Chapter 423: Mêlée à Trois

Li Gen pursed his brows. Judging from his lookalike’s words, he had already sensed the killing intent?

“Aren’t you the same?” Li Gen asked as he unsheathed a sword. “If you have the guts, face me man-to-man.”

Although he seemed to be focusing all his attention on the lookalike, Li Gen still focused on the woman and three servants. The moment they showed any signs of attacking, he will immediately use his Thousand Li Talisman and flee. Even if they didn’t attack, he would still have to use it after he killed his lookalike.

His lookalike kept his smile and walked forward. The woman and three servants didn’t move at all, not even warning the former. Li Gen clenched his fist. ‘Are they looking down on me?’

Still, he didn’t let it show on his face. Soon enough, these people would regret their arrogance. Instead, Li Gen brandished his sword and said, “Li Gen.”

His words caused his lookalike to pause for a moment. Then, his lookalike shook his head in amusement before announcing his name. “Xi Tianyi.”

Li Gen narrowed his eyes as he heard the name. His gaze flickered toward the beautiful woman in blue. He only knew her as Madam Xi. Too bad such an alluring woman was about to become a widow. His attention returned soon enough because Xi Tianyi took out a sword with a blade nearly a meter long.

The sword was beautifully crafted, seeming more like a work of art than a weapon, but it was the way that Xi Tianyi brought it out that caught Li Gen’s attention. His eyes focused on the ornate, three-jeweled ring on his lookalike’s finger. Originally, he thought it was nothing more than Xi Tianyi’s inclination.

But now he knew it was a spatial ring.

In the Cai Realm, a spatial ring was not just a convenient tool but a sign of status. After all, many nascent soul grandmasters didn’t have one. Was his lookalike the son or grandson of those rumored unity venerables? If that was the case, no wonder Xi Tianyi had three servants in the Core Formation Realm and such a beautiful companion.

It would also explain why he couldn’t sense any cultivation base from Xi Tianyi. His elder must have procured an artifact to hide his true cultivation.

Even hypothesizing Xi Tianyi’s identity, Li Gen had no thought of backing down. Even if his lookalike had a unity venerable as an elder, he didn’t think he would lose. Not to mention that this was the fate of everyone who had his same features. Either he lived, or Xi Tianyi died. There was no third option.

Nothing signaled the start of the death duel. It simply just happened. When Li Gen charged toward Xi Tianyi, the latter still hadn’t moved. Li Gen’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t think Xi Tianyi couldn’t react, rather the opposite. Xi Tianyi probably thought he didn’t need to move just yet.

‘I’ll show you the error of your ways!’

One Clawed Dragon Sword Art - Rising Dragon Slash

Li Gen’s figure blurred. Before striking, he appeared directly in front of Xi Tianyi with his posture incredibly close to the ground. Then, he slashed up. The Rising Dragon Slash was a technique to decrease the distance between oneself and the opponent and then cleave upward from a hard to guard angle.

He never expected the Rising Dragon Slash to kill his lookalike. The technique was hardly his strongest attack. His aim was to test his opponent’s skill, and form a plan of action from there. If his opponent couldn’t even block this attack, Li Gen could lure his opponent into a sense of security before exploding and killing them in one blow.

What Li Gen didn’t expect was to see himself shooting toward a tree headfirst.

In a physic-defying display of acrobatics, Li Gen flipped so that his feet would face the tree. Upon contact, he collapsed like a spring before rocketing off. He didn’t charge at Xi Tianyi but found stable ground and observed his foe.

Li Gen couldn’t understand what happened. One moment, he was about to cleave flesh, but the next, his head was rocketing toward a tree trunk. He raised his sword in a defensive position and observed Xi Tianyi.

“What’s wrong?” Xi Tianyi asked. “Where did all your bravado go?”

Li Gen didn’t answer.

“If you aren’t going to come to me, let me come to you,” Xi Tianyi said.

Xi Tianyi walked toward him. Despite feeling no cultivation or aura from the former, Li Gen still felt an invisible pressure pressing down on him. Every instinct in his body told him to flee now, to crush the Thousand Li Talisman, but he refused. He stamped down his body’s fight or flight instincts and charged.

Their swords clashed, but to Li Gen’s surprise, he actually held the absolute advantage in pure strength. It felt like a mortal attempting to block his attack. Although he didn’t know what was going on, he wasn’t about to let go of his advantage, so he unleashed a flurry of attacks.

Each slash would force Xi Tianyi back, but frustratingly, Xi Tianyi would always manage to deflect his blows. So, Li Gen hadn’t struck his lookalike once yet.

After five minutes, Li Gen paused momentarily. Was it his imagination, or did his attacks seem weaker? He gritted his teeth and increased his offensive, but after a minute of observation, his eyes couldn’t help but widened. His opponent, Xi Tianyi, was using fewer movements to deflect his sword strikes. Not only that, but even though he couldn’t feel much strength from Xi Tianyi’s sword, Xi Tianyi no longer took any steps back now.

It was as if Xi Tianyi’s skill had increased dramatically.

Li Gen’s eyes widened, and his pupils shrunk into needlepoints. “You’re using me to train?”

“Bingo,” Xi Tianyi said. “It’s amazing the amount of flaws I can find once I face someone much weaker than me. However, if I use my true strength, you’ll disappear in one hit, so I purposely limited my strength to the Qi Gathering Realm.”

Shame flooded Li Gen’s mind, almost causing him to go crazy. “Are you a soul nourishing grandmaster?”

Xi Tianyi only smiled. However, that was more than enough answer for Li Gen. Against normal nascent soul grandmasters. He had the confidence to face them, but against a lookalike who practiced the Dragon Emperor Fist, he didn’t have much confidence.

