Amidst the raging snowstorm, Gu Qingyao removed her mantle and tossed it to the ground without the slightest bit of emotion in her eyes. Her gaze was as cold as the snow.
"Chief, are you dealing with us yourself? It's a pretty weak showing, I must say," Tianming said as he motioned Lin Xiaoxiao to the side then stood in front of her.
"It's more convenient to kill you alone," Gu Qingyao said as she walked across the snowy ground. The wind sent her hair fluttering, allowing the moonlight to cast itself on her face. She seemed like a merciless ice queen. Archaion, on top of its heavy snow, didn't lack magnificent beauties like these.
"It's more convenient for you to die, too," Tianming said.
"Heh." She didn't say anything else, but disappeared into the snow. Her luscious figure swept about in the heavy snow as she slowly approached him like a cobra.
Lin Xiaoxiao seemed quite nervous. She knew how powerful Gu Qingyao was—a level above her younger brother at the fourth level of empyrean saint. Yet Tianming was only a sky saint. She seemed to have the upper hand.
"I'll join you," Lin Xiaoxiao said after gritting her teeth.
"Go build a snow castle or something nearby," he said, shooting her a glance.
"Okay...." How could someone be so stubborn at a time like this? She had no choice but to step far to the side, but she secretly took out her bow and arrow. By now, the other two's clash had begun.
"I'm rather curious about something, Gu Qingyao. Who ordered you to come and kill me? My joining and leaving Dragonmight didn't cause you any losses, right?"
"Anyone that hurts my younger brother dies."
Tianming was speechless. So it wasn't Gu Qingyin himself that wanted her to avenge him. "Did you b.r.e.a.s.tfeed him as he was growing up too?"
The only reply he got was her sharp sword. Tianming looked at it and noticed that it didn't have any saintly heavenly patterns. The most powerful saint beastial artifact had ninety-nine saintly heavenly patterns, and anything stronger than that was considered a tribulation beastial artifact.
Tribulation patterns were even more powerful than saintly heavenly patterns and related to the tribulations in the Samsara stage. They had different colors and were even more refined. Each of them were so complicated that they could be split up into a hundred individual saintly heavenly patterns, but the most important part of tribulation artifacts was that those patterns could be hidden inside the artifact. In other words, if the owner didn’t want anyone else to know how many tribulation patterns there were on their artifact, nobody else would be able to tell.
For instance, the patterns on Gu Qingyao's sword were invisible, which meant it was a tribulation artifact. The only way to tell its quality would be by experience. Xuanyuan Xu from back then had believed the Grand-Orient Sword and Prime Tower to be tribulation artifacts, as they also didn't have any saintly heavenly patterns on them. However, Tianming believed they were even more powerful. Even if they were tribulation artifacts, they were top-tier ones without a doubt.
"Then, let's test out how powerful your tribulation artifact and empyrean gold body are!"
Gu Qingyao was probably stronger because of her empyrean gold body, rather than her tribulation artifact. At her stage, her saint body was in its most mature state. Both the beastmaster and lifebound beast experienced explosive growth after the Sky Saint stage so that they would be able to endure the Samsara stage, and the Empyrean Saint stage was when that growth came to fruition.
In fact, the Empyrean Saint stage could be split into three parts wherein the saint body grew even stronger. The first part encompassed the first to third levels, enhancing the body as the amount of ki increased.
The second part was the fourth to sixth levels, which was called the empyrean gold body phase. Each level of the phase brought more changes than the first three levels. While the amount of ki wouldn't increase that much during that phase, the bodies of the beastmaster and lifebound beast would grow much stronger until they had what was called a gold body. That was normally best exemplified by the sudden growth in physical toughness of lifebound beasts. At that stage, the beasts would be able to take on beastmasters by virtue of their strong bodies making up for their lacking heavenly-ranked techniques.
However, beastmasters with empyrean gold bodies had experimented and created body refining arts to further enhance their empyrean gold bodies’ strength. Not only would they be able to fight off lifebound beasts, they would also be far stronger than empyrean saints in the three earlier levels. When in battle using battle arts, if both sides had the same amount of saint ki, the one with a stronger body would win out.
