Crack!
The air compressed and exploded, Dou Qi rippling as cyan and crimson intertwined!
Medusa's purple serpent tail lashed out, viciously striking Yun Yun in the abdomen. The Sect Leader of the Misty Cloud Sect was sent plummeting toward the earth like a falling star.
The blow was so immense, so powerful, that Yun Yun coughed up blood, her face draining of all color. She was powerless to disperse the force and could only let herself crash down.
The moment she hit the ground, Yun Yun's seemingly delicate form smashed a crater into the earth, ten meters wide and three meters deep.
For a moment, yellow sand sprayed into the air as the shockwave spread in all directions.
Medusa didn't spare her a second glance, her gaze shifting to Feng Li, who had just flown off. She saw that his target was Zhou Changqing. Her eyes turned icy, her expression frigid.
However, just as Medusa prepared to give chase, Gu He and Yan Shi blocked her path.
The two of them no longer possessed the calm arrogance they'd had upon arrival. Gu He's neatly tied long hair was now disheveled, and the handsome middle-aged man's face was pale, giving him a weakened appearance. Coupled with his tattered, cloud-patterned white robes, he looked utterly wretched, devoid of the Pill King's usual grace.
Yan Shi was in even worse shape. He was covered in bruises and cuts, and blood still trickled from his mouth, who knew how many teeth he had lost.
But neither of them had the time to worry about their appearance. Seeing Medusa's intended movement, they understood everything. Feng Li had been right; that young man held a very important place in her heart.
They could no longer afford to worry about their reputations, about things like the strong bullying the weak or taking hostages to make threats. To leave this desert alive, they had to do what was necessary. What was face in the presence of death?
Medusa paid their obstruction no mind. With a single beat of her Dou Qi Wings, she charged forward. When she was just ten meters away from them, she waved a delicate hand.
Crack! Crack!
A giant serpent, roughly ten feet thick and over a hundred feet long, materialized from thin air. A single swipe of its tail sent Gu He and Yan Shi flying. They had no power to resist.
Just then, from the deep crater in the vibrant yellow sand, a cyan figure shot into the sky, blocking Medusa's path. It was Yun Yun. As the Sect Leader of the Misty Cloud Sect, Yun Yun possessed many treasures. Although she had recently lost her Sea Heart Armor, she had retrieved another inner armor of the same grade from the sect's treasury upon her return. This, combined with the medicinal pills Gu He had given her in anticipation of a fight and her own Dou Emperor level Dou Qi defenses, meant that the previous strike, though powerful, wasn't enough to incapacitate her.
"Annoying fly." Medusa stared coldly at Yun Yun and attacked once more. She understood that unless she completely suppressed her opponent, these three would continue to obstruct her, preventing her from going to the rescue.
...
"Why is he coming for me?"
Zhou Changqing watched the streak of cyan light hurtling toward him from the sky, a little baffled. But he quickly guessed his opponent's intentions.
Zhou Changqing felt a little helpless about it.
"Taking me for an easy target?"
Muttering to himself, Zhou Changqing began to untie his sash. He moved quickly. In just a second, his white upper robe was tossed aside, leaving him in only a pair of white trousers.
In that instant, his upper body was revealed—a flawless physique, radiating power without a hint of bulk. Every inch of skin, every line, every muscle seemed to flow with hard-edged grace under the sunlight. It was practically a work of art.
By this time, Feng Li was only a hundred meters from the ground. He clearly saw Zhou Changqing taking off his robe and was, frankly, confused, having no idea what the point of it was. Shouldn't the boy's first reaction upon realizing my intent be to flee? What's with taking off his clothes? Is he trying to seduce me? I, Feng Li, am not into that!
Just as Feng Li's mind was running wild, his pupils suddenly constricted in the next instant.
"What?!"
After taking off his robe, Zhou Changqing made no other extraneous movements. He bent his knees and pushed off with all his might! Instantly, his feet blasted a deep crater into the sandy ground. And under this terrifying force, Zhou Changqing's figure shot upward like a cannonball, becoming an afterimage that streaked toward the sky.
In the blink of an eye, Zhou Changqing's form appeared right in front of Feng Li. Feng Li hadn't even stopped his descent. A fist glowing with a golden light rapidly filled his vision.
