Chapter 783: Learning from Bad Examples

Sun Xiaowu curled his lips. A layer of golden runes covered his skin as he activated [Adamantine Aegis]. The arrows and spears shot down from above let out clinks and thunks as they struck him, unable to harm him at all.

"[Blinding Flash: Thousandfold Echo]!" Sun Xiaowu's body suddenly split into dozens of clones, simultaneously real and illusory, an entire battalion of soldiers by himself.

"[Goldenscale Palm: Qilin]!" Sun Xiaowu and all his clones leapt up into the air, performing exactly the same action. They cocked their arms. A golden glow radiated from all their bodies, basking the world in light. Thousands of clones merged into Sun Xiaowu's main body, and the countless activated copies of the technique merged into one.

Golden scales covered up Sun Xiaowu's arm as it grew thicker and thicker, and the image of a golden qilin appeared behind him. As Sun Xiaowu punched forward, a golden qilin materialized out of nowhere and soared toward the greenskins.

The formidable wall that the greenskins had set up, fed and nourished with their enemies' blood, two hundred meters tall and thirty thick—but the gigantic golden qilin, bolstered a thousand times over by Sun Xiaowu's clones, smashed it apart.

The entire battlefield shook. The greenskins stumbled atop the wall, as though they were experiencing a massive earthquake.

Golden radiance shot a thousand meters into the air, so bright it felt as though the sun had fallen to the ground. Rocks and rubble were sent flying. As they crashed back down, they smashed unfortunate greenskins into paste.

A burst of energy erupted from where Sun Xiaowu's attack first landed and swallowed up the houses and buildings that lay behind the greenskins' wall.

Despite the collapse of their houses and buildings, however, the greenskins didn't seem to panic too much. Huge quantities of greenskin warriors emerged from the destroyed ruins of their city, forming a green tide that threatened to swamp Sun Xiaowu.

"[Golden Divide: Soar]!" Thousands of clones raised their hands as one. Golden radiance lit up the battlefield, so bright everyone had to close their eyes.

Sun Xiaowu's thousand clones all struck with [Golden Divide], forming a sea of resplendent gold.

The name of his technique bore some similarity to Zhang Lie's [Fists of the Silent Sea: Soar], but the similarity was in name only. Zhang Lie's technique used water-attuned genetic energy as a means of manipulating space, while Sun Xiaowu's variant of the technique hadn't reached such elevated heights. He had only named his technique in the same fashion to honor his mentor and captain.

Sun Xiaowu's golden wave swept up the tide of greenskins, bloodying them and crushing them against the ground. Even so, more and more greenskins began to emerge from the ruins, charging forward fearlessly.

At that moment, two figures tore apart the golden wave and retaliated with attacks of their own, which shot toward Sun Xiaowu with frightening force.

The ground cracked. Rubble stained with the blood of the deceased greenskins burst apart, sending flesh and bone flying all over. Two rows of Sun Xiaowu's clones were obliterated in an instant.

Two greenskins with dark green coloration leapt out of the crowd, darker even compared to the vanguard whom Sun Xiaowu had killed in the initial skirmish back on the draconian world.

These two greenskins were undoubtedly the two generals that the guards had mentioned. One of them held a long two-handed hammer, whereas the other had two one-handed hammers. They attacked from the skies, but even they were unable to distinguish the true Sun Xiaowu from his clones.

The greenskins preferred brute force to strategy: since they were unable to identify the true Sun Xiaowu, they would simply kill him and his clones together.

The two greenskin generals fell among Sun Xiaowu's clones like twin meteors, at which point they began to lay waste to whatever clones were in the vicinity.

As they raised their hammers, huge swathes of clones were reduced to nothing but energy, dissipating in mid-air. The rest of the clones, however, didn't panic. They smiled as though they had lured the two generals into a perfect trap.

"[Blinding Flash: Self-Destruct]!" Sun Xiaowu's clones suddenly radiated with golden light so bright the entire battlefield was illuminated.

The next moment, all of Sun Xiaowu's clones erupted in an explosion dozens of times stronger than the [Golden Divides] had accomplished.

The two generals, trapped by the field of clones, were unable to escape in time.

The explosion of genetic energy spawned a frightening hurricane. More importantly, Sun Xiaowu's clones didn't just explode—bright beams of golden light shot out of their cores, complete with piercing golden blades that covered the entire battlefield.

[Golden Divide] was just a single attack, akin to scooping out a cup of water from a bucket. On the other hand, self-destruction was equivalent to spilling the entire bucket of water.

The resulting burst of energy was orders of magnitude larger, and the two greenskin generals only survived the explosion for a few seconds before even their hardy bodies were obliterated.

Sun Xiaowu had picked up this technique from Yang Ze. Thanks to Yang Ze's lotus flowers, Sun Xiaowu had picked up a similar technique: exploding clones. Explosions were truly the peak of art.

Sun Xiaowu shook his head amidst the smoke and dust. "Stronger than the vanguard I killed before entering the greenskin world? Perhaps so, but not by much."

Most likely, the guards who had passed him that information hadn't faced off against the other two generals themselves, and they were basing their information off of hearsay and word of mouth.

It was an exaggeration to claim that the two greenskin generals were at the level of mid-rank warlords—though even such warlords would likely die if they were trapped in a field of Sun Xiaowu's exploding clones.

The remaining greenskins, devastated by their two generals' death, halted their forward charge. If even their generals had died to this enemy, how were they meant to defeat him?

An arrow, fast as lightning, suddenly shot toward Sun Xiaowu. It was so quick he barely had any time to react, but Sun Xiaowu managed to catch the arrow headed straight for his temple.

However, the arrow had so much momentum that Sun Xiaowu was unable to halt it completely; although he had grabbed its shaft, the arrow simply continued straight for its target with Sun Xiaowu's own hand in tow.

Because Sun Xiaowu wasn't prepared for the sudden attack, he was unable to exert his full strength on the arrow, which struck his temple...