NOVPUBChapter 167: Overwhelming
“Unaware of proper conduct,” Mu Lanyan’s lips trembled slightly.
Jiang Huai’s insult as a “sons of a dog” truly infuriated her.
How many years had it been since anyone dared to curse her like that?
The young man before her was too ignorant of his own insignificance. Even if his master was Chu Xianning, so what?
Her Dao companion, Mu Chenyun, was a Mahayana eighth-level, the undisputed number one person in the eighth realm of the Linglong Continent.
Before she could speak, someone from behind Mu Lanyan stepped forward ahead of her. The man was dressed in a brocade robe adorned with dragon patterns that seemed to shimmer with a golden luster. He looked at Jiang Huai with a cold voice,
“Shut your dog mouth.”
“I am your father.”
“You uncultured...”
“I am your father,” Jiang Huai repeated slowly.
(TLN: In Chinese, respect for one’s elders is a fundamental value, and the Confucian emphasis on filial piety heightens this respect. MC addressing himself as their father or grandfather, especially in a casual or inappropriate context, can be seen as mocking this respect.)
Sometimes, spewing filth only shows one’s lack of confidence and impotent rage, but sometimes it’s particularly satisfying. Jiang Huai occasionally played the part of a refined and amiable gentleman, but when it was time to feign ignorance and madness, he would do so.
The man who stepped out from behind Mu Lanyan was clearly the brother of the cultivator injured by Bai Li. His aura was at the Divine Transformation seventh-level, and considering his age of only twenty-one or twenty-two, such cultivation indeed made him an exceptional genius.
“What’s your name?” Jiang Huai glanced at him, his gaze even more disdainful.
“Mu Jiaoyang.”
“Oh, so it’s you who defended your idiot brother and attacked my Dao companion and spiritual pet?”
Jiang Huai leisurely took out his Ye Ning sword, raised it, and pointed the blade at Mu Jiaoyang, “Why don’t we let the younger generation settle their own affairs? You, along with your brother, dare to have a sword duel with me?”
Not only Mu Lanyan but also Luo Yueguan was slightly taken aback.
Jiang Huai’s attitude was a bit too... arrogant.
Luo Yueguan instinctively wanted to grab Jiang Huai’s sleeve and pull him back, but when she reached out her hand, she suddenly froze. She realized that Jiang Huai wouldn’t do something so uncertain. Although he seemed to be young and impulsive, merely seeking to win an argument, Luo Yueguan knew he wasn’t reckless.
So she whispered, her lips barely moving, sending her voice into Jiang Huai’s ear, “How confident are you?”
“Completely,” Jiang Huai replied softly, so Luo Yueguan no longer stopped him.
The spiritual energy swirling around her receded, she crossed her arms, a smile playing on her lips, and looked at Mu Lanyan.
“How about it? Why don’t we let the younger generation resolve their own issues?”
Mu Lanyan glanced at Mu Jiaoyang before her. He was her own flesh and blood, who before entering the Immortal Spirit Secret Realm, had already reached the Divine Transformation first-level. From a young age, he had been refining a dragon crystal, his body and bones imbued with a trace of the dragon race’s power, and his talent in swordsmanship inherited from his father had brought the Mu family’s Reverse Flow Sword Technique to a very high level.
Now, his cultivation was at the Divine Transformation seventh-level, and there was no reason for him to lose to this person before him who clearly had no spiritual energy.
But when something is amiss, there must be a scheme at play.
Where was his confidence coming from?
“A clown,” Mu Jiaoyang sneered, taking another step forward.
Seeing him advance, Jiang Huai chuckled. He too took a step forward, not even bothering to awaken the little Ning within the Ye Ning sword. When little Ning was awakened, the Ye Ning sword would gain additional sharpness, but it wasn’t necessary.
The man before him was at the Divine Transformation seventh-level, true.
But after cultivating the Overlord Art, Jiang Huai’s physical body was now comparable to the Divine Transformation tenth-level, and his soul had reached the Divine Transformation tenth-level half a year ago. All he lacked was spiritual energy, and he still had three high-grade experience scrolls in his hand.
Yet, without using the experience scrolls immediately, Mu Jiaoyang had already drawn his sword, the three-zhang green blade flickering with a cold light. When their eyes met, Mu Jiaoyang’s body became a blur, his sword aiming straight for Jiang Huai’s throat.
At that moment, Mirror Flower was activated.
In Mu Jiaoyang’s vision, his sword indeed seemed to have struck Jiang Huai’s neck, and Jiang Huai even appeared to be in a daze, as if he could feel the blood splashing onto his face. Confusion and shock filled his heart.
He wondered, how could someone so weak be so arrogant?
Then, a sharp pain came from his back.
Jiang Huai had appeared behind him at some unknown time, and the Ye Ning sword had pierced his spine in an instant, the tip emerging from his abdomen, and then was swiftly withdrawn.
When Mu Jiaoyang, enduring the pain, turned to try to capture Jiang Huai’s presence, Jiang Huai’s aura vanished without a trace.
All that was in front of him was a pure white light, and Jiang Huai seemed to be able to appear in any corner of the light.
After this sword strike, Jiang Huai had a rough assessment of Mu Jiaoyang’s strength. He retracted the Ye Ning sword and clenched his fists.
In the next moment, Mu Jiaoyang’s face was met with a heavy punch, making his head spin. The subsequent punch came immediately after.
Unable to find Jiang Huai’s presence, Mu Jiaoyang’s movements with his spiritual sword seemed like a child swinging a branch aimlessly.
To the onlookers, Jiang Huai was always right beside him, but to Mu Jiaoyang, it was as if he couldn’t see him at all, always misjudging Jiang Huai’s position. Each time he appeared, he was dodged, then hit with a heavy punch.