Fortunately, even though he was heavily injured, his cultivation as a high-rank Dou King was genuine. Feng Li made an instant decision, reacting with incredible speed to gather Dou Qi in his arms, crossing them to block his face.
Bang!
The fist slammed viciously into Feng Li's arms, and a colossal force, like that of a primeval beast, erupted outward. The air compressed and exploded, stirring the airflow within a hundred-meter radius into a raging gale.
Under the impact of this immense force, the protective film of Dou Qi on Feng Li's arms instantly shattered! Feeling as if his arms had been fractured, Feng Li was sent flying backward, as if a film were being played in reverse.
After flying back several dozen meters, Feng Li flapped his wings to completely disperse the terrifying force, but his arms couldn't stop trembling.
"How is this possible!" Ignoring the pain in his arms and the jarring of his internal organs, Feng Li cried out in shock.
His eyes were filled with horror, his heart with disbelief. As one of the ten strongest experts in the Jia Ma Empire, he, the Wind Rider Feng Li, was a high-rank Dou King! And how old was this boy? Twenty at the most! Even with the greatest talent, he should be a Dou Grandmaster at best! And yet, this weakling whom he had completely dismissed had injured him with a single punch!
Even if he had underestimated his opponent, no one below the rank of Dou King should have been able to harm him! Which meant that punch just now had the power of at least an initial-stage Dou King!
Now, Feng Li was starting to suspect that the boy before him was some old monster in disguise. But no matter how much he refused to believe it, the facts were right in front of him. He had intended to pick a soft persimmon to use as a means of escape, but who knew he'd end up with a big durian instead!
"No, I have to take this kid down quickly, no matter what. The longer this drags on, the worse it will be for us!" Thinking of his objective, Feng Li abandoned any thought of investigating how his opponent had such strength. Gritting his teeth, he flapped his Dou Qi Wings and charged again.
The moment his opponent was sent flying, Zhou Changqing had already begun channeling Dou Qi, blasting it from the soles of his feet. Using the brief lift generated by the Dou Qi's impact on the air, he launched himself toward Feng Li once more. He hadn't endured the agony of Heavenly Thunder Body Tempering for nothing, and he had never slacked on his refinement practice either. Through countless sessions of refinement and body tempering, his control over Dou Qi had reached a profound level, no worse than that of a Dou King. In this aspect, he could even be compared to a Dou Emperor!
In less than a breath's time, the two clashed again. Feng Li condensed a longsword of cyan Dou Qi. A fierce gale erupted around him as he continuously slashed at Zhou Changqing. Zhou Changqing didn't back down in the slightest. He drew his Demonic Martial Heavy Sword, arcs of electricity crackling across its surface. He swung it with a speed no slower than Feng Li's, constantly meeting his longsword.
As the two fought, the ceaseless din of clashing weapons—ding, dang, ping, pang—filled the air. Although Feng Li's cultivation was much higher than Zhou Changqing's, Zhou Changqing's physical body was already comparable to that of an initial-stage Dou King. His opponent, on the other hand, had been injured by Medusa and could only bring out seventy to eighty percent of his full strength. Add to that the fact that the lightning attribute was superior to the wind attribute in terms of speed, and he also had his gold-attribute Dou Qi and the enhancement of his Demonic Martial sword. For a time, their confrontation actually seemed to be a stalemate.
The commotion from their battle had already drawn many eyes.
...
"Holy crap! When did Old Zhou get so fierce? Is that even him? It's not just some guy who looks like him, is it?" Xiao Yan, who had been about to reveal himself to go to the rescue, saw Zhou Changqing actually trading blows back and forth with that high-rank Dou King expert. His eyes went wide, and he couldn't help but curse out loud in disbelief.
It was no wonder he was so skeptical. He remembered that before Zhou Changqing had left, he was only a Dou Master! How could he have become strong enough to fight a Dou King after not seeing him for just over a year?
Is he even human? I'll eat my hat!
Inside the Bone Flame Ring, Yao Lao's shock was no less than Xiao Yan's; in fact, it was even greater. Under his powerful perception, Zhou Changqing's strength was laid bare before his eyes with almost no concealment.
Judging from the Dou Qi fluctuations emanating from Zhou Changqing, his cultivation was at the peak of the Dou Spirit realm at most