Chapter 166: Severing Gold and Silver

Though Tsukuyomi was powerful, it was not without its flaws. At its core, Tsukuyomi was a contest of wills; if the opponent’s spiritual strength far surpassed that of the user, there was a chance they could break free. Furthermore, Tsukuyomi required the enemy to have looked into Xiao Xie’s Mangekyo Sharingan—if the target was blind, it would be useless.

“What’s wrong with Han Feng?” A voice drifted over as a ripple disturbed the air. Two figures—one clad in gold, the other in silver—appeared in the sky like phantoms.

“Sir Gold and Sir Silver, this brat is up to tricks! He ambushed the master, and now the master’s condition is unknown!” Han Beng, seeing the newcomers, hastened to point at Xiao Xie.

Above, the two figures materialized eerily in the air, one in golden robes and one in silver. Upon closer inspection, their faces were nearly identical—white hair, white beards, and features as if carved from the same mold.

The fame of these two was not unfamiliar even to the elders of the Inner Academy, whose expressions shifted subtly. The so-called Sir Gold and Sir Silver were the top two elites on the Black List of the Black-Corner Region. Being twins who cultivated identical techniques, their strength when apart was only comparable to the peak of the Dou Emperor. But together, their powers complemented each other, giving them a real chance even against a Dou Ancestor. Thus, their reputations rang loud among the region’s strongest, and even the elders had heard tales of them.

“Oh? Han Feng hasn’t paid us what he promised! Nothing must happen to him now.” The golden-robed elder looked startled, his voice grave.

“Boy, confess what you’ve done at once! Otherwise, I’ll deal with you myself—you’ll die with regret!” The silver-robed elder fixed Xiao Xie with a cold, menacing glare.

“A toad yawning—what a big mouth! If you think you can, go ahead and try!” Xiao Xie looked at the silver-robed elder with utter disdain, his lips curled with scorn.

Xiao Xie’s unfiltered, contemptuous gaze, combined with his sneering lips, stabbed into the elder’s heart like a blade. Fury flared within him, and he roared, “You brat, courting death!”

The silver-robed elder’s right hand became a palm, and a white hand of Dou Qi, ten feet across, cleaved through the sky, slamming down upon Xiao Xie. Xiao Xie was struck like a rag doll, utterly defenseless, and sent flying.

“You…” Blood streaming from his face, half his body reduced to pulp by the blow, Xiao Xie stared at the elder in utter disbelief, as if stunned by the attack. Eyes wide, unyielding even in death, he collapsed.

“Serves you right for your arrogance. Hmph,” the silver-robed elder sneered, staring at Xiao Xie’s lifeless gaze.

“Who would have thought that the famed Sir Gold and Sir Silver, said to be so close, harbored such enmity?” the Grand Elder, Su Qian, remarked in shock.

“What do you mean?” The silver-robed elder frowned at Su Qian’s words.

“Idiot, can’t you see what’s going on?” A familiar voice rang out, dripping with scorn.

The silver-robed elder turned toward the sound, only to freeze in disbelief. Xiao Xie, who should have been dead, stood unscathed in the sky above, looking down on him. The elder was sure his full-force attack had landed—Xiao Xie should not have survived. Pointing, he cried, “You’re alive?!”

Behind him, Sect Master Fan Lao of the Blood Sect sensed something amiss and called out, “Sir Silver, I think you just struck Sir Gold.”

The silver-robed elder was stunned. He turned toward where his brother had stood—now empty save for a half-shattered corpse below, clad in the golden robe that unmistakably belonged to his elder brother. Closer inspection revealed the lifeless face was not Xiao Xie’s after all, but his own brother’s.

Su Qian and the other elders, along with the Black-Corner Region’s powerhouses, sensed something peculiar. Moments earlier, they’d seen the silver-robed elder suddenly attack his brother, thinking a feud had erupted. But now, the truth seemed far stranger.

Just moments ago, brimming with rage, the silver-robed elder had been poised to strike Xiao Xie, but had suddenly turned and unleashed his full power upon his own twin. The two brothers had always been close; the golden-robed elder could never have anticipated such betrayal and was wholly unprepared for a peak Dou Emperor’s assault. In an instant, he was shattered, dying in utter confusion as to why his own brother had killed him.

“Brother! It was you—it was your trickery! Give my brother back!” the silver-robed elder howled, eyes bloodshot. The brother he’d shared his entire life and cultivation with was dead by his own hand. Overwhelmed by grief and rage, he glared at Xiao Xie like a lone wolf, desperate to vent his anguish lest it consume him.

“Give me your life!” he roared, both palms lashing out, his body enveloped in surging Dou Qi, diving at Xiao Xie like a silver python tens of meters long. In the throes of agony and fury over killing his brother, the elder broke through the bottleneck of the Dou Emperor’s peak. With a little time to stabilize his power, he could have reached the rank of Dou Ancestor—a true master on the continent.

But would he live to see it?

Facing the charging silver python, Xiao Xie calmly raised his right hand. “Hadō number ninety—Black Coffin.”

With those words, a black cube materialized, trapping the giant serpent within. A swarm of shadowy blades pierced into the cube.

Moments later, the cube dissolved, leaving only a corpse riddled with holes, the once-resplendent silver robe reduced to tattered rags.

Seeing the two fierce men who had dominated the Black-Corner Region for years so easily dispatched by Xiao Xie, everyone was stunned into silence. Even Grand Elder Su Qian was left in shock; after all, Sir Gold and Sir Silver had been summoned by Han Feng specifically to restrain him, yet now both were felled in a single stroke. The fact that Sir Silver had suddenly turned on and killed Sir Gold made the event even more bewildering—who could believe Xiao Xie hadn’t played a part?

Yet no one present could explain how Xiao Xie had manipulated Sir Silver into killing his own brother. The Mangekyo Sharingan had never before appeared on the Dou Qi Continent.

On the Canaan Academy side, everyone was speechless with astonishment at Xiao Xie’s effortless slaying of the two peak Dou Emperors. The Black-Corner Region’s assembled strongmen, summoned by Han Feng, were equally terrified, glancing from the broken Han Feng to the corpses of the fallen brothers. They could only despair—if even their leaders were on their knees, what hope did they have? Would anyone believe them if they claimed to be mere bystanders?

For a moment, the entire battlefield was shrouded in an eerie, inexplicable silence, the result of Xiao Xie’s overwhelming display.

At that very moment, within the Skyburning Qi-Refining Tower, the Fallen Heart Flame, incarnated as an invisible fire serpent, suddenly had a black emblem of three shuriken appear in its deep white pupils. The phantom serpent went berserk, its power surpassing anything seen before. It slammed itself against the gap at the tower’s peak, and under its relentless assault, the seal shattered instantly!

A thunderous roar echoed as the giant, invisible fire serpent burst free, howling at the sky and shattering the silence.

All eyes were drawn to the fire serpent. The strongmen of the Black-Corner Region were overjoyed—now that the Academy would be preoccupied with the serpent, they would have no time to deal with their enemies.