Chapter 95: The Semi-Finals - A Blood-Soaked Battle

The blistering midday sun began its slow descent. Shadows stretched across the bloodstained arena, pooling in the deep gouges left by the morning’s earlier matches. The martial aura in the air had reached its peak.

The Quarter-Finals had concluded. Fifty disciples had secured their tokens to enter the Inner Sect. But the tournament was not over.

Entering as Champion meant choosing your Peak, receiving premium elixirs, and gaining an audience with the highest authorities. The Semi-Finals were about to commence.

Lin Tian stood in his ring. Restorative golden runes pulsed beneath his feet, mending the shattered tiles. He required no restoration. His breathing remained slow, rhythmic, the Abyssal Shadow Veil concealing the golden lake of liquid Qi coiled in his Dantian.

"The first match of the Semi-Finals!" the Deacon announced. "Lin Tian versus Tie Shan!"

THUD THUD THUD

Heavy footsteps shook the earth. From the opposite side walked a towering behemoth. Tie Shan stood nearly seven feet tall. His muscular torso looked carved from dark-gray granite. A dull metallic luster coated his skin. Every movement caused his bones to pop and crack like grinding boulders.

He carried no weapon. His body was his ultimate artifact.

"Lin Tian," Tie Shan’s voice rumbled like grinding millstones. "I watched you shatter Jin Yan’s shield with a single strike. Your raw might is astonishing. You swept away those fragile technique users with ease."

He smashed his fists together. Sparks erupted from his knuckles, accompanied by the ring of solid iron.

"But I am no fragile technique user!" Tie Shan roared, his spiritual energy erupting like a volcano. "I cultivate the Abyssal Rock Physique! My flesh has been tempered in boiling iron sand and pounded by profound-steel hammers for ten years! Against a true Body-Refining expert, your brute strength will only break your own bones. Yield now, or I will crush you into a bloody pulp!"

Lin Tian’s expression remained calm. He didn’t boast. He didn’t draw his broadsword.

Insight Eye.

Crimson runes flared in his golden pupils. The system’s interface swept over the towering behemoth.

[Target Scan Complete]

[Name: Tie Shan]

[Cultivation: Qi Gathering Realm (10th Layer - Peak)]

[Physique: Abyssal Rock Physique (Incomplete)]

[Flaw Detection: Target focused entirely on external hardening. Internal meridian flexibility neglected. Joints at shoulders and hips dangerously stiff. Blunt force exceeding 15,000 pounds will shatter his skeletal structure internally without breaking his skin.]

A turtle hiding in a thick shell, Lin Tian thought. He believes his skin is impenetrable, never realizing true physical might flows like water, not rock.

***

High above, on the white jade platform, Instructor Qing leaned forward, her powerful thighs crossed tight, her crimson uniform pulling snug against flushed skin.

Every time Lin Tian unleashed his strength, a faint wave of his Yang scent drifted upward. It poisoned her focus while curing the Fire-Poison burning in her meridians in the same breath.

He’s facing Tie Shan, she thought, breath uneven. The strongest Body-Refining disciple in the Outer Sect. He can’t rely on evasion this time — he’ll be forced into brutal, head-on combat. I need to see the true limits of that tyrannical body.

Beside her, Elder Liu watched Lin Tian with a different kind of hunger.

To carry that much vitality without a single pill, her sharp eyes traced his back. His blood must run thick with pure Yang essence. If I could draw on that as a cauldron — burn away the toxic residue poisoning my own veins — these Phantom Burns might finally go quiet.

The matriarchs watched with bated breath. Instructor Qing’s fingers dug into her armrest, and Elder Liu’s usually steady hands had gone still against her lap, neither of them fully aware of what their own bodies were giving away.

"Match — begin!" The Deacon’s hand chopped downward.

"ROAR!"

Tie Shan stomped his massive foot, shattering the restorative runes beneath him. His body barreled forward like a rampaging rhino, a devastating right hook aimed straight at Lin Tian’s skull. The force alone compressed the air into a piercing sonic boom.

Lin Tian didn’t dodge. He planted his feet and threw his own fist forward.

BOOOOOOM!

Their fists collided. A visible shockwave blasted outward, kicking up dust and dirt. Spectators gasped, expecting Lin Tian’s arm to shatter.

As the dust settled, dead silence fell.

Lin Tian and Tie Shan stood frozen. Tie Shan’s ferocious expression had gone slack with shock. Lin Tian hadn’t taken a single step back, his arm straight, unbending, unharmed.

