There was nothing but still silence with everyone gaping with disbelief. This was the might of both the Northern Mad Emperor and East Peak Emperor, both whose might could easily vanquish even the strongest mages of the Grand Completion Realm. Levels of strength too surrealistic for anyone to comprehend.

“STAY WHERE YOU ARE!” A deafening howl broke the silence. Qi Heng of the Order of the Divine Fire had apprehended Huangfu Xin’er.

Realizing that with the arrival of Xiao Ning and Gu Feng, he would never be able to escape unscathed, Qi Heng had quickly used the magic of psychokinesis to apprehend Huangfu Xin’er when Xiao Chen was not looking.

“Let her go!” Xiao Chen growled, his eyes going red with rage that even Qi Heng could not help but shudder. But the latter recollected himself and managed a croak. “Let me leave this place freely. I’ll release her when I’m 500 kilometers from here. She will not be harmed, and you have my word! But stay away! Stay away or she’ll be harmed!”

It was unbecoming for a senior mage to hold an injured woman hostage in public. It was a sight so disgraceful and embarrassing for all younger mages to behold. Xiao Ning glowered at Qi Heng with a stare so cold that it could freeze the sun, growling, “Let the girl go…”

Another tremble shot up Qi Heng’s shoulders. Xiao Ning’s cold and furious stare was suffocating and it became a chance for Huangfu Xin’er to deliver a blow at the elder man, which rebounding force she used to propel herself free.

With the Immortal-override Steps, Xiao Chen darted forward and caught Huangfu Xin’er and deftly whisked her away to safety, leaving her in the hands of Ziyun’er before he lunged at Qi Heng with his saber. With three successive strokes, he dissected Qi Heng into several parts, but not before Qi Heng’s soul had escaped from his physical body through astral projection and fled in a scarlet ray of light that streaked quickly away.

“Halt!” Xiao Chen roared, swinging his saber without mercy. Still, Qi Heng managed to escape, but not with some serious damages to his Soul.

Silence once again returned with everyone’s attention now turning to the couple of dozens of members of the Order of the Divine Fire now abandoned by their leader. They were gripped by panic and shock and none dared to move an inch. “Meet your maker then!” Gu Feng hissed with contempt and delivered a slap that hurled a magic death ray that immediately pulverized all the whimpering members of the Order into dust.

“How’s your injury?” Xiao Ning asked, helping Xiao Chen to his feet while injecting some of his inner powers into the latter to help him recover.

“I’m fine,” Xiao Chen replied, shaking his head. Su Xiaomei rejoined them, but she was frowning with concern. “We should not stay long here, My Love. We should leave. I felt a strong presence stirring in the distance despite it trying to remain hidden…”

He looked far away into the eastern skies and felt the scarcely perceptible presence of somebody powerful. “Very well, let us leave.” Xiao Ning remarked to everyone.

Everyone whirled around and began walking away. Suddenly, the air trembled and a huge, powerful wave of aura swept from the East, making everyone at the mountaintop hold their breaths.

“Parlor tricks!” Gu Feng spat, swinging his Raging Dragon Blade menacingly. “Who goes there! Show yourself! Come out and have a taste of my blade!”

A massively-tremendous aura churned in the distant skies, stirring like a monstrous behemoth waking up from its slumber, and another wave came. Only this time, the person whom the aura belonged to no longer made any attempt to conceal his might. The sheer might of the wave of invisible strength shook the whole Wuyue Peak and left many others reeling with confusion and chaos as some began coughing blood.

The staggering presence had everyone on the mountaintop frozen with fear. “This aura… No, it cannot be any ordinary human! This is the presence of a demigod! And immortal, not just some common mage!” Gripped with fear, some were teetering on the edge of having their knees crumbling.

The white nimbuses in the faraway eastern skies roiled and boiled, a stirring monstrosity in the horizons threatening to roar with anger. The ground beneath everyone’s feet shook furiously in resonance and when they looked up once more, the clouds overhead rolled like galloping horses, thundering towards Wuyue Peak at incredible speeds, with three streaking rays of light in their midst, sundering the blue sky into halves.

Everyone held their breaths in consternation. Xiao Chen’s grip on his Demon Blade tightened as he instinctively formed up to stand abreast with Xiao Ning, who was beholding the strange phenomenon with a frown. He grabbed at Xiao Chen’s shoulder and shoving him to his back, saying, “Rogue Immortals of the League, stay back!”

Before they knew it, the cluster of nimbuses was 2,000 feet from the Central Peak, looming ominously over everyone. The clouds broke and scattered, revealing the people inside, the sight of which had everyone holding their breaths. “Immortals! True immortals!”

