While the duel, rightful killing, or even execution, no matter how Bai Qi called it, was unexpected, a lot of planning went to hell while new plans arose.
For Bai Qi, the situation was pretty simple. While he wasn't sure of Minister Tang's affiliation, even if he suspected him as an assassin of the [Shadow Lotus], and he was clear that no matter what happened there would be an attempt on everyone's life, he had no option but to continue forward with it, all while trying to find a moment to break the restrictions present and alert the Warrior Emperors in the city. All while not revealing his true trump cards, as who knew how many and for what reason, people would learn about this event.
For Yuwen Dong, while the duel was a chance to deal with the nuisance that had ruined both of his prospects in the city as well as his relationship with the [Go-Zan Sect], he still felt a bit uneasy. But, he suppressed his feelings, concentrating only on the duel. After all, as soon as Bai Qi was killed in an official confrontation, the [Dongpo] clan couldn't say anything, as for the [Go-Zan Sect], he would have successfully avenged their disciple loss, thus more likely to receive benefits and not their condemnation.
For Tang Chao, Minister Tang, the duel was both a blessing and a curse. While he could have only wished for Bai Qi to be so arrogant as to accept a duel against Yuwen Dong, the fact that he would now have to deal with 16 Warrior Lords, from which at least 4 had several protective measures on themselves, was nothing he would have wanted for himself. Even if his mindpower was comparable to a Warrior Emperor, and his physical cultivation was above any of the youngsters and helpers present, he couldn't envision how to deal with all of them at the same time, all the witnesses, both helpers and Bai Qi's companions, without evoking a scene that no Warrior King, what to say about Warrior Emperor, would notice. Thus, instead of keeping an eye or controlling the start of the duel, he directly went back into the void, formulating plan over plan, using talisman after talisman, all to ensure that the 4-flag formation he had set up to conceal the area resisted not only the duel but his following actions.
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In the cultivation realm, formations are revered as extraordinary tools of power and strategy. These intricate arrays, often immobile, can manipulate the flow of spiritual energy, create barriers, and enhance combat abilities. Even a master of formations, rarely surpassing the Sage realm, can deploy formations capable of battling opponents far above their level. Weaker Warrior Lords often meet disastrous fates when facing such masters.
Grandmasters of formations are even more formidable. While their cultivation level influences the strength of their formations, a Sage-level master of formations could still contend with Warrior Lords due to their profound understanding and skill. A Grandmaster at the Warrior King or, if fortune permits, the Warrior Lord realm, could challenge even Warrior Emperors.
However, formations come with significant challenges. They require special materials, with stronger formations demanding more resources. This includes special ink and paper, often treasures far above the tier meant to face but also supporting treasures of varied rarity.
The more powerful the formation, the more exceptional and rare the materials needed. Despite these challenges, the awe-inspiring potential of formations makes them indispensable in the world of cultivation.
Formation flags, on the other hand, offer a unique advantage with their mobility. Unlike traditional formations, these flags require nothing but a skilled user to activate them.
Even a basic set of four flags, comparable to a Warrior Lord's cultivation in strength, can enable their owner to contend with a peak Warrior Lord if enough power is provided. Plus, additional resources can significantly amplify their power, even if their rank is low. Still, the truth was that flags were an absolute treasure.
And the more flags in a set, the greater the formation's power, by 18 flags, reaching the 3rd step of the Half-Saint formation master path, one that could contend with any Demi-Saint without trouble! And that, without any additional resources except for the user's qi!
Yet, as in anything under the heavens, the refining formation of flags is a daunting task. Creating them requires materials of exceptional quality, including special ink and cloth from the treasure tiers above the formation itself. To successfully refine these flags, the creator must also possess a mastery level far above the one of the intended formation and count with the help of a developed refiner. Despite these challenges, the awe-inspiring potential of formation flags makes them an invaluable ace up the sleeve in the world of cultivation.
And it wasn't strange for the Grandmasters to dedicate, sometimes, over half of their time to craft flags of the Master level, all to accumulate the spirit stones or even resources they required for their craft.
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As for the young heirs, no matter their reasons for hanging around Bai Qi, as well as their followers, they kept quiet while a few, including Pan Tong, thought of how to alarm their elders and protectors. Even if Bai Qi had told them not to worry, how couldn't they not? Especially Pan Tong, Lei Guiying, and Gao Xiulan. In a foreign land, besieged and their ways to contact their elders blocked? And with Bai Qi personally stowing away the only talisman that could break through the blockage, as to accept some duel with an old and experienced master, no matter if they weren't so far in cultivation?!
