Rise of the Legendary Emperor

"Wait until the Life shard protection shield becomes weaker"

The voice of the golden robed man sounded inside Knight's mind as he felt a tremendous amount of force pushing his Battle Energy away from the Life shard. His focus on the Life shard broken by Loretta's sudden question

"Who are you?"

Perhaps this was the first time she had pushed to the point of tasting defeat. However, she still had some tricks up her sleeve and wanted to know who this young man was in front of her. As long as she was unable to affect his mind using the Black rose, she would lose a major spell in her arsenal.

"You will hear my name soon, now I have to take this"

Knight said with an indifferent tone and glanced at the Life shard near him.

Lia was thoroughly shocked beyond words; Loretta had just admitted defeat! Earlier she even saw Sterling respected her and by the attitude he had shown in front of her, Lia could see that Loretta was more powerful than Sterling and he knew this. And Sterling could be said as the number one genius of the younger generation in the southern part of the Elvelon. So by defeating Loretta, Knight proved that now he could easily defeat Sterling and take the number one position for himself. A genius like him would be showered with wealth and prizes and offered a prominent position in the Royal court of the Empress herself. Lia's mind couldn't process that she was standing beside this genius because only powerful cultivators and rich nobles like Loretta deserved the chance to meet or talk with the genius like him, yet, she was there, right beside him. 

Loretta was startled for a moment as well. She never expected this guy to be that strong and now he was about to take the Guardian Stone. 

"Although you defeated my Black Rose, You are not worthy enough to defeat me. Let's attack each other one last time"

Loretta coldly said again. Her pride in being the number one genius of the Northern part of Elvelon was rooted way too deep in her heart and a single defeat of her spell couldn't shake her pride or ego. If she were to be defeated by this guy, she would be second, and being number second was not an option for her, not for the next Holy Maiden.

"Fine. However, if I win, I'll take this and you'll owe me a favor. What do you say?"

He agreed after burying his annoyance towards this girl under a small smile, but he had a condition. Even though he didn't like her attitude, it didn't me that he can't use her to his advantage, especially after looking at her spells and her cultivation level. People like her would be extremely resourceful or have a powerful backing behind her, so if he could make her owe him, he could cash in the favor when they expand their kingdom to the Elvelon continent. 

Teaching her a lesson by breaking a few bones in her body wouldn't be a hard thing to do but by doing that he could only add a powerful enemy to his list. Instead, he chose to use her pride and ego against her to his advantage. Besides, he couldn't get the Life shard until the shield around it became weak, and in the meantime, he decided to strike a deal with this beauty.

"No way, the Guardian stone belongs to Black Roses!"

Loretta's voice suddenly became aggressive as he calmly smiled

"We can fight all day but how long do you think before the other cultivators break the formation and come here? Do you think they would let you take away a treasure such as this because you're from a powerful sect? Greed would make people do unpredictable things"

She knew his words made sense and if she could defeat him with one last move rather than fighting him for long, she could take the Guardian stone before anyone enters this hall. However, since it came to a challenge like that, she decided to propose her side of the condition and if she won which she did not doubt defeating him in her mind, she would not only bring back her sect, the Guardian stone but also a genius.

"If I win, I will take the Guardian stone, plus, you have to join the Black Roses"

"Agreed"

He calmly said because there was no way he would be defeated by her, not after reaching the Sun Realm. So he didn't have to think about her condition as she was already good as defeated.

She nodded after hearing him agree and flicked her wrist as a petal from the red lotus under her feet flew right into her hands. 

"You should be proud of yourself to make me use this"

As she said, once again, she threw the petal unleashing a frightening wave of Life Energy toward Knight.

"What a cliche line" 

A faint smile emerged on Knight's face. With a sway, the black Sword appeared in his hand.

With Don's black sword in his hand, Knight moved. Like a powerful arrow leaving the bow, he instantly charged forward, swinging his sword at the same time. It was a very simple attack, but it was incredibly fast. He may be not able to use this technique and sword as Don could, still, his current level of sword mastery was more than enough to face this attack. 

Fast! The sword was extremely fast! No one could see anything but a trail of light streaking across the sky, leaving behind a trace in the ocean of tunes.

Clang! 

The unearthly vibration of Loretta's attack instantly stopped, and Loretta was greatly frightened. Without focusing her gaze to look at the red petal; she knew that it was cut into two halves.

Swoosh! 

In the following moment, Loretta felt a cold gleam flash by next to her face. It was an extremely sharp gleam that she had no way to dodge. Right now, Loretta as well as Lia had finally witnessed Knight's true frightening ability; Lia realized that Loretta was nowhere near this man's level! She believed that as long as he had the desire, he could have removed her head with this strike.

However, right as the cold gleam disappeared, the man in front of her disappeared as well. In the following moment, all the Life Energy the petal was radiating were finally gone, and Knight had returned to where he originally stood, with his sword in hand. Everything had happened within seconds, it was extremely fast; as if Knight hadn't even moved.

But on the opposite side, two big halves of the red petal slowly floated in the air and fell on the ground.

The petal might have looked soft like a real flower petal but it was made of Pure Life Energy and enhanced with powerful runes. It was very difficult to cut yet, he had easily cut it with his sword, and that wasn't all!

The white veil covering Loretta's face slowly stained with red blood, as she felt a sharp pain in her throat and realized that cold gleam she felt just now was the sword cutting her throat. It didn't hurt her skin when the blade touched her skin and if it was an inch deeper, she would have lost her vocal cord for a while before healing. And what shocked her most was, his movement was way too fast, fast to the point that her life-saving spell didn't even sense the upcoming life-threatening blow. One needed to be incredibly skilled and powerful with the sword in order to accomplish something like that.

However, right now, Loretta didn't focus on getting the Guardian stone but, she was focusing all her attention on the tiny cut around her throat.

"He defeated me… there really is a man who can defeat me" 

She was startled and started murmuring as if she had suffered from great shock.

And right at this moment, Lia's face turned pale looking at the blood dripping on Loretta's throat as the thin blood drips stained Loretta's robes red. 

Loretta's expression kept changing as if she was struggling to grasp the reality of her defeat. Knight destroying her most powerful attack had clearly left a great impact on her. After some time, Loretta finally responded. She raised her head and stared at Knight; her eyes filled with mixed and complicated emotions.

"You are the first man to defeat me"

Loretta said with an indifferent tone. 

"Just consider this as me giving you a second chance, for you, this is a treasure but for me, it's my brother's life and I would do anything and kill anyone to get this" Knight said and glanced at the Life shard.

"Now, I'm going to take this as we agreed, you have a problem with that?"

Lia could see Loretta was struggling within to make a decision. Her teacher sent her to retrieve this treasure but now she had to honor her words and let him take the Guardian stone. Besides, Loretta knew very well that he wouldn't let her take the stone away by looking at his eyes when he mentioned the words about his brother.

Nonetheless, after a few seconds of pondering this, she decided to back off and honor her words because how could the next Holy Maiden void her own words. Compared to the guardian stone, she valued her words more.

"No, you can take it"