"Clack—clack clack—"
The two, with only their eyes visible through their helmets, stared at each other. From their gauntlets, purple crystal dust and shattered fragments of Dark Flame kept falling, producing dull clacking sounds.
Void Blade lowered her arm that was shielding her eyes from the strong wind and took a glance at the amethyst crystalline armor on the leader of the Sky Pirates, her expression changing instantly.
ISE!?
She immediately shouted, "Xue Jing, be careful of his crystalline armor, it's alive!"
At the altitude of ten thousand meters, where the cold wind was fierce, it was difficult for voices to be heard, but Xue Jing, with his Five Major Practices well-honed, had a strong kidney and thus exceptional hearing, barely making out Void Blade's words.
"Alive?"
While pondering the meaning of these words, Xue Jing's hands didn't slow down, as spiral grooves began to emerge on his arms and shoulders.
The Sky Pirate before him had an unusually strong physical constitution; even when Xue Jing used the Power of Twins, their clashing palms only tied in a contest of grip strength, and he even felt slightly overwhelmed.
This was the first time he had encountered such a situation since he had started practicing martial arts.
Unable to surpass in fundamental attributes, it was time to compete in skills.
With a surge of Power, the True Dragon hummed softly, and thunder boomed. Whirlwind Thunder activated, and under the augmentation of spirally Compressed Strength, his grip strength massively increased in an instant.
The Shadow Flame that formed the pitch-black gauntlets shattered immediately under this unparalleled grip, leaving Xue Jing's fingers completely exposed.
The Sky Pirate leader let out a light exclamation, clearly caught off guard by the sudden increase in Xue Jing's grip.
But his expression remained unchanged, and he didn't strain against it. Instead, the amethyst armor on his chest moved and multiplied, bursting into several crystalline spikes that rapidly shot toward Xue Jing.
Xue Jing had planned to rely on his Shadowflame Wrap Armor to withstand this attack and crush the pirate's hand first, but the Twin Instinct, which had been active from the beginning, sent a warning.
His intuition told him he couldn't afford to resist head-on.
Without the slightest hesitation, he trusted his instincts, shook his hands free of the Sky Pirate leader's grip, then kicked his opponent's stomach, causing himself to fly backward.
The crystalline spikes missed their target, and after the kinetic energy from his backward flight exhausted, Xue Jing, unable to fly, began to fall downwards.
At that moment, his body performed a backward somersault in mid-air, then his legs slightly bent.
Black air flow emerged from the soles of his feet, forming into a thin plaque.
He stepped on the plaque, pushed off forcefully, and his body shot toward the Sky Pirate leader like a bullet.
As he moved, his eyes, visible through the slit of his helmet, turned silver-white, a sign of Divinity, and his pupils morphed into slits. Black air flowed over his palms, manifesting into a long black blade.
At that moment, the Sky Pirate leader's amethyst armor underwent another change.
Multiplying and transforming, it formed a... Gatling gun.
"Hmm?" Xue Jing raised an eyebrow.
The Amethyst Gatling aimed at Xue Jing, its six barrels spinning rapidly.
"Da-da-da-da-da—"
A barrage of bullets, hundreds per second, stormed at him. His mobility hindered in the air, he found it impossible to dodge for the moment, so Xue Jing simply raised his blade to meet the onslaught.
Under the guidance of Twin Instinct, he perceived the trajectory of every bullet, unleashed Twin Speed, and, following his instincts, swung his blade quickly, slicing through the incoming bullets or blocking them.
However, facing such a crystal storm, the Shadow Flame blade, only as durable as steel, couldn't withstand the onslaught for long and soon shattered.
"Da-da-da-da-da—"
Xue Jing condensed Shadowflame Plaque under his feet, maneuvering around in the air. The stream of bullets followed his movement, shadowing him closely.
As he dodged the bullets, Xue Jing pulled a dark red seed from his pocket and threw it into the air.
Immediately, dozens of thick green vines sprouted from the seed, each stretching tens of meters, wildly thrashing in the sky like a gigantic octopus.
Leader Zhong of the Sky Pirates was taken aback.
Another ability? From which sect was this Blessed One?
Plants? Does he belong to the Flower God Society?
But the ability to manifest black material he displayed bore no significant relation to the Flower God Society, at least not any obvious one.
Forget it, regardless of the enemy's abilities, the fight must go on.
