Chapter 1078: Pose, and You Will Be Struck by Lightning
Translator: StarveCleric Editor: Millman97
Actually, Zhang Xuan was also having a mental breakdown at that very moment.
He had not thought that the Skyleaf King would walk in on him.
With his hand trapped within the seal, he could not leave even if he wanted to. It was truly an indescribably awkward situation.
"Yo?" Hearing the other party’s bizarre greeting, the Skyleaf King was taken aback.
Upon seeing him, not only did the other party not flee from fright, he was even speaking some kind of weird language to him. The sheer ridiculousness of the situation left him slightly dazed. However, it took only a blink of an eye for him to recover from it. "You are trapped within the seal? Hahaha! It seems like even the heavens are on my side!"
Not only did that fellow foil his plan, the fellow had even humiliated him, the first King of the Qingtian Lineage! Ever since then, he had been wanting to exact vengeance.
He had thought that the other party would surely coop himself up in the small room like the other pesky master teachers, and if that was the case, there would truly have been nothing that he would have been able to do. However, who would have thought that the other party would be so foolish as to wander right into his base!
He truly must have been eager to seek death!
He had studied the seals for two whole years, and he knew that once a hand touched the seal, it would be impossible to extract it unless one were to obtain the artifact within it. Judging from the other party’s current state, he must have been trying to retrieve something but got stuck in the midst of doing so.
"Hahaha! Since you are already here, why don’t you just remain here for good!" With his eyes glowing in excitement, the Skyleaf King reached out to grab Zhang Xuan.
But before his hand could reach the other party, the young man suddenly spoke up. "Hold it a moment..."
"Why? Are you going to plead for mercy now? Let me tell you this straight, it’s too late for that!" Knowing how scheming the young man before him was, the Skyleaf King formed a massive palm with zhenqi and directed it straight toward the other party.
As a Saint 5-dan Leaving Aperture realm expert, he wielded astounding strength. Even with the combined prowess of Guild Leader Han and Wu shi, they would still be beaten into a lump of meat before the palm strike, let alone Zhang Xuan.
"Plead for mercy? You must be joking! Do you think that I’ll plead for mercy with a lowly figure like you? Do you know who I am?" Zhang Xuan looked at the Skyleaf King fearlessly as an aura of majesty flowed from him.
"Who are you? You are the principal of the Hongyuan Master Teacher Academy, the only one in history to have received the recognition of everyone within the academy. As long as I devour you whole, I will surely be able to achieve a breakthrough in my cultivation and escape from this darned place!" the Skyleaf King roared furiously as a savage glint flashed across his eyes.
Otherworldly Demons were able to raise their cultivation through devouring the flesh of master teachers. Back then, Vicious’ phalange 1 had fed off the bodies of the master teachers that the beasts of the Cloudmist Ridge had offered him, and through doing so, he was able to regain his strength and regrow his flesh.
The higher ranked and more talented a master teacher was, the more an Otherworldly Demon’s cultivation would grow by consuming him. For a very long time now, the Skyleaf King had been wanting to kill Zhang Xuan and devour him. Since Zhang Xuan had trapped himself within his base, how could he possibly allow this delicious prey to escape from him?
"Audacious!" Zhang Xuan’s face darkened. Driving his Heaven’s Path zhenqi, he swiftly converted it into the chilling Zhenqi of Slaughter unique to Otherworldly Demons. Within the blink of an eye, a powerful aura burst into the surroundings. "I am..."
Pilipala!
Before Zhang Xuan could finish speaking, a powerful current of electricity abruptly ran through the hand that was trapped in the seal.
In just a brief moment, his entire body was charred black from the powerful lightning current. His entire body stiffened under the electrocution, and his hair also stood up from the lingering static electricity.
If not for his body having achieved durability comparable to a Saint low-tier artifact, he might have just died then and there.
Zhang Xuan’s eyes flew around the place, and he nearly burst into tears.
All he wanted to do was pose for a bit so as to fool the Skyleaf King, was it really that big a crime? To actually be electrocuted over such a small matter...
As stifled as Zhang Xuan felt, he swiftly understood what was going on.
Just as he had guessed previously, Otherworldly Demons were indeed unable to retrieve the artifacts within!
