Chapter 435: Facing the Enemy

"Heh."

Virgil sneered disdainfully—could it really be in the ceiling? With his Tier 8 strength, could he still not sense it?

Wait.

A shadow?

Thinking this.

His face suddenly changed, and he flung out a dagger.

The dagger flickered with a white spiritual radiance; one glance told him it was no ordinary weapon.

Thwack!

Thick wood was pierced, producing a muffled, heavy sound.

The next moment.

Starting from the dagger, the entire space was instantly lit up, and a blindingly intense light erupted violently.

Like a sun suddenly descending, it shrouded the reception hall in a sharp, fierce expanse of white.

The light was so fierce that, seen from outside the window, it looked as if the room had been filled with white.

"Aaaahhh!!!"

Burgo Torres let out a terrified scream.

"M-Mr. Virgil?!!"

Virgil paid no heed to the traitor's screams; the instant the flash erupted, he shielded his eyes while simultaneously releasing his Tier 8 warrior's perception.

Very quickly.

He spotted an unnatural shadow on the ceiling that even the intense light had failed to dispel.

"The Glory Dagger's dispersal effect couldn't flush it out?"

Virgil was startled in his heart, but his hand did not stop—another bone spike was flung out.

The bone spike flew at extreme speed; just as it was about to pierce the shadow, an arm actually reached out from within it.

Clang!

The bone spike struck the palm as if it had collided with a steel wall, and the tip shattered.

The next moment.

A tall man, as if passing through viscous mud, unhurriedly dropped down from the shadow, then yielded to gravity and landed on the reception hall's carpet as light as a feather.

This man was wrapped in a worn black cloak; his bearing was upright, his temperament proud and aloof. Even though his face was blurred and his true features could not be seen, one could tell at a glance that he was an extremely handsome man.

Virgil's brow furrowed.

The man's spiritual foundation was solid and vast, far surpassing an ordinary Tier 7; merely standing there was like a giant dragon's gaze, carrying an invisible pressure.

He steadied his mind, banished the contempt from his eyes, and did not strike immediately: "Did you rescue Miss Miss Puwei?"

The two sides had no feud to the death, and Virgil did not believe Miss Miss Puwei would still have any old subordinates coming to rescue her under such public opinion.

So the man before him was most likely a passerby—either greedy for treasure and wealth, or lusting after beauty, or simply wanting both.

After all, Miss Miss Puwei's eldest daughter was indeed a rare beauty.

"Friend, how about we talk?"

The man—Rod—smiled and said:

"There's nothing to talk about."

He stepped forward slowly; the worn black cloak stirred without wind, billowing up and fluttering noisily.

A thin blue-white mist rose gently along the cloak's outline.

Virgil frowned slightly, grabbed Burgo Torres—who was still screaming—beside him, and hurled him far away.

Then he too strode firmly toward Rod.

With every step he took, his frame swelled a fraction, and his momentum and surrounding spiritual pressure rose and pressed down accordingly.

After stepping down from the lord's main seat's platform, the white private-militia uniform on his upper body had been completely torn apart, revealing a powerful body covered in suture lines.

"A man lives his whole life just to want something, doesn't he? Wealth, power, women? Scatlins, ever heard of them?"

"Heard of them—trash that can be mentioned in the same breath as the Ruin Brotherhood."

"Think what you will; the process and means of acquisition don't matter. I suppose you heard our conversation just now. Interested in the Naga mother-daughter pair? That's even more fun playthings than human women—once they're tamed, I'll let you have them for a couple of days."

While speaking.

Only five meters remained between the two; each exuded tremendous momentum, and their heavy spiritual auras collided, pressing against each other.

Boom—

Rod chuckled twice.

The next moment, like the crack of a starting pistol, both men struck at the same instant!

A Slime black sword sprang from the inside of Rod's wrist; dense spiritual light particles gathered rapidly, filling the blade before he even formally swung it.

Virgil launched a ferocious charge; his two-and-a-half-meter-tall frame was immensely intimidating, and his grotesquely swollen arm—bulging like a muscle tumor—swept violently, throwing a simple, unadorned straight punch straight ahead.

Crash!

The enormous spiritual greatsword and the ferociously powerful fist collided!

The resulting powerful shockwave instantly blasted outward in a frenzy; in just a moment, the floor-to-ceiling glass in the reception hall was smashed to pieces, and the carpets, tables, chairs, ornaments—torn apart, smashed apart, a scene of utter devastation.

The shockwave did not stop there.

Long sword and iron fist clashed in a frenzied exchange.

Sharp sword qi and heavy fist force spilled out in turn; walls and Shi Zhu were ravaged by wild sword scars and fist craters, accompanied by rumbling tremors.

But this frenzied exchange did not last long.

Hiss—

A black broken sword suddenly flew out from the churning mass of Qi, still carrying a sharp spiritual edge, and stabbed into the marble Shi Zhu like tofu right at its base.

Virgil snorted coldly.

A massive fist at eighth-tier power snapped the black sword in half and, its momentum undiminished, slammed brutally into Rod's chest — truly like a giant's punch, oppressive and immense.

Rod narrowed his eyes slightly, forcibly suppressing the urge to trigger 【Reflective Dodge】, and let the fist come crashing in.

The violent force of the punch pressed against 【Dragon Scale Art】, letting out cracking sounds.

The dragon scales, under the boost of 【Guardian Domain】, barely held without injury.

But he was also sent flying by the tremendous force, slamming into a wall lined with paintings like a cannonball, and in a thunderous rumble was instantly buried.

This also gave Rod a rough idea of Virgil's strength.

Judging by the brass Spirit-Measuring Globe's reading, it was around 390 notches.

Rod currently stood at 341 notches — a full 50 notches apart in strength.

But then again.

This Virgil was a body-specialized type — in other words, a spiritual warrior of the Overbearing Body school, pursuing power and resilience.

This school poured all its resources into the body, strengthening it through extensive training and drug consumption, and rarely used spiritual arts or spells.

Looking at the seams of stitches all over his body, and how the colors of his muscle and skin didn't quite match, he had probably used other methods as well.

"Oh?"

Virgil looked at the several sword wounds on his chest deep enough to show bone, then raised his right hand to look at his fist.

He couldn't help being a little surprised: "Only seventh-tier? And you still managed to wound me?"

As he spoke.

The muscles on his chest began to writhe and squeeze, actually pressing the bleeding wounds shut.

Then he looked coldly at the collapsed wall: "But that's enough — how much longer can you last?"

Crash—

Rod pushed aside the rubble on his body and rose unhurriedly.

Honestly, he was an eighth-tier fighter of the Overbearing Body school after all.

In a straight contest of strength, even though Rod had several strength-boosting effects, he was only at the early stage of seventh-tier in terms of rank — without using 【Power Release】, he really was no match for him.

Facing this kind of opponent, the best method for a mage was to stack debuffs with spells to weaken his physical attributes.

A spiritual warrior, on the other hand, could switch from slashes to blunt strikes, using shock and weight to attack the relatively weaker internal organs.

Rod planned to use both methods together.

He took out the 【Extreme Cold Bead】 from the 【Great Cultivator's Pruning Shears】 and tossed it lightly into the air.

(End of chapter)