The black-clad old man was surrounded by an earth-yellow radiance and stood atop the stone dragon's immense skull, emanating a heavy and imposing pressure.
But the old man, together with the entire stone dragon beneath him, seemed to be seized by an invisible force, struggling as they were pulled up from the ground toward the sky.
The black-clad old man's expression immediately changed. He had intended to conceal himself beneath the ground and launch a sneak attack on Li Musheng on the Hundred Fragrance Pavilion's roof.
But what he had not anticipated was that even after merging his form with the earth to conceal himself, Li Musheng had still detected him.
This left him both greatly surprised and wary, and he realized that someone capable of defeating his Martial Brother Scarlet Fire was clearly no ordinary figure.
In that instant, the black-clad old man struck with even greater caution, and spared nothing.
In the next moment, he drove his feet down hard into the stone dragon's skull. Heaven and earth around him thundered like war drums, and from the cracked stone street furrow below, row after row of black rock ridges shot upward, writhing like underground dragons surfacing.
Then they coiled upward and attached to the stone dragon's enormous rising body, as though drawing on the power of the earth itself to wrestle against Li Musheng's seizing force from above.
At the same time, bricks and wall stone from the surrounding buildings continuously collapsed, broke apart, and reformed, rapidly condensing in midair into hundreds of stone spears all pointing toward the Hundred Fragrance Pavilion's roof.
The condensed stone spears then erupted in an instant, becoming a sky-filling rain of spears shooting upward from below.
Faced with the black-clad old man's attack, Li Musheng glanced downward. Every one of the spears that had shot upward at tremendous speed froze half a yard from him and then crumbled to powder that drifted down.
But the stone dragon dozens of yards long, and the black-clad old man standing on its skull, continued toward the rooftop without the slightest pause.
No matter how many rock dragons burst from the ground drawing on the earth's power to wrap around and drag at it, no matter how many stone tigers pulled at it with their weight, none of it could resist the force of Li Musheng's seizing hold.
"Grandmaster Martial Brother, two honored elders, make your move now!"
The black-clad old man's expression was deeply unpleasant, and he raised his head and called out in a low but urgent voice.
Even as he spoke, he drove both palms down onto the stone dragon's skull. In an instant, a heavy, vast, and surging force spread down through the stone dragon's entire enormous body.
Then the ground below shook like the tail of a whale breaking the surface, as a dozen streets twisted like living pythons, all pulling together through invisible ropes of condensed force extending through the black-clad old man's body, trying with all their immense collective strength to drag the rising stone dragon back down.
And after the black-clad old man called out, the Falling God Peak grandmaster hovering in the cloud layer and the two elderly men concealed within the clouds finally stopped holding back.
In the brief time that had elapsed, they had already confirmed that this young man's martial cultivation was genuinely formidable.
They had hoped to find a weakness in the way Li Musheng fought, but he had not deployed any martial arts technique whatsoever. The only move he had made was seizing the black-clad old man, and it appeared to have no vulnerabilities at all.
"Full strength, all of us, without reservation."
The Falling God Peak grandmaster said with flat gravity, his expression carefully serious in the face of a martial artist of Li Musheng's caliber.
Having chosen to move together in four, they had no intention of holding anything back whatsoever. The intent was to strike with the force of thunder and finish this quickly.
Beyond that, Li Musheng's arrogant and entirely dismissive attitude had genuinely stirred the grandmaster's anger.
In truth, seeing that Li Musheng was so remarkably young yet possessed such formidable martial cultivation, the grandmaster had originally suspected the other party must harbor enormous secrets.
He had even been considering taking Li Musheng alive so he could be interrogated about those secrets, but now it seemed it was better to simply crush him with everything they had.
Of course, if the other party could barely survive the encounter, the interrogation could continue. If not, then so be it.
The thought passed in an instant, and the Falling God Peak grandmaster's hair and beard seemed to bristle as lightning erupted from his hands.
In the next instant, his eyes opened wide, sending streaks of purple lightning tearing through the night sky. The cloud layer all around him collapsed in an instant into a pool of lightning, and both palms pressed downward with lightning runes like a thousand serpents consuming everything together.
In that moment, the entire void blazed with web-like cracks of electricity, lightning poured down like a flood, the sound of ten thousand drums fell silent at once, light-blades wove together into a vast lightning net, and then chains of thunder converged and poured down toward Li Musheng in a single overwhelming mass.
At the same time, one of the elderly men previously hidden within the clouds billowed his sleeves, a brilliant blue radiance like hellfire embers radiating from his person.
