"Well played! You made many problems for us before, but I still underestimated you!"
The previously silent man in gray robes whom the sect master was cautious of, spoke at this time, narrowing his eyes at Wu Long.
"Well, if we killed all of you here, even while you admitted everything, we would inevitably have to kill some hot-headed righteous people outside who would have been clueless after that, and would have assumed we were the evil attackers, which I personally do not really care about that much, but..."
Wu Long smiled as Wei Lan's eyes widened slightly more as she understood that he went through the extremely tedious and difficult process of overriding the sect's grand formation just for her sake.
"Are you sure you want to continue opposing us?"
The man said, but Wu Long simply ignored him this time. Now that the part of talking was done, he could finally stop being a spectator, since Wei Lan already spoke with the sect master and would be able to obtain peace of mind later.
A sword appeared in his left hand, and grabbing the hilt with his right hand he slowly unsheathed it. This was his most precious inheritance from the Supreme Master Pavilion who so generously left him a 7th-tier Spiritual Treasure sword.
"I can deal with the ones in front and the man who just spoke to me, the rest... I am afraid would have to be handled by you at least until the time I am done"
He spoke to Wei Lan, and as she opened her mouth to object, she stopped herself and nodded instead. It was a mysterious feeling, but she believed he would be fine. There was something in the manner he spoke, a type of confidence and charisma that could not be faked, that inherently made her trust his words.
Besides, even if she was strong among the Grand Elders, taking on nine of them in addition to thirty elders of the sect as well as thirty subordinates of the man in gray was already very taxing on her, so she could not really do much to help him and had to give her all just to survive this for some time.
Wu Long knew that the focus of the man in gray clothes was him, so as he stepped forward, his destination was the 'righteous trio'.
They humphed when they saw a greenhorn in the Qi Condensation Realm target them, but the man in gray became a little agitated. This man was a little, but not by a large margin, stronger than the unremarkable-looking man Wu Long met in the Tingren Kindom. Thus having recently lost a colleague of comparable strength to Wu Long's hands he was extremely cautious of him.
Sword Qi danced around Wu Long and the righteous trio widened their eyes at the incredibly potent and sharp Sword Intent covering the surroundings, making them feel a sword tip pointing between their eyebrows. Their staffs began moving in swirling trajectories and Spiritual Qi became visible around them looking like water being dragged around.
"Clear River Art, first style, River Waters Flow Around Stones!"
All three of them utilized the same technique and in the corner of his eye, Wu Long noticed that Wei Lan and the other Grand Elders used the same technique too. It seems this was considered the sect's legacy technique. If a technique was named after the sect or vice versa, that meant that the sect's founder created the technique, and it was their life's greatest achievement.
A 'style' was different from the 'form' that made one move in that it described a pattern of movement, so it would be continuously utilized in every move and attack the practitioner makes. A martial skill would sometimes have only styles or forms, but the most common was a combination of the two.
"First form, Great Torrent!"
Using the style they then created the form. Wu Long's Sword Qi clashed against what looked like a river-like torrent of Spiritual Qi from the trio of righteousness. Sword Qi cleanly slashed through the torrent but gradually became less potent as it went upstream and did not reach the three people wielding staffs by about a quarter of the distance between Wu Long and them.
The sheer volume of Spiritual Qi shaved off the strength of the rather thin Sword Qi that he released with a continuous stream.
'Heh, what Clear River Art, this is Silver Water Exquisite Staff with masking Spiritual Qi covering it! But then again, this is a fractured world, isolated from the outside so when their sect founder found the technique in the rubble of the previous civilization he probably thought that no one but him knew this "Ancient Art", not knowing how widely water attribute cultivators use it outside'
Wu Long inwardly marveled at how such a thing would be passed as the legacy technique.
Creating a technique often involved taking inspiration or utilizing concepts from other techniques and skills, sometimes combining several into one, but there was absolutely nothing changed in this technique except for a slight additional Spiritual Qi manipulation that masked the appearance and made the torrent look not silver but semi-transparent.
The three looked at Wu Long with astonishment, since his sword almost reached them despite the astronomical difference in the quantity of Spiritual Qi both sides used, now understanding that if they wanted to survive this they had to fight with their all.
The sword intent Wu Long exhibited was something that could be incredibly deadly to them, and most likely cut the protective Spiritual Qi around them like a scorching hot sharp knife cutting butter.
"Twelve Exquisite Palms Art, first style, Direct Palms!"
At this time the man in gray clothes approached from the other side as twelve images of palms of Spiritual Qi appeared around him and rushed toward Wu Long with the movement of his left palm forward.
Wu Long made a swirling move and his sword danced along with Sword Qi, cutting or parrying the palm strikes that came in a free volley.
"Third form, Concentrated Strike!"
"Clear River Art, fifth form, River Water Flows to the Ocean!"
The man in gray immediately followed up with his right palm as the Spiritual Qi palms that appeared now all moved at the same time from different trajectories. The righteous trio also spread out and made identical staff movements that made three massive torrents of Spiritual Qi flow toward Wu Long, becoming more widespread and combining as they got closer to him.
The retired Grand Elders also joined in, surrounding Wu Long and sending long-range attacks to support.
Seven talismans flew out of Wu Long's hand as a barrier of Spiritual Qi flowing with patterns appeared around him. The gray-robed man's eyes widened as the instant formation of such strength created with talismans required a tremendous amount of focus to create, which is incredibly hard to achieve in the middle of a battle .
All attacks simultaneously clashed against the barrier which held on for some moments and shattered. But the momentum of all of the techniques was gone, and they became a fog of Spiritual Qi that hid Wu Long's figure. The strength of the barrier was exactly calculated to shatter after receiving all four attacks.
Steel needles flew out of the fog to each of them, and as they blocked with their staffs and Spiritual Qi Palms, Wu Long's figure flashed before the woman sect ancestor.
Her eyes widened and her staff rose into the air, but Sword Qi enveloped Wu Long's sword and it moved continuously making seven strikes.
The man in gray repelled the steel needles the fastest, but he was the only one who had to retreat while doing so since he was unarmed and had to conjure plam images. As he wanted to assist the sect ancestor three talismans flashed with light under the foot he stepped forward with.
These were released at the same time with the needles but were covered by the spreading fog of Spiritual Qi close to the ground. His foot was trapped and the momentary delay allowed Wu Long to land one strike out of the seven on the sect ancestor, severing one of her arms.
As the sect ancestor screamed in agony the other ancestor and sect master finally deflected all needles and came to the rescue, while the sect's grand formation started raining swords of Spiritual Qi on the retired Grand Elders. Wu Long's figure swirled and a circular arc of Sword Qi went out of the sword he slashed horizontally.
The sect master and ancestor blocked and were thrown back while Wu Long exchanged a volley of strikes with the gray-robed man who freed himself of the delaying trap.
"Do you know who you are going up against?!?!"
The gray-robed man said with rough breaths as he was pressed by Wu Long's attacks.'
"They are not someone like you could go against!!! You have to know your place to survive!"
The man in gray continued to hurl such remarks at Wu Long since he took his lack of response for being somewhat intimidated.
"You know? Your colleague in the Tingren Kingdom asked me the same exact question and then spouted similar bullshit, are they teaching you that in some kind of bullshit training camp?"
What came back was a 'truly interested' expression on Wu Long's face which made the man in gray's face red with anger.