Volume 4, Chapter 148 – Winds and Clouds Gather

This person should be Yang Chen.

Bai Xiang sat upright in her seat, her golden pupils fixed on the boy in the distance.

The current Dao Child of Qianyuan Sect, titled “Immortal Venerable Yitian,” had occupied the top position on the Heaven’s Pride List for many years. It was precisely because he was too strong, and because even Chang Hongyuan of Zhengtian Dao, the only one capable of competing with him, had been suppressed, that the younger Venerables had given up all hope of the top rank.

The description alone was enough to sound terrifying. Seeing the man in person made it even clearer that the reputation was no exaggeration. The pressure Yang Chen gave Bai Xiang far exceeded that of people like Meng Qiaosheng. One could say he stood at least a full tier above everyone else present.

But there was nothing all that serious about it.

Leaving aside the fact that his Divine Pool art, the domain-type Yitian Chessboard, was inherently hard-countered by Bai Xiang’s soul-abilities, so that all those intricate manipulations were completely ineffective against her, even in terms of true pressure, that is, setting aside Divine Pool arts and looking only at the combat strength the individual himself possessed, Yang Chen still did not bring the same pressure as the old beggar or Zhu Qingluo.

Young man, in a setting like this, it is best not to show too much edge.

Secretly activating Golden-Pupil Illusory God, Bai Xiang’s eyes flashed with golden light. What fell into Yang Chen’s eyes, however, was another scene entirely, and his expression changed at once.

What he saw was two golden wheels of light flying out from Bai Xiang’s eyes.

The moment those two wheels emerged, they expanded at terrifying speed. In a single blink they blotted out heaven and earth, like cosmic star vortices assembled from the galaxy itself, crushing down toward him.

That kind of pressure, set against cosmic bodies and reflecting back the smallness of one’s own existence, was probably impossible to truly empathize with unless one had experienced it firsthand.

Yang Chen’s Divine Pool art was broken on the spot. In secret, some profound strands of qi-guidance snapped like spider silk, and the tens of thousands of people in the entire arena abruptly slipped free of the control of the Divine Pool art, causing a slight wave of commotion.

“Huh? What was I just trying to say…?”

“You bastard! How do you even walk!?”

“My new clothes! Can’t you even hold a cup of cola properly!?”

For ordinary mortals, they naturally had no sense of what had just happened. But the people seated around Bai Xiang were jolted awake, one after another turning toward Yang Chen’s position in shock and fury and immediately cursing.

“That move again!”

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“At the Peacock Mountain gathering last time, he used that very move to control hundreds of millions of immortal soldiers from the rebel human-path forces, forcing them to slaughter one another. They say only one person survived in the end, and Yang Chen refined that person into a single chess piece.”

“That was because his own clan died in that rebellion! That’s why he has such an extreme hatred for human-path sects! But what grievance does he have with us? Was it really necessary to open with such a vicious hand!?”

“I didn’t even notice that I had been controlled just now! It felt as if those movements and those words were all things I wanted to do myself!”

“After cultivating the Dao for hundreds of years, today I finally understand the gap between myself and the great sects!”

“I can’t make it! I can’t make it!”

Some of the loose Venerables complained bitterly, while others, crushed by the overwhelming disparity in strength, began to pity themselves. A few were so demoralized that they stood up on the spot and surrendered their seats, and most likely had no intention of participating in any more struggles at all.

“What a move, this Silken Soldier Immortal Array!”

Meng Qiaosheng wore an expression of admiration. “I actually fell into it without the slightest awareness!”

“Young master…” Beside him stood a young girl with a long saber on her back. Hearing that, she could not help speaking up in concern.

“There’s no need to worry.” Meng Qiaosheng reassured her. “‘Silken Soldier Immortal Array’ is one of the three opening forms of Yitian Chessboard. Compared to the other two, it has less overbearing force and more softness, so by nature it is difficult to detect.”

“In terms of principle, it still has not reached something as profound as true ‘control.’ At least in its opening stage, it is only ‘guidance,’ guiding the merged momentum among us. If he wanted to deepen that control, then everyone present would have awakened and noticed it. It only looks as overbearing and invincible as it does.”

“Then isn’t that just doing something useless?” the saber-bearing girl asked, not understanding. “He’s offended so many people for nothing. Why bother doing something with no benefit?”

“How is there no benefit?” Meng Qiaosheng slowly shook his head as he looked toward Bai Xiang. “This is him expressing his stance.”

His stance?

Following her young master’s gaze, the saber-bearing girl looked that way as well. Her eyes immediately locked onto Bai Xiang.

There was no help for it. Bai Xiang’s image and bearing were far too striking, to the point that it was impossible not to notice her.

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Ah… so this is in response to the sword mark Sister Bai left behind?

