The Furious Lion!

"What is going on? Has Xiao Ning been beaten?"

The First Elder asked his attendant while hurrying toward the Dou Technique Pavilion.

"Yes, Young Master Xiao Ze came to cause trouble for Young Master Xiao Ning. Young Master Xiao Ze possesses great strength and has been pinning Young Master Xiao Ning to the ground and beating him."

The attendant explained in a rush, and the First Elder's brows furrowed tightly.

Xiao Ze had always kept a low profile, not even participating in the testing assembly; he never expected the boy to be hiding such strength.

Originally, he had been quite disdainful of Xiao Ze for skipping the testing assembly, sharing the same mainstream opinion as the outside world.

He believed Xiao Ze was afraid of being compared to Xiao Yan and being mocked by others for being inferior.

He hadn't paid much attention to Xiao Ze's absence from the testing assembly.

One could hide for a moment, but not for a lifetime.

Every member of the Xiao Clan was required to participate in the coming-of-age ceremony, and they would have to undergo testing then anyway.

As long as one's Dou Qi did not reach the seventh stage, it meant they lacked the potential for cultivation and would be stripped of the qualification to enter the Dou Technique Pavilion to select Dou techniques.

At the same time, they would be assigned to the Xiao Clan's ordinary businesses to manage them.

This was the rule of the Xiao Clan, and even the Clan Head could not go against it!

But now, the attendant was telling him that Xiao Ze's cultivation talent was not lacking.

On the contrary, his strength was formidable—able to pin Xiao Ning to the ground and beat him—meaning he was at least at a high stage of Dou Qi!

While these thoughts raced through the First Elder's mind, his feet did not stop, and he hurried forward.

As soon as he arrived at the Dou Technique Pavilion, he saw Xiao Ze beating someone.

Xiao Ze was straddling the person, his fists raining down relentlessly onto the head of the one on the ground.

The victim looked quite miserable, screaming crazily, his face swollen like a pig's head.

If the attendant hadn't informed him that the person Xiao Ze was beating was Xiao Ning, the First Elder probably wouldn't have even recognized him!

After a brief moment of shock, a surge of heartache welled up in the First Elder's heart, followed immediately by fury!

Consumed by rage, the First Elder ignored the clan rules:

No attacking juniors without cause!

Dou Qi surged within him as he charged toward the center of the crowd.

The intense pressure of his Dou Qi caused the surrounding crowd to turn pale.

The First Elder quickly reached Xiao Ze, his palm imbued with Dou Qi, and struck out at Xiao Ze in anger.

Xiao Ze had long since noticed the First Elder's approach; in terms of soul perception, he was not weak!

The Dou Qi vortex within his body spun crazily, squeezing out a massive amount of Dou Qi that gathered in his palms along a specific path.

Xuan-tier high-level Dou Technique, Swallow Return Strike!

Xiao Ze's pale blue Dou Qi radiance flared brilliantly, clashing with the First Elder's palm!

Xiao Ze did not meet the First Elder head-on; instead, he used the force of the impact to flip his body several times, landing lightly on the edge of the training ground like a dragonfly skimming the water.

The surrounding onlookers, their faces pale, stared at Xiao Ze with wide eyes, filled with disbelief.

If the elemental Dou Qi on Xiao Ze's hands had shocked them before, then this moment left them utterly incredulous!

Xiao Ze had actually managed to block a strike from the First Elder with the strength of a Dou Practitioner!

The First Elder was also slightly stunned, seeing how easily Xiao Ze had neutralized his attack.

A sense of absurdity surfaced in his heart.

Although he was blinded by rage, he still retained a shred of reason and had not used a Dou Technique.

However, he had still used a portion of his Dou Qi, intending to teach Xiao Ze a lesson.

That Xiao Ze could safely neutralize it with his Dou Grandmaster power truly shocked him.

Before the onlookers could react, an angry roar erupted from outside the Dou Technique Pavilion, sounding like the roar of a lion.

"Old thing, you are presumptuous!"

Accompanied by the surge of pale green Dou Qi, a figure arrived like a gale.

