Chapter 0915: Encountering Li Qingfeng
"The Heavenly Dragon Scale Armor Art of the Dragon"s Scale Lineage?" Li Luo whispered to himself as he stood his ground and felt the trembles in his hands.
His gaze was fixed on the exquisite dragon scales covering Lu Qingmei. The Heavenly Dragon Scale Armor Art was the unique Duke Art of the Dragon"s Scale Lineage. Once cultivated, it could form a suit of armor made of dragon scales. This would greatly boost the strength, resonant power, speed, and defensive capabilities of the user.
Previously, he could push back against Lu Qingmei"s power with his Fiend Dipper Energy and dual resonances advantage. Now that she had used this, the pressure on him had suddenly returned.
"Li Luo, if you don"t use your Duke Art right now, I"ll be taking this Dragon Scale with me," Lu Qingmei proclaimed as she stood firmly on the ground with the glazed rod in her hands. She looked up into the sky above the stone platform. There was a golden dragon scale around the size of one"s palm floating above.
Hearing this, Li Luo smiled in response. She was not wrong. She had just revealed her ace. If he did not want to solely be on the receiving end of the beating, he would have to use his ace too.
With that in mind, Li Luo formed the required hand seals with his fingertips, then the resonant power in his body surged rapidly.
In the next moment, a blade light flashed by and a crack appeared in the void, revealing an eerie, black s.p.a.ce. The sound of rushing water could be heard coming from inside it.
Roar!
A gush of ice-cold nether-water rushed out of the crack. Along with the giant torrents, a dragon roar echoed in the air, and a black dragon emerged from it.
Duke Art, Underworld River"s Black Dragon Banner!
"Let"s go."
As soon as Li Luo spoke, the Underworld River circulated around the black dragon"s body before it flew across the sky, charging towards Lu Qingmei.
In an instant, the warm, summer temperature seemed to have fallen into the icy depths of winter.
With Li Luo at the Fiend Finisher Tier, the Underworld River"s Black Dragon had gotten even stronger than before.
Lu Qingmei"s eyes lit up when she saw the familiar, black dragon appearing once again. She could not wait to clash against it once more. During their first encounter, she was taken aback by the strength of this Duke Art when Li Luo combined it with his third realm of dual resonant power. Its strength was close to matching a Soul Ascension-grade Duke Art back then.
With that in mind, Lu Qingmei gripped her glazed rod tightly with both hands. The Heavenly Pearl behind her roared into action and started absorbing the worldly natural energy around her. It rotated so quickly that it started to emit a soft, humming sound.
At the same time, the resonant power emanating from her body skyrocketed.
She took a step forward, and the Heavenly Dragon Scale Armor erupted with a radiant glow. Next, she raised her glazed rod into the air and firmly smacked it against the Underworld River"s Black Dragon.
At this moment, numerous tightly knitted dragon scales covered up the glazed rod, causing it to glow with a mysterious light.
This was a magnificent strike, a true display of Lu Qingmei"s power at its peak.
Bang!
A giant explosion echoed in the air when the dragon clashed with the rod. An energy storm swept up in waves, attracting countless shocked gazes.
It was an extremely ferocious fight between the two, and neither was holding anything back.
The two gigantic b.a.l.l.s of energy eroded and destroyed each other repeatedly, neither gaining an advantage.
Right at this moment, Li Luo suddenly flicked his finger, and the black dragon opened its maw. A condensed strand of Fiend Dipper Energy unexpectedly came out of its mouth like dragonbreath.
Nonetheless, this sudden development did not make Lu Qingmei panic. She merely raised her eyebrows a little and focused her mind. Then a mysterious light started to condense on her glazed rod covered in dragon scales. At the next moment, the light transformed into a golden deer that was fully clad in dragon scales. The deer jumped out lightly, exuding boundless amounts of energy.
With its head lowered and horns facing forward, the deer charged at the Fiend Dipper Energy directly and shattered it.
"Four hundred feet of Fiend Dipper energy will not be enough to hurt me," Lu Qingmei said.
Hearing this, Li Luo simply smiled.
That was the exact moment that Lu Qingmei noticed something that made her change her mind immediately. She could sense that there was an extremely sharp aura deep within the Fiend Dipper Energy.
It was a strand of sword intent!
Embodying the wondrous power of the galaxy.
This unparalleled sharpness reminded her of the faint breath of energy that she had sensed during Li Luo"s Dragon"s Ascent, which he had used against the flame from Nine Dragons Becoming One.
It turned out that the Fiend Dipper Energy from the black dragon was not the secret ace. The true ace was the sword intent hidden deep within it!
