Chapter 41: Azure Flame

Among the three individuals, the one in the lead was an arrogant-looking man with eagle-like, sharp eyes fixed intently on Su Xin. "A cultivator at the Great Accomplishment realm of the Qi Sea stage, managing to survive until now in this hunting ground, your strength can't be too weak either. Kid, I'll give you two choices now!"

"The first choice is to hand over all the tokens you've obtained so far and join our team. Afterwards, any tokens we acquire from hunting other geniuses will be shared with you, giving you an equal opportunity to pass this first stage of the hunt."

"And the second choice is for the three of us to kill you right here and now, in which case the tokens you currently hold will become ours anyway."

"Kill me? Just based on the three of you?" Su Xin responded with a sneer.

"You're courting death!" The arrogant man instantly flew into a rage. "Attack together, kill him!"

Three figures moved simultaneously.

Not a single one of them underestimated Su Xin merely because he was only at the Great Accomplishment realm of the Qi Sea stage.

Swish! Swish! Swish!

Two of the three wielded sabers, while the third swung a massive hammer. The moment they struck, each carried extraordinary artistic conception, launching an extremely ferocious and terrifying offensive.

"Two of them possess the peak standard of the first level of the Dragon-Seeking Pagoda, and the remaining one even reaches the standard of the second level," Su Xin muttered, his brow twitching slightly.

With just a single exchange, he had accurately gauged the strength of all three.

Instantly, his longsword swept outward, transforming into a towering mountain and vast sea.

Though the three attacked with all their might from the very beginning, executing every movement with blistering speed and supreme ferocity, the moment they clashed with Su Xin's longsword, it felt as though they were striking a mass of cotton.

From top to bottom, they could find no flaws whatsoever.

"His defense... is this monstrous?"

"This swordsmanship, what bizarre force-deflecting skill! Even if our power and might were doubled, I'm afraid his swordsmanship could still easily deflect it."

All three felt a wave of internal shock.

"With defensive swordsmanship this terrifying, there is simply no way the three of us can kill him. Let's retreat immediately!"

At the command of the arrogant leader, the three did not hesitate in the slightest, immediately withdrawing and departing at maximum speed.

"These three are certainly cautious," Su Xin observed calmly as they left.

Just as he had employed the Mountain-Sea Scroll to deflect their initial wave of attacks and gained a rough understanding of their strength, he had been preparing to launch a counterattack. Who would have thought they would retreat at the very first moment, leaving him no time to detain them.

Had his reaction been even a fraction of a second slower, or his sword momentum shifted slightly earlier, at least two of them would have been left behind by him.

Shaking his head, Su Xin continued walking forward.

Half an hour later.

"Hmm?" Su Xin's expression shifted.

Through his token, he could sense four geniuses gathered together ahead, apparently engaged in battle. Su Xin immediately hurried toward the location.

"It's them?"

Arriving at the edge of the battlefield, Su Xin instantly recognized that among those fighting, three were the very same arrogant men he had just encountered and clashed with.

And now, these three were facing off against a powerfully built, golden-haired giant.

The golden-haired giant wore a pair of golden gauntlets on his hands. As turbulent spiritual energy converged, those two fists resembled twin golden meteors, smashing downward with fierce, violent brutality time and time again, possessing an unimaginably formidable might.

Despite trying their utmost, the three arrogant men could only barely fend off the golden-haired giant's onslaught, and even that was becoming increasingly strenuous for them.

"Cang Yan!"

Su Xin had already recognized the golden-haired giant, and his expression turned rather peculiar. "Those three were so cautious earlier, why have they picked a fight with Cang Yan? Shouldn't they have fled the instant they laid eyes on him?"

Cang Yan was a top-tier genius explicitly recorded in the intelligence reports and deemed qualified to contend for the top twenty of this hunt.

In this hunting ground, a genius of this caliber, even acting alone, should theoretically be able to walk unhindered.

