Chapter 382: Wind Blade - Heart of Freedom
The dragonman youngster had seen his share of battlefields.
Summarizing these experiences, he recognized that the decisive factor in determining the outcome of a war was the presence of peak powerhouses.
In this ambush naval battle, Feng Lian, Yue Qian, Kong Pan, and San Sha Man Tuo were all gold level—the pinnacle of strength on the battlefield.
Undoubtedly, only the outcome of their clash would determine the battle's result.
Feng Lian hovered high above, drew a deep breath, and disregarding his battle qi depletion, unleashed his full power!
Battle skill—Wind Blade: Continuous Slash.
Battle skill—Wind Blade: Gigantic Slash.
Battle skill—Wind Blade: Swift Slash.
He simultaneously activated three battle skills.
He swung his long-handled scythe, each strike unleashing a wind blade.
The blades streaked through the air, rapidly enlarging until they reached over 10 meters in length!
Wave after wave of azure wind blades crashed against the resilient, transparent spatial barrier.
With every strike, Kong Pan's face paled further.
Within mere seconds, Feng Lian had delivered over a dozen strikes, leaving Kong Pan's complexion as pale as if struck by a severe illness.
"Quick! Stop him!" Kong Pan called for backup.
Yue Qian had already acted first, teleporting behind Feng Lian.
Feng Lian, prepared, spun instantly, his scythe slashing wildly.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Yue Qian unleashed his own battle skill, his slender sword erupting in dazzling flashes of light.
White sword beams collided with azure wind blades, slicing through the air with a series of shrill, metallic clangs.
Three seconds later, Yue Qian could no longer hold on.
Yet retreat was impossible. He had to buy Kong Pan time to catch her breath and tend her wounds.
Battle skill—Five Stage: Aerial Assault!
Yue Qian retreated, vanishing into another dimension.
Instantly, he materialized beside Feng Lian, extending his slender sword.
Battle qi surged through the blade, especially its tip, sharpening it to a blinding edge that glinted like sunlight.
Feng Lian raised his other hand, casting a spell.
A magic wind shield abruptly formed, blocking the first strike.
Yue Qian's strike missed, and he retreated into the space behind him, vanishing.
When he reappeared, he was already behind Feng Lian.
He thrust the sword forward once more.
Feng Lian's brow furrowed.
He recognized the Aerial Assault battle skill. It wasn't exclusive to the Li Jian clan, but a classic spatial-type attack technique, combining teleportation and assault.
Employing this battle skill allowed the battle qi cultivator to burst through the air, instantly materializing elsewhere. The first attack after such a displacement carried the special effect of spatial penetration, granting it immense destructive power.
Yue Qian's Five Stage: Aerial Assault comprised five successive positional shifts and attacks.
Feng Lian could not simply stand by.
Yet if he became tired from defense, he would fall into the enemy's trap, squandering precious opportunities!
Feng Lian shouted, unleashing a fourth battle skill on top of the three already active.
Wind Blade: Chaos!
His attack speed surged fivefold in an instant as he wildly swung his scythe.
His arms and scythe blurred into countless dark shadows in the air.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Nearly a hundred wind blades erupted, unleashing a terrifying assault that engulfed the surrounding area—above, below, and all around.
Yue Qian dared not continue his attack.
He swiftly retreated from Feng Lian using Aerial Assault, landing on a naval warship.
"Damn it! We can't defend this place." Horror gripped him as he watched nearly a hundred gigantic wind blades slash violently against the surrounding spatial barrier.
Yue Qian knew Kong Pan's capabilities well. Facing such a terrifying assault, Kong Pan simply couldn't withstand it.
However, miraculously, Kong Pan held firm.
The spatial barrier remained intact!
Feng Lian's brow furrowed deeply, and Yue Qian felt puzzled.
“I cast a delay spell!” San Sha Man Tuo's voice rang in Yue Qian's ear, “This wave of attacks won't take effect until later.”
“I'm buffing you with this spell too. Hurry and stall Feng Lian! We can't let him keep attacking like this!”
Sand Between Fingers' tone was urgent.
The time magic settled upon Yue Qian, causing diamond-like sparks to occasionally flicker across his skin.
Bolstered by this newfound resilience, Yue Qian charged at Feng Lian once more.
Feng Lian, clashing with him, soon realized his attacks had no effect whatsoever on Yue Qian.
Yue Qian fought with reckless abandon, each strike being a desperate gamble with his life.
Though Feng Lian's strength clearly surpassed his, he struggled to counter such relentless tactics and could only focus on defense.
Seizing this opening, Kong Pan decisively ordered the fleet to launch a full-scale assault.
The naval fleet, which had maintained distance from the Divine Wind and other pirate ships, immediately responded to the command. Half the vessels surged forward like a swarm of sharks, charging toward the pirates' three ships.
The pirates fired cannons in resistance, but their efforts proved largely ineffective.
As the navy's new warships closed in for collision, the first mate activated two alchemy components in succession.
The first component coalesced a massive chain of azure air currents between the three pirate ships.
The chain fused the three pirate vessels into a single entity.
The second alchemy component unleashed a violent gale that swept outward, forming a constantly expanding wind barrier.
The naval warships were all pushed back by the barrier.
But the navy had anticipated this.
Both alchemy components had been exposed long ago, and the navy possessed this intelligence.
After closing the distance, they began deploying their troops.
Propelled by the warships' teleportation devices, the squad materialized directly onto the decks of the three pirate ships.
The Avalanche Squad thus revealed itself to the dragonman youngster's gaze.
This was the most renowned battle squad of the Ice Sculpture Kingdom.
Its members were almost exclusively composed of snow elves.
