Monarch Of Time

Chapter 1059 Shadow over Iron Dawn (3)

”Are you deaf?! I asked you who the hell are you?!” Ma Renwu’s voice echoed off the stone walls, the aura of a rank 3 Dao Emperor bursting out of his body.

And yet, despite the imposing facade he’d tried to put on , he couldn’t hide the hints of trepidation from seeping in his voice. In the end, seeing as how the old man wasn’t even slowing down his footsteps, Ma Renwu involuntarily took a step back, his eyes widening in disbelief.

Was he afraid? Him? An established powerhouse at the Dao Emperor realm?

The truth was, though, that he couldn’t help it!

The old man in azure robes was already this close to him, and yet Ma Renwu couldn’t sense a thing from him. No qi fluctuations. No killing intent. Not even the faint spiritual pressure of someone trying to suppress their cultivation.

He was like a void. A blank space in reality.

And he had just appeared here.

Inside a private chamber buried dozens of meters beneath the surface of the Ma estate, and hidden under dozens of protective formations!

”This isn’t possible...” Ma Renwu’s thoughts raced as he tried to make sense of the situation at hand. Still, the thought that his opponent had comprehended the Dao of Space didn’t even course through his mind.

After all, just how rare were supreme Daos? How many people had even comprehended one? Sure, the first-rate powers throughout the continent all had one or two disciples who had comprehended such a Dao, but those were still fledglings who’d usually give up on them the moment they reached the Dao King realm. Once they realized the difficulty of comprehending those Daos any further, they’d switch to something more manageable that could take them further to the path of cultivation... just like him!

In the end, the patriarch of the Ma family had already come to his own conclusion.

”My Dao of Earth is already bordering the middle stage of the Dao Emperor realm. Does this mean this guy has already past that stage? Is that why he could sneak in here unnoticed?”

The more he thought about it, the more plausible this scenario sounded in his mind.

Unfortunately, that scenario carried with it a different problem.

If this old man was a middle-stage Dao Emperor, then Ma Renwu would really be in trouble.

”No... this is still Iron Dawn” Ma Renwu told himself, drawing in a breath through clenched teeth. ”Even if this guy really is a middle-stage Emperor, the Sovereign won’t allow him to act as he wishes. Nobody can kill freely here.”

That thought clung to him like a life raft, steadying his breathing, as the Ma patriarch exhaled slowly.

Unfortunately, the old man didn’t pause to share in his fragile logic.

His next step echoed softly across the stone floor- and then he vanished.

Ma Renwu’s pupils shrank.

No, he didn’t vanish. He had just moved. It was just so quick that even Ma Renwu had trouble following him with the naked eye.

In the blink of an eye, the old man had reappeared directly in front of him, his golden pupils fixed on his own. And before Ma Renwu could even raise a proper defense, the old man’s arm moved.

The black sword in his hand moved with it, and for a moment, Ma Renwu felt like the entire world around him was that black sword. It was a terrifying sensation he hadn’t felt in countless years.

Terror!

”Sword aura!” he blurted out, the words leaving his mouth before his thoughts could even catch up.

Almost immediately, the patriarch of the Ma family seemed to have recognized it and hastily raised his own sword.

He knew it was pointless, but he did it anyway.

He knew that even if his opponent wasn’t a middle-stage Dao Emperor like he’d originally assumed and was just an early-stage one, this sword strike would still be enough to wound him.

Still, the man tried to resist it with everything he had. He had to if he didn’t want to die from that sword strike.

For a moment, right before the two swords clashed, Shun Long could see it. He could see the layer of earthen armor that had appeared around Ma Renwu’s body, along with the wisps of orange flame that had materialized around his silver sword.

And then...

Clang!

A deafening shockwave erupted as the two swords collided, followed by a ringing explosion that cracked the very walls of Ma Renwu’s private room.

The earthen armor around him shattered almost instantly. Even the flames around his sword only lasted for the briefest of moments before they were extinguished as well.

And the patriarch of the Ma family... shot backward like a meteor.

BOOM!

He slammed into the wall behind him with a thunderous crash, leaving a crater of shattered crimson stone.

For a moment, there was only silence.

Then a groan.

Buried halfway into the collapsed wall, Ma Renwu twitched. Blood dripped from his mouth and nose, his robes were torn, while his eyes now stared incredulously at the azure-robed old man at the center of his private room.

”You-” A mouthful of blood followed the moment he tried to speak, but Ma Renwu didn’t stop. He just stared at the old man and vomited blood again before he continued

”You are only a Dao King...? How is this possible?”

Shun Long nodded in silence, a satisfied smile finding its way on his lips. Fighting a rank 3 Dao Emperor had really been the right choice.

After all, just now he hadn’t gone all out by using any of his Daos, but he had poured his entire comprehension of the sword in that single sword strike, and had backed it by the full power of his peak-sixth stage body refinement cultivation. And yet, Ma Renwu was still alive. No, he wasn’t just alive. Despite how wounded the man looked, he had only suffered minor injuries.

In the end, this patriarch of the Ma family was really the perfect opponent for Shun Long to test his current strength.