Chapter Ninety-Three: A Contest of Emperors

As soon as the lecherous driver had finished grumbling, Hua Feng and Yun Meng arrived in an instant. The moment Hua Feng reached the front of the luxury car, he locked onto the man’s aura. With no regard for the fact that the newcomer was also a sovereign-level expert, the driver slammed the door shut and forced his vital energy to its peak. With the strength of his entire life pouring into a single blow, he unleashed a violent surge of power, the air itself exploding as a murderous current hurled straight toward Hua Feng.

Bang.

Hua Feng was driven backward dozens of yards by the force of the strike. Along the mountain path, the stone paving was shockingly blasted into a trench dozens of yards long, as though the ground had been plowed open by brute force.

Yet the road beneath them was a mountain trail laid with blue stone slabs. Seeing such terrifying destruction from the very first exchange, the two girls in the car began to believe the martial arts instructor’s words.

That teacher, only at the thirty-fifth rank of the elemental king realm, had once told them that in this world, as the age changed, more and more powerful beings appeared, unlike the so-called age of fading law described in old novels. This era could perhaps be called a supernova age of erupting strength. Maybe when a person grew strong enough, they truly could command life and death, and even turn back time. If they could not shatter heaven and earth, they could at least shake mountains and rivers.

The fierce clash continued. Hua Feng, caught off guard in the first exchange by the driver’s decent combat experience, was somewhat flustered under hurried defense.

“Brother Hua Feng, are you all right?” Yun Meng, standing aside and not joining the battle, asked with concern when she saw his condition.

“I’m fine! Xiao Meng, find a chance to rescue them. Leave this bastard to me,” Hua Feng sent her through sound transmission.

“Brat, who the hell are you people, daring to ruin my good thing?” The driver was shocked to the core that his full-power strike had only forced the other back.

He knew he had run into a hard nut this time. No matter what, as long as he could get away unharmed that would be enough. After all, he was a genuine sovereign-level expert. Even if the two people opposite him were truly troublesome, he ought to be able to retreat safely.

“Stop barking and calling yourself that all the time! If you ask me, the reason you’ve been able to act so arrogantly here for so long is just that you never ran into us. Today you’re finished! Come with us to the police station and surrender. I’ll make sure you suffer a little less!” Hua Feng could not stand the man endlessly referring to himself in that coarse, swaggering way. Though he understood it was only a common Sichuan expression, Hua Feng, who had grown up in the city of Jinling, found it impossible to tolerate.

To avoid more meaningless fighting, as he spoke he released the aura of a sovereign-level expert at rank sixty-three into the small space where the group stood. At once rocks split apart, and flowers, grasses, and trees were whipped into wild motion by the violent energy.

Though the driver was barely holding out beneath Hua Feng’s aura, after a few minutes he was already failing. Taking advantage of an opening, Yun Meng quickly rescued the two girls, whose cultivation was only at the level of elemental human rank, from the range of their battle.

A battle that had not even properly begun was already nearing its end. In a match between experts, victory is often decided by a single move. From the very start, the two-rank gap in their levels had sealed the driver’s defeat. If he had not previously failed to encounter an expert above his own sovereign level, he might never have been able to run wild for so long.

Yun Meng swiftly removed the seals on the girls’ bodies, and they were finally able to move freely again. After putting their jackets back on, the girls hurriedly thanked the young woman before them, whose age seemed about the same as theirs.

“Thank you! Thank you both!”

“It’s nothing, just a small matter. You were frightened, so hurry down the mountain. There’s a park service vehicle not far ahead. From now on, you must be careful and never answer strangers!” The two girls before Yun Meng were already so terrified they hardly knew what to say, only wanting to leave at once.

After escorting them to a place not far from the scenic area service station, Yun Meng turned back to find Hua Feng. In a short while, she returned to the spot where they had just fought.

“Xiao Meng, are they safe?” Hua Feng asked.

“Yes. Brother Hua Feng, don’t worry. They’re waiting at the service station for a ride and will head down the mountain soon. What about the driver now?” Yun Meng came closer to Hua Feng.

“He’s had his meridians sealed by my acupoint technique. I’ve already called the police. The enforcers from the Association of Chinese Cultivators and the officers will be here any moment. Then they’ll act together and take him where he belongs, to face the judgment of the law!” As Hua Feng spoke, he pointed out to Yun Meng the place where the man had been confined inside the car after his vital energy had been locked down.

“Mhm. After all this work, we finally have a good ending. In a bit, our points should rise too, right? I heard that ten points makes one rank, and the highest level now is rank one hundred, with a thousand points. That person is hiding his identity and only has an ID number called Morrowind Wanderer!” Leaning against the car, Yun Meng and Hua Feng waited for the association and police to arrive. A faint mountain breeze passed by, and the moon flickered through the branches overhead.

“Xiao Meng, sometimes I wonder whether all we do really has any meaning. The Dao says that the Way follows nature. If the apocalypse is nature’s own purification of itself, then are we, by stopping that evolution, going against heaven?” Hua Feng gazed at the moonlit mountains. Beside him, Yun Meng turned her lovely profile toward him and listened quietly.

“Maybe. Nature and all that—who can really say? We just need to act according to our hearts, and leave the rest to time to decide. What do you think, Brother Hua Feng?”

Yun Meng did not understand why Hua Feng had such a sigh, but if the direction a person had spent his life striving toward made him doubt himself, then he surely could not keep walking forward with his whole heart. So she said what she felt she ought to say—no grand doctrine, yet simple truth at its purest.

“Mm. Later, let’s go stroll through Chengdu’s night market. We’ll enjoy our little world for two, and as for where to go after that, we can decide once we’ve had our fill.” Though he said this, Hua Feng knew that this was probably a rare chance to truly relax.

At that moment, the driver was miserable beyond measure. Many of his methods had not even had the chance to be used before he had been subdued. Now he was locked inside the car, unable to move. Outside, the two of them were even standing there in romantic leisure.

For a moment, he felt a grief so deep it was hard to describe. He had long expected that there would come a day when he would stumble, only never had he imagined that the day would arrive so soon.