Chapter 284: Scoundrel!

Chu Liang couldn't help but wonder,

How many immortal arts has Senior Sister Jiang mastered, exactly?

He recalled that time in the cave when they'd met for the first time. Jiang Yuebai had struggled greatly against a fifth-realm demonic beast, so there was no doubt that she had yet to master many powerful immortal arts. After all, she wouldn't have held back in such a critical situation where their lives had been in danger.

Chu Liang thought about it some more and realized it made sense that Jiang Yuebai could now use numerous immortal arts.

She possessed the Transcendent Spirit. That made her naturally attuned to spiritual qi and gave her an affinity with the Great Dao, which meant all divine techniques and skills were relatively easy for her to learn.

It was likely that her cultivation level at the time had hindered her from mastering everything she had learned.

Then when she broke through to the fifth realm, her foundational qi became much stronger. That allowed her to quickly master some immortal arts she hadn't been able to use previously.

After that breakthrough, she went into closed-door cultivation and likely spent her time doing the same as me—expanding her repertoire of divine techniques and skills.

That's why she chose to clash with me head-on!

The Heavenly Sword Seal was supposed to be the most powerful sword technique, with the exception of immortal arts. However, it was like the poor man's version of the Heaven-Raising Sword. Jiang Yuebai's Heavenly Sword Seal was evenly matched with Chu Liang's, but her Heaven-Raising Sword was a hundred times more powerful!

Like a roaring waterfall, Jiang Yuebai's massive swordlight descended with a blast of sword qi. It collided with the Celestial Trap that Chu Liang had sent forth!

It was fortunate for Chu Liang that this formation diagram had been the prize for winning the Mountain God Memorial Ceremony. Otherwise, with Chu Liang's current cultivation level, he wouldn't have had any divine skill that could be a match for the power of a fifth-realm cultivator.

Without that formation diagram, Chu Liang wouldn't have lasted till this stage of the competition. Xu Ziyang would have easily defeated him with overwhelming force.

Regardless, Chu Liang still had a major problem. His most powerful attack was still weaker than Jiang Yuebai's Heaven-Raising Sword.

That was no surprise, as the Heaven-Raising Sword was known as the top immortal art for slaying! Daoist Yan had used the Heaven-Raising Sword to slay enemies for a thousand li, so how could it be a lie?

The Heaven-Raising Sword gradually pierced through the chaotic vortex. Before it even reached Chu Liang, its terrifying sword qi exuded such great pressure that Chu Liang felt like he was suffocating!

How am I supposed to withstand this?

"Heaven-Raising Sword!" Scholar Sun exclaimed. "Jiang Yuebai has mastered even this! She is undoubtedly the strongest among Mount Shu's current generation of disciples!"

"She mastered this sword technique even at an even younger age than when her teacher did," Elder Huang remarked. He smiled and sighed in relief. "Now, I can finally say with confidence that Jiangjiang will win—"

Before he finished speaking, something unexpected happened in the match.

Chu Liang looked so small in the face of such a massive and overwhelming force that would have made anyone else despair, but he did not give up.

The qi around his body suddenly burst into flames.

Whoosh.

Intense red-gold flames of qi enveloped him, and his black pupils were replaced with dazzling vertical golden pupils!

In the spectator stand, Ling Ao was dressed in black and sitting in a corner as he watched the match.

"It's the Divine Dragons' Great Blood-Burning Technique!"

Ling Ao furrowed his eyes when he saw Chu Liang use the same divine technique he had used. Yet, the power Chu Liang unleashed was far greater than what Ling Ao had produced during his match.

Ling Ao's bright gaze turned dim. The sight of Chu Liang's dragon aura soaring into the sky left Ling Ao gritting his teeth in anger.

Chu Liang trembled uncontrollably as the incredible power he was gathering by exhausting his blood flooded into him.

He had indeed stolen this move from Ling Ao. Chu Liang had been inspired to buy this divine technique from the Hall of Conservation after seeing Ling Ao acquire explosive power by burning his blood.

Chu Liang had known that using the blood-burning technique would leave him in a weak state for a period. He hadn't had much time before his match, so he never actually tried using it and had kept it as a last resort.

This was his first time using it, and just as he'd expected, it was a powerful technique.

Chu Liang had cultivated using the Secret Dragon Blood Technique and the Blood-Refinement Technique: Divine Light for so long that the spiritual energy in his blood was superior to Ling Ao's in both quality and intensity, so the power he unleashed was naturally far greater than Ling Ao's.

As the flames of qi shrouding him raged, Chu Liang turned the Celestial Trap. The five formation diagrams contracted in front of him to form a shield, staunchly blocking the Heaven-Raising Sword's advance!

Boom! Rumble!

Claps of thunder suddenly rang out.

