Chapter 528: We’ll Talk If You Beat Me

From the time Shang Xia had started cultivating, he had taken dozens, if not hundreds of lives. He couldn’t be classified as a saint in any way.

However, the fate of the Manyu Continent was like a giant rock that weighed down his heart when he thought about their impending doom.

Because his state of mind had been negatively affected, Shang Xia increased his speed as he went to inspect the rest of the formations. He ran into several low-leveled cultivators along the way. Luckily for them, he just chased them away without taking their lives.

With the core region of the Tongyou Institution as the center, Shang Xia separated the outer region where the formations were located into 8 quadrants. He made his rounds around the 8 quadrants one by one and he would chase away any low-leveled cultivator he found digging into the ground.

One day when Shang Xia was inspecting the third quadrant, he felt the sudden appearance of a foreign divine perception. When he tried to look for the source, he discovered that he couldn’t find anyone in the surrounding dozens of miles.

With a chill running through his heart, the light beneath Shang Xia’s feet flashed and he appeared 40 miles away in an instant. He quickly approached the last place he noticed the appearance of the divine perception.

He stared at the massive rift in the ground below and he didn’t need to use his divine perception to know that the formation that was located there had already been destroyed.

Expanding his divine perception to its maximum range, Shang Xia felt the appearance of the foreign presence once again. However, the expert seemed to have hidden his presence and it was a lot more difficult for Shang Xia to discover them.

If not for the fact that Shang Xia’s divine perception was a lot stronger and more sensitive than others on the same level, he might have missed the person who came.

Instead of charging straight at the mysterious culprit, Shang Xia acted a little more naturally. He pretended to examine the area while slowly moving in their direction. Along the way, he tried to think of the culprit’s identity.

From their reaction earlier when they first discovered Shang Xia’s divine perception and ran, their cultivation level should be at the third layer Martial Extermination Realm or lower.

The only interesting thing was how the person destroyed the formation. From the looks of it, Shang Xia had a feeling they were likely to be an expert from the Manyu Continent.

However, with how close the destruction was, it seemed like they were doing it to catch Shang Xia’s attention on purpose. He wondered if they were doing it on purpose to lure him into a trap.

Ignoring everything that happened, Shang Xia didn’t really care that the formation was destroyed or that he might be walking head-first into a trap. Instead, he was more intrigued by the way the expert was concealing himself.

From what he learned from Shang Ke and Chu Jia, the experts of the Manyu Continent have extremely scarce resources and they wouldn’t be able to bring out any powerful treasures. From that route of thinking alone, the person who arrived had probably used some sort of secret art to conceal their presence.

Well, that was what Shang Xia initially thought. The closer he got to the foreign aura, the more he felt that he was mistaken. The other party was using some sort of treasure to conceal their aura!

When Shang Xia was carefully approaching the other party, he didn’t forget to scan the area carefully to avoid walking straight into an ambush.

As he continued to fly around the area, he discovered 5 deep craters in the ground that affected the formation laid by the Tongyou Institution.

The scene looked similar to several spots he had seen earlier. The formations were clearly better preserved the closer they were to the core region.

As Shang Xia got closer and closer, he discovered even more craters in the ground. Most of them looked like they were randomly blasted and there were some of them that were close to the formation underground. Too bad for them, they failed to discover several formations even though they were close to it.

…

Back when Shang Xia traveled close to 900 miles away from the core region controlled by the Tongyou Institution, he discovered many traces where the ground had been dug up. A good portion of it seemed to have happened in the past month or so, and it didn’t take a genius to realize that the craters on the ground appeared after the Tongyou Institution pulled back their influence due to the sudden assault. Only then did those foreign powers have the guts to rampantly destroy the lands.

Shang Xia was prepared for what he was about to see, but he didn’t expect to run into a Martial Extermination Realm expert from the Manyu Continent this time.

…

As he approached a 10 mile distance from where the expert was hiding, Shang Xia concealed himself once again with his divine perception. Ensuring that there weren't any traps, he retrieved his Abyssal Blade.

With lightning filling the skies, a crimson blade light tore through the void ten miles long and slashed directly at the aura Shang Xia detected.

That was the third move of his Twenty Four Solar Terms, Lightning Awakening!

There was no warning when he unleashed his move and even if the expert had been prepared to fight, he wouldn’t expect Shang Xia to strike from 10 miles away.

Even though the distance would reduce the power behind his strike, the main point of Lightning Awakening was to catch his opponent by surprise anyway.

