"Oh? That's interesting, but you're still not skilled enough!" Hong Tianqi called out, clenching his right fist and freezing the white-winged emperor in place, even in the midst of his transformation.
Space and time itself seemed to freeze.
"Keep it up, lad. I'm looking forward to your performance!" Hong Tianqi whispered to Zhang Lie. Then, with a flick of his left hand, the frozen white-winged emperor vanished from sight like a cleanly erased pencil mark.
Subsequently, Hong Tianqi stepped forward, space parting in front of him like a curtain, and vanished from the match.
Everyone stared at where the two monarch-level hunters had vanished without a word. The scene was simply too shocking! Soon enough, the audience recovered from their shock and began murmuring to each other.
"What... was that?!"
"He dealt with the white-winged emperor so easily—is this the true strength of Martial Sage Hong Tianqi?"
"So, what happened to the white-winged emperor at the very end?"
"Isn't Zhang Lie really strong? He was even able to hold out a little against the white-winged emperor's attack!"
"Well, if he hadn't, he'd be dead right now. Damn, that fight alone was worth the price of attending the Void Cup!"
"Isn't it? You wouldn't be able to see a fight between Martial Sage Hong Tianqi and the white-winged emperor otherwise, no matter how much you paid! Makes you wonder, doesn't it? Zhang Lie must be quite important among the humans for Martial Sage Hong Tianqi to step in on a moment's notice."
"Well, that's obvious! The theory of limit fragments he's developed is worth at least that much."
"Martial Sage Hong Tianqi made his breakthrough after Zhang Lie's development of limit fragments, didn't he? Could the two be related?"
"Surely not—you mean that these limit fragments are valuable even for the older generation of hunters?! If that's the case..."
As the spectators in the stands commented on what had happened, so too did the competitors.
The appearance of the white-winged emperor and Martial Sage Hong Tianqi forced a halt to the match between Zhang Lie and Li Feng.
The host in charge of the galactic stage of the Void Cup, a monarch-level hunter whose strength wouldn't lose out to even the white-winged emperor, Voice of the Wind, Packard, appeared on stage.
After confirming that Zhang Lie and Li Feng were both alright, he sighed in relief and announced, "Honored guests, because of the sudden appearance of the white-winged emperor, the Void Cup will temporarily be paused while we repair the spatial rift that he generated. The tournament will resume at 2 PM. I apologize for the sudden disturbance."
It was clear that the blame for this entire affair rested with the winged—more specifically, with the white-winged emperor. Not five minutes later, the winged sent an announcement to the attendees of the Void Cup, apologizing for the white-winged emperor's misdeeds and clarifying that he had been deposed the day before, that his actions didn't represent those of the winged.
The official explanation was that he had been in secluded cultivation when he learned of his son's death, and the shock had disrupted his mentality. Because of this, he had been forced to abdicate, and the winged could hardly be held responsible for what he had done.
The hunters of Earth blinked upon seeing this announcement.
"The winged really are... decisive, aren't they?" Yang Ze murmured.
"It's normal. It would be foolish for them to do anything less," Zhang Lie commented. "You all saw how close I was to dying, didn't you? I'm sure the Void Cup will take this matter seriously. That white-winged emperor might have vanished, but the winged will surely be penalized for his actions. I expect they'll receive a hundred-year ban from the Void Cup—can you imagine how many opportunities that would represent for their hunters?
"The winged certainly aren't going to want to lose such a valuable opportunity. Of course they would clarify that the white-winged emperor was acting independently! If I'm not mistaken, they'll even send us some gifts as reparation, and perhaps some diplomats to improve the relationship between our races.
"Surely not, Captain?" Yang Ze's face revealed his confusion.
"Right, the white-winged emperor himself was taken away! Aren't the humans and winged basically going to remain enemies now?"
