The burly men of the Primordial Hall hurriedly bowed. Xiang Yun descended from the sky, and the disciples hastily cleared a path for him.
"Get down. He's not someone you can handle. The lightning on him should have been drawn into his body through a modified Heavenly Martial Art.
"As long as the lightning inside him hasn't been used up, it's a tremendous counter to close combat."
One look was enough for Xiang Yun to see through Jiang Ba. At its core, this was simply using an external force to forcibly boost his own strength.
But martial arts of this kind were not the foundation of his cultivation. The more lightning he kept in his body, and the longer he kept it there, the greater the damage to his body.
This was forcibly raising his strength at the expense of his physical potential. An ordinary challenge issued at someone's doorstep was not like this.
That went without saying.
Someone wanted to test him.
"I've disgraced the Primordial Hall." Without the slightest hesitation, Wang Wu flipped down from the platform.
"You certainly have. You knew he was up to something, yet you still challenged him. No wonder word has spread that everyone in our Primordial Hall is a brainless brute."
Xiang Yun casually slapped Wang Wu, sending overbearing Origin Energy sweeping through his body. With a fierce pull, he drew out strand after strand of lightning.
"And it's Yin Nether Heavenly Thunder. This is no ordinary lightning." Xiang Yun gathered it into a ball in his hand. The Tianxuan Continent might not have as many exotic flames and the like as next door,
but it did have some special powers, and Yin Nether Heavenly Thunder was one of them. Heavenly thunder constantly struck places with exceptionally dense yin baleful cold Qi.
By rights, heavenly thunder, being supremely yang and unyielding, should have swept it away. But because the yin baleful cold Qi was so dense, it instead enveloped the yang within the yin, transforming it into Yin Nether Heavenly Thunder.
Though it was lightning, it had a tremendous effect on Qi and blood, and such a power could only be born near the north.
In the Eastern Xuan Region, only one faction was close to the north.
The Yuan Sect.
"I didn't expect Tyrant Extreme Mountain to be someone else's dog too. How interesting." Xiang Yun walked up the platform one step at a time, looking at Jiang Ba as his tone gradually grew cold.
"What dog? This was my fortuitous encounter."
"From now on, Tyrant Extreme Mountain might as well be called Extreme Weakling Mountain. You even need to charge up before you dare puff yourself up and issue a challenge." Xiang Yun chuckled.
That story was only worth hearing out.
Did he really think that someone at Seven Yuan Nirvana could take Yin Nether Heavenly Thunder into his body when it took the Life Profound Realm to subdue it?
Did he think he was Lin Dong?!
Jiang Ba hadn't expected Xiang Yun to expose him so quickly. He retorted coldly, "You're the so-called Xiang Yun, Young Hall Master Xiang?"
"Are you deaf?" Xiang Yun folded his arms and spoke evenly, his eyes fixed on Jiang Ba as his tone grew increasingly icy.
"I'll give you a chance. Charge up, and I'll show you just how much of a joke the power you rely on is!"
"You!"
Jiang Ba hadn't expected this fellow to call their Tyrant Extreme Mountain 'Extreme Weakling' the moment he appeared.
Jiang Ba's expression grew faintly savage. His hand seals changed like lightning, and vast currents of lightning coursed beneath his skin.
His skin gradually turned pale purple, mixed with gold.
"Boom!"
A cold light surged in Jiang Ba's eyes. Without another word of nonsense, he stamped his foot and shot forward, vanishing in a flash.
He appeared on Xiang Yun's left, lightning gathering around his fist.
Without hesitation, he struck at Xiang Yun's heart with a vicious blow.
"Boring."
To Xiang Yun, that speed was as slow as a snail. Mastering the Kun Peng Precious Technique didn't just make him faster; naturally, everyone else seemed slower by comparison.
The next moment.
He punched.
A phantom flashed past. Before Jiang Ba could even react, he felt a force capable of overturning rivers and seas, of flipping the heavens, slam into him.
It instantly shattered the lightning covering his body, along with his body-tempering martial arts, the Tyrant Extreme Golden Body and Nirvana Golden Body. The terrifying force erupted inside him in an instant.
The burly man who had been sitting in the stone chair turned pale the moment Xiang Yun struck.
"Stop..."
Before he could finish, there was a bang.
"Bang!"
The people around them heard only a tremendous bang.
