Chapter 181 - 175: Slashing Through

Chapter 181: Chapter 175: Slashing Through

Cheng Fengjun stood on a flight of stone steps outside the Martial Arts Arena, his face pale.

He wasn’t standing too close to the front, but his position gave him a clear view of the center of the Martial Arts Arena.

He leaned slightly against a stone pillar behind him. Nearly half a month had passed since the battle in Panshi Lane, and his injuries were far from healed, yet he had come anyway.

Many of the disciples who saw Cheng Fengjun were startled for a moment before their eyes filled with understanding.

They realized he wanted to see Chen Yue’s defeat at the hands of Ji Wanting. He wanted to witness the man who had once bested him be trampled underfoot, hoping to soothe the wound to his pride.

Cheng Fengjun felt the gazes of those around him, a mixture of curiosity and pity. He ignored them, simply lowering his eyelids to shut them out.

A moment later, a stir went through the crowd. Someone whispered, "He’s here! He’s here!"

The crowd parted down the middle as if cleaved by an invisible blade, clearing a path.

Ji Wanting slowly walked forward.

He wore a short, charcoal-gray robe, its sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing a pair of gnarled, muscular forearms.

His pace was unhurried, almost slow, like a mountain inching forward. He exuded an intimidating aura without a hint of anger.

Cheng Fengjun turned his head to look at Ji Wanting.

"Senior Brother Ji."

Ji Wanting paused, his gaze shifting to Cheng Fengjun.

Cheng Fengjun met Ji Wanting’s eyes and said, enunciating each word, "That Chen Yue... his Physique is very strong."

Hearing this, Ji Wanting nodded. He didn’t ask any questions; he didn’t need to.

Shortly after Ji Wanting’s arrival, another commotion arose on the opposite side of the crowd.

Chen Yue approached from the direction of the mountain path, his gait calm and unhurried.

He wore a bluish-gray Changshan, tied at the waist with a dark silk sash. On his feet were black cloth boots, and his hair was held up by a simple wooden pin.

His gaze swept over the crowd, taking in the faces—some curious, some scrutinizing, and some openly gloating.

Expressionless, Chen Yue continued to walk forward.

His footsteps on the bluestone slabs made a steady, rhythmic sound. It wasn’t loud, but it cut through the din of the crowd with surprising clarity, like a wooden mallet gently striking a great drum.

Ji Wanting, standing on the other side of the Martial Arts Arena, broke into a faint smile.

It wasn’t a wide smile, but on his rugged face, it created an inexplicable sense of pressure. He strode forward, entering the Martial Arts Arena as well.

His strides were longer than Chen Yue’s, and with each footfall, the bluestone slabs trembled slightly.

The two came to a stop in the arena’s center, facing each other from several dozen feet away.

Sunlight spilled from the eastern sky, casting their long and short shadows across the bluestone ground where they intersected.

At that moment, the crowd surrounding the Martial Arts Arena fell silent. A thousand pairs of eyes were fixed on the two men in the center.

With a shake of his right arm, a bronze mace flew from behind Ji Wanting’s back and landed firmly in his palm.

The bronze mace was about four feet long and dark gold in color. Its body was octagonal, and each of its eight edges was honed as sharp as a blade, glinting coldly in the morning light.

"I don’t hold back,"

Ji Wanting’s voice wasn’t loud, yet it carried clearly to Chen Yue’s ears. "It’s not too late for you to surrender!"

The surrounding crowd fell silent for an instant, all eyes on Chen Yue.

A smile touched Chen Yue’s lips as he extended his right hand.

The saber-shaped scar on the back of his hand suddenly flared with light. A long saber flew out from the glow. Its blade was long and narrow with a slight curve, and fiery red patterns swirled across its surface like frozen flames.

Chen Yue reached out his right hand and caught the Jinghong Saber firmly in his grasp.

The instant his hand closed around the hilt, the blade let out a soft hum in the morning light, like the cry of a dragon. The sound pierced through the crowd’s clamor, reaching the ears of every disciple watching. His answer was obvious.

Outside the Martial Arts Arena, the eyes of many disciples lit up when they saw how Chen Yue had summoned his Jinghong Saber.

Transforming a Spirit Soldier into a mark wasn’t unheard of in the Panshi Sect, but very few disciples could actually achieve it. It required an incredibly deep connection between the Spirit Soldier and its master.

The fact that Chen Yue could do it meant their compatibility was already exceptionally high.

Ji Wanting’s brow twitched as he looked at the radiant Jinghong Saber in Chen Yue’s hand.

’Just for show.’

Ji Wanting turned his head toward a high platform at the edge of the Martial Arts Arena.

Today’s referee, as before, was Song Zhen.

Song Zhen stood on the platform, hands clasped behind his back, his gaze sweeping between Chen Yue and Ji Wanting.

"Begin!"

Before Song Zhen’s voice had even faded, Ji Wanting stomped his right foot back. The bluestone slab beneath it instantly spiderwebbed with cracks.

That single step bent his body like a fully drawn bow. He became a blur, crossing the dozens of feet between them to appear directly in front of Chen Yue.

Spirit Turtle Step.

