Of Green Leaf Village's various lives, the Eldest had the most knowledge, enabling him to recognize the origins of Xinzi's mythical physique. He couldn't put a name on it, but without a shred of doubt, these were powers that only belonged to the Four Continents' supreme force: the Taiyang clan!
At the same time, the Eldest sensed energy patterns that reminded him of the Golden-Haired Immortal Lord.
'Yang Qi, Blood Energy, Constitution and Yin-Yang Acumen, this outsider doesn't just match the conditions, he crushes them in all categories. If we can't stop him here, he will steal the legacy!' The Eldest gave Xinzi a new appraisal, but through the colorful energy release, he noticed our monk's true cultivation level:
'Rank-three Blood Energy, early-stage Pulse Condensation. The rest I cannot categorize in ranks, but they shouldn't be enough for him to challenge our entire clan, right?'
"Four hands are better than two. We might not be formation masters, but if you think that 360 True Dragons of at least Beast King cultivation, including 60 Ordained Beast, cannot bring down a Pulse Condensation boy, your very thought process disrespects the might of the dragon clan!
Brethren of the Eternal Dragon clan, this is our long-awaited opportunity to prove that the trust the Immortal Founders put in us wasn't misplaced!" The Eldest's words thundered in the sky, fueling the battle-lust that consumed his brethren's hearts.
Violent Spiritual Qi and Blood Energy rolled out of each dragon scion. The Eldest arched his head back, hallowed rays shining in his eyes as his hulking limbs bulked up to outrageous dimensions.
"TEAR THIS BOY TO SHREDS!" The words came with a deafening roar, and like a hail of breathing projectiles, the dragons threw themselves at Xinzi, their scaled wings spreading wide and flapping faster than the human eye could follow.
"GRRRRRRRRRRRR!" 360 Draconic Roars reverberated through the sky. The dragons put their vocal cords on full display, releasing several times the sound power that they previously aimed at Xinzi's group. If before they served a mild breakfast, now they came with lunch and dinner jammed on one oversized plate.
Xinzi didn't care. White and gold flames burst out of his ears, nullifying the decibels that the dragons sent his way. The 360 became balls of scarlet light, their blood energy soaring towards the sky.
One moment, the colossal beasts were still making their slow descent, the next, they exploded with meteoric speed, bypassing any notion of physics as they hurtled at our monk.
"How is it possible for beasts that size to be this fast?"
"It's the Burst. Blood Energy has many applications and martial skills, the Burst is one of them, enabling the body refiner to explode with extraordinary speed for brief periods of time. However, the Burst makes it difficult for the body refiner to control their motions, often limiting them to straight lines. Of all Mysterious Beast clans, the dragons are the best at controlling Blood Energy, with several techniques already programmed in their bloodline," Tusha answered Yan Le's inquiry.
'But master actually possesses the best bloodline at controlling Blood Energy.' Tusha didn't add that part, keeping it to herself.
"Oh? Nice, but I can do that too." In Xinzi's eyes, everything went in slow motion. Even the dragons' outrageous speed burst barely matched a dove in flight. Undisturbed, our monk smiled at his foes, Blood Energy meshed with the Solar Flames, Divine Power and Evil Qi. A loud sonic boom rocked the atmosphere, and Xinzi vanished, leaving a colorful trail as he rose up the air, avoiding the draconic charge.
Without delay, Xinzi dropped into the melee, his body turning into a flaming meteor of red, white and gold as his feet crashed into a carefully selected Dragon King.
"UGH!" With irresistible force, Xinzi's feet slammed into the dragon's back, dragging it towards the ground. But by the time the Dragon King's brain made sense of the blow, our monk had whirled towards its large chin. His right hand clenched into a claw, the nails extending into razor-sharp blades as he slammed his claw into the area connecting the dragon's neck and shoulder.
"AAAAAAAAAAAARGH!"
"The most frustrating part of a True Dragon's life, regardless of the exact bloodline, you all have this one weakness: the Reverse Scale." Xinzi's claw twisted in the Dragon King's Reverse Scale, short-circuiting its brain with debilitating levels of pain. Our monk pulled on the Reverse Scale, yanking it out with mercy-free savagery.
The dragon's blood gushed out. Colorful clouds covered the two, keeping the main course of this gory spectacle hidden from others on the scene. Xinzi sank his claws into the dragon's neck, holding it in suspension as his mouth opened wide, drinking the Eternal Dragon blood with gusto. His teeth became jagged fangs, tearing through the armored scales to rip the dragon's head off!
By the time the colorful clouds dispersed, Xinzi's tongue had cleaned off the evidence of exsanguination, yet, as the dragon's head tumbled down, the attentive few could notice that too little blood leaked from its beheaded body.
"Aaah, yes!" Sent into drunken bliss by high-caliber blood-drinking, Xinzi didn't notice the shadow of a massive claw cornering him from all sides.
It didn't matter, blood-colored silk erupted from his pores, with an adamantine structure that formed an unbreakable red silk wall all around our monk. The Eldest's claw slammed into the silk wall, the collision triggering explosive forces that sent Xinzi's body hurtling from the impact. Still, he had no wound to speak of, and with a graceful spin, turned to face the 359 remaining dragons.
"What...have you done?!" The Eldest's eyes went bloodshot, and though he couldn't see through Xinzi's colorful clouds, the new bloodline taking form in our monk plus the clear lack of blood in his fallen brethren's body told him all he needed to know.
'Sorry, I'm missing one of my hearts and could use an extra bloodline as a replacement. No need to worry for me though, my exsanguination automatically extracts the purest form of my victims' bloodlines, which means that, unlike you defects, I am worry-free.' By revealing the ins and outs of his callous deed, Xinzi played a little game of psychological warfare.
Initially, the Eldest believed that he faced a Sun Spirit or human with strong connections to the Taiyang clan, but this profane deed told a different story, forcing the Eldest to consider demonic powers.
"Outsider, how dare you rob and despoil the bloodline granted to us by the Immortal Founders?! My Eminent Self will not rest till your delimbed body feeds the breakthroughs of my kin!" Set ablaze by Xinzi's exsanguination of one of his most promising Dragon Kings, the Eldest lost his composure, directly leading the charge towards our monk.
Whirling to the left, Xinzi avoided the charge, and with a multi-energy burst, bolted out of the Eldest's range. Thin, nearly invisible red silk threads flew out of our monk's hands. In them, the Eldest sensed a dreadful concentration and mastery of Blood Energy. By the time he made sense of Xinzi's move, the red silk had spread into a village-sized net, with thousands of threads that directly sliced any Dragon King they touched into finely carved meat chops.
The 60 Ordained Dragons could resist, but the rest, 300 scions, perished immediately, and as they passed through the nets, their meat turned into smaller slices, racing towards the spring below.