While the arrogant man commanded a trio, their lineup was not weak; yet, to actively provoke Cang Yan was pure suicide.

In truth, the trio of arrogant men were currently suffering immensely in their hearts.

The tokens they carried could only sense the presence of nearby geniuses without revealing their identities. Earlier, sensing a genius in the vicinity, they had immediately closed in, only to discover that their target was Cang Yan.

Upon recognizing Cang Yan, they hadn't dared to engage and immediately prepared to retreat. However, Cang Yan refused to let them go, instantly bursting forth with maximum speed to pursue them. One of their members was caught by Cang Yan, forcing the remaining three to join forces in a desperate defense, which led to the current scene.

"Cang Yan, we have already made concessions and are willing to give you ten tokens. Don't push us too far!" the arrogant man shouted amidst the combat.

"Too far? So what if I am?" Cang Yan let out a ferocious laugh, the might of his twin fists suddenly surging to an even greater height.

Mere moments later, among the three who had been suppressed to the absolute limit, one failed to dodge in time and was obliterated by a single punch from Cang Yan.

"Scatter and run!"

The remaining two immediately fled in opposite directions. Cang Yan pursued one of them and killed him as well.

In the end, only the arrogant man managed to escape by sheer luck, while the other two were eliminated, the tokens they left behind falling entirely into Cang Yan's possession.

"Hmph, let one escape."

Cang Yan let out a cold snort, deeply displeased in his heart, though there was nothing he could do.

Every single person who managed to survive until now in the hunting ground was a genuine genius of formidable strength. To be able to directly kill two out of a trio of joint attackers was already a remarkable feat.

At that moment, Cang Yan's icy, beast-like eyes swept directly toward Su Xin at the edge of the battlefield.

"To encounter me without fleeing immediately, and even daring to stay behind and watch me slaughter other geniuses... you're either a conceited fool or a true powerhouse."

"Which one are you—the former, or the latter?"

Cang Yan's voice was ice-cold, echoing through the mountain forest.

"Whether I'm a fool or a powerhouse, won't you know if you try?" Su Xin replied with a faint smile.

Cang Yan said no more. He merely gazed coldly at Su Xin. Three breaths later, with a whoosh!

Like a living beast, Cang Yan charged directly toward Su Xin. His tightly clenched fists, resembling two gigantic golden suns, carried a terrifying, suffocating might as they blasted straight toward Su Xin.

Both speed and power had surged to their absolute limits!

"According to the intelligence reports, Cang Yan is astonishingly formidable in both speed and power, and his combat style is exceptionally aggressive. He definitely belongs to that category of genius powerhouses who suppress others through sheer might. In that case, I'd like to see whose power is truly superior!"

A flicker of excitement flashed in Su Xin's eyes.

Boom!

His swordsmanship erupted, blazing like fire and flashing like lightning, carrying an astonishing sword intent...

The bloodline power within his body was also directly catalyzed by fifty percent. Combined with the spiritual energy transformed by his legacy cultivation technique, the power he unleashed reached the true peak of the Qi Sea stage.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!~~~

Cang Yan's golden fists clashed madly and repeatedly against the wild sword in Su Xin's hand.

Each collision produced violent sonic booms and terrifying shockwaves that rippled through the mountain forest, causing numerous surrounding trees to shatter and collapse under the impact.

The ground beneath them trembled violently over and over again.

In the blink of an eye, the two had collided head-on over a hundred times, leaving the forest surrounding them in a ruined and devastating state.

"Such formidable swordsmanship!"

"In a head-on collision, his power is completely no less than mine—no, it's even slightly stronger!"

Staring at Su Xin before him, Cang Yan's eyes held unprecedented solemnity.

He had not underestimated Su Xin in the slightest due to his cultivation realm; from the very beginning, he had gone all out. Yet, after nearly a hundred exchanges, he was clearly at a slight disadvantage.

"Your strength is formidable, absolutely no less than mine. A fight between us won't yield a winner, let's call it a draw and stop here," Cang Yan stated.

