The attack came so suddenly that even Xi Yan had not been on her guard. By the time she noticed, it was already too late. The Black-Armored Warrior had launched his full-force strike from the weeping willow. The instant Hu Xiaotian poked his head out, the man's iron fist smashed into his face, sending him back beneath the river, his fate unknown. Grief and fury surged through Xi Yan. With a sharp cry, she lightly tapped her toes against a lotus lantern and sprang into the air, her long sleeves sweeping outward. A riot of flowers formed a brilliantly colored whirlwind that swept toward the Black-Armored Warrior, with thousands upon thousands of hornets close behind.
The hornets surrounded the Black-Armored Warrior. Just then, red flames suddenly blazed all over his body, burning every hornet that approached him to ashes. Rather than shying away from the fire, the swarm hurled itself desperately into the flames.
Xi Yan's heart lurched. "Seven-Layer Phosphor Armor!" she cried in alarm.
Without a word, the Black-Armored Warrior seized the moment of Xi Yan's shock to leap into the river. As soon as the phosphor flames touched the water, they detached from his armor and floated on the surface, continuing to burn.
The Black-Armored Warrior's punch had struck Hu Xiaotian squarely in the face and knocked him into the river. His body had barely sunk beneath the surface when thousands of water snakes swarmed toward him, coiling around his limbs and neck. Several had already begun biting his skin.
The pain quickly cleared Hu Xiaotian's muddled head. A mighty current of qi surged from his Dantian Sea of Qi and swiftly spread through all the major meridians in his body. His eyes, temporarily blinded by the intense light, gradually regained their normal vision as well.
Hu Xiaotian