“What! He could not even handle one attack!” A lot of people had their mouths wide open, looking shocked.

Although they thought that the winning chance for Ye Chen was extremely high, they had never expected to see Shangguan Fei not even handle one attack. Most of them thought that even if Ye Chen could win, it would not be an easy battle, and would take more than dozens or hundreds of attacks.

Since Shangguan Fei’s power was obvious by beating Heishui Master, who was ranked 63rd, with only four attacks, this kind of a battle result was already impressive.

“Impressive!”

It was right when they started to question Ye Chen’s power when he proved it again.

“How come you could improve this fast?”

Snow Sword Master was here as well; she had already prepared to see Ye Chen surpassing her, since she was not that young, and her potential had almost run out already. Her progress within a year would not be able to compare with that of the young martial geniuses. Plus, Ye Chen was not a normal young martial genius—he was one of the top. What she could never expect was that Ye Chen’s one year training would be worth other Sea of Souls Realm warrior’s dozen years, and maybe even be decades.

“What a sword art genius!” The Snow Sword Master mumbled to himself.

Li Daoxuan and the other two were just as shocked. They had not seen Ye Chen for more than a year, as all of them had been focused on their own training and nothing else. Because they were martial geniuses from the South Rudra Region, they did not have much contact with the Sky Martial Region. So, for the longest time, they had thought that there was not that big of a gap between Sea of Souls Realm warriors after all. But now, they knew that the gap was way bigger than they had expected. The normal Sea of Souls Realm master level warriors could not compete with Shangguan Fei’s one attack. But, just as powerful as Shangguan Fei was, he still could not compete with Ye Chen. It was something that they could never imagine.

Actually, it was not their fault for overlooking this; only by standing high could they look far. Once they reached Ye Chen’s level, they would then see that the gap in cultivation did not mean much. Only the gap in martial arts and profound was what made the difference. Once one reached the Late Sea of Souls Realm, they would be pretty much a master level warrior after learning a couple of low-rank profound sense martial arts and one more mid-rank profound sense martial art.

Although Ye Chen was not as powerful in his cultivation, his sword intent was at peak level rank 5. If he infused his sword intent with his cultivation, then he would not lose at all even if he encountered peak level Late Seas of Souls Realm warriors with peak level rank 4 martial intent, and might even be able to win.

Without the cultivation and intent, Ye Chen’s profound sense martial arts were even more impressive. Not to mention his Thunder Devour or Gold Fury, just his Gold Pattern was two-four times more powerful than any normal mid-rank profound sense martial art. It would be weird if Shangguan Fei was able to block out Ye Chen’s attack.

Boom!

After landing onto a small mountain next to the lake, Shangguan Fei had sunk in completely into the rock wall, leaving a massive human-shaped hole. That aggressive sword qi leaked everywhere, shattering the mountain peak.

After puking out another mouthful of blood, Shangguan Fei passed out immediately. Some of the young warriors who were close to him hurried to pull him out and drag him onto the nearest ground.

Helian Wuhua saw what had happened to Shangguan Fei and looked at Ye Chen with fright. He was glad that he did not challenge Ye Chen before; otherwise, it would be him lying there right now. Right now, not to mention challenging Ye Chen, he could barely look him in the eyes.

Ye Chen glanced at Helian Wuhua; before Shangguan Fei went to challenge him, he had been chatting with the latter secretly as well. He knew that they were talking about who should go first.

After sensing Ye Chen’s stare, Helian Wuhua hurried to look away and avoided looking him in the eyes. His palms were soaked with his sweat.

“Ye Chen is getting more and more powerful?”

Today was the last day before the agreed date of battle, and a lot of warriors had arrived on this day. Yan Fengfeng and Haiwu Ya were there as well, and it was exactly he who asked that question.

Yan Fengfeng said, “Right now, I cannot compete with him either.” One year ago, Yan Fengfeng thought that she could compete with Ye Chen for hundreds of attacks. And if she fought in her natural form, she could maybe beat him as well. But, she was just like the Godly Shark Princess who did not enjoy being so high profile in front of humans. Only when she ran into things she could not get out of would she use all of what she had. A lot of people knew that Yan Fengfeng always tended to hide her real power, so they would not dare to piss her off completely.

Hai Wuya said, “His power now would place him at the first level, right?”

There were different ranks for young martial geniuses, and the first rank would be that of the top five young warriors. The second rank would comprise of people like Lin Tian, while the third rank would be where Hai Wuya was standing. The fourth rank would comprise of some normal powerful young warriors; as for weaker ones, there would not be ranks for them anymore. Although Shangguan Fei and Helian Wuhua were way more powerful than Lin Tian, they were only ranked at the second level. But Situ Hao, Beiming Hui, and similar warriors were already approaching the first level. Some of them were already there, which included Yan Fengfeng.

“Alright, beating you like this should be more interesting!” It was right then when a sharp voice was heard everywhere in the Nine Dragon Lake.

“Situ Hao!”

Everyone looked over and saw him shooting out before his foot lightly tapped on the surface of the lake. A sword had been worn around his waist, along with another one on his back.

Ye Chen looked the same, “It seems like that you have made some progress with your Defensive Sword Spell again, haven’t you? Bring it on!”

There was no need in guessing, Ye Chen knew that if he dared to stand out, then he would be confident enough with his power.

“Hm? By the sounds of it, the two had already battled before?”

“I assume so…I just wonder who had won that battle?”

