Barely had Baotian approached, Wu Leihao bombarded him with wind blades, flying at him at fast speeds. He managed to avoid around two thirds of these, the last third chipping mercilessly at his blood armor. At the same time, his opponent was putting even more distance between them. At this rate, he would never reach him…
'Works for me, I pushed him away more than enough'
Turning backward, he reused the Shooting Blood Dancing Armor, this time aimed at Zi Moyan's prison.
"How sneaky" Wu Leihao said, changing his trajectory too. He was flying a few times faster than Baotian, and managed to catch up to him just in time, slashing toward him with the Composite Wind Gauntlet Blade.
Baotian joined his hands together, clad in the blood armor, around the blade, stopping its course. The armor quickly cracked around his hands due to the thousands of microscopic wind blades forming Wu Leihao's weapon.
"How am I the one sneaky… when you were the one running away!" he shouted, headbutting the young genius.
"Argh!"
Using this instant where his enemy was distracted, Baotian didn't hesitate to kick him away. The armor had shattered around his hands, now bloodied. Had he been even a second slower, his fingers would have been severed. Using the seconds he had won doing this, he examined the wind barrier that was imprisoning Zi Moyan.
'The wind barrier is too strong to bruteforce my way through it, so all I can do is destroy it' he thought. 'But it'll take some time'
But before he could even launch a single attack on the barrier to test it, he was forced to roll over on the ground, just barely avoiding decapitation as the young master's wind blade cut the air right above his head.
"Why do you think I played your game and let you get to the wind prison?" Wu Leihao nagged. "You would need to be an entire realm higher to destroy this thing in less time than it takes me to fly back at you"
Baotian, understanding he was trying to shatter his spirit, wasn't deterred, simply trying to think of another solution as he was trying to keep his opponent away with blood essence projectiles, that the young master easily dissipated with waves of his hand.
"How very nice of you to explain it to me" Baotian replied sarcastically, trying to once again close the distance between them.
However, he was terribly slow, and panting loudly. Except for his hand and a few spots on his body, he was currently maintaining two different blood armors over himself, and it was taxing not only his reserves of blood essence, but also his spiritual energy's, taxing them mercilessly. Eventually, he fell to the ground, exhausted.
"Not cancelling one of these? You do realize you will die, right?" Wu Leihao said.
"Heh, of course I realize" Baotian said, a bitter expression on his face. "I realized I had no chance the moment I saw how tough this damn wind barrier was. I know that eventually, I'll die by your hands… but at least, I'll die with the satisfaction that you couldn't break my ultimate move, and would have to wait for my exhaustion to act"
"Mhm. You do realize I can see the trap coming even from there, right?"
Baotian smirked:
"You mean, like you could see Xiao Hanchen when you chased him after he single- handedly infiltrated your sect and escaped with some loot?" he asked sarcastically. "Oh wait, you didn't! You let him escape like the little brat you are!"
Wu Leihao's expression changed, and Baotian could finally see genuine rage in it, making him scoff:
"Well, not that it's your fault! After being trained in this sect of blind, bullying trashes that can't catch a kid when their honor depends on it, hehehe! Hey look everybody, the little snotty brat is too scared of an exhausted cultivator two stages below him, look at the greatness of the so-called members of the six geniuses! Look, at the honour of the Divine Storm Se-"
And right before he finished, Wu Leihao finally snapped:
"Don't you dare try to shame my home, you filthy demon!" he shouted as he raised the Composite Wind Gauntlet Blade above his head and slashed down, ready to cut through Baotian's double-layered armor and split him in half.
With great speed, Baotian got up and deflected the cut by pushing the blade horizontally with his forearm. He gritted his teeth as the wind chainsaw broke through the two layers protecting his arm and bit into his flesh, almost cutting the arm itself, but at last, he managed to grab Leihao's arm and force him toward the Void Hurricane.
"H-how!?" Wu Leihao exclaimed.
Baotian smirked, showing off the talismans in the hand of his injured arm. One of them was shining, meaning it was currently active.
Spirit Stone Assimilation Charm!
A charm that allowed one to increase their spiritual energy's capacity by consuming spirit stones, so it could maintain spells longer and more easily. Thanks to that, he could maintain the two layers of protection and still move without a problem!
"You know what's funny? You knew it was a trap, and still fell for it!"
