Unbeatable! Invincible! Unparalleled!

"Brother! You're finally here!" Shen Lu waved at Duan Li as he saw the latter approaching him from the distance.

Tap! Tap!

Landing on his feet after a long two hour flight from his residence court at the academy all the way to the Northern border at half the speed of supersonic, a distance of more than 1000 kilometers from the Jiu Empire's capital - Nine Lotus city, Duan Li's hair had become dishevelled and his clothes unkempt.

"Brother Shen Lu, what's going on? And how did you arrive so fast?" Duan Li asked with a surprised reaction on his last sentence.

As far as he know, Shen Lu does not have the capability to arrive before he did, which means..

"Ah, your clone teleported me to the furthest Airtrain station he could find that is nearest to the Northern border, so I bought a ticket and arrived here about an hour ago." Shen Lu replied with a slight chuckle.

He was actually surprised that Duan Li was able to make it there within two hours. One has to know that the distance he was teleported to covered half the distance from the capital city, which would take roughly an hour to reach by using the Airtrain!

Next, the Airtrain that he used to go to the Northern border also took an hour in total.

That meant that Duan Li's travelling flight speed was similar to an Airtrain's!

What a monstrous body! Able to withstand such speed!

"As expected of him.." Shen Lu said to himself as he sighed.

Recalling back to when they first met, he was far stronger than him in terms of cultivation. Yet, in the span of what could be considered as a flash, he was now eating the dust left behind by Duan Li and his cultivation was severely lacking in comparison!

Right now, Duan Li was already someone that makes Shen Lu felt unqualified to become a rival with!

Hais!

Little did he realized however, that one should not compare themselves to Duan Li in the first place. Had he viewed himself among his other peers, his cultivation speed as well as the rest of Duan Li's party had already far outstripped them all!

"He teleported you? No wonder.." Duan Li nodded in comprehension. "But why didn't he teleported you all the way here directly? Surely he can do that?"

Shen Lu scratched his head, "Well, that's what I said too, but then I got scolded as a result. He berated me for being a pampered child when I have my own two feet to walk the rest of the distance. He also said that he don't have the energy to spare for my own convenience.. I tell you what, your clone is way too uptight! How can the clone be so polar opposite to the original?" he complained.

Pu!

Hearing this, Duan Li almost choked on his throat.

Polar opposite? Do you mean to say that I'm far too relaxed?

I tell you what, I'm a pretty dedicated person okay?

Letting out a few dry coughs, Duan Li then replied, "He is probably far too busy to handle the desk job that I left him with that he wanted to save some strength for himself. Besides, now that I've understood spatial teleportation myself, such technique actually expends quite a lot of your spiritual Qi! The further the distance, the astronomical amount it would take for one to use it!"

Duan Li's clone, Utmost Being, although was an exact copy of himself, does not have the massive spiritual Qi capacity like he has from his three Dantians!

Sure, his clone replicated the technique to use all three Dantians as well, but mastering its usage? The clone could only tap into his understanding of how to do it, but in practicality? That would be a different story!

Otherwise, how could he be so troubled in trying to teach his followers on how to cultivate their second dantian? He even went to the extent of planning to concoct a special pill for them to do it by using exotic and rare to find ingredients!

At best, Utmost Being could probably only emulate about 40% of his total spiritual Qi capacity at one time, which also meant that his rate of spiritual Qi recovery per cycle was also 60% less than what Duan Li could do!

Taking this into consideration, combined with the fact that the teleportation had costed him more than half of his spiritual Qi, it was simple to deduce why Utmost Being did not teleport Shen Lu all the way to the Northern border.

It's because he can't do it!

"Is that so? But yeah, he was multitasking even during the time he was imparting me with some knowledge of a Strategist. I had not even seen him taking a rest.. continuing to read and compile books after books. Strangely enough, he was far too intelligent to be a clone that I doubt myself that maybe you are the clone instead! Hahahaha!" Shen Lu teased as he stared at Duan Li with a suspicious look jokingly.

Pu!

Duan Li received another lethal blow to his pride.

"Cough! Cough! Anyway, what about the situation in the Liu Empire? Can you brief me?" Duan Li swiftly changed the topic with a reddened face.

Shen Lu laughed for a bit after seeing Duan Li's futile attempt to hide his embarrassment before answering, "It's kind of dire I guess. Let me explain on the way. Meanwhile, we should head for the gate first and present our papers."

...

"I see.. that is a really complicated situation.." Duan Li said with a contemplative frown.

According to Shen Lu, after the rumors of Duan Li becoming the Imperial Overseer of the Jiu Empire and defeating an immortal spread into the Tian continent like wildfires, the Xian Empire along with its ally, the Yuan Empire, which consequently were located North of the Liu Empire, has shown quite the aggressive stance in the rumor that they had sent their military force that was now en route to the Liu Empire's doorstep within a week!

Of course, the Liu Empire and the Jiu Empire then sent envoys in response to this dramatic movement of theirs, but they were captured instead!

In essence, this was a bold move that could be considered as an unofficial declaration of war!

Fortunately, one of the envoys from the Liu Empire managed to escape and returned back with a report.

It turns out that both the Emperors of the Xian and Yuan Empire were enraged upon learning that the Emperor of the Jiu Empire was so weak that someone who was not of the Royal blood was able to become an Imperial Overseer!

For them, this was a blatant disregard to the hierarchy of the Tian continent, which also meant that their title of an Emperor was sullied!

However, from the reports of the escaped envoy, he stated that most of the military officials did not even seem to believe that the rumors were real and that it was all a hoax from a backwater nation like the Jiu Empire.

After all, how could an outsider possibly match against an Emperor, who was known to be the strongest within one's empire from the decades of high quality resources to nurture their cultivation?

It would be foolish and courting death!

Therefore, if that was the case, why then did they took such a drastic action?

Duan Li and Shen Lu also couldn't make fingers with this, and according to Utmost Being, Liu Sheng Duhai would brief them more about it.

Right now, they were waiting in a limbo zone between the gate of the Jiu Empire and the Liu Empire under the Wang mountain ranges. Several powerful knights on both side could be seen staring at their opposing match atop of each gate with a solemn expression, looking unfriendly to their neighbours.

In addition, the Wang mountain range was cold and rocky, adding to the already chilly and tension atmosphere between the two opposing forces.

Hais!

Duan Li sighed as he observed this situation. He understood it all too well that both empires were actually friendly with each other. Thus, why the cold expression?

Are they not tired of frowning like that all the time?

"Arrival of the Imperial Advisory!" the Knights on the Liu Empire's gate declared.

BOOMM!!

The gate was opened by two Nascent Soul realm expert channelling their spiritual Qi on each side of the door and pushed.

"By the looks of it, each door was ingrained with a runic formation that could only be opened with a set amount of spiritual Qi injected into it..." Duan Li and Shen Lu both noted.

Such security meant that not just anyone could open them! And this seemed to be the case with the gate of the Jiu Empire as well!

"Sorry that it took a while. Come, we don't have much time!" Liu Sheng Duhai said with a grave expression.

...