Chapter 186 - Tempest Wings

“No! Impossible!”

Du Ming, who was midway in the air, couldn’t believe what was happening in front of him, and neither could all the surrounding onlookers. While staring at the sky in surprise, many people even stood up excitedly.

“That, that!”

“What is happening?”

“He can fly! His Excellency One Sword knows how to fly!”

Yes, he could fly. Of course, Lin Yao, who had leaped into the sky, had not lost his mind. The powers of the wind and thunder formed bolts of tempest wings behind him. While flapping this pair of wings, Lin Yao’s perfect figure, which had jumped into the sky, seemed to show no intent to drop. It was continuously soaring higher and higher.

Ignoring everyone’s astonishment and horror, he looked down at Du Ming from a towering height. Du Ming, who had exhausted his strength, had already fallen to the ground. Lin Yao gradually put down his raised right hand, and a cold and indifferent voice was heard.

“It’s over.”

Boom!

As his arm and voice landed, the dark clouds flickered with thunderlight. At Lin Yao’s command, a dazzling thunderbolt struck the sky and smashed toward the fallen Du Ming.

It was true that the majority of the people around, including Du Ming, were unable to steer in the air. He was hit by the thunderbolt, as he couldn’t avoid it. Although he was on the ground, it was extremely difficult to dodge it.

One thunderbolt was not the end. As Lin Yao’s mind jolted, three more bolts of Heavenly Thunder fell from the sky and smashed toward Du Ming’s teammates.

All of them were potential warlords. Unfortunately, they had no way to stop the prowess of Heavenly Thunder, let alone the thunderbolt, which was as fast as light.

Boom, boom, boom.

After three consecutive, deafening booms, three charred bodies appeared in the arena.

The sight of Lin Yao unmoving high up in the air as thunderbolts constantly struck down had freaked everyone out.

All of a sudden, the huge stadium was silent. Everyone stared at Lin Yao, who was hovering against the backdrop of dark clouds and rain, with fear and reverence.

‘He is very powerful.’

Powerful—this was how everyone evaluated Lin Yao.

Just as they thought that Lin Yao’s words were coming true and the battle was ending, they heard a boom. Another deafening sound echoed between the sky and the earth. This time, it was not the sound of a thunderbolt strike but the sound of something penetrating the rain and piercing the air at lightning speed.

“What is it?”

The sudden change stunned everyone, including Lin Yao. Lin Yao’s heart skipped a beat, and he could sense danger approaching.

He knew he had been attacked, but the move came so quickly that Lin Yao didn’t even see what had attacked him.

At the most critical moment, electric light flowed into his brain, instantly accelerating his thinking speed and making his train of thought as smooth as a lubricant. At the same time, due to his fast thinking speed, everything slowed down before his eyes.

By relying on the thinking speed acceleration and the “slowing down” of time, Lin Yao finally caught a glimpse of what was attacking him—a stone.

A broken stone carrying a huge force was penetrating the rain. Even in this state of thinking speed acceleration, the speed of the stone was amazingly fast.

‘I won’t be able to duck.’

Because Lin Yao had reacted too late, the stone was already close to him, so he was unable to dodge it.

‘If I can’t dodge, I won’t then!’

Determination was filling his heart, and Lin Yao’s eyes sparkled with electric light as he directed thunderbolts from the sky.

Boom. Although the stone had already flown over to Lin Yao, the speed of the thunderbolt was so fast that it blew the fast-moving stone to pieces directly.

However, it was not over yet. After the first stone was shattered to pieces, a huge amount of stones penetrated the rain and attacked Lin Yao in the air.

It was Du Ming. Although he had been struck by the thunderbolt, he hadn’t lost his combat power. Unable to rise in the air, he’d picked up the stones from the ground and retaliated repeatedly.

However, Lin Yao had already come back to his senses. As the electric current entered his brain, Lin Yao’s accelerated mind could see the fast-flying stones. At the same time, thanks to the sudden improvement of his arithmetic ability after the current entered his brain, Lin Yao was able to calculate the flight trajectory of the stones in an instant.