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In any case, the duel was on, even if everyone had their own ideas. And so it started.
In the small area of a vacated street, Bai Qi and Yuwen Dong met one against the other.
One was a so-lauded young talent whose actual strength surpassed his realm of a 6th level Warrior Lord. While already having some participation in important events and not a small record of wins, he was still just a youngster, one that could be called a genius, yet still away from proving himself as one of the top cultivators of the region.
The other; Was the leader of a small but still influential family under the 3rd tier power known as the [Eastern Inscription City]. With 68 years of life behind him and far over 50 as a cultivator, dozens and hundreds of duels and adventures behind his belt, even if his cultivation had stagnated at the peak of the Warrior Lord for not a dozen years, he was a true behemoth when compared to a person who could have barely cultivated for some years and had no known background.
The duel start proved the point for many, especially for Tang Chao, as when the two combatants clashed, no matter how forceful Bai Qi's aura was, and no matter how surprising it was for a rogue Warrior Lord to be able to surpass levels, keeping a standstill with the old leader of the local [Yuwen], the youngster got suppressed by Yuwen Tong's ingenious movements and skillfulness. No matter how talented the so-called Bai Qi was, he simply did not have enough time to practice and develop a personal way of fighting, one that could be used both with qi and without the latter, which could raise the aura and function as a simple martial art.
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Fists and palms, kicks and sweeps, both combatants went all out for their physical fight. Or at least, so it would appear.
Bai Qi no doubt, but even Yuwen Dong respected the words about a duel and followed the unsaid rules, their auras clashing first, and with no stronger determination, met in close combat, using nothing but their bodies.
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Since the start, Yuwen Dong's objective, and actually only option, was to suppress, defeat, and preferably kill Bai Qi, all to absolve himself from his backers' persecution. Minister Tang's proposal came too suddenly, but at the same time, it was perfectly in line with what he had in mind. As it also absolved him from the debts incurred towards the dark power behind the unassuming mind power practitioner that served as Dongpo Lian's advisor, he wasn't one to hold back punches.
Granted, if it was him, he would have ambushed and killed directly, but Tang Chao had forbade him from doing so before having an accepted duel against Bai Qi. After all, punches and kicks couldn't always be held back, weren't they? His counsel, or order, clear, to kill but with a reason or justification enough.
While the fact that Bai Qi's aura repelled and contained his surprised him, Yuwen Dong didn't take it at heart, considering that the aura, even if he was a Soul practitioner mainly, wasn't as strong as his other methods. In fact, he could have been considered a faulty [Yuwen] bloodline, his soul being weaker than his cultivation. At least, if there were actual [Yuwen] clan members around.
Still, even with a weaker soul, he had survived hundreds of fights, and during most of them, it was his basic strength, the one from the, openly shared hundreds of years before, [Yuwen Soul Raise] method the one to be suppressed.
Thus, he adapted, obtaining, stealing, and learning from his opponents. Dozens and dozens of martial skills, spells, spiritual techniques, and most importantly, at least for such a moment, physical body arts. While unexpected, and somewhat disgraceful for someone who followed the Soul path, he even created a set of physical arts that he could use both as such or infuse with his qi, aura, or mind power while releasing all of his accumulated techniques, skills, and even spells.
And now, the most basic form, one without anything but his trained body behind it, of the [Rising of the East] (Rising of the Dong), faced a young genius with probably his own strength, but still overcame the latter!
Even when omitting that it was not so graceful for an elder to bully a youngster, which he would actually pay no mind to, the interests to great, Yuwen Dong would suddenly feel that something wasn't right.
Yes, all the observers could see how he dominated the fight, sending three attacks in response to a single one from Bai Qi, and countering the latter with ease. But... While Yuwen Dong had moved and circled Bai Qi while fighting, retreating and jumping closer as the situation and openings required... Bai Qi had not moved a single step! Furthermore, the latter didn't even turn his body, as if he had eyes on his back, and his arms naturally moved to intercept each of the [Yuwen] clan's leader ones and released an attack or two after a few successful interdictions!
