Shen Taixu gathered his hands into a Two-Fingered Mystic Seal and placed them separately, one at his chest area above his middle dantian and the other just below his navel, above his lower dantian. Immediately, his aura spiked as an explosion of light surged out from his body, forming seven rays that were the size of a human adult's thigh.

"Let's see how you fare against the Deva Judgment Art." Shen Taixu stated smugly, a bead of sweat forming on his brow due to the high relative consumption of this skill.

Li Ling's eyebrows rose as his loose spirit sense that came into contact with the rays of light was directly burned, causing him slight loss. This made his expression become slightly more serious as he manipulated his Blood Aura to form seven similar lances, but they were only half as thick as what Shen Taixu made.

The realm gap was there after all, and it couldn't simply be surpassed just by having very high-quality Blood Aura, though that did make up for it a little. This could be seen in the fact that Shen Taixu's Light Beams were murky white, like slightly old milk, while Li Ling's Blood Lances were such a deep scarlet that they almost bordered on the purest red color in existence, with not a single trace of impurity.

Just looking at it, all Six Paths disciples fell into a trance, feeling as if the term 'Blood Child' was meant to be used on someone like this. This was especially true for those in the Asura Blood Hall, as they could directly compare their own achievements to what Li Ling possessed and see the gap between them.

But even more, the talented ones were able to see the flawlessness and perfection, and upon comparison, were able to optimize their own Blood Energy by a significant amount, leading to qualitative breakthroughs!

Just in the first minute of the battle, Li Ling had inadvertently caused many of his peers to break through on the spot!

Was this the power of a genius—able to make even the dull ones around them see the light and ascend?

Tang Huo almost stood up on the spot when Li Ling unveiled the fullness of his Blood Aura. At the first realm, Blood Qi was too weak for him to see the intricacies of talent, only asserting that Li Ling was a high-level Blood Child candidate, so he obeyed the middle layer's orders and suppressed him a bit.

However, the second realm and above was different. Just looking at Li Ling's Blood Aura, which surpassed the basic limit of 100 meters at second realm perfection, Tang Huo understood that he had severely underestimated this young man.

His guts turned green with regret, thinking about how much favor he could have built with Li Ling before his inevitable climb upwards. He resented his backer in the middle layer, who also positioned him here for the past 200 years as Hall Master for their own purposes.

The other Hall Masters also felt various levels of shock and reconsidered Li Ling's talent as well as their stances toward him. Gu Mugui, Hu Wulei, and Yan Moqing were mostly okay, as their purposes were not truly 'nefarious,' just exploitative with a hint of mutual benefit, but Cao Tian was pretty much wearing a grim expression.

Her intent was control and indentured servitude to her clan, and with this young man's talent, nothing short of using a slave seal on him would get him to agree. However, did you think the Asura Blood Token in his heart was there as a joke? Sure, some fellows might have methods to trick it into sending out false information as spies, but that was the extent of it.

Otherwise, why would Li Ling continually harp on about being high-profile in a demonic sect? Righteous sects only kept things like soul lamps to monitor the life and death of disciples, with most of their sect tokens being non-intrusive to respect the privacy of each person.

However, precisely because of this, if you went on a sect task and were kidnapped by a Nascent Soul and above fellow who wanted to reincarnate into your body or seize your talent, there was nothing you could do.

While the Hall Masters stewed in lament and the disciples basked in awe, Shen Ziyan continued to watch coldly until Li Ling bared his full Blood Aura, to which her eyebrows rose. However, more than that, her nose twitched slightly as she sniffed once, then twice, and seemed to freeze in place due to shock.

She immediately trembled with a severe change in expression, her gaze toward Li Ling completely full of incomprehension and something else… something possessive.

Li Ling did not know any of these goings-on because he was currently fully focused on his duel with Shen Taixu. Inasmuch as he had confidence to win, he would not be foolish enough to disregard the common sense of the cultivation world and underestimate his foe.

Immediately, he launched his seven Blood Lances to meet Shen Taixu's own Light Beams, to which they instantly shattered on contact due to the far stronger power contained in the latter. However, the Blood Lances re-congealed very rapidly, striking at the Light Beams and hindering their advance even as they kept shattering and being consumed.

Both attacks were consuming each other, but what shocked those who spectated was that Shen Taixu's Light Beams were being consumed slightly faster than Li Ling's Blood Lances!

Of course, Shen Taixu noted this and his expression warped slightly. He understood that this was due to the sheer difference in quality between his Divine Dharma Power and Li Ling's Blood Aura, where his was far inferior to that of this youngster.

Not only that, the very idea that the battle had protracted this long between someone who was one realm higher caused him to lose patience.

"Ah!!"

With a bellow, Shen Taixu directly slapped out and created a giant palm attack made of light element power that encapsulated the boundaries of the entire stage. Surging downward from above, it looked just like the metaphorical Buddha's Palm that could suppress the heavens and the earth, sealing all infidels beneath the might of the caster.

Li Ling saw this and felt the crushing weight before it even landed; he immediately recalled his Blood Aura and manifested the Golden Blockade at Perfection.

The crowd showed looks of recognition and slight surprise, as it was already a known fact that Li Ling had two Perfection-stage daoist arts, one offensive and one defensive—the former known through the battle with Bai Yegui and the latter hyped by the Hall Masters to raise the value of Li Ling.

After all, who would bother coming to watch such a skewed battle and even bet if there wasn't a chance of Li Ling winning? Having two Perfection-stage daoist arts at the second realm was more than enough to qualify him to punch above his realm, and indeed, Li Ling had accomplished such before.

What surprised the crowd was how late this was brought out, as they expected Li Ling to use this against the first attack from Shen Taixu due to the realm gap—but who knew even his Blood Aura was so special when merely at the second realm?

Shen Taixu's eyes narrowed with joy when he saw the Golden Blockade come out, laughing uproariously the next moment.

"Hahaha, I've been waiting for you to do that!"

Immediately, Shen Taixu disappeared in a flash, forming a beam of light as he appeared beside Li Ling even faster than his own daoist arts, striking at the Golden Blockade head-on with a direct punch. Li Ling wanted to react, but the speed of Shen Taixu—who was at the perfection of the third realm in his body cultivation—was too fast for him, so all he felt was his magic power rapidly draining before a wave of heat washed over him.

Li Ling was knocked upwards by Shen Taixu, who had used some sort of flame-element physical attack to break through one of his six energy walls that formed the Golden Blockade, hurtling towards the remaining seven Light Beams and the Light Palm!

Like a bullet fired from a gun, he was sent crashing into the two combined attacks, the former striking at what remained of his defenses while the latter caught him in its area of effect, turning his momentum into its nourishment as it continued hurtling down and struck at the stadium, causing a great explosion of power and force to spread out that was barely contained by the Grade Four formation.

Shen Taixu had avoided the fate of being hit by his own attack, having returned to his position in the air using his speed, looking down on the debris that was once the dueling ring. Immediately, his lips couldn't help but twitch as he felt that he had gone overboard and might have killed the foolish youngster in his anger.

Oh well, he would just pay the penalty and forget about it later on!

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