The imperial harem contained thousands of individual palaces.
Feiyun used his Swift Samsara and the weapon essence to travel deeper inside. There used to be plenty of formations here but they have been broken. Someone was clearly ahead of him.
“Intruder, halt.” A gray-robed person stood on top of a ten-meter palace with an iron sword tied on his back. His eyes seemed empty with two black pearls inside, looking quite bleak.
Despite his ordinary appearance, his power was no joke for he was a half-step Giant at the early level.
Half-step was a realm divided into three levels - early, intermediate, late. Each level was quite different from each other. Only the truly talented could beat someone at a higher level.
Feiyun didn’t stop and retorted: “What sect are you from, daring to infiltrate the forbidden palace?”
“I do not belong to any sect, the world is large but there is nowhere I can’t reach.” This old man had a three-feet long hair. His voice was nefarious, vexing and distracting others.
“Hmph, if the emperor was still here, would you dare to repeat that?” Feiyun looked down on him.
Not to mention a half-step Giant, even an Enlightened Being wouldn’t carelessly come here in that case.
The old man didn’t show any emotion: “Brat, you’re still wet between the ears. I know who you are, don’t think just because people call you the number one genius of Jin that you can fight against older cultivators. I have trained for 640 years and fought in no less than ten thousand people yet here I am, still alive. A junior like you is no match for me.”
“I also know who you are.” Feiyun soared like a dragon and appeared right before the guy, entering his battle domain.
Feiyun immediately became slower as if he had entered a marsh.
All half-step Giants would be able to form a battle domain. This was similar to the qi images of geniuses. If the latter could combine their qi image and battle domain, they would become even stronger.
In fact, the qualifier to become a half-step Giant was forming a domain.
“You know who I am?” The old man was surprised.
“You train in the Evil Wind Dao with eyes refined into blood pearls, clearly a member of the Dark Realm, perhaps a supreme elder.”
The Dark Realm and the Beiming had a good relationship. Plus, with Feiyun’s experience, it wasn’t hard to speculate the old man’s identity.
Taking advantage of his astonishment, Feiyun utilized Swift Samsara to the limit. He turned into a gale while the weapon essence acted as a lightning bolt to break through.
The guy was caught off guard again with his eyes nearly leaving their socket - how could a junior be so fast? He used a movement art of the heretical faction to retreat, but his shirt at the heart location was pierced, leaving a bloody wound behind. The weapon essence nearly penetrated his heart.
He felt a chi coursing down his spine and heard another metallic sound breaking the wind. He looked around and couldn’t see the enemy.
The two black pearls in his eyes finally came out. After absorbing blood, his pupils have turned dark from an art called Bloodcloud Pearl.
These two pupils turned into two bloody clouds with a crescent shape.
It was a heaven-defying heretical art, requiring the blood of more than one thousand people to reach enlightenment. The power was no joke - it flattened two palaces completely, leaving only broken bricks behind.
This was only the beginning, the appearance of the pearls looked so impressive already.
Feiyun wasn’t afraid at all. A white dragon rushed out of his weapon essence, more than ten meters long. They broke through the clouds and struck the man’s chest.
“Boom!” Blood gushed out. Three of his ribs were broken and his robe was tattered.
The loud commotion disturbed the concubines nearby. Some of them cultivated but weren’t that strong. They flew out and noticed the shockwaves.
“Why is there fighting here?”
“Where are the inner guards?”
“Why hasn’t the emperor take care of these?”
One of the shockwaves cut a beautiful concubine’s neck, halfway from decapitating her completely. Blood gushed out like a spring. She struggled on the ground for a bit before dying, no chance to eat a healing pill.
That was only one single shockwave.
The other concubines saw this and became pale; they quickly backed off. Only several stronger ones continued watching. They were from powerful sects and have cultivated great scriptures before.
One of them with pear-like colored skin said: “One of them is the Divine King, the other is using heretical arts, a half-step Giant.”
“Sister Xue, shouldn’t we assist the Divine King?” A different concubine wearing a pink dress asked. She was relatively powerful and seductive.
Consort Xue shook her head: “I heard Consort Beiming has sent out a message about the emperor entering the royal sacred ground to train. When the new emperor is appointed, we’ll also go there forever, so we shouldn’t get involved in this competition. If we help the wrong side, not only will we die without a grave, our clans will be implicated too.”
These consorts were strong but they didn’t dare to offend anyone. They have lost their authority now that the current emperor was gone. Not knowing their place would lead to death, and death was inevitable during a conflict for the throne.
The upper echelon of the royal clan always turned a blind eye towards the competition. In their minds, only the winners were the strongest and deserving of the dynasty.
They wanted a decisive conqueror, not an incompetent loser.
Feiyun was not even twenty of age yet he could already fight against a half-step. The weapon essence was unpredictable and sharp. It crossed through the air and left behind nine wounds on the gray-robed combatant.
Feiyun continued infiltrating the harem - one slash after every step. This supreme elder of the heretical sect had no chance to retaliate. More and more wounds added up. Bloody footprints were left behind after he staggered backward.
“This is all you got after living for 640 years? I haven’t trained for six years and could still kill you a thousand times over.” Feiyun put away the weapon essence and raised his hands.
9,998 beast souls appeared on his arms before he pushed two paces forward.
“Boom!” The man tried to block this mountain-moving strike and nearly got down on his knees.
He couldn’t believe that he had lost so utterly against this youth. He tried to resist again but Feiyun unleashed another palm strike, forcing him down on all fours. The ground cracked like a spiderweb.
“Whoosh!” A blade flashed and a bloody head hit a red wall nearby before rolling down on the ground.
A half-step had turned into a specter, slain by Feiyun’s blade.
The consorts glanced at each other before staring at this stalwart youth. He was even stronger than the Jin Emperor at this age. Nevertheless, his bloodthirst forced them to step back.
He straightened his back and gave them a quick glance before running deeper inside.
“Looks like something is happening over there, let’s take a look.” The stronger consorts followed behind Feiyun.
They didn’t dare to go in front since who knows what danger awaits ahead?
A group of black clouds rushed out of a palace with five old men inside. They were powerful eunuchs wearing a turtle-dove robe; white face and no beard with a strong yin affinity.
All attacked Feiyun at the same time with more than twenty different wind-breaking techniques.
They have been bought by the Beiming Clan. Some were actually spies arranged beforehand.
“Die!” His weapon essence turned into a rain of white swords. All the techniques were penetrated and some palaces crumbled. The five eunuchs fell to the ground; their corpses looked like beehives.
Feiyun’s expression grew colder as he walked among the ruins. He was very close to the five main palaces in the center, each had a white pearl placed on top and resembled five mountains.
Feiyun has been in one of these palaces before to meet Ji Lingxuan. The one belonging to Consort Luo should be close.
Alas, it was under the control of the Beiming with no less than one hundred cultivators present. Twenty qi images were in the sky with strong battle intents. The stench of blood permeated the air and prickled the nose.
Feiyun wasn’t afraid of entering the tiger’s lair. He saw corpses of eunuchs and palace maids everywhere by the gate; blood condensed into small streams.
Five black-robed cultivators were going through these corpses in order to kill any survivor.