasten the revival of their Empire. At the same time, they were to declare war on the Kalise Empire, at a certain level to tie down the Bai Da Empire as well. The letter also expressed that if necessary, the ZhongTian Empire was willing to give some actual military support to them, though this would not happen too quickly yet.

The promised support of gold and supplies was deﬁnitely not a small amount, and once he read the letter, the ﬁrst thought in Zhou Weiqing’s mind was awe about the wealth of the ZhongTian Empire.

The gold and supplies that the ZhongTian Empire were giving them was even more than the previous Heavenly Bow Empire’s annual taxes!

Zona Novel Online

Heavenly Jewel Change Chapter 191-200

Chapter 191 Fei Li God General!

Chapter 192 Power vs Strategy!

Chapter 193 Compete in Creating Consolidating Equipment Scrolls?!

Chapter 194 Crescent City!

Chapter 195 Peerless Heavy Cavalry!

Chapter 196 The Sudden Assassination

Chapter 197 Dragon-Tiger Transformation – 2nd Form!

Chapter 198 Breakdown! Rescue! Devour!

Chapter 199 To be conﬁrmed!

Chapter 200 Saint Energy Whirlpool!

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