Chu Liang managed to withstand the formidable slaying technique!

Elder Huang was quite surprised. "What's going on? Do all of Mount Shu's disciples know how to burn their blood?"

Scholar Sun chimed in, "And the power Chu Liang acquired by burning his blood is even more incredible than when Ling Ao did it. Indeed, the two disciples who made it to the finals are the strongest among them!"

Boom, boom, boom—

The Heaven-Raising Sword and the Celestial Trap collided and exploded thunderously, wiping each other out. Dazzling waves of qi swept across the stage.

Just before the effects of his divine technique lapsed, Chu Liang leaped high into the sky.

He still remembered how Jiang Yuebai had made Ling Ao collapse with one move—Flow of Time. So, he didn't dare to get close to her and continued to use his divine skills from a distance.

The Dustless Sword rose and turned into a hundred beams of swordlight. Then the beams of swordlight each wrote a talismanic character and flew simultaneously.

Chu Liang was combining the Hundred Swords Seal with the Talismanic Sword Seal! He turned them into the Hundred-Character Talismanic Sword!

Thanks to the blood-burning technique, Chu Liang's abilities were greatly enhanced, so he could attempt combining these two divine skills.

Disciples from Mount Shu's previous generations had done studies on this in the past. They discovered that when a cultivator had drawn more than ten or so talismanic characters for the Talismanic Sword Seal, their drawing speed would slow down. Even if the cultivator had enough foundational qi to sustain more than ten talismanic characters, they would take too long to draw the characters, giving their opponent ample time to prepare a way to counter the attack. That meant increasing the number of talismanic characters to harness more power through the Talismanic Sword Seal would actually result in reduced power instead.

So, if a cultivator wanted more power than that of ten or so talismanic characters, the best method was to combine the Talismanic Sword Seal with the Hundred Swords Seal. With a hundred beams of swordlight, the cultivator could harness the power of a hundred talismanic characters simultaneously.

Chu Liang's one hundred beams of swordlight rained down on Jiang Yuebai!

Seeing the oncoming attack, Jiang Yuebai pivoted subtly.

Whoosh, whoosh.

Leaving behind two afterimages, Jiang Yuebai moved forward more than twenty zhang in the blink of an eye. She'd evaded the rain of swords and even closed in on Chu Liang!

Jiang Yuebai had used Dimension Compression yet again!

Chu Liang immediately stopped using the blood-burning technique!

Now that he was within the range of effect for Jiang Yuebai's Flow of Time, he would just be courting death if he were to continue using the blood-burning technique.

Chu Liang had burned some of his blood earlier to withstand the force of the Heaven-Raising Sword. This technique might work well against others, but it wasn't that effective against Jiang Yuebai.

Once he stopped burning his blood, Chu Liang was overwhelmed by an intense feeling of weakness. With just a thought, a few Dragon-Blood Crystals dissolved into his body. He regained some strength and was able to push through, continuing with the duel.

Chu Liang now saw it as a good thing that Jiang Yuebai had closed the distance between them. He decided to take advantage of it and attack!

It was time for close combat again!

"Jiangjiang's acting foolishly!" Elder Huang cried out. "She's clearly physically weaker than Chu Liang. Why did she take the initiative to close the distance between them—"

However, Elder Huang fell silent midspeech when he saw Jiang Yuebai getting covered with a layer of gold[1].

A cultivator could attain the fifth realm's Metallic Body by integrating geng metal spiritual qi into their body. If Xu Ziyang knew it, there was no way Jiang Yuebai wouldn't know it too! She hadn't used it before, but that didn't mean she hadn't mastered it!

Nevertheless, Chu Liang wasn't afraid in the slightest. After all, he had fought Xu Ziyang's three-headed, six-armed, metal-bodied form in the previous match. No matter how strong Senior Sister Jiang's Metallic Body was, it couldn't be stronger than Xu Ziyang's.

Before Chu Liang's train of thought ended, Jiang Yuebai's flying sword pierced through the air, flying toward him at lightning speed!

Using the Turbulent Stream Movement, Chu Liang darted around Jiang Yuebai like an evil spirit, thrusting his sword toward her from behind.

Yet, Jiang Yuebai seemed to have eyes on the back of her head. Without looking first, she spun around and countered Chu Liang's sword strike with her own!

Chu Liang darted around and attacked her repeatedly, but his sword strikes were intercepted each time.

Chu Liang felt that Jiang Yuebai seemed to be predicting all of his moves. This feeling reminded him of Daoist Yan's secret technique—the Omniscient Sword State.

Jiang Yuebai had used that secret technique in her match against Ling Ao. Chu Liang had only heard of the technique's existence and didn't know much about it, so he hadn't been able to glean much from what he'd seen in the match.

