Hanging from King’s leg, Sage swung his body to the side. It threw off King’s flight path, but it avoided the invisible blade that was coming their way. With the momentary assurance from being carried, Sage had activated the Timeless Eyes and with Foresight he saw King’s wing getting sliced open. Swinging on King’s leg caused the hawk with a sixty foot wingspan to bank to the side to recover its balance and also to avoid the attack it didn’t see coming.

Unfortunately, Black Saber wasn’t the only one after them. The three Strongfist Brothers took out crossbows and started firing at them while Whitestaff ran. Black Saber was releasing attacks from below.

Wait, where did Wu Chang go?

The question was answered a moment later when King was struck from above. Sage had been looking out below them for incoming danger so he didn’t see the attack from the sky coming. The skies darkened and a violent wind assaulted them from above. A column of swirling air smashed down upon them, forcing them back down to the ground like a giant hammer. King was flung violently down to the ground, the two of them getting upturned so the big hawk was the one to crash against a hillside first. As fast as King was, they were already miles outside of Lionheart Town even though he’d only flown for a few seconds. Just before Sage crashed down to the ground he caught sight of a small figure at an extremely high altitude.

The City Lord. Wu Chang. The citizens of Lionheart Town were startled by the loud noise, but when they looked up they could see their City Lord hovering high up in the sky, and they could hear the violent gusting of wind.

Sage hadn’t actually seen Wu Chang in battle before this moment. All he knew was that he was the strongest person in the Jade Horde. At level 58 he was a full 5 stages higher than Black Saber, 3 higher than King, and 7 higher than Sage! Only now was it obvious how Wu Chang became the City Lord without any backing or help at all. With just his own personal strength he’d taken control of the whole city. As if to reinforce Sage’s thoughts, Wu Chang lifted one arm and pointed to a cloud. The white vapor started to swirl and condense, not just creating a vortex or a cyclone, but revolving upon itself to resolve into a huge sphere of spinning air.

Even with the help of Cosmic Traction, Sage still took quite a hard impact when he skipped across the ground from the crash. King faced a similar problem, the both of them using space like a slide or rail to lessen their falls. Unfortunately, they were moving too fast. Their rapid flight accelerated downwards, they skipped over a few hilltops and then crashed into a forest. The many trees and other obstacles were too numerous to completely avoid so they both inevitably took some hits. It wasn’t quite as bad for Sage as his body was much smaller, but King’s huge wings racked up a few hard hits before he pulled them in and just smashed through the tree branches and bushes with his face.

One of King’s wings had a large branch penetrating clear through it. He’d also taken many scratches on his face that were bleeding madly and his back had lost many feathers from where he was struck by the wind column. Sage, a few hundred yards away, was missing an arm, had more than a few broken ribs, and was now covered in bruises. He’d avoided all but one of the trees, taking a strike on his hip. His clothing had been torn to shreds and he had dozens of small scrapes from the tree branches he crashed through, but he’d come through with only one more major injury. They also didn’t have any time to worry about these things, Sage lifted himself back to his feet and then fell back down again, roaring with pain. His left arm was gone, and now his hip on the left side was cracked. When he tried to put weight onto his left leg all he felt was terrible pain. He also felt the same thing every time he took a breath, but thankfully as a powerful cultivator he was able to slow down his rate of breathing to once every few minutes.

King rolled over and hopped to his feet. He tried to leap back into the air, but he also had issues moving his wing. Sage was about to call out some other birds to help them out, but King fixed his piercing blue eyes on him.

“Don’t do it, they don’t stand a chance. I will hold him off. If you die, so do all my inheritors. You have to survive or I’ll never forgive you. Go!”

Sage didn’t have time to respond before King leapt painfully into the air. Even with his wing injured, with the use of Cosmic Traction there was only as much wind resistance as he wanted there to be. He flashed through the sky and there was a loud explosion from above. The swirling sphere of cloud was already gone and King was wheeling through the sky, dripping blood as he went. Wu Chang started battling with him, riding on a vortex of wind energy.

At the fifth rank it was finally possible for a Cultivator to truly fly through the sky without a magic tool. By understanding the natural laws and rules of the world, they could use the energy of heaven and earth to propel them through the sky. Of course, it only worked if they were skilled enough in the laws and different laws had different effects. By studying the ground, or earth, they could eventually negate gravity and float through the air. Of course, this was barely more than levitation, and they’d need to study other laws to move with any speed. Those that studied fire could use it to propel them through the sky, but it was very draining to maintain that level of power for long. Each element on avenue of study has its own pros and cons, but it was well known that those studying the Wind Laws were the best at flying. Light and Thunder were extremely fast, but the skies were filled with wind, just like the seas were filled with water. Those who studied the Wind Laws would become more agile than birds, and move as fast as the wind in the sky.

Tiankong zhi Wang. The King of the Sky.

The huge hawk faced off against Wu Chang high up in the air. The two of them shattered the local weather system and their clashes were louder than thunder.

On the ground, the immense pain shocked Sage into drastic action. It was far too dangerous for him to care about secrets at this point and he released the Human Seal, returning to his true form. A green scaled serpent fell to the ground. It was missing its left forelimb and couldn’t put any weight onto the left rear limb. He could heal extremely quickly, but repairing bones would take a few hours and he couldn’t just grow a new limb in a few days. He had no idea how long such a thing might take, even if it could be done, he’d never tried it after all. The Fat Grass Worm that the power came from could even grow a new head and brain if it were sliced in half, but Sage’s own ability was not as strong. At least the speed of healing was much less, but Sage surmised the slower speed was caused by his body being far more complicated in comparison to a flatworm.

With his limbs injured and ribs cracked, he chose to use Cosmic Traction to help slither through the air. He still had two good limbs and most of his body to use for lateral undulation. All he had to do was build up enough distance from Black Saber and then he could call King away. He was sure that the Breach Hawk was far faster than Wu Chang and could easily escape.