"No winner? I don't think so," Su Xin replied with a light smile, aggressively slashing his sword forward once more.

"You want to waste time?" Cang Yan grew somewhat irritated, but the moment the words left his mouth, his expression changed drastically.

He discovered that while the swordsmanship Su Xin wielded remained seemingly unchanged, the sword intent contained within it was now vastly superior to what it had been during their earlier clash!

And guided by this surge of sword intent, the power of the swordsmanship escalated explosively as well!

If the swordsmanship Su Xin had used against him earlier resembled a scorching flame, then now, under the surging sword intent, it was entirely akin to a fully erupting volcano pouring forth for thousands of miles.

Cang Yan hurriedly swung his fists, executing his ultimate technique to counter-attack.

However, the result was a series of muffled impacts: Bang! Bang! Bang!

Merely three consecutive collisions left Cang Yan's hands completely numb, and his figure was repeatedly driven backward by the force.

"He's stronger than me!"

"The might of this swordsmanship actually surpasses mine by a wide margin!"

Shock flashed in Cang Yan's eyes.

He hailed from a prominent province-level clan, and throughout his rise, he had encountered countless powerhouses. Yet, never before had he met a Qi Sea realm cultivator who could suppress him in a pure head-on clash of raw physical might.

Until this hunt, and until meeting this sword-wielding genius before him.

He was truly, undeniably suppressed in a frontal clash.

And this sword-wielding genius was only at the Great Accomplishment realm of the Qi Sea stage.

"Thirty tokens, let me leave!" Cang Yan shouted as his figure rapidly retreated.

Su Xin was momentarily stunned, then nodded. "Acceptable."

Cang Yan did not waste words. With a flip of his hand, he tore off the pouch at his waist, retrieved thirty tokens from within, and tossed them to Su Xin.

Catching them, Su Xin immediately ceased his attack.

"May I ask your esteemed name?" Cang Yan stared at Su Xin.

"Yongning County, Su Xin," Su Xin replied.

"Su Xin, your strength surpasses mine. You will undoubtedly make it to the very end of this hunt. If we meet again in the final stage, we will fight to the death then," Cang Yan declared.

"Very well," Su Xin nodded.

Cang Yan cupped his fists, turned, and departed.

"In the Imperial Hunt, there are simply too many geniuses. Aside from those already recorded in the intelligence, there are many others who have yet to reveal their true strength or remain unknown to the public. Today, I've run into one," Cang Yan thought to himself as his figure quickly vanished from Su Xin's line of sight.

"This Cang Yan is quite decisive; he's a real man," Su Xin mused, weighing the thirty tokens he had just acquired.

In truth, had he continued his attack, he would have been fully capable of trapping Cang Yan here permanently, which naturally would have yielded even more tokens.

However, there was no need for that.

After all, since his opponent had already conceded and handed over thirty tokens, attacking further would have completely alienated the man.

Within the hunting ground, it was impossible to truly kill an opponent to eliminate future trouble.

To alienate a genius capable of contending for the top twenty of the hunt entirely for the sake of some tokens was unwise. Should the other party harbor a petty temperament and seek future revenge... while Su Xin himself had nothing to fear, it might potentially implicate his family.

"According to the intelligence reports, this Cang Yan is also capable of contending for the top twenty of this hunt, putting him roughly on par with Situ Yu. After all, Situ Yu is a scion of a major family with access to more resources, making him perhaps slightly stronger than Cang Yan, but not by much."

"Yet I defeated Cang Yan quite effortlessly," Su Xin pondered.

And it truly had been effortless.

He had only catalyzed fifty percent of his bloodline power.

He had only unleashed a fraction of his swordsmanship, without even executing any ultimate moves, yet Cang Yan had already proven unable to withstand it.

"Situ Yu, you had better not let me cross paths with you in this hunting ground. Otherwise... I'll ensure you don't even make it past the first stage of the hunt!"

Su Xin thought to himself with a cold resolve.