"Why not? The winged have made themselves very clear—the white-winged aren't in charge anymore. What's there not to accept about improving the relationship between our races? I hardly doubt the white-winged emperor's dead—it's more likely than not that Martial Sage Hong Tianqi simply forced him to leave.
Fang Yi frowned. "Why didn't Martial Sage Hong Tianqi kill him outright?"
From his perspective, the white-winged emperor seemed like a life-threatening obstacle, and his heart palpitated when he thought about how close their captain had come to dying. Without a doubt, were they the ones standing in the arena, the white-winged emperor's attack would have killed them. This was an opportunity to get rid of a latent threat: why wouldn't Martial Sage Hong Tianqi strike?
"I'm not sure either, but the martial sage is likely privy to considerations beyond our knowledge."
In fact, Zhang Lie did have a guess or two, but he didn't want to reveal his thoughts. After all, it wasn't necessarily good for the hunters of Team Zenith to learn about some things too early.
"Captain, what was the white-winged emperor's attack like? We were scared for you just watching you on the screen! Were the white-winged emperor's feathers really all that scary? I saw that you used all your major soulshards—was that little wyrm from the moonlight wyrm soulshard? Won't you tell us?"
Zhang Lie's performance had whetted their curiosity. Sun Mengmeng was the first to question him about it, and the others all eyed Zhang Lie and Li Feng.
"Don't look at me—I was so scared that I don't remember anything!" Li Feng was merely glad he had survived the ordeal. contemporary romance
Everyone then turned to Zhang Lie instead.
.
"All I was thinking about was trying to survive," Zhang Lie replied honestly. "I activated my six major soulshards instinctively, but as you all saw, it was useless. Against the white-winged emperor's absolute strength, there was little I could do, and even I would have perished if not for Martial Sage Hong Tianqi's timely assistance.
"As for the moonlight wyrm soulshard... well, I've exposed it already, haven't I? I don't suppose there's anything to hide now. Whitey, why don't you come out and greet everyone?"
Zhang Lie extended his right arm, and a small white wyrm peeked out from his sleeve. It was about the size of a standard garden snake, and pure white all over with a triangular-shaped head. Unlike common snakes, however, it had four conical, pale-blue horns jutting out of its head, and its eyes were so large that they filled half its face. All in all, it was a ridiculously cute creature.
Upon seeing the little wyrm, the hunters instantly thought of their fight against the moonlight wyrm.
"This, Captain, y-you—!" Sun Mengmeng was tongue-tied in her excitement. As far as she could tell, this was a summoned beast, which meant that the moonlight wyrm's soulshard was a summoning-type soulshard, the rarest of the rare!
Except for the white grub soulshard that Zhang Lie possessed, this moonlight wyrm soulshard could well be worth as much as his other soulshards combined.
The probability of finding a summoning-type soulshard was extremely low, and it was by far the hardest type of soulshard to acquire.
Zhang Lie didn't know whether this was a result of his luck or an unintended side-effect of smashing the superior-grade moonlight wyrm soulshard to pieces to increase the density of spiritual matter in the air, but regardless of how it had happened, he was now the owner of a summoning-type soulshard.
"Ah, it's so cute! Is it considered alive?" Li Feng and Zhou Ying cooed at the little wyrm.
"It's a spiritual lifeform without a physical body, but it is alive, in principle. It took me quite some effort to hatch it, and it only recently took material form. While it remained in my soulspace, it looked like nothing more than a wisp of white smoke."
"A spiritual lifeform... does that mean that it'll only die when you do, Captain?"
"That's right, and that's the case for all summoned lifeforms. Of course, if you don't need it at the moment, you can return it to your soulspace."
Whitey swam out of Zhang Lie's sleeve and around the room, causing everyone who saw it to smile.
In the end, it was Sun Mengmeng who asked the most important question. "How strong is it? Can it fight?"
Everyone's eyes gleamed as they turned to Zhang Lie. It was evident that Whitey was an exceptional lifeform, but no one knew just what it could do.
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