"Who are you?" Zhan Feng asked. His ancient An Lan blood resonated, burning hot, faintly stirring with the desire to contend.
"My surname is He!" He Xian replied with a smile.
At that, Zhan Feng relaxed. He was not from an Emperor Clan.
"No, you're not He Ziming. You're that newly emerged son of the Crane Clan's founding ancestor." He immediately grew wary.
At this moment, He Xian truly seemed to have returned to simplicity, his brilliance concealed.
His Indestructible Scripture had advanced another level.
"Make your move!" He Xian prompted.
Zhan Feng was handsome, but still seemed to lack something by comparison. He shattered half the sleeve on his arm.
A tattoo of a golden spear was exposed.
Everyone was startled. Even He Xian paid particular attention, for they all knew that a quarter of Zhan Feng's true blood came from the An Lan Clan, and that he had inherited its Ancestral Arts.
"Then forgive my offense!" Zhan Feng swung the arm tattooed with the golden spear. The void around it twisted, and peerless sharpness flickered into being.
Clang!
The next instant, golden spears manifested one after another, arrayed across the void. Every one was a long spear, its edge terrifying, its killing intent surging to the heavens!
Tens of thousands of golden spears crowded together, their tips casting dreadful beams of light, as though they could pierce all things.
"Forgive my offense." As Zhan Feng spoke, all the spears began to hum.
Clang, clang!
The metallic ringing was deafening. An aura of slaughter blanketed heaven and earth as the golden spears all aimed at He Xian.
"Kill!"
The sight of tens of thousands of golden spears launching together was terrifying. Streak after streak of golden divine radiance pierced heaven and earth, blasting the void apart.
Moreover, these were no ordinary weapons, but the embodiment of an Ancestral Art, a manifestation of tremendous power!
If an ancestor had been an unrivaled master without an equal, and generation after generation of descendants practiced his methods, the Ancestral Art would grow ever stronger.
Rumble!
Tens of thousands of spears shot forth together, blazing with golden light, unstoppable. The attack was ferocious.
Yet this killing blow, which would have filled ordinary people with dread, seemed utterly insignificant before He Xian.
He merely raised a curtain of protective golden light and blocked the onslaught of those tens of thousands of golden spears.
"How is that possible?" Shock spread across Zhan Feng's face.
"The An Lan Clan is fairly impressive!" He Xian remarked as he watched the spears dissipate.
"I'll give you one more chance to attack!" He had now tested the An Lan Clan's methods.
Zhan Feng panted heavily, an indescribable fury welling up from the depths of his heart.
"The An Lan Clan cannot be humiliated!"
His golden-tattooed arm shone, its radiance blooming in the void as patterns interwove.
Whoosh!
A terrifying aura blanketed heaven and earth, as though a demonic weapon of the nine netherworlds had been drawn from the depths of hell to slaughter every living creature in the world.
The golden spear on his arm came alive, formed from all manner of Great Dao symbols.
It actually left his body, becoming a beam of golden light that flew toward He Xian.
It was too fast to dodge.
Moreover, its power was terrifying beyond reason. The void collapsed, and the weapons of the surrounding spectators wailed, trembling as though about to submit.
"What kind of Ancestral Art is this?" someone asked shakily, the Dao weapon in his hand trembling.
"The An Lan Emperor Clan-every member has a golden spear on their arm. It's a natural tattoo, and the purer their bloodline, the greater the power they receive!" explained a King Clan prodigy close to the An Lan Clan.
Clang!
Yet the next instant, an astonishing sight unfolded.
The spear still failed to pierce He Xian's protective golden light, held firmly outside it.
"Step down!" He Xian waved a hand, and a fierce gust swept the being with a quarter of the An Lan bloodline off the arena.
The entire scene fell silent, not even a crow's cry or a sparrow's call to be heard.
Before the young kings eager for battle had even begun, they suffered a blow head-on. Zhan Feng, who possessed the An Lan bloodline, had actually been defeated just like that!
Their spirits suffered a heavy blow.
Was this a true emperor at the very pinnacle?
"Is anyone else willing to come up and fight?" He Xian asked calmly from the center of the arena.
"Wait. I had no wish to act just yet, but the An Lan Clan cannot be humiliated." A graceful youth with delicate features approached, surrounded by a large crowd.
Standing amid the crowd, the youth shot a fierce glance at Zhan Feng, whose face was scarlet with shame.
At this first arena, he had not wanted to make such a fuss, but the defeat had been too ugly. It was a slap in the An Lan Clan's face.
"My name is An Yu." The delicate-featured youth was very composed.
"Lord An Yu, there's no need for you to act. Your subordinate is willing to deal with him for you!" His attendant, however, seemed far less courteous, clamoring incessantly.
It was a golden-haired pig with a fat head and large ears.
He Xian's gaze turned cold, shifting from the An Lan Clan's descendant to the stupid pig.
Was this some spoiled young master parading through the streets? For some reason, he felt like teaching them a lesson.
An Yu stepped into the arena at an unhurried pace. He was no fool, and did not actually let his attendant act. That would have been a deliberate insult.
"The Crane Ancestor's son?" An Yu asked.
Outside the arena, however, the crowd erupted.
"An Emperor Clan?!"
"An Emperor Clan is here! A member of the An Lan lineage has emerged!"
An uproar broke out around the arena. The An Lan lineage's name thundered in everyone's ears; its fame was immense. Any member of such an ancient clan was destined to become the crowd's focus, unable to escape attention even if they wished to.
An Emperor Clan-they had seen a true member of an Emperor Clan, an undefeated legend.
Everyone was excited.
"That's right!" The Foreign Realm valued bloodlines, and He Xian took pride in his own.
"I heard you defeated Chi Menghong. Quite remarkable!" An Yu remarked, with an air of looking down from above.
He Xian frowned. "Your words really irritate me, and so does your attitude. Do you know that?"
"Hahahaha!" An Yu laughed. "You truly speak your mind, fellow Daoist."
"I have a younger sister, too. I'll introduce you another day!"
He Xian said nothing more.
"Of course, all of that depends on whether you survive!" An Yu, the delicate-featured youth, changed. Like a demon, like a god, he blazed with dazzling, brilliant light too piercing to look at directly.
"I'm no trash like Chi Menghong. I inherited my ancestor's peerless might, the power that laid waste to the Nine Heavens!"
"Red Peak Spear, Immortal Shield-slaughter every Immortal King and destroy the Nine Heavens!" An Yu roared. Amid the dazzling radiance, he held an ancient golden spear.
The spear was unbearably dazzling. Its golden luster illuminated past, present, and future, as though myriad ages had become one, enduring eternally.
For the Immortal King An Lan had once used this spear to impale the Heavenly Horned Ant and pierce an Immortal King. Its divine might towered over the world, shaking past and present.
An Ancestral Art wielded by a true member of the An Lan Clan was indeed different. It shook heaven and earth, its spearpoint seeming capable of piercing anything.
It was so dazzling that even He Xian's eyes were stung by the golden light.
"Then let me test whether you're trash or not!" He Xian was even more domineering. He carried an air of invincibility, though it was still only in its infancy.