“How does this even make sense!?”

“… So they’re not your cousins, then?”

****

Once the dust finally cleared, everyone stared slack-jawed at the scene before them.

Their eyes were now clear from their mind-concocted illusion. The reality that was as far gone from any of them as an arrow let loose from its bow, came reeling back with alarming alacrity. It hit them with the same lethality too, pain swapped with disbelief stole their breaths from them all the same.

Disbelief that was steeped in reality was not a notion that they experienced all too often, but here it was.

That reality was that it was Long Di who stood… well not imperiously. It was more like a ‘what the heck just happened?’ kind of stance, but here he stood in defiance of their mind that said otherwise.

Lord knows Long Di was just as confused as everyone else curiously enough.

”What just happened!?”

“I-I don’t get it!”

“How can he be standing after that!?”

Violet Flame Noble felt a torrent of elation flood him. Its lighted feeling infected his limbs and subconsciously set his posture to one of confidence. It seems that his eyes were truly good when he didn’t hesitate to follow Long Di when the conditions for his help were set.

Heavenly Sun Noble was beyond shocked as well, and she rubbed her eyes several times to make sure she wasn’t seeing wrong.

The same went for Black Fortress Guo Da, Mad Sword Haoran, and even Jingyi Yu who was mostly detached from the fight.

Not even Sect Master Huang Jianyu was spared from the juxtaposition of what he truly believed clashing with what he saw.

Shen Ling, Mina and Xiannu Liang weren’t surprised. Coming from what they saw in the Demon Region, this wasn’t enough to shock them.

In truth, what had happened wasn’t that out of pocket.

Because everyone had seen that Long Di neglected to put up any form of defence against Xiong Weizhe’s attack, they had automatically assumed that whoever lost out in this exchange must be Long Di. It wouldn’t make any sense otherwise. Even if Long Di was a few levels above Xiong Weizhe, the outcome would more or less still be the same since no sort of defence was erected.

The question had then become, just how bad will he lose out?

The expected outcome was so strong that before the dust cleared and allowed for only the silhouettes to be made out, they ‘knew’ what had happened.

One silhouette was on the ground and the other was standing above the other. With no other evidence, they had already assigned which silhouette belonged to who.

This was why, when the dust fully cleared, everyone was so taken aback.

It’s like that time when you fall asleep in your bed, but you wake up half under the bed and your brain is trying its best to figure out what in the jacked-up hell happened since you remember going to bed one way and waking up another. What you see warred with what your mind knew.

After all, Long Di wasn’t an idiot. He wasn’t using the power of his physical body alone here. He did rely on his cultivation base, which was at the core flame evocation realm to tank Xiong Weizhe’s attack.

In truth, he would have been able to take the attack with relatively no harm even if he did just stand there and take it, however, to make sure he didn’t step back, he did erect his qi armour and this was the crux of it.

Of course, sect master Huang Jianyu couldn’t tell because Long Di had masked his cultivation base with his spiritual force. He didn’t want his true power to be seen at a glance unless it was to flaunt himself like a peacock when the mood hit him, or he had absolutely no choice to.

There’s no way that the sect master would be aware even if Long Di’s spiritual force was an entire realm below the latter’s cultivation base, which it wasn’t. Just the mutation it had undergone alone would make it difficult for him to pierce through the veil and see Long Di’s cultivation base.

In fact, the only reason Long Di was so lost right now was because he was unaware that Xiong Weizhe was braindead enough to not hold back a small amount of his energy to stave off any countershock that might have been generated due to the attack failing after carrying out the theatrical reenactment of ‘life of a crash test dummy: the musical.’

“You! A-Ack!” Xiong Weizhe coughed up a mouthful of blood, cutting off whatever it was he was about to say.

“Would you like to give up? Cuz this is just sad.” Long Di offered to give Xiong Weizhe a way out.

“Puah!” Another mouthful of blood answered him as Xiong Weizhe staggered to his feet.

“Is that a yes? I wanna take that as a yes. I’m gonna take that as a yes.” Long Di wasn’t fluent in the blood-coughing, bodily-ragdolling dialect, which, to be honest, was a skill one needs to master when walking about in a cultivation world.

However, Xiong Weizhe chose to use Long Di’s native-ish tongue to answer him, saving the boy some trouble.

“Never!” Xiong Weizhe forced out between injuries.

“Can’t you take the road less travelled? And be smart” Long Di asked him with the same amount of pity one might have for a punted chihuahua.

Xiong Weizhe’s answer to that was a pill he drew from somewhere in his robe. When the sect master saw the pill, his expression changed.

Before he could say anything, Xiong Weizhe had already downed it to his chagrin. That pill was a life-saving treasure that had cost Golden Lion Gate a fortune equal to a year’s worth of revenue to purchase!

It was only meant to be used once Xiong Weizhe’s life was on the line. Not a battle of pride!

Huang Jianyu’s heart bled when he saw the pill being wasted like this. But he didn’t say anything, it was already done, and it wasn’t good to scold Xiong Weizhe in front of everyone else like this.

Just like one would expect from a pill that was pricey enough to account for a year of a sect’s revenue, the pill’s medicinal energy poured through every inch of his body.

Whoosh!

Before long, his spiritual energy was back at its peak and both external and internal wounds alike were all mended.

“Holy crap did you eat a Senzu bean or something? I really need to learn alchemy. I’ll make a pill that does the same and call it the Senzu pill. I hope the word Senzu isn’t copyrighted. The legalities for that seem like it’ll be a nightma-”

“Get ready!” Xiong Weizhe roared.

“Okay, you’re just gonna interrupt me, that’s fine.” Long Di mumbled in between Xiong Weizhe’s tirade.

Xiong Weizhe tried to calm his breathing and brought out his cauldrons once more. They thrummed as they circulated the spiritual energy around them.

Xiong Weizhe compelled his cauldrons to move in a strange rhythm as the power around him soared once more. “Prepare yourself!”

“You’re a generic anime villain aren’t you?” Long Di commented.

“Blow Of the Fifteen Crazy Lions!”

“That name is hilarious,” Long Di said in the most deadpan way ever.

Fifteen rampaging lions manifested around Long Di. The pressure they exuded was daunting and much more powerful than the move he had used before.