The heavy pressure that these three experts emitted was getting heavier the closer Xue Wei’s group came.
This only made them more excited. These three people seemed to be the strongest experts they had encountered since they entered Yan Dalu, not counting Elder Sun.
Xue Wei slowed down their advance as he watched the three experts that they constantly inched closer and closer towards.
There were two men and one woman. All of them were lean and bordering to skinny. The woman walked in between the two men, and their clothes were of decent quality, but they had clearly not been created from Fierce Beast or Primordial Beast hide, leather, or fur.
The three were engaged in conversation. From time to time, their faces frowned, and they would look around with a casual gaze.
They had long since noticed Xue Wei and his friends. However, instead of fleeing or trying to figure out who they were, the three had stopped in their tracks, formed a small triangle, and now they were discussing something serious, their expressions turning more and more annoyed.
"Something feels off," Xue Wei could not help but mutter as he once more glanced around them. Were these three really so strong that they could be carefree when engaging in a fight without a single worry, or were they bait for an ambush?
"So you can feel it too, huh?" Bai Tianyi mumbled by his side. His eyes also glanced everywhere in an attempt to find any traces of the suspected ambush.
"They are strong," Lin Xiao finally said. "They don't need an ambush because their strength is enough as it is."
"One of them is a Primordial Beast and he is at the fourth layer of the Earth Knight in Qi level."
"The other two are humans with the Yan Dalu bloodline in their veins. The man has three eyes and the woman has four."
"And, I do not know if I am excited about this or not, but they are not wearing the black bracelets."
Xue Wei nodded his head. He too had noticed the things that Lin Xiao explained.
"It seems like this will be a tough battle," he said seriously. "The woman and the other man clearly have a spiritual energy cultivation at the Earth Knight rank. I cannot sense their strength, so it is above mine. If you leave the woman to me and Tianyi, we will take care of her."
"Then Gou takes the Primordial Beast, and Xiao you take care of the last three-eyed spiritual energy cultivator."
Hearing Xue Wei's arrangements, all of them started focusing on their target. There was no recklessness in their behavior this time. All of them were solemn and serious.
Especially Lin Xiao was careful. He had been eager earlier because of the Soul Guard, but now that there was a massive gap between the quality of his soul and the soul of his opponent, he understood that he was not in a favorable position. All he could do was hope that his opponent specialized in materialized attacks that aimed for the physical body and not invisible soul attacks.
Xue Wei and Bai Tianyi were the two weakest in the group if one looked solely at their cultivation bases, yet these two were supposed to go up against the strongest opponent.
Fortunately, Xue Wei and Bai Tianyi had a hidden arsenal of aces they could bring forth if they were in the need of doing so. Even then, they both understood that this was a serious battle.
"Tianyi, you cover me from a distance and I will close in on her, using my physical strength to finish off the battle," Xue Wei said.
As soon as he spoke, he transformed his legs. While it was impossible to see as he was wearing boots, his legs and feet were now covered by azure scales, the muscles in his legs swelled and his speed soared. When transformed, he could achieve the greatest speed available to him.
They were almost at the group and the first to break away was Hei Gou. He flapped his wings a few times and accelerated, after which he shot like an arrow at the Primordial Beast.
This Primordial Beast looked like any other human in Yan Dalu. His figure was lean, but one could see powerful muscles underneath the clothes. He only had two eyes, but both of them were currently narrowed and focused on the incoming Hei Gou.
"Idiot," he snickered as he took out a broadsword so large that it could cover himself behind it. Looking at this sword, Xue Wei's one eyebrow rose in surprise. Could such a lean man really wield this weapon?
It turned out that he could. The sword came crashing down, cutting off Hei Gou's advance and causing him to stall in the air in front of the three of them.
"Crap," Xue Wei called out. Because Hei Gou had advanced faster than the others, he had arrived first, and now he was alone to face the combined attack of three experts that were at the very least Earth Knights.
Forbidden Rush!
Azure Light Finger!
Seed of Mirage!
Xue Wei activated three abilities at the same time. First, he activated Forbidden Rush as he rushed towards Hei Gou to help him out of the attack. Secondly, he sent an Azure Light Finger beam towards the woman to stall for time, and lastly, he did not forget to plant a seed of mirage.
Although the seed of mirage needed quite a bit of Qi, it was able to increase his fighting power and add some confusion in the battle. It would be able to randomly throw attacks at the three opponents, causing them to maybe be caught off guard, or trouble them one way or another.