However, now that Chu Liang was being subjected to this divine technique, he realized this was that very same technique Jiang Yuebai had used in her match with Ling Ao.

Jiang Yuebai could predict all of Chu Liang's moves, making her nearly invincible in close combat. Fortunately for Chu Liang, Jiang Yuebai wasn't particularly fast at attacking. Otherwise, he would have already been defeated.

Regardless, Chu Liang couldn't retreat any further.

He had used up quite a lot of his cultivation energy when he exchanged blows with Jiang Yuebai and burned his blood. It would take time for Chu Liang to recover his cultivation energy.

But if I widen the distance between us again so that I can recover, who knows what divine skills Senior Sister Jiang may use... Either way, I'm at a serious disadvantage.

Ultimately, all Chu Liang could do was use Army of Beans and summon his puppets. He was going to launch a group attack on Jiang Yuebai!

Even if you can predict my moves, you won't be able to block them as long as I'm fast and strong enough!

Chu Liang was staking it all on this, hoping to find a way to turn the tables!

Yet, just as the puppets surrounded Jiang Yuebai, her eyes lit up. She used her left hand to form a hand seal and her right hand raised her longsword, pointing it at the sky!

Crackle!

A streak of lightning flashed past. Then at the next second, dazzling streaks of purple lightning spread out over an area spanning five zhang with Jiang Yuebai at the center.

It was like a huge pool of lightning!

The pool of lightning swallowed Chu Liang and his puppets.

"Well done, Jiangjiang!" Elder Huang clapped his hands. "I knew she wouldn't act rashly. As I expected, she had it all planned out. She drew close to Chu Liang so that she could use the Five-Lightning Heart of the Sky!"

It was the immortal art Five-Lightning Heart of the Sky!

This immortal art was almost on par with the Samadhi True Fire. Who would have thought Jiang Yuebai had mastered even this!

Of course, Jiang Yuebai's control over the lightning wasn't that great yet, but it was enough to deal with Chu Liang. It was likely that Jiang Yuebai had moved closer to Chu Liang just so she could use this lightning immortal art!

Chu Liang instantly felt numb all over as alarm bells rang in his mind. Fortunately, he had a strong physique and managed to endure getting struck by lightning. If his physique were weaker, he would have just fainted immediately.

Right when he got struck, his mind was still analyzing the situation to decide what he should do next. He wouldn't be able to avoid getting struck with lightning again if he moved backward. The nearest spot that was free of lightning was in front of him!

The pool of lightning had spread out with Jiang Yuebai at its center, but she obviously wouldn't include the spot where she was standing in the target range for the lightning, so it had to be safe.

Consequently, Chu Liang mustered the last bit of strength he had left and leaped forward!

Whoosh—

Under the illumination of the purple lightning, the two shadowy figures in the pool of lightning suddenly overlapped.

As the sky filled with lightning, Chu Liang had no time to launch any attacks. All he could do was hastily embrace Jiang Yuebai to escape the pool of lightning!

However, his embrace was more like a tackle. He threw himself onto her, unable to do anything else.

At this moment, both of them had a sense of panic in their eyes.

The venue fell silent as the spectators stared at the pair.

Chu Liang's numbness quickly faded, but it was too late for him to take any action.

Jiang Yuebai, who looked a little annoyed, was already in the midst of dealing a knifehand strike[2].

Thud.

The strike was done at such a close distance that Chu Liang's vision went black instantly. Yet, even though he'd fainted, he still had his arms wrapped tightly around Jiang Yuebai's waist, and the pair fell to the floor together.

That was when the spectators finally burst into an uproar.

That guy actually hugged Fairy Jiang!

"SCOUNDREL!!!"

After falling to the floor, Jiang Yuebai finally managed to break free from Chu Liang's grip and stand up. She had won the duel, but she didn't have the composed look of a winner. Instead, she looked rather flushed.

All the spectators were filled with righteous indignation, rolling up their sleeves with a great desire to charge onto the stage! The venue was about to descend into chaos!

Seeing that, the supervising elder on duty hurriedly flew onto the stage.

Raising his hand to calm the crowd, he shouted, "The winner is Jiang Yuebai!

"Jiang Yuebai will become the head disciple of the Mount Shu Sect's current generation of disciples! Attendants of the Hall of Alchemy, come wake Chu Liang. Xu Ziyang and Ling Ao, come onto the stage as well. The four of you, the top four disciples, will be taken to Sword Sheath Peak later, where you will have the chance to be selected by the Violent and Azure Twin Swords.

"The rest of you, don't be impulsive! Stay calm! Quiet! Who dares to come up here? Go back down!

"Go! Go! Go!"

1. Xu Ziyang's Metallic Body was bronze. Both gold and bronze are metal, so I can only assume that they're meant to represent different levels of strength. ☜

2. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knifehand_strike for more info. ☜