"Impossible!" Tie Shan gasped, feeling numbing vibrations travel up his arm. "My Abyssal Rock Physique makes my bones harder than profound-steel! How can your mortal flesh match this hardness?"

"You call this hardness?" Lin Tian’s voice carried dark amusement. "You’ve only turned your body into stagnant, lifeless rock. True strength flows."

Before Tie Shan could retract his arm, Lin Tian’s left hand shot out like a striking viper, catching his wrist. With a forceful pivot, he pulled the giant forward while driving his right knee into Tie Shan’s exposed ribs.

THUD!

The impact was sickeningly loud. Tie Shan coughed up saliva, but his dark-gray skin held. His physique absorbed the blow, though his organs trembled violently beneath it.

"Get off me!" Tie Shan roared through the pain, wrapping his thick arms around Lin Tian’s waist in a crushing bear hug, aiming to snap his spine through raw force.

This was a brutal, blood-soaked melee. No elegant swordplay. No profound techniques. No dazzling talismans. Just muscle against muscle, bone against bone.

They rolled across the green-stone floor, exchanging devastating blows. Tie Shan hammered his fists into Lin Tian’s back. Lin Tian answered with ruthless elbow strikes to the stiff joints of Tie Shan’s shoulders and collarbones.

Every strike echoed like a war drum. Blood sprayed from their mouths, staining the arena floor.

Up on the platform, Instructor Qing’s breathing had lost its rhythm entirely. She watched the savage struggle with feverish eyes, the raw masculinity of it making her Divine Valkyrie Body tremble. The scent rolling off Lin Tian’s sweating frame pushed her obsession higher, and she bit her own lip to hold back a sound she didn’t want the platform to hear.

Down in the ring, his joints screamed in agony, his organs feeling like they’d already started bleeding. Whatever reserve Lin Tian was drawing on, it clearly hadn’t run dry.

"I will not lose to you!" Tie Shan shrieked, eyes turning bloodshot.

He bit his tongue, burning his own blood essence. A crimson mist erupted from his pores, pushing his Abyssal Rock Physique to a hundred and twenty percent, damage to his meridians be damned.

Tie Shan broke free, leaped three meters into the air, and brought his enormous fists together, falling toward Lin Tian like a collapsing mountain.

"Meteor Mountain Crash! Die!"

Lin Tian stood below and didn’t move. His golden eyes tracked the descending behemoth, robes snapping wildly in the pressure wave rolling off the attack.

A commendable strike, for a mortal, he thought. But my patience just ran out.

He drew his right fist back to his waist. In that split second of focus, instinct took over — without consciously lowering the Abyssal Shadow Veil, his spiritual perception reached into the golden lake of liquid Qi resting in his Dantian.

He didn’t unleash a technique. He simply let a single, microscopic drop of Foundation Establishment liquid Qi merge into the blood vessels of his right fist.

The gap between gaseous and liquid Qi was the gap between smoke and mercury. One drop carried the weight of a mountain.

Lin Tian thrust his fist upward to meet the Meteor Mountain Crash.

CRACK!

There was no flash of light, no shockwave of dust — only the deafening sound of an unbreakable defense shattering into a thousand pieces.

The instant Lin Tian’s fist, carrying barely one percent of his liquid Qi density, met Tie Shan’s hardened hands, the Abyssal Rock Physique gave out entirely.

The dark-gray metallic luster on Tie Shan’s skin shattered like porcelain. The force traveled straight through his arms, snapping radius and ulna into splinters, tearing through his shoulders and dislocating them on the way to his chest.

"Guh—!"

Tie Shan’s eyes rolled back. He spat a fountain of dark blood as his seven-foot frame blasted backward through the air, slamming into the barrier before sliding down, unconscious, both arms hanging useless.

The arena fell into dead silence.

The remaining disciples stared, mouths open. The strongest Body-Refining expert in the Outer Sect had just been broken — literally broken — by a single upward punch.

Lin Tian stood at the center of the ring, lowering his fist and shaking off a few drops of Tie Shan’s blood. His breathing stayed calm, his golden eyes carrying the quiet weight of something far older than an eighteen-year-old disciple.

On the platform, Instructor Qing’s heart hammered like a war drum, a heavy warmth pooling low as her Divine Valkyrie Body surrendered fully to the display in front of her.

"Winner... Lin Tian!" the Deacon’s voice trembled.

Lin Tian turned, stepping off the mending array tiles. The Semi-Finals were over, the ruined giant still unconscious behind him. Only the Grand Finale remained.

The Sovereign was ready to claim his crown.