The moment he converted his Heaven’s Path zhenqi into Zhenqi of Slaughter, the seal assumed that an Otherworldly Demon was attempting to breach its defenses, so it immediately sent a powerful electric shock over. It was fortunate that Zhang Xuan had converted his zhenqi back as soon as he noticed that something was amiss, or else even his Saint low-tier body would not have been strong enough to survive a sustained electric shock of that intensity.
How embarrassing it would have been if he had die from an electricity shock while he was in the midst of posing!
"You..."
The Skyleaf King was just about to make a move when he suddenly saw Zhang Xuan being charred black before his eyes, and he froze in shock.
For an instant, he vividly felt a killing intent being emanated from the young man before him. It was weak, but it was even purer than his own. Furthermore, he was even electrocuted by the seal on top of that. Could it be that... the young man before him was not a master teacher but one of their tribesmen?
"Cough cough, you should know my identity now, right?" Exhaling a mouthful of white smoke, Zhang Xuan turned to the Skyleaf King and spoke confidently.
"You are also an Otherworldly Demon as well?" The Skyleaf King frowned for a moment before a glint flickered in his eyes. "No, that’s not right. You are a master teacher. How could a person who has received the acknowledgement of so many master teachers possibly be an Otherworldly Demon? Ah! You must have killed the Scarletleaf King and the others and drawn the Zhenqi of Slaughter from their bodies through some secret art. Do you think that you can beguile me through a cheap ploy like that? Dream on!"
Boom!
The Skyleaf King immediately gathered his strength once more and launched a palm strike against Zhang Xuan.
It was not without reason that he had managed to surpass innumerable Otherworldly Demons to become the number one expert of the Qingtian Ten Great Kings. He was indeed not as easily fooled as the other Kings.
While the Zhenqi of Slaughter was unique to the Otherworldly Demons, it was not entirely impossible for the fellow before him to have extracted the Zhenqi of Slaughter from the other Kings and stored it within his body so as to disguise himself as their tribesman.
Back then, a certain master teacher had used such a method to deal a crushing blow to them.
"You said that I killed the Scarletleaf King? Hahaha! You were fooled by that as well? That was just a ploy that I used to fool them. Take a look at who is this..." Zhang Xuan flicked his wrist, and a figure appeared beside him.
The fellow had a towering stature and a powerful body. Upon seeing the Skyleaf King, the fellow smiled and said, "It’s me..."
He was the Scarletleaf King!
"You aren’t dead yet?"
Seeing how the young man trapped in the formation had dragged out a living Scarletleaf King, who should have been ripped into pieces within a grade-7 pinnacle Slaughter Formation, the Skyleaf King found himself completely lost for the first time.
What was going on?
Back then, even though his fragmented Primordial Spirit had suffered a heavy blow, he did not leave the premises immediately. With his own eyes, he had watched the Scarletleaf King being tricked by the young man, and trapped within the formation that he constructed himself, he was torn into innumerable pieces. How in the world... did he come back to life?
"No, something is wrong. The Zhenqi of Slaughter within your body does not belong to the Scarletleaf King. Furthermore, your cultivation... isn’t right either..."
After a moment of bewilderment, the Skyleaf King swiftly found a few points that were off about the ’Scarletleaf King’ before his eyes.
The ’Scarletleaf King’ before him did harness Zhenqi of Slaughter as well, but it had an ancient quality to it. This was at odds with the cultivation technique practiced by the Scarletleaf King.
More importantly... there was a significant difference in their cultivation as well. The ’Scarletleaf King’ before him was only at Nascent Saint pinnacle, not having even reached Saint realm yet.
One should know that the Scarletleaf King was a true Half-Leaving Aperture realm expert!
"In order to fool those master teachers, I had no choice but to take a fatal blow. As a result, my cultivation ended up suffering a temporary decline. Well, if you still don’t believe me, surely you should recognize this guy, right?" the frowning ’Scarletleaf King’ explained.
There was a momentary blur before the Skyleaf King’s eyes, and another figure abruptly materialized in the chamber. It was the missing Violetleaf King.
"Paying respects to the Skyleaf King!" The Violetleaf King hurriedly clasped his fist and bowed deeply.
The frown on the Skyleaf King’s face deepened.
There was nothing wrong with the Violetleaf King before his eyes. The other party’s cultivation realm and aura were exactly how he remembered them to be.
For both the Scarletleaf King and the Violetleaf King to be with him... could Zhang Xuan really be one of their tribesmen?
While it looked as if he had killed the Ten Great Kings on the surface, he was, in fact, saving them all?
