Chapter 301: Warm-Up's Over

With a swing of Wang Sheng's sword, wind and lightning stirred.

There was no need for words, no room for hesitation. The clash of aura was all the combatants required to know that their opponent was formidable. The only answer they could give each other was an all-out strike.

At the horizon, the two clashed head-on.

The instant crimson and golden-purple lights erupted, they exchanged a series of blows faster than the eye could follow. Waves of tremendous force swept in all directions, and primal qi roiled violently.

From Mu Wanxuan's perspective, her junior brother and his powerful opponent were like two glass marbles flying across the heavens. With each collision, they were sent flying right back.

The figure that flew westward had a pair of enormous, dark-violet flesh wings that seemed slightly exaggerated in proportion. If one ignored the wings, the vampire prince was actually rather handsome. He had a tall, well-proportioned frame, and golden hair fell loosely around his face. Moreover, he had a high nose, deep eye sockets, and naturally alluring light-violet pupils.

However, from within the sleeves of his tailored suit extended metallic claws, gleaming faintly. Like his wings, they marred his image.

Though the vampire prince was being driven back, his eyes still burned with battle intent and fury as he locked onto Wang Sheng.

Their clash had been far more than a simple head-on collision. All over his arms, ribs, and hips, the vampire had sustained over a dozen sword wounds that were deep enough to reveal bone. However, the lack of blood flowing from them created a strange and unsettling sight.

With each pulse of dark-violet light, his wounds closed rapidly.

Wang Sheng, in contrast, sustained a sunken fist imprint on the left side of his chest. He had been hit with a punch so strong that even his Flowing Celestial Robe could not fully shield him against it.

After being flung back nearly a hundred meters, Wang Sheng was the first to steady himself. He placed his left hand over the dent in his chest. Having been tempered countless times using heavenly tribulation for thirteen years, his Dao Body now revealed its true resilience. Before his enchanted power even surged, his broken ribs had already knit back together!

As if he were smoothing out a crease in cloth, the sunken imprint rose slowly until no trace of the injury remained.

The vampire prince forced his wings to beat, halting his backward momentum. He then straightened in midair, wings shifting to a slow rhythm as he faced Wang Sheng.

Wang Sheng could not help but think,

How sturdy.

Despite cutting him over a dozen times, even Spiritless had failed to inflict serious harm.

Their gazes sharpened at the same moment. The vampire prince's lips curved into a faint, cold smile, and the two charged forward again.

They did not bother to confirm each other's identity. Above a deserted industrial complex in the Empire of Saros, their battle began in earnest.

Fight first, talk later!

For some reason, Wang Sheng used the Wudang Daoist lineage's Taiyi Golden Immortal Sword Art, which made his combat style lean toward raw power and overwhelming strength. Threads of lightning coiled around the blade. Although he unleashed the techniques skillfully, he was still more proficient in the Heavenly Ziwei Sword Art.

The "young" vampire prince had no fixed fighting style at all. He relied purely on speed and strength to assault Wang Sheng. Once one was strong enough to make each attack lethal, and their speed broke through a certain threshold, even the most basic assault became unpredictable. Such attacks were also the hardest to defend against.

Still, Wang Sheng's expression remained as calm as ever. From their initial clash, he had already formed a preliminary counterstrategy.

Spiritless shone brightly as he thrust it straight toward his opponent's forehead. Though the attack was plain and unadorned, he flew on Flying Haze as fast as his foe. The fighters' combined velocity gave his attack extraordinary force.

The vampire prince's wings shuddered. With a sharp sound, he slid to the side just before the sword tip reached his brow. He then swung his left metallic claw at Wang Sheng's throat.

Spiritless shifted from thrust to slash. Wang Sheng pressed his left hand over his right wrist, amplifying the force of the attack that was aimed at the prince's elbow joint.

Now aware of how deadly the ancient sword was, the prince decided against taking the attack head-on. Instead, he made his wings quiver, making him spin. He then kicked Wang Sheng's waist so quickly that his leg blurred into a flurry of afterimages.

Their clash transpired in the blink of an eye. Anyone close enough to watch the battle would have only seen two phantasms clashing in the air.

Wang Sheng suddenly dropped down and blocked the incoming kick with his left arm. The two combatants shuddered from the impact, and the recoil forced them apart.

In an instant, they steadied themselves again and charged at each other once more.

Wang Sheng now understood why his master and many Daoist experts fixed daggers to the soles of their feet for flight. Standing atop Flying Haze made certain aerial maneuvers cumbersome.

The two fought at close range in midair, neither gaining the upper hand.

Mu Wanxuan, who was closest to the battle, watched from a hundred meters away. Her eyebrows knit slightly as she grew puzzled at what her junior brother was doing.

Has he been drawn into the opponent's rhythm? Is that why he can't use his sword techniques smoothly?

She could not understand why Wang Sheng had suddenly abandoned his usual style. When the variations of the Taiyi Golden Immortal Sword Art did not come in time, he even chose to meet attacks with his bare hands.