Surrounded by strands of mists, standing imperiously besprinkled by specks of swirling clouds, were three ancient men, each clad in robes of purple, red, and green respectively. They towered aloft in the air with heights of 30 meters that they looked like mountains in the sky. Between their powerful aura and taming presence and their acrimonious stares, countless of the younger students of magic and sorcery were shaking with fear.

Not even Xiao Chen could breathe easily himself. These were Rogue Immortals. Having prepared for their Ascension at the final stages of the Grand Completion Realm, mages would attain their first taste of immortality if they succeed. They would become Undying, even though it was but a mere traditional misconception; nothing is undying and indestructible.

Mages who failed in their Ascension would become Rogue Immortals unless Fortunes smiled upon and bestowed upon them another chance. Rogue Immortals were half-demigods and their powers would never again be measured by Realms and stages, but Tiers. Tier-9 Rogue Immortals, the highest rank of cultivation of a Rogue Immortal, would once again be qualified for another attempt to achieve Earth Immortality.

Earth Immortals are the preliminaries of true Immortality. Mages who were true Immortals although they did not yet belong in the Realm of Heaven. Their strengths would no longer be gauged by Tiers or Realms, but by stages.

Xiao Chen took a long breath to calm himself as he beheld the sight of the three Rogue Immortals. “So these are the Rogue Immortals of the Leagues? The aces of the League that could easily defeat even mages of the Grand Completion Realm? Why are they here then? For me? No, they’re here for Big Brother Xiao Ning and Gu Feng!”

It was as he feared. Xiao Ning and Gu Feng might have reconciled their differences, but their powers and strength were all but exhausted and spent after their long duel through day and night. “Scheming b*stards of the League,” Xiao Chen cursed. “They must be biding their time just for this! All the while they were ignoring the deaths of nearly 100 innocent lives cold-heartedly!”

The Left Steward of the League on the distant top platform, the only living survivor from the entire 100-man squad of troops who had been despatched here at the League’s orders to apprehend Xiao Chen, grimaced with agony. He looked up at the sky and saw the three Rogue Immortals and realized, with painful regret, what he and his men were: nothing more than cannon fodder for distraction while the League closed in on its true goal…

On the other side, Gu Feng bellowed at the three Rogue Immortals. “Do you think flying over us and looking bigger than us makes you stronger?” He leaped with a roar and swung his weapon, sending a magic blow that shot at the three newcomers with a screaming whistle, but it was easily parried by the leftmost Rogue Immortal in green robes with just a swing of an arm and a deafening bang.

“That must at least be a Tier-3 Rogue Immortal.” Xiao Chen observed and thought, “Since he could deflect a blow from Gu Feng with apparent ease. And the Rogue Immortal at the center, the one clad in red, must be the strongest of the three. A Tier-4 Rogue Immortal.”

Xiao Ning had yet to make a move. With no doubt of the purpose of the arrival of the League’s three most powerful agents, he growled coldly, “Let’s do with some introductions.”

“Nanpuzi!” The elderly man dressed in green who took down Gu Feng’s attack growled and his colleague, the ancient man in purple barked just as gruffly, “Wuyouzi!”

Their leader, the old, gnarly man in red cast a long, fixing stare at Xiao Chen before he finally said wearily, “Xuanxuzi.” Without any more word from them, the three ancient men reverted back to their ordinary sizes.

“Hahahah!” Gu Feng let loose a frenzied guffaw and he roared, “I’ll kill all you three half immortals first today! Then I’ll flatten the Citadel of the Immortals’ League!” Brandishing his saber, he pounced and turned into a jet of black smoke that shot straight at Nanpuzi.

“IMPUDENCE!” Nanpuzi seethed with derision. He raised a palm and cried, “Cosmic Palm!” A 300-meter gigantic silhouette in the shape of a human palm, but several times larger, appeared out of thin air and slammed at Gu Feng.

“Humph! Who do you think you are?! Gautama Buddha?! You think this stupid giant hand is enough to defeat me?!”

The swinging of his weapon, accompanied by a thunderous, ear-splitting shriek, sent forth a wave of energy that completely obliterated the silhouette of the giant hand with a powerful explosion that shook the earth. But that was not all, Gu Feng quickly delivered his reprisal: the Raging Dragon Seven Slay! Seven magic bolts danced around the air atop the crest of Wuyue Peak, inflicting another series of explosions that pummeled the mountaintop with unforgiving ferocity.

