Chapter 714: A New Chapter in Tiannan
The river was filled with floating ice, the current sluggish. The bright red blood was not quickly washed away.
Blood dripped onto the white paper, paired with those two black holes, making it look more terrifying than ever before.
Watching the man standing in the river, the Imperial Guard cavalrymen felt an unprecedented fear. The two divine generals looked at the clearly bent iron spears in their hands, a flicker of shock and dread in their eyes. They knew this man was strong, but they never imagined he was this strong.
"Are you fucking insane!" Tang Family's Second Master shouted from the embankment, his voice shrill as he screamed at the man in the river.
His expression was unusually dark, the fury in his eyes blazing with extreme shock and extreme rage.
Wang Po had broken his arm, broken through his realm, and cut down the Iron Tree with a single slash—this was a fact Tang Family's Second Master could not accept.
But what he found even more unacceptable was that, just as Wang Po was about to die, this man had saved him.
No matter how he thought about it, there was no reason for this man to save Wang Po.
Painting Armor Xiao Zhang, ranked second on the Free and Unfettered List, second only to Wang Po.
He was also considered by many to be the second strongest of the middle generation, again second only to Wang Po.
For decades, this mad and violent genius had been undefeated in battles against cultivators of his generation, except when facing Wang Po—he had never won.
Of course, he was the person in this world who most wanted to defeat Wang Po. And after the incident at the Heavenly Book Mausoleum, everyone knew he had sided with the imperial court. There was no reason for him not to want Wang Po dead, and absolutely no reason to explain why he would risk so much to save Wang Po.
The cold wind howled across the river, lifting the white paper on Xiao Zhang's face, brushing away a few lines of blood beads.
Through the two black holes in the white paper, one could vaguely see him roll his eyes.
This was, of course, a response to Tang Family's Second Master's shocked and furious question.
Are you crazy?
I've always been a madman—do you even need to ask?
Of course, everyone knew that Tang Family's Second Master's question was meant to hear his reason.
Xiao Zhang ignored him, full of disdain, thinking, if you don't even understand this, what right do you have to speak to me?
If Xun Mei or Xiao De were here at this moment, or even Liang Wangsun, they probably wouldn't have asked this question, because they understood.
Wang Po understood too, but Tang Family's Second Master did not. Earlier on the snowy street, when Wang Po said he was far inferior to Xiao Zhang and the others, this was precisely the point. Even if Tang Family's Second Master was a master of schemes and would one day become a hegemon capable of influencing the entire continent, in the realm of martial arts, he would never catch up to these men, because he didn't understand.
Xiao Zhang had never liked Wang Po. Of course, he wanted to defeat him, and he wanted Wang Po dead. But this had to be based on one premise.
—He had to do it himself, absolutely not through someone else.
For decades, he had always been inferior to Wang Po. Today, Wang Po had cut down a divine being with a single slash in the Luo River, leaving Xiao Zhang even further behind.
Precisely because of this, he could not let Wang Po die. If Wang Po died, he would never have the chance to defeat him in this lifetime.
Then, even if he entered the divine domain in the future, or even cultivated to a higher level, he would forever be inferior to the other.
That night, Xun Mei abandoned his old wish and risked death to ascend the divine path. Today, Xiao Zhang went against his own will and desperately saved Wang Po—both for the same reason.
"Let's go."
Seeing more and more figures on the river embankment, and the soldiers once again preparing to draw their bows, Xiao Zhang said two words.
His face was covered with white paper, so his expression couldn't be seen, but from the coldness of his voice, one could guess he was expressionless.
Of course, he didn't turn around either, although those two words were clearly directed at Wang Po behind him.
Wang Po knew his temperament and wasn't surprised. He turned and walked upstream, where the riverbank was still free of Imperial Guard figures.
Because his injuries were too severe, and he was in the water, his movements were somewhat slow, but his attitude was decisive—no hesitation or dragging things out.
Instead, Xiao Zhang's mood became somewhat strange. He turned and looked at him, asking, "Just leave like that?"
