"Trash," Long Ao Tian sneered before striking at me. I evaded it, but just barely. Even so, the shockwave from his attack buffeted me and blew me across the bloody temple grounds.
I hit the ground with a grunt and rolled helplessly, trying my best to dodge the stomp that Long Ao Tian launched. I watched as his foot left a sizable crater in the earth. The guy was seriously trying to kill me.
"You…!" Cheng Long coughed as he tried to lunge at Long Ao Tian, only to be repelled by a palm strike. "That boy is innocent! You shouldn't…!"
"Anyone who gets in my way will die," Long Ao Tian sneered.
"If Chen Bei Xuan didn't wound me, I will have killed you several times over, you ingrate!" Cheng Long growled furiously.
"Huh? Chen Bei Xuan?" I gaped at my master as I got to my feet. Why did that name sound so similar?
"All who offends the North Jeweled Sect will die!" Long Ao Tian gloated. "It's Elder Wu's fault for offending Chen Bei Xuan! Because of him, the whole Divine Dragon Sect must be wiped out!"
"Aren't you from the Divine Dragon Sect too?" I asked, getting more and more confused.
"Hah!" Long Ao Tian sneered. "I've jumped ship to the North Jeweled Sect a while ago! Chen Bei Xuan is the ultimate immortal cultivator. He's the only one worthy of following!"
"What's going on?" I asked, completely bewildered. "Okay, assuming you defected to this North Jeweled Sect or Family Jewels Sect or whatever…what does that have to do with you destroying the Divine Dragon Sect? What exactly did Elder Wu do to offend this Chen Bei Xuan fella? To the extent that you have to wipe out the entire sect? Did he murder somebody or something?"
"No, he insulted Chen Bei Xuan," Long Ao Tian replied. "He called him a no-name from the countryside."
My jaw dropped. "That's it?"
"What other justification do we need? If Chen Bei Xuan doesn't annihilate the sect of the person who looks down on him, how will he be able to show his face in the future?"
Okay, this was getting ridiculous. Who the fuck went nuts over an insult and annihilated the insulter's entire sect over that? What was he, a tyrannical dictator? Even the most cartoonish villains didn't go that far.
And to think this was the protagonist of an immortal cultivator story…
"Where is this Chen Bei Xuan now?" I asked, looking around resignedly. There was no point trying to make sense of this nonsense. If the guy was still hanging around, I was doomed. We were speaking about a tyrant who had the power to badly injure Cheng Long to the point where even Long Ao Tian could beat him up.
"He left," Long Ao Tian replied with a smirk. "I told him to leave this place to him. I wanted to personally destroy the Divine Dragon Sect with my very own hands."
"You ingrate!" Cheng Long shouted, coughing out a mouthful of blood. "How could you?! After all we have done for you…"
"And what did you do for me?" Long Ao Tian scoffed. "When I first started out as a disciple of this sect, everyone looked down upon me. The elders left me in the outer sect, where all my fellow disciples bullied me because I was trash. That's where I learned the rule of strong eat the weak. It was taught to me by my senior and junior brothers and sisters!"
His expression darkened.
"And what did the outer sect elders do? Nothing. They claimed that it was my fault for being weak trash, and thus I deserved to be trampled upon, to be bullied. I was almost killed a few times, but nobody cared! There is no justice in this sect!"
Oh…wow. Now I somewhat understood Long Ao Tian's motives. He had been bullied to the point where he snapped. He could really hold a grudge.
"But when I had a fortuitous encounter, the elders suddenly changed their tune. They want me to become the first disciple after I won the inter-sect tournament last year." Long Ao Tian laughed. "Truly, only those with strength benefits. The weak suffer. I accepted, but not because I felt any loyalty to the sect. I just wanted to squeeze all the resources out of you before I take my revenge!"
"You…!" Cheng Long growled, only to cough again. He glared balefully at the errant first disciple. "We should never have given you all those resources!"
"And you wouldn't have either, if I didn't become strong!" Long Ao Tian sneered. "If it wasn't for my fortuitous encounter, do you think I would be able to attain the position of first disciple? What have you guys done for me prior to that? None of the elders was willing to train me. Everything I learned was self-taught, or taught to me by Chen Bei Xuan. What have you done for me before I became first disciple? What did you give me? Not a single thing!"
No wonder Long Ao Tian was so loyal to Chen Bei Xuan. The leader of the North Jeweled Sect was his benefactor, the one who picked him up and helped him while he was down, bullied and abused. If I was in his position, I would probably stand by the guy who helped me when I was at my lowest point than the people who kicked me around.
But murder? Homicide? Annihilating the entire sect like this? Wasn't he going too far? Then again, Long Ao Tian did mention that he was almost killed a few times. If that was the case, however, why didn't he just aim for the bullies who targeted him? Why kill everyone else? Because apparently standing aside and not helping deserved death?
"I'll finally have my revenge! The Divine Dragon Sect will die at my hands today! And all those who stand in my way…I'll cut you down!"