Zhong didn't pause at all, the Amethyst Gatling continued to fire, reducing the green vines to mere paper in its torrent, shattered and splintered, filling the sky with wooden debris.
But Xue Jing was unconcerned; summoning the Oxygen-Absorbing Tree wasn't meant to accomplish much.
It served only one purpose.
The tendrils, wooden chunks, and fragments, under the sunlight, cast countless shadows on each other.
Shadow Flame was the ability to turn shadows into Dark Flame; the larger and deeper the nearby shadows, the stronger the skill.
Under the night sky, moonlight cast upon the earth does create extensive shadows, but because the light is too faint and the shadows lack depth, Shadow Flame is much less effective.
The more intense the brilliance, the deeper the shadows it casts.
At this very moment, high above ten thousand meters, it was afternoon, and although the sunlight wasn't as strong as at noon, it was still formidable.
From within the profound shadows cast by countless wooden fragments, Xue Jing drew forth a thick black current.
The current ignited into a Dark Flame, and then morphed into pitch-black crows with white, empty eye sockets.
One, two, dozens, hundreds.
The eyes of everyone present widened as they watched the dense swarm of soundlessly cawing Shadowflames.
"What is that?" Sёarch* The Novelƒire(.)ne*t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.
"Crows? Alive?"
Xue Jing pointed towards the Sky Pirate leader, and hundreds of crows immediately flapped their wings, fearlessly diving towards their target.
The Amethyst Gatling fired at the approaching crows, but they dodged agilely in the air. Despite some being shattered by the gunfire, most of them continued to draw closer to the Sky Pirate leader.
Without the pressure of being aimed at by bullets, Xue Jing immediately did a somersault without hesitation. Black plaques formed beneath his feet, and with a forceful push, he lunged towards the Sky Pirate leader.
A black longsword reappeared in his hand.
The first crow crashed into the Sky Pirate leader, bursting open and turning into a Dark Flame burning on the Amethyst Armor, creating a shallow crater from the annihilation.
"This is..."
The Sky Pirate leader Zhong's pupils contracted.
His Gatling transformed as blades sprouted from his wrists, with the gauntlets on his forearms and upper arms separating to form a drum structure.
The other arm underwent the same transformation, and then both arms faced the oncoming flock of crows, the Amethyst Blades beginning to spin at high speed, turning into two meat grinders.
Crows that collided with the meat grinders immediately burst into Dark Flames, annihilating the crystals, but whenever there was a gap, Zhong quickly made the Amethyst Armor proliferate and fill it.
While he was busy dealing with the murder of crows, Xue Jing, wielding the black longsword, had already reached his side.
"— Black Heaven Blade · Eye-Penetrating Flow."
The dragon's vertical pupil, piercing through the Cloud Sea Billow, reflected the sparse 'lines' and 'points' on the Sky Pirate leader's body.
The black longsword in his hand swung along an obscure 'line' on the opponent's neck.
A flash of black light.
The imperceptible crack in the Amethyst Armor was split by the blade's light, and the longsword touched flesh.
"Crack—"
A massive gash opened on the Skylord leader's neck, and blood fountained out like a geyser.
"Zhong!!"
Seeing the scene, the expressions of another male and female Sky Pirate immediately changed.
"Still daring to be distracted?" The Void Blade's gaze sharpened as she fought them.
She held two blades in her hands, and another three danced in the air around her.
In an instant, her hands swiftly slashed out with the blades, their speed unimaginable, she completed the motions of slashing, switching blades, and slashing again within half a second.
Five streaks of blade light flashed, and the male Sky Pirate named Wan Bang was instantly cut into over a dozen pieces on the spot.
Simultaneously, gunfire rang out.
A bullet flew from the plane's hatch, piercing through the female Sky Pirate's left abdomen.
She clutched her wound, turned, and fled without hesitation.
Void Blade wanted to chase after her, but the other party took out a capsule, swallowed it, and within seconds, their flight speed surged, quickly widening the gap.
Seeing this, Void Blade stopped and turned her head towards Xue Jing's direction.
The sky filled with Dark Flame, roots and tendrils and rubble, the knight wielding a sword, nearly split in half, his opponent.
Void Blade's eyes narrowed slightly, remarking,
"ISE's combat methods are famously varied, but this time it seems like a fake ghost ran into a real one."
"How many more tricks does this person have?"
"Is this the Divine Chosen?"
...
(Been slacking off recently, adjusting my routine, will make up for it with an extra update tomorrow)