As he flapped the tempest wings behind him slightly, Lin Yao was like a sea swallow amid a storm, soaring nimbly in the air and avoiding the waves and waves of stones lunging at him.

At the same time, Lin Yao continued to direct the thunderbolts and strike Du Ming, who was on the ground.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom…

One by one, sounds of thunderbolts were heard. The dazzling lightning made the world beneath the thick, dark clouds turn ash-white for a while. The thunderbolts landed so rapidly that they looked connected.

The rampaging thunderbolts were akin to punishment from heaven, making the crowd of onlookers look on in shock and terror.

Du Ming, who had fallen to the ground due to Lin Yao’s thunderbolt attacks, felt even more miserable and speechless. Lin Yao could dodge his stones, but he couldn’t avoid the thunderbolts, which were as fast as light.

He could only resist with his strong, solid aura and the Hard Qigong[1] he practiced.

However, against the furious strikes of the thunderbolts, he exposed another one of his abilities—the Dragon Tiger Vajra Shield.

A phantom of a golden bell appeared next to him, and there was an image of a dragon and a tiger roaring above it. At that moment, the golden bell was ringing and spinning around, constantly counteracting the power of the thunderbolts for him.

However, a grim look appeared on his face after a mere three seconds.

‘This won’t do. I can’t beat him.’

By then, Du Ming was feeling very helpless. He couldn’t figure out why Lin Yao seemed to have endless energy. Each thunderbolt he directed at him was stronger than the previous one.

He could only blame his own master and Zong Qi for doing him in. Under normal circumstances, Lin Yao could also guide the thunderbolt after being possessed by the feathered serpent spirit. However, there would be a long interval between each thunderbolt, and it would take some time to form a thunderbolt. This would give the other party time to dodge.

However, the situation was different on rainy days. The feathered serpent spirit was cognitive to the monsoon temperament of the feathered serpent god. On rainy days, although the powers of the wind, rain, thunder, and lightning of the feathered serpent spirit couldn’t be restored to the level of heavenly authority, its hypostasis would increase greatly. In this case, it would only need one-tenth of its usual consumption to guide the thunderbolt. Neither interval time nor momentum was required to form the thunderbolt. It was as if it didn’t need to consume any thunder electricity.

However, Du Ming was also truly powerful. Thanks to the possession of the blood ape, in combination with the comprehension of the profound meaning of the Dragon Tiger Vajra Shield, he actually withstood nine consecutive bombardments of the thunderbolt. Although the golden bell had been smashed to the verge of breaking, he eventually endured all of it.

Despite all this, he still had the strength to retaliate. Upon seeing the constant thunderbolts in the air, he stopped throwing stones. Instead, he took a deep breath and raised one of his hands toward the sky.

Following his action, Lin Yao felt as if Du Ming was about to swallow all the surrounding spirit energy like a whale. He seemed to be absorbing some of the thunderbolts from the air, which struck him too.

This was the Whale-Like Engulfing Method of the North—a powerful move of the Heaven and Earth Dojo and a diamond combat skill second only to the Heaven and Earth Brilliant Tyrannic Punch. As the name implied, just like a whale devouring the bottomless northern sea, this skill could absorb almost all powers and gather them into one fist.

With the use of this combat skill, the ordinary thunderbolts Lin Yao guided had become almost useless, and a sense of danger filled Lin Yao’s body and mind.

Upon seeing this, Lin Yao was not cross. Instead, a smile appeared on his face.

‘Not bad. This is good. That’s how it should be.’

With a smile, Lin Yao was no longer guiding and mobilizing the thunderbolt strikes. He raised his right hand high, aiming at the dark clouds in the sky. Beams of thunderlight streaked across his eyes as he used his mind to spin the dark clouds continuously.

Boom!