Tens of yards away, Xiao Ning snarled at Wuyouzi in purple, “For ages, Mages and Warriors have contested each other for the title of the strongest. Let us settle that score today!” He lifted his halberd and took to the sky, but not before sending a telepathic message to Su Xiaomei, “Take them away from here quickly, My Love.”

Wuyouzi’s eyes narrowed contemptuously. With a grunt as an answer to the challenge, he stepped forward. He weaved his fingers for a spell, and sent three magical bolts of Sword Qi, directing them at Xiao Ning. Xiao Ning defended himself with his halberd, deflecting the three magic bolts away and he bellowed, “Spring Flow Sunder!” His halberd came down in a severing arc and two blows of magical bolts shot from it, charging towards Wuyouzi.

Wuyouzi sidestepped the magical bolts and weaved another hand seal. Fumes smoldered from his finger and thirteen golden jets of Sword Qi sprouted rapidly and shrouded around Xiao Ning like a cocoon of deadly swords, who brought his halberd around in a fluid, continuous motion, screaming, “Wind-crane Skill!”

The air screamed with the sounds of wild flapping birds and the frenetic cries of cranes while Xiao Ning’s halberd spun and flailed in a deadly dance, leaving trails of mirage like the vibrant hues of a dragon writhing madly, and all thirteen golden Sword Qi bolts were squarely repulsed. Leaving no room for his opponent to recover, Xiao Ning threw himself at Wuyouzi, screaming the name of his most-prized technique, “The Doom From Grace!”

With this stroke, Xiao Ning had imbued almost every ounce of his strength, might that could almost literally move mountains and seas, and the halberd looked as if its size had been magnified ten-fold. The sight of the gargantuan silhouette of the halberd bearing down on him filled Wuyouzi’s vision that even he could not resist a tremble. Quickly, using magic to enhance his speed, he ran for at least 100 feet away until he could finally evade such a terrible attack.

Wuyouzi felt a cold shudder up his spine even as he got to safety cleanly. The ancient martial skills that Xiao Ning had displayed had its unique strengths that could not only match his mage craft. Rather, the sheer intensity, strength, and ferocity of any one of his attacks were enough to rip to shreds his Vital Soul. He had to admit, that if it were not for Xiao Ning’s long duel against Gu Feng beforehand, he would never be able to defeat him. Not even if he had the might of two more Tiers.

The crowd far away watched the duels with enormous interest. Su Xiaomei hastened Xiao Chen and his companions to leave quickly. But before they could, another battery of soldiers of the Immortals’ League rushed up the peak. Xuanxuzi, the last of the Rogue Immortals remaining merely regarded them with a dispassionate look and commanded indifferently, “Arrest these people. Kill any who resists.” He would never lay a hand on mortals, at least not before public eye. Xuanxuzi was an extremely proud mage who was known to view himself as a true Immortal. He would never suffer his reputation being tarnished by slaying and executing ordinary mages.

With their orders, the Envoys of the League drew their weapons and closed in. Xiao Chen quickly released his hold of Su Xiaomei’s hand and swung his saber, slicing two of the Envoys half in one single stroke.

“Persistent fools.” An annoyed None-flower Dust breathed. “You just refuse to learn. Let’s have a recap then.” He unleashed his Embodiment Duplication Skill and easily dispatched five to six Envoys who bore the strength of the Nascent Soul Realm.

Another bout of death came round. But their injuries, added with their Envoys’ superior numbers, they were losing ground. Huangfu Xin’er sat on the ground, protected by four of the Levitating Dark Fragrance, assimilating hurriedly the Fourth Stage of the Heartless Cultivation Method that she had just taken from Chu Lingjiao.

Before long, Xiao Chen and his companions were all under siege by the legions of the Immortals’ League led by the three Rogue Immortals. Not even Gu Feng and Xiao Ning could hope to hold them back for long; they were simply too wearied and spent after their duel.

Huangfu Xin’er concentrated all her efforts on assimilating the Fourth Stage of the Heartless Cultivation Method. Suddenly, her eyes blinked opened and a frosty piercing stares shot out of her eyes, startling the four girls guarding her that even they felt an abrupt chill down their spines.

Her eyes grew red and so did her rosy lips which were now the color of blood. A vague scarlet mark of unknown shape blushed at the center of her forehead and her fingernails grew into sharp, talon-like claws protruding five to six inches and she stood ominous and silent against a pale red mist that shrouded her like a veil.

Xuanxuzi, now in his ordinary girth and breadth, looked on from the sky. The Tier-4 Rogue Immortal had realized the aberration occurring to Huangfu Xin’er and was watching her closely, murmuring, “This young maiden… Could she be…”