As a great expert who had dominated the rankings for years, Yang Chen naturally had his own pride. He must have felt that he could not let Sister Bai steal all the glory alone, so he wanted to reveal a hand here and suppress her momentum.

“He is very bold, and very clever.”

At the Zhengtian Dao seats, Gu Xi was discussing a similar topic with her junior sister Xu Shaolian.

“To spread his Divine Pool art over so many people merely for the sake of contending with someone, in the past there would have been no way to gloss that over.”

After all, present here were not only loose Venerables. There were also great sects and great Dao lineages like Zhengtian Dao itself. They did not care what your reason was. An offense was an offense, and it had to be paid for.

Although Qianyuan Sect had developed rapidly in recent years and faintly looked as though it might become the number one dojo beneath the Sacred Court, there was no way it could absorb so much hostility all at once.

“He won’t be held responsible, because the person he targeted has an extremely sensitive identity.”

Gu Xi quietly lowered her voice. Her final sentence was sent only to her junior sister by voice transmission. “That Venerable Lord Bai… after all, she is human. And she represents a native human Dao lineage of the main world.”

The logic really was that simple.

The Void Realm.

The main world.

Those were two great camps.

The demon race.

The human race.

Those were another two great camps.

On top of that, Yang Chen himself was one of the most common mixed-blood descendants of the two races in the Void Realm, and because of his own personal experiences, he held an extreme hostility toward the human race and toward the human path. Because of that, his action today could be tolerated by quite a few great sects, and some of them might even continue to help him deal with Bai Xiang.

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Hmph…

With his Divine Pool art broken, a cold light flashed in Yang Chen’s eyes.

He had some doubts about Bai Xiang’s golden pupils, and some of those thoughts still needed to be verified. But now was not the time to get tangled up in them.

Dozens of figures appeared behind him, including the elders and higher-ups of Qianyuan Sect, along with some Dao lineages familiar to them. Yang Chen flew together with those people to the high platform, found his position, and sat down.

Qianyuan Sect had very broad social ties.

After they sat down, many Venerables around the venue stood up one after another and, in order according to their own status, formed lines and went over to pay their respects.

Naturally, Meng Qiaosheng could not avoid doing the same. But after he returned, he felt the saber-bearing girl tugging at his sleeve.

Turning back, he saw that Chang Hongyuan was standing there with a stiff face, shaking hands with Yang Chen.

The handshake, was that one of the new rituals developed in the main world?

Most people of the Void Realm disdained this kind of cultural innovation. Of the inventions of the main world, they only admired those things that brought tangible convenience. In cultural matters, they instead treated the people of the main world like barbarians.

That was only natural. After all, we are the descendants of a civilization that survived the last round of the Void Tribulation. How could you new shoots sprouting from a wasteland compare to us?

In terms of orthodoxy, in terms of being authentic, the main world naturally could not compare to the Void Realm. The Void Realm naturally counted as the true orthodox line.

The handshake was an exception, however.

The reason was very practical. It allowed both sides to make a brief contact and carry out a relatively convenient test clash.

Chang Hongyuan and Yang Chen had already finished their handshake.

One of them was a tall and handsome young man close to one meter ninety. The other was a delicate-looking youth less than one meter sixty in height, with a calm expression. But after the handshake, both of them had stiff faces and had hidden their hands behind their backs, even covering them with their sleeves.

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No one could tell who had taken the loss.

A smile touched Meng Qiaosheng’s lips.

He and his mother, Meng Wanyu, had already made their plans. This trip was purely for broadening his horizons and tempering the blade. He did not care how far he advanced, and so he was very happy to watch one good show after another.

Hm?

Then he noticed a Daoist in a hat walking over to Yang Chen. He paid his respects first to Daoist Luo Ying, Yang Chen’s master, and then to Yang Chen himself. After that, at Yang Chen’s signal, he lifted his head toward the corner, looking directly at Bai Xiang’s position.

That was… Lian Changru of Wentian Dao.

Wasn’t Wentian Dao a human-path force?

Those people were supposed to be on the same side as Tianfu Mountain and Nine Netherworld Prefecture. Their core goal was to support the human path in the Void Realm and restore the proper standing of the human race. One could say that this goal was naturally in conflict with Yang Chen.

So how had they gotten mixed together?

Had Wentian Dao betrayed the human path?

Meng Qiaosheng took out the phone the saber-bearing girl had recently bought for him, lit the screen, and carried out a few operations, confirming that Shenming Sword Dao’s first-round opponent was indeed Wentian Dao.

Now this would be a good show.

He narrowed his eyes.

He had originally thought such methods would be reserved for the later stages of the tournament.

Venerable Lord Bai, Venerable Lord Bai.

It seems the pressure you’re putting on them is far from ordinary.