"It's our turn!" Yang Kai withdrew his gaze from the sky and said softly to Su Yan.
Su Yan nodded slightly, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear, and smiled, her lips pressed together. "This seems like the third time we're fighting side by side!"
"Three times?" Yang Kai was taken aback.
"You've forgotten?" Su Yan glanced at him. "The first time was in the Inheritance Grotto-heaven, when you saved my life. The second was at the bottom of Kunlong Gorge, when you covered the retreat. This is the third."
"The first one counts?"
"Of course it does." Su Yan smiled blissfully and said softly, "The first two times, you helped me. This time... I'm helping you!"
Yang Kai tilted his head to look at her, chuckled, and nodded. "Alright!"
Watching the two of them chat intimately, looking completely relaxed as if flirting, Kang Zhan and Qiu Ziruo's noses were practically twisting with anger.
They felt utterly disregarded.
With cold expressions, they waved their hand. Four Shenyou Realm Fifth-Layer experts from the Kang and Qiu families stepped forward toward Yang Kai and Su Yan.
Their movements were unhurried, their expressions calm and confident. They clearly felt they could capture Yang Kai with ease.
The hundred-zhang distance quickly closed.
The smile on Yang Kai's face gradually faded, his expression turning solemn as he watched the four approaching experts.
These four were different from ordinary Shenyou Realm Fifth-Layer cultivators. They came from the Eight Great Families, each possessing superior skills and methods.
"I should be able to handle about one and a half of them," Su Yan said with a slight frown, also feeling considerable pressure from the four.
"I'm about the same," Yang Kai nodded lightly. Relying only on his own base strength, he could indeed only manage about that. But if he used all his methods, that was a different story.
The four arrived ten zhang from Yang Kai and stopped. To their credit, they clasped their fists politely. "Ninth Young Master, pardon the offense."
"You bear the consequences of life and death, alright?" Yang Kai grinned.
His arrogant words made the four's expressions darken. One of them coldly barked, "Ninth Young Master, just do your worst—"
Before he finished, Yang Kai and Su Yan moved in unison.
One burst forth with scorching heat like the sun. The other unleashed bone-piercing cold. Two diametrically opposite energies erupted simultaneously, without prior coordination, without spoken signals. The bond of their souls allowed them to perceive each other's thoughts and intentions instantly.
Scorching, fiery True Yuan surged forth like a blazing inferno, engulfing the area where the four stood. Sensing the power contained within this pure and surging True Yuan, all four couldn't help but change their expressions slightly. Only then did they realize that Yang Kai's ability to fight Liu Qingyao to a draw that day wasn't because the latter was going easy. He had the strength and capital to do it!
Behind the inferno, countless sharp ice crystals, like a row of swords, shrieked through the air as they shot toward the four. Thousands upon thousands of ice crystals, dense as a locust swarm, indestructible, carrying an extreme chill, almost filled the space, leaving the four no path to advance or retreat.
Each ice crystal contained incredibly potent freezing Qi, and their impact was astonishing. These crystals were formed from condensing the cold ice force within her body. The resulting energy shockwave was something even Shenyou experts from the Eight Great Families dared not underestimate. Su Yan's opening move was extraordinary.
In comparison, Yang Kai's scorching True Yuan seemed somewhat insignificant.
Two of the four remained motionless. The other two simultaneously gave a low shout, shooting out brilliant, multi-colored light from within their bodies. This light formed a thin, film-like defense before them, blocking the combined assault of the scorching True Yuan and the ice crystals.
Not only that, the two also flicked out bursts of force, shattering the overwhelming barrage of ice crystals into pieces.
The first combined attack by Yang Kai and Su Yan achieved nothing!
Just as the four Shenyou experts relaxed their guard, an unexpected and profoundly subtle fusion suddenly occurred between the blocked scorching True Yuan and the cold ice force.
The attack that had been momentarily stalled and nearly extinguished suddenly surged like a tide, pressing back with even greater ferocity and menace than before.
The four's expressions changed drastically. The two who hadn't acted earlier hastily unleashed their own techniques.
Boom, boom, boom...
The impacts came like waves, each stronger than the last. The multi-colored defensive film before the four Shenyou experts shattered. The energies of cold and heat enveloped all four, making them truly experience what it meant to suffer both ice and fire.
Kang Zhan and Qiu Ziruo stared blankly at the scene.
The sight before them made them instantly realize just how vast the gap between themselves and Yang Kai was. A deep sense of powerlessness rose in their hearts.
Facing Liu Qingyao, they could still harbor thoughts of catching up, hoping that one day they might match his pace.
But facing Yang Kai, such thoughts simply wouldn't form. They could only look up at his retreating back.
Humiliation and inferiority mixed with fury in Kang Zhan. He roared, "Don't hold back! It won't be that easy to kill the Ninth Young Master!"