To the east of the desolate land lay a vast ocean, within which floated an island roughly ten jia in circumference, formed entirely of coral.

It was the dead of night, the three moons hanging high overhead, casting a pale, greenish-blue mist that saturated the air above the small island. The atmosphere was intensely cold, profoundly clear, and utterly silent, creating an illusion that countless demons and ghosts lay in ambush everywhere. The island’s vegetation was sparse; the small hilltops were utterly barren, a picture of extreme desolation and bleakness.

Gu Xiechen sat cross-legged atop a low mound, the highest point on the entire island, granting him an unobstructed view of every movement below. His hands were tucked deep within his sleeves, his palms gripping the peak-grade Zakura crystal he had wrested from Bishop Andre. He was ceaselessly channeling his boundary force to absorb the crystal’s energy, transforming it into purple mist that integrated into his personal domain.

A colossal surge of energy poured forth from his heart, vibrant life force seeping into his bone marrow, stimulating the marrow, as pure and white as jade, to generate richer, more viscous blood capable of carrying greater amounts of An gas and energy. The Hanyuan Zhen Dian's two chapters—Marrow Cleansing and Blood Enrichment—worked in perfect synergy, proving to be the supreme secret art for unlocking human potential and enhancing physical functions.

True Qi churned relentlessly within his body; energy vortices spun like hurricanes in all one hundred and eight major acupoints. The True Qi was continually refined and compressed. Gu Xiechen felt his body grow light, poised for flight—the very pinnacle of his daily cultivation cycle had arrived. At that precise moment, his hearing, now sharpened tenfold beyond its usual acuity, detected a strange sound from the distant sky. Gu Xiechen looked up just as a small Roman fighter jet, gleaming entirely in gold and blue light, broke through the cloud layer and hurtled toward him. Gu Xiechen knew: Ducat Holsamm had arrived.

The fighter jet reached the airspace above the island, then detonated with a deafening roar, and Ducat Holsamm, clad only in a white robe, dropped straight down from the high altitude. With a dull, heavy thud, the island itself seemed to tremble. Half of Ducat's body punched deep into the ground. He struck the surface before him with desperate force; the sheer magnitude of his power cracked the earth, splitting it open into several deep fissures radiating outward. Ducat wrenched himself free of the earth—Gu Xiechen watched from above, while Ducat glared up fiercely at him.

“Why issue a challenge against me? We seem to have no direct conflict,” Ducat asked straightforwardly.

“You injured my ally—that Daoist, Little Zhang. I now require his assistance for a matter, and you are a condition necessary to secure that alliance,” Gu Xiechen replied to Ducat’s question with complete candor.

Ducat produced a look of sorrowful resignation. He shook his head and offered a bitter laugh. “I could have refused this duel… What does the honor of the Holsamm family have to do with me?”

“Oh?” Gu Xiechen regarded Ducat with curiosity. “Right, you are of mixed heritage. The Holsamm family honor truly has nothing to do with you, yet you still came!”

Ducat shook his head, resting one hand behind his back while balling the other into a fist and pointing it at Gu Xiechen. He said gravely, “I have my reasons!”

A storm of power, violent as a hurricane, erupted from Ducat. The soil and stones around him were ripped into the air by the surging currents, a black vortex enveloping his body. A series of dull sonic booms echoed as Ducat launched himself upward. In that instant, he unleashed nearly a hundred furious blows toward Gu Xiechen. Ducat roared maniacally, “Regardless of anything else, I must return alive today! Evil Dragon Gu Xiechen, I will kill you today!”

Gu Xiechen swiftly tucked the Zakura crystal into his Qiankun pouch—it was illicit loot, best kept hidden. His large Daoist sleeves billowed as he shot into the air, matching Ducat’s ferocity by unleashing nearly a hundred strikes with his Xue Po Divine Claws in the same instant. Icy, bone-chilling claw energies traced wide, whitish streaks through the air as Ducat’s heavy punches collided head-on and without finesse against Gu Xiechen’s sharp talons.

It was as if nearly a hundred heavy demolition bombs had detonated across the island simultaneously. Both Gu Xiechen and Ducat were blasted hundreds of meters apart. Where they had clashed, the ground had sunk several meters—and this was after nine-tenths of their strength had been absorbed by the opponent, with less than one percent of the residual shockwave causing that much damage.

Ducat’s right hand trembled slightly; a thin layer of frost coated his fist, as painfully cold True Qi continuously assaulted his meridians.

Gu Xiechen staggered backward urgently. He needed to stabilize himself, but Ducat’s unexpectedly immense power forced him to retreat further to dissipate the massive kinetic force of the punches. A searing True Qi, hot as molten iron, was also assaulting Gu Xiechen’s meridians. The True Qi in several major acupoints on Gu Xiechen’s palms concentrated its full power, struggling desperately to neutralize the invasive heat.

After retreating over six hundred meters, Gu Xiechen finally managed to plant his feet firmly. He stared at Ducat, a mixture of shock and anger on his face, and demanded grimly, “I used the Xue Po Divine Claws, my ancestral ultimate technique… but I never knew the Romans cultivated internal energy and True Qi. The haughty Romans, who claim to be the universe’s premier race, are learning from Earthlings now?”

“Roar—Ha!”

