Growing Once More

Mo Lin still had no idea what had happened when the vanished Xiao Yun suddenly appeared beside him. A faint smile tugged at Xiao Yun's lips as he raised his hand and brought it down toward Mo Lin's neck.

Mo Lin was a Great Dou Master. Mo Cheng would not simply stand by and watch him be killed.

Mo Cheng circulated his Dou Qi and immediately charged at Xiao Yun.

But could a mere Dou Spirit stop someone Xiao Yun wanted to kill? Mo Lin only felt a chill at his neck before his mind stopped functioning.

Mo Cheng halted and looked at the fallen Mo Lin, saying furiously, "Good, good, very good. I misjudged you. So you are a Dou Spirit."

Xiao Yun looked at Mo Cheng and instantly saw through his entire body. Disgust flashed through his eyes.

Xiao Yun said, "Kill yourself. Save me from dirtying my hands."

The arrogant words stunned Mo Cheng for a moment. Then he laughed in extreme anger. "That depends on whether you have the ability."

Mo Cheng shot Xiao Yun a venomous look. His left hand suddenly writhed, and a ferocious surge of Dou Qi erupted, blasting his sleeve to pieces.

Then Mo Cheng's palm grotesquely enlarged. Before long, his arm underwent a drastic transformation, completely losing the form of a normal human arm and becoming like the limb of a beast.

"This arm of mine was transplanted from the forelimb of a fifth-tier magical beast. Boy, you are the first person to see this arm."

"So you must die!"

Mo Cheng stomped the ground and bent his knees. His body then shot forward like a cannonball, straight at Xiao Yun.

Xiao Yun looked at Mo Cheng's bloodshot eyes and sneered. "Can you still be called human?"

Mo Cheng glared furiously. As he neared Xiao Yun, he leaped into the air, then brought his enormous palm crashing down toward Xiao Yun, tearing through the air with a piercing shriek.

"Trash, die!" Mo Cheng roared.

Xiao Yun remained expressionless. He slowly raised one hand, Dou Qi churning above it before suddenly shooting forth.

Mo Cheng's body exploded in midair, turning into a rain of blood. Not even his bones remained.

With Mo Cheng dealt with, only three or four insignificant Mo Clan members remained. They looked at Xiao Yun in utter terror.

"Spare us, sir!" They fell to their knees and repeatedly begged Xiao Yun for mercy.

Xiao Yun's terrifying strength left them unable to muster even the slightest will to resist. Cold sweat poured from their foreheads, and together with their pale faces, they looked like drowned ghosts.

Xiao Yun looked at the people on the ground and said coldly, "Go back and tell the rest of the Mo Clan that if they provoke me again, I will wipe out the entire Mo Clan."

The remaining Mo Clan members soon fled in panic, scrambling forward on hands and knees. They feared that Xiao Yun might suddenly change his mind and casually crush them to death, regretting that they had not been born with two extra legs.

Xiao Yun walked over to Qing Lin and the Little Doctor Fairy and asked, "Are you all right?"

The Little Doctor Fairy and Qing Lin appeared unharmed.

"I'm fine."

"Young Master Xiao Yun, we're fine."

Night fell deep within the Tagore Desert.

Inside a city, within a palace.

"Hua She'er, how is the investigation into the location of the Heavenly Flame going?"

The speaker wore a purple brocade robe. Her figure was graceful and exquisitely curved, while her pale violet eyes held boundless allure.

Her long black hair cascaded casually over her fragrant shoulders to her slender waist. Below that was a violet snake tail.

"Your Majesty, we have roughly located the place, but there are simply too many passages leading underground. We need time to investigate them." Hua She'er, captain of the Medusa Snake Guards, respectfully bowed slightly beside the Medusa Queen.

Hearing the report, the Medusa Queen frowned slightly, clearly dissatisfied. After a long silence, she said, "Tomorrow, I will go personally."

Hearing this, Hua She'er said, "Your Majesty, would that not be inappropriate?"