With a manic howl, Long Ao Tian lunged at the prone Cheng Long. The leader of the Divine Dragon Sect managed to jump back to his feet and parry the blow, only for him to be hurled back. Beside the two, a golden dragon continued to wrestle with the blue and silver dragon, their colossal bodies demolishing more of the temple.
"That's enough!"
I intervened, deflecting Long Ao Tian's next strike to the side. A beam of qi lanced away from Cheng Long and obliterated a wall, but otherwise didn't hurt anybody. With a snarl, Long Ao Tian countered with a sweep of his hand, but I ducked under it before evading his kick. Using Heavenly Flow and Earthly Paths, I dodged and avoided his barrage of attacks.
"Don't be so impatient to die! I promise, I will kill you after I get rid of Cheng Long!"
"No!" Cheng Long coughed. "Don't do it! He's not involved in this! He's not a member of the sect! Don't harm innocents!"
Actually, I was a disciple of the Divine Dragon Sect, and had been since a week ago, but I understood Cheng Long's intention. He was trying to save me. He wanted to convince Long Ao Tian to spare my life.
But I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I ran away here and left Cheng Long and the survivors to die at the hands of a psychopathic maniac.
Not that I had a choice. Long Ao Tian continued pummeling at me, his fists turning into a blur as he threw them this way and that. It was only because of Heavenly Flow and Earthly Paths that I was able to anticipate all of them or I would have been pulverized long ago.
This guy was strong. He was at least on the Heaven Realm, about to ascend to the Yellowed Lands realm. He was overwhelming me right now. I was actually lucky – it seemed that he had expended quite a bit of qi earlier, trying to kill his fellow disciples while Chen Bei Xuan wrecked the elders. Thanks to that, his movements were not as swift and precise as they would otherwise be.
"It doesn't matter!" Long Ao Tian snapped at Cheng Long as he threw another punch that would destroy my head if it landed. Fortunately, I ducked under his fist. "He stood in my way, therefore he must die! And now that he has witnessed everything, I can't let him live! I must eliminate all eyewitnesses!"
"You cruel monster!" Cheng Long roared.
"Hah! Who's the real monster?" Long Ao Tian retorted before swinging his arm at me and forcing me to jump a couple of steps back.
This was bad. I couldn't fight back at all. All I had been doing thus far was evading and defending. I was completely on the back foot, unable to launch a counterattack or retaliate. Long Ao Tian was just that much stronger than I was.
He was at least on the same level as Ba Bai, if not stronger. I felt a little heartened to see that I could hold out against him for this long without succumbing…almost fight on par with him without assistance from another Heaven realm practitioner like Kai Li Si. Truly, I had progressed a lot throughout the past year or so.
Unfortunately, it still wasn't enough.
…or was it?
I could see the points – the spots in Long Ao Tian's body that represented vulnerabilities. Lapses in his qi, gaps in his defenses. The problem was that I didn't have the speed to launch a counterattack and land a hit on those spots. My enhanced qi perception was burning my mind out, and I could feel a headache build up behind my forehead.
I didn't have a lot of time left.
"Just go down already! Stop running around!"
Long Ao Tian bellowed and struck again. Flames ignited around his arms and he launched eighteen fiery dragons at me, which were accompanied by vicious palm strikes.
"Subduing Dragon Eighteen Palm Strikes!"
"Ugh!"
This fresh wave of attacks was difficult to evade. I did my best to weave in and out of the assaulting fiery dragons, trying my best not to get burned by them. They roared silently, their immense jaws snapping at their fiery fangs scorching my skin and clothes.
Then his palm strikes came fast and fierce, each strong enough to break my bones if they connected. I ducked, feeling his first palm strike brush past the side of my face, leaving a slight graze despite there not being any physical contact. The second strike was aimed at my chest, but I swerved my body to the side to avoid it. Spinning away, I lengthened the distance to stay out of range of the third and fourth palm strikes before deflecting the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth strikes to the side by hitting the side of his forearms.
I then dodged the ninth and tenth strikes, whirled to his side as he missed with his eleventh, then slapped away his twelfth before it could land. His thirteenth and fourteenth strikes were meant for my face and throat, but I ducked, and then batted away his fifteenth. I evaded his sixteenth strike and then deflected his seventeenth and eighteenth strikes to the side.
There was a pause, a slight gap right after Long Ao Tian completed the execution of his Subduing Dragon Eighteen Palm Strikes. And I remembered Kai Li Si telling me that the most vulnerable moment of an opponent was right after he finished executing his attack. That was the time when the biggest hole would open up in his defense.
I delivered a Soul Crushing Strike right at Long Ao Tian's chest, aiming for that huge weak spot I could perceived with my enhanced sixth sense.
"Gah!"
Blood spurted out of Long Ao Tian's mouth as he was hurtled backward. I watched him, panting from the exertion and my mind burning from overloading my senses. I didn't dare to take my eyes off my enemy, especially since I couldn't believe that I had just taken him down.
But Long Ao Tian was far from defeated. With a vengeful snarl, he crawled back up to his feet. His blue and silver dragon descended upon him and his aura amplified several times over.
"That will be the last time you'll be able to land an attack on me," he sneered before he lunged forward at incredible speed to deliver a blazing palm strike at my chest.