Ducat slammed a heavy punch into the ground, causing a massive explosion. A crater, over ten meters deep and a meter in diameter, appeared where he stood, the sand and stone within already melted into slag. The Xue Po Divine Essence that Gu Xiechen had driven into him was entirely expelled. Ducat’s fist now shimmered with a faint crimson light—a sign of True Qi cultivated to an extremely profound level, capable of projecting outward from the body.

Seeing the sheer destructive force of Ducat’s punch, Gu Xiechen felt a genuine shock in his heart. This man’s fist was terrifyingly strong! If they were to compare sheer striking power alone, Gu Xiechen would certainly be inferior to Ducat.

“I have only one name: Xiao!” Ducat glared at Gu Xiechen and stated heavily, “It is my mother’s surname! Those true Romans naturally would not cultivate Earthling True Qi martial arts. But I am not Roman. I am not the Roman half-breed Ducat Holsamm—I am the Earthling Xiao! Remember my name, Evil Dragon. When I tear out your heart, you can scream my name begging for mercy!”

Clenching his fists tightly, Ducat said darkly, “The cultivation method I practice is also my mother’s ancestral Jiu Yang True Essence! It is a pity my mother, being a woman, could not cultivate the Jiu Yang True Essence to its highest realm, otherwise…”

Gu Xiechen looked at Ducat in surprise. It seemed this man’s background held a complex story! Based on Gu Xiechen’s speculation, it was likely his mother lacked the cultivation to resist being forcibly taken to Mars by his father, resulting in Ducat’s birth. Given the despicable traditions of the Romans, his mother’s treatment within the Holsamm family could be easily imagined. Still, this was troublesome. They had sparred once before in the dense forest, and Ducat had revealed none of his True Qi cultivation. Today was a duel to the death, so Ducat had no more need to hold back.

“Ha!”

Ducat roared loudly, and a dense crimson light spread outward from his body. Behind him, nine spheres of red light, the size of human heads, faintly flickered and rolled. The temperature on the small island, spanning several miles, rose sharply. In less than two breaths, Gu Xiechen felt as if he were standing before a steel-smelting furnace; the surrounding heat was terrifying. An ordinary person would have suffocated and fainted under such high temperatures.

“Good, very good! I cannot hold back either!”

Gu Xiechen gritted his teeth and fully mobilized the True Qi stored in his one hundred and eight major acupoints and his Dantian. The highly condensed Protective Essence rushed rapidly through his expanded meridians, and gradually, fine strands of piercingly cold white Protective Essence began to leak through his skin. A faint, hazy white light also emerged around Gu Xiechen’s body. Behind him, thousands of meticulously detailed, hexagonal white ice crystals visibly coalesced. The crystals spun rapidly around Gu Xiechen, causing the surrounding temperature to plummet.

In the same short span of time, the island’s temperature returned to normal. Ducat and Gu Xiechen stood separated by over a thousand meters, facing each other across the distance—one radiating biting cold, the other spewing rolling waves of intense heat. These two extreme forces met, achieving a subtle, precise equilibrium.

“Manifested Form! Jupiter-Tier Fighter!”

The pupils of both Ducat and Gu Xiechen constricted to pinpricks.

Ducat had not expected Gu Xiechen to also be a Jupiter-Tier Fighter; his established confidence instantly took a massive hit.

Gu Xiechen, however, inwardly sighed. A situation he had thought was a sure win had unexpectedly run into a hard obstacle. On Earth, Gu Xiechen’s combat power had reached 975 Zakura. If he were willing to risk injury to his meridians, his strength could double, reaching the level of 1,950 Zakura.

Arriving at Paradise Star, Gu Xiechen had broken through repeatedly. Having mastered the Marrow Cleansing chapter, he had begun cultivation of the subsequent Blood Enrichment chapter. Xin Jia, Zhao Yi, and others appeared in succession, each encounter tempering Gu Xiechen’s body immensely. Coupled with the potent effects of three drops of Huan Piao essence blood, Gu Xiechen’s combat power had managed to climb to around 20,000 Zakura, achieving the rank of Jupiter-Tier Fighter.

Originally, Gu Xiechen believed that relying on his soaring strength would guarantee an easy victory over Ducat. Who knew that Ducat was also one who hid his true power? As a Roman half-breed, he cultivated Earthling-specific Protective Essence techniques, and furthermore, his True Qi cultivation had also reached the Jupiter-Tier realm!

Jupiter-Tier Fighter—this was a true watershed moment. The fact that even a Roman half-breed could reach this realm left one speechless.

“You hid yourself deeply, Ducat… no, Xiao! Your Jiu Yang True Essence is very powerful!” Gu Xiechen sighed deeply.

“Likewise!” Ducat managed to sound cocky, sneering coldly, “Your strength has increased by much, much more than the first time I saw you. It seems your gains on Paradise Star were considerable. I even suspect you had other fortuitous encounters besides that valley with the strange pillar of fire.”

Gu Xiechen was startled. Now, the Romans, the Asian Daoist Alliance, and quite possibly even the Council of Gods, the Vatican, and the Expeditionary Force Command were observing this duel via military satellites. If Ducat’s words were taken seriously, he would be in tremendous trouble. A single bamboo slip had already caused chaos across the world; Ducat’s statement was practically pushing him toward death!

“Stop the nonsense, what fortuitous encounters?” Gu Xiechen snapped, feeling a flicker of guilt.