The Medusa Queen looked at Hua She'er. Hua She'er's expression changed as she realized she had said something she should not have, and she immediately lowered her head. "This subordinate overstepped her bounds. I beg Your Majesty to punish me."

The Medusa Queen did not punish Hua She'er. Looking ahead, she said calmly, "The aura of a Dou Ancestor has appeared in the Tagore Desert."

"The Snake-People Tribe producing a Dou Ancestor is already an urgent matter."

The next day.

Xiao Yun gathered Xiao Ding, Xiao Li, the Little Doctor Fairy, and Qing Lin together and handed each of them a jade slip.

"These are Spatial Jade Slips. If you encounter danger again, crush one, and I will sense it."

Xiao Ding and Xiao Li looked curiously at the small jade slips in their hands, turning them over and examining them, yet finding nothing special about them.

Still, out of trust in Xiao Yun, they carefully put the jade slips away.

After yesterday's incident with the Mo Clan, Xiao Yun realized something: human strength had its limits.

Even with the strength of a Battle Saint, there were times when Xiao Yun could not attend to everything.

Yesterday, Xiao Yun had taken Xiao Li out to train and summoned lightning for him. He had needed to focus completely.

Xiao Li was too weak. If Xiao Yun had been even slightly careless, the lightning he summoned could have struck him dead.

For Xiao Li's safety, Xiao Yun had focused all his attention on summoning lightning. As a result, despite such a major incident occurring in Stone Desert City, he had not sensed it at all.

Under normal circumstances, even without deliberately sensing his surroundings, Xiao Yun could perceive some of what happened within ten li with his strength.

Xiao Yun chuckled softly. "It seems there are some things I cannot neglect just because they seem meaningless."

In truth, Xiao Yun had made many Spatial Jade Slips when he left the Xiao Clan and had left some with Xiao Zhan.

After arriving in Stone Desert City, Xiao Yun had thought that since he was here, there was no need to give Spatial Jade Slips to Xiao Ding and Xiao Li.

Yesterday's events had taught him a lesson. There would always be times when one hand could not attend to what the other was doing.

If he had given the Spatial Jade Slips to Xiao Ding earlier, yesterday's events would not have happened.

"Young Master Xiao Yun, are you unhappy?" Seeing Xiao Yun's somewhat dejected expression, Qing Lin walked over and asked.

Xiao Yun looked at Qing Lin and smiled. "It's nothing. Your young master has merely figured some things out."

It seemed that I had been somewhat arrogant before.

Only yesterday had Xiao Yun finally realized that his mindset had always been flawed.

Geniuses were arrogant, just like Xiao Yan had been before experiencing his time as trash.

Xiao Yun had come to this world with a system. His cultivation had gone smoothly, and he had advanced triumphantly all the way to the peak by the age of twenty.

Yet he had always remained neither humble nor overbearing, never showing off or causing trouble. Outside the Xiao Clan, fewer than ten people in the entire Jia Ma Empire even knew that Xiao Yun existed.

Xiao Yun had once believed this was because he understood that there were always greater people beyond people and greater heavens beyond heaven.

But now it seemed that he had merely known more about this world and possessed broader horizons, so he had hidden his arrogance deep in his heart.

If, like Xiao Yan, his eyes had seen only the tiny Jia Ma Empire, then with his talent, he would likely have been just like Xiao Yan in his childhood.

After his mindset changed, Xiao Yun looked back on the things he had done as a child and discovered a different version of himself.

He had not been neither humble nor overbearing, nor had he been free of arrogance. He had simply believed that the Jia Ma Empire was a small place, that its geniuses were not worth his efforts, that it was not worth wasting his thoughts on, and that it was not worth displaying his talent in.

If he had transmigrated into the Gu Clan, then with his cultivation speed, he would likely have revealed his strength immediately and let the world know that Xiao Yun was an unparalleled genius.

Xiao Yun laughed at himself. "How was the old me not arrogant?"