What shocked the Wolf King was the fact that Qianye only retreated within the range of Southern Blue’s cannon turrets and no further. He landed on the wall and looked on at the Wolf King with cold eyes.
Despite the unexpected setback, the Wolf King was still a vice-duke level expert, while Qianye’s constitution was only at the level of a marquis. Even with the consideration of his ancient vampire bloodline, he was barely at the level of a werewolf mighty marquis—and that was two entire levels below the Wolf King.
The disparity was even greater in terms of origin power. If it wasn’t for the top-grade purity of his Venus Dawn, it would be difficult for Qianye to even injure the Wolf King.
With such a gap in place, the divine champion felt it a great humiliation that he had let Qianye escape last time. The only thing he needed to guard against was that extremely powerful attack. Nonetheless, the Shot of Inception probably wasn’t something that could be used at will. It was almost certain to involve great expenditure and long periods of accumulation. The Wolf King’s deduction regarding this matter was largely correct as Qianye only had one shot left, and he hadn’t found the time to replenish its supply.
Their last exchange had proven that the Shot of Inception wouldn’t deprive the Wolf King of his combat strength. The werewolf was confident that he could still wipe out all opponents in Southern Blue after being hit, even beating Ji Rui into a retreat.
That was the reason why the Wolf King was exceptionally furious. Qianye’s current stance implied that he could contend with the Wolf King just by relying on the city’s defenses.
The Wolf King’s leonine mane danced in the wind as he made a slow descent toward Qianye, his body surrounded by dark red arcs of lightning. Very soon, he was within range of the ballistae, yet he neither accelerated nor changed directions. He was clearly opening himself up as a target.
Qianye waved his right hand with a solemn expression. The cannon turrets to the left and right of him trembled as two giant homing bolts shot toward the incoming divine champion.
With a sinister laugh, the Wolf King conjured two giant claw projections that actually tore the bolts apart.
Gasps of astonishment echoed within the city, and a disruption appeared in the defending forces. Be it for the mercenaries or the city guard, the ballista turrets were the greatest killing machines; they weren’t even made to deal with human targets. Now that the Wolf King had actually torn the shots apart in front of everyone’s eyes, it went to show that all the other defenses in their arsenal were mere decorations before an enemy of such caliber.
In the blink of an eye, many people began thinking about running away. The city defense forces had it better because, according to customs, the Wolf King would still keep them around to maintain order after his conquest. The same couldn’t be said for the mercenaries of Dark Flame, so dozens of them quietly snuck out of the defensive line in a bid to flee.
The Wolf King, with his acute eyesight, saw everything that was going on, and it satisfied him greatly.
Just as the complacency had taken form in his heart, the wall beneath Qianye’s feet was left crumbling as he shot toward the Wolf King like a cannonball!
He appeared in front of the Wolf King in the blink of an eye, and East Peak slashed down from overhead with a momentum capable of splitting the ocean!
The Wolf King had just shattered two ballistae, and the origin power fluctuations hadn’t yet calmed down—this delayed his reflexes very briefly. Qianye had actually caught this split-second lag! For a moment, the Wolf King couldn’t quite figure out whether he was just lucky or shockingly talented.
Qianye’s slash was so fast that the Wolf King was left with no room for evasion, but he wasn’t willing to evade anyhow. Roaring furiously, he threw a right-hand punch against East Peak.
At the moment of contact, the Wolf King realized that he had underestimated his opponent. The darkness origin power on his fist was cut open, and the blade sunk right into his flesh.
At this moment, Qianye sensed that the Wolf King’s defenses weren’t as strong as he had expected. He suddenly got the idea to circulate his Profound Combatant Formula and once again summon the move that had defeated Ji Tianqing. Layer upon layer of superimposed power pressed down on the Wolf King like waves in a stormy sea!
Peerless power channeled through the invincible sword—this move was almost indefensible!
East Peak cut swiftly through the Wolf King’s flesh and right into his bones. The Wolf King lowered his elbow at the exact moment, cleverly negating the greater part of the force and deflecting the edge to one side. It might look like a draw to the spectator, but the Wolf King had actually lost half a move.
Having gained the initial advantage, Qianye wasn’t about to give the opponent any space to maneuver. His strength stacked higher and higher, every slash descending with the might of the mountains and seas—toward the end, the Wolf King no longer dared to meet the blows head-on.
The tyrannical might of the Profound Combatant Formula had emerged for the first time!
In truth, the Wolf King, Song Zining, and Ji Tianqing could all see that Qianye couldn’t keep this up for very long. Nonetheless, this moment of unrivaled valiance was more than enough.
“This art, this art…” Ji Tianqing’s eyes glistened lustrously. She was beside herself with excitement.
She didn’t get the chance to learn much about the Profound Combatant Formula during their last exchange. To a person like her who had seen and learned so many top-grade secret arts, witnessing an unprecedentedly powerful art like this was comparable to a glutton encountering a table full of delicacies.
Song Zining was stomping his feet in frustration. He simply had no way to interfere in a fight of this level—it would change nothing even if he did.
The most exasperated of the lot was undeniably the Wolf King. He was being suppressed and was actually powerless to retaliate. He knew Qianye’s torrential assault wouldn’t last very long, but the art was simply too tyrannical. It afforded Qianye a power several times his own with which to beat down the Wolf King.