This was the Body Technique Ji Wanting had cultivated for many years, a style that emphasized explosive bursts over short distances.

Unlike styles that focused on graceful, long-distance movement, the core of the Spirit Turtle Step could be summed up in a single word: speed.

So fast that he would appear before an opponent could even react.

This Body Technique was far superior to the Panshi Stepping recorded in the Panshi Skill. Most disciples, upon reaching the Refining Organ Realm, would choose a different Body Technique to cultivate.

This was especially true for those on the Cyan Cloud Ranking. Everyone on the list had mastered their own unique Body Technique; none of them would neglect such a fundamental skill.

In the same instant that Ji Wanting appeared before Chen Yue, he pushed his All Things Return to the Source to its absolute limit.

Ji Wanting had cultivated this technique—the strongest Body Refining Technique in the Panshi Sect below the Innate Realm—for several years, and had now reached the Minor Success Realm.

Although he was still a ways from Great Success, the Minor Success Realm of All Things Return to the Source already provided him with an immense boost.

One could say that All Things Return to the Source was Ji Wanting’s greatest trump card, the source of his confidence against any challenger.

He raised his right arm high, his bronze mace, wreathed in immense Inner Strength, smashing down toward Chen Yue’s head.

The air tore with a piercing shriek. A torrential aura, like a tidal wave, surged from Ji Wanting, crashing down on Chen Yue from all sides.

At that moment, the very air around the Martial Arts Arena seemed to grow heavy. Some of the disciples standing closer even found it difficult to breathe.

With this strike, Ji Wanting held nothing back.

He never held back in a fight. It was an iron-clad rule forged in countless life-or-death battles: strike with all your might and leave your opponent no chance for a comeback.

’Chen Yue defeated Cheng Fengjun, which proves he has real strength.’

’If Chen Yue can’t block this strike, it’s over. If he can, I have other moves prepared.’

The bronze mace descended with the force of a collapsing mountain. The wind from the strike pressed down on Chen Yue’s head, whipping his hair back and making his robes flap violently.

Chen Yue looked up at Ji Wanting. As he pushed the Vast Heart Rock Skill to its limit, everything around him began to slow.

He saw the focused expressions of the disciples, a sparrow frozen mid-flap in the distant sky, and the flow of Qi Force around Ji Wanting’s bronze mace.

Simultaneously, the Ten Thousand Forms Tiger Roar Golden Bell erupted within him like a flash flood. Power surged from his bones, muscles, and skin, intertwining with the Inner Strength of his Vast Heart Rock Skill to form an unstoppable torrent of force.

The force surged down his right arm and into the Jinghong Saber, causing a tangible gleam of light to form on its edge.

In the next instant, the Jinghong Saber swept upward. Its light, like a bolt of silk, crashed violently against the glow of the bronze mace in mid-air.

CLANG!

A deafening explosion of sound erupted in the center of the Martial Arts Arena. The noise was so loud that the eardrums of the watching disciples ached. A few outer disciples with weaker Cultivation even clapped their hands over their ears involuntarily.

A shockwave billowed out from the point of impact, sending dust and debris scattering in all directions.

Ji Wanting’s stoic expression changed abruptly the instant his mace met the saber.

An invisible force, sharp as a blade, pierced through his defenses at the moment of collision and slashed directly into his Sea of Consciousness.

Sword Intent!

The Sword Intent came too fast, too fiercely, giving him no time to react.

The Heart Spirit in Ji Wanting’s Sea of Consciousness instinctively resisted, but while the Panshi Skill’s mental defenses were robust, they could not withstand such a condensed, direct assault.

In an instant, Ji Wanting’s Inner Strength fluctuated violently, and the power behind his bronze mace dwindled.

But more importantly, there was the force of Chen Yue’s strike itself.

’He had already been treating Chen Yue as a Refining Organ Realm opponent, but the power in this strike was like a tsunami—immense, heavy, and unstoppable.’

The force of the blow sent Ji Wanting flying backward. His body traced an arc through the air before he landed dozens of feet away. His feet slammed onto the bluestone, and he took several more staggering steps to disperse the immense force.

Each step left a shallow crater in the bluestone, sending rubble and dust flying.

Once he regained his balance, Ji Wanting looked down at his right hand.

The web of his hand, where he gripped the bronze mace, had been torn open. Blood oozed from the wound, trickling down the handle to drip onto the bluestone below.

His right arm was trembling slightly—a sign that his muscles and meridians had yet to fully absorb the massive influx of power.

Ji Wanting took a deep breath and frantically circulated his All Things Return to the Source, trying to suppress the immense force that had invaded his body.

Below the arena, the disciples erupted in an uproar.

Ji Wanting was at the Late Stage of the Refining Organ Realm, ranked ninety-ninth on the Cyan Cloud Ranking. Yet, his first attack had not only failed to defeat Chen Yue, but he had been sent flying back dozens of feet by a single slash.

The web of his hand was torn, his right arm was trembling, and he had nearly lost his footing.

They had expected a fierce, evenly matched battle at the very least.

But no one had imagined that after the very first exchange, it would be Chen Yue who held the upper hand.