Greeting Zhao Fusheng was naturally a torrent of flying swords. With an enraged roar, he swung his great axe, sending invisible astral qi surging against the current and obliterating countless flying swords along its path, finally exhausting itself only when it was nearly upon his opponent.
Yet the flying swords came without cease. After chopping several times, Zhao Fusheng grew impatient. Releasing his protective golden light directly, he braved the torrent of flying swords and charged straight ahead. Such mosquito-bite attacks could do nothing more than deplete a bit of his dharmic power and slow his pace.
Just then came another boom as an enormous bullet tore through the air. Its massive impact drove Zhao Fusheng back several feet, visibly dimming his protective golden light.
Furious, Zhao Fusheng charged forward at full speed, only to be blasted back again by another shot from Wei Yuan.
Amidst the booming gunfire and the pincer attack of two torrents of flying swords, Zhao Fusheng's protective golden light flickered erratically. Advancing three paces only to be knocked back one, he found pushing forward surprisingly arduous.
Wei Yuan had no time to reload, firing shot after shot in rapid succession to disrupt Zhao Fusheng's momentum while whittling away his dharmic power.
Meanwhile, the two dragon guards—scholar and warrior—maintained constant suppression with their rotary flying-sword cannons. Although the stream of flying swords could not breach the golden barrier, it struck hard enough to make the golden light waver, causing Zhao Fusheng's dharmic power to drop steadily.
At that moment, a research team inside the Ten Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains produced the latest analysis based on the combat situation:
"Assuming crafting a single flying sword consumes one unit of Dao power, Zhao Fusheng expends one and a half units of dharmic power to defend against each sword hitting him. The conclusion: offense is more advantageous than defense, providing an edge in the expenditure of dharmic power. The barrage should continue relentlessly, regardless of ammunition consumption."
This conclusion raised Wei Yuan's spirits. He reached out to grab another gun, only to find that all dozen-odd pre-loaded weapons had already been emptied. With no time to reload them, Wei Yuan immediately drew Flawless Transmigration and resumed firing. He swapped magazines like lightning, almost matching the fire rate of a rotary cannon.
While the single-shot power of Flawless Transmigration was far inferior to the fire guns using propellant charges, its rate of fire was vastly superior, draining even more of his opponent's dharmic power.
Pinned down by the converging firepower of all three sides, Zhao Fusheng was nonetheless able to trudge forward step by step against the rain of swords!
Wei Yuan felt a chill in his heart and triggered a concealed trap.
Zhao Fusheng suddenly sensed danger as a faint, elusive wisp of killing intent surfaced behind his flank. Another ambush? What was more, this hidden foe gave him a genuine sense of threat, perhaps only slightly inferior to the Peacock Monk.
Zhao Fusheng halted and turned, his eyes flashing like lightning. His immense divine sense swept like a tempest over the spot where the killing intent had manifested, yet found nothing.
In that brief pause, the ground beneath his feet detonated. A colossal shockwave surged forth accompanied by countless flying swords—Wei Yuan had buried four directional sword-mines in this single patch of ground, packing tremendous firepower.
Zhao Fusheng bellowed, the painted scroll reappearing above his head to reveal a strange beast resembling a crocodile with an extraordinarily bloated belly. His dharmic body abruptly grew thousands of jin heavier—even four sword-mines failed to blow him off his feet!
Yet Zhao Fusheng immediately realized his mistake. Under the simultaneous onslaught of countless flying swords, his protective golden light finally collapsed, followed closely by his robe and inner armor!
When the blast cleared, Zhao Fusheng's robes and inner armor hung in tatters. Both thighs were completely exposed, patches of leg hair scorched black. His dharmic boots were reduced to half a pair, leaving all ten toes bare.
It had to be said that Zhao Fusheng's dharmic body was truly formidable. Under such a barrage, he had suffered merely a few tiny pinpricks of blood, injuries barely worse than mosquito bites. Then again, any mosquito capable of piercing his hide and drawing blood would probably have to be a once-in-a-millennium prodigy of the mosquito race.
Quite a lot of leg hair. Oh, a patch didn't burn off... Wei Yuan muttered silently to himself, swapping magazines and rising to continue the bombardment.
This time, however, Zhao Fusheng was visibly enraged. A hazy golden light enveloped his great axe, and he suddenly swung, sending astral qi hurtling straight toward the cultivator atop the central stone hill.
This axe astral qi spanned a thousand zhang, plowing a deep trench into the earth as it rolled forward, destroying every flying sword in its path before crushing across the hilltop!
The scholar dragon guard atop the stone hill suffered a sudden plummet in aura. His chest and abdomen became a mangled mess, cleaved nearly in two. The rotary cannon was likewise obliterated by the astral qi, reverting to Dao power and dissipating. Wei Yuan had no choice but to recall the scholar dragon guard; had he truly been slain in the outside world, his vital energy would be grievously damaged, and he might even fall in realm.
