The Greenmaple Chapter was part of Greenvoid Hall. Gu Qingyin wasn't just the top genius of Greenmaple Chapter, but one who stood at the top of all ten thousand plus members of Greenvoid Hall.
"Whoa!"
"Our top genius is here to fight!"
"He's only fifteen, too. It's said that he’ll join the Heaven Branch three years from now and soar to become one of the pillars of the sect!"
Many disciples of the Greenmaple Chapter looked at him with fervent envy and respect. While the Gu Clan wasn't particularly powerful, Gu Qingyin was sure to propel them to prominence in the years to come. Tianming shot him a look and was reminded of Yuwen Shengcheng. He was about the same age as the ill-fated Yuwen scion, and just as proud. Someone like that acted without considering the consequences and was unpredictable in every sense of the word.
"Do you have someone who's weaned off their mother's milk instead?" Tianming asked. He wanted to deal with someone that wouldn't throw a tantrum and call their parents to come avenge them.
"You dare humiliate me? Are you sick of life? You're only a sky saint, even though you're in your twenties. Our sect's standard will be lowered by trash like you single-handedly!" Gu Qingyin said as he approached with a cold stare. He really wasn't mincing his words; even Tianming felt a little hurt by the comment.
It seemed that Gu Qingyin was really confident about himself. He was young and talented, after all, and would probably be at the Samsara stage once he reached Xuanyuan Xixi's age. Not to mention, all of the Greenmaple Chapter seemed confident in him too.
"Gu Qingyin is no doubt the most powerful deacon of the Greenmaple Chapter. He’s only second to his elder sister in terms of power, and is only fifteen!"
As others praised him, Gu Qingyin charged in without warning to get revenge for Xuanyuan Xixi. All of a sudden, a sharp sound could be heard behind him. Tianming noted that it was a huge, green hornet. It was a broodmother-type lifebound beast with a hundred stars, making it among the finest specimens of saint beasts.
It was called the Sorrowgreen Hornet, and it was a dual-type beast of wind and poison. It also had a unique property of audial confusion; the flapping of its wings sounded like a sorrowful wail that could cause the soul to enter a state of depression. Even so, it was completely useless against Tianming. The more terrifying part of the hornet was the thousands of little green hornets that came out of its mouth. Each of them seemed armored and covered with blades. They bore their stingers as they soared toward Tianming.
"Die, trash!" Gu Qingyin smirked. Anyone that got poisoned by his lifebound beast would be paralyzed for good. As he spoke he took out his beastial weapon, the Greenvoid Bonespikes. There were two of them, each as sharp as the other with ninety-nine saintly heavenly patterns. Any more than that and they would be tribulation artifacts rather than saint artifacts.
He executed his empyrean-ranked art, the Soulthrust Mantra. That attack caused the other disciples to back away out of fear of being caught up in that attack, yet Tianming didn't seem the least bit fazed upon seeing it. Two lifebound beasts, a bird and a cat, appeared beside him. Tianming let them deal with the hornets, rather than acting himself; roasting insects for food was Ying Huo's specialty, after all.
"Looks delicious." Ying Huo used Infernal Haze and charged in. With Invincible Sword Ki and flames blasting all over, the little hornets had nowhere to run. All of a sudden, the black cat charged the broodmother itself with Ninefold Chaos Thunderscape.
As the two covered for him, Tianming appeared before Gu Qingyin. "Look here."
"Look at your mom!" Gu Qingyin cursed. He hadn't seen someone so foolhardy in his life. His bonespike came thrusting in with the technique he had executed, resulting in an ear-piercing noise when it cut through the air, which also had a soul harming effect. It should cause Tianming to wince from pain and weaken.
Yet Tianming merely cracked a smile. He grabbed one of the spikes with his left hand, much to Gu Qingyin's shock. "You're too weak," he said, then summoned the Nine Yang Sword with his right hand and pierced the incoming bonespike with the power of the Myriad-Demise Sword.
"Aaaaagh!" Gu Qingyin cried as his arm started bleeding. As for his other hand, Tianming twisted it and pierced him with his own bonespike, playing another cacophonic note with his vocal chords as the instrument. He followed up with a stab on the other thigh from the Nine Yang Sword.
"Sister!" Gu Qingyin cried as his tears gushed out. His blood dripped from his kneeling body.
"Get up. I'm not your brother-in-law, so no need to be so polite," Tianming said.