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Since the start, Bai Qi held no fear of fighting against Yuwen Dong. Granted the latter was a truly experienced, peak Warrior Lord, and his aura required Bai Qi to actually urge his soul to compete, not to mention the close combat arts the latter used. Still, for Bai Qi, Yuwen Dong was hardly an opponent in the physical part of the fight.
After all, while the latter had trained his body, Bai Qi had done the same and had done it to a degree when under the Warrior Lord realm he could already face 9th level Warrior Lords. Maybe not peak ones, but his following-up advances had allowed him to get a body comparable to a physical cultivation peak Warrior Lord, all while he didn't even truly cultivate his body after the Sage realm requirements, all coming naturally because of the hardships, trials, and breakthroughs.
As for Yuwen Dong's martial arts, while they were impressive, and could subdue any unprepared opponent, they were based simply on his understanding stemming from over 50 years of cultivation and fights, which had prompted him to create such.
Any other Warrior Lord, at least if not from Yuwen Dong's generation, would be obviously suppressed, but for Bai Qi? What could an art based on experience do to him? Granted, during his original life he had avoided fights, but how much did he fight in 800 years? How many experts he had seen? That was already incomparable to someone like Yuwen Dong. And if one considers that since their full soul merge, the demon's, Kui Mulang's, experiences also flowed into him, and while the latter had only lived for some 200 years, his life had always been full of fighting, giving him such a great deal of understanding that not even some of Bai Qi's previous life experts would have.
The reason for his slight, if any, as he still fought back to his maximum possible force, lack of concentration was because he was still breaking his head on how to contact the Emperors' in the city without having to expose his mindpower, which could easily break through such a simple formation meant to contain peak Warrior Lords', or if he found the way, how to do it without allowing Yuwen Dong, who obviously wasn't an easy opponent, to injure or even kill him. After all, no matter how Bai Qi had developed, he was still far from the actual resilience of a peak Warrior Lord, no matter his soul, mind, and in some things, even body advantages.
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Dongpo Lian, no matter how she appeared to both courtiers and citizens, had always kept an eye on the city. Especially on her son, knowing that most of the trouble could come from him.
Granted, she gave him a position of responsibility, but it was exactly the latter, not a free card to do what he wanted. Still, as she learned about his conduct, as his mother, she would be lenient, only scolding him a couple of times for taking the city resources intended to buy herbs, pills, and treasures that would help her father.
No matter what lavish life she lived and liked, she kept the clan's leader, her father, in mind. But at the same time, she couldn't help herself from backing up her son in any of the troubles he started.
And with the many eyes and ears in the city that she had seeded, her father never truly giving up on the [Shadow Inscription of the East] that served both him and the clan as such, Dongpo Lian learned of the incident before the gates far before Qiu'er informed her.
Although disgusted by the ease with which Qingqiu was manipulated and went with the ambush plan against the only target they could offend, the [Pan] being far from their reach, she, in some way supported it, confirming the orders for the guards to stay clear.
She would be even involved in confirming the orders to the guards led by Zhu Mo, the little idiot even thinking that his position was obtained because of Qingqiu, and not an agreement before the [Zhu] clan and Dongpo Lian herself.
But even as Bai Qi was captured, and tortured later by Qiu'er, not too much of the surprise of Lady Lian, she still felt that the boy would bring trouble... And so he did, with the [White Grove] and [Yuxuan] City representatives, each able to kill her with a single bout, even the [Zhu] traitor, arriving to save him.
No matter how she enjoyed - her learning of it right as it happened, Qingqiu's speech, feeling that he, at last, had taken a step in managing subordinates in place of just drinking off the clan's money, - she understood that there would be no other way out but a fight.
And it would happen, both Zhu Chen and the [Future Sword Empress] Lei Su ready for one. If not for her father's intervention, one that even sent Qiu'er to prison, no matter how she appealed for the latter.
Even so, it would be her father to rescue Bai Qi, and even try to ingratiate himself with the latter. Even if he was a genius and had so many connections, Dongpo Lian didn't understand why it was so. She didn't, at least until the duel on the [Sima]'s grounds, where she, by herself, saw just how heaven-defying this young rogue was. Adding the secret talks and later declaration of friendship, Dongpo Lian couldn't help but curse,
Not that it prevented her, after being kicked from the secret meeting between Warrior Emperors, to go after Bai Qi, to ensure his safety, lest the plans of her father went amiss!