After that earth-shattering blow, Zhao Fusheng was forced to pause and catch his breath before cleaving once more toward the warrior dragon guard on the left. Under this single blow, the warrior dragon guard was equally grievously injured, prompting Wei Yuan to recall him as well.
Yet Wei Yuan had never ceased his assault. In this brief span, he had emptied a dozen magazines, stripping away dharmic power from Zhao Fusheng equivalent to at least a hundred Dao Foundation cultivators.
Zhao Fusheng now retained less than forty percent of his peak dharmic power, but completely undaunted, he brought a third axe strike down toward Wei Yuan!
Wei Yuan ducked back into the fortification at once. The roaring astral wind tore through the defenses, shredded Wei Yuan's protective dharmic power, ripped apart his robe and inner armor, and finally slammed against his flesh, where it was halted by his physical body.
The moment the astral wind passed, Wei Yuan rose instantly and emptied another magazine.
The sudden burst of dozens of flying swords left Zhao Fusheng swaying. Looking down, he discovered seven more small specks of blood on his body. With his protective dharmic power depleted, his dharmic body had finally begun taking damage.
Zhao Fusheng had never imagined his foe could withstand one of his axe strikes head-on and act as if nothing had happened. Letting out another dragon-like roar, a massive dragon head emerged from the painted scroll and fixed its gaze on Wei Yuan.
Wei Yuan sprang into the air and vanished in the blink of an eye.
The dragon head was momentarily stunned, not expecting Wei Yuan to flee with such decisive finality. What was more, it could not lock onto Wei Yuan at all, leaving a blast of pure white dragon breath stuck in its throat. It began coughing violently, splattering flames in all directions, turning everything they touched into empty ash.
With this lethal strike trapped midway, Zhao Fusheng could not help but cough violently as well, bending double and coughing up blood.
Only after coughing for a good while did Zhao Fusheng finally recover. It was only then that he realized he had not even caught a clear look at the kid's face.
Fortunately, two of the three had been slain by his hand. Letting the weakest one escape was no great loss. Besides, that fellow wasn't even at the dharma idol stage... Not a dharma idol?
Doubts surfaced in Zhao Fusheng's mind. If he wasn't a dharma idol, how had he entered? And how had he withstood a fatal axe strike? Could he also be a descendant of an immortal—and the most doted-upon kind at that?
After a moment's thought, Zhao Fusheng decided this had to be the answer.
Refusing to dwell on it, he strode toward the stone hill. The ambushers were either dead or wounded, but the flying marten was still there. Though his axe strike had appeared boundlessly ferocious, he had in truth controlled it with consummate precision, not letting it touch the marten in the least.
Had the Peacock Monk been killed, the flying marten would naturally have been useless. But now that the monk had fled, it became useful once more. At least in his hands, it might lure the monk out; otherwise, the monk would have to watch helplessly as Zhao Fusheng took the prize and carried the beauty back to his island.
Zhao Fusheng strode to the hilltop, reached down to pick up the net, tore it apart, and pulled out the flying marten inside. With just a glance, he flew into a thunderous fury, his roar shaking the heavens and the earth:
"A fake?!"
All this time, a crowd of cultivators had fought to the death, and even he, Zhao Fusheng, had been left covered in grime and utterly disheveled—all for a fake marten?
In the midst of his rage, the ground beneath his feet suddenly detonated. Those damned bastards had actually set a trap beneath the fake marten too—and with nine sword-mines!
As the smoke cleared, Zhao Fusheng's figure emerged. His face was livid. Though not seriously injured, he felt his intelligence had been severely insulted.
Before entering the secret realm, all the cultivators had verified the aura of the Shadowless Flying Marten; under normal circumstances, they could not have mistaken it. That this fake marten had fooled them was naturally because the aura upon it was genuine.
Where had these people obtained the aura of a real marten? Zhao Fusheng could not be bothered to ponder the answer. As long as he caught the kid who fled, everything would naturally be resolved.
Crushing the fake marten in his hand, he was just about to give chase when a call rang out behind him: "Fellow Daoist, please wait!"
Zhao Fusheng slowly turned around to see the Peacock Monk returning. This time, however, the look in the monk's eyes was strange.
Zhao Fusheng looked down, only to realize that the clothing across his entire body was almost completely destroyed. Scoured by flying swords, hardly any hair remained on him either. Yet his dharmic body was so formidable that he was virtually uninjured, leaving his bare skin smooth and fair as jade.
Blood rushed to Zhao Fusheng's face in an instant. Cupping a hand over his groin, his enraged roar echoed throughout the secret realm: "Bald donkey, die!"
Chapter 399