Chapter 950 - Pre-Battle
Chapter 950: Pre-Battle
The two colorful pythons with such intimidating auras made Tang Xiu taken aback inwardly. He was keenly aware of the increasing bulged flesh on their heads which was apparently a precursor feature of these creatures before becoming aquatic dragons.
Prior to this, Tang Xiu himself had seen the Cruor Python raised by Ao Wei, yet that creature was far inferior compared to these two pythons in terms of strength and level. It could be said that any of these two creatures would be able to slay 10 Cruor Pythons easily.
What made Tang Xiu surprised, however, was these two black-robed old men themselves, who now sat on the boulder. Their faint power fluctuations made him feel a bit threatened.
“What, and who, are you people?”
After being silent for ten seconds, Tang Xiu shouted at them around 20 meters away.
Hiss… hiss…
The two old men simply didn’t pay attention to Tang Xiu at all—or it was more like they ignored his question. They steadfastly sat at their spot, eyes closed and motionless. On the contrary, the two colorful pythons were the ones to move and hiss, seemingly attempting to drive everyone away.
“Hmph!” after coldly snorting, Tang Xiu said in a heavy voice, “Very arrogant, aren’t you two geezers? I really hope you do have what it takes to be arrogant here. Nine Dragons Island is my territory. You now have a chance to scram at once; otherwise, you’ll lose your chance to leave.”
At this time, only then did one of them slowly open his eyes. As he lightly stood up, the staff in his hand suddenly radiated with a fluctuation of energy. His eyes, however, did not consist of just black and white, but also blue and grey, giving off a slightly enchanting vibe.
“What you said made me laugh, young man. Do you want to know who we are? You’re not entitled to know that. You may have many experts here, but getting rid of them is not impossible for us. However, I’ve heard that one needs to pay with money for anything that they want in the outside world. We didn’t bring much cash when we left our clan, but our children will. I can promise you money and you’ll leave this island.”
Tang Xiu slightly frowned and said, “I already told you that Nine Dragons Island is mine. I will never sell it—not even if you offer me a mountain of gold. Tell me, where do you come from?”
“Ah, ants are really pitiful.” The black-robed old man sighed, “These ants don’t know that death has arrived. The sacred God of the Celestial Wizard Clan once said that low-class people are stupid and stubborn in nature—only force can tame them. But I didn’t expect that even among ants, there would also be someone with the ability to see through the mystery of this island. Nevertheless, this island is bound to be acquired by my clan as there will be many of us coming here later. So right now, you are the ones that need a chance to live; else, it won’t be us who’ll die, but you instead.”
This made Tang Xiu’s complexion slightly change. He turned to look at Mo Awen, “The telecom tower has been built here and you can now contact the outside world by phone, correct?”
“It’s per your order, Boss!” said Mo Awen, “The telecommunication tower has been built and it’s already operational now, so we can contact the outside world by phone from here.”
Tang Xiu’s heart sank and he said with a grim face, “This Nine Dragons Island is mine and nobody can snatch it from me. You want to rob my territory, and the only path that remains is through slaughter. Nonetheless, I’ve been worrying about my men as well. Their power may have progressed rapidly, yet they have no enemies to sharpen their skills with and nobody to give them the experience of facing true powerhouses. You said your Celestial Wizard Clan is going to bring them here, huh? Might as well use Nine Dragons Island temporarily as their battlefield.”
Having said that, he turned to look at Mo Awu and ordered, “Contact Xiaoxue to send all core members, except those who are currently undertaking important missions. The rest are to come here!”
“Understood!” Mo Awu replied and paced backward in strides.
Tang Xiu then looked at the black-robed old man again and said, “Old geezers, I give you 3 minutes. If you stubbornly stay after that, then there’s no need to waste any more saliva.”
“No need for those three minutes.” The old man shook his head and said, “We won’t leave.”
“Jin Shi, He Xiong, Xue Sha, Gu Tao, Zhang Jue! The five of you kill these two wretched animals!” coldly shouted Tang Xiu.
“Affirmative!”
The five men under Jin Shi’s leadership complied as they instantly released their respective flying swords. As they unleashed the sword battle formation in an instant, their five figures flashed like shadows and appeared in front of the two giant pythons.
Whoosh, whoosh…
The two pythons spewed out two blobs of dark smoke. The blobs spread out quickly to shroud a radius of dozens of meters; if it wasn’t for the extreme speed that Tang Xiu and his men used to quickly move backward, they would have found themselves shrouded by the black fog.
However, Jin Shi’s group of five didn’t retreat and instead released their True Essence energy to fend off the black fog from entering their body. Relying on their feeble spiritual sense, they controlled their flying swords to form a twister of sword beams. In just a few seconds, hundreds of slashes had already attacked the two pythons.