Recalling the incident from before, the Skyleaf King asked doubtfully, "No, that’s not right either. If you are truly one of our tribesmen, why would you reveal my hidden identity to those master teachers?"
His fragmented Primordial Spirit had been hiding within Jiang Yuan all along, and with his secret art, no one would have noticed him. Yet, the other party forced him out of Jiang Yuan’s body and put him through great suffering!
If the other party was truly an Otherworldly Demon, why would the other party have betrayed him?
Not even Feng Xun, Jiang Yuan’s close companion, had noticed the anomaly!
"It was all to obtain the trust of those foolish master teachers so that I could obtain the map!" Zhang Xuan replied with a leisurely wave of his hand.
However, as his entire body was still charred from the previous electrocution, his ’leisurely’ movement looked sinister instead.
"You have obtained the map from them?" The Skyleaf King was taken aback.
"Indeed. It’s in my hands right now!" Zhang Xuan nodded, and he flicked his wrist. A map appeared in his hand.
"It really is the map..." Feeling the unique aura that emanated from the ancient goatskin resonating with the entire Qiu Wu Palace, the eyes of the Skyleaf King lit up.
The map had a distinctive quality reminiscent to the booklet that contained the introduction to the ancient domain. There was no doubt about it, it was the real map!
The Skyleaf King reached out to take the map in agitation. "Can you let me take a look?"
Hu!
With another flick of his wrist, Zhang Xuan returned the map into his storage ring and shook his head. "With this, you should know who I am, right?"
"This..." Seeing Zhang Xuan keeping the map, the Skyleaf King was stunned for a moment before asking with a deep frown, "Who in the world are you?"
All of the evidence suggested that the young man before him was an Otherworldly Demon, but... he did not know of any figure within the Qingtian Lineage who possessed such pure Zhenqi of Slaughter.
Zhang Xuan waved his hand. "It’s not convenient for me to tell you who I am at the moment. You just have to know that the Qingtian Emperor dispatched me to assist you in this mission."
"His Majesty sent you here to assist me?" the Skyleaf King assessed the fellow before him once more.
The zhenqi in his body felt upright, and the faint air of a master teacher lingered around him. No matter how he looked at the fellow before him, the other party did not seem to have anything to do with the Otherworldly Demonic Tribe.
"Indeed. Alright, I will have to obtain this artifact now, so stand back a moment. I will talk to you once I’m done..." Seeing that he had finally convinced the Skyleaf King a little, Zhang Xuan heaved a sigh of relief as he pushed his other hand further in to touch the Seven-colored Earth Jade Essence.
"Obtain the artifact?" The Skyleaf King was stunned for a moment before a ferocious glint flashed through his eyes. "Do you think that you can fool me with your cheap acting? Tell me, who are you?"
"Fool you? Why would you think that I’m trying to fool you?" Seeing how the other party was still reluctant to believe his words, Zhang Xuan felt a little headache.
If it had been any of the other Kings, they would have been sold by now. Yet, the Skyleaf King just would not believe him despite all of the evidences he had produced. Wasn’t he being a little too skeptical?
"I have no way of ascertaining who you truly are, but the seal that Kong shi left behind is surely able to do so! If our Otherworldly Demonic Tribe truly had a way to bypass Kong shi’s detection, we wouldn’t have been in vulnerable position all along." Sneering coldly, the Skyleaf King gathered his zhenqi within his palm once more, ready to make a move.
The fact that the fellow was only electrocuted once while his hand was stuck within the seal was conclusive evidence that the other party wasn’t an Otherworldly Demon at his core. Without a doubt, he was a fake!
"You..." Hearing those words, Zhang Xuan immediately panicked.
"Exposed, huh? Regardless of whether you are truly a human or an Otherworldly Demon, you won’t be getting out of here alive today!" With a cold sneer, the Skyleaf King raised his palm to bring it down upon Zhang Xuan.
At that moment, however, he suddenly felt a splitting pain cutting into his head.
Peng!
His head abruptly burst apart, and his body was sent crashing into a nearby wall before collapsing back to the ground as if a lump of mud.
The ’Scarletleaf King’ slapped his hand as the muscles throughout his body warped back into Zhang Xuan’s appearance.
"I told you from the start, we could have just killed him with a single punch. There was no need to waste your breath. You sure like to create more trouble for yourself, don’t you?"