The entire Dou Technique Pavilion seemed to be swept by a force-eight gale, blowing the onlookers until they swayed unsteadily, their faces turning deathly pale.

The Dou Qi pressure of a Dou Grandmaster made them feel a suffocating tightness in their chests.

The intense Dou Qi surged, covering Xiao Zhan's entire body, and finally, a phantom lion's head coalesced upon his face.

The lion's face was filled with rage, as if it were about to devour someone, looking truly soul-stirring!

It was none other than the Xiao Clan's top-tier cultivation method, a Xuan-tier mid-level technique that only the Clan Head could master: Mad Lion Rage Aura!

The First Elder's expression changed abruptly as he felt the incoming Dou Qi pressure and a faint sense of impending death.

His mouth opened slightly, wanting to explain, but the enraged lion would hear no excuses and had already transformed into a gale, pouncing toward him.

The First Elder had no choice but to gather his Dou Qi in his haste.

BOOM!!!

Two powerful surges of Dou Qi collided, and without a moment of stalemate, the pale cyan Dou Qi crushed the other side, sending it flying!

The crowd had already retreated to the edge of the training grounds, yet they still felt a stifling pressure in their chests, as if a giant boulder were pressing down upon them.

Everyone stared intently at the center of the arena.

This was the power of the strong; this was the rule of the Dou Qi Continent!

The strong could do as they pleased, while the weak would be injured even just by watching!

Some people cast their gazes toward Xiao Ze, who remained standing motionless where he was.

A pale blue radiance permeated Xiao Ze's body, shielding him from the shockwave of Dou Qi.

Their eyes were filled with envy; this was a Dou Practitioner!

He was likewise an existence they had to look up to.

The First Elder retreated dozens of steps, each footprint deeply embedded into the floor of the training grounds.

The intense impact caused his blood to surge, flushing his face a deep red before it drained away into a deathly pallor.

The First Elder forcibly swallowed the blood rising in his throat, making his expression look even more wretched.

Xiao Zhan actually intends to kill me!

"You old thing, do you really think I wouldn't dare to kill you!"

Xiao Zhan's hair and beard stood on end, his eyes wide with fury, and pale cyan Dou Qi surged around him like a lion in a fit of rage.

His third son had just been beaten today, and Xiao Zhan's heart was already overflowing with fury.

Yet, not long after, he had witnessed this old thing, the First Elder, bullying the weak and laying a hand on his youngest son!

At this point, Xiao Zhan could no longer hold back!

A five-star Dou Grandmaster combined with a Xuan-tier intermediate cultivation technique—this strike was enough to make the First Elder suffer a heavy price!

Xiao Zhan made a move as if to continue his assault.

The First Elder's blood was in turmoil, his face cycling between shades of green and purple.

But for the sake of his pride, he held back the blood he was about to vomit and could not find the time to explain.

At this critical moment, Xiao Ze's voice rang out.

"Father, I am fine."

Xiao Ze walked forward, braving the pressure of the Dou Grandmaster's Dou Qi, and smiled to comfort Xiao Zhan.

He then turned his head to say to the First Elder, "First Elder, isn't this a bit too dishonest of you?"

"Just this morning, you said that it wasn't appropriate for you to interfere in sparring matches between the younger generation."

"Yet now you are bullying the weak and attacking me? What is this? First Elder, is your word nothing more than hot air?"

"Or is it that only when your Xiao Ning hits others does it count as a spar between peers?"

"When others hit your Xiao Ning, it no longer counts as a spar between peers, and it requires you, the First Elder, to step in and pass judgment?"

Xiao Ze's barrage of words was truly a strike to the heart!

After all, it was only this morning that the First Elder had said the fight between Xiao Yan and Xiao Ning was a spar between juniors, telling Xiao Zhan not to be narrow-minded or petty.

Yet, when Xiao Ning was beaten in the afternoon, he had flown into a rage and acted to bully a junior of the clan.

The crowd in the training grounds began to whisper among themselves upon hearing Xiao Ze's words, pointing fingers at the First Elder in a frenzy.