A sharp whistle tore through the skies as the expert who had been hiding no longer bothered concealing himself. A wave of energy emerged from his body and a three colored extermination light surrounded his weapon. He raised it to block Shang Xia’s blade light and a huge explosion ensued. Shockwaves spread in all directions and leveled everything in their path. Even the earth sank by 3 inches because of the clash.

“Huh?” Shang Xia sped in the direction of the explosion and the closer he got, the clearer he could feel the other party’s aura. It felt somewhat familiar and after seeing the person’s face, Shang Xia was shocked to discover that it was someone he recognized.

Shang Xia’s shock was nothing compared to his opponent. He was sent flying from Shang Xia’s strike earlier and he was appalled after seeing Shang Xia’s face.

As Shang Xia accelerated towards his opponent, he didn’t stop swinging his Abyssal Blade. A terrifying tear appeared in mid air as a blade light that seemed to split the heavens came crashing down on his opponent.

Shang Xia didn’t hesitate to unleash Spring Equinox as he made his way over.

As soon as Shang Xia’s opponent saw the terrifying blade qi in the air, an unprecedented sense of solemnness filled his heart.

Extermination light surrounded his body as he poured his inner qi into his weapon without holding anything back. When Shang Xia’s blade light approached, he accurately slashed its tip.

The blade light Shang Xia sent out was like a giant pencil that appeared in the void while his opponent’s weapon acted like an eraser.

Shang Xia’s blade light was eliminated bit by bit. Even though it was growing shorter, the void around the blade light fractured endlessly.

That wasn’t all. Shang Xia’s opponent had a weapon that was around 3 foot 5 inches. By the time Shang Xia’s blade light was finally eliminated, his weapon became 5 inches shorter!

After releasing 2 attacks, Shang Xia’s enthusiasm for battle shot through the roof. He got 3 miles closer to his target and by that time, they were only separated by a mere 5 miles. Shang Xia twisted his blade in the air again and got ready to fire off yet another attack.

“Hold it, stay your hand!” The person couldn’t care about the damage to his weapon at the moment as he screamed for Shang Xia to stop. At the same time, he retracted his extermination origin protection around him to show his sincerity.

Shang Xia was slightly curious about the sudden change in situation and he extended his divine sense to search for any anomalies. Discovering that there was nothing out of the ordinary, Shang Xia wouldn’t let such a good opportunity go. He twisted his Abyssal Blade and slashed upwards to unleash his new move.

A flurry of snow-like blade light filled the skies and it was everywhere! Shang Xia seemed to unleash that attack extremely casually, and it was named ‘Lesser Snow’. He gained inspiration from the 20th solar term for the attack and his opponent didn’t expect him to continue the assault even after he retracted his defenses!

Anger burned in his heart but he could only raise his weapon helplessly to counter the attack.

In an instant, the surroundings were covered in a layer of snow-like blade light. Even though rays of brilliant light filled the skies, a gray shadow shot through the sea of light with a terrifying speed. It seemed as though it wanted to shatter the flurry of blade lights and obviously, Shang Xia was the gray shadow.

Back when he first arrived, Shang Xia was able to fight against third layer Martial Extermination Realm experts when he gave it his all. Unfortunately, he was only able to last for a short period in battle with them.

Now that he had refined 50 percent of his extermination origins and shortened the time required to complete a cycle of his inner qi circulation to 4 hours, he received a huge boost to his strength.

Since he woke up, Shang Xia had been itching to find someone to fight with him. He wanted to learn how strong he had become and to gain a better estimate of his strength.

Unfortunately, after Yun Jing went into seclusion to recover, there was no one in the Tongyou Institution’s core region capable of fighting Shang Xia, much less pushing him to his limits.

Now that an expert from the Manyu Continent came knocking, Shang Xia wouldn’t let go of the chance.

The reason why Shang Xia found the man familiar was because he took part in the previous assault on the Tongyou Institution. He was one of the 3 Martial Extermination Realm experts who joined hands to deal with Yun Jing!

During the final part of the battle, Shang Xia threw 2 Golden Sun Inferno Talismans at him and buried him in a sea of flames to buy some time. That was how he bought enough time to deal with the strongest expert the Manyu Continent sent, Hu Wendao.

Shang Xia recalled that the person in front of him was called ‘Mister Ren’ by the rest of his companions.

There had to be a reason for him to approach the Tongyou Institution and for him to intentionally reveal himself to Shang Xia earlier. However, Shang Xia couldn’t care less. It was a great time to test out his strength and he would beat up Mister Ren before deciding to talk to him.