Elsewhere, the Dou Wang expert trapped on the mountaintop had gone from furious rage to extreme wariness.
He could clearly feel an invisible force slowly and steadily drawing away his Dou Qi. Slow though it was, there was no reversing it.
And the instigator standing in that bizarre pose atop the Mud Dragon's head kept sending little things flying at him-sometimes pebbles, sometimes metal pellets. The relentless harassment gradually sent the Dou Wang's heart sinking into the depths.
At last, that "weirdo" moved. Xiao Yi slowly raised his head toward the thick "Cloud Canopy" he had created with his own hands, which shrouded the entire mountaintop. As he straightened, the fierce winds circling the mountain seemed to have found their king, forming a visible rising vortex of air around him.
He spread his arms, letting his robes snap in the wind, and softly recited in clear, precisely enunciated Chinese, his tone almost lyrical.
"Now let me be the carefree wind, soaring straight into the clouds."
The Dou Wang expert knitted his brows, utterly unable to understand that string of gibberish. Yet he could sense a strange resonance arising in the surrounding natural energy as those words were spoken. His opponent's aura seemed on the verge of merging with the entire sky.
The next moment, a sight left the Dou Wang dumbstruck. Xiao Yi did not form Dou Qi Wings like an ordinary person. He merely leaned forward slightly, and the swirling gale lifted him steadily into the air.
Just like that, he walked upon the wind as though on level ground, spiraling up along the mountain with effortless grace. Rather than fighting a battle to the death, he seemed to be taking a leisurely stroll through his own courtyard.
Within a few breaths, his figure vanished into the thick, churning