Clang, clang, clang…
Yet, the two python’s scales were exceptionally hard. Even the indestructible flying swords were only able to make the serpents wounded—none of them were able to fatally injure the creatures. Moreover, the two giant pythons were thoroughly stimulated by the drowning pain and finally revealed their ferociousness. Even though their sharp fangs failed to strike over and over again, their flexible physique made it so that they were able to whip their heads and tails to hit Jin Shi’s group.
“Final Strike!”
With blood dripping from his mouth and a blazing killing intent burning in his eyes, Jin Shi shouted, whereas Xue Sha, Hei Xiong, Gu Tao, and Zhang Jue followed and tacitly cooperated to unleash the most powerful strike of the sword battle formation.
The swords turned into a line, twisting and turning to create a blooming lotus composed of sword beams which instantly dispersed the stirring black fog in the air. A ray of sword beams jetted out of the blooming lotus and gloriously blossomed, while at the same time, they summoned the energy of Heaven and Earth to swarm over into the sword beam lotus, dramatically increasing its volume.
“Devour!”
As Jin Shi’s team of five roared inwardly at the same time, the lotus flower crashed down toward the two giant pythons. In just the blink of an eye, the first sprinting python’s head was swallowed by the lotus flower and got devoured, splattering large volumes of blood in a mist.
“Goddammit!”
The other black-robed old man who was still sitting on the boulder suddenly spewed black smoke from his mouth. His pale complexion turned paler, almost as if his face was devoid of blood, and was followed by his figure floating in the air a moment after. He then raised the gemstone head staff and waved it away, transforming a black dragon from the black smoke which torrentially smashed down at Jin Shi and his team.
“Guard!”
Jin Shi cried out. The five of them retreated at the same time instantly and shifted their target to the other python the instant it fled. They instantly manipulated their swords to form stacked layers of a sword wall in front of them.
Violent energy erupted the moment the black dragon and the sword shield clashed. As the former turned into black smoke, Jin Shi and the rest were thrown backward. At this moment, however, a lightning-like figure flashed among Jin Shi’s group. It was Mo Awu who wielded his sword, dashing to impale the black-robed old man’s chest.
“SCRAM!”
The black-robed old man furiously roared and unleashed intricate black fog out of thin air that instantly wrapped Mo Awu’s limbs. Just as the black fog was going to invade Mo Awu’s body, however, Mo Awu unleashed his True Essence to prevent it.
Standing among the crowd was Tom Reggie. His rough face was showing his extreme shock, while his hands rubbed his own eyes several times, wanting to make sure that he wasn’t hallucinating.
“This… such terrifying power, yet it can be possessed by human beings? I know Awu’s strength; he was clearly more powerful than me six months ago, yet he’s now much stronger than before? How can he be strong to this extent now?
“Don’t tell me… not even 100 of me would be a match to him? With the power he just blasted out, isn’t it enough to flatten a small hill?
“Also… those two giant pythons are really dreadful. And those two geezers… what power do they have exactly? Why can they unleash such black fog and even turn into the shape of a dragon and tiger to attack?”
He was well aware of his own strength. It could be regarded as the power of a first-class expert even among foreign mercenaries. Even if he admitted that some experts were better than him, the gap was not wide.
Yet, the combat which was unfolding before his eyes finally made him realize what a true powerhouse really meant, making him aware that he was nothing but a frog looking at the sky from the bottom of a well.
“I must get stronger. Absolutely!”
Fists clenched tightly and eyes sparkling with a resolute look, Tom Reggie suddenly rejoiced that he chose to submit to Tang Xiu at this moment. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have had the chance to witness combat at this level, nor would he have the hope of becoming a true powerhouse in the future.
While he was acting determined, next to him stood Long Zhengyu, though his expression was much better and not as shocked as him. However, Long Zhenyu’s expression was not much better than him a couple of days ago either. After all, Long Zhengyu was but an average man; he wasn’t even a martial arts practitioner. The shock he got was so much that it was nearly impossible to calm down after he saw the dreadful combat between the black-robed old men and Wolf Head, Mo Awen, and the rest. He also saw all the techniques that were displayed by those six teenagers. Had it not been for the protection from the hundreds of members from the Everlasting Feast Hall, he would’ve been affected and swept out by the battle and died amid the fray.
Hence, only then did he realize that the many guards around—Tang Xiu’s subordinates—were a bunch of terrifying existence. The incident also opened his eyes to the fact that bizarre and mysterious things truly existed in the world. At the same time, he secretly made up his mind to wait for Tang Xiu, looking for a chance to talk to him to tell him that he also wanted to enter the cultivation path.
“DIE, you wretched geezer!”
A yellow paper charm suddenly burned in Mo Awu’s palm. It was followed by a blazing heat that spread out in an instant, causing dozens of fire arrows to hit the chest of the black-robed old man at point-blank range.