"[Fists of the Silent Sea: Fade]!"

The clouds gathered into a huge black serpent, which curled around the divine arrows.

"Break!"

Chen Feng shouted. The seven arrows shot forth at speed, so fast they were like beams of light, and caused the serpent to explode. The light continued forth toward Zhang Lie.

Shockingly, the clouds of corrosive energy around Zhang Lie ate away at the arrows, preventing them from drawing near.

The arrows sizzled away, their imbued light draining as they remained in contact with Zhang Lie's domain.

"What? How could this be?!" Chen Feng gasped. How could those dark clouds be so strong?

Chen Feng shouted and rallied once more, shooting out a series of arrows as his body glowed with multicolored light. He charged toward Zhang Lie and initiated a fight.

Both cultivators struck each other, neither attempting to dodge. This was a straightforward, head-on confrontation in which both cultivators attempted to demonstrate their strength.

Chen Feng spat out huge mouthfuls of blood as he retreated, his face distorted in pain. His palm had been crushed by Zhang Lie's fist. It was difficult to imagine how he could have been trumped so severely.

"A failure is a failure, after all. Others chose not to pursue you on account of the Hall of Immortals' name, but I don't mind making it my enemy," Zhang Lie said coolly.

These words were like blades that cut at Chen Feng's heart, agonizing him. He inclined his head toward the heavens, howled, and struck again.

"Come back, Brother Chen!" the woman cried out. She too made her move, sending a divine feather shooting out like a blade straight at Zhang Lie's forehead.

Fang Yi countered the blow, pointing at the feather with his finger. A waterfall of lightning crashed into the feather as he chuckled. "Don't interfere with another cultivator's fight. Just watch."

Zhang Lie charged toward Chen Feng, intending to kill him."I'll show you that, even if I can't become the next Immortal King, I have more than enough strength to kill you. You're nothing compared to the strength of the Hall of Immortals!" Chen Feng howled, a cold smile on his face. Killing intent bloomed around him.

Copper flashed in his palm and transformed into limitless light that exploded in the void, swallowing Zhang Lie up.

As Zhang Lie activated his monarch-grade limitless universe soulshard, he glowed with stellar radiance, like a burning star. Starlight flowed through his body in phantasmagorical colors.

The starlight's allure captivated all onlookers.

Zhang Lie's body transformed into a glaze of the dark cosmos, as though the Milky Way itself flowed through his body. His aura grew tremendously. He froze the copper glow around him.

"What?!" Chen Feng exclaimed. This glow was the most devastating technique he possessed, able to kill other cultivators in a formless manner. How had his opponent forestalled it?

Zhang Lie punched forward with a fist, sending the copper light back.

"No—no!" Chen Feng screeched, his face pale. Struck by the light, he was shot through with copper. He screamed as he rolled on the ground.

The copper light was clearly imbued with tremendous poison, or perhaps a curse that was unable to be cleansed. Chen Feng was far more devious a cultivator than Zhang Lie had anticipated, but he easily handled the attack. No matter how much Chen Feng attempted to hide his technique, nothing could escape Zhang Lie's senses.

"A failure is a failure," Zhang Lie repeated, stepping forward and kicking Chen Feng into the air. The lower half of his body exploded halfway through the kick into a mist of blood.The upper half of Chen Feng's body remained. He fell to the ground and rolled around on the ground.

The next moment, Zhang Lie shot out a beam of sword energy that beheaded Chen Feng in a shower of light. Particles of light trailed down toward the back of his palm.

The moment Chen Feng was slain, the purplegold denglong and his subordinates made their move, as did Fang Yi, Li Feng, and Yang Ze.

The purplegold denglong's subordinates weren't easy foes. They were strong cultivators that he had caught, and were far superior to ordinary chaff. The woman was no weaker than Chen Feng herself.

"[Fists of the Silent Sea: Fade]!"

His genetic energy condensed into a black dragon, whose scales were each a star.The stars inlaid in its body formed a long stellar river, which transformed into dragons that shot out alongside Zhang Lie's punch.

The purplegold denglong sniffed in disdain as he countered with a punch.

The next moment, a wave of annihilation exploded around the dragon. Pitch-black energy swallowed everything in the vicinity like a storm at sea. The water of the lake was sucked into its midst. After the confrontation with Zhang Lie, the purplegold denglong had grown visibly bedraggled.

Even so, he was clearly a strong cultivator. Despite having been mired in the storm of annihilation, he roared and dispelled the energy with a shout, forcing his way out of the localized attack.

Black genetic energy burst forth from Zhang Lie, as though there were hundreds, thousands of dragons surging throughout his body.

"[Fists of the Silent Sea: Hundred Dragons Soaring]!"

A horde of dragons launched out of Zhang Lie's left arm as he expended half his genetic energy in one supercharged attack.

Howling with the force of thunder, the hundred stellar dragons soared through the air.

The energy of annihilation continuously exploded in the air around the purplegold denglong, causing him to screech in pain as he was one-sidedly suppressed.

"Be proud that you've forced me to this extent!" The purplegold denglong was forced to reveal his true form, with a deer's antlers, a camel-like head, a cat's ears, lobster-like eyes, a camel's mouth, a lion's mane, a snake's neck, a bull's abdomen, and a carp's scales. He had front claws like those of an eagle and hind claws like those of a tiger.

He howled as he continued fighting against Zhang Lie beside the lake.

Ripples of energy skated across the surface of the lake as the purplegold denglong was forced back with palm strike after palm strike. He coughed out blood as he roared angrily once more.

A concentrated howl was strong enough to cause even the moon in the sky to shake; the purplegold denglong possessed incredible strength.

Light swamped Zhang Lie, but even so, the denglong wasn't strong enough to take him down.Zhang Lie activated his dragonwolf soulshard. His russet fur seemed to glimmer with stellar radiance, each hair a shining star, as though he were draped with the entirety of the Milky Way. His four limbs were armored with a dragon's scales, each a burning golden sun. The two soulshards' power combined.

A dragon's horns grew out of Zhang Lie's forehead, shining with stellar radiance, surrounded by galactic starlight. To others, he would seem to have the boundless energy of a new galaxy.

Zhang Lie swiped forward with his claws, slashing apart the sound waves.

He descended from the skies, kicked the denglong down, then sat himself down atop his prone body. "How about you be my steed instead?"

The purplegold denglong thundered, "Never!"