There was no sword phantasm, no one-man sword formation. He only showed swordsmanship that was "decent enough," combined with speed and physical power equal to his opponent.

The longer they fought, the more her junior brother seemed to forget that he was a sword cultivator. He barely used the sharp edge of Spiritless. Instead, he relied on footwork, enchanted power, and brute strength to trade blows with the foreign bat fiend.

It was as if he had taken on the combat style of their master, Qing Yanzi.

Her frown deepened slightly, yet she remained still, forcing herself to stay calm.

I have to put my trust in him!

The two combatants fought with such ferocity that it was impossible to tell who had the advantage. In the blink of an eye, they traded over a hundred more blows.

The vampire prince's suit was now tattered and ruined, yet he did not have even the slightest scratch. His astonishing regeneration was the reason he maintained a faint, mocking smile throughout. Perhaps, even though Wang Sheng could command lightning, he wasn't remarkable at all in the vampire's eyes.

The Flowing Celestial Robe was extraordinary. Although his opponent had struck him more than a dozen times, it remained unscathed, and Wang Sheng appeared completely unharmed.

In another fierce clash, Wang Sheng drove his sword through his opponent's shoulder, and his opponent punched Wang Sheng's. Enchanted power erupted from Spiritless, while an equally terrifying force burst forth from the vampire's fist. Both were blasted backward through the air.

So this is a vampire prince?

Wang Sheng deliberately gave the vampire a faintly mocking smile. As Wang Sheng had expected, his opponent snorted coldly, and two dark-red spheres of light rapidly formed in his claws.

It seemed the prince was easy to provoke.

The vampire began to swell in size. His clothes were torn apart one after another as he abandoned his refined grace and transformed into a towering, explosively muscular creature that was more than two meters tall. His bat-like face remained completely calm.

He said something in a deep tone, then shook his fleshy wings once. Reversing his grip on the two spheres of crimson light, he left behind a trail of afterimages as he fiercely attacked Wang Sheng.

Flying Haze glowed brilliantly, and a clear sword cry rang from within Wang Sheng. Lightning instantly wrapped around Spiritless, which he wielded in his right hand.

He was still using the most basic of the Taiyi Golden Immortal Sword Art's sword techniques. However, when he thrust Spiritless forward, lightning trailed behind it in a long arc, making Wang Sheng look like a god who had descended from the heavens.

The vampire prince, now in his true form, looked at Wang Sheng solemnly. The dark-red sphere in his left hand vanished from his grip, reappeared in front of Wang Sheng, and immediately exploded!

The Heaven-Earth Displacement Technique?

Wang Sheng had no time to react. The crimson light surged violently, and a chilling, brutal aura slammed into him. He took the full brunt of the blow, and the shockwave hurled him away.

Before Wang Sheng could recover, the vampire prince flickered several times, moving even faster than Wang Sheng had been blasted away. Soon, he appeared before the cultivator of the Hua Republic.

After unfurling his great wings to keep him on the same altitude as his opponent, the vampire pressed the sphere of crimson light in his right hand against Wang Sheng's chest. At that moment, their eyes met, and Wang Sheng caught a glimmer of mockery in the vampire's gaze.

A deafening roar split the air as the violent power within the sphere erupted. A column of crimson light drove Wang Sheng downward, slamming him hard into the ground!

Boom!

The impact shook the earth. A shockwave swept outward along the surface, reaching far into the distance.

𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

The crash had carved out a deep crater. The few broken walls that had still been standing nearby were all swiftly reduced to rubble.

In the distance, Mu Wanxuan instinctively stepped forward, wanting to rush to her junior brother's aid. However, as soon as she moved, she seemingly heard something that stopped her in her tracks. She suspiciously watched the dust-filled crater.

Certain of his victory, the vampire prince descended slowly from the air. He stood still, his gaze already fixed on Mu Wanxuan.

Whoosh!

At that moment, a streak of rainbow light flashed in from behind the vampire. Flying Haze tore through the air at incredible speed, tracing a line of blood across the vampire's back. In the blink of an eye, the wound deepened into a translucent fissure.

The sword had struck the joint where his right wing met his body, which was one of his few weaknesses. It had nearly severed the wing.

The vampire prince roared in fury and plummeted from the air, crashing to the ground near the crater where Wang Sheng had fallen.

At the bottom, Wang Sheng was already rising to his feet, his wounds visibly knitting themselves back together. Holding Spiritless, he stepped out of the pit and fixed his gaze on the now-grounded vampire prince.

Flying Haze circled him as he tightened his grip on Spiritless. Though he looked a little battered and covered in dust, his eyes were as sharp as a blade.

Gritting his teeth through the pain, the vampire prince furled his remaining wing. His eyes filled with hatred as he locked onto Wang Sheng again.

Wang Sheng coughed out a turbid breath and gracefully flourished his sword. With just one step forward, he vanished from the prince's sight and seemingly sent a dozen phantasms lunging at the prince.

Among the flashing sword phantasms, a vast purple star slowly emerged.

Warm-up's over.