105 Nice, grand, and quick. (1/2)

Li Yang wanted his reunion with Fang Ying to be perfect, so he had come up with thousands of different scenarios for their reunion, hundreds of things he could say. He had prepared jokes, snappy remarks, loving words, witty stories, all so that no matter what circumstances they met in, he would be ready for it.

But when he saw her jump out of a ripple in space in front of him, his mind went completely blank. She was clad in the light green robes of the Tian clan, her silvery-white hair tied into a somewhat disarrayed ponytail, and her emerald eyes were looking directly at him. She was three years older than him so she was almost a full head taller than him right now. She was just as beautiful as the day he lost her, just as breathtaking as he had always remembered her when he closed his eyes.

His eyes grew red before he knew it, tears starting to run down his face as his vision grew blurry. His feet moved on their own, pulling him forward and towards her, completely ignoring the silvery-gray wolf that was standing at her side and vigilantly inspecting him. Fang Ying also moved forward, her eyes as red as Li Yang's, both of them crying just from seeing each other.

The two met and embraced each other after taking a few steps, Li Yang burying his head in her chest and Fang Ying burying her face in his hair, both of them greedily taking in the presence of the other. The silence of the embrace didn't last for long, Li Yang speaking up in a voice that was barely more than a whisper.

”Ying'er... I missed you... I truly did.”

Li Yang was a man whose pride was higher than the heavens, a truly arrogant man who would always show others his strength and cunning. Only when he was alone with Fang Ying or his friends would he show his weakness like this, only with them would he cry this freely, only with them would he show his fear and pain and lean on them for support. Fang Ying buried her face even harder into his hair, her voice somewhat unsteady from crying.

”Thank you...Thank you for coming for me again, thank you for finding me.”

The two had spent countless years at each others side, they had already become dependent on each other, they needed the other to be the light in their life. If one lost the other, even if they still had their other friends, life would be mostly bleak, black with shades of gray. They wanted to say so much to each other, but just when they were about to open their mouths and continue talking, a loud crashing rang out very close to them, a shout quickly following.

”There you are! Don't think that I will let you simply flee like that!”

The chubby brown-haired man that Fang Ying had been fighting, Zi Yanwu, burst through the wall that surrounded the city, a small axe in each hand, a thin layer of metal covering his entire body. His eyes were bloodshot and the flow of Qi in his body had grown stronger than before. But by looking at how chaotic his Qi had become, Fang Ying and Li Yang were able to easily guess that he must have eaten a pill to temporarily increase his strength.

Zi Yanwu noticed Li Yang and how intimate he was currently acting with Fang Ying, but the thing he paid attention to was Li Yang's aura. It was the same aura that had been on the spear that had hit him, meaning that it was likely this youth that had launched the attack, his vigilance swiftly rising. Zi Yanwu had indeed taken a pill, Xiong Xieren giving him the order to chase and kill Fang Ying before she managed to flee too far away. Zi Yanwu did not know what sort of other tricks Li Yang might have hidden away, so he didn't underestimate him despite his low cultivation.

With Zi Yanwu interrupting them, Li Yang and Fang Ying separated, wiping their tears and cleaning their faces. Fang Ying pulled out the sword she had stored away when she hurriedly left to meet with Li Yang, tilting her head at him.

”What do you think, are you able to take him on?”

Li Yang's cultivation was quite a bit lower than Zi Yanwu's, only at the middle stage of the Ascending Heaven realm. But she knew that one should never judge a person's strength based on their cultivation, especially if that person was Li Yang. Li Yang finished wiping his tears, his mind had returned to its normal calm and his entire body felt as light as a feather, all his worries dissipating after meeting Fang Ying again. He looked at Zi Yanwu for a short second before shrugging his shoulders and shaking his head.

”Not a chance in hell. He can't stop me if I want to flee, but even if I were to pull out my very last hidden trump card I would still not be able to handle him in single combat.”

Li Yang had one last trump card hidden away, one that he did not wish to use unless everything was at stake, he could activate the Demonic beast bloodline he now had after getting Jinwu's and Shenlong's blood. While this would drastically increase his strength, it would clearly show others exactly what Demonic beast bloodlines he had, making them chase him so that they could drain his blood.

