Breaking through to Dou Zong, with no path to be found

"Breaking through to Dou Zong... there's no path to be found..."

Jia Xingtian let out a long sigh.

Over the past few decades, he had tried countless methods, yet he remained stuck at Peak Dou Emperor, unable to advance an inch.

If he failed to break through soon, he would have only a few years left to live.

Of his old friends from back then, some had died, some had disappeared, and those who had entered secluded cultivation to stake their lives on a breakthrough had long since fallen out of contact.

Just then, Jia Xingtian sensed something. He strode out of his secret chamber, unfurled a pair of earthen-yellow wings behind his back, and flew high into the sky.

He gazed far off toward the Tagor Desert.

Just now, he had sensed a powerful presence. Though it was far away and his perception was somewhat hazy, as a long-established Peak Dou Emperor, he was extremely sensitive to such a presence.

"Could Queen Medusa have broken through to Dou Zong...?"

It had come from the direction of the Tagor Desert, so Queen Medusa was Jia Xingtian's first thought.

But he soon dismissed that guess.

Though his perception was vague, the presence felt wrong.

He had fought Queen Medusa head-on before and could distinguish that the two had completely different Dou Qi attributes.

This was an entirely unknown Dou Qi attribute.

A long while later, Jia Xingtian beat his earthen-yellow wings and flew back into the Jia Ma Imperial Court.

He had a premonition that something major would happen soon. He had to make preparations in advance...

Misty Cloud Rear Mountain

Several Nine-Star Dou Emperors had already noticed it, so Yun Shan, the former Misty Cloud Sect Master who had broken through the Dou Emperor barrier and entered the Dou Zong level, had naturally sensed it too.

After all, this was no furtively concealed presence, but the essence of power shooting into the heavens at full force without the slightest attempt at concealment.

"It seems the cards in this Jia Ma Empire are about to be reshuffled..."

Chu Yun Empire

Mulan Empire

Luo Yan Empire

Returning to Luo Yang, he finally stopped after firing the Zeperion Ray skyward for nearly a minute.

Ding-dong! Ding-dong! Ding-dong!

The azure timer on his chest turned red and began to flash.

Luo Yang panted slightly, feeling somewhat exhausted.

That full minute of firing the [Zeperion Ray] at maximum power had taken quite a toll on him.

Hai Bodong stared toward that pillar of light piercing the heavens, unable to recover for a long time.

That was too fucking monstrous.

Just what great family or faction did this youth come from...?

He had merely taken out some thingamajig and transformed into a glowing "person" with huge duck-egg eyes, his Dou Qi rising from Dou Shi to Dou Emperor. Now that his body had grown larger, he had fucking become a Dou Zong expert.

Judging by its might, that Dou Technique just now had probably reached High Earth Class, hadn't it?

Though Hai Bodong had only ever seen a handful of Earth Class Dou Techniques, none had possessed such heaven-defying power that it could pierce the firmament and turn night into day.

Fortunately, that Dou Technique had not been aimed at him. Otherwise, he would certainly have been dead without so much as a scrap remaining.

"Phew..."

Luo Yang pulled his lower legs halfway out of the sand and let out a long breath. His enormous, fifty-five-meter body really consumed far too much power.

The timer on his chest continued flashing red with an incessant "ding-dong, ding-dong."

As time passed, the sky, which had been as bright as day, slowly fell under night's rule once more.

"Elder Hai, it's getting late. We should head back..." Estimating that his remaining power should be enough to return to camp, Luo Yang called out to Hai Bodong before switching back to Sky Type.

He leaped up and flew back the way he had come.

In the blink of an eye, he had vanished without a trace.

"Good thing I'm not his enemy..."

After coming back to his senses, Hai Bodong patted his chest, a wave of lingering fear washing over him.

Now he was even more certain that this Luo Wenxuan had to be the young master of some great family. Not only was his talent extraordinary, but the trump cards in his hands also seemed endless.

His future achievements would know no bounds.

Whoosh!!

The Ice Wings behind Hai Bodong trembled as he chased after Luo Yang.

What else could he do?