Though snow elves were typically slender and tall, the Avalanche Squad members were each “ball-like in their plumpness.”
This was due to their peculiar alchemy armor, known as Snowball Armor.
Once equipped and activated, this full-body armor caused the snow elves' surfaces to absorb surrounding frost elements, enveloping them and transforming them into snowmen.
Consequently, Avalanche Squad members stood over 2 meters tall, with waists as thick as barrels, resembling miniature giants.
The pirates launched a coordinated assault on these blue-and-white snowmen, but the Snowball Armor proved exceptionally thick. Their attacks barely made a dent, at most chipping away flakes of snow.
The moment the assault paused or weakened, the snowmen's surfaces rapidly regenerated.
The Snowball Armor was also self-repairing equipment.
The Avalanche Squad charged across the deck. Some rolled through arrows and blades, crushing pirates beneath them. Others formed snowballs and hurled them indiscriminately. Wherever a snowball struck, it froze into human-sized blocks of ice, sealing sails, ropes, and cannon barrels.
Though the pirate ship had silver level members, no Avalanche Squad member fell despite their relentless, death-defying assaults.
Their coordination was flawless.
Whenever a member's Snowball Armor was worn down to its limit, nearby teammates immediately reinforced them, transferring ice elements from their own bodies.
The reinforced squad member's armor regeneration spiked severalfold. Within seconds, fully restored, they were back in action!
Such defense left the pirates despairing.
The Avalanche Squad rampaged through the ship, some launching assaults on the cabins to stir up even greater chaos.
“The moment has come!” Seeing this, the dragonman youngster sprang into action.
He slipped away from the Deep Sea Monster Fish, diving silently all the way into the Divine Wind.
Before his operation, he'd employed the Deceptive Disguise spell and Anti-investigation and Prophecy spell to disguise himself as one of the pirates.
The utter chaos made his infiltration remarkably smooth
He chose not to disguise himself as a snowman for two reasons: frequent squad training had made members highly familiar with each other, and transforming into a snowman would inevitably draw the pirates' attacks.
The dragonman youngster probed the ship's hold, searching for Lan Zao, when his alchemy device sounded an alarm.
After his departure, the tower spirit took control of the ship.
The tower spirit informed the dragonman youngster that a large fleet of ships had appeared at the edge of the battlefield, charging straight toward them.
“It's our people!” the pirate first mate shouted ecstatically.
The pirates' morale soared.
The main force of the Divine Wind Pirates arrived in timely support.
They inserted themselves into the fray, activating their alchemy components.
Chains of wind linked the pirate ships together, coalescing into a surge of azure wind that surged toward the Divine Wind.
The blue wind was halted by the spatial barrier.
Feng Lian snorted coldly, gripping the scythe with both hands for the first time. He straightened his arms and raised it above his head.
Wind Blade: Great Slash!
Swish.
A faint sound echoed as a hundred-meter-long wind blade sliced through the air.
Kong Pan's heart raced with warning: “This attack must not be met head-on! Even with time magic to delay its impact, I'd still be doomed!”
She had no choice but to cancel the spell.
Without the spatial barrier, the azure wind currents surged toward the Divine Wind, rapidly coalescing into a massive, thick wind chain.
Two more wind chains connected the Divine Wind to the other two pirate ships.
The chains sprang into action, pulling all three vessels outward.
Even without their sails, the immense pulling force propelled the pirates to terrifying speeds.
The dragonman youngster, still searching for Lan Zao in the hold, was caught off guard. The sudden movement of the Divine Wind nearly knocked him off balance, threatening to send him tumbling.
“They can't escape!” Kong Pan barked out the order, “Avalanche Squad, activate the snow giant!”
The Avalanche Squad members immediately gathered in one spot, piling atop each other to form a pyramid-shaped human tower.
Ice and snow elements swiftly spread across their armor, coalescing into a unified force.
Through the combined effect of their battle skills, they merged into a snow giant over ten meters tall.
The colossal snowman delivered a brutal shove, snapping the Divine Wind's main mast.
Another stomp crushed a gaping hole through the deck.
Just as the snow giant prepared to unleash further fury, Feng Lian flashed into position above its head.
Yue Qian appeared in time to intercept Feng Lian.
Without so much as a glance, Feng Lian remained impassive as he unleashed his trump card battle skill.
Wind Blade: Heart of Freedom!
Closing his eyes, he exhaled a breath toward his scythe.
A shadowy human form materialized from his body, dragging a phantom scythe. It sliced lightly straight ahead.
A small, emerald-green wind qi swirled out—no more than 30 centimeters long. It stood in stark contrast to the earlier terrifying, raging giant wind blade.
Yue Qian's eyes widened in shock as he sensed the scent of death within that breeze.
He scrambled to retreat through the air, returning to the warship in the next instant.
“How...?” He hadn't evaded the attack. Horrified, he watched as a strand of emerald wind qi burrowed into his chest.
The emerald wind qi split into strands, seeping into the snowball giant's body.
The snowball giant disintegrated, leaving countless casualties among the squad members.
One strand of wind qi drifted below deck, reaching the dragonman youngster.
The dragonman youngster smashed through the hull and plunged into the sea.
The wind, deceptively swift, pierced his back.
The dragonman youngster's body convulsed violently, then went limp. Eyes wide with fury, he sank to the ocean floor.
Boom!
The Divine Wind's speed erupted fully. Dragged by the massive wind chain, the entire ship leapt half a meter above the sea surface.
The next instant, the Divine Wind plunged back into the ocean, churning up a massive wave.
Towing the other two battered ships, it successfully broke through the encirclement and sped away.