"You were actually able to recognize me — that's quite impressive. So tell me, who exactly are you?" Ximen Baiyuan let out a cold laugh, even as he confirmed his own identity.
"Of course I recognize you. Not only do I recognize you, I still remember back in the ancient ruins at Talong Slope — the sight of you with every single tooth in your mouth knocked out, kowtowing over and over and begging for mercy." Duan Jidao smiled faintly as he spoke.
"What? Ximen Baiyuan had his teeth knocked out and was kowtowing to someone for mercy?" Hearing these words, the crowd wore expressions of utter disbelief. After all, Ximen Baiyuan was a being of such transcendent status.
"Utter nonsense — slanderous lies! Who exactly are you, to dare defame me like this!" Ximen Baiyuan's face flushed with fury, his eyes turning bloodshot, because he knew very well that the other party was not lying. It was the truth.
"You really don't recognize me?" Duan Jidao smiled again, and as he spoke, he pushed aside the white hair that had been covering his face.
"Who exactly are you?" Ximen Baiyuan studied him carefully, but still could not recognize Duan Jidao.
"I am the one who, back then, beat you so badly your teeth were scattered all over the ground — the one you kept kowtowing to and begging for mercy just to stay alive." Duan Jidao said.
"Duan Jidao — you're saying you're Duan Jidao?!!!"
"No… impossible… that's absolutely impossible!" Ximen Baiyuan shook his head repeatedly, but by saying so, he had effectively admitted the truth — that he had indeed been beaten senseless by Duan Jidao in the past.
"Duan Jidao?" The moment those three words reached the crowd, everyone's hearts jolted. Every gaze locked tightly onto Duan Jidao, eyes flickering with shock.
Because compared to Ximen Baiyuan, Duan Jidao's reputation was undeniably far greater. After all, he was someone whom even the Three Palaces had once feared — a supreme expert who had very nearly ascended to the pinnacle of the human race.
"That's right." As Duan Jidao spoke, he suddenly produced a golden long spear. The moment the golden spear appeared, heaven and earth themselves trembled.
The tremors were so violent that everyone present could barely keep their feet. Many scrambled and tumbled about, some even falling from the sky as they lost their ability to stay airborne.
More than that, though the golden long spear was not particularly dazzling, no one dared look directly at it. Should one attempt to do so, the light would be blinding, as though one's eyes might go blind at any moment.
An Emperor Armament — the golden long spear that Duan Jidao had produced was a true Emperor Armament, known as the Great Sun Golden Light Spear.
"An Emperor Armament — the Great Sun Golden Light Spear. It seems you really are Duan Jidao. But how did your cultivation regress so drastically? When your Duan Dynasty was destroyed back then, who was responsible?" Ximen Baiyuan fired off question after question. It turned out that the instant Duan Jidao had revealed the Emperor Armament, his Martial Emperor cultivation had been fully exposed.
At the same time, nearly every person present pricked up their ears. They all wanted to know the secrets of the past — they wanted to know who could possibly be powerful enough to defeat even Duan Jidao, and even force his cultivation to regress.
But what they were imagining was far from the truth.
"What you should be concerned about is not my past, but the safety of your four great Imperial Clans." Duan Jidao said.
"Hahahaha — Duan Jidao, oh Duan Jidao. If you were at the cultivation level you once held, then naturally I would be no match for you."
"But now, you and I are both at the Martial Emperor level. Did you really think I would still be afraid of you?" Ximen Baiyuan let out a cold laugh, and then an equally imposing long blade appeared in his hand, pointed straight at Duan Jidao.
That long blade was quite peculiar — its hilt was shaped like the body of a crocodile, its great maw wide open, from which a razor-sharp blade jjected forth, forming the weapon itself.
Yet the might of this blade was in no way inferior to Duan Jidao's Great Sun Golden Light Spear. It, too, was an Emperor Armament.
"That's the Ancient Crocodile Body-Breaking Blade — an Emperor Armament from the primordial era!" someone recognized the blade. Ximen Baiyuan had earned such a towering reputation and the title of generational genius precisely because he had once conquered this Emperor Armament inside an ancient ruin.
"You wish to fight me? Are you certain you can?" Yet Duan Jidao merely chuckled softly. Then, as his robes swept through the air, a flash of light flickered — and he vanished without a trace.
Clang——