Chapter 529: Chapter 425: The Wisdom of Battle

Switch the prince with a puma, replace the plums with a peach.

Clearly, Gong Zheng intended to confuse the Mi Clan elder by changing clothes and armor. If the situation was really that dire, perhaps such strategy might have worked. However, the current situation was far from being that drastic. “Put on the armor and flee to the central peak,” Tang Luo sneered at the two. “In no more than fifteen minutes, the martial ancestor of the Tang Clan will arrive. At that moment, Mi Yang, not me, will be the one fleeing. The two of you staying here serves no other purpose other than to annoy me. Get lost now!”

Given his arrogance, of course, he would never admit how moved he was by their loyalty. But as someone who was never good at expressing his emotions, he could only resort to sarcasm to convey his appreciation. Despite that, his tone was rather warm.

However, in the face of this crisis, Gong Zheng and Hua Ji were not able to notice the subtle change in Tang Luo’s tone. His words sent their spirits from rock bottom to the heavens.

Overwhelmed with fear, they’d been paralyzed by Mi Yang’s might and had forgotten that Tang Luo, too, hailed from the distinguished Tang Clan and was the eldest heir of the First Head of the Martial Hall. The Tang Clan’s reinforcements couldn’t be far behind.

Even now, in the sky above, the Tang Clan’s Martial Ancestor was battling the massive Green Wood Dragon. As long as the Tang Clan’s reinforcements arrived, everyone’s safety was ensured.

Gong Zheng and Hua Ji let out a sigh of relief. They finally understood why Tang Luo had remained so calm the moment he laid eyes on Mi Yang. He had a clear grasp of the situation, yet they had continuously tried to persuade him to retreat, which was now a laughable thought.

Reflecting on that, both of them stood in place, unsure of how to react.

“Why are you still standing there? Hurry to the central mountain and inform Elder Du Ting to come and provide backup,” Tang Luo waved his hands at them. “Don’t block my view.”

As a martial arts researcher, besides studying martial arts, his primary duty is to devise combat strategies. This means fully understanding a martial artist’s combat style, and then developing appropriate countermeasures.

Even a prodigy like Mi Yang does not have the ability to cultivate all martial skills to the point of perfection. As human beings, we all have our likes and preferences, which will inevitably dictate a martial artist’s combat style to some extent.

Even for someone like Tang Luo, who sought only to become stronger, there are things he’d prefer to practice and things he wouldn’t, let alone ordinary martial artists.

As for Mi Yang’s fighting style, although it was their first encounter, he could get a general idea from his initial movements. His style was based primarily on the development of his bloodline abilities coupled with the fusion of Thousand-Green True Arts. While this style is undoubtedly strong, it also has its clear limits.

Tang Luo is sure that Mi Yang hasn’t made significant progress in the past twenty years. Except for the Wooden Azure Dragon technique which he was seeing for the first time, all the other techniques Mi Yang used were recorded in detail in the Wind Media Department’s archives.

Unless he can give up developing his bloodline and reverse the priority of his techniques and bloodline, it would be impossible for Mi Yang to complete body spiritualization given his current martial arts accomplishments.

In other words, Mi Yang’s current power indicates his bottleneck in the Fierce Realm. Therefore, Tang Luo is certain that Mi Yang would likely never ascend to Grandmaster, let alone attack the King Realm. Hence, the Secret Arts Pavilion’s speculation that he was the Mi Clan’s best shot at reaching the King Realm was self-defeating.

Unless he reverses his focus from his bloodline to his techniques, Mi Yang’s current strength is essentially representative of his own peak.

However, Tang Luo couldn’t help but wonder, if he, with his level of understanding in martial arts techniques, could figure out Mi Yang’s problem, how could the martial arts researchers of the Mi Clan miss it? And yet, Mi Yang’s combat style, focusing on bloodline power with Thousand-Green True Arts merely auxiliary, was intriguing.

Could it be that the superior Mi Clan elder turned out to be ambitious enough to attempt an unprecedented path? Peering through the gap between the legs of the Red Crystal giant, Tang Luo looked up at the Divine Wood and pondered. The Red Crystal behemoth with six legs and four wings creaked loudly, its body full of cracks. Countless green willow branches forced it back, twisting and breaking its continuously flapping crystal bat wings. The wings crashed down, stirring up a storm of dust.

Without its wings, the six-legged behemoth was virtually powerless Mi Yang extended some willow branches down to complete his murderous plan on Tang Luo.

Reaching out casually, Du Sha conjured a meter-long crystal blade, spinning it around rapidly and cutting down all the willow branches, disappointingly thwarting Mi Yang’s plan once again.

His repeated attempts to attack being foiled ignited the Mi Clan elder’s fury. He roared, “Du Sha, are you seeking death?”

As a possessor of the Level Four Divine Wood bloodline, Mi Yang had never held Du Sha in high regard. Despite Mi Hai’s multiple attempts to express his appreciation for Du Sha, even to the point of wishing to spend a great deal to recruit him, Mi Yang rejected the proposal. In his opinion, there was nothing special about a mere Level Seven Stone Heart Bloodline possessor. But now, his offensive strikes were repeatedly blocked by such a bloodline holder, which enraged him to the core.

His enormous green dragon, which was suppressing Tang Qian, swung its tail forcefully and threw him aside, then pounced at Du Sha, who was brandishing the huge crystal blade.

From the beginning, Mi Yang never intended to kill Tang Qian. As the martial ancestor of the Tang Clan on a protection mission, Tang Qian was not only equipped with spiritual armor, but he also had several pieces of Xuanji Jade with him. Despite the impressive might of the Wooden Azure Dragon, it wasn’t enough to defeat an experienced martial ancestor like Tang Qian.

Therefore, the Wooden Azure Dragon’s strategy against Tang Qian was solely focused on suppressing and entangling him. This was similar to Mi Yang’s method of using thousands of divine willow branches to weave a cage – primarily to trap Du Wei and Du Ling, in order to buy time to kill Tang Luo. He knew full well the strength of the Du family’s martial artists and how much effort it would cost them to break free.

However, he never expected the defensively-oriented Du Clan to produce such a monster as Du Sha. Du Sha’s summoning of two gigantic statues had thrown him off balance and completely restrained his divine willows. Du Sha, whom he had never valued, had now become the biggest impediment to killing Tang Luo.

But even in his rage, Mi Yang, with his century’s worth of combat experience, devised a solution. While Du Sha was indeed powerful, currently, the two gigantic statues were trapped, and he had to fight in person. The Wooden Azure Dragon could easily suppress and even severely injure Du Sha. Without the Xuanji Jade to protect him, a seriously wounded Du Sha would mean Tang Luo losing his last line of defense.

As the old saying goes, knowing when to fight is not as good as knowing when to calculate. A duel between martial artists is unpredictable, and only by accounting for all possible outcomes can one truly be victorious.

The Mi Clan elder with a century’s worth of combat experience was undoubtedly someone who was adept at calculating during combat. Although his cunning might not be on par with the other elders of the Mi Clan, when it came to wisdom in combat, he believed he was second to none..