His withered finger swept through the air and summoning blade-winds, commanding the mighty wind of heaven and earth into spiral vortexes, and the clouds and mist of the sky were condensed under infinite wind force into bladed rain and hail pellets, contained within a terrifying storm that swept and fell toward Li Musheng.
Visibly to the naked eye, where the eye of the storm collapsed inward, the void itself became a lightless black hole.
The remaining last elderly man had already moved at some unknown moment, appearing behind Li Musheng at a distance of less than three yards.
His pair of grey-white eyes locked rigidly on Li Musheng's figure sitting on the ridgeline ahead, and then suddenly erupted with brilliant silver radiance.
Wherever those eyes fell, space and time seemed to freeze. Whatever fell within his vision became a cage of stillness. Even the twilight itself was pinned in place, and even dust particles were suspended at that moment...
And right at that point, Li Musheng suddenly turned his head and looked at the elderly man who had appeared behind him, "No matter how many more like you were to come, the outcome would not change in the slightest."
Seeing this, the grey-eyed elderly man's expression changed sharply in an instant.
By all rights, everything within the space he gazed upon should have been locked in place, and the several yards of space around Li Musheng on the Hundred Fragrance Pavilion's roof including Li Musheng himself should have been frozen as though encased in ice.
Yet none of it had any effect on Li Musheng at all?
And at that moment, whether it was the sky-filling chains of lightning or the world-destroying eye of the storm, both were stopped three feet from Li Musheng's body.
Three feet outside him, lightning and wind destroyed all existence.
Three feet within him, perfect calm, without a single ripple.
The black-clad old man below, together with the stone dragon dozens of yards long, continued rising slowly, and came to a stop in the air before Li Musheng.
Even after using every technique available, the black-clad old man was still entirely unable to shake Li Musheng's hold by even a fraction.
"How is this possible?"
The Falling God Peak grandmaster above the clouds looked down, and that aged face became deeply unpleasant.
"Even this can be blocked? What kind of martial arts has he cultivated to produce such terrifying defense?"
The elderly man who controlled the storm came to the Falling God Peak grandmaster's side. Despite his full effort, he could not touch Li Musheng below in the slightest, let alone cause any harm.
"Such a fuss over nothing."
Li Musheng slowly raised his head through the thunder and storm above and glanced at the grandmaster and the two elderly men.
Then he extended a finger and pointed it directly at the black-clad old man on the stone dragon from a distance.
The instant the black-clad old man saw this, he was terrified out of his wits. But his entire being at that moment was locked in place by Li Musheng's formless aura and simply could not escape.
"Grandmaster Martial Brother, save me..."
The black-clad old man's eyes flew wide open and he shouted out.
But a blood hole passing front to back appeared in his head, and his life drained away rapidly.
At the same time, the enormous stone dragon beneath him collapsed.
The black earth-dragons coiled around it and the fierce stone tigers all lost their supporting force in an instant and fell away powerless, crashing down onto the already ruined street below with a tremendous impact.
"How dare you!"
The elderly man standing in the air just over three yards from Li Musheng erupted with fury and roared.
He and the black-clad old man had a deep bond, and though there was no formal master-disciple relationship between them, after the other's teacher had passed he had devoted himself to teaching and nurturing the younger man. Their relationship could be described as father and son without exaggeration, and seeing the black-clad old man die, he was overcome with grief and fury beyond control.
At that point, hearing the grey-eyed elderly man's furious cry, Li Musheng raised an eyebrow, then turned to look at him.
Without any extra words, he simply raised his hand again slowly.
The grey-eyed elderly man saw this and came back to himself with a start, his face immediately changing drastically.
He had absolutely no regard for grief. Without a single word he turned and fled directly.
He did not even call out to the Falling God Peak grandmaster for help, because he understood clearly that the four of them acting together had been unable to touch Li Musheng. Even if the other two acted, they could not possibly stop him.
As for staying and fighting to the death, that was even more out of the question. They could not even break through the other party's defense within three feet. How would they fight? That was no different from handing over their lives.
In his view, there was only one course of action available, and that was to run.
It was said that nothing is perfect and no person is flawless. For someone so young to possess such terrifying defense and lethal striking power was simply beyond all imagining.
He did not believe the other party was truly invincible in every aspect, and that this would also hold true when it came to movement speed.
At that point Li Musheng looked at the grey-eyed elderly man receding in an instant, and slowly shook his head.
His figure then vanished from where he stood in an instant, and in the next moment the grey-eyed elderly man who had just escaped was suddenly sent flying directly back.
