Dual Cultivation God Returns

The surroundings were filled with the sounds of clashing weapons.

Most eyes were focused on the two leaders of the group, whose fight was deemed the most consequential, since both had a sufficiently higher cultivation in the 5th level of Essence Gathering Realm, thus capable to tip the scales of the battle among their subordinates who were mostly in the 4th to 6th level of Essence Awakening Realm.

They were, however, evenly matched, which locked their battle for the time being. It was, in fact, true for the entire battlefield.

The passengers who chose to join the fight and ordinary guards of the transport beast were extremely passive, as were the pirates who faced them, more so keeping up an appearance of a fight - stalling for time and exchanging probing blows - than actually engaging.

From their perspective the outcome of the battle was solely in the hands of the Imperial Guards, while the pirates opposing them were all too happy to keep up this low-risk confrontation and wait for the scales of the overall battle to tip rather than risk their necks for a largely inconsequential fight.

Wu Long's group, however, was solely focused on the fight of the Imperial Guards.

Despite the numerical disadvantage, the Imperial Guards who split into groups of four or five not only kept up with their opponents, but managed to slightly press them, though not to the extent of being capable of breaking the stalemate.

Almost everyone could see that there was a key feature of this fight.

The Imperial Guards showed a capacity for ignoring certain attacks, taking them onto armor, in exchange for a chance of dealing actual damage to the pirates, only a few of whom had some partial body armor like a pair of gauntlets or a pauldron, and most of whom didn't have any protection at all.

This kept the pirates at bay, since attacking meant at least one of them would be seriously wounded or killed while the Imperial Guards were likely to not be harmed. And if they allowed the Imperial Guards to injure or kill too many of them, the entire battle formation - if the pirates' rather chaotic cooperation could be so called - which was dependent on numerical advantage, would crumble.

Not to mention, the most important factor was that there was no unity among the pirates, and none of them were willing to be the one to receive an injury to create an opportunity for the others, all of them waiting for the other guy to take the fall, resulting in the initiative being almost exclusively in the hands of the Imperial Guards.

"Heh, that armor's doing the heavy lifting", someone from the deck below noted, his voice amplified by being caught in the gap between the noise of the battle, causing dissatisfied looks from the people around him, "What? Are you saying they could win this if they didn't have it?"

"What a load of nonsense", Bi Rui sighed, shaking her head.

"As I thought, there's something else, isn't there?", Yu Huan next to her responded, able to tell that it was likely that this wasn't the full picture, but unable to pinpoint what exactly it was.

"Mm, of course, the armor's quite impressive, and its contribution cannot be discounted, but it's the experience and training of the ones wearing it that gives them this edge. Just having that armor wouldn't give such an effect", Bi Rui explained to her friend.

Feng Yi standing next to them chimed in with "If you look closely, you'll see that they only brunt certain attacks, while parrying or evading others. Any armor, even the best one has weak and strong points, what they are doing is using only the sturdiest parts of their armor to their favor"

"They also should know the limitations of the armor they're wearing, at least that's what is usually taught in training, and thus be able to predict what it can take and what it can't handle even in its toughest parts", Bi Rui added, "Though that also relies on their ability to at least somewhat accurately estimate the potential damage of the attacks"

Hearing that explanation, Yu Huan, as well as a few ladies around her who weren't that close combat-savvy finally understood the feeling that there was something they were missing in this picture.

Even someone experienced in close combat like Shen Min, Hua Ziyan and Wu Mengqi, while being able to see it, were impressed by the skill, as someone who never learned to rely on armor like Bi Rui or Feng Yi, the only two of the group who had formal army training.

They also contemplated for the first time, what it would be like to have an opponent with an armor that could withstand their attacks, which instantly changed the dynamic of the fight.

"Hah, interesting, so those weren't just flashy outfits to signify their status", Fen Baihu chuckled.

"To you it might seem that way because armor is usually more relevant in battles of equals, or at least those comparable. And the armor itself has to be effective. Of course, in the eyes of those more powerful, armor of guards and soldiers of a country is not that different from ordinary clothes", Wu Long shook his head with a smile, "But there are powerful armors used by cultivators as well. Wielding an armor can be a strength or a weakness. I suppose you heard about the famed Battle God's Armor, Vermillion Armor of the Heavenly Phoenix Empire, or the late Lust God's prized Armor of Divine Sin just to name the more famous examples?"

"Of course, though in the case of the latter, didn't you basically turn that armor into a sieve and then completely destroy it later?", Fen Baihu's eyes turned playful at the mention of the one armor which was certainly famous for being powerful, until it became infamous for its fate.

"Do you know how much trouble it took to do that?", Wu Long raised his eyebrow, feeling that it wasn't exactly fair to diminish the power of that artifact just because it was eventually destroyed, especially since he had a hard time dealing with it at the time, "It was truly annoying in battle, but even the part about getting rid of it after the fact was a pain"

"Why go to the trouble of destroying it completely then, if it wasn't easy to do?", she asked, clearly intrigued.

"Well, to start, it was created using borrowed Corrupt Path techniques and Lust techniques, so in a way it was not only a product of Lust Cultivation, which is already reason enough to get rid of it, but also a symbol, a relic if you will, which would've fueled a veneration in followers of Lust Cultivation", Wu Long started off, giving an explanation that already convinced Fen Baihu, but then…

"...And if it weren't for that damn piece of junk I could've killed him when we fought, without having to chase him down for so long, and to top it off I could've avoided giving that old geezer of the Xin Dynasty a pretext to turn me into the enemy of the Seven Dynasties Alliance, at least at that point", he added with a grumbling tone that somehow told his ladies this was probably the bigger grudge.

"Hahaha, that's right, I completely forgot! He fled to the Xin Dynasty capital", Fen Baihu laughed with amusement, "If I remember correctly, the Xin Emperor told you that you can't kill him on his land, and you told him 'screw you old fart' before finishing the guy, hahaha"

"I didn't say that…", Wu Long grimaced at the 'gross exaggeration' of the story.

"Eeeh? Tch… that was my favorite bit of the story", Fen Baihu pouted her lips with disappointment as her fluffy tails that excitedly swayed when she laughed slumped down.

"Am I that childish?", he asked, prompting a gaze from Ye Ling under which the confidence with which he said it slightly buckled, and turning to look away, seemingly suddenly interested in the battle around them added "I told him that I could give at least ten reasons off the top of my head why I should kill the guy at that time, and that if he couldn't give me at least half of that to counter, he has no argument to stand on"

"Pfft", Hua Ziyan was the first to react as smiles crept onto the faces around him, while he continued to stare off into the distance where the fighting was still in the same stalemate it was with no signs of change.

"So… how many reasons did you give?", Fen Baihu's eyes shined with playful anticipation as she asked.

"... … … three"