Within moments, the Wolf King had received several shocking injuries and was bleeding all over.
Finally, the waning of the Profound Combatant Formula arrived—Qianye’s momentum fell and his power receded like the tides.
The Wolf King unleashed an earth-shattering roar as he pounced forward madly. However, Qianye adopted a fine, cautious stance without any openings, using the indestructible East Peak as a shield from time to time. His sword-arts had reached a level even higher than the Wolf King’s, and the tides of power from before hadn’t fully faded away just yet. Hence, despite the advantage in strength, the Wolf King couldn’t do much against Qianye for the time being.
The Wolf King sensed the ballistae locking onto him at the moment and had no choice but to split his attention to take precaution. It was just that the feeling of danger, to his surprise, increased from two locations to three. Was there a third ballista? But there was no other place in the city to hide artillery apart from the two turrets.
The phase of entanglement ended briefly when Qianye and the Wolf King split up.
At this point, Qianye was pale with blood seeping out from the corners of his eyes, lips, nose, and ears. Even his powerful constitution couldn’t withstand repeated head-on collisions with the Wolf King. After all, the werewolves were known for their powerful physiques, even more so than the vampires.
The Wolf King gazed at Qianye with cold, bloodshot eyes and rising murderous intent. The latter seemed expressionless and somewhat vacant, but In truth, he had already reached a state devoid of emotions.
As they were facing off from afar, a series of cheers rang out from the city below. There were even a couple of bold ones chanting, “Screw that Wolf King to death!”.
Although Qianye had sustained far greater injuries than the Wolf King, they were all internal wounds. Meanwhile, the Wolf King had five terrifying, bloody gashes on his body that looked critical. In actuality, Qianye’s force was largely spent after cutting through the werewolf’s hide. He didn’t even manage to leave a lot of origin power or blood energy, to speak nothing of injuring the opponent’s bones and innards.
But how could those lowly mercenaries tell the difference? In their eyes, the bloody one was the most miserable.
The Wolf King quickly understood this as well and was furious. He had never received such heckles like this since his defeat against Zhang Buzhou. With his status, it would be too embarrassing to attack those ragtag soldiers, so all he could do was vent his anger on Qianye.
“I shan’t return to the tribe without sacrificing your blood to the ancestors today!” The Wolf King uttered word by word.
Qianye’s expression remained cold. He had already stepped beyond the boundaries of emotion.
Ji Tianqing praised, “Well done! It looks like the Wolf King is going to fight to the death.”
Song Zining looked serious. “Prepare to attack.”
Ji Tianqing was startled. “So soon?”
Song Zining gritted his teeth. “We need to act fast, I asked Qianye to provoke the Wolf King, not engage in a one-on-one showdown!”
Ji Tianqing shrugged. “A one-on-one is the best way to provoke the enemy, he did well.”
“I don’t think he’ll last another exchange, we can’t take that risk!”
“I’m not confident in holding the Wolf King back if we move now, he still has a lot of unused ancestral power.”
Song Zining uttered through clenched teeth, “We’ll take that risk!”
The Wolf King drifted toward Qianye, his momentum rising by the moment as the dark red energy around him turned near-tangible. It would seem he was going to use all of his ancestral power in a single strike.
Just as he was taking a step forward, the world around him transformed into a scene of gentle southern spring. Song Zining rushed into the air and flicked out countless leaves from his fingers which turned into numerous chains that locked the Wolf King in place.
The startled Wolf King shook his body in rage, effectively dispersing countless leaves around him and leaving only a handful.
Song Zining spat out a mouthful of blood as he fell off the sky. Nonetheless, the Wolf King was unable to move as long as a single leaf remained stuck to him.
Ji Tianqing appeared silently from behind and tapped on the dark red glow around him. Like water dripping into oil, the red energy flared up until it was on the verge of eruption. Losing control of his ancestral power left the Wolf King in a tricky situation—he moved to suppress the red radiance while attacking Ji Tianqing at the same time.
At this moment, the Wolf King’s every movement was aided by the power of his ancestors, granting him boundless strength. Ji Tianqing didn’t dare fight him head-on and merely flew about launching suppressive attacks—she would only block the attack when there was no other choice. The Wolf King couldn’t dispose of her for the moment, but some of the evasive maneuvers were fairly close calls.
At this moment, Qianye was a hundred meters away. He had produced the Heartgrave and taken aim at the divine champion, his heart was as calm as still water. A pair of luminous wings spread out behind him.
The Wolf King’s brows twitched as he was alerted of the potential danger. With a frantic roar, his ancestral power erupted like a scarlet tempest, enclosing his entire body within. The last few leaves started to break down one by one, and Song Zining would cough up some more blood with each shatter.
Ji Tianqing’s hands were shrouded in a golden glow as she struck furiously at the Wolf King, hoping to drain his ancestral power. Yet, it was simply too thick and abundant—at this rate, the Wolf King would clear away the leaves and regain his freedom by the time half of the ancestral power had been exhausted. If he were to regain his movement, there was no telling whether Qianye could hit the target.
Just as their efforts were about to end in vain, a beam of icy-blue light snaked through the skies and toward the Wolf King, slashing his ancestral power apart in one blow!