He crashed into the street furrow beside the Hundred Fragrance Pavilion with a tremendous impact, and at that moment a blood hole passing cleanly front to back had appeared in his skull.
The aged face with its grey-white eyes was frozen in an expression of utter, incomprehensible shock. Clearly he had never imagined, right up until the end, that he had guessed wrong.
At the same time, Li Musheng's figure reappeared on the roof of the Hundred Fragrance Pavilion. He looked up and found that the Falling God Peak grandmaster and the other elderly man, who had been hovering in the cloud layer, were nowhere to be seen. Only the dark clouds remained above, with residual threads of wind and lightning roiling within them.
Li Musheng raised his hand with a casual wave. A formless pulse of True Qi swept away every last remnant of wind and lightning force.
In the next instant, Li Musheng's figure disappeared again from the ridgeline.
At the same time, another elderly man, trailing a fierce gust of blue-green energy as he hid within the clouds and fled, turned to look back.
Seeing nothing unusual behind him and no sign of Li Musheng giving chase, he let out a slight breath of relief.
When it came to movement speed, no one in all of Falling God Peak could surpass him, not even the grandmaster. As long as he wanted to leave, no one could stop him.
"That person must not be able to catch me, and has gone to pursue the grandmaster instead."
The elderly man thought this as he fled, but showed not the slightest intention of slowing down.
"With a martial artist this terrifying behind the Great Li court, Falling God Peak is finished this time. If the grandmaster can survive, Falling God Peak may still have a hope of rising again."
"If the grandmaster falls, then this old one can only seek shelter with one of the other three great sects to preserve my own life, and look for an opportunity for revenge in time."
He bore no grudge against the Falling God Peak grandmaster for not fully determining Li Musheng's true strength before urging them all into action.
After all, Li Musheng came from the Great Li court, and even if they had not acted, the other party would have come to find them eventually without letting any of them go.
He only blamed the Great Li court for producing a terrifying martial artist like Li Musheng. The strength the other party had displayed was not far off from the legendary three Martial Saints spoken of in the martial world.
But how had the Great Li court produced a Martial Saint?
The elderly man was still turning this over in his mind as he fled with an unpleasant expression as quickly as he could toward the outside of Falling God Peak's territory.
But right at that moment, his mind suddenly seized up sharply, and he snapped his head upward.
In the darkness ahead, a figure seemed to appear from empty air, gradually materializing.
The elderly man, having transformed into a fierce wind for his escape, stopped his movement.
And in the next instant, his entire being went rigid, and an expression of utter, disbelieving shock spread across his face.
"How... how are you here so quickly?"
The elderly man looked at Li Musheng who had appeared ahead, struck as though by lightning.
At those words, Li Musheng narrowed his eyes and said with a calm expression, "Honestly, you actually ran quite fast by normal standards. You are just too slow compared to me."
With that, Li Musheng extended a finger and pointed directly at him.
Seeing this, the elderly man immediately felt every hair on his body stand on end with cold dread, and without any time to think he moved to defend against Li Musheng's terrifying finger technique.
But it was entirely useless. Or rather, Li Musheng's finger was simply too fast.
Before he had any chance to act, his skull was pierced through in an instant by a powerful pulse of aura, and then his entire body was caught up by an enormous force and sent flying back the way he had come toward where the Hundred Fragrance Pavilion was.
Li Musheng glanced at the elderly man's body rapidly receding into the distance, paid it no further attention, and his figure disappeared from where he stood, moving instead in the direction the Falling God Peak grandmaster had fled.
...
A crack of thunder.
A bolt of purple lightning arm-thick suddenly struck outward into the dark clouds ahead.
The Falling God Peak grandmaster, surrounded by crackling lightning, suddenly stopped his retreat. Purple electricity burst from his eyes as he stared rigidly into the cloud layer ahead.
And then he watched as Li Musheng's figure emerged from within the clouds, catching a ball of purple lightning between his palms, closing his hand gently, and dissipating it all into scattered sparks.
The Falling God Peak grandmaster's pupils contracted sharply, and he immediately raised a hand in a gesture, causing curtain after curtain of purple lightning plasma to cascade down from the surrounding space.
Then ring after ring of thunder vortexes wrapped in electric pythons condensed around him, guarding him like an iron fortress at the center of a pool of lightning in midair.
"Young man, what would it take for you to let me go?"
The Falling God Peak grandmaster made no move to strike at Li Musheng, and instead asked in a measured, low voice.
He had no intention of attacking Li Musheng either. The earlier attempt had already proven he was no match for the other party.