It was possible to refine one's body before the fourth level, with arts such as Tianming's Invincible Sword Body. However, it was far inferior to training the empyrean gold body. The second phase of an empyrean saint was meant to develop this body to take on the life and death tribulations in the next stage. In other words, beasts grew stronger physical bodies in the second phase, while beastmasters caught up using their techniques.
From the seventh level onward, there were two transformations before the Samsara stage, but that was still quite far off as far as Tianming was concerned. At the very least, he had studied up about the empyrean gold body after taking into account that he may have to fight someone with one.
If Gu Qingyao had started using a body refining art, she would be far stronger than her younger brother, who still wasn’t in the second phase. As the thoughts flashed through his mind, he watched Gu Qingyao's Frost Yang Sword streak toward him, making a sharp sound as it slashed through the air.
"So cold!" He felt the frost coming from the sword, causing his body to chill and his brows to whiten. As expected of a tribulation weapon; not only was it powerful and sharp, it was also enhanced by spirit hazards and beast blood, giving it an extra edge in the manipulation of spiritual energy.
Tianming parried it with the Nine Yang Sword and felt another force coming from his opponent apart from saint ki; it was a distinct energy that was far more direct and savage. No doubt, it was due to his opponent’s body refining art.
"Die!"
Gu Qingyao danced gracefully in the snow, but her sword was just as threatening and fatal as ever. She executed a top-grade empyrean-ranked battle art, the Thirteen Blizzard Sword. It had thirteen sword strikes and was a combo modeled after samsara-ranked arts. It was fast and merciless, and by using it, she conjured powerful snowstorms and sent them Tianming's way.
The sword strikes were fast as lightning. Tianming blocked five in a row before backing off, his hands numb from the strikes. While his opponent seemed like a frail girl, she was actually able to dominate him with her tribulation artifact and empyrean gold body.
"Guess I'm still a little lacking."
Then, a cracking sound was heard. There was a chip on the Nine Yang Sword, which soon spread out through its body, eventually causing it to shatter, leaving only the hilt in Tianming's hand. It was the first time he'd ever had a weapon break on him, both due to the sheer power of Gu Qingyao and the bad compatibility of the Nine Yang Sword with the ice element.
"To think that you dare prance around like you own the place even though you're not nearly strong enough. To be honest, I thought that you were the descendant of some famous house. Looks like you're nothing but a dumb fool," she said in a tone that wasn't the least bit mocking. It was as if she were stating a mere fact, though that didn’t stop her gaze from looking utterly demeaning to him. "Oh well, enjoy. I bet my cousin brother would love to taste a petite girl like Lin Xiaoxiao."
"Who's your cousin? That fat pig from before?" Tianming asked.
Gu Qingyao sighed at how her pathetic opponent was still putting up a fight. He wasn't worth her time at all. She summoned her lifebound beasts, two gigantic and beautiful butterflies; one butterfly was green and caused windstorms to manifest with each flap of its wings, while the other was as white as snow and even looked a little sparkly, like a snowy gem. They both had a hundred stars, being at the peak of saint beast and one step away from becoming a tribulation beast. It appeared that she was a twin beastmaster. She stood between her two butterflies and her dress fluttered in the wind, adding to her dreamlike charm.
"Let's end this." She charged in with both of her butterflies.
"You're making yourself out to be quite the badass, Lady," Tianming said with a sudden smile.
However, Gu Qingyao didn't bother to respond. She didn't want to say even one more unnecessary word to him.
As for Tianming, three lifebound beasts appeared beside him alongside a new weapon in his hand. It was the Grand-Orient Sword. Gu Qingyao looked closely and didn't see any saintly heavenly patterns, so it had to be a tribulation artifact. The moment the sword appeared, an indomitable force like that of a mountain came pressing down on her.
"If others don't wrong me, I won't wrong them. If they do, I’ll cut their heads off, man or woman be damned!" he said as he went on the offensive. The man and his three beasts engaged as the Imperealm Sword Formation went into full tilt.