No — Ling Tianyou had to be dealt with at the first opportunity, before he had fully spread his wings. Left to grow, he would one day become a mortal threat.

Proud though he was, Xue Jianming was no fool. He was a cultivator of the early Golden Core stage, true enough; he had a deputy sect master for a father, true enough; and behind him stood that mysterious and formidable patron, the Center, true enough as well. But all of it counted for nothing before Ling Tianyou's Thousand Blades in Flight. Such a threat had to be strangled in the cradle.

"Your eye is keen, sir. I am impressed." Ling Tianyou was briefly taken aback; he had not expected Wei Zhao's powers of perception to be so sharp, to count the flying needles at a single glance. Had he not spoken up, it was doubtful the others present would have realized it so soon.

"You are too kind. I never thought I would see the Thousand Blades in Flight with my own eyes today. The Ancient Alliance truly does produce one talent after another — a pity, though." Wei Zhao shook his head with a meaning look.

"A pity? How so?" Ling Tianyou regarded him. Everyone else was curious too — this was the legendary Thousand Blades in Flight, after all. What could there possibly be to regret?

"A pity that your cultivation is still so low. Give you time to grow, and you would indeed become a formidable figure. As things stand — well, you are still far from ready." Wei Zhao spoke his mind plainly, before the whole crowd.

The onlookers exchanged glances, privately thinking what a poseur the man was. What they did not know was that every word Wei Zhao said was true. Ling Tianyou's Thousand Blades in Flight was genuine enough, but those thousand blades were nothing but insignificant flying needles, and all of them together did not weigh so much as a pound. Even if it was the Thousand Blades in Flight, it was the weakest version of it.

It might frighten others well enough, but intimidating Wei Zhao was out of the question — to say nothing of the true power of Wei Zhao's own body. Never mind the weakest version of the Thousand Blades in Flight; even if all thousand blades had been genuine divine weapons, they would at most have made a formidable opponent. How could he be frightened?

"Is that so? Then I must ask you to instruct me." Ling Tianyou's face was still mild, but he was the junior sect master of the Thousand Blades Sect, a man of surpassing skill who had mastered the Thousand Blades in Flight. To be spoken to like that to his face — there was no way his pride would not be stirred.

"By all means." Wei Zhao smiled faintly and, with great aplomb, made a gesture of invitation — though in the eyes of the bystanders it looked like nothing but showing off.

Ling Tianyou's expression turned grave. His ten fingers moved slightly, and the nine hundred ninety-nine flying needles hovering in midair instantly gathered onto that ribbon, which twisted back and forth in turn, its tip writhing into the shape of a serpent's head — at first glance, a living, breathing spined serpent!

The spined serpent thrashed wildly through the air, its shrieking whistle cold and keen, its momentum startling to behold. Even the onlookers could not help but feel their hearts quail, and even a cultivator of Xin Yi'an's caliber, at the early Golden Core stage, felt his eyelids twitch. Only Wei Zhao, in the midst of it all, was unhurried; the corner of his mouth even curved into a faintly amused arc.

After circling a moment, the spined serpent suddenly lunged at Wei Zhao from behind, swift as could be. But Wei Zhao was swifter still; his figure flickered, and he evaded it with ease.

"Only our martial grand-uncle could do that. Anyone else would never dodge that lunge," Xin Yi'an remarked — and this was no flattery of Wei Zhao, but plain truth. The spined serpent's strike was so fast that even with his own movement arts he could not have slipped aside so calmly. In the whole gathering, there truly was no second man besides Wei Zhao.

"However fast your footwork, sir, can you dodge the Divine Dragon's Tail Sweep?" Ling Tianyou was utterly confident.

The spined serpent was needles from head to tail. Faced with such an assault, no normal person's first instinct would be to meet it head-on — not only for fear of pain, but far more for fear of poison. So Wei Zhao's response was entirely within his expectations. The spined serpent, fully unfurled, stretched more than three zhang, and in doing so had already soundlessly encircled Wei Zhao. However he dodged, there was no escaping this long-gathering, late-striking move.

"The Divine Dragon's Tail Sweep?" Wei Zhao smiled at the words and casually released a wisp of Five Elements killing qi. "Then why not see whose dragon is the stronger?"

A dragon's cry rang out, and the Five Elements killing qi met the spined serpent as it swept across. Then came a thunderous blast, and the spined serpent burst apart on impact, its flying needles scattering across the ground.

"How can this be?" Ling Tianyou could not help but blanch. He had utter faith in his move; even a cultivator of the early Golden Core stage would have found the Divine Dragon's Tail Sweep hard to handle. Yet Wei Zhao had broken it head-on with ease, and by the most domineering, force-against-force method at that — and what was more, with nothing but a single wisp of true qi. How could there be such terrifying true qi under heaven? Was this man really only at the great consummation of Foundation Establishment?

Only Wei Zhao himself was unsurprised. However great the lineage of the Thousand Blades in Flight, could it be greater than the lineage of the Five Elements killing qi?

"There is always a heaven beyond heaven and a man beyond men. Nothing strange about it, is there?" Wei Zhao smiled faintly, then added, "If the Thousand Blades in Flight has only this much strength, it is rather a disappointment."

In his view, the spined serpent Ling Tianyou had conjured was certainly no mean feat, and at first glance it seemed to accord with the Thousand Blades Sect's principle of weapons complementing one another. But that principle held only for ordinary disciples; for a genius of Ling Tianyou's surpassing gifts, it was far too mediocre. If the legendary Thousand Blades in Flight was truly meant to be used this way, it was a waste.

"Is that so? My skills are crude, then — I must have made a fool of myself before you." Ling Tianyou's expression was calm as ever now, without a trace of displeasure.

Yet his hands never paused. Once scattered, the flying needles did not gather again upon the ribbon; instead they simply held their own formations, so that at a glance they resembled a dense swarm of bees. Their attacks seemed chaotic beyond measure, yet they answered one another, as though secretly conforming to some profound art of war.

"Oh? Troop deployment and battlefield formation — now this is somewhat interesting." With keen interest, Wei Zhao directed the Five Elements killing qi to circle and contend with the swarm of needles, and the more he fought, the more startled he grew. Ling Tianyou's gifts were indeed exceedingly high. In raw power, the needle swarm was far inferior to the spined serpent of a moment before, but now that it had broken into parts, it had become all the more troublesome — striking here, striking there, capturing the very essence of sparrow warfare.

"Only somewhat interesting?" Ling Tianyou smiled faintly, and before his words had died away, the dozen or so needle swarms, great and small, scattered yet further, until almost every single needle fought on its own. The power of each strike grew weaker in turn, but at the same time the strikes came more often, and grew harder and harder to guard against.