Chapter 614 - 265: Celestial Listening, Dragon Court

Chapter 614: Chapter 265: Celestial Listening, Dragon Court

"Don’t worry, he’s not dead."

Fang Shuwen gave the man a shake.

"Although he’s far weaker than I expected... he’s at least still breathing for now.

"With his level of Martial Arts, could he really have beaten Gongyang Shang that badly?"

Xia Weiyuan felt like she had a million things to say, but the words were caught in her throat.

Across all of Celestial Prison Island, who would dare call their Elder Liu weak?

Yet Fang Shuwen said it so matter-of-factly... and what’s more, she couldn’t refute it.

Elder Liu couldn’t even take a single kick from Fang Shuwen. So when Fang Shuwen called him weak, wasn’t that just stating the obvious?

As for whether he could actually defeat Gongyang Shang, that wasn’t for someone like her, Xia Weiyuan, to speculate on.

So, her lips trembled for a long moment, but in the end, she remained silent.

Fang Shuwen, however, was in no hurry to leave. He stood on the bamboo pole, staring at the water’s surface.

Luo Shuqing asked him,

"Is there something wrong in the water?"

Fang Shuwen stared for a good while before finally shaking his head.

"Let’s go."

As soon as he spoke, the bamboo pole abruptly pivoted in the water and shot back in the direction they came from, disappearing over the sea in the blink of an eye.

Once the sea had calmed and the surroundings were still again, a shadow suddenly began to rise slowly from the depths. It grew larger and larger until it finally broke the surface, revealing an old man who appeared to be at least in his sixties or seventies.

He wore straw sandals on his feet, treading upon the sea as if it were solid ground.

His figure bobbed up and down with the gentle waves. The old man’s brow was tightly furrowed as he stared in the direction Fang Shuwen and the others had gone, his eyes filled with shock and uncertainty.

’How can such a person exist?

’Liu Chuanzong’s Clouded Leopard Book is far from mastered, but through these recent slaughters, he has been using battle to cultivate his art. His Martial Arts have broken through one level after another, making him a rare expert on the East Sea.

’Yet he couldn’t even withstand a single kick from that man...

’What in the world has happened in the Five Domains Martial World?

’It’s been almost twenty years since I left the Central Domain. What kind of changes could have possibly occurred in these two decades?’

"Then why did you leave the Central Domain?"

A voice suddenly sounded from behind him without any warning.

The old man, caught off guard, replied subconsciously,

"Of course I had reasons..."

The four words had barely left his lips when the old man’s face turned ashen with horror.

His footing gave way, and his entire body instantly sank into the sea.

But at that moment, he felt the ordinary seawater suddenly thicken, as if it had turned into a mire. A powerful undercurrent churned within it, making it impossible to control his own body. He was involuntarily pulled back toward the surface and, even more alarmingly, drawn closer to the person behind him.

The old man whipped his head around and, just as he feared, saw Fang Shuwen, who had just left. He had no idea when the man had turned back.

He had bypassed all the old man’s senses and appeared silently behind him.

His mind raced, and suddenly, the True Qi in his body surged. A strange force instantly emanated from him, covering a three-zhang radius.

There was a sharp BUZZ, followed by the roar of seawater churning between the two of them.

The force that had been uncontrollably pulling on the old man was instantly swept away. He looked up to see a flash of surprise in Fang Shuwen’s eyes.

"So this is the so-called Clouded Leopard Book?"

"..."

The old man’s expression changed.

"How do you know of those three words?"

"Gongyang Shang told me."

Fang Shuwen made no effort to hide it.

Just now, when he had taken out Liu Chuanzong with a single kick, he’d had major doubts about the man’s Martial Arts.

Gongyang Shang was, after all, Yuchi Ting’s eldest disciple. Although the man was dim-witted, Yuchi Ting always sent him to do his killing, which showed that his Martial Arts were anything but ordinary.

While he was nothing special in front of Fang Shuwen, he had tried to attack Fang Shuwen when Fang Shuwen was saving him.

That brief clash had given Fang Shuwen a decent understanding of the man’s Martial Arts.

Yet Liu Chuanzong, whom Gongyang Shang had praised so highly, hadn’t displayed a corresponding level of strength.

Suspicion was a core part of Fang Shuwen’s nature. Back during the incident with the Hundred Ghosts Hall Master, he had taken Yu Yaoguang back to the scene multiple times to secretly check if the Hundred Ghosts Hall Master was truly dead or just faking it.

Now that he had his doubts, it was only natural that he wouldn’t leave so readily.

He just hadn’t expected that someone could actually hide underwater... This was far more than a simple matter of holding one’s breath.

And in that brief exchange just now, this old man had actually used another form of Martial Arts to mimic Fang Shuwen’s North Nether Force Field. The intersection of the two had disrupted both their True Qi, which was how he had broken free from the restraint.

This made Fang Shuwen a little curious about this Clouded Leopard Book, and he didn’t mind having a chat with this old man right now.

’The only question is whether this old man knows how to have a civil conversation,’ he mused.

The old man’s face darkened upon hearing Fang Shuwen’s reply.

He knew Liu Chuanzong must have gotten carried away, assuming Gongyang Shang was as good as dead, and exposed the source of his skills.

And of all the rotten luck, Fang Shuwen had been the one to find out.

The reputation of this Demon Evil God of the Eastern Domain was too fearsome. The old man himself had no desire to clash with him. He’d never imagined that the block-headed Gongyang Shang, after using his life-saving technique, would choose to flee in Fang Shuwen’s direction of all the cardinal points available.

’Wasn’t that just courting death?’

The old man took a deep breath.

"Believe it or not, I mean you no harm."

"Whether you mean harm isn’t something you can just say with your mouth."

Fang Shuwen smiled.

"You took Liu Chuanzong and went ahead of us, killing anyone who might have come looking for trouble in advance.

"When all is said and done, isn’t the bill for all of that going to end up on my head?"

But the old man shook his head.

"Anyone with discerning eyes can see at a glance that those matters have nothing to do with you."