Chapter 604: Intense Battle (II)
After forcibly taking Lin Zheyu's punch, Woo Yiyan's aura exploded upward. As he stepped back to stabilize himself, his right leg swept out in a vicious arc toward Lin Zheyu's face. The fierce strike resembled a dragon whipping its tail. It howled through the water and arrived before Lin Zheyu in the blink of an eye.
Lin Zheyu narrowed his eyes. As expected of a genius. He really was hiding a trump card.
Under the gaze of the golden Heavenly Eye, the speed of the incoming attack seemed greatly reduced. Numerous possible counters flashed through his mind. His body instinctively assumed the optimal stance as he moved to meet the attack head-on.
Lin Zheyu forcibly endured Woo Yiyan's strike with his shoulder. His right hand whipped upward and wrapped around Woo Yiyan's lower leg. At the same time, his left hand changed from a fist into an open palm. Using it like a blade, he thrust it toward a key node where energy circulated through the leg.
A thought flashed through Woo Yiyan's mind. What fast reactions! What terrifying combat instincts! This thing is definitely not a mindless yao!
If Lin Zheyu's strike landed, that leg would immediately lose its combat capability and require several breaths to recover. For experts of their level, a single breath was enough to determine victory or defeat.
A ruthless glint flashed through Woo Yiyan's eyes.
In that case...
His body twisted violently. Cracking sounds rang out from the leg caught by Lin Zheyu. The joints instantly dislocated, allowing him to avoid the fatal attack.
At the same moment, Woo Yiyan unleashed both fists. One fist struck like a tiger, while the other surged like a dragon. Tiger roars and dragon cries erupted as both attacks blasted toward Lin Zheyu's head. He was gambling with his life.
Since he suspected the yao before him possessed intelligence, the situation became much simpler. Any intelligent being feared death. Woo Yiyan intended to pay the price of a crippled leg, or even severe injuries, to blow apart Lin Zheyu's head. Once the head was destroyed, he would immediately seize the advantage.
As expected of a genius of the Woo Family. Ruthless indeed.
Lin Zheyu retreated rapidly. The instant he released Woo Yiyan's leg, he twisted his waist and drove his right leg forward.
His thick, scale-covered leg slammed into Woo Yiyan's injured limb. A sharp crack rang out. The bones around Woo Yiyan's freshly dislocated joints immediately showed signs of fracturing. Yet his expression did not change in the slightest.
Instead of retreating, he pressed forward with even fiercer attacks. His offensive crashed down like a raging storm, while tiger roars and dragon cries echoed throughout the surrounding waters.
Sounds of fighting continued to ring out. One purple figure and one black figure clashed repeatedly. Within only a few breaths, they collided more than a hundred times. Every exchange was vicious and lethal.
The longer the battle continued, the more alarmed Woo Yiyan became. After activating Tiger's Roar Dragon's Cry, his strength, speed, and overall combat power completely surpassed that of the mysterious yao before him. Yet despite possessing overwhelming superiority, fighting this yao left him feeling incredibly frustrated.
It was as though his opponent could see the future. The yao always responded in advance, while simultaneously possessing an exceptionally sharp eye for weaknesses. Every opening was discovered. Every flaw was exploited. As a result, even with overwhelming power, Woo Yiyan could not bring the creature down.
As time passed, his aura began to show signs of weakening. The effects of Tiger's Roar Dragon's Cry were nearing their end.
Woo Yiyan made his decision without hesitation. I need to retreat! The sea clan experts are coming. I'll leave first and deal with everything else later!
His leg swept out like a divine dragon whipping its tail, smashing heavily into Lin Zheyu's chest and forcibly knocking him away. Even after taking such a terrifying blow head-on, only thick bodily fluid seeped from between the scales covering Lin Zheyu's chest.
In the next instant, the damage healed completely. This was the terrifying strength of yao. Their innate regenerative abilities were astonishing. As long as an injury was not fatal, recovery came almost immediately.
"Trying to run? Stay right here for me!"
Lin Zheyu stomped heavily on the ground. His wings beat powerfully behind him, unleashing astonishing speed as he shot toward Woo Yiyan. The close-quarters battle they had just fought, every strike landing solidly against flesh and bone, had given him a long-forgotten sense of exhilaration.
The yao form was not even his strongest form. His true peak lay in his human form, wielding the Seven Absolute Sabers while combining them with the Earth Shrinking Technique and his movement techniques.
Yet even in his yao form, he had fought evenly against Woo Yiyan after the latter had activated his bloodline secret technique. This gave Lin Zheyu a much deeper understanding of his own strength. He was strong, strong enough that even against a late-stage Golden Core realm expert, he possessed the power to fight on equal footing.
Sounds of clashing continued to ring out. Lin Zheyu caught up to Woo Yiyan once more. Relying on the tremendous vitality of his yao form, he locked his opponent in close combat again. To avoid exposing his identity, he refrained from using any martial cultivation techniques.
