Chapter 2679: Chapter 2679: Disadvantage

A beautiful woman stood beside the young man wearing the coir raincoat. The woman's long dress was blindingly orange, and when it was ruffled by the wind, it seemed like she was engulfed in a dancing flame.

Both of them were mediocre in their cultivation level, having reached no further than the third stage of the Other Shore Realm. However, the auras they emitted were surprisingly strong.

Sparing the young man a short glance, Zen turned to Gant. “Let's go,” he urged.

The two of them walked quickly along the street and passed by the young man.

Just as they passed him, however, he spoke. “Please stop.”

Zen frowned, slightly annoyed. “What?” he asked with an exasperated sigh.

“Was the Sword-reading Liquid made by you?” the young man asked.

A realization hit Zen.

This young man was the one behind Fergus.

If not for his question about the Sword-reading Liquid, Zen would never have guessed this young man's identity. He had expected the person behind Fergus to be exceptionally cultivated and old, not a gangly teenager.

“So what if it is? Do you have a problem with that?” Zen retorted.

The young man did not flinch. “If you didn't make it, I'll kill you,” he said simply, his eyes innocent like a child's. “If you did, I will consider sparing your life.”

The incongruence between his wiry, youthful appearance and his words was almost comical. Zen snorted with laughter and indignation. Beside him, Gant looked furious. “This is the Dragon City. Who do you think you are? How dare you commit murder here?” he said icily.

Glancing at Gant, the young man clenched his fist.

Zen reacted immediately. This was not just an arrogant teenager. This was a formidable opponent. With a slight gesture of his hand, the Snow Sword appeared in it.

This sword exuded a ray of surging radiance that gushed towards the young man like a tsunami wave.

At the entrance to the Sword Tower, the Alliance Chiefs looked on with confusion. They did not know what had sparked the conflict. All they had seen was that Zen and the young man started fighting after their short exchange of words.

The young man looked completely harmless, a mere teen. Zen's attack surprised them.

However, the sword radiance of the Six Annihilation Strike only spread out eight inches from its source.

After the air in the young man's hand had dissipated, Zen stiffly withdrew the Six Annihilation Strike.

The Ways-blending Energy was violent and difficult to control. Embarrassing as it was to admit it, Zen couldn't control it as well as the young man. All he could do was crudely merge it with his inner world and allow it to explode.

“What a loyal person! You treat your own subordinates well,” the young man said with a shrug.

As for Gant, he was completely confused. He had no idea what had happened. In fact, he hadn't even realized that he had already been in the gates of torture just a minute ago.

Zen was convinced that the young man's intention had been to kill Gant instantly, without hesitation.

“If you attack my people again, you will regret it,” Zen said seriously.

The young man seemed completely unperturbed. “Why would I? I would just attack you,” he said matter-of-factly, smiling.

“Give it a try,” Zen growled.

The young man smiled sardonically, turning to the woman in orange beside him. “Kate, I really think this man has gone too far. He is so arrogant and complacent. He acts like he is invincible,” he said in a theatrical tone. Kate said nothing. 𝐑άN𝙤ᛒÊ𐌔

Her only response was an artificial, emotionless smile.

The young man turned back to Zen. “Do you really think that I wouldn't dare to touch you?” he asked.

As soon as he finished his sentence, the young man began moving decisively towards Zen, his face filled with malice.

Without drawing his sword, he charged towards Zen like a clumsy, skinny bull, his hand grasping what looked like a mass of air.

As he approached Zen, he waved his arm.

Zen took a second to assess the young man's attack, from his strange, grasping hand to his waving arm. Taking a deep breath, Zen lifted the Snow Sword above his head.

With the Ways-blending Energy flowing from his hand, he wielded the Snow Sword so that it radiated a strange light.

“Phew!”

“Swish!”

“Phew!”

“Swish!”

To Zen's surprise and disappointment, the Ways-blending Energy did not explode. When the Snow Sword collided with the air in the young man's hand, the power of the Six Annihilation Strike disappeared.

Each time Zen wielded the sword, he launched a Six Annihilation Strike.

In this fight with the young man, the Ways-blending Energy he consumed exceeded almost tenfold the amount he had needed during his confrontation with Fergus. Additionally, the pressure on him was almost a hundred times stronger.

The young man kept advancing, maintaining impressive control over the air.

In order to resist the air, Zen was forced to retreat over and over again.

Gant's eyes were as wide as dinner plates. Kate was now smiling in earnest, and several of the Alliance Chiefs looked baffled.

Meanwhile, at the entrance to the Sword Tower, Sellers stood, clenching his fists nervously. His conversation with Athemar still lingered in his mind. He was unsure of whether or not he should intervene in the conflict.

Under the pressure, Zen continued to retreat.

The air in the young man's hand was becoming more dense and powerful by the second.

At first, only shallow footprints were left on the solid stone surface while Zen retreated. As the pressure grew, the footprints became deeper and deeper.

After he had taken ten steps back, every additional step he took caused the stone surface to crack.

Twenty steps later, the Snow Sword suddenly broke with a clang.

The broken Snow Sword shot out, ricocheting off a pillar of a nearby building. The collision generated a shockwave that blasted the structure apart. A second later, the entire building collapsed with a deafening crash, attracting the attention of almost everyone within the radius of a few kilometers.

Meantime, the young man, still holding on to the air, now infinitely dense and powerful, pointed at Zen's neck. “You think you know swordsmanship well? As you can see, you don't,” he said arrogantly, his head raised.

With a wave of his hand, the condensed ball of air disappeared into thin air. All the pressure on Zen vanished without a trace.

“Remember my name. My name is Milo Mo.”

Without further ado, the young man turned around and walked away, his arm around Kate's waist.

However, before he could go much further, he heard a crisp tinkling sound behind him. It was the sound of the broken Snow Sword flying back into Zen's hand. “You will compensate me for this broken sword. And then, I will prove that you are wrong,” said Zen, seething.

Milo turned his head to look at Zen, raising his eyebrows disdainfully. He obviously didn't take Zen seriously.

“He hasn't even answered your question yet,” Kate whispered into his ear.

“I already know the answer,” he answered simply. “He did make the Sword-reading Liquid. Otherwise, he would have died after taking three steps back.”

“Three steps? But he retreated twenty steps!”

“Dang it. I hate to admit it, but I'm impressed!” said Milo, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “I expected him to collapse after ten steps at the most!”

“It seems that you feel threatened. Hee hee!”

Milo sighed, a little embarrassed for showing his anger. “Yeah. Those two fellows from the top of the Oneness Mountain are not weak. And this man came to the Dragon City on purpose to thwart me,” he said, rubbing his temples.

Zen and Gant stayed silent for a while.

Then, Zen looked down at his broken Snow Sword. What a sad sight it was! Shaking his head, he smiled bitterly, and handed it to Gant. “What should I do?” he asked humbly.

He had an affinity for the Snow Sword, and it had served him well. He hadn't expected it to break so soon.

“I can fix it, but it won't be easy,” Gant said with a worried face.

Before the Snow Sword broke so suddenly, Gant had been confused about Zen's fight with Milo. He had thought Zen was jesting.

It was not until the Snow Sword was destroyed that he realized how much of a disadvantage Zen was at.

In his eyes, Zen was a formidable warrior, rivaled by no one. Milo, however, had succeeded in overpowering him.