As the dark clouds spun, roars of thunder were heard. Soon, the gloomy clouds transformed into layers of thunderclouds, flickering with thunder and lightning.

The reason the consumption of the feathered serpent spirit would decrease on rainy days was that the majestic dark clouds and heavy downpour had replaced its consumption. A natural, heavy rain would sometimes cover an area of hundreds of miles, and it didn’t matter if the feathered serpent spirit consumed a bit of it. However, these dark clouds had been created by Zong Qi. Due to Lin Yao’s consumption, the majestic, dark clouds were also diminishing rapidly. Soon, there was only one cloud remaining above Lin Yao’s head.

However, after gathering the powers of the dark clouds and rain, that power was also extremely strong. The audience on the spectator stands could clearly see the thundercloud 30 meters above the sky, which was filled with rumbling electric lights. As Lin Yao’s mind jolted, a winged serpent was born in the middle of the mixture of dark clouds, water vapor, and electric light.

In the beginning, the winged serpent was very small, but it soon absorbed the dark clouds, water vapor, and electric light and grew continuously. Within a very short time, a 13-meter-long feathered serpent composed of electric light, dark clouds, and water vapor had appeared in the sky.

The huge feathered serpent hovered in the sky for a while. When Lin Yao looked straight down at Du Ming, the huge thundercloud feathered serpent also stared at Du Ming.

“Be careful. Don’t blame me if you lose your life!”

As soon as he finished his words, Lin Yao flicked his finger lightly. Boom. An earth-shocking, deafening sound ensued. The huge winged serpent swooped down at Du Ming at lightning speed, like a scepter swung by a god in heaven.

Roar!

Up until the very last moment, Du Ming didn’t give up. In order to fight for that slim chance of victory, he absorbed countless spirit energy. He didn’t even care that his Iron Body, which had been trained to 500% and blessed by the Blood Ape Transformation, was falling apart. He was desperately trying to accumulate all the energy.

Then, he transformed these powers into a punch and blasted the famous profound meaning of the Hundred Step Divine Fist in the form of a bare fist toward the sky.

Boom!

At this blast, the air exploded and a wave of power surged straight into the sky.

This was indeed a genius. Besides having a strong talent, he had also successfully mastered the Whale-Like Engulfing Method of the North, a diamond-level combat skill. In addition, he also cultivated two profound meanings—the Dragon Tiger Vajra Shield and the Hundred Step Divine Fist: Barefisted Punch.

The last move was the reason behind the name of the Hundred Step Divine Fist. After learning the profound meaning, Du Ming was able to maintain the strength of his fist without diminishing its power within a hundred steps. In close combat, the Barefisted Punch was capable of attacking a bull situated across a mountain. He could attack the enemy’s fragile internal organs in an instant during the fight. This was a very powerful boxing technique. Unfortunately, he’d run into Lin Yao.

Du Qing, who had gone all out, was indeed powerful. When he blasted the punch, he crushed the head of the winged serpent that descended, but this was the best that he could do. The remaining over 10 meters of the snake’s body simply blasted his body like a pillar of thunderbolt.

Boom!

Buzz, buzz!

The huge winged serpent landed on the ground, causing a huge electric circle with a radius of 100 meters to appear.

The winged serpent was composed of water vapor and electricity. Besides the power of thunder and lightning, water vapor was also present in the electric circle when the serpent landed on the ground.

It was a well-known fact that water could conduct electricity. Furthermore, in comparison to the rapidly-diminishing thunder and lightning, water vapor could last for a long time.

When the two were combined, a horrible phenomenon occurred. The electric circle, which had spread to a radius of 100 meters, didn’t dissipate quickly. Instead, it lasted for a long time. The brutal power of thunder and lightning leaped wildly in the electric circle, rampantly destroying everything in it.

[1] Hard Qigong was a skill originally used to train the body to withstand strong blows and attacks back when there were no guns. It uses special breathing techniques and movements to make both the internal and external body stronger.