"At seventeen, he was nothing more than a slave to an ordinary noble family in the Sabaody Archipelago!"
Saint Saturn's words shocked Saint Garling.
"Seventeen? An ordinary slave?"
He could scarcely connect the peerless powerhouse before him, a man who frightened even him, with a slave in a noble household.
At seventeen, he himself had stood high above others, already making a name for himself in his own circles. In fact, just as Xia Le had said, he had already been able to fight a Marine Admiral one-on-one at fifteen.
"Time is a remarkable force, isn't it?"
"When you met me at seventeen, you never could have imagined that, more than twenty years later..."
After a brief pause, Xia Le smiled, raised his sword again, and swung it down at Saint Garling.
"You'd be standing here, facing me like this!"
As his words fell, so did Xia Le's sword.
Whoosh!
Saint Garling's pupils contracted. A long, bloody gash opened across his chest and abdomen, and he was sent flying backward.
Blood sprayed through the air. His body rolled repeatedly across the ground, staining the dust red and leaving a long trail before he finally landed sitting on the ground.
"Cough, cough, cough!"
Pain crossed Saint Garling's face as he watched Xia Le gravely. Ahead of him, Xia Le was once again locked in battle with the other three.
"Have I grown old?"
He murmured the question, unable to stop himself from pondering what Xia Le had just said.
At fifteen, he had enjoyed boundless glory. Hailed as a young genius, he had already been able to fight an Admiral alone.
By twenty, he had firmly secured his position as commander of the Holy Knights and participated in the battle at God Valley.
And now, his chest and abdomen had been