Li Gen immediately crushed the Thousand Li Talisman, and a white light encased him. He smiled in relief when he saw that Xi Tianyi hadn’t had time to react as he started to fly off into the distance. But before he could reach the peak of his flight, something crashed into him, shattering the white light and causing him to plummet to the ground.

He spat out a mouthful of blood and glared at the source of the attack that caused his escape to fail. Flying in the air was a lavish carriage pulled by two monsters. Two cultivators stood in the air in front of it. Li Gen immediately saw that the two cultivators were standing on air, meaning that they were nascent soul or soul nourishing grandmasters!

“So boring. Couldn’t you have put up more of a fight? It really shames me to have the same face as you,” a familiar voice drawled out from within the carriage. The curtains opened to reveal a second lookalike.

The second lookalike didn’t even deign to look at Li Gen. Instead, his perverse gaze settled on Madam Xi. “Little Beauty, how about leaving that soon to be dead man and serving me instead? I can give you far more than he can.”

Madam Xi smiled. It was a charming smile that even caused Li Gen’s mind to blank, even forgetting about his injuries. “Anything? What about your death?”

She gestured toward the carriage, and like something out of a nightmare, the two nascent soul grandmasters clutched their chest and fell to the ground.

The second lookalike’s face paled. “What are you playing around for?! Chuyi, Chusan, get up!”

However, the two nascent soul grandmasters didn’t answer because they had already become corpses.

Xi Tianyi didn’t even look at the corpses. He turned toward Madam Xi and said, “Geez, Daoyi. You didn’t even give me a chance to defend you.”

“You were taking too long,” Daoyi said. Her gaze flickered toward the second lookalike.

Immediately, the monster’s pulling the carriages roared and attempted to flee. However, it didn’t get very far before it plummeted to the ground. “What are you doing?! Hurry up and flee! Flee, dammit! Why are you still on the ground?! Do you want to kill me?”

Xi Tianyi’s voice sounded. “It’s no use. I already sealed the surrounding kilometer. No one below the Immortal Realm can fly.”

“What are you trying to do?! I’m warning you, my grandfather is a venerable of the Bountiful Coin Consortium. If you dare to harm me, you won’t survive!” the second lookalike shouted, voice quivering from within the carriage.

Xi Tianyi shook his head in disappointment. Not just him, even Li Gen couldn’t hold back a sneer of disgust, despite his injured state. “Even if the entire Cai Realm goes against me, it’s nothing more than just snapping my fingers to annihilate them.”

“Still, aren’t you quite loved?” Xi Tianyi asked. He didn’t pay any more attention to the frightened lookalike. Instead, he stared into the distance.

Li Gen did the same. He had quietly grabbed another Thousand Li Talisman, his last one. A streak of light appeared in the distance, but before it could reach farther, its flight plummeted into the ground. A minute later, an aged man in green and gold robes appeared in the distance. “Peng’er!”

“Grandfather!” the second lookalike called out as he rushed out of the carriage. He pointed at Xi Tianyi and Madam Xi. “They killed my guards and embarrassed me. Kill them for me!”

The aged elder of the Bountiful Coin Consortium focused his attention on Xi Tianyi. “I don’t know who fellow Daoists are? How about giving me and the Bountiful Coin Consortium face and forgetting whatever my foolish grandson did? He’s only a child.”

Xi Tianyi didn’t answer. Instead, he showed disgust. “I originally wanted to see what kind of person can raise someone like him, and I finally found out. Too bad you remind me too much of Redseal. I can’t kill him, but you are different.”

Before the aged elder could take action, he just slumped over.

“Grandfather?” the second lookalike asked. He walked over and shook his grandfather’s body, but like his two guards, his grandfather had died. Instead of anger, fear appeared in the second lookalike’s face and he turned to flee.

Xi Tianyi shook his head, and with but a gaze, the second lookalike popped out of existence. Not figuratively, but literally. He disappeared as if he had never existed.

At this time, Li Gen activated the second Thousand Li Talisman. He knew that if he didn’t flee now, he might never be able to. However, to his despair, although a light encased, he didn’t fly off into the air. Upon recalling Xi Tianyi’s words, he couldn’t help but stand up and stare at his lookalike. “Who are you?”

“Someone from the immortal realm.”

“Immortal realm,” Li Gen repeated. “No wonder. I was delusional to think I could kill an immortal. However, I’m not going down without a fight!”

Li Gen suppressed his injuries and charged at Xi Tianyi. When he reached a meter, the light in his eyes dimmed, and he collapsed onto the ground, dead.

Xi Tianyi observed the cluster of souls in his palm. Unlike most of the Dragon Emperor clones he met, Li Gen didn’t disgust him so much. Of course, that could just be perspective. With a wave of his hand, Li Gen’s soul disappeared.

“What did you do with his soul?” Daoyi asked.

“Just a test,” Tianyi said. He looked around and waved his hand. A hundred-meter tall black stele appeared. On it the words Nine Heavens were engraved. “Okay, I’ve gotten bored with the Cai Realm. Want to go to the next realm?”

Daoyi glanced at the stele and shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

Days after Tianyi and Daoyi left, the Bountiful Coin Consortium discovered the stele. It would later become known as the Nine Heavens Stele. In the surrounding kilometer, all forms of flight were restricted, making people suspect that an immortal had appeared.

Simultaneously, rumors that the Nine Heavens Stele contained the inheritance of an immortal spread. The Bountiful Coin Consortium attempted to keep the Nine Heavens Stele for themselves, but after the Cai Realm merged with the Huang Realm, they were destroyed by an opposing force.

Still, even after ten thousand years, no one managed to gain the complete inheritance.