Wang Po didn't turn around, continuing toward the bank, saying, "You told me to go, so I go."
Xiao Zhang was a bit displeased, shouting in a hoarse voice, "Not even a thank you?"
Wang Po still didn't turn around, just raised his hand and waved it in the air, indicating his meaning.
Xiao Zhang was very annoyed, saying, "What kind of person is this?"
He didn't know that at this moment, a warm smile had appeared on Wang Po's face.
Since the year Xun Mei died, he had never said the words "thank you" to anyone again.
Watching the commotion in the river, the embankment stirred. Two hundred cavalrymen split off from the Imperial Guard and galloped upstream along the official road through the Cold Willows.
Clearly, these cavalrymen were going to intercept and kill Wang Po. Even if Xiao Zhang could hold the attention of the two divine generals and Tang Family's Second Master, he couldn't keep everyone in place.
Dust rose faintly among the Cold Willows, hoofbeats thundered, and the atmosphere was especially tense and dangerous. More critically, the sound of hoofbeats could faintly be heard from the opposite bank of the Luo River.
The capital was vast, the Luo River long, but today it seemed Wang Po could no longer find a place to go ashore.
Severely wounded, he could still die at any moment.
Just then, a sword light suddenly flashed in the Cold Willow forest on the bank, and a sword intent was born.
The sword light was very bright, like a Golden Crow flying toward the sky, about to burn everything. The sword intent was very upright, like a mountain gate.
The Cold Willows shattered instantly. Warhorses crashed heavily to the ground. The sound of sword blades cutting metal intermingled with the screams of the wounded.
The dust settled, revealing a young man standing with his sword across the path. Over a dozen cavalrymen lay in pools of blood.
He was a young man.
To break through to the Star Gathering realm at such an age was extremely rare, even in the era of Wang Po and his peers.
To be able to fuse the Mountain Gate Sword and the Golden Crow Sword into a single sword technique at such an age was a feat of sword talent second only to Qiu Shan Jun within the Li Mountain Sword Sect.
He was Guan Feibai, the fourth of the Seven Laws of the Divine Kingdom.
Then, several people burst out of the Cold Willow forest and, without hesitation, jumped into the bone-chilling Luo River, desperately swimming toward Wang Po.
They were instructors and students from the Huai Academy.
Accompanied by the sound of wheels grinding against bluestone slabs, three extremely luxurious carriages arrived at the embankment of the Luo River.
A middle-aged man stepped down from the foremost carriage. He was the head of the Qiu Shan family.
The other two carriages remained quiet, no one alighting, but anyone could guess they were the heads of Tiannan's great families, of similar status to the Qiu Shan family head.
Guan Feibai of Li Mountain, the instructors and students of the Huai Academy, and the heads of Tiannan's great families—all had come to attend the North-South Unification Celebration.
After the celebration ended, they had not yet left, remaining in the capital.
In the past, under such circumstances, the people of the Huai Academy would naturally risk their lives to save Wang Po. Given Guan Feibai's temperament and the Li Mountain Sword Sect's style of conduct, he might also draw his sword. But the Qiu Shan family head and the other two family heads would absolutely not appear among the Cold Willows by the Luo River.
At that time, although Wang Po was already a widely acclaimed cultivation genius, that still wasn't enough to make these families offend the Great Zhou imperial court against the backdrop of North-South unification.
But now it was different. Wang Po had entered the capital, comprehended the blade, broken through his realm, and slain a divine being, issuing a powerful declaration to the entire continent.
A proven divine domain powerhouse and a cultivation genius with limitless potential were two completely different concepts.
After Su Li and the Southern Saintess left, the most troublesome, unsettling, and even frightening problem for Tiannan was that they now had no supreme powerhouse to guard them.
Now they had one.
Although Wang Po was severely wounded and could die at any moment, as long as he survived, Tiannan would gain a divine domain powerhouse.
No—Tiannan's only divine domain powerhouse.
So, the Qiu Shan family head and everyone in Tiannan would not let Wang Po be killed by the imperial court.
Absolutely not.