As the sword intent flowed along and moved across the s.p.a.ce, it sliced the golden deer in half upon contact. Afterwards, it charged straight towards the glazed rod.
At this moment, the dragon scales that had shrouded the glazed rod began to shatter.
Her offense had been completely annihilated.
The black dragon didn"t let up on the opportunity, roaring majestically. At the next moment, Lu Qingmei"s resonant power was frozen by the ice-cold underworld river. Matching the timing of the strand of Cosmic Sword Intent, the black dragon crashed directly into her delicate body covered in dragon scales.
Bang!
She was sent flying back immediately, and her feet left a deep trail on the ground until she stopped over a thousand feet away. She stabbed the glazed rod onto the ground with all her might and barely managed to stabilize herself.
Regardless, the shock on her face was evident as she watched her dragon scales gradually fall apart.
This only lasted for a short while before she turned her bright eyes back towards Li Luo and said frankly, "You"ve won."
The look in her eyes was really special. His strength had truly surprised her. Although he was merely a Fiend Finisher, he had managed to defeat even a one-pearl Heavenly Pearl like her. This was truly extraordinary.
At the same time, some of the Banner Leaders among the spectators couldn’t hide their surprise when Lu Qingmei admitted her loss.
Although Li Luo"s performance during the Dragon"s Ascent was spectacular, that was not really considered a true battle. Now, he had defeated the rank two Banner Leader, Lu Qingmei. What else could they say?
His strength was definitely amongst the top as far as the Banner Leaders were concerned.
Everyone truly understood at this moment that Li Luo could really stand a chance against Li Qingfeng in this Battle of the Dragon"s Head.
Li Luo put his hands together and thanked Lu Qingmei politely for the fight. She did not say anything in response. She simply turned around decisively and left to prepare herself for the next battle.
At the same time, the golden dragon scale floating above them fell down and landed in Li Luo"s hands.
He had five consecutive victories at this point. This meant that he had already secured five dragon scales.
Though there was another fellow with five consecutive victories—Li Qingfeng.
When Li Luo thought about this, he took a glance towards a stone platform nearby. The battle over there had just concluded too.
It was between two very familiar faces—Li Qingfeng and Deng Fengxian.
It was clearly a bad draw for Deng Fengxian, and there was no surprises to the conclusion. Li Qingfeng’s Heavenly Pearl was a notch stronger than Lu Qingmei’s. Deng Fengxian was unable to hold on for long before his gilded armor shattered and he admitted defeat.
When Li Qingfeng sensed Li Luo"s gaze, he turned around and stared back with a calm look. There seemed to be a hidden sharpness within his eyes.
It was a look full of provocation.
After all, most people knew very well by now that the winner of the Battle of the Dragon"s Head was likely going to be either Li Qingfeng or Li Luo.
As for Li Jingtao...
Li Luo turned towards another stone platform at this time.
What he saw was an unusual battle between Li Jingtao and... the hot-blooded Li Hongli.
Li Jingtao was standing firmly in the center of the stage without moving an inch. His resonant power was overflowing, and dragon fangs seemed to have interwoven into a shield that revolved around his body, stopping Li Hongli’s all-out attack.
Despite the repeated hits, the dragon fang shield remained unscathed.
Li Jingtao grinned as he hid behind the shield. His hands were hidden in his long sleeves and his slightly plump face showed an air of harmony. On the other hand, Li Hongli"s resonant power was greatly depleted as she pushed her offense to its maximum. This caused her to exhaust herself, so she was currently panting and her face was pale.
Frankly, she was fuming with anger as she looked at Li Jingtao with his shameless grin, feeling more irritated by the second. However, there was nothing else she could do. In the end, she had no choice but to withdraw her resonant power when she realized she could never break Li Jingtao and his turtle sh.e.l.l.
Li Jingtao continued hiding in his turtle sh.e.l.l with no desire to counterattack. This went on until time ran out and the golden dragon scale above them split into two lights, one light falling on each partic.i.p.ant.
It was a draw, so each would receive half a dragon scale.
With that, Li Jingtao had a total of five draws. Based on his dragon scales count, he was nothing spectacular. His battles had all ended as draws. However, his methods had left both the spectators and even the elders on the elevated platform speechless. The battles that followed were ordinary and unnotable.
Li Luo and Li Qingfeng kept winning, and there were no other opponents left. The draw finally revealed the two of them.
The eighth battle.
Li Luo vs Li Qingfeng.
When the two of them appeared on the stone platform, all the other Banner Leaders paused for a moment. Everyone, both within and outside the stone dragon, looked over to their battlefield.
This battle would truly decide the conclusion of this generation"s Battle of the Dragon"s Head.