Beside him, the hornet audibly collapsed and twitched as it suffered from the shocks it had sustained. What was more terrifying was how the swarm of green hornets had fallen to the ground, all charred up, and were being joyfully eaten up by the bird. Its pecking was so hard that it made holes in the ground. The sheer incongruence of the sight caused everyone to fall dead silent. How was it possible that a third-level empyrean saint was beaten by a sky saint without even being able to put up a fight?
"He defeated someone three levels above him, didn't he? Someone who could be a future disciple of the Heaven Branch!""Is he a monster who's hiding his power?"
"There's no way he's hiding it! His sky saint body is plain to see!"
Nobody here knew about the Li Saint Clan nor the Primordial Chaos Beasts, so they were struggling to find an explanation for his strength. Even Gu Qingyin himself didn't seem to be able to buy his defeat. He found it hard to even get back up, as his legs were still bleeding out.
"Qingyin!" Gu Qingyao helped pull the spikes out of his leg. She seemed to be taking it far worse than Xuanyuan Xixi.
"Sister, I'm not convinced of my loss!" he said.
Gu Qingyao helped him up and glared at Tianming, causing him to feel a fatal chill.
"He'll recover from this in days. Did you need to glare at me like that?" Tianming asked.
"No, there isn't." Though she said that, she was still the chief of the Greenmaple Chapter, and far more powerful than Gu Qingyin.
"You look like you're about to kill me."
"You're overthinking it."
"I really can't stand people like you guys. After defeating the young one, the old ones come barking up my tree. Can't you guys be a little more creative? I didn't choose to fight him. I told you to get someone without a background to fight me, but no, you had to choose him." Tianming had wanted to keep a low profile. When he saw Xuanyuan Xixi here, he already wanted to leave, only to be stopped by them, then discover that Gu Qingyao was a helicopter sibling after defeating her younger brother. He could swear he saw the eyes of his would-be murderer.
"You speak too much," she said."Fine, I'll stay quiet. Still, I get to join Dragonmight as promised, right?"
"Yes." She tossed him a golden emblem that read 'Dragonmight Faction'. Each stroke of the words was actually a divine dragon. On the opposite side of the emblem was the word 'deacon'. With this emblem, Tianming would be able to enter the Old Deepstar Path for two hours, double what he previously had.
"Can I trouble you to give her a disciple emblem too? She wants to join Dragonmight as well," Tianming said, pointing to Lin Xiaoxiao.
"I want to be a deacon too," Lin Xiaoxiao said out of nowhere.
"Are you sure?"
"I'll try."
"Chief, will you give her a chance?" Tianming ignored how she hated his guts.
"Sure. Who’ll test her?" Gu Qingyao said. Everyone knew that she was unhappy and was seething about Tianming, like Xuanyuan Xixi.
"Let me!" said a male disciple who was also a third-level empyrean saint. He sounded really cold, as if he wanted to get back at Tianming using Lin Xiaoxiao to win Gu Qingyao's favor. Tianming knew it the moment he saw it. It was just a simple case of using someone as a stepping stone to ascend higher. Well, a beating would show him his place.
If I encountered Xuanyuan Xu as I am now, I wouldn't need my dad to help me, Tianming thought. Gu Qingyin was stronger than Xuanyuan Xu, after all. In other words, I came to the right place. There's no way I could've grown this strong if I’d remained in the Theocracy.
The key to that was the Old Deepstar Path. Tianming had to increase the time he could train there.
......
Lin Xiaoxiao was a second-level empyrean saint, and it was Tianming's first time seeing her fight. This time around, the Bloodsoul Bolthell Fienddragon was there too. Her lifebound beast clashed quite a lot with her aesthetic; she looked like nothing more than a dark and brooding girl, while her lifebound beast was the most savage of beasts. Her opponent's lifebound beast, on the other hand, was a muscular goat a level above them, but it seemed dwarfed in comparison to the dragon.
Soon, the two sides clashed.
"How powerful!" Tianming said, watching closely. He wasn't referring to Lin Xiaoxiao, who fought using her halberd and bow. She fired her arrows away as she sat on the back of her beast like a fairy. The blood-colored arrows she shot out were as fast as lightning and seemed fatal. However, her beast really took the spotlight with its savage claws, fangs, wings, and dragon head. It was a machine built for carnage and it fought relentlessly, not to mention its powerful abilities.
It used a blood-colored lightning net to immobilize its enemies. The more their enemies struggled in the net, the more it tore at them, eventually ending in their defeat. Lin Xiaoxiao had won, though it wasn't as easy as Tianming had made his victory seem. She also wasn't fighting against someone as strong as Gu Qingyin, but the strength of her lifebound beast was plain to see.