Luo Yueguan’s eyes were filled with shock.
She could see that Jiang Huai truly had no trace of spiritual energy on him. He was relying purely on his physical strength to fight Mu Jiaoyang. No, this couldn’t be called a fight... it was a complete one-sided crushing.
She remembered that Jiang Huai’s cultivation was the Immaculate Golden Body, which at best could match an opponent at the early stage of Nascent Soul.
Where did the explosive power of his body come from now?
She could clearly see Jiang Huai’s body seemingly glowing with a jade light, and there seemed to be thunder and wind surging with each punch.
Seeing Mu Jiaoyang being humiliated like this, Mu Lanyan naturally wanted to intervene the next moment, but Luo Yueguan blocked her with a scornful and mocking smile,
“What’s wrong? You previously allowed the younger generation to fight, and now that you see your child losing, you want to intervene? Have you no shame?”
Mu Lanyan naturally knew she had no grounds to argue. She glanced at Mu Jiaoyang from afar, retracted her spiritual energy, and turned to look at Luo Yueguan with a cold gaze,
“Don’t celebrate too soon.”
As her words fell, Mu Jiaoyang suddenly let out a roar that seemed to contain a trace of dragon’s might. After that roar, Jiang Huai’s soul trembled for a moment, the Mirror Flower shattered, and Mu Jiaoyang seized the opportunity to grip his spiritual sword tightly, aiming it straight at Jiang Huai’s neck. This time, Jiang Huai seemed unable to dodge.
The sword’s shadow enlarged in Jiang Huai’s pupils, reaching his neck in a mere instant. Jiang Huai raised his hand, blocking with the Ye Ning sword. The power Mu Jiaoyang unleashed at that moment was no less than Jiang Huai’s earlier.
Jiang Huai saw his eyes turn bloodshot, his veins bulging as if flames were flowing through his body. The spiritual energy around him became extremely hot, obviously using some technique to rapidly consume spiritual energy in exchange for an incredibly strong physical power.
Mu Jiaoyang had been refining a dragon crystal since he was young, and now he had refined seventy percent of it. Both his soul and body contained a trace of the dragon race’s power. His earlier roar had finally dispersed Jiang Huai’s Mirror Flower, and now by burning spiritual energy, his blood surged, unleashing power more than three times greater than before.
Having no spiritual energy was indeed a weakness for Jiang Huai. He could fight Mu Jiaoyang with pure physical strength for at least the time it takes an incense stick to burn, maintaining a subtle crushing advantage. But after the incense stick burned out, his physical strength would be exhausted, while Mu Jiaoyang still had a body full of spiritual energy to support him.
Mu Lanyan glanced at Luo Yueguan with a smile already forming on her lips. Her son was the number one genius of the Linglong Continent.
Perhaps he had been negligent earlier, allowing Jiang Huai to gain a slight advantage, but once he activated the power of the dragon crystal, Jiang Huai would only be forced to retreat. No matter how tough his physical strength was, it would eventually run out.
If only he had known, he would have used the Ye Ning sword to stab him a few more times while he had not yet activated the dragon crystal.
Thinking this, Jiang Huai held the Ye Ning sword tightly in his hand, executing the sword techniques taught to him by Chu Xianning one by one. With each strike, Mu Jiaoyang’s spiritual energy shield shattered a bit more, cracks appearing, but ultimately the blade still couldn’t penetrate his spiritual energy shield. He had plenty of spiritual energy to consume, but Jiang Huai was already feeling physically drained.
The defeat seemed inevitable, and Luo Yueguan was ready to intervene and end the duel. She didn’t care about face, but just as she was about to speak, she suddenly lost her voice.
Mu Lanyan, who had been smiling, also froze in that instant.
Because Jiang Huai, who had previously had no spiritual energy, suddenly reached the Divine Transformation third-level in a blink of an eye.
What shocked both of them was that this change happened in nearly an instant, without any warning. Even a drop of rain falling from the palm to the ground would take an instant, but his cultivation aura appeared out of nowhere, completely defying any logic.
This was the outrageous aspect of the experience scrolls issued by the system. One only needed to silently wish to use it, and after a thought, it would be successfully used, ignoring any cultivation restrictions, any rules of heaven and earth.
These three experience scrolls were obtained as a reward for completing a task for Xu Qing. Jiang Huai had originally planned to save them for the upcoming Five Domains Grand Competition, but now he used them against the number one genius of the Linglong Continent, which was indeed giving him a lot of face.
Mu Jiaoyang, the number one genius of the Linglong Continent, the son of two Mahayana cultivators, had been refining a dragon crystal since childhood. His talent in the Way of the Sword was also rare among his peers. In the younger generation of the Linglong Continent, he was considered the best, unmatched by anyone. Many cultivators on the Linglong Continent thought he would be the favorite to win the upcoming Eastern Region competition.
Unfortunately, in the next moment, his spiritual energy shield was shattered by Jiang Huai’s sword. Jiang Huai even deliberately slowed down the strike, giving him time to gather all his spiritual energy to defend against it, but the outcome was unchanged. His body arced through the air, sent flying far away by the remaining force of the sword. Jiang Huai did not pursue further but stepped back to Luo Yueguan’s side.
He didn’t even look at Mu Jiaoyang again, because the victory was already decided.
Mu Lanyan hurriedly used spiritual energy to pull Mu Jiaoyang’s body towards her, holding him in her arms. Mu Jiaoyang spat out a large mouthful of blood mist, his face pale, his blood flowing in reverse, and in the next moment, he blacked out.
