A Martial Saint. A genuine Martial Saint had appeared.
Just the pressure alone was enough to crush skeleton soldiers.
Even Lin Xiao, standing farthest away, felt overwhelming oppression. His flesh ached all over.
“Shoo!”
At that moment, a figure arrived with lightning speed, as if teleporting. In the blink of an eye, he streaked from the horizon and appeared above the skeleton army.
Under that terrifying pressure, skeleton after skeleton shattered. In mere moments, of the ten-thousand-strong army, only the eleven leader skeletons remained. All the rest were pulverised.
Lin Xiao himself was pinned by the horrifying pressure, as though trapped in quicksand, unable to move.
If not for his exceptionally strong body, he would have been crushed to paste.
Martial Saint: a Martial Dao saint, already standing at the pinnacle of the martial path. Their power shook the heavens, their methods appalled the world. Between a Martial Saint and anyone beneath, the gulf was like heaven and earth. Mere pressure could kill most cultivators below that realm.
“Finished!” Cold sweat poured down Lin Xiao’s back. Terror filled his heart.
With a Martial Saint here and the skeleton army collapsing, he had no path but death.
Martial Saints were the Ji family’s ultimate force, supposedly stationed only at headquarters. Logically, news of the Thirty-Eighth Division’s destruction should not have reached them yet.
Why was a Ji family Martial Saint here?
Was he simply passing by?
No matter how Lin Xiao racked his brains, he could not fathom why a Ji family Martial Saint had arrived.
Ahead stood a white-haired elder wearing a white crown. His face was ancient, deeply wrinkled, his exposed hands withered and dry. None knew how many centuries he had lived.
His frame was ordinary, giving the impression of dried firewood.
Yet the terrifying pressure radiating from him made it impossible to look up at him.
His loose white robes fluttered without wind. Endless majesty filled his expression. Standing there, his presence pierced the heavens, his aura appalling. One felt that a single movement from him could collapse mountains and rivers or topple the sky itself.
Martial Saint: the title fit perfectly. He was like a living saint, transcendent and detached from the mortal world.
“Western Elder! It’s the Western Elder!” The surviving Ji family members below cried out in shock and ecstasy, their faces filled with reverence and excitement.
The Western Elder was one of the Ji family’s Martial Saints, a supreme pillar of the clan.
With the Western Elder here, the strange skeleton army had collapsed. No matter what other methods Lin Xiao possessed, they were now useless.
Their crisis was completely resolved.
Lin Xiao would fall here.
The surrounding onlookers were equally stunned.
A Martial Saint: one of the continent’s apex existences. In the entire Yang Province, they could be counted on one hand, dragons whose heads were seen but whose tails remained hidden. Most people had never witnessed one in their lives.
Now they beheld one with their own eyes. Their hearts trembled with awe.
This was the terror of a Martial Saint!
At that moment, the Ji family Martial Saint swept his gaze across the ground below. Seeing the sea of corpses and only a few hundred Ji family members still alive, rage flashed across his face. He glared at Lin Xiao and thundered, “You dare slaughter an entire branch of my Ji family? You deserve death ten thousand times over!”
With those words, even more terrifying pressure locked onto Lin Xiao.
Lin Xiao felt his body on the verge of shattering. Pain wracked him. Blood poured from his mouth.
Yet his eyes remained fixed on the Ji family Martial Saint, filled with defiance and unyielding will.
So what if he was a Martial Saint? Given time, Lin Xiao would slaughter even Martial Saints!
“Not bad. You have some ability. Let us see if you can withstand this old man’s full pressure!”
With that, the Ji family Martial Saint withdrew the pressure crushing the eleven leader skeletons and focused every ounce of it on Lin Xiao alone.
More blood spilled from Lin Xiao’s mouth. His skin cracked and split.
The Martial Saint was still a hundred li away, yet he took a step forward. Space contracted beneath his foot. In one stride he crossed twenty or thirty li. When that foot landed, Lin Xiao spewed a great mouthful of blood, his entire body drenched in crimson.
Lin Xiao’s consciousness began to blur.
“Die!” The Ji family Martial Saint showed no mercy and stepped forward again.
“ROAR!”
At that critical instant, a dragon-like roar rang out. A figure flashed from behind Lin Xiao as though teleporting, charging straight at the Ji family Martial Saint.
BOOM!
Lin Xiao could barely follow what happened. It was as though countless mountains had collided. The void trembled violently. Then a figure was hurled backwards from ahead of Lin Xiao, shooting hundreds of li away.
Immediately after, the majestic back of a middle-aged man appeared in Lin Xiao’s sight.
His black hair danced without wind. His bare arms bulged with powerful, dragon-like muscles. He wore a cyan robe embroidered with a soaring dragon that seemed to writhe as the fabric moved.
He radiated an overwhelming aura that suppressed heaven and earth, the domineering presence of one who reigned supreme over all directions. He was unquestionably an unrivalled overlord of his generation.
“Long Tutian!”
From afar, the hurled Ji family Martial Saint stabilised himself and cried out in shock.
Those words left Lin Xiao stunned.
This peerless expert was Long Tutian?
The very Long Tutian who had shaken all of Yang Province nearly twenty years ago?
His senior brother from Saint Origin Academy, separated by generations?
Not only Lin Xiao, but the surviving Ji family members and all the onlookers were utterly shaken.
Long Tutian: the storm-bringer of Yang Province more than a decade ago, a figure of legendary fame. After vanishing for over ten years, he had finally reappeared?
And the moment he returned, he was already a Martial Saint?
This confirmed every rumour. Long Tutian had truly become a Martial Saint.
He was the youngest Martial Saint in the recorded history of Yang Province!
Back then he had been invincible beneath Martial Saint. Now, the instant he became one, a single strike had sent the Ji family’s Martial Saint flying. Just how terrifying had Long Tutian become?
Without replying to the Ji family Martial Saint, Long Tutian slowly turned. He looked at Lin Xiao with a calm smile and said, “Junior brother?”
Lin Xiao stood dumbfounded.
Long Tutian’s features were heroic and noble, strikingly handsome with a violent, chiselled edge.
He appeared around forty, in the prime of his life.
Lin Xiao had never expected his legendary senior brother’s first words to be calling him “junior brother.”
“Saint Origin Academy junior disciple Lin Xiao pays respects to senior brother!”
Lin Xiao cupped his fists toward Long Tutian, excitement surging in his heart. Today, he had finally met this legendary senior brother.
“No mistake. I can sense the aura of true dragon descendant blood in you as well.” Long Tutian smiled warmly. His aura was completely restrained, revealing no sharp edge.
Yet one could still feel that if he erupted, he would be like a dragon surging from the abyss, stirring storms the moment he moved.
“True dragon descendant?” Lin Xiao was puzzled.
“That drop of Martial Emperor essence blood did contain a trace of true dragon descendant blood, though many generations removed. I can still detect the residual blood qi on you.” Long Tutian explained.
Lin Xiao was shocked.
He had never known the origin of that drop of Martial Emperor essence blood.
But it had indeed carried some connection to “dragon,” directly advancing his blood dragon phenomenon by an entire level.
“Long Tutian, you have truly stepped into the Martial Saint realm?”
At that moment, a startled voice rang out from afar. A figure streaked back at extreme speed.
Clearly it was the Ji family Martial Saint. Though he had been sent flying, he seemed uninjured. In a flash, he reappeared several thousand zhang opposite Lin Xiao and Long Tutian.