Lin Xiao and Bai Tianyi did not waste time either. Lin Xiao wielded a staff and charged at his target, the three-eyed soul cultivator. He hoped to close in on him fast so that he could execute the man, but unfortunately he ran into an invisible wall of spiritual energy that blocked his advance.
It was a rather disgraceful sight. Lin Xiao had had the staff at his side and was heading forward in fast strides, but then he slammed straight into the barrier.
He had run straight into the barrier and ended up dizzy from the impact. If he had hit the barrier with his staff, it would have been easy to demolish the spiritual energy wall, but he had not done so, leaving him vulnerable to the enemy.
The dizziness lasted only a mere moment before he crushed the barrier with his staff. After then he continued to slash in front of him to ensure that if another wall or barrier was placed, then he could destroy it before he walked into it.
Bai Tianyi had also arrived. He had flown on his spiritual energy sword and now dove straight into the battle. Spiritual energy alongside sword energy poured out of his body with no reservation.
Merging together, the two energies became a strange greyish color. The fight between the two sides slowly escalated. Hei Gou was using his claws to try and defend himself against the heavy broadsword of the Primordial Beast, but he was at a disadvantage.
Every time he swiped out, he was blocked by the side of the sword, and when the sword came crashing down upon him, his hands would tremble as the sheer size and weight were too overwhelming and not easy to block with his sharp but delicate claws.
Xue Wei had managed to get close to the four-eyed woman, but he found that getting close did not necessarily mean victory.
The woman had learned a defensive ability where spiritual energy swirled around her body in a spiraling cone. Every time he managed to hack up the cone, new spiritual energy would pour out and fill in the blanks in the protective layer.
Xue Wei had transformed his arms to that of an azure dragon. Azure scales could be seen all over his hands, and his nails had turned into claws. These claws were ripping at the spiritual energy, but to no avail. It was simply impossible to make a dent in her protection.
"Keep going!" Bai Tianyi called from behind. "She ought to run out of spiritual energy at some point. A skill like this must be quite a strain on her reserves, so just keep making her use her energy!"
Xue Wei nodded his head and did so, but the words of Bai Tianyi also reminded the woman that she could not defend indefinitely and instead she started diverting some of her attention to Bai Tianyi.
Spiritual energy materialized right in front of Xue Wei, but before he had the time to stop it, it appeared like thousands of small needles, all of which shot at Bai Tianyi.
These needles should not be underestimated. They contained the power of a strong soul. If they entered Bai Tianyi's soul and injured him, he might lose his physical shape once more.
With this in mind, Xue Wei's body moved before he had time to think it through. With a stomp on the ground, he retreated at a speed much faster than he had ever moved before, and then he turned around, spreading his arms and blocking all the needles that otherwise would have hit Bai Tianyi.
The acute pain started spreading all over his body. Half of these needles dug into his meridians, where they started causing havoc, but fortunately they were quickly swallowed by the azure qi dragons that roamed his meridians.
The other half headed straight for his soul. Xue Wei's soul had the shape of a golden dragon. The moment the needles reached his soul palace – the place where the soul rested – he felt his eyes blackening for a moment. A battle raged on in his mind, the golden dragon roaring as it faced off against the needles. Two of them struck its body, and the pain Xue Wei felt from these two needles was enough to make him tremble and feel fear.
A small trail of blood had started trickling down the corner of his mouth, but Xue Wei just lifted his hand and wiped it away.
He had been rendered immobile for only a short moment, but being motionless and losing control of one's body for even a short moment in a fight was crucial.
The four-eyed woman was not going to wait for Xue Wei to regain his composure. As soon as she had sent out the many needles, she already started her next ability, which was a large blade that came crashing down upon Xue Wei in an attempt to eliminate him right away.
But Xue Wei was not fighting alone. Bai Tianyi's face had turned pale when he saw Xue Wei block the attack from him, but he knew that when one attack was launched, another would follow.
So he too summoned his spiritual energy alongside his sword energy, merged them together, and suddenly a massive sword made of pure energy hovered in the air above him.
When the large blade from the four-eyed woman came crashing down, Bai Tainyi waved his hand and his own sword swept out to block it.
Although Bai Tianyi was weaker in terms of raw strength, one has to remember that he was a sword spirit. His understanding of the sword was much better than the woman's, and his sword also contained sword energy, an energy that originated from the illusive daos that were ever present but so hard to comprehend.
The moment the two swords collided, a deafening boom resounded out. A shockwave caused the dazed Xue Wei to be pushed back as he was the closest to the impact.
Bai Tianyi's eyes displayed a bit of madness after he blocked the attack from the four-eyed woman, but blocking was not enough for him!