Then Jiang Ba's figure vanished, and a huge cloud of bloody mist burst outward, billowing across the platform.
At the center of the bloody mist was a pearl flickering with black lightning.
Xiang Yun shook his head. "He really was cunning, actually using a blood escape to flee!"
"Still, leaving this behind was rather decent of him."
Xiang Yun reached out and seized the lightning pearl. It contained the forces of both heaven and earth, making it excellent nourishment for him as well.
Sure enough, the Yuan Sect had really spared no expense!
They had brought out something like this for a single test.
With a casual gesture, his Origin Energy roared forth, turning into a fierce wind that blew the bloody mist away. The smell was unpleasant.
Of course, he could also swallow it.
But killing someone in public and then swallowing him would be a little bad for his image. He would leave that for later, in private.
"You!! You killed Jiang Ba!"
Jiang Fulong sprang to his feet, his Advanced Life Profound presence erupting. His body instantly swelled as brilliant golden light burst forth, and he was about to charge at Xiang Yun.
Beside him, Hong Wen also unleashed his Advanced Life Profound presence and grabbed Jiang Fulong. His voice icy, Hong Wen said, "Jiang Fulong, you dare cause trouble in our Primordial Hall!!"
"Our young mountain master is dead."
Jiang Fulong tried to break free of Hong Wen's grip, but discovered that his Qi and blood were being brutally suppressed, and his strength was no match for Hong Wen's at all.
"You acted as the Yuan Sect's pawn to test me. Old dog, do you really think I wouldn't dare beat you just because you're at Advanced Life Profound?"
Xiang Yun looked at Jiang Fulong, his eyes growing cold. In the original timeline, after Lin Dong was forced to flee the Eastern Xuan Region and returned once more, only the Nine Heavens Taiqing Palace and the Dao Sect remained.
The others among the super sects had been killed or injured.
Although the Yuan Sect had received the Yimo's support and the Heaven, Earth, and Human Yuanzi had greatly increased in strength, they still couldn't have wiped out the other sects that quickly.
That left only one possibility: the Yuan Sect had long since planted pawns in and around many of the Eight Great Super Sects.
The Yuan Sect had been laying plans to unify the Eastern Xuan Region for far too many years. After Zhou Tong was captured, the Yuan Sect had kept quiet for many years, and the other seven great sects had probably thought it had reined itself in.
But it had merely moved many of its forces from the open into the shadows.
Hiding its light and biding its time, cultivating a remote livestock-raising industry.
"Believe it or not, if I'd beaten you to death back then, even your Extreme Weakling Mountain's mountain master wouldn't have dared say a word."
"If you dare reach out a hand, you'd better be prepared to have it chopped off. Do you still need me to explain the Yin Nether Heavenly Thunder to you?"
"A fortuitous encounter? Did body tempering knock your brains out? A fortuitous encounter turned heavenly thunder into a thunder pearl?"
Xiang Yun tossed the thunder pearl. To let Jiang Ba charge up, the pearl had also been bound by a power that was probably a martial art unique to the Yuan Sect.
He remembered that the Thunder Emperor Canon was one of the Yuan Sect's Three Canons.
Now, how could that be such a coincidence?
Listening to Xiang Yun's questions, Jiang Fulong's anger faltered for a moment. He naturally knew what was going on too.
"I'll have our mountain master demand an explanation from your Hall Master!"
"If your mountain master dares come to the Primordial Hall, you can have my head."
"Stupid dog, take your people and get lost. And remember this!"
"The Great Desolate Region is the Primordial Hall's Great Desolate Region, not the Yuan Sect's. The Yuan Sect's territory is called the Yuan Region. Get it straight which side you're on!"
A black hole appeared in Xiang Yun's palm and swallowed the thunder pearl. His eyes remained fixed on Jiang Fulong as he spoke.
Being cursed as an old dog to his face by a junior, Jiang Fulong desperately wanted to lose his temper, but this was the Primordial Hall. He couldn't run wild here.
For some reason, he felt a little regret. Damn it.
He had known full well that the people of the Primordial Hall were brutes too, overbearing by nature.
What body-tempering martial artist wasn't overbearing? If they weren't overbearing, what was the point of tempering their body?
And yet they had still been sent to test them.
At least we did learn something. At the very least, someone at Initial Life Profound definitely isn't a match for this fellow.
Jiang Fulong smiled bitterly to himself.