Instead, he relied entirely on the terrifying insight of the golden Heavenly Eye, his raw physical strength, and a reckless fighting style that traded injury for injury. His attacks became even more ruthless and desperate. As long as his head was not blown apart or his limbs shattered, any injury would recover in an instant.
A few breaths later, Woo Yiyan was sent flying backward, a trace of blood spilling from the corner of his mouth. Lin Zheyu's suicidal fighting style was rapidly draining the bloodline powers within his body. The effects of Tiger's Roar Dragon's Cry were fading quickly. As one side weakened while the other remained relentless, the balance of the battle began to shift. Gradually, Woo Yiyan found himself falling into a disadvantage.
Damn it! Woo Yiyan cursed inwardly as unwillingness flashed through his eyes.
He was actually losing to a yao whose strength was inferior to his own. The realization struck heavily at his pride and wounded his immense self-confidence. Yet Woo Yiyan understood that if he did not leave now, he might never have another chance.
His face instantly flushed red. The blood that had risen to his throat was forcibly swallowed back down.
With an exploding sound, he stomped hard with his foot and retreated at high speed. At the same time, Woo Yiyan rapidly formed hand seals. The purple dragon and tiger phantoms behind him suddenly gained a crimson tint in their eyes.
Lin Zheyu came hurtling forward once more. Like a cannonball descending from above, he dropped from the sky and drove his right foot viciously toward Woo Yiyan's chest.
"We'll meet again." Woo Yiyan's gaze was calm and indifferent, yet the way he looked at Lin Zheyu burned with intense fighting spirit.
Just as Lin Zheyu's attack was about to connect, an immense force suddenly erupted from within Woo Yiyan's body.
Lin Zheyu passed straight through Woo Yiyan. The latter's body shattered like a bubble and vanished without a trace.
The power of a dharma treasure? What a pity. If those experts weren't already on their way...
A golden gleam flashed through Lin Zheyu's eyes. Through the golden Heavenly Eye, he could faintly make out the trajectory of Woo Yiyan's escape.
However, he no longer had the opportunity. Within his senses, a powerful sea clan expert was racing toward them at astonishing speed. If he continued fighting Woo Yiyan, then while Woo Yiyan might very well die here, there was also a high chance that he himself would be placed in danger.
Risking his life for the sake of a mere genius of the Woo Family was not worth it. Give him a few more years, and his strength would far surpass Woo Yiyan's. There would be plenty of time to kill him then.
"I'll let you live a few more years. But as for that spirit beast... I'd better kill it outright."
Lin Zheyu looked toward the spirit beast, which had sensed that the situation was turning bad and was already fleeing. A trace of killing intent flashed through his eyes.
A spirit beast that already had a master was extremely difficult to tame again, and Lin Zheyu possessed no method for controlling spirit beasts. Moreover, if a fragment of the spirit beast's soul had been taken as a soul guide, then carrying it around was little different from carrying a tracking beacon.
Squeak, squeak!
The spirit beast shrieked in terror and fled into the distance. Although it possessed the ability to see the invisible traces hidden throughout heaven and earth, its actual strength was unremarkable.
In the blink of an eye, Lin Zheyu appeared behind it. A single slap descended. The spirit beast did not even have time to let out a scream before it was reduced to a mangled mass of flesh.
Lin Zheyu thought, Time to go. It's about time I returned to the Martial Alliance.
His figure flickered and sped toward the outside of the barrier. Not long after the two had departed, an extremely ugly sea clan man covered in tentacle-like appendages arrived at the site of their battle.
The man's brows furrowed slightly. "A battle between a human and a yao? At the very least, both possessed mid-stage Golden Core realm strength. No, more than that. This level of destructive power has already reached the threshold of the late-stage Golden Core realm."
Sensing the directions in which the human and the yao had departed, a trace of suspicion appeared in his eyes. The human leaving the barrier did not surprise him. But the yao had also headed toward the outside of the barrier and had already reached the edge of the boundary. That struck him as extremely strange. A six-pattern yao had an enormous demand for demonic qi.
Outside the barrier, there was no environment as dense with demonic qi as this one. Furthermore, once a yao left the barrier's region, it would be subjected to the terrifying suppression of this world's Heavenly Dao. It was similar to how cultivators in this world could not use the power of rules once they entered the demon realm. The same principle applied to yao entering this world.
Once they left the barrier, their strength would drop by at least an entire major realm. Because of this, powerful yao rarely left the barrier region on their own. Otherwise, if they ended up dying at the hands of cultivators weaker than themselves, the regret would come too late.
The sea clan man said indifferently, "Forget it. Since it has already left this barrier, it's no longer my concern. I only need to make sure that yao doesn't re-enter through another location."
With a thought, he began transmitting messages to the others, warning them to stay alert for the departing yao and prevent it from re-entering the barrier.
This place was a training ground meant for drilling troops. A powerful yao of this level had to be monitored and controlled. Otherwise, large numbers of sea clan cultivators could end up dead or injured.
The sea clan man muttered softly to himself, "Strange. The space-time passage is already under control, and no other six-pattern yao have come through recently. Could it have advanced from one of the five-pattern yao?"