He moved Wu Leihao's arm so the wind chainsaw would be forced through the wind barrier. Realizing his mistake, the young master of the Divine Storm Sect tried to cancel it but, cancelling his two blood armors, Baotian changed the target of the talisman to the Composite Wind Gauntlet Blade, forcefully maintaining it!
"But you were right, I really can't compare to a true genius! What I would have to struggle hours to do, your little blade is doing it in seconds!"
"You… bastard… shut up!"
Wu Leihao finally managed to free his arm and kick Baotian away, panting out of anger as he watched him roll on the ground.
"Hehe, would you look at that, it seems that thanks to the damages you generously inflicted to the barrier, Zi Moyan will be out before my 'friends' of the demonic path run away. How very nice of you, really, my dear genius friend!"
"Yes, she'll definitely be out in a few minutes" Wu Leihao said, struggling to contain the hatred in his voice. "Fortunately, a few minutes is more than enough to get rid of trash like you!"
Abandoning his initial strategy of wearing Baotian off with ranged attack, he threw himself at him with a movement spell, pointing the chainsaw like wind blade in front of him.
'Oh, for heaven's sake!' Baotian thought.
Once again, he created a projectile he attached to himself, firing it with the Golden Owl Bow to fly away. However, he had the displeasure of discovering that Wu Leihao's speed, too, was above the average of the grand perfection stage!
He kept propelling himself forward with projectiles but, now that his last talisman, the Spirit Stone Assimilation Charm was completely consumed, his spiritual energy resumed its decrease, and he was getting closer to exhaustion far faster than he wished.
'At this rate, I wonder what will come first, my reserves depleting or the arrogant young master catching up to me?'
Self-depreciatingly thinking this, Baotian suddenly changed direction, going right into the strong wind separating the inside and outside of the Void Hurricane.
'Zi Moyan, I learned my lesson. Risks have to be taken in the present to ensure the future!'
Using the Shooting Blood Dancing Armor with his last reserves of energy, he threw himself in the strong winds.
"You… insane! Come back here, this young master wants to kill you by myself, not watch you take your own life!" Wu Leihao exclaimed.
Baotian ignored him. In fact, he couldn't even hear him, nor could he hear anything, because his consciousness was fully focused on his middle dantian.
The pieces left, he would definitely assemble them and finish his Qi Cube, this time. Or he would die. Those were his two options.
With as much calm as he could, he began to try out the remaining combinations as, outside, his blood armor was quickly being eroded by the strong winds, leaving him only a few seconds before he would be shredded to pieces.
'Don't lose yourself to fear, Baotian' he told himself. 'Fear is the motivator of every action, but being consumed by it means death, the very possibility that caused one to fear in the first place. I just need to calm down, and trust in my accumulation'
Yes, Baotian may have been abandoned by heaven, but there was one thing he had faith in, that he believed would not abandon him in this very moment: all the efforts and sacrifices he had made until now.
.
.
.
Click!
With this simple sound, a powerful light illuminated the strong winds, and even pierced through it for an instant.
And during this brief instant, a man flew out of the wind, miraculously alive, and with the larger part of his spiritual energy restored.
Seeing this, for the first time since he had met this monstrous genius, Liu Zhenyun, Wu Leihao began to doubt the absoluteness of his own talent:
"Zhang Baotian, this madman… he advanced to the mid stage in the strongest part of the Void Hurricane, and he used the advancement as an opportunity to absorb part of it to replenish his energy! That's… that's madness!"
And indeed, what Baotian had done was pure insanity. And it was through this very insanity that he had finally advanced, completing his Qi Cube!
And at this exact same moment, finally, the wind barrier that was imprisoning Zi Moyan finally broke, and everyone one could feel it:
"Sorry for being late, junior brother Ba Ke" she said, panting. "It seems that you went through a lot while I was trapped"
A Core Formation cultivator! One that had advanced at the very center of the Void Hurricane!
Along with a Qi Building cultivator that had reached the mid stage and completed his Qi Cube at its border, where the wind was at its strongest!
They were both madmen!
"You have no idea, senior sister" her companion replied. "And to tell you the truth, my name isn't Ba Ke, but Baotian. Zhang Baotian, the inheritor of Blood Torrent Grandmaster Zhang Ming"
Seeing Zi Moyan's indescribable expression, Baotian couldn't help but smile, holding back a tear. It hadn't been that long, but he had really missed her.
Now there was only one thing left to do.
"Senior sister, I'll explain everything to you later, but for now"
He turned to Wu Leihao, whose face had become pale:
"We have the great genius of the Xuanhe kingdom to kill!"