Go all in!!!

Going all in was a skill, a form of wisdom. Having come from the Mittel Family, he had a keen eye and understood angel investing better than anyone.

Besides, Luo Wenxuan had already laid his cards on the table today. If he still could not recognize that promising, bright future, then he truly would be a fucking idiot.

Several days later, Luo Yang, Tushan Rongrong, Qing Lin, and Hai Bodong continued traveling through the Tagor Desert. They estimated that they were still five days away from the Snake-People Tribe.

With the map of the Tagor Desert drawn by Hai Bodong, they did end up getting lost or straying off course in the boundless desert.

Luo Yang had the Sparklence and could transform into Tiga, covering a million in a day, while Tushan Rongrong and Hai Bodong could both fly. They could reach the Snake-People Tribe in less than half a day.

But Tushan Rongrong rejected the suggestion as soon as it was raised.

Tushan Rongrong's reason was that Luo Yang should seize this time to cultivate with all those buffs from the Companion Amethyst Source, Green Lotus Base, Earth Fire Lotus Seeds, and the abundant fire-attribute power in the desert, catching up as quickly as possible to the upper limit she had expanded for him.

Before surpassing Tushan Rongrong, Luo Yang would encounter no bottlenecks in his cultivation. As long as his experience bar (Dou Qi) was sufficiently filled, he could break through.

In just three days, he had advanced from Five-Star Dou Master to Seven-Star Dou Shi.

It had truly given Hai Bodong another tremendous shock.

Over the remaining few days, he could more or less rise another one or two stars.

Such talent could be called monstrous even in the Central Plains, where geniuses gathered like clouds.

"There sure are a lot of Snake-People around here. We should still be a long way from the Snake-People Holy City..."

Luo Yang looked at the map in Qing Lin's hands, somewhat puzzled.

Over the past few days, they had encountered many Snake-People along the way, both males and females. Most were second or third rank, with a few higher ones at the fourth rank.

Aside from those, they had even encountered a fifth-rank Snake-Person, equivalent to a human Dou Wang expert.

According to Hai Bodong's recollection, he should have been Yan Ci, the chief of the Flame Snake Tribe, one of the Snake-People Tribe's Eight Great Tribes.

At this time, Yan Ci was leading countless Snake-People subordinates on constant patrols through the desert, killing any humans they saw. Not even magical beasts were spared, for fear of letting anyone suspicious slip through.

Luo Yang had wanted to capture Yan Ci alive, then have Qing Lin use her Triple Jade-Green Snake Flower Pupils to refine him into an obedient lackey, but Tushan Rongrong stopped him.

Tushan Rongrong said they were here to negotiate a deal, not fight. If they took one of the other side's tribal chiefs before negotiations even began, they would be in the wrong.

So they concealed their presence and quietly skirted around the Flame Snake Tribe's line of sight.

After bypassing the Flame Snake Tribe, they encountered even more Snake-People along the way and quietly went around them again.

Once or twice would have been fine, but according to the distribution of the Eight Great Tribes on Hai Bodong's map, this was a remote area on the border between two tribes. It should have been impossible to encounter such a dense concentration of Snake-People here.

"You have the nerve to say that? If you hadn't caused such a huge commotion in the middle of the night last Friday, right when Queen Medusa happened to be preparing to evolve through a secret method, would the Snake-People Tribe's Eight Great Tribes be on such high alert...?"

Tushan Rongrong knocked "hard" on the head of Luo Yang beneath her and scolded him.

This brat did nothing but cause trouble for her.

A plan that had originally been going smoothly had now become much more troublesome.

They were here to make a deal. The plan was to bypass the Eight Great Tribes and go straight to Queen Medusa. After all, those eight tribal chiefs could not understand human speech and were truly irritating.

The part about Pill King Gu He in the original story made it clear that simply saying they had come to trade would certainly not get them through. A direct clash would be unavoidable.

After all, they had not come to fight. Otherwise, they would have slaughtered their way through long ago.

"Hehe..." Luo Yang laughed awkwardly and hitched Tushan Rongrong's legs a little higher.