There was also another reason he did not wish to activate the bloodline unless he absolutely had to, his body was simply too weak to handle the strain. Activating the bloodline as he was right now would result in his body quickly breaking down if he kept it active for any period over a few seconds.

Normally this wouldn't be much a problem for him, but with Jinwu and Shenlong laying dormant inside his own body, his body would use the connection he had with them to draw out more of their blood to heal his body as it was breaking down. If he kept using his bloodline and drew out too much of their blood, they would die, and that was something Li Yang refused to allow. Fang Ying nodded her head, making a mental note to have Li Yang spill the beans on this hidden trump card later on.

”It's a good thing you're not alone now then. We'll do it like usual, but this time I'll take the lead. Let's make it nice, grand, and quick, before any more interruptions can show up.”

Fang Ying took a step forward, Li Yang's lips curling up as he nodded his head, having Fang Ying be the one taking the lead didn't feel all that bad. Fang Ying took her eyes off Zi Yanwu, who was happy with letting the two of them talk and waste time, it would give Xiong Xieren and the others more time to finish up their fights and chase after him. She cast a sideways glance at Langshen, nodding her head at him.

Langshen returned the nod, raising his head and letting out a long howl. His body turned into a silver stream of energy that entered Fang Ying's body. A silver robe covered her body as the energy entered her, the image of a howling wolf covering the back of the robe. Her silvery-white hair turned completely silver and her eyes became the same amber color as Langshen's. She had clearly formed the same blood bond with Langshen that Li Yang had formed with Jinwu and Shenlong, allowing the two to fuse.

Fang Ying tightly grasped her sword after the transformation was complete, stepping forward and vanishing as she teleported to the spot directly in front of Zi Yanwu, slashing down at his head. The moment she made her move, Li Yang did the same, golden fire and golden lightning bursting forth from his body as he activated both his strengthening techniques.

He had already used quite a bit of golden fire and golden lightning today so his body was starting to complain about the strain. But since Fang Ying said she wanted to make their reunion grand, even going as far as fusing with Langshen, how could he let her down? He stepped forward and turned into a blur, the sound of rumbling thunder resounding over the area as a small shockwave spread out when he broke the speed of sound.

He moved in a zigzagging arc around Zi Yanwu, appearing behind him and aiming a sideways kick at the left side of his waist. Zi Yanwu's eyes grew solemn when he saw the scene, slashing the axe in his right hand upwards to intercept Fang Ying's attack and slashing downwards with the axe in his left arm to intercept Li Yang's kick. He covered the axe in his left hand with a reinforced layer of metal to give it the power to slice through Li Yang's leg and surrounded the axe in his right hand with a layer of strong wind to dissipate some of the force in Fang Ying's attack.

Li Yang created a small plate of ice in front of kick, blocking his own attack and using the rebound force to dodge the downward slash. He then created another place of ice behind his now recoiling foot, putting more force into his foot as he kicked the plate and used the rebounding force to send his foot forward again, changing his sideways kick into a downwards kick in the process, aiming for Zi Yanwu's wrist. At the same time, he also took the chance to chat a little with Fang Ying, not willing to wait until later.

”I'm guessing your part of the Tian clan, since you're wearing that robe and all?”

Both of them had jade pieces fused into their chests that gave off a certain energy to let others with similar jade pieces know which clan or sect they were part of. But Li Yang had never really interacted with people from other clans after getting this jade piece so he didn't know which clan had which type of energy.

Fang Ying didn't even bother blocking Zi Yanwu's interception of her attack, she simply let go of her sword and threw herself forward, dodging past his axe and into Zi Yanwu's bosom, almost as if she was trying to lay down flat on the ground. Zi Yanwu instantly realized what she would try to do, but it was too late to stop her now. The sword she had let go vanished, appearing again in her grasp and allowing her to aim a sideways slash at his stomach, responding to Li Yang while she was doing so.

”Yup, I was picked up by one of the Tian clan elders while I was still a child, I've been her disciple ever since. What about you? Looking at those robes, I guess you joined the Myriad Beast sect?”

Li Yang was still wearing the violet-furred wolf-skin robes he had custom ordered, and as robes like these were very common in the Myriad Beast sect, one could easily see why Fang Ying would make that guess.