“It is hard to tell. Situ Hao’s sword spell is too powerful and fast. Its attacking power is very high as well, and most martial arts would not have enough time to be performed in front of that kind of speed.”

Tu Yuan, the Shattering Sword Master, was also a master level sword artist, and it was known that sword artists were known for their fast speed and reflexes. Yet, Situ Hao was able to beat him with only one sword, so it would not be hard to tell how powerful his defensive sword spell was.

Therefore, besides a small proportion of the people watching who believed that Ye Chen could win for sure, most of them were still deciding. Some of them were thinking that Situ Hao was going to win, since his martial art was a long-lost sword spell which would be something not everyone could compete with.

“Don’t worry, I will surely perform it.”

Situ Hao was not stupid enough to use his defensive sword spell from far away, since that would give Ye Chen time to prepare for the attack. But of course, if it were warriors like Shangguan Fei or Helian Wuhua, Situ Hao would not have cared, since he knew he would win even with the long distance between them.

Different opponents, different strategies…

“Three Extreme Swords!”

His body floated into the air as Situ Hao performed the Three Sword attack and threw them right at Ye Chen who was still standing on a mountain peak.

“Break!”

Ye Chen wanted to learn exactly how Situ Hao’s defensive sword spell worked, and knew that the latter would not have performed it if he never got close. So, he did not stay on the mountain; instead, he flew toward the three beams of sword qi that were approaching him. Midair, his body increased its speed all of a sudden. That cold sword light was like a curved moon, cutting the overlapping three beams of sword qi into two halves. Even after that, the remaining power was still going forward, attacking toward Situ Hao.

“Arrogant.”

A sneer flashed past Situ Hao’s face as he took a deep breath, holding the longsword in his right hand and throwing out about hundreds of attacks. They looked like they were moving extremely slowly as if they were frozen in the midair, waiting for the other sword qi to arrive. Within a blink of an eye, hundreds of sword qi overlapped together, pushed by that massive last beam of sword qi and attacking toward Ye Chen like a web.

Sky Web Sword Attack!

Besides the Defensive Sword Spell, Situ Hao’s most powerful sword attack would be this Sky Web Sword. Each beam of sword qi was connected with another; so, if one was shattered, then the other attacks would be triggered. It was like being fished by a massive web, leaving nowhere to escape.

“Nice sword attack!”

Of course, Ye Chen had seen through this attack. If a normal fast sword had a wide range of attack, then the Sky Web Sword attack would definitely not just be that. People who could not see through this attack would think that as long as they could break through the sword web, then they could make it through successfully. But, Ye Chen knew that the second he tried to break through, it would cause the whole web to lose its balance, and make the other sword qi attack him at once.

But unfortunately, Ye Chen’s Gold Pattern attack was indeed the archenemy of this attack. Lifting up his gold sword high in the air, he threw out a sword attack.

Pop!

The Gold Pattern spread out with Ye Chen being in the middle.

Pop! Pap! Pop! Pap!

The sword web clashed with the Gold Pattern, causing a massive area of explosion. None of that tiny sword qi was able to get close to Ye Chen at all. Once approached, it would be shattered by waves of see-through gold pattern. If the sword web was a massive web, then the Gold Pattern would be a massive whale. How could a normal web catch the tyrant of the ocean, the whale?

After breaking through two attacks from Situ Hao, Ye Chen was only a hundred meters away from his opponent.

“Defensive Sword Spell!”

One hundred meters was Situ Hao’s attacking zone, so he stopped hesitating and performed the sword spell with his right hand and that longsword behind his back came out of the scabbard automatically. It carried a bright sword light as it attacked toward Ye Chen, who was not that far away.

Shoo!

The longsword’s flying speed was extremely fast, seeming to have reached the next level. It arrived in front of Ye Chen the second it came out of the scabbard.

Ting!

Nevertheless, Ye Chen looked the same as his sword flicked away that longsword, the clash bringing up a lot of sparks.

“Kill!”

Situ Hao’s expression was cold. With the power from that sword spell performed by his right hand, that longsword suddenly started to dance in the air and attack Ye Chen from the other direction.

Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting!

The speed of the sword reached its peak; even if it had been blocked out by Ye Chen, it seemed to be able to attack again without a moment of stopping.

“No wonder he was so confident…I see he had trained his sword to the realm where the sword would move with him.”

The defensive sword spell was a long lost sword spell, and it would be impossible to say that it was not powerful. The sword would move in accordance with the warrior’s thoughts and kill the opponent without even coming in contact with the warrior. Since the sword was not an intellectual creature, it could not run out of power. As a result, it would be rather tricky for other warriors to take it on.

Most importantly, each time the sword was blocked by Ye Chen, it would back out with all its power and wait for another chance to attack. Therefore, each moment of attack was only halfhearted; as soon as Ye Chen was careless in the slightest bit, the longsword would throw out a deadly attack.

“Huh! I do not believe you could stay without showing any flaws for this long. Even if you have no flaws, I will make you show some.” Situ Hao backed out a bit and performed his defensive sword spell again.

“This is all that you have got?” Ye Chen’s voice was heard.

Hearing him, Situ Hao’s expression changed abruptly as he said sarcastically, “You are just bluffing. Even if you have more powerful attacks, you can do nothing to me if they are not fast enough.”

The biggest perk of the defensive sword spell was that it could kill off any powerful attacks that were too slow before they were even performed completely.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep